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

  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, my dear husband, in case you’re fearing more bad news, mazel tov! Your baby brother Berl-Binyomin has remarried in record time. He didn’t let two months go by before setting out for Berdichev, which is the world’s biggest supplier of stepmothers, and coming back with one for his children. And she’s all of nineteen, the lucky fellow! I tell you, it’s disgusting. How right my mother, bless her, is to say: “Better to bury a husband than a mother.” I suppose you might shed a few tears for me, Mendl, if God forbid I died before you, but I’ll never give your Yehupetz ladies the satisfaction because they’d be all over you like flies. They wouldn’t even wait for my unveiling. Well, the dirty pot deserves a dirty spoon, as my mother says. Think of the new life you can have in Yehupetz!

  You say you’re going like a house afire, Mendl? Why don’t you jump into the flames! I wouldn’t come see you in Boiberik if you were on your deathbed! And don’t think your fifty thousand makes an impression. In the first place, you’re the same husband with or without it. And in the second place, it isn’t worth a pinch of snuff. “Money on paper is not even paper money,” my mother says…. I’ll tell you the truth, my dear husband: if you’re not pocketing a few rubles now because you’re waiting for them to turn into fifty thousand, you’re either a madman or a heartless murderer with no pity for your children or wife, if you still have one when this letter reaches you. His lordship is a great one for tomorrows. Tomorrow he’s going to the jeweler, tomorrow he’s off to buy linen …any time but today. For heaven’s sake, let God take care of tomorrow and do your shopping while you can! Strike while the iron is hot! You know what a clever woman my mother is. “What good,” she says to me, “are all his promises of tablecloths and handkerchiefs when he should be sending you cash? The Angel of Death doesn’t wait for a man to buy his shrouds…” Give me a few weeks to get my health back and I’m off to Boiberik, God willing—and I don’t envy you when I get there. I’ll dog your steps, I won’t leave you alone for a minute—believe me, you won’t wait for the morning to clear out! 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 news, amen.

  Secondly, the sky has fallen in. The Petersburg closings have knocked us for a loop. It’s like being struck by lightning or a bomb. Every broker is in mourning, the Kreshchatik looks hit by an earthquake. And once Petersburg lowered the boom, Warsaw followed suit. It’s a disaster, a calamity, a catastrophe! All the investors are wiped out and so am I. The market is finished. The brokerages are deserted. The banks are desperate. It’s as bad as the destruction of the Temple! Just imagine, my dear wife, that my Maltzevs, which I put at 2,000 come hell or high water, have gone and closed at 950! Or take Putivils: never in my darkest dreams did I imagine they would drop from 180 to 67. And don’t even ask about Transports—Transports are in the pits, no one will touch them. It’s the same with Volgas, with Dons, with every share on the board. And that’s still nothing compared to Warsaw. Warsaw is a shambles, there hasn’t been a slaughter like Warsaw in human history! In Warsaw your Liliputs nosedived from 2,450 to 620. And Roads & Rails! They were looking so good we were sure they would break 3,000. What do you think they’re worth now? Would you believe 400 shmegaroos? How’s that for a price? I tell you, it couldn’t be worse. Who would have thought it of Warsaw? Up, up, up it all goes and suddenly, out of the blue—poof! Nobody knows where it came from. This person says one thing, that person says another. It’s all a question of money—that is, of not having it. The Germans call it Geltmangel, but in plain Jewish it’s known as going broke…. But how can that be, you ask, when just yesterday the streets were paved with gold? A good question. Still, everyone is ruined and so am I. To tell the truth, Petersburg is not as bad as Warsaw. The market is down there too, but at least it fell gradually, 20 or 30 points at a time, such things have been known to happen. But Warsaw—Warsaw shouldn’t happen to a Jew! Sodom was nothing next to Warsaw. There isn’t a day that Warsaw doesn’t drop 100, 200, 300 points. We’ve taken one beating after another, we’re too punch-drunk to know what’s hit us. Millions have been lost in Warsaw, millions! Good lord, what were we thinking of? If only, my dear wife, I had listened to you, I’d have the world at my feet now. Not even Brodsky could have held a candle to me …

  But it’s the will of God. My time, it seems, has not yet come. The one comfort is that my banker, bless him, hasn’t called in my debts. In fact, he’s feeling so sorry for me that he’s promised to help me make back a few rubles when things pick up. Right now, though, there’s nothing to be done. There’s not a rally in sight. The investors walk the floor like ghosts. The brokers are out of work. One man’s story is more horrible than the next’s. The market is dead and buried.

  And yet if only I could, I would wait it out and hope for better times. Why take it to heart? It’s not, as they say, the end of the world. God’s in His heaven and Yehupetz is still on this earth; where there’s a will, there’s a way…. Only where is one to get the capital? Your mother is right about needing a hand to give the finger. I’ve tried talking a few fellows into a short-term loan, but they swear the whole city is cleaned out; the biggest operators are strapped for cash, everyone is flat on his back. It would take a miracle to save me. I tell you, my dear wife, I can’t take any more of this. I’d rather be murdered by cutthroats than starve in the streets of Yehupetz. Why, it’s beyond belief! There I was, riding high with everything going my way—and the next minute it’s drop dead! But as I’m feeling low, I’ll be brief. God willing, I’ll write more in my next letter. Meanwhile, God grant you health and success. Write me about the children and how you are, and give my fond greetings to your parents and to everyone.

  Your husband,

  Menakhem-Mendl

  P.S. There’s a saying that wealth follows a fire. In fact, now is the time to buy, since everything is dirt cheap. The best stocks can be bought on full margin. I guarantee you that anyone investing in Warsaw or Petersburg today will be a happy man tomorrow. When all is said and done, you see, I know the market inside and out. Only three things are needed to succeed in it: brains, luck, and money. Brains, praise God, I have as much of as any investor in Yehupetz. Luck comes from God. And money? Go ask Brodsky!

  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, although there is much that could be said, I’ve run out of words. What good would they do when all that’s left is to stick you in the ground? I’m not like Blume-Zlate who eats men for breakfast. It isn’t like me to be a scold. Just tell me one thing, though: as surely as I pray for all my enemies to croak, didn’t I predict you would end up like this? Didn’t I warn you to run for your life? What did you need all those stockings & bands for? “Stay at home,” says my mother, “and you won’t wear out your boots!”

  But his lordship didn’t want to listen. His lordship was sweet on Yehupetz. His lordship was in love with its fine ladies and gentlemen, who aren’t worth my little finger. I hope to God I never need a favor from any of them, may He give them a year’s worth of chilblains! Do you know what my mother would say? “Better late to synagogue than early to a rich man’s house.”

  And there’s something else that baf
fles me, Mendl. You know it says in the holy books that no one decides when to enter this world and no one decides when to leave it. How can you talk such nonsense? Everything comes from God. You can see for yourself that He wants you to stop dreaming of the easy life in Yehupetz. It’s a Jew’s job to work hard, sweat blood, and put bread on his family’s table. Look at our neighbor Nekhemye. He’s a fine young man with an education just like yours—I wish I had as much myself. And yet see how he works like a donkey, goes on foot to all the fairs, runs himself into the ground! I daresay he’d fancy strolling around Yehupetz with a walking stick himself. I daresay he’d cotton to taking hot baths, selling magic charms called shares, riding a sleigh around Boiberik, and watching the ladies play cabbage-glass. But he happens to have a wife called Blume-Zlate. A look from Blume-Zlate and Nekhemye bites his tongue! A nod and he’s at her beck and call! Just let him go to Yarmilinetz without bringing her back a hat, a coat, a parasol, or whatever other weird thing she’s set her heart on! And what do I get from you? Pie in the sky! Not that I’m waiting with bated breath for your presents. I need your diamond brooches and bracelets like last year’s snow. All I want is to see you alive and well, which I’m beginning to doubt I ever will. Last night I dreamed of my Grandma Tsaytl, may she rest in peace, looking exactly as I remembered her. But I want to see you in more than just my dreams—the sooner the better! I am, from the bottom of my heart,

  Your truly faithful wife,

  Sheyne-Sheyndl

  Millions: Traders, Agents, and Speculators

  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’m through with investing. You can have it! It’s no occupation for a Jew. It’s made me old and gray before my time. I could write a book on all I’ve been through. Yehupetz is in ruins. The market has gone bust. There isn’t a ray of hope. The carnage, I’m sorry to say, is worse than it was in Odessa. Everyone is in the soup. Everyone is bankrupt and so am I. Filing for bankruptcy is the latest fashion.

  What more can I tell you? The biggest bankers have flown the coop. The first to take off was the fellow who underwrote our Warsaw and Petersburg shares. One fine morning I dropped by his office to see about some Maltzevs and Putivils I still owed him for. Where’s the big cheese, I ask. It turns out he’s taken a powder—all the way to America! To make a long story short, there was a near-riot. His strongbox was broken into and they found a bottle of ink, an old coin, and the sound of his laughter …

  The next safe to be searched had a box of old Jewish calendars dating back to 1873; its owner was on his way to Palestine. And there was a third fellow, too, who didn’t file in time, got clobbered for a few million, and lost everything in a week but his given name. Only Brodsky, by some miracle, came through unscathed. If it isn’t in the cards, it seems there’s nothing to be done.

  Fortunately, I had the wits to look around and find another profession. In short, I’m now in commodities, a trader on the Yehupetz Exchange. They’re as common, traders are, as stars in the sky and I asked myself: what do they have that I don’t? If it’s two hands, two feet, two eyes, and a nose, I have that too, and not a few of them come from families as good as mine. If it isn’t beneath them to put on their walking shoes and peddle commodities, why not me also? It doesn’t take any expertise. All that’s called for is some cheek and a straight face—the straighter, the better. I swear, there are traders in Yehupetz who can barely sign their names and couldn’t land a job as a wagon driver or a shop clerk in Kasrilevke. Your mother would say about them: “If God wills it, even a broomstick can shoot like a gun.” You only have to put on a white shirt with a nice hat, circulate, make conversation, keep your ear to the ground, bow and scrape a bit, and—“My commission, please!”

  A commission is the trader’s percentage. A more painless way to make a kopeck has yet to be devised. Just yesterday I earned 50 rubles—so help the two of us if I know what it was for. I also sold 300 tons of sugar as easily as smoking a cigar. That is, the sugar wasn’t mine, but I got into the act, which was good for 50 more. With God’s help, I’ll be back on my feet in half a year, because money is everything in Yehupetz. A man is trash without it. No one cares where you come from. You can be any joker in the deck as long as you have cash. But being 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 your parents and the children, each and every one of them.

  Your husband,

  Menakhem-Mendl

  P.S. Please write me all the news, and if there’s been rain, and how the beet crop is doing, and whether there are field pests. I need to know as soon as possible!

  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’m writing you, my sweetheart, to wish a cruel death to all my enemies. You fiend, you murderer, you wicked man! As if you didn’t know your wife was lying on her deathbed after being operated on by our wonderful doctor for her corpsicles, may they be poison in the blood of your Yehupetz ladies! I can hardly stand on my feet and your children have come down with every illness there is—their teeth, their throats, their stomachs, the whooping cough, diphtheria, all kinds of horrors I could wish on more deserving people. And you sit in Yehupetz without a word! There’s no excuse. If you’re dead, the least you could do is let me know, and if you’re alive, all the more reason to write.

  But go argue with an imbecile! “A drunk grows sober before a fool grows wise,” says my mother, more health to her. Just imagine what we’ve come to when Boruch-Hirsh and Leah-Dvosi’s Sheyne-Sheyndl has to have a trader for a husband! But I suppose it’s worth being anything to live in Yehupetz—a bagel vendor, a dog trainer, even a trader. You write that you’ve made fifty rubles in your fine new business and hope to make as much each day. As if every day were payday! Have you forgotten your Odessa Lumdums, and your Pottyboils and your Lilyfoots, and all your golden opportunities that are ashes in my mouth? Your eyes, you dunce, will fall from your head fifty times before you see fifty rubles again! I don’t believe one bit in your Yehupetz windfalls, which start with a bang and end with a lot of hot air.

  And as for your having your wits about you, permit me my doubts. What are you asking about rain for? Did you expect it to snow in midsummer? And what does a man like you care about beets? Now is the time for sorrel borscht. There won’t be beets before autumn. We have enough pests in the form of bedbugs without your becoming one too. Isn’t there enough to occupy you in Yehupetz, with all the sugar and rubles coming your way?

  But it’s as my mother, bless her, says: When a madman breaks a window, it’s never his own…. Listen to me, Mendl: put aside your foolishness, and if you still have those fifty rubles, come on home. If you don’t, I’ll send you carfare. Keep in mind that you have a wife and little children who await you every day. It’s time I stopped being the talk of the town and my cheeks no longer burned with shame.

  I am, from the bottom of my heart,

  Your truly faithful wife,

  Sheyne-Sheyndl

  If people interested you half as much as beets, I suppose you’d ask about them. But what’s it to you if my mother has broken off my little sister’s engagement? I suppose you think it was over money. Well, money had nothing to do with it. It started when my sister’s fiancé came for a Sabbath meal. He and my mother began to quarrel, and his father being a butcher, she said you can’t expect veal from an ox. One thing led to another and the blamed fellow went home and tore up the engagement contract. It’s the thi
rd time poor Nekhameh-Breindl hasn’t made it to her own wedding.

  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. May God grant that we hear from each other only good and pleasing news, amen.

  Secondly, you misconstrued what I wrote. My having given up investing for commodities is no reason to worry, because it’s all for the best. I’m not the only trader in Yehupetz. We have, I don’t mind telling you, a whole slew of them. There are sugar traders, and bond traders, and wheat traders, and money traders, and property traders, and lumber traders, and diamond traders, and manufacturing traders, and freight traders, and whatever else your heart desires. Nothing gets done without a trader—in fact without two, since someone with a seller needs someone with a buyer. Moreover, it’s not uncommon for a few more traders to come along for the ride. They split the commission, and if they can’t agree on it, they either ask an outsider to decide or resort to the tried-and-true Odessa method of pugilistic arbitration.

  Now you know what a trader is. And the biggest traders of all are the sugar traders, since all the sugar passes through their hands. They’re rich as the devil, ride around in carriages, live in dachas in Boiberik, play cards all day long, and have courtasins and conquerbines. In a word, commodities are the best business because you needn’t invest a cent. It’s all off the top. If you and I strike a deal, the two of us make a pretty penny, and if we don’t, it’s off to bed for us both without our supper. Of course, you’re quite right: 50 rubles don’t come along every day. In fact, my first transaction was my last one and the 50 smackers didn’t last long, since I have so many debts that I don’t even own the hairs on my head. In the end I was left with a bit of change that I gave to charity and I’m now out of pocket again.