Cobblers’ Street

The heder was in the basement. It was a dark, damp room with a low ceiling. There were two windows on the ground level. In the middle of the room, there was a long wooden table covered with books, two long wooden benches, and an oven in the back. The sun entered this room very rarely, only on long summer days for a brief moment before the sunset, and so the white chalk walls were stained with black mold. The lamp hanging from the ceiling was so full of dead flies that it was difficult to discern whether it was a lamp or something else entirely. [ . . . ]

The rebbe was not yet old; he had a black beard, and he was thin and absurdly lanky. He had long arms, legs, a long nose and, most importantly—long teeth. They jutted out of his mouth so much that his mouth never closed. And so his mouth was always open. This gave the boys little joy, since the rebbe’s breath stank.

Irme carefully opened the door and quickly sneaked into the heder, into a corner. He thought that the rebbe would not notice him right away, and he’d figure something out later. But the rebbe noticed him. He gave a nod, and the boys became quiet. They were all staring silently at Irme.

The rebbe beckoned to Irme with his index finger. Irme came closer, but not so close that the rebbe could reach him with his whip.

“Why, hello to you, Reb Irme,” said the rebbe in a friendly voice as he extended his left hand, holding the whip in his right, “How are you feeling today?”

Irme decided not to shake the rebbe’s hand but greeted him with equal friendliness.

“Thank you, Reb Yekhiel,” said Irme. “It’s just that my lower back hurts.”

The boys snorted. The rebbe glared in their direction, and they instantly grew silent.

“It hurts?” he asked Irme with concern.

“Yes, it hurts,” said Irme.

“Ay-ay-ay!” the rebbe exclaimed. “It really hurts, then?”

“It really hurts,” said Irme.

“I see-ee-ee,” said the rebbe and sighed.

“Ye-e-e-es,” said Irme and also sighed.

The rebbe cracked the whip abruptly.

“I will break you in two, you little snot!”

The whip whistled through empty air. Irme anticipated the rebbe’s movement and was already at the door. [ . . . ]

Chapter 6: An Evening Conversation

The sun was low in the sky. The sky turned deeper, darker. Twilight set in. Heat was rising from the ground, as from an oven. A light steamy mist floated over the field, and it seemed as if the field was smoldering and fuming.

Cobblers’ Street was packed with people. Everyone poured out—to sit, to smoke, to stretch their back. Those who didn’t manage to finish their work sat by the door and worked their sewing machines or drove the final nails into boots. [ . . . ] At the very bottom, in the basement, two sister-seamstresses, Libe and Neshe, sewed trousseaux for the wealthy brides of the shtetl. The young women sat by the window, and their needles flickered in their translucent fingers. The sisters sewed and sang in the thinnest of voices about a sweetheart who left for a faraway land, to America, who has forgotten about home and doesn’t send letters. They sang and coughed silently, like two crones. The basement was dark, damp like a well, and there was a wretched smell of something sour, perhaps bedbugs, and the walls were covered with mold. [ . . . ]

At home, Irme didn’t see anyone, only his youngest brother, the four-year-old Elye who was sleeping in his clothes on a bare cot by the window. Irme put a pillow under his head. The boy mumbled something indistinctly and angrily but didn’t wake up. The room was dark. Irme bumped into a stool and toppled it over. Feeling the table with his hands, he found a top-crust of bread. He took the bread and went outside again. The street was more joyful, somehow.

Close to the house, his father, Meyer, was sitting on a log. Next to him, Simkhe the milliner and Nokhem the saddler were sitting. Nokhem was tall and skinny with a dark wrinkled face and a long moustache. He and Meyer were the same age, just over thirty, but he appeared older by at least a decade. Irme didn’t like him: he was a bawler and a brawler. [ . . . ] They were talking loudly about something, arguing.

“What are they going on about?” thought Irme and, chewing the crust, drew closer so as to hear better.

When Irme came closer, Simkhe was talking. He spoke quietly and melodiously, as if praying.

“ . . . That’s how you always are, Nokhem,” he said, “You make noise, raise a racket over the entire market. But why the noise, why all the racket, you don’t even know yourself. Why am I saying this now? Because you should really think first, consider, and only then scream. But you should know, Nokhem, things that have been around for ages are not going to budge, no matter how loud you scream. God knows what he’s doing. The holy scripture says. . . .”

“You won’t quit with ‘scripture’ this, ‘scripture’ that!” Nokhem interrupted angrily. “I don’t give a damn about your scripture! Here’s some scripture for you: I am only thirty-four years old, and I’ve been working for twenty-three of those years. Twenty-three years flew by like one day! And what do I have? Fleas in my pocket and bugs in storage. That’s it! ‘Scripture, scripture.’ . . .”

“Eh, Nokhem,” Simkhe shook his head with disapproval. “There you go again. It’s true. You’re working. And I say you will work another twenty years. . . .”

“No way,” gloomily muttered Nokhem. “I won’t make it even five years. I’ll croak before then.”

“That, as you know, Nokhem, is impossible to know,” said Simkhe. “We—what are we? We are clay vessels. The Supreme Master does with us what He wants. If He wants, He puts us on a shelf; if He wants, He breaks us on the floor. But this is what I mean: you will, as I was saying, work another twenty years, and will still be naked and barefoot, a parasite. I’ve been working not twenty but forty years, thank God. And what do I have to show for it? Everybody works.”

“Everybody?” Nokhem narrowed his eyes with contempt. “Really now? Truly everybody? Only the simple-minded, naïve people like you, Reb Simkhe, think that everybody does. Everybody?! Does Fayvelke Rashall work? Does he do much at all? He walks through the yard all puffed up, saying ‘Go on, make way!’ then he clears his teeth, tells his clerk ‘Hush!’ and that’s it. That’s a real worker, may he burn in hell. And what about Mendl Sher? And Khayim Kazakov? The lot of them, what do they do exactly? Those low-lifes! I could break their necks! Bury them alive!”

“What are you talking about, Fayvl?” asked Simkhe. “Is that an example? He’s a wealthy man, why should he work? He has a lot as it is. God provided for him.”

“God provided for him. Pfft!” Nokhem spat and broke into a cough. After catching his breath, he spoke more quietly: “Ha! God provided for him! And where did God take it from exactly? From His own pocket, or what? Or did He transfer fifty thousand through His bank? God provided! We all know how He provides. We all know. So why doesn’t He give me anything? God provided! They rob us fools and then say: ‘What did we do wrong? God provided for us!’ And what about us, the poor and barefoot, do we have a special account with God? It looks like He keeps forgetting about us, Reb Simkhe. You think our account got lost? Or maybe someone snatched it?”

“Don’t blaspheme, Nokhem,” Simkhe said sternly. “That’s why He gives you nothing, because you are a blasphemer and a loudmouth.”

“Really now!” Nokhem broke into a hoarse laugh, like an old dog. “Really, because I’m a blasphemer, He gives me nothing. That makes sense. That’s righteous. I get it. What about you, though? What about you, Reb Simkhe? No doubt you are a pious person. First rate! In the morning—you’re off to shul, in the evening—you’re off to shul. Any chance you get, you go on about the scriptures. A holy person, a tsadik; you could be a warden in heaven. Nu, what about you? Did you get much from God? I don’t seem to see any of your gold; it isn’t jingling for some reason; there’s no jingle-jangle. Are you tucking it away somewhere, Reb Simkhe? Full barrels under the floorboards I suppose?” Nokhem blinked slyly. “If so, Reb Simkhe, do me a favor and lend me a thousand until Wednesday, huh?”

“You, Nokhem, don’t interfere in issues that are none of your business,” Simkhe said. “I have my own account with God. He won’t let me down, don’t worry. Not here, and not there, either.” [ . . . ]

“When the old rabbi was still alive,” said Simkhe, “a person came to him. So this person came and said: ‘Rabbi,’ he said, ‘I am a poor man. And I live,’ he said, ‘in great squalor. But I’m not angry with God. I serve him with all my heart. I go to shul, I fast, this and that, all of it.’ He went on and on. ‘Nu?’ said the rabbi. ‘Do I have a lot in heaven, rabbi?’ ‘Nu,’ said the rabbi, ‘What do you want?’ ‘Well I want to sell that lot,’ said the man simply. ‘My affairs, rabbi, are such that I might as well lay down and die. I have, praise God, seven children, and each one is smaller than the next. And so I thought: let me sell that lot, I thought.’ ‘Nu?’ ‘So do you think that perhaps one of your Hasids would buy it?’ The man wasn’t all there, clearly. Not the brightest, in other words. Nu, and the rabbi, may he rest in peace, that rabbi was a wise old man, nobody’s fool. Any other rabbi would have stomped his feet and chased the man away, ‘Get out, you so-and-so!’ But this rabbi—nothing. He looked at him for a while and said, ‘It’s too late,’ he said, ‘To sell. You’ve lost that lot.’ The man got scared and started crying, ‘How? When?’ ‘Five minutes ago, when you said the word ‘sell.’”

“An old fairy tale,” grumbled Meyer.

He spoke for the first time this evening. Up to this point he had been sitting, smoking, listening, and not saying a word.

“What’s the point of the story, Reb Simkhe?” Nokhem was confused. “Aah,” he caught on. “So I also, it turns out, lost my lot? The hell with it, anyway. I can spare it.”

He started coughing and coughed for a long time, completely hunched over, as if from a stomach ache. Then he got up.

“Time to go,” he said in a hollow voice, “I have to get up early, with the sun. Oh man! This life of ours!” And, tall, hunched-over, he crossed the street to go home.

“He is a madcap,” Osher said quietly. “I worry about him.”

“What’s to worry?” Meyer said. “He’s a goner. That’s clear.”

“You see,” said Simkhe, “He’s got one foot in the grave, but he keeps raving and brawling.”

“He’s right!” Meyer gesticulated. “He’s right, what can I say?” [ . . . ]