Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories (28 page)

“How come?” asks Ivan.

“I’m moving to town,” I say. “I want to be among Jews. I’m not such a young man any more—why, I might kick off any day …”

“But you can kick off right here,” says Ivan. “Who’s stopping you?”

“I believe I’ll leave that to you to do,” I say, thanking him all the same for his kind offer. “You can even have my turn. I myself would rather die among my own. I just thought, though, that you might like to buy my house and garden. I wouldn’t dream of selling them to anyone else, but for you I’ll make an exception.”

“How much do you want for them?” he asks.

“How much will you give me?” I say.

Well, we haggled a bit back and forth, I driving the price up by a ruble and he knocking it down by two, until at last we shook hands on it. I made sure he paid a good chunk in advance so that he couldn’t back out—I tell you, a Jew is smarter than a goy!—and, the whole shebang sold in one day for hard cash, although for a song, of course, off I went to hire a wagon for what little we had left in the house. And now listen, Pan Sholem Aleichem, to what can happen in this world. Just bear with me a little longer, because I don’t want to keep you, and it won’t take but a minute or two.

It was time for the last goodbyes. The house looked more like a ruin than a home. The bare walls seemed to have tears running down them, and there were bundles all over the floor. The cat sat on the mantel above the stove looking like a little orphan … I tell you, it made me so sad that I had a lump in my throat; if I hadn’t been ashamed to be seen by my own daughter, I would have sat down and sobbed like a child. Why, I had grown up in this place, I had died a thousand deaths in it, and suddenly, out of nowhere—
lekh-lekho!
Say what you will, it was a depressing situation. But Tevye is no woman. And so I pulled myself together, kept my chin up, and called to my daughter, “Tsaytl, where are you? Come here for a minute.”

Tsaytl came out of the other room, all red-eyed and runny-nosed. Aha, I thought, she’s been weeping like an old woman at a funeral again! I tell you, it’s no joke with these females; tears are cheap with them, they cry before you even know it. “You little ninny!” I said to her. “What are you crying for this time? Can’t you see how foolish you’re being? Why, just think of Mendel Beilis …”

She wouldn’t listen to me, though. “Papa,” she said, “you don’t even know why I’m crying.”

“Of course I do,” I said. “How could I not know? You’re crying for the house. You were born here, you grew up here—it’s upsetting. Believe me, even if I weren’t Tevye, even if I were someone else, I would still kiss these bare walls and empty shelves, I would get down on my knees and kiss the ground! It hurts me to part with every nook and cranny as much as it hurts you, you silly thing, you. Why, just look at that cat sitting like an orphan over the stove. It’s only a dumb animal, it can’t talk—but how can you help feeling sorry for it, being left all alone without a master …”

“Papa,” she says. “There’s someone you should be feeling even sorrier for.”

“Why, who’s that?” I say.

“It’s the one person,” says my Tsaytl, “who’ll be left behind like a stone by the roadside when we’re gone.”

I had no idea who she meant. “What person?” I asked. “What stone? What are you yattering about?”

“Papa,” she said, “I’m not yattering. I’m talking about our Chava.”

I swear to you, hearing that name was like being dowsed with
boiling water or clubbed on the head! I turned to my daughter in a fury and said, “What the devil does Chava have to do with this? I thought I told you that I never wanted to hear her mentioned again!”

Do you think that fazed her? Not my Tsaytl! Tevye’s daughters are no pushovers. “Papa,” she says, “instead of being so angry, why don’t you think of what you yourself have always told us about human beings loving and pitying each other as a father does his own child?”

Did you ever hear anything like it? That made me see so red that I really blew my top. “You’re talking to me about pity?” I said. “Where was her pity for me when I groveled like a dog before that damn priest and all but kissed his feet, with her sitting, I’ll bet, right in the next room and hearing every word? Where was her pity when her poor mama, God rest her, lay here dead on the floor? Where was she then? Where was she all the nights I couldn’t sleep because of her? Why, it makes me sick to this day just to think of what she did to us, of who she threw us over for … When, I ask you, did she ever pity us?”

I was in such a blind rage that I couldn’t say another word—but don’t think that scared Tevye’s daughter! “But you’ve always told us, Papa,” says my Tsaytl, “that even God must forgive a person who’s honestly sorry for what he’s done.”

“Sorry?” I say. “It’s too late for that! Once the branch tears itself from the tree, that’s the end of it. Let the fallen leaf rot where it fell. I don’t want to hear another word—
ad kan oymrim beshabbes hagodol. ”

Well, when she saw she was getting nowhere, because there’s no outarguing Tevye, she threw herself at my feet and began kissing my hand. “Papa,” she said, “I’ll die if you turn her away again, like you did that time in the forest when you practically drove your horse over her and rode off …”

“What are you doing to me?” I said. “Why are you sucking my blood like this? Why are you torturing me?”

She wouldn’t give up, though. She just kept clinging to my hand. “I’ll die right here and now,” she says, “if you don’t forgive her! She’s your daughter as much as I am!”

“But what do you want from me?” I say. “She’s not my daughter anymore. She died long ago.”

“She did not!” says Tsaytl. “She did not die and she is your
daughter as much as ever, because the minute she heard we had to leave, she made up her mind to come with us. Whatever happens to us, she said to me, will happen to her too—if we’re homeless, so will she be—and the proof of it, Papa, is, that’s her bundle right there on the floor …”

She said it all in one breath, did my Tsaytl, pointed to a bundle tied with a red kerchief, and, before I could get in a word edgewise, threw open the door to the other room and called out—I swear to God she did, as I’m sitting here before you!—“Chava!…”

What can I tell you, my dear friend? It was just like in one of your books. Out of the other room she came, my daughter Chava, as unspoiled and beautiful as ever—a little more careworn perhaps, a little less bright-eyed, but with her head held high, like a queen. For a minute she just stared at me, the same as I did at her. Then she held out her hands, though all she could say was a single whispered word:

“Pa-pa …”

Please don’t think any worse of me for having tears in my eyes now. If you suppose I shed any then, though, or was the least bit sentimental, you have another guess coming. Of course, what I felt like inside was something else. You’re a father of children yourself, and you know as well as I do that no matter what a child may have done, when it stands there looking right through you and says “Papa” … well, go be a hero and tell it to disappear! Still, the blood went to my head when I thought of the fine trick my Chava had played on us … and of that Chvedka Galagan, may he roast … and that damn priest … and all my grief … and my poor dead Golde … You tell me: how, how can you ever forget such a thing? And yet on the other hand, how can you not? A child is a child … 
kerakheym ov al bonim
 … when God Himself is an
eyl erekh apoyim
, a long-suffering Lord, how can a man harden his heart? And especially since she was sorry for all she had done and wanted only to return to her father and her God …

What do you say, Pan Sholem Aleichem? You’re a Jew who writes books and gives the whole world advice—what should Tevye have done? Taken her in his arms, hugged her and kissed her, and told her, as we say on Yom Kippur,
solakhti kidvorekho—
come to me, you’re my own flesh and blood? Or turned a deaf ear
as I did once before and said,
lekh-lekho
—get lost and stay lost! Put yourself in Tevye’s place and tell me honestly, in plain language, what you would have done …

Well, if you can’t answer that right off the bat, you’re welcome to think about it, but meanwhile I have to be off, because my grandchildren are getting impatient. Just look at them looking at their grandpa! I want you to know that grandchildren are a thousand times more precious and lovable than children.
Bonim uvney vonim
, your own children’s children—that’s nothing to sneeze at, you know! Be well, then, and don’t hold it against me if I’ve run on a little too long—it will give you something to write about. If God has no objections, I’m sure we’ll meet again someday …

What did you say? I didn’t finish the story of the Amalekites? I never told you if they smashed my windows? Well, as a matter of fact they didn’t, because it was decided to leave that up to me. “They’re your windows, Tevel,” said Ivan Paparilo, “and you might as well smash them yourself. As long as those damn officials can see there’s been a pogrom … And now, bring out the samovar and let’s all have tea. And if you’d be so kind as to donate half a bucket of vodka to the village, we’ll all drink to your health, because you’re a clever Jew and a man of God, you are …”

I ask you, Pan Sholem Aleichem, you’re a person who writes books—is Tevye right or not when he says that there’s a great God above and that a man must never lose heart while he lives? And that’s especially true of a Jew, and most especially of a Jew who knows a Hebrew letter when he sees one … No, you can rack your brains and be as clever as you like—there’s no getting around the fact that we Jews are the best and smartest people.
Mi ke’amkho yisro’eyl goy ekhod
, as the Prophet says—how can you even compare a goy and a Jew? Anyone can be a goy, but a Jew must be born one.
Ashrekho yisro’eyl
—it’s a lucky thing I was, then, because otherwise how would I ever know what it’s like to be homeless and wander all over the world without resting my head on the same pillow two nights running? You see, ever since I was given that lesson in Lekh-Lekho, I’ve been on the go; there hasn’t been a place I could point to and say. “Tevye, we’re here; now sit down and relax.” But Tevye asks no questions; if he’s told to keep moving, he does. Today, Pan Sholem Aleichem, we met on the train, but tomorrow may find us in Yehupetz, and next year in Odessa,
or in Warsaw, or maybe even in America … unless, that is, the Almighty looks down on us and says, “Guess what, children! I’ve decided to send you my Messiah!” I don’t even care if He does it just to spite us, as long as He’s quick about it, that old God of ours! And in the meantime, be well and have a good trip. Say hello for me to all our Jews and tell them wherever they are, not to worry: the old God of Israel still lives!…

(1914, 1916)

TO THE READER

I
do a lot of traveling. You’ll find me on the road nearly eleven months of the year. Generally I go by train; most often third class; and almost always to towns and villages where there are Jews, since my business doesn’t take me to
places Jews are barred from.

My goodness, the things one sees traveling! It’s a pity I’m not a writer. And yet come to think of it, what makes me say I’m not? What’s a writer, after all? Anyone can be one, and especially in a hodgepodge like our Yiddish. What’s the big fuss about? You pick up a pen and you write!