I still haven’t told you how we’re now making a living. But I’d better leave something for the next chapter.
MAKING A LIVING
The first to start making a living again was Elye. He can thank my mother for that. Every Saturday she prays in the Kasrilevke shul. It’s a good place to meet people. It was there that she met Missiz Prehzident. (In America the head of a synagogue is a prehzident too.) She’s a fine lady who thinks well of my mother. Brokheh says that’s because my mother can follow the prayers and knows what the cantor is saying, which is more than can be said for most women.
Brokheh says the only reason women go to synagogue in America is to show off their deimindz. She’s sorry to say they’re a bunch of fat cows who can’t even read the letters in the prayer book. Eating and gossiping is all they’re good for.
My mother doesn’t let her get away with that. “My dear daughter-inlaw,” she says, “that’s gossip too.” Brokheh says it’s not gossip as long as it stays in the family.
But let’s get back to Missiz Prehzident and her husband, the prehzident of the Kasrilevke shul.
Maybe you’ve heard of Hibru Neshnel Delikatesn. It’s a company that sells kosher salami, frankfurters, pickled tongues, and corned beef. It has stores all over town. If you’re hungry, you step into one and order a haht dawg with mustard or horseradish. My friend Mendl and I once ate three haht dawgz apiece and could have polished off a few more if we had the cash …but that’s not what I wanted to tell you.
What I wanted to tell you was that the prehzident of our shul is an owner of Hibru Neshnel Delikatesn. My mother used her connections with his wife to get Elye a job.
Elye is a selzmin. He’s also a vaydeh. That means anyone wanting a haht dawg tells him to bring it. At first he objected to that. “What’s the big idea?” he asked. “Since when is a Jew with a beard, a cantor’s son and a bagel maker’s son-in-law, supposed to be someone’s servant?”
Pinye gave him what for.
“Listen to you! Do you think you’re still in that dump of a Kasrilevke? You’re in America, that’s where you are! Lots of fine young men like you have sold noospeypehz here, peddled metshehz, polished shoes in the strit. Take Kahnegi! Take Rahknfelleh! Take Vendehbilt! Read about Dzhordzh Vashinktn and Eybrim Linkn and all the other great Americans! You’ll see that even Peysi the cantor’s son can sell haht dawgz.”
That’s when Pinye caught it from my mother. As long as he stuck to Kahnegi and Rahknfelleh, she let him have his way. But hearing Dzhordzh Vashinktn and Eybrim Linkn mentioned in one breath with my father was too much for her. For all she knew, she told Pinye, Vashinktn and Linkn were honorable men and good Jews. Still, she would thank Pinye to leave my father out of it. He belonged where he was, in Paradise, putting in a good word for us all.
“Amen!” I said and got a whack from Elye.
To make a long story short, Elye has a dzhahb and makes a living. He sells haht dawgz and waits on tables for five dahlehz a week plus two meals a day, which are also worth something. Not to mention working in a store where the whole world buys delikatesn! Every day he makes new friends with some of New York’s finest. We’re hoping he’ll go far. He’s liked by his boss and respected by the kahstemehz. They like being served by a young man who’s not your ordinary flunky.
There’s just one problem with my brother. You wouldn’t want a beard like his. Without it he’d be awreit. And not only does he have a beard, it gets bigger and longer each day in America. Mostly it gets bigger. Pinye says he should give it a trimm. That’s what Pinye did. He went to a bahbeh shahp and sat in a tsheh and leaned back and said nothing because he didn’t know any English. Along came the bahbeh, grabbed Pinye by the nose, soaped Pinye’s face, ran a razor over it, and told him to stand up. Pinye stood and looked in the mirror and didn’t know who he was looking at. His cheeks were as smooth as a noodle board! There wasn’t a hair or whisker on them. The face in the mirror grinned back at him.
Was he in a pickle! What was he going to tell Taybl? And in fact she fainted twice and felt so sick she took to bed. But that was only the first time. By now she’s gotten used to it. Her Pinye goes to the bahbeh for a shave every week and looks like a real American. He speaks English too and no longer swallows his tshooinkahm. If only his collar were straight, his tie stayed in place, and one pant leg wasn’t higher than the other, he’d be a real dzhentlmin. That’s also called a spawt.
In fact, Pinye could make a living like everyone if he didn’t knock his brains out thinking of ways to get rich. (He comes from a brainy family, Pinye does.) He’s kind of making a living already. The trouble is that he goes from dzhahb to dzhahb. You have to hand it to him, though. No dzhahb in the world is beneath him. He’ll do anything he’s asked to earn a dahleh. Tell him to sweep the strit and he’ll sweep the strit. Tell him to shovel coal and he’ll shovel coal. Selling noospeypehz is fine too. America, Pinye says, is a free country. The only dzhahb to be ashamed of is a thief ’s. An American wouldn’t steal a bar of gold if you left it in front of him. He wouldn’t lie or cheat, either. Pinye is sure of that. He’s written a poem about America. I don’t remember it all, but here is some of it:
This country of Columbus
Is a place for every one-’f-us,
The only one that’s giving
Jew a chance to make a living.
From New York City to Seattle
You won’t hear a teapot rattle,
Nor a blahfeh nor a liar
From California to Ohio.
It went on like that and ended:
America’s a country where a person can go far. That’s why it’s got a prehzident and not some stinking tsar.
Elye just laughed and said that “liar” and “Ohio” didn’t rhyme. Pinye said, “Here’s another poem for you. If you know a man named Shmiel, have him over for a meal, and if you know a man named Leyzer, tell him to go to hell. You say Leyzer and hell don’t rhyme? Then he can go to hell without a rhyme!”
In case you’re wondering whether Brokheh and Taybl are making a living too, let me tell you they’re in the necktie biznis. That’s my mother and her synagogue’s doing again. A woman she knows there is an awreitnitshke named Kreyndl. Back in Kasrilevke, Kreyndl was a housemaid who worked for Rich Yosi. That’s a story in itself.
In Kasrilevke lived a butcher named Meylekh who had a young assistant, Nekhemye. This Nekhemye fell in love with our Kreyndl and wanted to marry her. He just didn’t have with what. And so he hit on a scheme. The next time Meylekh the butcher sent him to the fair to buy a cow, he took the money and Kreyndl and lit out for America. He’s done pretty well here and now he’s an awreitnik with a tie factory.
It so happened that Kreyndl the awreitnitshke had a memorial day for her mother and struck up an acquaintance with my mother in the Kasrilevke shul. When she heard my mother was Peysi the cantor’s widow, she offered to help. My mother said the only help she needed was work for her children. Well, one thing led to another and pretty soon the awreitnitshke talked to the awreitnik and got Brokheh and Taybl dzhahbz in his fektri. It’s up on Brawdvey. After they had worked there for a while, my mother used her influence and they were allowed to take home piecework instead.
It didn’t last very long. Brokheh and Taybl kept busy until the end of the sizn. Then came slekteim and they were out of work. We tried not to let it get us down. As my mother says, “God is a father. He punishes with one hand and heals with the other.”
That’s something I don’t get. Why punish and then heal? You could save yourself the trouble by skipping both.