A Common Language

This happened right after the war broke out. I didn't feel very much like being killed, so I started thinking of ways to “take flight” from my shtetl. And surprisingly I succeeded. Around Succos-time I landed in America and a distant relative of mine in New York took me off the boat.

Ai, the troubles of a greenhorn! A scholar in the subject of cloakmaking, as I am today, I had not yet become. And if in those days you had “unioned” me till you were blue in the face, I still would not have understood what a “unya” was or what “workers' interests” were or what “pickeven” meant. Although, to tell the truth, even in those days I knew how to smack a man in the mug so hard he'd see his grandmom in the next world. But I didn't know, as yet, that it was “scabs” you were supposed to smack. Back home in my shtetl I wasn't so choosy. Let somebody start up with me—smack! right in the teeth, and he'd turn over three times!

That's why, in fact, they used to call me “the wild animal.” But they had more respect for me than for the rabbi—almost as much, maybe, as for the Russian constable.

I made my living selling fish in the market. From the other fishmongers, sneak-thieves used to swipe fish. But not from me! Never a single fishbone ever went astray on me—that's how much respect people had for my two fists. But here in America—no more bigshot. Nothing respected me, not even hunger. For days at a time I roamed the streets looking for ways to earn a few pennies, but it was no use.

I had brought a few dollars from home. But I am, unfortunately, a man who likes to eat. And your American bread isn't big enough to fill one of my teeth. And my teeth, thank God, are still all present in my mouth. So the few dollars quickly melted away.

And back home I had left a young wife. Pretty, too. Only four years we'd been married. And a three- year-old doll—a beautiful little girl. I thought about them all the time and missed them so much I thought I'd go crazy! I hadn't left them much money. What were they living on there? Suppose they didn't have enough to eat, God forbid? Twice a week I wrote a letter to my wife, and in every letter I told her, “Soon. Soon. Soon I'll be sending you some American dollars.”

So she waited there and I waited here.

A month passed. Another month. I was starting to lose all hope of ever earning a penny in America.

I lived with a relative, a peddler, an out-and-out pauper with a houseful of little kids. So he advised me to go peddling, too. All right, I thought, let it be peddling! He even bought me a basketful of notions. Now go out, brother! Go forth and knock on doors! So I went forth and knocked . . . Knock today, knock tomorrow. Knock and knock and with each door I felt like more and more of a shlimmazl. This one insulted me—how come a big strapping fellow like you goes around peddling? You're not strong enough to get a real job? And another answered me in Turkish or Hindu or whatever it was and go understand what she's saying! And in a third place they didn't say anything—slammed the door on my nose and—get lost!

Well, at the end of the week I gave my relative back his basket: “No more knocking on doors, Yosha. It's too much like begging. They don't buy and I don't sell. I'd rather go dig ditches or break rocks . . . ”

And I started looking again. found—nothing!

Inside my pockets a cold wind whistled. My stomach kept turning over, demanding its due. My relative and his wife felt very sorry for me. They couldn't bear to witness my troubles, they said, so would I please take pity on them and find myself new lodgings . . .

When I heard that, as you can imagine, I felt even better. Once in a while they would ask me to sit down and eat with them. But all the while I could see the black look in her eye, so I spared myself the misery of the meals, and instead, when they were all asleep in the middle of the night, your humble servant would slide silently off his bed of boards, tiptoe into the kitchen in his bare feet and—live it up!

At first the peddler's wife blamed her losses on the kids, but she soon caught on who the real culprit was and came at me in earnest. “It's not enough I give you a place to sleep, you have to eat me out of house and home! Who do you think I am—Mrs. Rothschild? I'm a poor man's wife and I have enough mouths to feed without yours!”

That same week I read an advertisement in the Yiddish paper that a certain cantor in Brownsville needed a basso.

Now I want you to know that back home, for the High Holidays, I used to help out the Reader in the synagogue. So I thought: If I can't dig ditches or break rocks—then let me try singing!

I borrowed a dime from my relative and rode out to Brownsville.

The cantor was a distinguished looking man with a high silk hat and a short-trimmed beard. I came right to the point. Such and such is my name. A basso from Russia. Sang with some of the leading cantors in Europe. And so forth. He asked me to sing something. I cleared my throat and let go a note with all my steam, like a locomotive. And—hog-ha!—I gave out, brother, with all my tonsils. The cantor clapped both hands over his ears and screwed up his face in pain, as though I was beating him over the head with a blackjack.

“Gevald! Gevald! Enough! Stop!”

So I stopped.

“You sure can holler,” he said. “You have, k'n'hora, a lot of strength. But singing—may God protect us!”

Well, what do you think happened? All of a sudden I felt tears streaming down my cheeks; hot, scalding tears. The first time in my life I ever bawled and blubbered like an old woman.

To make a long story short, the cantor, not a bad sort, started asking me questions and I told him everything.

“Listen," he said to me when I finished. “I think I know of a job for you. A rich member of my shul, a builder, needs a watchman.” And without another word he picked up the telephone, called the builder, and told him the whole story.

“Tell him to come right over!” said the builder.

So in a little while I stood with the cantor in front of a rich house with two lions outside the door. The lions had their mouths open.

“Don't be afraid,” joked the cantor. "They won't bite. They're made out of stone.”

“It would be better if they were real," I said. "Then they could make a meal out of me and that would be the end of it!”

We walked through the door and into the house. The place gleamed and sparkled. Big mirrors in golden frames. Pictures on the walls. Golden furniture. A big clock, also made of gold. Even the walls were decorated with gold stripes. The whole house was full of gold.

The builder himself, a short, jolly man, with a red beard and freckles and a sizable pot-belly, started right in. When did I come here, where did I come from, what did I do in the old country and so on and so on. I gave him straight answers to all his questions.

“Understand,” he said, "I had a watchman. But he had one bad habit. He couldn't stay awake nights. So thieves came and stole things from my houses. Poor people live in that neighborhood, and they steal lumber, as much as they can carry away. So three days ago I sacked him. And now my wife and my son have to sit there all night long in the shack, like watchdogs . . .

Then he asked me more questions.

“Can I depend on you?”

“Certainly.”

“You won't fall asleep?”

“Sleep? Who can sleep in America?”

“You'll watch good?”

“What else? Of course!”

“Can you sock a man, if necessary?”

I didn't understand what he meant.

“With your fists, I mean. Eylem-beylem, yamtsadreylem! So the thief will see stars and stay ten miles away from my houses—”

“When it comes to that,” I told him, “you can depend on me. I'm not so much in love with the people here that I'll hold back a good punch if they need one!”

In short, I got the job. Ten dollars a week. And for that I had to watch the houses all night so nobody would steal anything. Before I left, the builder said to me:

“Remember now, no sleeping! Watch with both eyes and listen with both ears. Because my wife, God bless her, doesn't sleep too well herself. In the middle of the night she'll show up outside your shack. So remember—eylem-beylem-yamtsadreylem! If a thief should come, give him the right translation of that verse!"

And that's how I became a night watchman in America.

* * *

The houses that I watched seemed far away from the rest of the world. All around was open field. The only lights I could see were in the distance. At night a frightening darkness crept over the field and the lights in the distant houses stared through the dark like the eyes of cats. Kroak-roak, the frogs sang in the swamps. Now and then a street-car clanged faintly, a long way off.

But that's only when the night was quiet and clear. Let a rain come down and a wind howl—then I would feel all alone and miserable in my little shack. The winds raged and yowled like cats battling in the darkness, or they shrieked and yammered like evil spirits. The rain beat down on the roof like peas dropping from a great height. And although by nature I don't scare easily, on such a night I would feel uncommonly gloomy. I was not accustomed to such a life, just sitting and listening, doing nothing. It made me nervous. Often I would feel that I was all alone in the world, cut off from everybody, surrounded by all the demons and goblins and evil spirits which had terrified me when I was a little boy. I was still a pious greenhorn, so I often turned to the old prayers and I would say the krishma and sometimes I even talked to myself out loud just to hear a human voice. Or I would burst into a cantorial piece with my big bass voice and almost scare myself to death.

Then I would get angry with myself. "You idiot! What's there to be afraid of?" And I would screw up my courage and go outside my shack to "inspect" the houses. But I was still afraid to look into the darkness where the awful voices howled, and I kept my eyes on the lighted window of my shack. Of human beings I was not afraid, not of the worst gangsters! But of the dark and the things that meowed there —that was a different story!

Luckily, however, the rain did not fall every night, nor the winds howl. On quiet nights the croaking of the frogs recalled my old home to me and I would think about my wife Hinda and my baby Esther. I missed them so much! I loved them more than ever before. Thinking about them would remind me that I was not all alone in the world, that back home I had a sweet, pretty wife who thought about me, too, and a bright little creature who called me Daddy. If only they were here with me in my shack, life wouldn't be so bad. Without them, however, life was bitter. Now that I had begun to earn money I felt even worse. You have a pretty wife but she's there and you're here. You have a cute baby and you can't even kiss her. But then I would remind myself that it would not be long before I'd be able to send them money. And I would cheer up.

The first week passed peacefully. Nobody came to steal. My boss's missus, a tall, skinny woman with a big mouth, almost every night seemed to grow out of the ground and knock at my window.

“Hey! You're not asleep?”

So I would come outside and she would hold her lantern up to my face to see whether I hadn't been taking a nap, heaven forbid. Then she'd say:

“That's the way! Be a good worker and you'll amount to something in America!”

And off she'd go. Not once did she say “Good-night.”

* * *

I came to hate her like poison. I had to bite my tongue to keep from telling her off. Her husband, on the other hand, with his red beard and freckles, was a regular guy, always cheerful. Sometimes he would slip me a cigar, “to help me pass the time.”

“My missus sends regards! She told me to tell you—listen with your eyes and watch with your ears! And the main thing —remember that verse. In case, God forbid, a thief shows up, don't hesitate—eylem-beylem-yamtsadreylem!”

Until one night—

One night I sat in my shack “on duty.” It was a Monday night, I remember, during the second week. In my pocket lay the first American dollars I had gotten from my boss that very day. My pocket was warm and so was my heart. I thought about my Hinda and imagined how she would open the envelope that I would send her and how she'd cry for joy. And for joy I felt like crying myself . . .

In my half-sleep I heard the croaking of the frogs, kroak-roak, kroak-roak, but suddenly, a new sound—cling-cling- nails spilling on wood—I jumped up out of my chair. There were kegs of nails out there near the boards. Was he finally here, the gangster, the thief? I listened more intently. Again—cling-cling-cling. Then I heard something else—footsteps on the boards.

My heart skipped. Suppose it was a gangster and I'd now have to carry out my boss's verse—eylem-beylem-yamtsadreylem? The truth is, although I don't frighten easily, at that moment I was trembling a little. With an old-country thief I would have flown out of there like a bomb. With an American, however—who knows what kind of cutthroat was out there in the dark? Maybe he would teach me the verse—

So I carefully picked up my lantern and tiptoed out of the shack. The darkness was so thick you could almost put your hands on it. The distant little flames which at other times stared back at me like cat's eyes were now the eyes of dangerous American gangsters with knives and pistols in their pockets and axes in their hands.

I hesitated. Suddenly, out of my throat, came Russian words: “Kto-tam! Hey! Kto-tam! Who's there?” In my fear, I must have forgotten where I was in the world.

No answer. I waited quietly again. Kroak-roak from the swamps and no other sound.

I yelled out again. “Hey! Kto-tam!” And my bass echoed so hollowly in the dark, so unfamiliar, as though another man stood behind me and bellowed.

I started to inch my way forward, holding my lantern in front of me. Suddenly—crack! The glass in the lantern shattered, the flame went out, a rock grazed my leg and landed behind me.

And that, you see, put an end to all my fears. I lunged at the pile of boards, screaming as though I were attacking all the gangsters in America at one time. I heard footsteps running across the boards and then—slam! a rock hit my right shoulder so hard it almost knocked me over. But that didn't stop me either. Not me! Nothing concerned me now but getting my hands on somebody—

But the gangsters must have sensed in my voice that I could take care of myself. Soon I heard them running away in the fields. They had retreated . . .

Later, when I returned to my shack, I felt a sharp pain in my shoulder, but my heart was a lot lighter than before. Because now I knew that American gangsters run away, too. In that case, I wasn't afraid of them either.

I unbuttoned my shirt to look at my wound. The skin was red as fire.

“Gangsters! Just wait! You'll pay for this! Let me only get you in my hands for one minute! I'll teach you the verse so well you'll never forget it—eylem-beylem-yamtsadreylem!”

In the morning we discovered that the gangsters had tried to make off with a keg of nails, but I had frightened them away just in time. They had left it in a ditch. My boss and his missus couldn't stop praising me.

“Did you at least teach them my verse?” he wanted to know.

And his wife, the tall skinny pest with the big mouth, beamed and said to him: “Didn't I tell you he would be a good cat for our mice?”

“You're a better cat, Rivkele . . . ”

She didn't take this as a compliment. “Common peddler!” she muttered.

He laughed. “Don't take offense—” Then he turned to me. “Here—let me treat you to a schnapps! You've earned it!” And he handed me a dollar bill. But his wife, quick as a wink, snatched the money out of his hand.

“Look at him—Mister Big-hearted!” She hid the bill in her pocket, stuck a quarter in my hand and flounced away.

My boss laughed louder and jollier and said: “Women! What a nation! Who ever invented them?” He gazed after his wife, disappearing among the houses, took another dollar bill out of his pocket and slipped it to me on the sly.

“Here, take it! But if you ever catch one of them—”

I laughed, too. “It'll be just too bad for him! I'll translate your verse for him good! Don't worry!”

“Exactly! That's what I mean exactly! Always keep my verse in mind! Understand? Not only in your mind—but in your fists!” And in a confidential, keep-a-secret tone, he continued: “I have an old, personal grudge against them. In the days when I was a peddler, they pestered the life out of me. And they're the same ones who come here to steal. So when you catch one of those loafers, let him have it, lay it on him good! No mercy! Beat him up! Twist his arm off! Break his leg! Knock his block off! In America you can even shoot at a thief. In short—eylem-beylem-yamtsadreylem!”

And he ran off after his wife . .

* * *

Another week went by. I sent my wife off a few dollars and in my head I had already figured out how much longer I would have to work before I could send her a big enough sum to open a little store there. And then the catastrophe hit me—

A terrible night. A cold rain. A bitter wind howled, whistled, barked, tried to turn the world upside down. It was an awful night to be out, and it was even worse all alone in my shack. Now it rattled and shook like a man in a fever, now it seemed as though the wind was about to pick it up and turn it over together with me and the iron stove at which I sat and warmed myself.

I thought I would feel better if I looked out the window. For a moment I saw nothing but the rain smashing against the glass. Suddenly—a little flame, moving out there in the dark! I stared. There it was again—a little red flame, moving slowly toward the boards. Aha! My guest was back!

“Gird your loins, Reb Bertchik!” I said out loud.

And I tightened the belt around my pants, rolled up my sleeves, and sharpened my weapons .

“Reb Bertchik, make them pay for that pain in your shoulder, too!”

Quietly I stepped out of the shack, not a bit afraid now; it was like the good old days back home. And my temper was burning hotter inside me by the second.

Through the darkness I saw a lantern on the ground near a pile of boards. I bent over and made myself as small as I could. One step at a time, I moved closer and closer to the light.

The wind howled, the rain whipped my face and the cold went right through my bones.

Close enough now, I saw someone stooping over, poking around the boards. Silently I took a few more steps. Now I was right behind him. I tackled him, but so hard that he hit the ground with his face. I wrestled him up and wham! in the face. Bop! in the eye. Sock! in the teeth. Bang! I boxed his ears. And then I started all over again from the beginning.

The gangster started to scream for mercy. But I paid no attention. I went ahead with my lesson. Eylem-beylem-yam-tsadreylem And I kept pounding it into him with both fists. Wham! Sock! Crack! A left! A right!

But here—what is this? Something was biting my knee and screaming in terror. Must be a dog. I yanked my leg away and reached for a stick, a board, anything to drive that mad dog away. But then I saw her—it was not a dog. It was a little girl. Five-six years old. The rain was pouring off her as she shook and trembled like a water-drenched kitten and cried and sobbed breathlessly, and shrieked and stared at me and stared . . . God in heaven! What eyes that little girl had and how she looked at me! The Angel of Death himself staring at me would not have upset me so much.

My tongue was struck dumb. My limbs refused to move. It was she, this little girl, who had screamed so terribly and who had bitten my leg as I beat the man—

The man—was he her father? But how could he have taken her outdoors on such a night, especially when he had come to steal? Impossible that he was her real father!

But then she ran over to him as he lay groaning on the ground and fell on his neck and wept pitifully—and called him “Papa” . . . When I heard that, my heart broke. I thought I'd go out of my mind. God in heaven! So he's a thief. But a thief also has fatherly feelings! How could he have dragged such a baby along with him?

Now the man sat up and put his arms around the little girl and kissed her and comforted her and talked to her softly and talked and talked . . . I could see that he did love her, that he was behaving like a father. Then how—?

Suddenly it struck me. Maybe he had no home for himself and his child? Who knows what kind of place Ameritchke is? Maybe that's why he went out to steal on a night like this—?

A fire went through my brain. Maybe he had done it for the sake of his child—my hands ought to wither!

I picked up his lantern and went over to him. The little girl began to scream again, and kicked at me, and punched me with her little fists. The man, his face bloody, was trying to tell me something as he imploringly held out both his hands. My whole body began to tremble and I felt that I myself was about to start bawling. I began to talk to him— in Russian, in Yiddish, in Hebrew.

“Such a little girl, how could you—in such weather?”

Then he said something, and the child kept on crying, and the rain poured down, and the wind wailed É

“Don't cry, liebinke, don't cry, little girl! May my hands fall off if I hurt your father again!”

She didn't understand me. So I pulled a half-dollar out of my pocket and tried to put it into her little hand. But she threw the coin away from her onto the boards and kept on crying.

I started to look for the half-dollar with my lantern. The man had gotten up on his feet. He came over, picked up the coin and handed it to me. I pushed it back into his hand Whereupon he let out a pitiful moan, like a whipped dog; and fell on my shoulder and kissed it.

I thought my heart would break to bits.

“Come,” I said, pointing to the shack. He understood me. He said something to the child, and spoke to her soothingly until she grew quiet. Then he lifted her up into his arms and we all went inside the shack. I was ashamed to look into his eyes, he was so bloody and beaten.

I handed him a pail of water and a towel. And while he was washing his face, I looked at the girl who stood gazing forlornly at us both. How pale she was, how thin, and how amazingly large were her black, frightened eyes. I raised my hand to pet her, but she leaped away from me like a startled animal. I took a bagel out of my lunch-bag, smeared it with butter and offered it to her. She looked at it, and looked, and practically swallowed it with her eyes, but she refused to take it from me, from the gangster who had beaten her father so unmercifully É

* * *

In a little while, the man, an Italian in his forties, and his little daughter, sat at my stove and warmed themselves We talked, he in his language, I—in mine.

He pointed to her dress, her shoes, showed me how skimpy and threadbare they were. We talked in sign language, with our hands, with gestures. But we understood each other, we understood each other very well, even though we didn't speak each other's language. He peddled bananas, he told me, and he had a wife and four bambinos, one younger than the other, and his house was cold, and he had come here to gather up some wood, and he had brought the little girl along to hold the lantern for him É

A thought seared my brain—maybe my house in the old country was cold, too? I deserved to be whipped! Why had I beaten him this way?

I handed him the bagel and pointed to the little girl. He gave it to her and she took it. When I saw how greedily she devoured it, I thought of my Estherke. Maybe my baby was going hungry, too?

I tried to talk with the girl.

“Good bagel, yes?”

She turned her head away.

“I not hurt your Papa again . . .” I tried to stroke her hair. But she stamped her little foot and hurled the bagel to the ground. She could not forgive me . . . If somebody had beat me that way, my Estherke would not forgive him either . . .

After a while, the man took his daughter by the hand. “Now must go home,” he explained.

“Wait!” I said. “Come with me!” I took them over to the pile of boards, gathered up a heap of kindling and put it into his arms.

“Now go!”

But out of the darkness and the cold rain—mazl-tov! She's here! The missus! As though sprung from the earth. In one hand an umbrella, which the wind was trying to tear out of her hand. In the other a lantern which she held up to my face, then at the man with his armful of kindling, then at the little girl standing by his side, and in her bewilderment she lost her tongue.

To tell the truth, when I saw her I was scared myself, at first. To come out of the dark unexpectedly like that! But soon I recovered myself and I pushed the man away.

“Go! Go!”

The missus dropped her umbrella and the wind caught it up and carried it off a little way until it caught on a board. But she grabbed the man's sleeve.

“What is this?” she barely managed to mutter.

“Kindling wood,” I said. “You really don't need it. He's in trouble. His family's freezing. Look at that poor little girl . . . ”

“Ganef!” she screamed at me. “This is how you watch our property? This is what we pay you for?”

“I'm not a thief, missus! For a word like that I usually hand out a smack in the teeth!” And I pulled her away from the man.

“Go!” I said again. “Go!”

He walked away quickly with the armful of kindling, his little daughter lighting the way ahead for him.

My missus apparently was afraid of me now. Because suddenly she started talking to me in a completely different tone, so soft, so soothing, like salve on a wound.

“Bertchik, dear Bertchik, let go my arm. You're hurting me, Bertchik. I have a weak heart. A strong man like you wouldn't know about such things. So you gave away some kindling. So what? We won't go bankrupt over it. You're a good man, Bertchik. You have a heart of gold. Let go my arm, Bertchik dear. . . ”

So I let go her arm and she snatched up her umbrella.

“Good night!” she said, and vanished in the darkness. The first time since I'd been working there that she ever said good night to me!

* * *

The next morning she came to my shack with her husband and both of them had only one thing to say to me: “You're fired!”

Later, walking toward the streetcar line with my bundle under my arm, I bumped into my Italian friend on Pitkin Avenue, standing next to a pushcart. He recognized me and offered me a banana. I told him about my calamity in my language, and he told me again about his troubles in his language, and again we both understood each other. We understood each other very well indeed . . .