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

  But after the last straw, there’s always more, as my mother says. Here I am, up to my ears with his lordship’s children, with the doctors, with haunts and hobgoblins in my own home, and Mr. Goldfingers couldn’t care less. He’s off to Odessa, to Yehupetz, to Boiberik! How is that? He’s made a great discovery: stockings & bands! Transports! Portfolderols! He only has to shut and open his eyes and he’s a millionaire! The worst illness, says my mother, is gullibillness. You’re a fool to think your big words impress me. Shares, shmares! I’d rather own a rotten egg. No one ever made money by counting on his fingers. You know what my mother says: invest a fever and you’ll earn consumption. Mark my words, Mendl, all your overnight Yehupetz tycoons will soon by the grace of God be the same beggars they were before. I have as much faith in your Transports and your Shmaltzevs as I had in your Lumdums. Why, I’d sooner believe in black magic than in your portfolderols. I tell you, if a mad dog ate my heart it would go crazy! When I think there are wives in this world who are listened to by their husbands and will know the reason why if they aren’t while I have to treat his lordship with kid gloves because God forbid he should hear a cross word from me! How I’d love once and for all to give you a piece of my mind instead of pretending to smile! “A pinch in the cheek,” my mother says, “makes it rosy.” But what’s a poor woman to do? Burn quietly like a candle, I suppose. Or else be consumed by bad corpsicles. The worst enemies of the Jews should have them in my place! Or better yet, your Yehupetz hot shots. I am, from the bottom of my heart,

  Your truly faithful wife,

  Sheyne-Sheyndl.

  Mum’s the word but your uncle Menashe’s son Berl is in hot water again. A week ago his house burned down and left him penniless, and now his enemies have ratted that it was insured at three times its value. It looks like he lit the match himself. He was even called in for questioning. But Berl’s no fool; he went and found witnesses to swear he was somewhere else that night. That’s why he was arrested. His wife Zlatke had such a scare that she gave birth in her seventh month. Congratulations, the baby is doing well!

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

  To my wise, esteemed, & virtuous wife Sheyne-Sheyndl, may you live 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, I’m soon off to Warsaw. I suppose you’ll ask why, when I’m investing in Petersburg stocks, I need to go to Warsaw. But don’t you fret. Warsaw is not a bad place. And does it have stocks & bonds! It’s an investors’ paradise, Warsaw is, not at all like Petersburg. 100-ruble notes are scrap paper there. Why, just this week Liliputs jumped in Warsaw from 1,200 to 2,000! I ask you: can a man twiddle his thumbs in Yehupetz at such a time? Or take Roads & Rails. A week ago it closed at 3 or 4 hundred and what do you think it’s worth now? Five times as much! No one even asks for a stock certificate. It’s a perfect crime, in my opinion, not to buy Roads & Rails in Warsaw while you can. Everything is on margin. You put down a few hundred smackers and pay the rest on the first of the month. (I mean the Christian month—they have them too.) And when the first arrives you have the option of taking your shares or not. But who lets you wait that long? Among God’s creatures are speculators who stop you in the street and ask: “Maybe you have some Liliputs for me? How about Roads & Rails?” They make you think it’s God’s gift to find a buyer. Just yesterday two fellows from Odessa got hold of me and wouldn’t take no for an answer. They thought they had come across a sucker. “Brothers,” I said, “I’m all out. I should have as much on my conscience as I have Liliputs or Roads & Rails.” They kept at it until I had parted with my last 5 shares of each. Don’t think they got the best of me, though, because right away I bought those shares back from them at a slight mark-up. Lately, knock wood, whatever I’ve bought has gone up. They all say I have a gift for it. Let the first of the month come around and I’ll pay off my portfoliage. Then I’ll switch to another brokerage. The one I work in now has too many Jews for comfort. There’s a new scene there every week. The last time it even came to blows. But because I’m 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 regards to everyone,

  Your husband,

  Menakhem-Mendl

  P.S. I can easily believe what you write about Berl. It’s the only way for a Kasrilevke merchant to survive. Mind you, such things don’t happen in Yehupetz. In the first place, we’re all doing well. And secondly, if a fire breaks out here, God forbid, we have ways to deal with it. Before it can spread a battalion in brass helmets rushes up and sprays it with a rubber gut. A Yehupetz fire is a sight for sore eyes!

  Yours, etc.

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

  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 dear husband, I pronounce you a certified lunatic. You might as well run naked through the streets! As if it weren’t enough for Odessa, Yehupetz, and Boiberik to know that M.M. stands for Market Maniac, you have to let Warsaw in on it too. First it was Lumdums and now it’s stockings, Pottyboils, Lilyfoots, portfolderols, Rack & Ruin! For a box on the ear you have to go all the way to Warsaw? God in heaven, find me the wizard who can box the nonsense out of you! You who happen to have, should she still be alive when you read this, a wife who is up all day and all night with your children, because if it isn’t one thing, it’s another. Just yesterday one of them was almost burned to death by a colander of boiling water that barely missed it. There’s good luck even in bad, my mother says—but what does that have to do with his lordship? He’s too busy attending fires. He thinks Yehupetz is burning down just for him. It should burn and take Warsaw and Petersburg with it! I can’t walk the streets without good, God-fearing folk washing their hands in my blood. They point and say, “There goes the Yehupetzer’s Missus,” and I could crawl into a hole in the ground…. My mother, bless her, wasn’t joking when she said: “Never let a husband off the leash. Not even a carpenter knows where the chips will fly.” She never doubted, she says, that my marriage would come to no good end. I should have married for money, she says. If I was going to marry a swine, I should have married a rich one. “I’d sooner send your husband a ten-foot tapeworm,” she says, “than another letter!” She says a cane can accomplish more than a wink. I should bring you home on a broomstick, she says. No, on an oven poker!

  I ask you: is she right or not? But what good does that do when a ninny like me believes all she’s told and never stands up for herself! Anyone else—Blume-Zlate, say—would have been in Yehupetz long ago, lining up the rabbis. She would have waylaid you in the street and given you a hiding to make you forget you’re Menakhem-Mendl the stocking dealer…. But what am I saying when all your fine gifts are proof of your wonderful business? The diamonds, the precious stones, the embroidered blouses, the goose-down mattresses—don’t think I’m not grateful…. I tell you, my husband, I’ve put up with as much as I can. Either you get yourself home in a jiffy and act like a human being—or else! As I wish my enemies an early death, so I am from the bottom of my heart,

  Your truly faithful wife,

  Sheyne-Sheyndl

  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 things, amen.

  Secondly, I’m going like a house afire. I’m growing all the time. The whole world is jealous that whatever I buy is worth more tomorrow. Roads & Rails are up 200 and my Liliputs, praise God, have broken 3,000. It doesn’t pay to sell, though, because word is the market will keep rising. Rumo
r has it that Europinian money is flowing into it. A syndicate—that’s a kind of high-class club—has been formed to buy us out down to the last share. If you’re wondering why, it’s quite simple. There’s a glut of gold in the world; they’re dumping gold in the streets. That’s driven down interest rates and 4 or 5 percent is now considered a good return. Well, suppose I can get you 10 or 15 on the Yehupetz Exchange, wouldn’t you call that a sound investment? …And as for what you incorrectly call “Lilyfoots,” I’ve already told you it’s a rolling stock that pays dividends. The factory is in Warsaw, the railroads are in Siberia, and the customers are in Yehupetz. Putivil, Roads & Rails, and Transport are the same. Don’t imagine you actually get to see them. That’s a common misconception I’ll explain. Suppose you have a yen for Transports. You go to a broker, put down a few rubles, and get a letter saying you’ve purchased X number of shares at so much per share for so many rubles. If Transports drop you still pay the full price—but that never happens, so it’s silly to worry about it. On the contrary, stocks keep rising. My position has never been so strong. If I can spare the time I’ll scoot over to register in Vasilkov so that I can stop being a commuter. All the big investors do it. You should see how they live, what they eat! And the jewelry on their wives! I’ve asked around for the best places for diamonds and have my eyes on some stones that will, I promise you, knock them out in Yehupetz no less than in Kasrilevke. But as I’m 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,

  Your husband,

  Menakhem-Mendl

  P.S. You may think, my dear wife, that I’m the biggest investor around. Let me tell you that Brodsky is bigger. The difference is that I buy what I can while he snaps up 1, 5, 10 thousand shares at a time. You can’t take on Brodsky. The whole Kreshchatik trembles when he drives by. All the Jews doff their hats and so do I. Imagine my being a Brodsky too one day! A foolish thought—but nothing is impossible with God …

  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, my mother says you can’t make a fur hat from a pig’s tail. I’m referring to your charming sister-in-law Yentl. May she never live to see the day, but this week she spread the word around town that you’d run off to America and left me high and dry. What little bird told her that? She heard it from Soreh-Nekhameh, who had it from Leizi-Hirshke, who told her that Ben-Tsiyon’s son Borukh saw a letter to Moyshe-Shmul from Meir-Motl in America. Straightaway I ran to Moyshe-Shmul. “Where’s the letter?” I asked. “What letter?” he says. “The one Meir-Motl wrote you from America.” “Who says he wrote me a letter?” “Ben-Tsiyon’s son Borukh.” “But how,” he says, “could that lowdown sneak have told you that when I haven’t spoken to him in a year?” I ran to Borukh’s, half out of my mind. Wouldn’t you know he’d left town three weeks ago! Off I go to give Leizi-Hirshke an earful for the crock he fed Soreh-Nekhameh about a letter from never-never land. “Who, me?” he says, staring as if I were mad. It turns out that your Yentl made it all up! She should roast in hell for her sins—and for ours while she’s at it. Leave it to a tart like her!

  But a lot you care when all you can think of is your fine Yehupetz ladies. They should gash themselves on their diamonds and bleed to death! Do you hear me, Mendl? I hate them so much I don’t want to hear about them. And I’m sick of being told of all your presents. I’ve already written you, my dear husband, that if you’re looking to buy me something, spare me your Yehupetz frippery. I don’t need to doll myself up like a lot of women who aren’t fit to tie my shoes. And I want to see you in person, not some piece of paper you’ve scribbled on. “Let’s have more food and less talk,” my mother would say. What are you waiting for? The business you’re in will finish you if you don’t finish with it first. Seeing is believing, say what you will. Not, God forbid, that I think you’re lying, but those Yehupetz smoothies are selling you a bill of goods. Who are you to compare yourself to Brodsky? Did the two of you roll in the same mud when you were boys? If your shares are worth something, sell them and don’t play hard to get. Some slick operators, you say, are out to get their hands on your treasure? Shake and call it a deal! Or as my mother would say: hold on to your hat and run!

  But try talking to a madman! His lordship wants an address in Vasilkov, of all places. He’s so rich he doesn’t know where to live next. Why Vasilkov? But that’s a silly question. If it’s Yehupetz by day, and Boiberik by night, and Petersburg and Warsaw by the by, you might as well live in Vasilkov too—and why not in Hotzeplotz while you’re at it? Just be careful, Mendl, that you don’t turn into such a great success that I have to send you your carfare again. I am, from the bottom of my heart,

  Your truly faithful wife,

  Sheyne-Sheyndl

  I have bad news for you, my dear husband. Your brother Berl-Binyomin has lost his wife. I had already sealed the envelope when word reached me. Yentl gave birth to twins. Both lived and she died. Now why couldn’t it have been the other way around? But God loves to be contrary, as my mother says. I should only be spared such a fate! It’s true that your sister-in-law and I, may she forgive my saying so, never got along, but at least she kept out of my hair. For my part she could have lived to be a hundred instead of leaving two little orphans, one tinier than the other. I even went to her funeral and cried so hard I could barely walk home. “Thinking of the dead,” says my mother, “makes you wonder about the living …”

  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, I’ve been laid up all week in Boiberik. It’s more annoying than serious, thank God. I took a fall on my back and couldn’t turn over onto my stomach. Now I’m feeling better. All week long I thought I would go out of my mind. Just imagine, eight whole days away from the Exchange, with no way of knowing the latest prices! From what I hear, though, things are hopping. God willing, I’ll be back to work tomorrow or the day after. Meanwhile, I’m writing you this letter. It’s a chance to chat and let you know what I’m worth. You mustn’t think I’m raving if I tell you that I’m currently holding in my portfoliage 150 shares of Putivil, 100 of Transport, 5 Maltzevs, 5 Liliputs, and 5 Roads & Rails, quite apart from various premiums. The Putivils and Transports have been optioned for 3 rubles a share with the remainder due on delivery. If the deal goes through—and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t—I’ll clear 4 to 5 grand after expenses. I’ve also bought long on a few dozen Putivils and Maltzevs, which should be good for another 1,800.

  That’s close to 7,000 rubles right there. My 5 Maltzevs are worth 4 G’s at a dead minimum and it will be a scandal if I can’t get 2 apiece for them despite their having dipped—that’s just a sell-off by the Petersburg margin traders to cover their debts. And I’m still left with the two jewels in my crown, my Liliputs and Roads & Rails. They’re as good as gold, both of them, with 18 whole days to go until the first! If Liliputs keep climbing at 100 a day, you have a surefire 1,800 x 5, which is 9,000 R’s. And with Roads & Rails you’re looking at 150 x 18 x 5, which comes, if I’m not mistaken, to 13,500. Mind you, I’m not even counting the Volgas, Dniepers, Dons, and other small change. In a word, once it’s all in the bank I’ll be worth roughly, in round numbers, give or take a bit, 40 to 50 grand! Let all go well until the first and I’ll take my profits, switch to buying short, and work the other side of the street; then I’ll go back to longs and rake it in again. If the good Lord wills it, my 50 G’s will be worth 100, my 100, 200, my 200, 500, right up to a million! What, silly girl, will be the
difference between me and Brodsky then? He’s only human, Brodsky is: he eats, drinks, and sleeps just like the rest of us. Believe me, I’ve seen him with my own eyes and hope to see better.

  In short, my dear, there’s no need for concern. I’ve got the hang of the market and have become so good at it that I’m even asked for advice. Being urged by you to quit is nothing new. But just look at Khinkes. That’s a big-time speculator who is also a fiend for gambling; he plays the market by day and the card tables by night. Just last week he dreamed a low card and ran off to Petersburg and Warsaw to sell off his entire portfoliage. Don’t think he isn’t tearing his hair out now. That will teach him to believe in dreams!

  I can’t wait for tomorrow’s closings. As soon as I get to town, I’m going to a jeweler’s to pick up a diamond brooch and earrings. If I have time, I’ll also shop for linens, tablecloths, handkerchiefs, some smocks for the children, and a few other household items. You see how wrong you are to say I’ve forgotten you! And because I’m in a hurry, I’ll be brief. God willing, I’ll write more in my next letter. Meanwhile, God grant you health and success. Kiss the children for me and give regards to your parents and my fondest greetings to everyone. And tell Berl-Binyomin not to spend his nights playing klabberjass!

  Your husband,

  Menakhem-Mendl

  P.S. About Vasilkov, you miss the point. A half-year’s residence there is a must for a permit for Yehupetz. Once I’m established in Yehupetz, God willing, I’ll buy an apartment in the best neighborhood and send for you and the children at once. You would be less critical if you knew it better; it’s a lovely town, there’s no comparing it to Odessa. You couldn’t wish for nicer, more considerate people, men and women alike. Their only weakness is cards; they stay up calling “Deal!” until the wee hours. The older folk favor a game called Preference while the young ones play whist, rummy, and klabberjass.