Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories (51 page)

“Well, we washed our hands of him and let him grow up as he pleased—which meant, you can imagine, as a perfect black sheep. Not that he continued stealing; in any case, there was hardly anything left to steal. It was rather the way he carried on in general, the fine company he kept and all his monkeyshines, plus the getup he went around in: a red blouse hanging down over his pants, high boots up to his knees, hair as long as a priest’s, chin as smooth as a goy’s—quite the young gentleman he was!… He never had the cheek to come see me himself, though. Whenever he wanted something from me, he put her, his mother, up to it—and she, the widow, was such a cow that she actually went right on loving him, her precious darling couldn’t do wrong! Until one day when I came to my store, my fair-haired boy was waiting there for me.

“ ‘Well, well, a guest!’ I said. ‘Welcome, Danielchik. What’s the good word?’

“ ‘The good word,’ he said, ‘is that I’m getting married.’

“ ‘Congratulations,’ I said. ‘Who’s the lucky girl?’

“ ‘Osna,’ he said.

“ ‘What Osna?’

“ ‘Our Osna, who worked in our house.’

“ ‘Holy God!’ I said. ‘You’re marrying a housemaid?’

“ ‘Screw that!’ he said. ‘Don’t you think a housemaid’s human too?’

“ ‘God help your poor mother,’ I said. ‘Have you come to invite me to the wedding?’

“ ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ve come to talk to you about clothes. We sat down together, Osna and me, and drew up a list of what we need: for me, one flannel winter suit, one sailcloth summer suit, a dozen
undershirts, and half-a-dozen shirts; and for Osna, some calico for a summer dress, a woolen winter dress, a few yards of gingham for house frocks, a fur muff, two shawls, half-a-dozen handkerchiefs,’ etcetera, etcetera, etcetera …

“ ‘And is that all?’ I asked when he was done, doing my best not to smile.

“ ‘That’s all,’ he said.

“Well, I couldn’t hold it in any longer; all of a sudden I burst out laughing so hard that I nearly fell off my seat. My employees took one look at me and began to laugh too. We laughed until the walls shook. And when I had laughed so much that I couldn’t laugh any more, I said to my fine young Romeo:

“ ‘Danielchik, sweetheart, just tell me one thing: is it because you and me are such partners in the store that you think you can hand me a list like this?’

“ ‘As a matter of fact,’ he said, ‘I can’t tell you exactly what my share of your store is. But if you take my father’s money and divide it five ways, there should be enough to cover the clothes with plenty to spare for after the wedding …’

“Well, what can I tell you? Hearing him say that was like being shot in the heart, or having a fire lit under me, or God only knows what. I saw stars in front of my eyes! Do you get me? As if it wasn’t enough that I had spent all those years of my life supporting a widow and five children, and attending to all their needs, and marrying them all off, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera—now along comes this little upstart and thinks he can lecture me about shares he has in my store …

“ ‘What did I tell you?’ said my wife. ‘Didn’t I say they would thank you like a ton of bricks?’

“Well, you may as well know that I gave him everything he asked for. Why argue with a snotnose like that? It was beneath my dignity. Let him take his money and go hang—all I wanted was to get rid of the little pest … Do you think I did, though? Then you better think some more. A month after the wedding he came to see me again, did my clean-cut young friend, to demand the sum of two hundred twenty-three rubles.

“ ‘Just how did you arrive at two hundred twenty-three rubles?’ I asked him.

“ ‘That’s what they’re asking,’ he says to me without batting an eyelash, ‘for the beer hall and the billiard parlor.’

“ ‘What beer hall? What billiard parlor?’

“ ‘I’m going into business,’ he says. ‘I’ve bought a beer hall with a billiard parlor. Osna will run the bar and I’ll keep an eye on the billiard tables. We can make a good living from it.’

“ ‘And a very respectable one too,’ I told my young provider. ‘A beer hall with a billiard parlor—I must say it’s just your style.’

“ ‘Screw that!’ he says, ‘I don’t want to be a sponge, that’s all. I don’t mind eating dry bread once a day, just as long as it’s mine …’

“Introducing Danielchik the philosopher! Isn’t that a scream? ‘Congratulations!’ I said. ‘You can sell beer and play billiards all you want. What does it have to do with me, though?’

“ ‘It has to do with you,’ he says, ‘because of the two hundred twenty-three rubles you’re giving me.’

“ ‘What do you mean, I’m giving you?’ I say. ‘Just where am I supposed to take them from?’

“ ‘From my father’s money,’ he says without a blush.

“Would you believe it? At first I had a powerful urge to grab him by the neck and throw him right to the Devil!… On second thought, though, I said to myself: for heaven’s sake, who are you rolling in the mud with? Let him have the money and the deuce take him! ‘Tell me, Danielchik,’ I said to him, ‘do you happen to have any idea how much your father left you?’

“ ‘No,’ he says. ‘What do I need to know for? In a year from now, when I turn twenty-one, you and I will go over the books. In the meantime, let me have my money and I’ll go.’

“That made me see more stars. Would you like to know why? It wasn’t because I was afraid of anyone, since what was there to be afraid of? Hadn’t I spent more than enough on them already? I tell you, it was no trifle to have supported a widow and her five children all those years, to have attended to their every need, to have married off each one of them, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera—and now here was this little crumb wanting to go over my books!

“Well, I took out two hundred and twenty-three rubles and gave them to him with the prayer that from now on he would leave me alone … and in fact, quite a while went by without his showing his face again. Until one day when I came home—there he was! My heart sank when I saw him. I’d be blamed, though, if I was going to show it, so I said to him perfectly naturally:

“ ‘Eh, a guest! Where have you been hiding, Danielchik? How’s your health? How’s business?’

“ ‘Screw my health!’ he said. ‘And since you ask, business isn’t so hot.’

“You don’t say! I thought to myself. Well, better luck next time! A little bird tells me, though, that I’m about to be hit for more cash. And out loud I said to him, ‘Why, what seems to be the matter? Aren’t you making any money?’

“ ‘What money? Who cares about money? Screw it!’ he said. ‘I’m through with the beer hall, I’m through with the billiard parlor, and I’m through with my wife. She ditched me, Osna. Screw her too! I’m going to America. My brother’s been wanting me to come.’

“Was it a weight off my mind to hear that! Suddenly I even found myself liking the boy. If I hadn’t been embarrassed, I would have hugged him on the spot… ‘America?’ I said. ‘A fine idea! America is the land of opportunity. People find happiness there, they find money. And if you have family there already, it’s even better … Did you come to say goodbye to me? That’s very decent of you. Don’t forget to drop us a line. After all, we’re practically next of kin … Daniel, do you need any money for the trip? I’ll be glad to help out a bit …’

“ ‘As a matter of fact,’ he said, ‘that’s what I’ve come about. You can let me have three hundred rubles. That’s what the ticket costs.’

“ ‘Three hundred rubles?’ I said. ‘Isn’t that a bit steep? How about one hundred and fifty?’

“ ‘Why waste your time haggling?’ he said. ‘Don’t you think I know that if I asked you for four hundred you’d give me that too, and five and six also, for that matter? But screw it, I don’t need all that much. I just need three hundred for the passage.’

“I tell you, butter wouldn’t have melted in his mouth! Three hundred lashes, I thought to myself, is what you deserve! If only I could be sure that this was really his grand exit and that I was seeing the last of him and of all his etcetera, etcetera, etcetera …

“Well, I counted him out those three hundred rubles and even bought a present for his brother—a whole pound of Russian tea, a carton of good cigarettes, and a few bottles of Jewish wine from Palestine. We gave him a food hamper too, with a duck my wife roasted, some rolls, some oranges, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, and
off we went to the train station to kiss him and our troubles goodbye. We hugged him like a son and, so help me, even cried—why, the boy had grown up on my knees, and a fine young lad he had turned out to be, why deny it? A little on the brash side perhaps, but with a heart of gold, I declare! True, I was a wee bit relieved that he had gone and left me with one headache less … but I was also a wee bit sorry: a young boy like that and little more than a vagabond—who knew where he might wind up and what might become of him? If only he would remember to write now and then … although perhaps it was just as well that he didn’t. Let him have a long life and a happy one! There was nothing I would have wished for my own child that I didn’t wish for him, believe me …

“Well, lo and behold—two years hadn’t passed since he left for America when one day the door opens and who should walk in but some stranger in a top hat, a handsome, ruddy, brawny, merry young fellow who grabs me in his arms and begins to cover me with kisses! ‘What’s the matter with you?’ he says to me. ‘Are you just pretending, or do you really not know who I am?’

“ ‘Well, I’ll be! It’s Danielchik!’ I said, trying to look glad, though I was boiling inside. Why the Devil, I thought, couldn’t you have been killed in America, or better yet, on the train we saw you off on, or best of all, drowned in the ocean? But out loud I just said, ‘When did you get here, Danielchik, and what brings you back?’

“ ‘I blew in this morning,’ he says. ‘What brings me? I’ve come to settle the accounts with you.’

“When I heard him say ‘the accounts,’ I thought I would rupture an artery. What accounts did that gangster think he was talking about? But I managed to pull myself together and say to him, ‘Why trouble yourself to come all the way from America for that? My goodness, if you wanted to pay me what you owe me, you could have mailed it to me from there …’

“ ‘What I owe you?’ he says with a grin. ‘Don’t you mean what you owe me?’

“ ‘What
I
owe
you?’
I say. ‘What makes you think I owe you?’

“ ‘Me, and my brothers, and my sister, and all of us,’ he says. ‘I’ve come from America on behalf of the whole family. I want a full accounting of my father’s money. You can deduct whatever you laid out for us and give us the balance. We won’t go to court
over a ruble more or less; screw that, we’ll work it out between us … How the heck are you? How are your children? I’ve brought each one of them a present …’

“I thought I would keel over, or else take a chair and bash his head in with it … but I got a grip on myself and invited him to come, God willing, on Saturday night to go over the books with me. Then I went to see some lawyers. How, I asked them, could I get him off my back? The Devil take them if I could get a straight answer! One said that since ten years had gone by, I could claim the statute of limitations; another said no, being a fi-who-ciary meant I had to give an accounting even after a hundred years …

“ ‘But how can I give an accounting,’ I said, ‘when I kept no books and have no receipts?’

“ ‘In that case,’ says the lawyer, ‘you’re in trouble.’

“ ‘I didn’t need you to tell me that,’ I say. ‘What I want to know is, how do I get out of it?’

“A blank, that’s all I drew from him. I must be made of iron, do you hear me, to have gone through all this! I ask you, what did I need such a miserable mess for, this whole etcetera, etcetera, etcetera? What in the world ever made me agree to be someone else’s fi-who-ciary? Don’t you think I would have been a thousand times better off coming down with pneumonia, or breaking a leg, or having some terrible accident? Anything, anything, but this fool fi-who-ciation of five children, of a widow, of a Danielchik, of no account books, of etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera!…”

(1902)

GO CLIMB A TREE IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT

A
cross from me, by the window, sat a man with a smile on his face and the kind of eyes that try to crawl under your skin. I could see he was waiting for me to break the ice, but I preferred to keep to myself. After a while, though, it was simply too much for him to sit in silence with a fellow Jew. He laughed to himself abruptly, then turned to me and said: