“Do you know what finally dawned on me, though? It dawned on me that I was wasting my breath on our right reverend, because what happened with the samovar wasn’t in Mezritch at all, it was back in Vorotolivke. The things that slip a person’s mind!
“But that’s all a lot of ancient history. By the time I was through running to Vorotolivke and getting all the necessary papers, they had taken away my Avrom-Yitzchok’s — I mean my Itsik’s — that is, my Alter’s — exemption. They wouldn’t even give him a deferment. Not even a deferment? Now we were in for it! I nearly tore my hair out: an only, a one-hundred-percent draft-proof son, eligible for induction! Well, go cry over spilled milk …
“Leave it to God to come through in the pinch, though. When it’s time for the draw, my Alter — I mean my Itsik — picks the highest number there is: six hundred and ninety-nine. You should have seen that draft board go wild. The chairman even slapped him on the back and said, ‘Bravo, Itsko, molodyets!’ I was the envy of the whole town. Six hundred ninety-nine — it was the winning ticket, that’s what it was. Everybody wanted to shake my hand. Congratulations, mazel tov! You’d have thought I’d won a million in the sweepstakes …
“I don’t have to tell you about our Jews, though. When it’s time for the physical, the disqualifications come faster than you can count. Suddenly every boy in town’s a hopeless invalid. There wasn’t one who didn’t claim to be a cripple …
“Well, that’s all a lot of ancient history. They ran through all the numbers until they reached six ninety-nine and my poor Itsik — I mean my poor Alter — had to pick himself up and go off to the induction center like any butcher or baker’s son. My wife was a nervous wreck, my daughter-in-law almost fainted. How, why, who ever heard of an only son with an automatic, a guaranteed exemption being taken for a physical — and without even hope of a deferment? The boy himself wouldn’t let on that he was worried—’If other Jews can be soldiers,’ he said, ‘so can this one’—but I was sure that he was shaking in his boots. Wouldn’t you have been?
“Leave it to God to come through again, though. My Alter — that is, my Itsik — was stripped to his bare bottom, begging your pardon, and brought in to the doctor, who measured him, weighed him, pinched him, poked him, and told him to go home. ‘You’ll never make a soldier out of a mutt like this,’ he says. ‘He doesn’t have what it takes. Why, he has barely thirty inches in the chest.’ (Thank God it takes what he has, I thought, not to have what it takes!) Back comes my Itsik — I mean my Alter — with a white card in his hand … hallelujah, it’s mazel tov again. The whole family got together, broke out a bottle, and drank a toast to the boy’s health. The Lord be praised, we could finally forget about the army …
“You know our Jews, though. Don’t think one of them didn’t find a Russian to complain that I had bribed the doctor! Would you believe that before two months had gone by there was a letter in the mailbox telling my Alter — that is, my Itsik — to report for another physical? How’s that for good news? Happy days are here again! My wife was a nervous wreck, my daughter-in-law almost fainted. How, why, who ever heard of an only son with a guaranteed, a one-hundred-percent exemption having to go for two physicals?
“That’s all a lot of ancient history, though. The fact of the matter was that a personal invitation from the governor was not something you turned down just like that. As soon as we came to the capital, I began to run around like mad. I went looking for people I knew, for someone to put in a good word; I climbed on my soapbox each time I mentioned my delicate, my one-and-only son … and do you know what it was good for in the end? It was good for a few good laughs, that’s what! And the boy himself? Frankly, I’d seen better-looking corpses — although, to listen to him, the trouble wasn’t the army at all. For the army, he said, he didn’t care a fiddlestick; if he had to go, he would go. So what was getting him down? The situation at home — that is, the female hysterics … I tell you, there we were at the governor’s and I didn’t know if I was coming or going. You know what, I thought: life is one big lottery, that’s what!
“But leave it to God to come through a third time! My Itsik — I mean my Alter — is brought in to the governor as naked, begging your pardon, as the day he was born, and this time a whole committee is there to perform the laying on of hands. They measure him, they weigh him, they pinch him, they poke him, and do you know what conclusion they come to? That he doesn’t have what it takes. (Thank God it took what he had not to have it!) At first one of them thought otherwise. ‘He passes!’ he said. ‘He fails!’ said the doctor. Passes, fails, passes, fails — it went on like that for a while until the governor himself got up from his chair, went over to have a good look, and said, ‘Passes? The hell he does!..’ ‘Mazel tov.’ I cabled home at once, ‘goods declared definitely damaged …’
“Listen to this, though. I happen to have a cousin with the same name as mine who lives in Mezritch too. He’s a rich Jew who deals in cattle, that’s who he is, and, if I may say so, a bit of a bastard on the side. Not that that’s such an unusual combination — but wouldn’t it be my luck that the telegram I sent was delivered to him by mistake, and just when he was all on edge waiting to hear about a big shipment of oxen he had sent! You can imagine what it did to his blood pressure to be handed a cable that said, ‘Mazel tov, goods declared damaged’—why, when I got back to Mezritch I thought he would eat me alive! Do you know what it’s like to be in Dutch with a rich bastard of a cattle dealer? As if it wasn’t enough for him to walk off with my telegram, he had to blame me for sending it yet …
“But let me get back to the time in Vorotolivke when my Itsik — I mean my Alter — was still a small boy. One fine day it was decided to have a census in town. The census takers went from house to house and wrote down who lived there, and how many children they had, and whether they were boys or girls, and what were their names — and when my wife, God bless her, was asked about our Itsik, she went and said that he was Alter. Well, there are no two ways about it: if you’re a census taker and you’re told ‘Alter,’ what do you write down? You write down ‘Alter.’
“And so a year after my Itsik was excused from the army, we got another letter in the maiclass="underline" would my son Alter kindly report to the draft board in Vorotolivke. In my worst dreams I should never have such a nightmare! Would you believe it? A new Jew is born: welcome to the world, Reb Alter!
“Well, that’s all a lot of ancient history. My boy Itsik — I mean Alter — had to go see the draft board again. My wife was a nervous wreck, my daughter-in-law almost fainted. How, why, who ever heard of an only son with an automatic, a guaranteed, a one-hundred-percent exemption having to appear three times before a draft board? A lot of good it did to explain that to anyone, though — I might as well have been talking Turkish. I had to run to our local community council and beat my breast before they would agree to have ten Jews sign an affidavit swearing that my Itsik was my Avrom-Yitzchok, and that my Avrom-Yitzchok was my Alter, and that my Alter, my Itsik, and my Avrom-Yitzchok were all one and the same boy.
“Affidavit in hand, I went to Vorotolivke. I arrive there—Well, well, well, look who’s here! What’s new, Reb Yosl? To what do we owe the pleasure? That’s all I needed, for them to know what I was there for! The less Jews know about your business, the better. ‘Nothing special,’ I said. ‘I just wanted a word with your squire.’ ‘What about?’ they ask. ‘About some grain, that’s what,’ I say. ‘I bought a consignment from him and paid him for it in advance. The grain never came, my money is gone — the dish ran away with the spoon …’ What I actually did, though, was go to the town hall, where I gave the affidavit to a clerk. He took one look at it, the clerk, and hit the ceiling. ‘Stupaytye!’ he says — in other words, I can go to hell, me and all my dirty Jew tricks. ‘If you scheming sheenies think you can dodge the draft,’ he says, ‘by turning Avrom into Yitzchok, and Yitzchok into Itsik, and Itsik into Alter, it’s time you realized that sort of hanky-panky doesn’t cut any ice around here!’ … Aha, I thought, hearing him say ‘hanky-panky,’ he’s out to line his own pocket — and I took out a coin, slipped it into his hand, and said to him in a whisper, ‘For your trouble, Your Worship.’ ‘What’s this,’ he roars at me, ‘bribery?’—and don’t think every clerk in that building didn’t come on the double to show me the way out in a hurry! It was just my luck to run into someone with principles … although to tell you the truth, that’s only in a manner of speaking. One is never at a loss among Jews; it didn’t take me long to find one whose money that clerk was less finicky about. The only trouble was that it did as much good as chicken soup does a dead man — when all was said and done, there I still was, stuck with a son named Alter. And since Alter is what his name was, would he kindly report to the draft board in Vorotolivke … What a mess!