The Letters of Menakhem-Mendl and Sheyne-Sheyndl and Motl, the Cantor's Son Read online

  FROM SHEYNE-SHEYNDL IN KASRILEVKE TO HER HUSBAND MENAKHEN-MENDL IN YEHUPETZ

  To my dear, learned, & illustrious husband Menakhem-Mendl, may your light shine!

  First, we’re all well, thank God. I hope to hear no worse from you.

  Second, I must have read your song-and-dance a dozen times and I still don’t know what you want. Is there room in Kasrilevke? There’s enough room in our new cemetery alone to bury half of Yehupetz. And what is this river you talk about? I hope you and your partners have more luck than we have water in our river. By Passover time we’re drinking tadpoles and in summer it’s as grassy as a lawn. Let your Yehupetz bluebeards take a sip of it in the month of Tammuz and they’ll need their liver pills indeed.

  No, Mendl, let their livers rot in Yehupetz and we’ll get along without their sugar mills here. “Passover cleaning,” my mother says, “comes and goes, but the house remains the same house.” Get all that claptrap out of your head. You’ll sell as many mills as you’ve sold forests, country property, Yehupetz real estate, and sugar. I promise you that your partners will clean you out before you know it, because you were born a sucker and a sucker you’ll always be. I wish you all the best,

  Your truly faithful wife,

  Sheyne-Sheyndl

  One more thing, Mendl. What’s this we hear about registering in Yehupetz to go to the Land of Israel? A forty-kopeck subscription, we’re told, will get you there. What’s the lowdown? Here in Kasrilevke it’s all anyone talks about. The young folk sit up discussing it all night at Yosl Moyshe-Yosi’s. In short, things are going from bad to worse. But if you want peace and quiet, my mother says, you should look for it in the grave …

  FROM MENAKHEM-MENDL IN YEHUPETZ TO HIS WIFE SHEYNE-SHEYNDL IN KASRILEVKE

  To my wise, esteemed, & virtuous wife Sheyne-Sheyndl, may you have a long life!

  Firstly, rest assured that I am, praise God, in the best of health. God grant that we hear from each other only good and pleasing news, amen.

  Secondly, sugar mills are in a slump. It’s sellers only. Money is so dear and sugar is so cheap that you can’t give the stuff away. The business is kaput. The millers are fighting to stay alive. The investors are gone, the agents are out of work, and so am I.

  I suppose you think I’m in a bad way. Never fear, my dear wife. God’s in His heaven and Yehupetz is still around, too. You can trust me to land on my feet. In fact, I have reason to believe that I’m about to hit the jackpot, since my latest line promises a return of 100,000 to one. I’m talking ten million rubles, maybe more—the sky is the limit! That’s because gold, they say, will soon hit record highs. Well, then, I ask you: what about silver? What about iron? What about copper, tin, quicksilver? I’m not even talking coal and precious stones. There are tracts of land sitting on fortunes—why, you can pick up a gold mine, I’m told, for as little as three-million-five. They’re practically free! They’re just a bit far away. They’re beyond the Uropal Mountains and it takes three weeks to reach them because there aren’t any trains.

  Whom can I interest in such a proposition? Brodsky, of course! The problem is getting to see him. To begin with, he has a doorman with gold buttons who looks you up and down: let him see a frayed coat and you’ll never cross the threshold. And if you’re lucky enough to get past the doorman, you can cool your heels on the stairs for hours, hoping to be let into Brodsky’s office, only to see him fly by like the wind to his carriage just as your turn is next. Go do something about it! It’s only polite to come back and try again the next day …and the next day the same thing happens. You have to hand it to him: he’s a busy man!

  You can see that getting to Brodsky isn’t easy. I haven’t given up, though. One crack at him and I have it made. But being busy and in a hurry, I’ll be brief. God willing, I’ll write more in my next letter. Meanwhile, may He grant you health and success. My fondest greetings to everyone and to the children,

  Your husband,

  Menakhem-Mendl

  P.S. Your question concerning the Land of Israel no doubt refers to the Zionites. They’re most serious people, though not well thought of on the Yehupetz Exchange. I’ve gone to a few of their meetings to see what it’s all about, but everything was in Russian—and lots of it. You would think it would be no skin off their backs to talk to Jews in a Jewish language! My friends on the Exchange just laugh when I mention them: “What? The Cyanides? Dr. Herzl? You call that a business too?”

  FROM SHEYNE-SHEYNDL IN KASRILEVKE TO HER HUSBAND MENAKHEN-MENDL IN YEHUPETZ

  To my dear, learned, & illustrious husband Menakhem-Mendl, may your light shine!

  First, we’re all well, thank God. I hope to hear no worse from you.

  Second, my sister Gitl is now a widow with seven orphans. My brother-in-law—may my life be as long as his was short!—has died of the toothache. Of course, his health wasn’t too good before that. I hope never to cough up blood the way he did. Still, we thought he’d hang on. Who could guess he’d have a tooth pulled by Shmelke the healer and lie down the next morning and die? It’s as my mother says: “Tomorrow is another day—but whose?”

  And now poor Gitl is left by herself. Her grief is not to be described. If it had been the other way around, God forbid, and she had died and left Zalman-Meir a widower, I don’t suppose he would have wasted any tears on her. No, he would have waited a month and sent to Berdichev for a stepmother. All you men are the same—you’re not fit to fasten your wives’ apron strings. If you were, would a father of children go chasing pots of gold at the end of a rainbow? A millionaire he thinks he’ll be! His lordship is doing so well that he’s even made it to Brodsky’s front door! I’m afraid that’s as far as you’ll get. I swear, you’ll wear out your boots just standing there! Do you think Brodsky has nothing better to do than fly away with his millions to some blasted place beyond the Uropal Mountains just because Menakhem-Mendl has heard that gold and quicksilver are lying on the ground there? It’s the old story of the deaf man hearing the dumb man tell of the blind man seeing the cripple run …

  I can already see your next letter informing me that your latest bonanza has fizzled out too. Not that you won’t dream up something even crazier and write that, since the cow jumped over the roof and laid an egg, you’re opening a hatchery. If only you’d get it into your head that you have a wife at home, provided she survives all this, and little children who await you like the Messiah, you wouldn’t be running from door to door with your lunatic notions that are sickening to think of. You haven’t learned a thing from your Yehupetz. I’d put a torch to it!

  I wish you all the best,

  Your truly faithful wife,

  Sheyne-Sheyndl

  Here’s an item for you. Do you remember Meir-Meshulams? He has a daughter, Shprintsl. She’s as strong and healthy as a horse—old enough to be married by now, it’s true, but still a fine girl. Well, who goes and falls for her but a book peddler, a fellow that goes from house to house with penny novels. Poor Shprintsl took such a fancy to them that she must have read a hundred and now she’s tetched in the head. She talks in strange words that no one understands, insists her name is Bertha and not Shprintsl, and says she’s waiting for a calvalier to carry her off through the window and the devil knows where, London or Stamboul…. You tell me: don’t the waffleheads who write such crazy stuff deserve to be strung up?

  FROM MENAKHEM-MENDL IN YEHUPETZ TO HIS WIFE SHEYNE-SHEYNDL IN KASRILEVKE

  To my wise, esteemed, & virtuous wife Sheyne-Sheyndl, may you have a long life!

  Firstly, rest assured that I am, praise God, in the best of health. God grant that we hear from each other only good and pleasing news, amen.

  Secondly, we have a great God! Just listen to this.

  Now that I’m a regular at Brodsky’s, I’m known all over the Exchange. Traders come to me with a thousand different proposals: houses, country property, lumber, railroads, steamboats, factories worth millions, all on account of Brodsky…. Well, there are these two partners, neither f
rom these parts. One goes around in a long cape with a hood and the other has a name that’s too weird to write. One day they get hold of me on my way to Brodsky’s and Long Cape says: “Listen here, Reb Menakhem-Mendl, we’d like a word with you. It’s like this. We’ve heard you’re friends with Brodsky. Don’t get us wrong. We have nothing against that.” “Well, then,” I say, “what is it that you want?” “What is it that we want?” they answer. “We want what everyone does: to make some cash. We’re traders ourselves, we have businesses. Let’s not quibble over who needs who more, because we’d like to make you a fifty-fifty offer. We’ll all earn a little less that way, but it will be money in the bank. Better a bird in the hand, as they say.” “Look,” I tell them, “let’s not beat around the bush. Don’t be shy and show me your cards.” “Praise God,” they say, “we have a full deck of them. We have coal in Poltava. We have iron in Kanyov. We have a burned-out mill in Pereyaslav. We have some brand-new machines invented by a Jew from Pinsk. We have a country squire out to trade a forest for a distillery. We have a Jew looking for a large, cheap house in Yehupetz. We have country property, woodland! Bring us the buyers and we have the estate; bring us the estate and we have the buyers.” “Nix to that,” I say. “I’m through with country property and forests. I wouldn’t touch them with a ten-foot pole.” “Come, come,” says Long Cape. “You know every deal is not the same. Why, I have a property now in the Caucasus, a place sitting on fields of oil—whole geysers are gushing from the ground! They say it’s good for a million barrels a day.” “Now you’re talking!” I say. “That’s what I call a business. Count me in.”

  The three of us went to the Jewish cafeteria. (I’ve stopped going to Semadenni’s because they just chuck you out anyway. The cafeteria is cozier and you can talk all day.) Just as we’re about to sign on the dotted line, in walk four more partners: a fellow I know with fat lips, a blond bluffer who sells watches, a bigger one with a red, warty nose, and another man, a widower. I needn’t tell you that I wasn’t thrilled by that, but Long Cape gave me such a lecture, with so many good points in it, that I agreed to go along. Of course, you can’t have partners without quarrels: everyone wanted a bigger share. Still, if we come to terms with the oilmen, God willing, as easily as we did with each other, we won’t be doing badly. It’s a million-smacker-apiece deal. Let it go through and I’ll rent an office on Nikolaievsky Street and be in the big time! But as I’m busy and in a hurry, I’ll be brief. God willing, I’ll write more in my next letter. Meanwhile, may He grant you health and success. Give my fond greetings to the children, each and every single one of them.

  Your husband,

  Menakhem-Mendl

  P.S. There was something important that I wanted to write you, but I can’t remember what it was. I’ll have to leave it for the next time.

  Yours, etc.

  FROM SHEYNE-SHEYNDL IN KASRILEVKE TO HER HUSBAND MENAKHEM-MENDL IN YEHUPETZ

  To my dear, learned, & illustrious husband Menakhem-Mendl, may your light shine!

  First, we’re all well, thank God. I hope to hear no worse from you.

  Second, I’ll be brief myself, because I have no strength left to write. A body might as well throw peas at the wall. “No bridegroom,” my mother says, “hears sad music at his own wedding.” Rolling in millions outside Brodsky’s door may make you a hero in Yehupetz, but you’re not such a big shot here. The millions roll past you to Brodsky and your fields of oil are a lot of water on the brain. All you’ll get from them is a good soaking! Listen to me and come home. Forget the past and anything mean I may have said. “Better a slap from a friend than a kiss from an enemy,” says my mother. Send a telegram and catch the first coach home. It will be the end of all my troubles.

  I wish you nothing but the best,

  Your truly faithful wife,

  Sheyne-Sheyndl

  If you’d like to hear the latest news, the whole town is talking about it. Do you remember Moyshe-Meir’s Meir-Motl? He has a daughter named Ratzl and some Ratzl she is—an honest-to-God spitfire, a maddymissell with book-learning who speaks French and plays the pianer and wouldn’t give a young man the time of day. You’d never guess she came from a long line of butchers—but a miserly father makes a spendthrift son, my mother says. She’s gotten a heap of proposals, Ratzl has, and turned down every one. Nobody is good enough for her. The husband she marries has to have everything: looks, brains, money—a prince from a fairy tale! The matchmakers have tried everything. The last fellow they came up with was a real gem, a young man as rare as a drop-o’-cool fruit, a small-town boy from Avrich. They picked a halfway spot, brought the two of them there, and put them in a room to get acquainted. Right off Ratzl turns to the young man and asks, “So, what’s your opinion of Dryfuss?” “Dry-who?” he asks. “Who’s that?” “What?” screams Ratzl. “You’ve never heard of Dryfuss?” “No,” he says. “What’s his line?” The next thing you know Ratzl runs out of the room and faints and the poor fellow crawls back to Avrich with his tail between his legs. The devil take them both! Just tell me one thing: you keep smart company—who is this Dryfuss and what’s the fuss all about?

  FROM MENAKHEM-MENDL IN YEHUPETZ TO HIS WIFE SHEYNE-SHEYNDL IN KASRILEVKE

  To my wise, esteemed, & virtuous wife Sheyne-Sheyndl, may you have a long life!

  Firstly, rest assured that I am, praise God, in the best of health. God grant that we hear from each other only good and pleasing news, amen.

  Secondly, Brodsky and I have split up. Not that we’ve quarreled, God forbid. I simply steer clear of him. Why hang around with Brodsky when I’m about to see Rothschild in Paris?

  You must be wondering why I need to see Rothschild. The answer is Caucasus oil. All the oil there belongs to Rothschild, even though he spends his time in Paris. How, then, do we bring the horse to water? Well, I had an idea. There was a big investor on the Exchange named Todres, a real go-getter. Back when the market crashed and we all took up trading, Todres went to Paris and became a millionaire. Now, by a stroke of luck, he’s in Yehupetz. I wasted no time, went to see him, and let him know loud and clear that I’m into land in the Caucasus that’s gushing with oil and needs capital. Right off the bat he says, “I have the man for you.” “And who,” I ask, “might that be?” “Rothschild,” he says. “You mean to say you know Rothschild?” I ask. “Do I know Rothschild?” he says. “I’ve lost count of how many deals we’ve done together and how much I’ve made from them.” “Excuse me for asking,” I say, “but would it be too much trouble for you to drop him a line?” “Writing Rothschild,” he says, “is no problem. The two of us are thick as thieves. But that’s neither here nor there. You have to have an itemized proposal. Otherwise there’s no point.”

  To make a long story short, I went to my partners and came back with a proposal itemized seventeen different ways. What do you say now, my dear wife: is your Menakhem-Mendl a businessman or not? Let God give us the go-ahead from Rothschild and I’m at the head of the class! The only problem is that meanwhile I’m strapped for cash. You should see how hard-up all Yehupetz is. A day doesn’t go by without a new bankruptcy. But don’t you fret, my dear. It’s only temporary. All our trials, God willing, will soon have a happy end. As soon as I get word from Paris, I’ll do some shopping for us and for the children, bless them all. And being busy and in a hurry, I’ll be brief. God willing, I’ll write more in my next letter. Meanwhile, may He grant you health and success. Give my fondest greetings to the children and to everyone,

  Your husband,

  Menakhem-Mendl

  P.S. The story you ask about is an interesting one. It all begins with a Dreyfus who was a captain in Paris—that is, with a captain named Dreyfus. And Esterhazy was a major. (That’s higher than a captain, unless it’s the other way around.) Captain Dreyfus was a Jew but Major Esterhazy was a Christian and he wrote a memoveranda framing the captain. Dreyfus didn’t take that lying down and was sentenced to eternal life on an island in the sea. Along came Zola and made a stink sh
owing that Dreyfus didn’t write the memoveranda. It was all the major’s fault, Esterhazy’s! And so Esterhazy went to jail. Then Zola upped and ran away and a colonel named Picquart raised a rumpus. That made a bunch of generals like Mercier and Roget tell more lies about Dreyfus. Pretty soon the Frenchies were fighting with themselves about bringing Dreyfus back from the island. There was a trial in Rennes with a big lawyer from Paris and they shot him in the back—the lawyer, that is, not Dreyfus. Then they wiped the floor with those generals and Dreyfus was convicted and set free. That’s because he was guilty even though he was innocent and go do something about it! I trust it’s all clear to you now.

  Yours, etc.

  FROM SHEYNE-SHEYNDL IN KASRILEVKE TO HER HUSBAND MENAKHEM-MENDL IN YEHUPETZ

  To my dear, learned, & illustrious husband Menakhem-Mendl, may your light shine!

  First, we’re all well, thank God. I hope to hear no worse from you.

  Second, you’re a madman. You’re gushing with oil, you’re off to Paris, you’re throwing around millions! Next you’ll be howling like a dog in the streets. His lordship is one of your rich Yehupetz Jews, the proof being that he’s broke and so are they! “If it acts like a donkey and brays like a donkey,” my mother says, “it must be a donkey.”

  Mark my words, Mendl: if you’re not brought home in chains, it will be in a straightjacket. One way or another, you’ll realize you have a wife, may she live to see the day, who knows better than you. And as for all your shopping, I thank you kindly. Yehupetz’s shops should have nothing but customers like you and your lying partners who are worth gadzillions and haven’t a kopeck! I only hope I’ve heard the worst of it. My very best wishes,