More than any of the boys at "_Cheder_," more than any boy of the town,
and more than any person in the world, I loved my friend, Benny
"_Polkovoi_." The feeling I had for him was a peculiar combination of
love, devotion, and fear. I loved him because he was handsomer, cleverer
and smarter than any other boy. He was kind and faithful to me. He took
my part, fought for me, and pulled the ears of those boys who annoyed
me.
And I was afraid of him because he was big and quarrelsome. He could
beat whom he liked, and when he liked. He was the biggest, oldest, and
wealthiest boy in the "_Cheder_." His father, Mayer "_Polkovoi_," though
he was only a regimental tailor, was nevertheless a rich man, and played
an important part in public affairs. He had a fine house, a seat in the
synagogue beside the ark. At the Passover, his "_Matzo_" was baked
first. At the feast of Tabernacles his citron was the best. On the
Sabbath he always had a poor man to meals. He gave away large sums of
money in charity. And he himself went to the house of another to lend
him money as a favour. He engaged the best teachers for his children. In
a word, Mayer "_Polkovoi_" tried to refine himself--to be a man amongst
men. He wanted to get his name inscribed in the books of the best
society, but did not succeed. In our town, Mazapevka, it was not easy to
get into the best society. We did not forget readily a man's
antecedents. A tailor may try to refine himself for twenty years in
succession, but he will still remain a tailor to us. I do not think
there is a soap in the world that will wash out this stain. How much do
you think Mayer "_Polkovoi_" would have given to have us blot out the
name bestowed upon him, "_Polkovoi_"? His misfortune was that his family
was a thousand times worse than his name. Just imagine! In his passport
he was called Mayor Mofsovitch Heifer.
It is a remarkable thing. May Mayer's great-great-grandfather have a
bright Paradise! He also must have been a tailor. When it came to giving
himself a family name, he could not find a better one than Heifer. He
might have called himself Thimble, Lining, Buttonhole, Bigpatch,
Longfigure. These are not family names either, it is true, but they are
in some way connected with tailoring. But Heifer? What did he like in
the name of Heifer? You may ask why not Goat? Are there not people in
the world called Goat? You may say what you like, Heifer and Goat are
equally nice. Still, they are not the same. A Heifer is not a Goat.
But we will return to my friend Benny.
* * *
Benny was a nice boy, with yellow tousled hair, white puffed-out cheeks,
scattered teeth, and peculiar red, bulging, fishy eyes. These red,
fishy eyes were always smiling and roguish. He had a turned-up nose. His
whole face had an expression of impudence. Nevertheless, I liked his
face, and we became friends the first hour we met.
We met for the first time at "_Cheder_," at the teachers' table. When my
mother took me to "_Cheder_," the teacher was sitting at his table with
the boys, teaching them the book of Genesis. He was a man with thick
eyebrows and a pointed cap. He made no fuss of me. He asked me no
questions, neither did he take my measurements, but said to me--
"Get over there, on that bench, between those two boys."
I got on the bench, between the boys, and was already a pupil. There was
no talk between my mother and the teacher. They had made all
arrangements beforehand.
"Remember to learn as you ought," said my mother from the doorway. She
turned to look at me again, lovingly, joyfully. I understood her look
very well. She was pleased that I was sitting with nice children, and
learning the "_Torah_." And she was pained because she had to part with
me.
I must confess I felt much happier than my mother. I was amongst a crowd
of new friends--may no evil eye harm them! They looked at me, and I
looked at them. But the teacher did not let us idle for long. He shook
himself, and shouted aloud the lesson we had to repeat after him at the
top of our voices.
"Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field."
Boys who sit so close together, though they shake and shout aloud,
cannot help getting to know one another, or exchange a few words. And so
it was.
Benny "_Polkovoi_," who sat crushing me, pinched my leg, and looked into
my eyes. He went on shaking himself, and shouting out the lesson with
the teacher and the other boys. But he threw his own words into the
middle of the sentence we were translating.
"And Adam knew (here are buttons for you) Eve his wife. (Give me a
locust-bean and I will give you a pull of my cigarette.)"
I felt a warm hand in mine, and I had some smooth buttons. I confess I
did not want the buttons, and I had no locust-beans, neither did I smoke
cigarettes. But I liked the idea of the thing. And I replied in the same
tones in which the lesson was being recited:
"And she conceived and bare Cain. (Who told you I have locust-beans?)"
That is how we conversed the whole time, until the teacher suspected
that though I shook myself to and fro, my mind was far from the lesson.
He suddenly put me through an examination.
"Listen, you, whatever your name is, you surely know whose son Cain was,
and the name of his brother?"
This question was as strange to me as if he had asked me when there
would be a fair in the sky, or how to make cream-cheese from snow, so
that they should not melt. In reality my mind was elsewhere, I don't
know where.
"Why do you look at me so?" asked the teacher. "Don't you hear me? I
want you to tell me the name of the first man, and the story of Cain and
his brother Abel."
The boys were smiling, smothering their laughter. I did not know why.
"Fool, say you do not know, because we have not learnt it," whispered
Benny in my ear, digging me with his elbow. I repeated his words, like a
parrot. And the "_Cheder_" was filled with loud laughter.
"What are they laughing at?" I asked myself. I looked at them, and at
the teacher. All were rolling with laughter. And, at that moment, I
counted the buttons from one hand into the other. There were exactly
half a dozen.
"Well, little boy, show me your hands. What are you doing with them?"
And the teacher bent down and looked under the table.
You are clever boys, and you will understand yourselves what I had from
the teacher, for the buttons, on my first day at "_Cheder_."
* * *
Whippings heal up; shame is forgotten. Benny and I became good friends.
We were one soul. This is how it came about:--
Next morning I arrived at "_Cheder_" with my Bible in one hand and my
dinner in the other. The boys were excited, jolly. Why? The teacher was
not there. What had happened? He had gone off to a Circumcision with his
wife. That is to say, not with her, God forbid! A teacher never walks
with his wife. The teacher walks before, and his wife after him.
"Let us make a bet," cried a boy with a blue nose. His name was Hosea
Hessel.
"How much shall we bet?" asked another boy, Koppel Bunnas. He had a torn
sleeve out of which peeped the point of a dirty elbow.
"A quarter of the locust-beans."
"Let it be a quarter of the locust-beans. What for? Let us hear."
"I say he will not stand more than twenty-five."
"And I say thirty-six."
"Thirty-six. We shall soon see. Boys, take hold of him."
This was the order of Hosea Hessel, of the blue nose. And several boys
took hold of me, all together, turned me over on the bench, face
upwards. Two sat on my legs, two on my arms, and one held my head, so
that I should not be able to wriggle. And another placed his left
forefinger and thumb at my nose. (It seemed he was left-handed.) He
curled up his finger and thumb, closed his eye, and began to fillip me
on the nose. And how, do you think? Each time I saw my father in the
other world. Murderers, slaughterers! What had they against my nose?
What had it done to them? Whom had it bothered? What had they seen on
it--a nose like all noses.
"Boys, count," commanded Hosea Hessel. "One, two, three--"
But suddenly....
Nearly always, since ever the world began, when a misfortune happens to
a man--when robbers surround him in a wood, bind his hands, sharpen
their knives, tell him to say his prayers, and are about to finish him
off, there comes a woodman with a bell. The robbers run away, and the
man lifts his hands on high and praises the Lord for his deliverance.
It was just like that with me and my nose. I don't remember whether it
was at the fifth or sixth blow that the door opened, and Benny
"_Polkovoi_" came in. The boys freed me at once, and remained standing
like blocks of wood. Benny took them in hand, one by one. He caught each
boy by the ear, twisted it round, and said:
"Well, now you will know what it means to meddle with a widow's boy."
From that day the boys did not touch either me or my nose. They were
afraid to begin with the widow's boy whom Benny had taken under his
wing, into his guardianship, under his protection.
* * *
"The widow's boy"--- I had no other name at "_Cheder_." This was because
my mother was a widow. She supported herself by her own work. She had a
little shop in which were, for the most part, so far as I can remember,
chalk and locust-beans--the two things that sell best in Mazapevka.
Chalk is wanted for white-washing the houses, and locust-beans are a
luxury. They are sweet, and they are light in weight, and they are
cheap. Schoolboys spend on them all the money they get for breakfast
and dinner. And the shopkeepers make a good profit out of them. I could
never understand why my mother was always complaining that she could
hardly make enough to pay the rent and my school-fees. Why school-fees?
What about the other things a human being needs, food and clothes and
boots, for example? She thought of nothing but the school-fees. "When
the Lord punished me," she wailed, "and took my husband from me--and
such a husband!--and left me all alone, I want my son to be a scholar,
at any rate." What do you say to that? Do you think she did not come
frequently to the "_Cheder_" to find out how I was getting on? I say
nothing of the prayers she took good care I should recite every morning.
She was always lecturing me to be even half as good as my father--peace
be unto him! And whenever she looked at me, she said I was exactly like
him--may I have longer years than he! And her eyes grew moist. Her face
grew curiously careworn, and had a mournful expression.
I hope he will forgive me, I mean my father, from the other world, but I
could not understand what sort of a man he had been. From what my mother
told of him, he was always either praying or studying. Had he never been
drawn, like me, out into the open, on summer mornings, when the sun was
not burning yet, but was just beginning to show in the sky, marching
rapidly onwards, a fiery angel, in a fiery chariot, drawn by fiery
horses, into whose brilliant, burning, guinea-gold faces it was
impossible to look? I ask you what taste have the week-day prayers on
such a morning? What sort of a pleasure is it to sit and read in a
stuffy room, when the golden sun is burning, and the air is hot as an
iron frying-pan? At such a time, you are tempted to run down the hill,
to the river--the beautiful river that is covered with a green slime. A
peculiar odour, as of a warm bath, comes from the distance. You want to
undress and jump into the warm water. Under the trees it is cool and the
mud is soft and slippery. And the curious insects that live at the
bottom of the river whirl around and about before your eyes. And
curious, long-legged flies slip and slide on the surface of the water.
At such a time one desires to swim over to the other side--over to where
the green flags grow, their yellow and white stalks shimmering in the
sun. A green, fresh fern looks up at you, and you go after it,
plash-plash into the water, hands down, and feet up, so that people
might think you were swimming. I ask you again, what pleasure is it to
sit in a little room on a summer's evening, when the great dome of the
sky is dropping over the other side of the town, lighting up the spire
of the church, the shingle roofs of the baths, and the big windows of
the synagogue. And on the other side of the town, on the common, the
goats are bleating, and the lambs are frisking, the dust rising to the
heavens, the frogs croaking. There is a tearing and a shrieking and a
tumult as at a regular fair. Who thinks of praying at such a time? But
if you talk to my mother, she will tell you that her husband--peace be
unto him!--did not succumb to temptations. He was a different sort of a
man. What sort of a man he was I do not know--asking his pardon. I only
know that my mother annoys me very much. She reminds me every minute
that I had a father; and throws it into my teeth that she has to pay my
school-fees for me. For this she asks only two things of me--that I
should learn diligently, and say my prayers willingly.
* * *
It could not be said that the widow's boy did not learn well. He was not
in any way behind his comrades. But I cannot guarantee that he said his
prayers willingly. All children are alike. And he was as mischievous as
any other boy. He, like the rest, was fond of running away and playing,
though there is not much to be said of the play of Jewish children. They
tie a paper bag to a cat's tail so that she may run through the house
like mad, smashing everything in her way. They lock the women's portion
of the synagogue from the outside on Friday nights, so that the women
may have to be rescued. They nail the teacher's shoes to the floor, or
seal his beard to the table with wax when he is asleep. But oh, how many
thrashings do they get when their tricks are found out! It may be
gathered that everything must have an originator, a commander, a head, a
leader who shows the way.
Our leader, our commander was Benny "_Polkovoi_." From him all things
originated; and on our heads were the consequences. Benny, of the fat
face and red, fishy eyes, always managed to escape scot free from the
scrapes. He was always innocent as a dove. Whatever tricks or mischief
we did, we always got the idea from Benny. Who taught us to smoke
cigarettes in secret, letting the smoke out through our nostrils? Benny.
Who told us to slide on the ice, in winter, with the peasant-boys?
Benny. Who taught us to gamble with buttons--to play "odd or even," and
lose our breakfasts and dinners? Benny. He was up to every trick, and
taught us them all. He won our last "_groschens_" from us. And when it
came to anything, Benny had disappeared. Playing was to us the finest
thing in the world. And for playing we got the severest thrashings from
our teacher. He said he would tear out of us the desire to play.
"Play in my house? You will play with the Angel of Death," said the
teacher. And he used to empty our pockets of everything, and thrash us
most liberally.
But there was one week of the year when we were allowed to play. Why do
I say allowed? It was a righteous thing to play then.
And that week was the week of "Chanukah." And we played with
spinning-tops.
* * *
It is true that the games of cards--bridge and whist, for example--which
are played at "_Chanukah_" nowadays have more sense in them than the old
game of spinning-tops. But when the play is for money, it makes no
difference what it is. I once saw two peasant-boys beating one another's
heads against the wall. When I asked them why they were doing this, if
they were out of their minds, they told me to go my road. They were
playing a game, for money, which of them would get tired the soonest of
having his head banged on the wall.
The game of spinning-tops that have four corners, each marked with a
letter of the alphabet, and are like dice, is very exciting. One can
lose one's soul playing it. It is not so much the loss of the money as
the annoyance of losing. Why should the other win? Why should the top
fall on the letter G for him, and on the N for you? I suppose you know
what the four letters stand for? N means no use. H means half. B means
bad. And G means good. The top is a sort of lottery. Whoever is
fortunate wins. Take, for example, Benny "_Polkovoi_." No matter how
often he spins the top, it always falls on the letter G.
The boys said it was curious how Benny won. They kept putting down their
money. He took on their bets. What did he care? He was a rich boy.
"G again. It's curious," they cried, and again opened their purses and
staked their money. Benny whirled the top. It spun round and round, and
wobbled from side to side, like a drunkard, and fell down.
"G," said Benny.
"G, G. Again G. It's extraordinary," said the boys, scratching their
heads and again opening their purses.
The game grew more exciting. The players grew hot, staked their money,
crushed one another, and dug one another in the ribs to get nearer the
table, and called each other peculiar names--"Black Tom-cat! Creased
Cap! Split Coat!" and the like. They did not see the teacher standing
behind them, in his woollen cap and coat, and carrying his "_Tallis_"
and "_Tephilin_" under his arm. He was going to the synagogue to say his
prayers, and seeing the crowd of excited boys, he drew near to watch the
play. This day he does not interfere. It is "_Chanukah_." We are free
for eight days on end, and may play as much as we like. But we must not
fight, nor pull one another by the nose. The teacher's wife took her
sickly child in her arms, and stood at her husband's shoulder, watching
the boys risk their money, and how Benny took on all the bets. Benny was
excited, burning, aflame, ablaze. He twirled the top. It spun round and
round, wobbled and fell down.
"G all over again. It's a regular pantomime."
Benny showed us his smartness and his quick-wittedness so long, until
our pockets were empty. He thrust his hands in his pockets, as if
challenging us--"Well, who wants more?"
We all went home. We carried away with us the heartache and the shame of
our losses. When we got home, we had to tell lies to account for the
loss of the money we had been given in honour of "_Chanukah_." One boy
confessed he had spent his on locust-beans. Another said the money had
been stolen out of his pocket the previous night. A third came home
crying. He said he had bought himself a pocket-knife. Well, why was he
crying? He had lost the knife on his way home.
I told my mother a fine story--a regular "Arabian Nights" tale, and got
out of her a second "_Chanukah_" present of ten "_groschens_." I ran off
with them to Benny, played for five minutes, lost to him, and flew back
home, and told my mother another tale. In a word, brains were at work
and heads were busy inventing lies. Lies flew about like chaff in the
wind. And all our "_Chanukah_" money went into Benny's pockets, and was
lost to us for ever.
One of the boys became so absorbed in the play that he was not satisfied
to lose only his "_Chanukah_" money, but went on gambling through the
whole eight days of the festival.