“But that’s just petty cash. My hometown of Soshmakin is something else. Believe it or not, Soshmakin gets a barrelful of gold from me each year! The day doesn’t go by without a letter from there with news of some new cause or emergency — and I’m not even talking about routine things like the Matsoh Fund, which is an automatic hundred every Passover … I’m on my way to Soshmakin now, and believe me, this visit alone will set me back at least a thousand. What am I saying, a thousand? I’ll be happy to get away with two. Frankly, I’m even ready for three. It doesn’t happen every day that a man comes home again after so many years — why, I haven’t seen the place since I was a kid! But it’s still home to me, Soshmakin is. I can tell you that the whole town will be delirious. Everyone will come running at once. Hallelujah! ‘Motek is here, our Motek is here from Buenos Aires!’ … What a whoop-de-do there’ll be! You know, I’m like the Messiah for those poor, hungry devils. Every day I send them a telegram that’s signed ‘I’m on my way, Motek’ to let them know where I am. Believe it or not, I can hardly wait to get there myself. Just to be in Soshmakin again, to kiss the ground, to see my old house! I tell you, you can have your Buenos Aires. You can have your New York. You can have your London. You can even have your Paris. Home for me is Soshmakin …”
As he said these words, the face of the man from Buenos Aires underwent a change. It actually became different, younger and handsomer. The beady little eyes glimmered with a glad, selfless love, a love that couldn’t have been feigned … If only I knew what he did! Before I could pursue the matter, though, he went on:
“You must be wondering why I’m bothering to go to Soshmakin at all. Well, it’s partly because I miss the place and partly to visit my parents’ graves. I have a father and a mother who are buried there, and brothers and sisters too — a whole family, in fact. I’d like to get married also. How long can I live the single life? And I want to marry a hometown girl from Soshmakin, from my own folks. I’ve even written friends there to look for the right one … and they’ve written me back that she won’t be hard to find once I show up. You can see how crazy I am … why, believe it or not, back in Buenos Aires I could have had the greatest beauties in the world. I’ve been offered women, you know, such as even the Turkish sultan doesn’t have — but I turned every one of them down flat. A wife I’ll find in Soshmakin. I want someone with character. A good Jewish girl. I don’t care if she hasn’t a penny to her name: I’ll dress her in gold, I’ll gold-plate her parents too, I’ll make them one big happy family. And then I’ll bring her back to Buenos Aires and build her a palace fit for a princess, do you hear? She won’t have to lift a finger. Believe it or not, I’ll make her the happiest woman in the world. Her whole life will be her house and her husband and her family. I’ll send all my sons to the university. One will study medicine, another engineering, another law. The girls will go to a special Jewish finishing school that I know of. Do you know where it is? In Germany …”
Just then the conductor came along to check our tickets. He always (it’s not the first time I’ve noticed this) gets it into his head to check tickets just when you least want him to! A commotion broke out in the car. Everyone reached for their bags, myself included. It was time for me to change trains. While the man from Buenos Aires helped me get my things together, we exchanged a few last words, which I present here verbatim, exactly as they were spoken.
The man from Buenos Aires: “My, what a pity you’re getting off here. I won’t have anyone to talk to.”
I: “What can I do? Business is business.”
The man from Buenos Aires: “Right you are. Business is business. I’m afraid I’ll have to lay out some more money and move to second class. Not, God bless me, that I can’t afford to travel first. When I go by train—”
I: “Excuse me for interrupting, but we have only a half minute left. There was something I wanted to ask you.”
The man from Buenos Aires: “And what might that be?”
I: “It’s … but there goes the whistle! I wanted to ask what your business is. What exactly do you deal in?”
The man from Buenos Aires: “What do I deal in? Ha ha! Not in Hanukkah candles, my friend, not in Hanukkah candles!”
Even after I was through the door with my luggage, I still saw him before my eyes, the man from Buenos Aires, with his satisfied, smooth-shaven face and the fat cigar between his teeth, his laughter ringing in my ears:
“Not in Hanukkah candles, my friend, not in Hanukkah candles!”
(1909)
ELUL
“So you’re off to the festivities and I’m coming back from them! I’ve just finished crying my heart out and you’re about to begin … But why don’t I make some room for you? Here, move over this way. You’ll be more comfortable.”
“Ah, that’s better!”
So two passengers sat chatting behind me in the car. That is, one did the talking while the other murmured an occasional word.
“My wife and I go together. That’s her, curled up over there. She’s asleep, the poor thing; she must have shed enough tears for all the Jews in the world. She didn’t want to budge from the cemetery. She simply threw herself on the grave and wouldn’t let me tear her away. I tried to reason with her. ‘That’s enough,’ I said. ‘Your tears won’t bring her back to life again.’ Try talking to the wall! And what’s the wonder? Such a tragedy! An only daughter, our pride and joy. As pretty as a postcard. And so gifted, bright as they come! Just out of high school, she was. It’s been two years now. Don’t think it was TB or anything like that. She couldn’t have been healthier. No, she did it herself, she went and took her own life!”
“Dear me!”
By now I understood what sort of “festivities” were being talked about. It was, I realized, the beginning of the penitential month of Elul with its midnight prayers, that sad but dear time of year when Jews travel to visit long-dead parents, children, and relatives. Pining mothers, orphaned daughters, mourning sisters, plain grief-stricken women — all go to have a good cry at the graves of their loved ones, where they can let out their sorrow and ease the bitter burden of an afflicted heart.
It’s an odd thing: I’ve been a traveler for years and yet I can’t remember ever seeing such a run on the cemeteries as there was last Elul. The trains were doing a landslide business. Every car was jam-packed with somber-faced Jews, with shiny-nosed, puffy-eyed women on their way to or from the “festivities.” With the smell of autumn that was already in the air came a powerful, Elulish yearning … Without really wanting to, I listened to the conversation behind me:
“Maybe you’re thinking she got into trouble like some other young folks — black shirts, red flags, prison, and all that? God forbid! That’s one thing I was spared. Or rather, that I spared myself, because I watched her like the apple of my eye. You don’t see such a gifted young girl every day, and an only child at that! Pretty as a postcard. Just out of high school. I did everything I could: kept track of where she went, and who her friends were, and what she talked about with them, and even what books she read. ‘So you like to read?’ I said. ‘Be my guest! Just let me know what you’re reading …’ I admit I’m no great expert on these things — but a bit of horse sense, thank God, I have. I don’t even care if it’s written in French, one look at a book is all I need to tell you what’s in it.”