Antwerp’s your true diamondland!
Diamonds gleam on every hand!
Everyone a millionaire!
Not a poor man anywhere!
Diamonds on such clearance sales
They’re even in the garbage pails!
Diamonds glitter! Diamonds flash!
All that’s missing is …some cash.
I can’t remember the rest.
You would need the brains of a genius to remember all of Pinye’s poems. Elye scolds him. He says that if that poem about Antwerp reaches Ezrah, we’ll be thrown out the door. We’re counting on Ezrah to finance the next leg of our trip.
We go there every day. It’s our second home. Fraulein Seitchik knows us all by name. She loves me like a son. She’s a sister to my mother. You can see why even Brokheh admits she has a Jewish soul. All the emigrants are in love with her. Best of all, she speaks Jewish. Everyone else in Antwerp talks a kind of German called Flemish. You couldn’t beat it out of them with a stick. Pinye can’t understand why, with so many Jews around, people don’t learn a Jewish language. But not even the beggars would agree to that. They’d rather die of hunger as long as it’s in Flemish.
Brokheh has had it with Flemish. She’s itching to get to London. She just wishes someone would drop a diamond in the street before we leave. Just one little stone from a hole in someone’s pocket! Her eyes shine when she talks about it.
It beats me why she’s so wild about diamonds. I’d trade all the diamonds in the world for a paint box and a brush. Not long ago I drew a ship with a pencil. I drew a gang of emigrants on it, each with his own face, and gave it as a present to Goldeleh. Goldeleh showed it to Fraulein Seitchik, who hung it on the wall for all to see. Elye saw it too and whacked me. “More doodles! Are you going to stop your doodling or not?” He hasn’t hit me so hard in ages. I told Goldeleh, who told Fraulein Seitchik, who came out of her office to bawl Elye out. She gave him a whole speech about my drawing. He listened and went home and hit me harder. He says he’ll beat every last doodle out of me.
We made our last visit to Ezrah today. Don’t ask me what we did there. Elye got into an argument. Pinye talked with his hands. Brokheh butted in and my mother began to cry. The people at Ezrah tried talking to us, mostly in that German of theirs. There were three of them, all trying to see who spoke it better. May I hope to die if I knew what they were saying. My mind was already aboard ship — at sea, in London, in America. Suddenly Goldeleh comes running, all out of breath.
“You’re going?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Where?”
“To London.”
“And from there?”
“To America.”
“And I’ll be left behind with my bad eyes! God knows if I’ll ever see my mama and papa again.”
That’s what she said, Goldeleh, and burst into tears. It broke me up. I didn’t know how to comfort her. All I could think of was: “God Almighty! What do you have against this little girl? What did she ever do to you?” I took her hand and stroked it and said:
“Don’t cry, Goldeleh. You’ll see. As soon as I make a living in America, I’ll send you calamine for your eyes. And I’ll send you a ticket too, half fare because you’re under ten, and you’ll come to America. Your mama and papa will be waiting for you at Ella’s Island. So will I. You’ll look for me and there I’ll be — look, I’ll be holding this pencil. That’s how you’ll recognize me, Motl. You’ll get off the ship and give your parents a hug, but you won’t go straight home with them. You’ll give them your things and come with me to see America. I’ll show you everything, because I’ll know it cold by then. Then I’ll bring you to your parents’ and we’ll have a bowl of hot soup.”
Goldeleh didn’t want to hear any more. She threw her arms around me and kissed me. I kissed her too.
Leave it to Brokheh! She’s always popping up where you least expect her. Just when I’m saying good-bye to Goldeleh, she has to put in an appearance. She didn’t say anything. She just went “A-haaaa!” in a voice ten feet deep. Then she wrinkled her nose and pursed her lips in this weird way and said “A-hemmm!” and went off to look for Elye. I don’t know what she told him. I only know that as soon as we left Ezrah, I got two slaps that made me see stars.
“But why?” asked my mother. “What was that for?”
“He knows what it’s for,” Elye answered and we went back to our hotel.
It’s time to pack. What a scene! I like to watch people pack. My brother Elye is a whiz at it. As soon as there’s packing to do, he pulls off his coat and gives orders. “Hand me the dirty laundry! …Mama, the teapot! …That hat, Brokheh, quick! …Pinye, those galoshes! You’re blind as a bat, they’re right under your nose! …Motl, what are you standing like a dummy for? Pitch in! All he can do is doodle, doodle, doodle!”
That’s me! I jump up and grab all I can and throw it at him. Elye yells that I’ll catch it. My mother sticks up for me: “What do you want from the child?” Brokheh objects to my being called a child. My mother remembers I’m an orphan and starts to cry. Elye shouts:
“Go ahead, cry, cry your eyes out!”
So long, Antwerp!
LONDON, YOU SHOULD BURN!
In all my life I’ve never seen a carnival like the one in London. I mean, it isn’t in London. It’s London that’s the carnival. The clamor, the yammer, the hooting, the tooting, the people — like ants! Where are they all coming from and going to? They must be hungry or running to catch a train. Why else would they knock you down and step all over you?
I’m talking about Pinye. Pinye, you’ll recall, doesn’t see so well. That’s why he goes around with his head in the sky and his feet dragging after him. He looks like an absentminded angel. His mind is always somewhere else.
Pinye’s introduction to London came in the railroad station. We had barely crawled out of the train when disaster struck. He was first on the platform, one pant leg hiked up, one sock falling down, his necktie jerked to one side — in short, the usual Pinye. I had just never seen him so excited. He was on fire as though with a fever. The weirdest words came tumbling out of him: “London! England! Disraeli! Buckle! History! Civilization …!” You couldn’t get him to calm down.
Two minutes later our friend Pinye was on the ground, being walked on as though he were a plank. It’s a good thing Taybl looked for him and screamed: “Pinye, where are you?” Elye leaped into the crowd and pulled him out, as pale and crumpled as an old hat.
That was for starters. Act Two came later that day, in a neighborhood with the Jewish name of Vaytshepl. That’s a place where you can buy fish and meat and prayer books and apples and barley beer and sugar cakes and herring and prayer shawls and lemons and wool and eggs and bottles and pots and noodles and brooms and whistles and pepper and rope, just like back home. It has everything. It even has your Kasrilevke mud. It smells the same too, only worse.
It did our hearts good to see Vaytshepl. It did Pinye too much good. “Why, it’s Berdichev!” he shouted. “Children, I swear, we’re not in London at all, we’re in Berdichev!” The next thing I know he’s been given such a Berdichev that I thought it was the hospital for sure. Since then Taybl doesn’t let him take a step in London without her.