Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories (24 page)

“May his memory be a blessing,” I say. “And suppose this contractor of yours should decide to follow in his footsteps?”

That got his dander up. “What are you talking about, Reb Tevye?” he says. “That first case was a crook, a swindler, a bankrupt! My man Podhotzur is a builder. He has army contracts, companies, an office, a staff, a …”

What can I tell you? Efrayim pulled me out of the wagon in his enthusiasm, grabbed me by the collar, and began to shake me so hard that a policeman came along and almost jugged us both for disorderly conduct. It’s a good thing I remembered my Bible.
Lanokhri toshikh
, it says. Why are some palms like bridges? Because they have to be crossed when you come to them …

In a word, I don’t want to bore you. This Podhotzur was engaged to my Beilke and
loy orkhu hayomim
—after a while the wedding was held. What makes me say after a while? Because Beilke would sooner have died than had Podhotzur for a husband. The more he showered her with presents, gold watches, diamond rings, the less she could stomach him. There was no need to put it in writing—it was written all over her face, which was wet with the silent tears she cried. Finally, I made up my mind to talk to her. I tried to be casual. “Listen, Beilke,” I said to her, “I’m beginning to think that you’re as much in love with this Podhotzur of yours as I am.”

“Why do you say that?” she says, turning red as fire.

“Because you’re certainly not crying for your health every night,” I say.

“
I’m
crying?” she says.

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it crying,” I say. “It’s actually more like weeping. Do you think that sticking your head under the pillow is enough to hide your tears from me? Do you think your father was born yesterday, or that his brains are so addled he can’t see that you’re doing all this for his sake? Do you suppose it’s your job to see to it he has a place to lay his head in his old age so that he needn’t go begging from door to door? You’re a fool if you do! God’s still in His heaven, and Tevye is no charity case and no sponger. Money is a lot of hooey anyway, just like the Bible says. Why, look at your sister Hodl! She hasn’t a penny to her name, she lives in a hole in the wall at the far end of nowhere—and yet she keeps writing us how happy she is with her schlimazel of a Peppercorn …”

Shall I give you three guesses what my Beilke answered me? “Don’t go comparing me to Hodl,” she says. “In Hodl’s day the world was on the brink. There was going to be a revolution and everyone cared about everyone. Now the world is its own self again, and it’s everyone for his own self again, too.” That’s what she said, my Beilke—just go figure out what she meant!

Well, if you think that by now you’re an expert on Tevye’s daughters, you should have seen Beilke at the wedding—a princess! I stood there feasting my eyes on her and wondering, can this really be my Beilke? Who taught her to stand like that, to walk like that, to carry herself like that, to wear a dress like that, as if wedding gowns had been invented just for her? It wasn’t much of a feast, though, because at 6:30 p.m. on the day of the wedding the two of them waved goodbye and
holakh Moyshe-Mordekhai
—off they went by night express to Nitaly, or Italy, or however the Devil that place is called that everyone goes to these days.

They didn’t return until Hanukkah, when I received an urgent message from them to please, please come to Yehupetz at once. However you look at it, I thought, if they simply wanted to see me, they could have said as much; why the double “please” and the “at once”? There must be a special reason … but what? And I began to imagine all kinds of things, some good and some bad. Suppose, for instance, that they were already fighting like alley cats and had decided to get a divorce … Right away, though, I told myself,
Tevye, you dumbbell, why must you always imagine the worst! How do you know what they want you for? Maybe they miss you … Maybe Beilke would like to have her father nearby … Maybe Podhotzur is planning to take you into his business and give you a nice fat job …

One way or another, I had better go, so I harnessed up and
vayeyleykh khoronoh
—off to Yehupetz I went. On the way my excitement got the best of me and I began to imagine leaving the village, selling my cows, my horse, my wagon, the whole kit and caboodle, and moving to Yehupetz, where I would first become Podhotzur’s foreman, then his bookkeeper, and finally a partner in his business who rode around with two bolts of greased lightning, one a chestnut and one a dapple-gray … at which point, though, I caught myself and thought:
mah zeh ve’al mah zeh—
where does a small potato like Tevye get off being such a big shot? Who needs the rat race, the hullabaloo, the night life, the rubbing elbows with millionaires, the whole
lehoyshivi im nedivim
, when all I want is to enjoy a peaceful old age in which I can study a bit of Mishnah now and then and recite a few chapters of Psalms? It’s about time, Tevye, I said to myself, that you thought of the next world too. King Solomon knew what the score was when he said that a man is nothing but a jackass; he forgets that no matter how long he lives, there comes a day when he doesn’t anymore …

I was still mulling it all over when I arrived safe and sound in Yehupetz, right at Podhotzur’s door. Believe me, if I wanted to boast about his
royv godloy veroyv oshroy
, his house and all its trimmings, it wouldn’t be hard. Suffice it to say that while I’ve never had the honor of dining with Brodsky, finer than Podhotzur’s his place can’t possibly be. You’ll get an idea what a mansion it was if I tell you that the doorman, a lummox with silver buttons down his chest, wouldn’t agree to let me in for love or money. What was I to do? The door was made of glass, and the lummox, damn his hide, stood on the other side of it brushing off his clothes. I winked at him; I talked to him in sign language; I put on a whole pantomime to tell him that the lady of the house was my own natural-born daughter … none of which meant a thing to that dumb Russian, because he sign-languaged right back to me that I could go take a powder. What a schlimazel I felt like: imagine needing a letter of recommendation to get to see your own child! A sad day
it is, Tevye, for your gray hairs, I told myself, when this is what things have come to …

Just then, though, I looked through the glass door again and saw a girl bustling about inside. That must be the chambermaid, I thought, because she has the eyes of a thief (all chambermaids do—my business has brought me to a lot of rich houses and I’ve seen a lot of chambermaids in my day)—and so I winked at her too as if to say, “Open up there, my little pussycat …”

Well, she noticed me, opened the door a crack, and asked me in Yiddish, “Who are you looking for?”

“Is this the Podhotzur place?” I said.

“Who are you looking for?” she asked again, raising her voice.

“When you’re asked a question,” I said, raising my voice louder than hers, “it’s considered polite to answer before asking one of your own. Is this the Podhotzur place?”

“That it is,” she says.

“In that case,” I say, “you and I are practically related. Please be so kind as to tell Madame Podhotzur that she has a guest; her father Tevye has arrived and has been standing outside like a beggar for quite some time, because he failed to pass muster with that silver-buttoned sheygetz of yours, who isn’t worth the nail on your little finger …”

The girl burst out laughing like a shiksa herself, shut the door in my face, ran upstairs, ran back down, opened the door again, and let me into a palace the likes of which my ancestors never saw in their dreams. There was silk and satin and crystal and gold all over, and you could hardly feel yourself walk, because wherever you put your big feet they sank into carpets softer than snow that must have cost a small fortune. And the clocks! There were clocks on the walls, clocks on the tables, clocks everywhere; Father Time himself wouldn’t have known what to do with so many of them. I began to cross the floor with my hands behind my back, taking it all in, when suddenly, in every direction, I saw other Tevyes with their hands behind their backs just like me. One was heading this way, another that, another toward me, another away … the Devil take them, there were mirrors all around! Leave it to that fat cat of a contractor to wallpaper his house with clocks and mirrors …

The thought of that fat, bald, whinnying loudmouth of a Podhotzur reminded me of the first time he came driving his two
speed demons to visit us in the village. He sprawled out in a chair as if he owned it, introduced himself to my Beilke, and then took me aside to shout a secret in my ear that could have been heard on the far side of Yehupetz. What was it? It was that my daughter had swept him off his feet and he wanted to marry her “pronto.” His losing his footing was only natural, but that “pronto” of his was like a blunt knife in my heart. What kind of way was that to talk about a wedding? Where did I come in? And where did Beilke? I was about to pin his ears back with a verse or two from the Bible when I thought,
lomoh zeh anoykhi
—what’s the point, Tevye, of butting in between these children? A lot it helped for you to think your other daughters’ marriages were your business! You made more noise than a kettledrum, you quoted the Bible forwards and backwards, and who came out looking like a fool? Why, Tevye, of course!

But let’s get back to the prince and the princess, as you writers like to say. I came to Yehupetz and was received with open arms. “How are you?… It’s so good to see you!… How have you been?… Sit down, sit down!…” In short, the usual routine. You can be sure I wasn’t going to be the first to ask
mah yoym miyomim
, why the rush invitation, because Tevye is no woman, Tevye knows how to wait. Meanwhile a servant in white gloves came to announce that food was on the table, and the three of us rose and went to a room that was all solid oak: the table was oak, and the benches were oak, and the walls were oak, and the ceiling was oak, all painted and lacquered and varnished and stained and carved and chiseled and paneled. The oak table was set for a king, with tea, and coffee, and chocolates, and pastries, and the best French cognac, and the most expensive pickled herring, and all kinds of fruits that I’m ashamed to admit my Beilke never saw in her father’s home in her life. I was poured glass after glass of cognac, and I drank toast after toast, and I thought, looking at my Beilke, why, it’s just like the prayer book says:
mekimi mi’ofor dal
—when God decides to help a poor person—
meyashpoys yorim evyoyn
—He goes the whole hog. That’s certainly my Beilke that I’m looking at, but it’s not like any Beilke that I’ve ever seen before.

As a matter of fact, when I compared the Beilke I knew to the Beilke I saw, I had the sinking feeling that I had driven a bad bargain and was left holding the bag. Do you know what it was like? It was like swapping my trusty old nag for a newborn colt
without knowing what would come of it, a real horse or a wooden one. Ah, Beilke, Beilke, I thought, just look at you now! Do you still remember sitting up nights by our smoky oil lamp, sewing and humming an old tune? Plunking yourself down on a three-legged stool and milking a cow faster than it could shake its tail at you? Rolling up your sleeves and cooking me a good, down-to-earth borscht, or a dish of bean fritters, or a platter of cheese blintzes, and calling, “Papa, wash up and come eat”? Those words were such music to my ears—and now here was this woman sitting like a queen with her Podhotzur while two servants waited on the table, making a great clatter with the dishes, and where was my Beilke? You see, she didn’t say a single word; Podhotzur was talking for the two of them, he didn’t stop blabbing for a minute! In all my life I’ve never seen a man run on at the mouth like that about the Devil only knows what, and all the time with that high-pitched whinny of his. It’s not everyone who can be the only person to laugh at his own jokes and still go right on telling them …

Apart from the three of us, there was another diner at the table, a man with red, jowly cheeks. I hadn’t the vaguest notion who he was, but he was no mean eater, because all the time that Podhotzur kept talking, he kept putting it away. You know what the rabbis say about
shloyshoh she’okhlu
, three men who eat at one table? Well, with someone like him you didn’t need the other two …

In a word, I’m being eaten at on one side of me and talked to on the other—and such talk it was, too, as went in one ear and straight out the other: construction contracts, tenders, specifications, government ministries, Japan … The one thing that interested me was Japan, because I took part in the Japanese war myself. That is, back then, when horses were in such short supply that the army was beating the bushes for them, some quartermaster came around to me, took my nag for a physical, measured him up, down, and sideways, put him through his paces, and gave him an honorable discharge. “I could have told you that you were wasting your time,” I said to him, “because it says in the Bible,
yoydeya tsaddik nefesh behemtoy
—a righteous man knows the soul of his beast, and Tevye’s horse was never meant to be a hero.” But you’ll have to excuse me, Pan Sholem Aleichem, for getting sidetracked. Let’s go back to our story.

Well, we wined and dined and asked the Lord’s blessing, and when we rose from the table Podhotzur took me by the arm and steered me into a special office that was done up like all get-out with guns and swords all over the walls and little toy cannons on the desk. He plumped me down on a sofa soft as butter, took two big, juicy cigars from a gold box, lit one for himself and one for me, sat down facing me, crossed his legs, and said, “Do you have any idea why I sent for you?”

Aha, I thought, now he’s about to talk turkey! I played innocent, though, and answered him, “How should I know? Am I my son-in-law’s keeper?”

“I have something of a private nature to discuss with you,” he says.

It’s a job for sure! I tell myself. To him, though, I only say, “If it’s something good, I’ll be happy to hear it.”

Well, he took the cigar from his mouth, did Mr. Podhotzur, and began to deliver a lecture. “You’re an intelligent man,” he says, “and so you won’t mind my speaking to you frankly. You know that I run a big business, and that when one runs a business as big as mine—”