Abraham Raisin

Two Yiddish Tales

 

 

THE KADDISH

 

From behind the curtain came low moans, and low words of encouragement from the old and experienced Bobbe. In the room it was dismal to suffocation. The seven children, all girls, between twenty-three and four years old, sat quietly, each by herself, with drooping head, and waited for something dreadful.

 

At a little table near a great cupboard with books sat the "patriarch" Reb Selig Chanes, a tall, thin Jew, with a yellow, consumptive face. He was chanting in low, broken tones out of a big Gemoreh, and continually raising his head, giving a nervous glance at the curtain, and then, without inquiring what might be going on beyond the low moaning, taking up once again his sad, tremulous chant. He seemed to be suffering more than the woman in childbirth herself.

 

"Lord of the World!"—it was the eldest daughter who broke the stillness—"Let it be a boy for once! Help, Lord of the World, have pity!"

 

"Oi, thus might it be, Lord of the World!" chimed in the second.

 

And all the girls, little and big, with broken heart and prostrate spirit, prayed that there might be born a boy.

 

Reb Selig raised his eyes from the Gemoreh, glanced at the curtain, then at the seven girls, gave vent to a deep-drawn Oi, made a gesture with his hand, and said with settled despair, "She will give you another sister!"

 

The seven girls looked at one another in desperation; their father's conclusion quite crushed them, and they had no longer even the courage to pray.

 

Only the littlest, the four-year-old, in the torn frock, prayed softly:

 

"Oi, please God, there will be a little brother."

 

"I shall die without a Kaddish!" groaned Reb Selig.

 

The time drags on, the moans behind the curtain grow louder, and Reb Selig and the elder girls feel that soon, very soon, the "grandmother" will call out in despair, "A little girl!" And Reb Selig feels that the words will strike home to his heart like a blow, and he resolves to run away.

 

He goes out into the yard, and looks up at the sky. It is midnight. The moon swims along so quietly and indifferently, the stars seem to frolic and rock themselves like little children, and still Reb Selig hears, in the "grandmother's" husky voice, "A girl!"

 

"Well, there will be no Kaddish! Verfallen!" he says, crossing the yard again. "There's no getting it by force!"

 

But his trying to calm himself is useless; the fear that it should be a girl only grows upon him. He loses patience, and goes back into the house.

 

But the house is in a turmoil.

 

"What is it, eh?"

 

"A little boy! Tate, a boy! Tatinke, as surely may I be well!" with this news the seven girls fall upon him with radiant faces.

 

"Eh, a little boy?" asked Reb Selig, as though bewildered, "eh? what?"

 

"A boy, Reb Selig, a Kaddish!" announced the "grandmother." "As soon as I have bathed him, I will show him you!"

 

"A boy ... a boy ..." stammered Reb Selig in the same bewilderment, and he leant against the wall, and burst into tears like a woman.

 

The seven girls took alarm.

 

"That is for joy," explained the "grandmother," "I have known that happen before."

 

"A boy ... a boy!" sobbed Reb Selig, overcome with happiness, "a boy ... a boy ... a Kaddish!"

 

The little boy received the name of Jacob, but he was called, by way of a talisman, Alter.

 

Reb Selig was a learned man, and inclined to think lightly of such protective measures; he even laughed at his Cheike for believing in such foolishness; but, at heart, he was content to have it so. Who could tell what might not be in it, after all? Women sometimes know better than men.

 

By the time Alterke was three years old, Reb Selig's cough had become worse, the sense of oppression on his chest more frequent. But he held himself morally erect, and looked death calmly in the face, as though he would say, "Now I can afford to laugh at you—I leave a Kaddish!"

 

"What do you think, Cheike," he would say to his wife, after a fit of coughing, "would Alterke be able to say Kaddish if I were to die to-day or to-morrow?"

 

"Go along with you, crazy pate!" Cheike would exclaim in secret alarm. "You are going to live a long while! Is your cough anything new?"

 

Selig smiled, "Foolish woman, she supposes I am afraid to die. When one leaves a Kaddish, death is a trifle."

 

Alterke was sitting playing with a prayer-book and imitating his father at prayer, "A num-num—a num-num."

 

"Listen to him praying!" and Cheike turned delightedly to her husband. "His soul is piously inclined!"

 

Selig made no reply, he only gazed at his Kaddish with a beaming face. Then an idea came into his head: Alterke will be a Tzaddik, will help him out of all his difficulties in the other world.

 

"Mame, I want to eat!" wailed Alterke, suddenly.

 

He was given a piece of the white bread which was laid aside, for him only, every Sabbath.

 

Alterke began to eat.

 

"Who bringest forth! Who bringest forth!" called out Reb Selig.

 

"Tan't!" answered the child.

 

"It is time you taught him to say grace," observed Cheike.

 

And Reb Selig drew Alterke to him and began to repeat with him.

 

"Say: Boruch."

 

"Bo'uch," repeated the child after his fashion.

 

"Attoh."

 

"Attoh."

 

When Alterke had finished "Who bringest forth," Cheike answered piously Amen, and Reb Selig saw Alterke, in imagination, standing in the synagogue and repeating Kaddish, and heard the congregation answer Amen, and he felt as though he were already seated in the Garden of Eden.

 

Another year went by, and Reb Selig was feeling very poorly. Spring had come, the snow had melted, and he found the wet weather more trying than ever before. He could just drag himself early to the synagogue, but going to the afternoon service had become a difficulty, and he used to recite the afternoon and later service at home, and spend the whole evening with Alterke.

 

It was late at night. All the houses were shut. Reb Selig sat at his little table, and was looking into the corner where Cheike's bed stood, and where Alterke slept beside her. Selig had a feeling that he would die that night. He felt very tired and weak, and with an imploring look he crept up to Alterke's crib, and began to wake him.

 

The child woke with a start.

 

"Alterke"—Reb Selig was stroking the little head—"come to me for a little!"

 

The child, who had had his first sleep out, sprang up, and went to his father.

 

Reb Selig sat down in the chair which stood by the little table with the open Gemoreh, lifted Alterke onto the table, and looked into his eyes.

 

"Alterke!"

 

"What, Tate?"

 

"Would you like me to die?"

 

"Like," answered the child, not knowing what "to die" meant, and thinking it must be something nice.

 

"Will you say Kaddish after me?" asked Reb Selig, in a strangled voice, and he was seized with a fit of coughing.

 

"Will say!" promised the child.

 

"Shall you know how?"

 

"Shall!"

 

"Well, now, say: Yisgaddal."

 

"Yisdaddal," repeated the child in his own way.

 

"Veyiskaddash."

 

"Veyistaddash."

 

And Reb Selig repeated the Kaddish with him several times.

 

The small lamp burnt low, and scarcely illuminated Reb Selig's yellow, corpse-like face, or the little one of Alterke, who repeated wearily the difficult, and to him unintelligible words of the Kaddish. And Alterke, all the while, gazed intently into the corner, where Tate's shadow and his own had a most fantastic and frightening appearance.

 

 

AVRÒHOM THE ORCHARD-KEEPER

 

When he first came to the place, as a boy, and went straight to the house-of-study, and people, having greeted him, asked "Where do you come from?" and he answered, not without pride, "From the Government of Wilna"—from that day until the day he was married, they called him "the Wilner."

 

In a few years' time, however, when the house-of-study had married him to the daughter of the Psalm-reader, a coarse, undersized creature, and when, after six months' "board" with his father-in-law, he became a teacher, the town altered his name to "the Wilner teacher." Again, a few years later, when he got a chest affection, and the doctor forbade him to keep school, and he began to deal in fruit, the town learnt that his name was Avròhom, to which they added "the orchard-keeper," and his name is "Avròhom the orchard-keeper" to this day.

 

Avròhom was quite content with his new calling. He had always wished for a business in which he need not have to do with a lot of people in whom he had small confidence, and in whose society he felt ill at ease.

 

People have a queer way with them, he used to think, they want to be always talking! They want to tell everything, find out everything, answer everything!

 

When he was a student he always chose out a place in a corner somewhere, where he could see nobody, and nobody could see him; and he used to murmur the day's task to a low tune, and his murmured repetition made him think of the ruin in which Rabbi José, praying there, heard the Bas-Kol mourn, cooing like a dove, over the exile of Israel. And then he longed to float away to that ruin somewhere in the wilderness, and murmur there like a dove, with no one, no one, to interrupt him, not even the Bas-Kol. But his vision would be destroyed by some hard question which a fellow-student would put before him, describing circles with his thumb and chanting to a shrill Gemoreh-tune.

 

In the orchard, at the end of the Gass, however, which Avròhom hired of the Gentiles, he had no need to exchange empty words with anyone. Avròhom had no large capital, and could not afford to hire an orchard for more than thirty rubles. The orchard was consequently small, and only grew about twenty apple-trees, a few pear-trees, and a cherry-tree. Avròhom used to move to the garden directly after the Feast of Weeks, although that was still very early, the fruit had not yet set, and there was nothing to steal.

 

But Avròhom could not endure sitting at home any longer, where the wife screamed, the children cried, and there was a continual "fair."

What should he want there? He only wished to be alone with his thoughts and imaginings, and his quiet "tunes," which were always weaving themselves inside him, and were nearly stifled.

 

It is early to go to the orchard directly after the Feast of Weeks, but Avròhom does not mind, he is drawn back to the trees that can think and hear so much, and keep so many things to themselves.

 

And Avròhom betakes himself to the orchard. He carries with him, besides phylacteries and prayer-scarf, a prayer-book with the Psalms and the "Stations," two volumes of the Gemoreh which he owns, a few works by the later scholars, and the Tales of Jerusalem; he takes his wadded winter garment and a cushion, makes them into a bundle, kisses the Mezuzeh, mutters farewell, and is off to the orchard.

 

As he nears the orchard his heart begins to beat loudly for joy, but he is hindered from going there at once. In the yard through which he must pass lies a dog. Later on, when Avròhom has got to know the dog, he will even take him into the orchard, but the first time there is a certain risk—one has to know a dog, otherwise it barks, and Avròhom dreads a bark worse than a bite—it goes through one's head! And Avròhom waits till the owner comes out, and leads him through by the hand.

 

"Back already?" exclaims the owner, laughing and astonished.

 

"Why not?" murmurs Avròhom, shamefacedly, and feeling that it is, indeed, early.

 

"What shall you do?" asks the owner, graver. "There is no hut there at all—last year's fell to pieces."

 

"Never mind, never mind," begs Avròhom, "it will be all right."

 

"Well, if you want to come!" and the owner shrugs his shoulders, and lets Avròhom into the orchard.

 

Avròhom immediately lays his bundle on the ground, stretches himself out full length on the grass, and murmurs, "Good! good!"

 

At last he is silent, and listens to the quiet rustle of the trees. It seems to him that the trees also wonder at his coming so soon, and he looks at them beseechingly, as though he would say:

 

"Trees—you, too! I couldn't help it ... it drew me...."

 

And soon he fancies that the trees have understood everything, and murmur, "Good, good!"

 

And Avròhom already feels at home in the orchard. He rises from the ground, and goes to every tree in turn, as though to make its acquaintance. Then he considers the hut that stands in the middle of the orchard.

 

It has fallen in a little certainly, but Avròhom is all the better pleased with it. He is not particularly fond of new, strong things, a building resembling a ruin is somehow much more to his liking. Such a ruin is inwardly full of secrets, whispers, and melodies. There the tears fall quietly, while the soul yearns after something that has no name and no existence in time or space. And Avròhom creeps into the fallen-in hut, where it is dark and where there are smells of another world. He draws himself up into a ball, and remains hid from everyone.

 

But to remain hid from the world is not so easy. At first it can be managed. So long as the fruit is ripening, he needs no one, and no one needs him. When one of his children brings him food, he exchanges a few words with it, asks what is going on at home, and how the mother is, and he feels he has done his duty, if, when obliged to go home, he spends there Friday night and Saturday morning. That over, and the hot stew eaten, he returns to the orchard, lies down under a tree, opens the Tales of Jerusalem, goes to sleep reading a fantastical legend, dreams of the Western Wall, Mother Rachel's Grave, the Cave of Machpelah, and other holy, quiet places—places where the air is full of old stories such as are given, in such easy Hebrew, in the Tales of Jerusalem.

 

But when the fruit is ripe, and the trees begin to bend under the burden of it, Avròhom must perforce leave his peaceful world, and become a trader.

 

When the first wind begins to blow in the orchard, and covers the ground thereof with apples and pears, Avròhom collects them, makes them into heaps, sorts them, and awaits the market-women with their loud tongues, who destroy all the peace and quiet of his Garden of Eden.

 

On Sabbath he would like to rest, but of a Sabbath the trade in apples—on tick of course—is very lively in the orchards. There is a custom in the town to that effect, and Avròhom cannot do away with it. Young gentlemen and young ladies come into the orchard, and hold a sort of revel; they sing and laugh, they walk and they chatter, and Avròhom must listen to it all, and bear it, and wait for the night, when he can creep back into his hut, and need look at no one but the trees, and hear nothing but the wind, and sometimes the rain and the thunder.

 

But it is worse in the autumn, when the fruit is getting over-ripe, and he can no longer remain in the orchard. With a bursting heart he bids farewell to the trees, to the hut in which he has spent so many quiet, peaceful moments. He conveys the apples to a shed belonging to the farm, which he has hired, ever since he had the orchard, for ten gulden a month, and goes back to the Gass.

 

In the Gass, at that time, there is mud and rain. Town Jews drag themselves along sick and disheartened. They cough and groan. Avròhom stares round him, and fails to recognize the world.

 

"Bad!" he mutters. "Fê!" and he spits. "Where is one to get to?"

 

And Avròhom recalls the beautiful legends in the Tales of Jerusalem, he recalls the land of Israel.

 

There he knows it is always summer, always warm and fine. And every autumn the vision draws him.

 

But there is no possibility of his being able to go there—he must sell the apples which he has brought from the orchard, and feed the wife and the children he has "outside the land." And all through the autumn and part of the winter, Avròhom drags himself about with a basket of apples on his arm and a yearning in his heart. He waits for the dear summer, when he will be able to go back and hide himself in the orchard, in the hut, and be alone, where the town mud and the town Jews with dulled senses shall be out of sight, and the week-day noise, out of hearing.