“Believe me, I must be made of iron to have lived through all that. And yet looking back, what was a fool like me so afraid of? The boy could have been called up a hundred times, he still didn’t have what it took. (Thank God, I thought, that it took what he had not to have it!) In fact, he had already been turned down twice … though on the other hand, I couldn’t help thinking: here I am in a strange town, and one with principles yet — who knows what’s liable to happen …
“Leave it to God to come through another time, though! My Alter — I mean my Itsik — drew a new number, went for a new physical, and managed to fail this one too. Now, with God’s help, we had three white cards …
“Well, the boy returned to Mezritch — what a welcome! We threw a big party, the whole town was invited, and we danced and whooped it up all night long. What could anyone do to me now? I wouldn’t have changed places with a king!
“But I had better get back to my Eisik, God rest him, who knocked over the samovar when he was little. Listen, just listen to this: who could have guessed that because the right reverend of Vorotolivke had forgotten to file a death certificate for my Eisik, I would find a letter in the mailbox one day telling him to please report for the draft? Talk about bolts from the blue! What did they want from my poor life? How could I bring my Eisik to the draft board when he was with the angels in heaven? That’s just what I told that government rabbi too; what, I asked him, what was I supposed to do now? ‘You have a problem,’ he says to me. ‘You don’t say!’ I say. ‘And just what do you think it might be?’ ‘Your problem,’ he says, ‘is that Itsik and Eisik happen to be the same name.’ ‘Oh, they do, do they?’ I say. ‘And how does a genius like you figure that?’ ‘Why, it’s very simple,’ he says. ‘Itsik is Yitzchok, and Yitzchok is Isaac, and Isaac is Eisik, so Eisik is Itsik.’ Elementary, no?
“To make a long story short, why bother with a lot of ancient history? My Eisik was wanted by the draft board — it would make my life miserable until I produced him, that’s what it would do! At home the hysterics started all over again. Hysterics? The end of the world! In the first place, the mere mention of Eisik reopened my poor wife’s old wounds. ‘If only he could go to the army,’ she wept, ‘and not have to rot in the grave …’ And besides, she was scared to death that the draft board, God forbid, would reason the same as the rabbi — namely, that Itsik was Yitzchok, Yitzchok was Isaac, Isaac was Eisik, so Eisik was Itsik. Wouldn’t that be just dandy! The thought of it made her a nervous wreck, my daughter-in-law almost fainted. It was really no joke: an only son, with an automatic, a guaranteed, a one-hundred-percent lifetime exemption, three times before the draft board, three white cards to show for it — and he still wasn’t out of the woods …
“Well, I took myself in hand, that’s what I did, and went to Yehupetz to see a good lawyer. And I brought my son with me to see a professor of medicine who could tell us if he had what it took or not, though I knew very well that he didn’t. (That is, it took what he had to have what it took not to have it!) With a legal and a medical opinion, I thought, I could finally sleep soundly at night … but do you know what I found out? I found out that those lawyers and doctors didn’t know which end was up. Whatever one said, another said the opposite; they couldn’t agree on a thing. It was enough to drive me out of my mind. Just listen to this.
“The first lawyer we saw was a real pinhead, though you would never have guessed it from the size of his noodle, which had a bald spot big enough to fry an egg on. He was so brainy, that man, that he couldn’t even understand who was Itsik, who was Alter, who was Avrom-Yitzchok, and who was Eisik. I had to keep telling him that the first three were one boy, and that it was Eisik who knocked over the samovar in Vorotolivke, where I lived before moving to Mezritch, after I left Mazapevke. At last, when I thought he had finally gotten it, he asked, Just tell me one thing, though: which of them is the eldest — Itsik, Alter, or Avrom-Yitzchok?’
“ ‘Try to concentrate,’ I said. ‘I’ve already told you fifteen times that Itsik, Avrom-Yitzchok, and Alter are all the same person, that’s who they are — that is, Itsik is really Avrom-Yitzchok, but his mother called him Alter for good luck. It was Eisik who knocked over the samovar in Vorotolivke, I mean before I moved to—’
“ ‘Just tell me when,’ he says, ‘that is, in what year, Avrom-Alter — I mean Yitzchok-Eisik — was first asked to report for the draft.’
“ ‘But you’re all bollixed up!’ I say. ‘You’re mixing kasha with borscht. I’ve never in my life met a Jew like you, with such a goy’s head on his shoulders. I’m telling you that Yitzchok, and Avrom-Yitzchok, and Itsik, and Alter are all the same person. The same, do you hear me? The same!’
“ ‘All right, all right,’ he says. ‘You don’t have to shout. What are you shouting for?’
“Would you believe it? He wants to know why I’m shouting …
“Well, I said to the Devil with him, that’s what I did, and I went to see another lawyer. This one turned out to be a real logic chopper — in fact, he chopped it a little too fine. He listened to my story, stroked his forehead, waggled his thumb, and began to explain to me that there was a statute on the books that said that the authorities in Mezritch had no right to call the boy up in the first place, although on the other hand, there was another statute that said that since he was called up, the authorities in Vorotolivke could be requested to issue a waiver, which did not mean, however, that the authorities in Mezritch could not be required to waive the request, provided that in the meantime, of course, the authorities in Vorotolivke had not waived the right to have the waiver waived …
“In short, he kept waiving me such waivers that I waved goodbye to him and went to see a third lawyer, that’s where I went. Some meatball he was too, a young fellow fresh out of law school, still wet behind the ears, so to speak! Not that he wasn’t quite charming, with a voice as clear as a bell — the problem was that it didn’t stop ringing. He must have been taking voice lessons, because he kept listening to himself talk as if it were on doctor’s orders. In fact, he was having such a fine time making speeches that I had to interrupt him and say, ‘That’s all very well, and I wouldn’t doubt it for a moment, but what good does your yatata do me? I want some advice from you, that’s what I want, about keeping my son out of the army …’