Everyday Jews: Scenes From a Vanished Life (8 page)

Believe me, I’m crazy about you,

And can’t live a moment without you,

You’re more precious to me than my own life,

But I can’t marry you and make you my wife.

“Of course,” Grandma shook her head into her nightcaps. “He loves her, but he can’t marry her. Who needs you to love me, anyway?”

“Foolish Rokhl!” said Grandpa, cocking one side of his beard to his shoulder. “It’s only a song, a sort of fable.”

“Oh, we know all about your fables!”

Often, Grandpa would station himself at the large table that stood in the center of the room and was stained brownish-black by the flatirons, and he would start cutting cloth for a new uniform. At such times, a great stillness would settle over the house and all one would hear would be the bubbling of the pots and the creak of the pendulum clock.

Grandpa would stand there in his unbuttoned vest, the tape measure slung over his shoulders. He would inspect the cloth that was spread across the entire table, stretch it, mark it with chalk, erase the mark, make another, and yet another, and then, softly, as if from nowhere, he would start humming under his nose, a long, drawn-out mournful humming. Little by little, the humming grew louder and louder, as this pale little Jew, my grandfather, let out a deep groan.

“
Oy, oy, hineni
… Here in Your presence …”

He threw back his head, his beard pointing sharply upward. The piece of chalk seemed to glide along the cloth of its own accord, and Grandpa’s groan turned into a tearful little melody.

“
Hineni he-oni mi-ma’as … oy yoy
… Father in Heaven,” he continued in Yiddish, translating the cantor’s High Holy day plea, “I, a poor man who bows down in the dust at Your feet, have come to plead with You on behalf of Your people Israel …”

Grandma tucked in her small head, like a hen. The white piece of muslin remained suspended, motionless, between her fingers, her needle rested, even the bubbling in the pots seemed to subside. The pendulum, too, appeared to have come to a rest, no longer swaying to and fro, having surrendered that motion to Grandma, who shook her head back and forth. Her nose sniffed involuntarily, and she delivered herself of a faint, womanly sigh: “Oy, Merciful Father in Heaven, take pity on Your poor orphans …”—though who those “poor orphans” were wasn’t at all clear to me. But when Grandpa continued with his
hineni
, Grandma launched into a tale, beginning her account right in the middle.

“When my mother, of blessed memory, was about to give birth to Rivke, there was no water in the house. So Father, may his soul rest in peace, grabbed the pail and …”

“I’ve heard that story a thousand times!” Grandpa cut in, driving the scissors through the cloth.

“See, he doesn’t let you say a word, that Haman!”

“How many times did your mother give birth to Rivke?”

“May your mouth grow backward!”

“Tri-li-li, tra-la-la …” Grandpa burst into a new tune.

Grandma couldn’t forgive Grandpa for not letting her tell her story to the end and was waiting for an opportunity to get even with him. The opportunity wasn’t long in coming, provided by the arrival of Crazy Wladek, whom Grandpa used to like to tease and who was not only an intimate of the household but a regular visitor.

At about nine in the evening, when Grandpa was almost ready to call it a day, the door would open very quietly and in would sidle a short, hairy figure, with a rumpled yellow beard and a pair of smacking lips, as though chewing a cud. That was Wladek.

His feet were wrapped in old pieces of sackcloth. His jacket was full of holes, stuffed with dirty tufts of cotton wool and held in place by a rope. Wladek reeked of kerosene and chicken droppings. Slung across one shoulder of his jacket was a long, heavy sack, like those carried by peddlers.

Wladek always entered quietly, softly, slid his sack off his shoulder, and placed it carefully in a corner of the room. Then, picking up two empty pails, he went down to the Bernardine church and returned with the pails filled with drinking water. He went out and returned several times, pouring the water into Grandma’s barrel until it was filled to the brim.

Only then, without raising his eyes from his worktable, did Grandpa ask, “You’re here already?”

“Mmm, mmm,” Wladek murmured, still holding the two pails and nodding his head like a horse harnessed between two wagon shafts.

“So, what’s new, Wladek? Poured lots of water into the rich folks’ barrels?”

Wladek sat down on the floor not far from the warm oven and folded his legs under him, Turkish fashion. He opened his sack and began shoving into his mouth, straight from the sack’s dark hole, horseshoe-shaped crusts of bread missing their soft, doughy centers. He munched on the crusts and sucked on some large, crooked bones that still had scraps of meat clinging to them. Sometimes, Wladek would augment his supper with an oversized onion, half an apple, or a squashed pickled cucumber, chewing slowly, sluggishly, like a cow.

By now Grandma was familiar with Wladek’s habits and knew that until he’d emptied his entire sack, there was no talking to him. So she waited for the sack to flatten and for Wladek to take a deep breath. Only then would she ask, “Will you have some tea, Wladek?”

“Mmm … mmm …” he’d mumble in his characteristic way, his mouth still full.

Grandma handed him his tea in a small, dark pot. He held it between his hands and slurped noisily. Drops of tea settled on his whiskers. Wladek either licked them away, or wiped them on his beard.

“So, Wladek, what’s new in the world?” Grandpa began again. “Those rich folks of yours, did they guzzle a lot of water?”

“Aha, aha,” said Wladek in a different mumble. “
Pan krawiec
”—Mr. tailor—“is making a joke …
Pan krawiec
likes to have a laugh …”

“I’m not laughing. I’m simply curious to know how much water you poured into those rich barrels of yours.”

“Ah, lots of water,
Pan krawiec
, lots.”

“Then you should have a pocketful of money.”

“What money! All they pay me is two kopeks a barrel!”

“That’s all? Only two?”

“That’s right, no more. And that Danzig lady, she’s got a big barrel!” said Wladek, pointing to the wide, brown wardrobe standing between Grandma and Grandpa’s beds.

“Ooh, aah! So what else is new?”

“The Danzig lady’s got such a big barrel. Such a big barrel!” Wladek didn’t hear Grandpa’s second question.

“I know she’s got a big barrel. Such a big barrel!”

The Danzig lady’s barrel was a sore point with Wladek. It disturbed his sleep. Even when he dropped off after eating his supper, he never stopped mumbling: “
U Danzigerowej beczka duża. Beczka duża!
… That Danzig lady has a big barrel. Big barrel …”

For half the day he’d be busy pouring tens of pails of water into her barrel, running up and down the stairs. And for all this, for all those pailfuls, to say nothing of the stairs, all he got were two measly, copper coins.

“They should burn, those rich folks, right Wladek?” Grandpa thumped the flatiron down on the lapel of a uniform.

“Mmm, mmm …”

“Don’t worry, Wladek, a time will come when they’ll be pouring water into your barrels.”

“Aha, aha …”

“Get yourself a big barrel now, Wladek, bigger than the Danzig lady’s.”

At that point Grandma saw her opportunity and entered the fray. Now was the time to get back at Grandpa.

“Maybe you should stop yapping with that Gentile, that
goy
!” she snapped.

“What’s the matter? Isn’t a
goy
a human being too?”

“Who says he’s not a human being? But with your jokes you’re worse than a
goy
!”

“And what about your foolish stories?”

“So I tell stories, so what! Whoever doesn’t want to hear them can stop up their ears.”

Wladek was still chewing his cud. He looked Grandma straight in the mouth and, shaking his head, said, “
Ja, ja. U Danzigerowej beczka duża!
”

“Stop moaning over that Danzig woman,” said Grandma, removing the steel-rimmed spectacles from the tip of her nose. “Go and lie down, you foolish goy!”

“Don’t rush him,” said Grandpa. “Why does it bother you if we have a little conversation?”

“Look with whom he sits down to have conversations.”

“If you have an idiot for a wife, then you have to talk with Wladek.”

Grandma flicked her hand contemptuously, as if to say, “It’s hopeless,” and Grandpa fell silent.

The room grew quiet. Grandma busied herself with the beds, removed the pillows, and placed them on the stools. A cricket chirped under the stove.

Grandpa couldn’t keep quiet for long. “Tell me, Wladekshi,” he said, “What’s the matter with you? What do you want with those girls?”

Wladek, who only an instant before had yawned loudly and widely, blinked his eyes and gave Grandpa an innocent look, like a calf.

“So, it’s true what they say, that you go around lifting the girls’ skirts in the middle of the street?”

A small thread of drool began to trickle down from the right corner of Wladek’s mouth.

“That’s good,
Pan krawiec
,” he muttered hoarsely.

“Good, is it?”

“
Pan krawiec
,” the hairy, Gentile face splintered into slanting wrinkles. “They, the girls …”

“Enough with that nonsense!” Grandma sputtered angrily from beside the bed. “I’ll kick you down the stairs, together with my stupid husband!”

“
Pani
Rokhlina, what am I to do? … They, the girls …”

“So, it’s the girls …” Grandpa turned his face away from the table. “And you like that, hah?”

“Yes,
Pani krawcowa
, Madam Tailor, I like it. It’s good to sleep with the girls.”

“Stop it!” Grandma Rokhl lunged at Wladek with a small, raised fist. “Get out of here, you filthy man! And you, you old goat of a tailor,” she turned furiously on Grandpa, “stop it this minute!”

Wladek rose awkwardly from the floor. He picked up his empty sack and, muttering under his nose, wandered into the tiny room where he sometimes spent the night.

“That was some talk!” said Grandma, giving the pillows an angry shake.

“I only wanted to know if it’s true what they say about him,” Grandpa replied guiltily.

“If that’s all you’ve got on your mind, then you’re no better than him. And you, you don’t go looking at every girl on the street?”

“If one has a wife …”

“If you don’t like it, you can lump it.”

Grandpa didn’t respond. Grandma kept mumbling to herself that if it hadn’t been such a bad winter, she would have run off where her eyes took her, and if it weren’t for the fact that that fool of a Wladek brought her drinking water from the Bernardine church, she would have tossed him down all the stairs.

The tiny room where Wladek had gone was shut tight. I kept looking at the low, yellow door, which now seemed to mask some great concealment. I had a strong desire to go in there and ask Wladek whether he had also lifted the skirt of Jusza, the cooper’s daughter.

Behind the window of my grandparents’ house, and surrounded by a black iron fence, stood the Bernardine church, a red-brick structure, with elongated, dark windows and high, arched doors. Chestnut trees spread their broad branches against the high outer walls, guarding, with their cool silence, the shaded faces of the Holy Mother and Child.

Now, in winter, the branches of the chestnut trees were covered with snow, as if sprinkled with salt, and the walls stood cold and bare. The sad face of the Holy Mother, inclining to one side, looked down on her half-naked breast, as though she were ashamed of the barrenness around her.

One evening I was sitting by the window, gazing outside. The sun, looking like a large, flat, golden plate, was setting on the other side of the cross. A bright, fiery glow blazed from the roof and the cross, and was reflected in the windows of the houses across the way.

Inside the room where I was sitting, lamps had not been turned on yet, and the deep silence must have made Grandma drop off to sleep on her wooden chest. Grandpa had gone off to the synagogue, to say
kaddish
, observing a death anniversary. I gazed at the flaming cross and thought, tomorrow I would have to start going back to the
kheyder
. The thought depressed me and I had a vision of the low, shabby house where Sime-Yoysef conducted his classes.

It was a large, spread-out house, whose low ceiling seemed to press down on one’s shoulders. The walls were dark green and old, with bare patches here and there, mementos of removed wardrobes and taken-down clocks. The walls were lined with long, greasy benches, propped up on shaky legs. There I sat with my fellow scholars and together, all day long, we would shout out our lessons, blow our noses into our fingers, and wipe them on the flaps of our smocks.

Sime-Yoysef was the sort of teacher who didn’t want to be considered ill-tempered. He neither yelled at us nor beat us. Should he want to yell, he’d begin to cough, and his mouth filled with phlegm. And should he want to hit someone, his outlandishly wide bottom would restrain him and prevent him from reaching over to lay hands on the boys’ heads. All the same, he was still a teacher, and so, on his table lay a spotted, red handkerchief, a snuffbox made of horn, and a hairy sheep’s foot with a cloven hoof. From that last item there extended thick leather thongs, as if to remind us that they could strike blows on our hands and heads, as well as on our bare bottoms, which we had to uncover ourselves.

However, that wasn’t a usual occurrence, though Sime-Yoysef had other habits. He’d stuff his nose with snuff, beckon to a pupil crouching in a far corner to come forward, and honor him with a painful pinch of the nether regions. At the same time, he’d open his mouth wide, flare his nostrils, and exhale deeply, “Ah-ah-ah-ah.”

That’s what I’d be going back to the next morning. Sime-Yoysef’s wife, a tall, lanky woman, would probably be sitting by the door, as usual, next to the full slop pail and the scraggly broom, rapidly peeling potatoes into a cracked tin pot between her legs, and calling out, “Sime-Yoysef! Sime-Yoysef!” And Sime-Yoysef would give a shudder and grab his red, spotted handkerchief.