“I don’t have to tell you what kind of upside-down holiday it was — and most of all, mind you, for my grandfather, may he rest in peace, because he bore the brunt of it. At the meeting that was held that night, the whole town was griping and grumbling. ‘Enough! How long do we have to go on shelling out? There’s a limit to everything; even chicken soup with kreplach can get to be too much. This Kivke of yours will make paupers of us all!’ ‘Why is he my Kivke?’ asked my grandfather. ‘Whose Kivke do you think he is?’ was the answer. ‘Whose idea was it in the first place to have the little bastard go die of a stroke while in prison?’
“Well, my grandfather (he was one smart Jew, he was) saw right away that it was a waste of time to hope for more money from the town, so he went to the local authorities — after all, they were in the same boat as he was — and asked them for a donation to the cause. Do you think they gave him a kopeck? Not a chance! Your goy is not your Jew; such things don’t faze him in the least. And so my poor grandfather, mind you, had to swallow his medicine and stake that damned cutthroat to some more cash from his own pocket. You should have seen the letter he sent with it, though! (My grandfather, God rest his soul, could give as good as he got.) Mind you, he gave that sheygetz hell in it. He called him a scoundrel, a degenerate, a know-nothing, a leech, a bloodsucker, a fiend, a traitor, a disgrace to the Jewish people, and whatever-else-have-you. He also told him once and for all not to dare write any more letters or ask for another cent, reminded him that God above sees everything and pays back tit for tat, and ended by begging him (a Jewish heart is still a Jewish heart, after all!) to have pity on an old man like himself and not ruin a town full of Jews, in return for which the Almighty would surely assist him in all his endeavors. That was the letter my grandfather sent, and he signed it with his full name, ‘Nissl Shapiro’—which was, mind you, the biggest mistake he ever made in his life, as you’ll shortly see for yourselves.”
The Jew from Kaminka paused again, reached for his tobacco pouch, slowly rolled himself another cigarette, lit it, and took a few deep puffs without even noticing that the whole car was dying of curiosity. When he had breathed in and coughed out enough smoke, he blew his nose, rolled up his sleeves again, and continued in the same tone as before:
“You must be thinking, my friends, that my grandfather’s letter gave that son-of-a-bitch a good scare. Don’t kid yourselves! Half a year didn’t go by, or maybe it was a whole one, mind you, when along came another letter from that turncoat. ‘In the first place,’ it said, ‘I wish to inform you that my German partner, may his life be one bad dream, has cheated me out of house and home and out of my share of the business. I would have sued him if it hadn’t been clear that I didn’t stand a Chinaman’s chance. Taking a German to court around here means taking your life in your hands. Why, I wouldn’t touch one of those bastards with a ten-foot pole! So I went and opened a store near his, right next door to him, in fact, and went into business for myself. With God’s help I’ll bury that Kraut yet, I’ll see to it he ends up eating dirt! The problem is that I need an advance of at least a thousand rubles, so please be so kind as to send …’
“That’s what Kivke wrote in his letter, which concluded: ‘If you don’t come up with the money in eight days, I’m taking your last letter signed “Nissl Shapiro” and forwarding it straight to the provincial governor with an unabridged account of all that happened: how I died of a stroke in prison, and how I was resurrected in the cemetery, and how Shimon the coachman brought me to Brody, and how you’ve kept sending me hush money. I’ll write him everything, I’ll let him know that we Jews have a great God above who rescued Kivke from the grave …’
“How’s that for a greeting card? Mind you, as soon as my grandfather, God rest his soul, read those sweet sentiments, he had such a fright that he fainted dead away. It shouldn’t happen to anyone, but he lost all control of … Jews, where are we? What station is this?”
“Baranovich station!” cried the conductors, running one after another past the windows of our car. “All out for Baranovich!”
Hearing the name Baranovich, the Kaminka Jew jumped from his seat, reached for his belongings, which were in a kind of sack stuffed with God only knew what, and, barely able to carry it, headed for the door. In another minute he was standing on the platform with the sweat pouring off him, struggling through the crowd and asking whomever he stumbled into:
“Baranovich?”
“Baranovich!”
He made me think of a Jew blessing the New Moon in the synagogue courtyard, bumping into his fellow Jews in the darkness and inquiring of each:
“Is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me!”
Several passengers from our car, myself included, ran after him and seized him by the coattails. “Hey, there! You can’t do this to us! We won’t let you go. You have to tell us the end of the story!”
“What end? It’s barely begun. Let go of me! Do you want me to miss my train? A strange bunch of Jews you are! Didn’t you hear them say Baranovich?”
And before we knew it, the Jew from Kaminka had vanished into thin air.
I wouldn’t mind if Baranovich station burned to the ground!
(1909)
EIGHTEEN FROM PERESHCHEPENA
“You don’t say! Well, I’ll tell you an even better one. There’s a man in our town called Finkelstein, a rich Jew, but really loaded, with two sons. If I had his money, I could afford to laugh at the whole business. Do you know what it cost him, though? I wish the two of us were worth half as much …”
“I said as much a year ago, damn it all! Just you wait and see, I said, it won’t be long before half the Jews in Russia are baptized.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more! Why, we had a young fellow named Marshak who moved heaven and earth. It didn’t do a bit of good; he actually took poison in the end.”
“I hate to say it, but you’ll soon see the day, damn it all, when there isn’t a Jew left in Russia! How can anyone expect us to survive so many troubles, so many quotas, so much discrimination? Every day, every blessed day, there’s some new regulation against us. Why, there must be a regulation per Jew already! I’m telling you, before long they’ll find a way of turning down everyone. Take Shpole, for example. That’s a town with a few Jews in it, wouldn’t you say?”
“Why not Nemirov? I had a letter not long ago from Nemirov with the most depressing news.”
“Do you mean to tell me it’s any better in Lubin?”
“Why, what happened in Lubin?”
“Or in Ananyev, for instance. They used to take at least three Jews from Ananyev each year.”
“Who cares about Ananyev? Just look at Tomashpol. In Tomashpol, so I hear, they didn’t take a single Jew this year, not for love or money!”
“They didn’t? They took eighteen from our town!”
This last remark came from above. My two Jews and I craned our necks to look up at the top berth. A pair of high rubber galoshes hung down from it. The feet in them belonged to a man with a head of unruly black hair and a face that was swollen from sleep.
My two Jews stared at the sleepy-faced man, devouring him with their eyes as though he were a Martian. Both sat up as if given a new lease on life and asked the upper-berther eagerly:
“You say they took eighteen Jews from your town?”
“Eighteen whole Jews, my own son too.”
“They took your son too?”
“I’ll say!”