In the Land of Happy Tears

by Yiddish Tales for Modern Times

  This way, the sisters enjoyed each other’s company day and night.

  One day around midsummer, a rich woman from a nearby city arrived in the village with her son—a little boy with big blue eyes and beautiful blond locks. The rich woman had come to spend the summer in the countryside, and rented a room from a peasant opposite the house where the two sisters lived. The very next morning, the little boy—already feeling quite at home in the strange new place—played outside in the golden sun, happily riding his leather horsey and cracking his snappy whip, crying out, “Giddyup!” as his laughter rang out like a bell.

  The two sisters, hearing his sweet peals of laughter, came out of their house. They stood on the porch, looking curiously at the lovely, merry little boy in his white pants and brown sandals. Never before had they seen such a golden boy. They were used to the sight of the barefoot peasant children.

  They came down from the stoop and approached the little boy tentatively. When he saw them, he fell silent and stopped cracking his whip over the horsey’s back.

  The children looked shyly at one another for a long moment.

  The little boy was the first to speak, his eyes flashing: “Come on, girls, let’s play together. Here’s the whip. You want it? Or maybe the ball? Wait until you see how far I can throw!”

  The sisters wanted to play ball. Neither of them had ever held a ball. The three beautiful children played together for a long while, their cheeks flaming, throwing the big, soft ball to one another and laughing. But suddenly the sisters realized they had not yet cleaned the house or prepared lunch.

  For the first time in their lives, the two sisters began to bargain with each other.

  “You go inside and clean up,” commanded the elder sister without taking her eyes off the boy.

  “I don’t want to! You go! I’m too tired,” grumbled her little sister, refusing to budge from the little boy’s side.

  Both sisters very much wanted to continue playing with him.

  “Go, I said!” cried the elder sister with fiery eyes.

  “I said I don’t want to, so you go!” her little sister shouted in her face.

  At that, the elder sister grabbed her by the hair, and the younger sister started scratching at her big sister’s face. But the elder was stronger, and the younger was forced to run away, sobbing out loud from the shame. Yet instead of going inside to clean up, she ran down to the riverbank.

  She stood by the clear silvery waters of the stream and wept bitterly over her sister’s making a fool of her in front of the little boy.

  Just then, a golden fish swam to the riverbank and looked at her, its shiny eyes full of pity.

  “Little girl, little girl, why do you cry so? Who’s hurt you?” The little girl pulled back, frightened to hear the fish speaking to her just like a person. “I’m the little fish to whom you used to throw bread crumbs every day while playing by the riverside. Tell me who hurt you, and I’ll avenge you.”

  “My sister!” the little girl sobbed. “She drove me away from the little boy, and now she has him all to herself!”

  “Hush. I’ll take revenge on her for you,” the little fish told her. “You’ll soon be the one playing with the little boy.”

  And the little fish splashed with its golden tail and disappeared deep into the water. But suddenly the little girl was seized with terror about the fish’s revenge on her sister, and Mama and Papa’s reaction.

  So she raced into the house to do her chores, and resolved to save her sister from the fish’s revenge. After all, they were still sisters! And she burst out crying again, but this time out of pity for her sister.

  The next morning, when the elder sister went to bathe in the river, her little sister jumped up and ran over to stand in her way.

  “Don’t go! The little fish is going to hurt you! Oh, don’t go!” she begged her.

  But the elder sister refused to listen to her and ran down to the river to bathe.

  Her frightened little sister tiptoed after her and hid by the riverbank near the place where her big sister was bathing in the clear water.

  Suddenly the little golden fish swam over to her, leapt into the air, fastened its little teeth onto her beautiful long hair, and began to drag her down into the water. In another minute, she would drown! But her little sister jumped up from her hiding place with a frightful cry:

  “Little fish! Little fish! Don’t kill her! Take pity, don’t drown my only sister! Mama and Papa will cry, and I’ll cry, too, because I love my sister!”

  The golden fish at once let go of the elder sister’s hair and ashamedly disappeared into the water.

  The two sisters embraced and clung to each other for a long time, and they swore an oath to love each other just as they had in the past, and never to fight about anything in the world ever again.

  Translated by Ri J. Turner and David Stromberg

  A war broke out among the boys.

  With copies of the humash, the five books of Moses, still under their arms, the younger classes played Mount Sinai in the evening, straight after school.

  “Mount Sinai”—a long, flat slab, half-buried in the middle of the unpaved, sandy synagogue courtyard—was occupied and cleared by the boys.

  “My Mount Sinai!”

  “Get off! My Mount Sinai!”

  They fought, pushing each other around like sparrows in the dusty sand, jostling and clambering onto the slab.

  “I’m Moses!”

  “No! I’m already standing here. I’m Moses!”

  It was a golden summer evening. Somewhere far off, behind the roof of the tall synagogue, the flaming-red sun was setting with a glow. Above the boys’ heads, the thin, dry dust, together with the noise, hung as if motionless in the air. Here and there, little clouds of rhythmic mosquitoes swarmed between heaven and earth. Beetles kept blindly bumping into the old walls of the synagogue in midflight and suddenly dropping down, without managing to fold their transparent lower wings.

  As if out of nowhere, swallows darted swiftly from under the shingled roofs of the study houses and the tall roof of the synagogue, and flew every which way with a soft twitter, dropping to the very ground like flung pebbles and immediately shooting up to the sky as fast as arrows.

  When one of the boys, throwing back his head, spotted a bat—fluttering in the air like a leaf torn off by the wind, and seeming itself not to know where to fly—he’d shout:

  “Bring something white! Quick, something white, to get its attention!”

  The youngest boys played buttons or just watched the sky, and as soon as they saw a flock of birds moving across the sky to their nightly stopover, they’d sing in chorus:

  Quick, the house is burning…down.

  Throw a purse of money…down.

  Everything buzzed and hummed as if a taut string vibrated in the air the whole time. Yet the town’s weary Jews hurried across the synagogue courtyard to evening prayers in the study houses, wiping sweat from their faces and paying no attention to the noise made by the children. Above them, dark stripes lay across the sky like wrinkles, giving it a pensive late-afternoon appearance.

  Near Mount Sinai, amid the commotion, a piercingly shrill little voice was almost crying.

  “Ow-ow-ow! My pant leg! My pants! Blabbermouth, why are you pulling at me? You’re tearing my pant leg, you’re tearing it!”

  Tsalkele Blabbermouth, a puffed-up boy bloated like a bladder, had latched on to Yankele’s foot, pushing himself against the stone and dragging Yankele off Mount Sinai with all his might.

  “Blabbermouth, you’d better let go,” threatened the little voice.

  “No, Questionhead, I won’t. You’re calling names!”

  Yankele Questionhead, splayed flat on his tummy, was holding his humash high in one hand, and with the other was clutching at the stone. He yelled again that his pa
nt leg was tearing and, feeling he’d be dragged down any minute, tried to hold on with both hands, forgetting about the humash and letting it go.

  “The humash! The humash is falling!” shouted Yankele Questionhead in fear, and at once saw the humash open its covers as a bird opens a pair of wings, flipping over the stone and falling in the sand.

  “Blabbermouth, let go! Careful, don’t step on it!” the boys began to shout, all scrambling to pick up the humash.

  “I picked it up first. I get to kiss it!” said one boy, out of breath.

  “What are you talking about? You need to kiss the spot where it fell,” interrupted a boy with prickly eyes and freckles.

  “Get lost, you red-headed Roman. You don’t know a thing—Questionhead has to kiss it,” butted in a scruffy-looking boy who hadn’t heard what was said. “It was Questionhead who dropped it.”

  “Blabbermouth, too!” the others chimed in. “They’re both guilty. They both have to kiss it,” the other boys said, passing their ruling.

  Without the humash, Yankele Questionhead now had a better grip on the stone and squealed shrilly:

  “Blabber! Blabbermouth! The sin is on your head. Let go!”

  But Tsalkele Blabbermouth—his face puffed up and red—stubbornly and dumbly, like an ox, still wouldn’t let go of him.

  “Blabbermouth, let go!” The others pounced on him. “We’ll punch you in the sides….”

  Feeling he’d been freed, Yankele Questionhead jumped off the stone in agitation, losing his cap, and ran at Tsalkele Blabbermouth, fixing him with his black eyes and starting to hit himself in the chest, swearing like a grown-up:

  “As true as I’m a Jew, I’ll kill you!”

  “Kiss the humash.” A boy brought him his humash.

  “Some trick! To drag me down by the foot—that’s his trick, that Blabbermouth.” Yankele was boiling. “I dropped the humash because of him.”

  Tsalkele turned even redder. Having sensed that the boys weren’t on his side, he sulked and grumbled:

  “Why are you calling names, huh?”

  “I’ll show you calling names.” Yankele felt he was in the right. “Blabbermouth!”

  “Questionhead!”

  “Why are you calling names, huh?” Yankele flared up and started all over again. “You think I’ll be quiet? You think I’m afraid of you?” Yankele moved closer to Blabbermouth’s face, sensing that the boys admired him and getting even more excited. “You think I’m afraid of you because you’re a head taller? I’ll go one-on-one with you.”

  The boys’ eyes lit up.

  “One-on-one,” many of them echoed. “Questionhead’s right. Make a circle.”

  The boys made a circle.

  “Come on, take a poke.” Yankele Questionhead stood sideways like a hero as he watched Tsalkele Blabbermouth with vigilant eyes.

  “You…take a poke first!” Tsalkele Blabbermouth let the words roll slowly off his tongue.

  “Questionhead, you start!” the impatient ones egged on.

  “Don’t butt in. It’s one-on-one,” insisted the others.

  “Here, I’ve touched you.” Yankele touched Tsalkele’s jacket with his finger.

  Tsalkele was now red as a beet. He slowly turned his head and said stubbornly:

  “That isn’t touching.”

  “It is touching, it is!” the boys yelled.

  Tsalkele Blabbermouth kept shaking his head and stood his ground.

  “That isn’t touching.”

  “Poke him harder!” the other boys incited Yankele.

  “I know!” Yankele now felt like a big shot and gave a prod with his finger, a little harder.

  “He touched you, he touched you, we saw it!” the boys started yelling again.

  “Here, take it back.”

  Tsalkele saw he could no longer help it, and in the same way, slowly touched Yankele’s jacket with his finger.

  “Why are you hitting me?”

  Yankele, pretending to cry, suddenly pounced on Tsalkele. They grabbed each other and began rolling around in the sand, as if in soft eiderdown, stirring up a cloud of dust.

  The other boys bent over them and followed them intently, stretching the circle according to how they rolled, supervising and warning them:

  “The stone, you’re rolling onto the stone! To the side, to the side!”

  “My goodness, little urchins, why are you killing each other?” suddenly sounded the voice of Leah, the sexton’s wife—a tall, withered woman with hairy warts on her face, whom they feared and who they were sure could do magic.

  “Little bandits, why are you letting Jewish children fight? Wait till I tell your fathers!”

  She grabbed Yankele and Tsalkele and lifted them from the sand.

  Still heated from the fight, at first they didn’t see who had lifted them, and both blurted out at the same time:

  “Well, who packed a better punch?”

  But soon they broke free and ran to the other boys, who had scattered across the synagogue courtyard.

  “Here are your caps.” The other boys handed them their caps with particular friendliness.

  “Here, I’ll brush you off from behind,” others offered helpfully.

  “Don’t forget to kiss the humash, both of you,” the boy with the freckles reminded them.

  Stars spilled out across the sandy sky. A while later, the fathers spilled out of the study houses, and the boys went home.

  Translated by Lena Watson

  There once were identical twin brothers—one older than the other by just a few minutes.

  From their parents, they inherited a mirror. What kind of mirror, you ask? Not a hand mirror, and not a round hanging mirror like those in some houses nowadays, but a standing mirror—old-fashioned, long, taller than a person—one of those rare polished mirrors we see only in royal courts and in stone castles in Spain or France.

  From the palace that the parents left after their deaths, the brothers slowly sold off the fancy furniture, the original paintings, the porcelain plates, and the rare tapestries, curtains, rugs, and ivory pieces. Because aside from a big chunk of real estate, the brothers had also inherited some bad blood—blue blood, their parents had called it. The parents were even proud of it, and this in itself was enough to show the kinds of brains they had, not knowing that healthy people’s blood is red and not blue! In short, the twin brothers—who were named Anik and Manik—had drunk away, squandered, and wasted the entire estate. They first ate up the gold goblets and the silver spoons and then started on a diet of pearls and ivory. They would regularly, each day, eat three big, glimmering green pearls and for dessert have a Chinese figurine of rose ivory. That is, they didn’t actually eat the pearls and ivory, but bought food and drink after selling them. And they wore wooden clothes—that is, pants, vests, jackets, and overcoats acquired with money from the last pieces of fine furniture that they sold.

  They were left with the rare grand mirror—which they set aside for the very end. First of all, because it was unique and expensive, and they didn’t want to part with it until they found the right buyer. Second of all, the twin brothers, Anik and Manik, were extremely vain, and these self-loving peacocks enjoyed standing for minutes at a time in front of the mirror, grimacing, flirting with themselves, sticking out their tongues, making all kinds of silly faces….

  Then this happened: Anik, the younger of the two (only five minutes younger!), made a clumsy move with his cane, and knak, kerplunk! The mirror broke into bits and pieces. In the corners of the frame were triangular shards of glass, which were also split into pieces—like ripples on a river.

  When Anik saw what he’d managed to do, he became red, and then pale, and his heart started banging like a clock. He thought there was only one thing left for him to do: to take the dagger—which lay sideways in a Chin
ese ivory sheath—down from the wall and stick the blade into his heart.

  “And…and…and…and…”

  But no. He thought it over. Then a happier thought occurred to him: he himself would stand in the frame, and when his older brother, Manik, came home, Anik would mirror him—that is, whatever the other did, he would do, too, so that his brother wouldn’t catch on that there was no glass in the mirror.

  One hour, two hours, three…A-ring, ting-ting-ting, went the old doorbell. The older brother, Manik—dressed, as usual, in his black overcoat, and holding a cane—came into the palace hall, a little drunk, as always. He was in high spirits. He put the cane away in a corner, hung his hat on the rack, and pulled first one white glove off his hand and then the other, looking at himself in the mirror while pulling off the second glove.

  The younger brother, Anik, mimicked exactly what the other did, carefully pulling off a glove. When Manik opened his mouth and scratched his head, yawning deeply and heavily, Anik did the same thing. When Manik felt his long, horsey face to see whether it was time to shave, Anik made the same gestures. And when Manik started carefully bending his knees up and down, doing his usual bedtime exercises, Anik did the same—just as if he were not a person but a mirror.

  This went on for a good ten minutes. By that time, Manik had undressed all the way to his pants and further looked at himself in the mirror: at the lowered chest and pale arms, from which his hands and fingers hung down like rags. Anik was not bad at mirroring him, since in all these things, he and his brother were like two drops of water.

  It was all going excellently, and Anik was about to be pleased with his success—when suddenly! The self-indulgent Manik, today even more than usual, especially liked the way he looked in the mirror. And since he was a little drunk and feeling good, he decided to flick his own nose in the mirror. Anik had no choice but to flick him back. Manik was astonished: until now, it had never happened to him that his reflection in the mirror could…flick him back on the nose. The whole thing made him very upset. He took a couple of steps back from the mirror, raised his finger, and said: “Hey, crazy Manik”—he meant himself—“you should cut out your little act, or I’ll give you a good punch!” He then put his fist straight into Anik’s eye, and, obviously, Anik had to respond in kind.