Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories (40 page)

“S
peaking of the Drozhne fire—would you like to hear a good one about how a skinflint of a Jew, a rich man who would sooner have parted with his life than with a penny’s worth of charity, was made to cough up a hundred rubles for the relief fund?”

The question was put to me one morning by my merchant friend from Heysen, who had finished his breakfast, lit up a cigarette, and extended one to me too. The story he proposed to tell appeared to amuse him greatly, because he burst right out laughing as though he had thought of the funniest thing. In fact, he laughed so hard that I was afraid he would choke. If you don’t let a man get it out of his system all at once, though, he’ll just laugh his way through everything. And so I waited for him to collect himself, let out a few last wheezes, and begin.

“I’ve already described a few local characters for you. Now let me tell you about another. His name is Yoyl Tashker and he’s certainly nothing to look at. You wouldn’t give a plugged nickel for him. A short little, thin little, prim little man with a wisp of a beard, and a walk—why, he scoots down the street as though the Devil himself were after him! And yet he’s a wealthy Jew, don’t you know. Did I say wealthy? The man is a millionaire! That is, I’ve never counted his money. He may really have a million and he may not have half that much. Believe me, though, whatever he has is more than he deserves, because the man is the world’s biggest tightwad. It’s easier to squeeze water from a stone than it is to squeeze a cent out of him. There’s not a beggar in town he ever gave a crumb of bread to. In fact, if someone you’ve given a handout grumbles about the small size of it, the stock answer in Heysen is, ‘Why don’t you try Yoyl Tashker, I’ll bet he’s good for more!’ That’s the kind of rich Jew he is. Please don’t get the impression, though, that the man is a cheat, or a lowlife, or a boor. Far from it. He comes from a good family, he’s an educated fellow, and he couldn’t be any more honest. He goes by the rules in everything and only asks to be left alone: you keep to your side of the fence and I’ll keep to mine … do you get the picture? He’s a moneylender by profession, but he also owns houses and does business with our local gentry. And he’s a fiend for work, don’t you know, twenty-four hours a day; always traveling, always on the go, never eating or sleeping … and quite alone in the world too, without kith or kin, he won’t even hire an assistant. That is, he has children somewhere, but—I’ll be blamed if I know the reason why—he’s cut off every one of them. I’ve heard it said that they’re in America. After the death of his first wife, he simply went and drove them all out. And they say she died of hunger, too! Well, I suppose that’s just gossip … although who knows if there isn’t
some truth in it, because the fact is that his second wife didn’t last two weeks with him either. Would you like to know why he divorced her? It was on account of a glass of milk. I swear, as I’m a Jew! He caught her with it one day and said, ‘One way or another, that does it! If you’re drinking milk for your health because you’re consumptive, a fat lot I need you around here. And if you’re drinking it just for the fun of it, the sooner I get rid of a spendthrift like you, the better.’

“I will say one thing for Yoyl Tashker, though (no one is ever all bad): he’s as pious as the day is long. Why, such piety could scare the pants off a preacher! I’m the last person to object to religion in a man: if that’s how he wants to live his life, who am I to tell him otherwise? But that’s not enough for Tashker. No, he wants the whole world to be as religious as he is, he thinks he’s God’s legal executor: a Jew going hatless is a personal insult,
a married woman’s hair makes him see red, parents sending a child to a Russian school can expect to catch hell from him, and so on and so forth …

“Well, as fate would have it, this Yoyl Tashker has a tenant living next door to him, a notary public who is not exactly a paragon of devoutness: he goes about shaven and bareheaded, smokes on the Sabbath, and doesn’t miss many other tricks, either. Kompanyevitch is the name: a big, tall, slightly stoop-shouldered, baggy-cheeked fellow with the Devil in his eyes—but a quiet one, don’t you know, the kind that doesn’t flaunt his debauchery. He earns more at the card table than he does at his notary’s desk, and his place is a hangout for all our fine youngsters who enjoy a good game of triumph, a snack of pork sausage, and other such similar pleasures … Well, it’s as I was saying: if you happen to have a neighbor who’s no candidate for sainthood, why let him get under your skin? I’m referring to Yoyl Tashker, of course. This Kompanyevitch wasn’t proposing to his daughter, so why get all worked up over him? But no, it drove Tashker up the wall. How could Kompanyevitch dare
put up his samovar on the Sabbath? Where did he get off serving a seven-course meal on a fast day like
Tisha b’Av? Who did he think he was, not
koshering his dishes for Passover? And so on and so forth: he poured fire and brimstone on him, he called him every name in the book, he went about telling the whole world, ‘Did you ever hear of such nerve in your life? The man pretends to be a Jew and makes tea
on the Sabbath like a goy!’ … When Kompanyevitch heard that, don’t you know, he made sure to put up two samovars the next time. Our Yoyl nearly had a heart attack. What a card! He only had to terminate the lease in order to solve the whole problem, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Of all his tenants, he said, only the notary paid his rent on time. Can you beat that?

“I’ve already introduced you to two new characters. Now I want you to meet a third, a fellow by the name of Froike-Sheygetz. He’s a type too, and has a role to play in our story. In fact, there wouldn’t be one without him.

“Froyke-Sheygetz, don’t you know, is one of a kind, a hail-fellow-well-met, as they say, who dresses half like a Hasid and half like a Parisian dandy. He wears a long black gaberdine with a derby on his head, is partial to bright-red ties, and goes about with the fringes of his
tallis koton
hanging out of his shirt. There’s a rumor around town that he’s involved with a woman, and another man’s wife at that … yet when it’s prayer time in the synagogue, he’s there faster than a bat out of hell. In a word, he’s God’s own rascal! What does he do for a living? He’s a one-percenter: he brokers checks, loans, IOUs. A lot of rubles pass through his hands—thousands and thousands of them. And he’s the one person Yoyl Tashker ever had complete trust in. When it comes to lending money, don’t you know, even handing over a hundred gives Tashker the willies, but with the green light from Froyke, you could consider it as good as done. Personally, though, I wouldn’t jump from that to the conclusion that our Froyke is a model of financial integrity. He’s a shrewd, cunning son-of-a-gun, and one who doesn’t take no for an answer. I’d rather wind up in hell itself than in his clutches! Efrayim Katz, by the way, is his real name—and now you know why he’s called Froyke-Sheygetz.

“Well, having introduced my three characters, I can get on with the plot. Our story takes place during last summer’s fires, when the whole town of Drozhne, God save us, burned to the ground. Letters, telegrams, appeals for help—all began pouring in: we should send as much as we could as fast as we could, because a town full of Jews was sleeping in the streets and going hungry. I don’t have to tell you what a yammering there was in Heysen.
Jews, have a heart! How can you just sit there? We have to do something!
Between this, that, and the other thing it was decided to appoint a fund-raising committee. Who was on it? Myself, naturally, along
with a few other leading citizens—among them, don’t you know, Froyke-Sheygetz, because we needed someone who wouldn’t take no for an answer. And so we began to pass around the basket. Who did we pass it to first? To our better-heeled Jews, of course. Which brought us to Yoyl Tashker. ‘A good morning to you, Reb Yoyl!’ ‘And a good morning to you! What can I do for you? Have a seat.’ You couldn’t have asked for a finer reception. Tashker, don’t you know, is the very soul of hospitality: knock on his door and he’ll ask you right in, bring you a chair, make you sit down, talk to you about anything at all … as long as it isn’t money. Try raising
that
subject, and his whole expression changes: one eye slams shut and the entire left side of his face begins to twitch as though he had the palsy. I tell you, it’s painful just to look at him! But that’s the sort of fellow he is.

“Let’s see now, what act was I up to? Yes; our committee called on Tashker. ‘Good morning, Reb Yoyl.’ ‘Good morning to you. Have a seat. What can I do for you?’ ‘We’ve come to ask for a contribution.’ Down goes one eye, and his cheek gives a jerk that I wouldn’t wish on my knee. ‘A contribution? Just like that, you want a contribution?’ Well, Froyke-Sheygetz didn’t take that for an answer. ‘It’s for a good cause, Reb Yoyl,’ he says, ‘the best there could be. You must have heard about it. A whole town, it shouldn’t happen to us, has burned to the ground. Drozhne …’ ‘What?’ cried Reb Yoyl. ‘Drozhne’s burned down? What are you talking about?! I’m ruined! How can it possibly have gone and burned, with all the uncollected debts I have there? I’m wiped out!…’ There was nothing Froyke didn’t do to convince him that his loans were perfectly safe, because the fire had broken out in the poorest neighborhoods where no one could afford to borrow money—but go try explaining something like that to someone who doesn’t want to listen! Tashker just wrung his hands, ran around the room like a madman, and kept moaning out loud, ‘It’s my luck! I’m wiped out! I can’t stand to hear another word! It’s the death of me! It’s more than a body can bear!…’

“How much longer were we going to sit there? We got up, said ‘Good day, Reb Yoyl,’ and walked out. Once we were in the street again, Froyke-Sheygetz said to us, ‘Listen here, all of you: if I don’t make that bastard cough up a hundred rubles for the Drozhne relief fund, my name isn’t Efrayim Katz!’ ‘Are you crazy,
Froyke?’ we all said to him. ‘What’s it to you?’ said Froyke. ‘If I tell you he’s giving me the money, it’s as good as in my pocket already, because Efrayim Katz is damn well my name!’

“He meant every word of it, too. Listen to what happened. A few days later our rich friend Yoyl Tashker was taking the train to the Tulchin fair. His neighbor Kompanyevitch was aboard too, as were a whole lot of Jews from Tolchin and Uman. There wasn’t a seat to be had, and everyone was talking at the top of his voice as usual—everyone, that is, except for Yoyl Tashker, who sat in a corner as usual too, reading a religious book. What did he have to talk about, after all, with any of those Jews? And especially with that degenerate Kompanyevitch, whom he couldn’t even stand the sight of. And just as though to get his goat, don’t you know, Kompanyevitch had gone and sat right across from him and was giving him the silent stare! Great God Almighty, Reb Yoyl kept thinking, who will rescue me from this pig eater? To move to the second-class car was a sinful waste of good money, but to have to keep looking at the nude chin of an assassin who had the very Devil in his eyes was hardly a more tolerable prospect … Only just then, don’t you know, the prayed-for miracle occurred: whom did God make board the train at the very next station if not someone Tashker knew—in fact, none other than our good friend Froyke-Sheygetz! The sight of Froyke made Tashker feel like a new man; at last there was someone to have a word with. ‘Where to?’ he asked Froyke. ‘Where to?’ Froyke asked him. And so they began to chat. About what? About everything under the sun—until they arrived at a topic that was close to Yoyl Tashker’s heart: the sorry state of today’s youth. Worthless young men, shameless young women—what could the world be coming to? Froyke-Sheygetz was in perfect agreement; in fact, he even chipped in with a story of his own about a newlywed from Uman who had run away from her husband to take up with a Russian officer. Then he told another about a bridegroom who had married two different women in two different cities, and still another about a youngster who, when struck by his father for refusing to put on his
tefillin, had put up his fists and fought back.
‘What, hit his own father?!’
That caused an uproar in the car. Everyone was aghast—and no one more than Yoyl Tashker. ‘What did I tell you? My very word! It’s sheer anarchy. Jewish children won’t even pray any more! They won’t even put on their tefillin …’

“ ‘Tefillin are one thing,’ suddenly said Kompanyevitch, who hadn’t let out a peep all this time. ‘You can take them or leave them, it’s not them I’m concerned about. But a
tallis koton
is something else. It’s simply beyond me why young people won’t wear it any more! After all, you can’t deny that tefillin are a nuisance. You have to put them on, you have to take them off … but a simple fringed undershirt such as the Bible tells us to wear—who could possibly object to it?’

“Those words were spoken by our infidel in such a calm, deliberate, assured tone of voice that Tashker, don’t you know, couldn’t have been more thunderstruck if the train had suddenly turned upside down or been hit by lightning. ‘I better have my ears examined!’ he thought. ‘The Messiah must have come! Would you listen to the pork lover talk about
tallis kotons? Tallis kotons!!!’
And out loud to Froyke he exclaimed, ‘What do you say to this sheep in wolf’s clothing, eh? Did you hear what he said about
tallis kotons?’

“ ‘But what’s wrong with it?’ asked Froyke, as innocent as a lamb himself. ‘Isn’t Mr. Kompanyevitch a Jew like you and me?’

“That was already too much for our Tashker. In the first place, since when was it
Mr
. Kompanyevitch? And in the second place, since when was Kompanyevitch a Jew? ‘A Jew? Don’t make me laugh! A Jew who puts the samovar up on the Sabbath? Who serves a seven-course meal on Tisha b’Av? Who doesn’t even kosher his dishes for Passover? That’s who’s talking
tallis kotons?’

“ ‘But why not?’ persisted Froyke, still the picture of innocence. ‘What does the one thing have to do with the other, Reb Yoyl? If you ask me, a Jew like Kompanyevitch can do everything you say and still wear a
tallis koton
himself.’

“ ‘What?!!’ cried our Tashker at the top of his voice.
‘That
beardless wonder?
That
degenerate?
That
living affront to man and God?’