Yiddishlands: A Memoir

18. Cape Cod

Didn’t we see? Rushing her like that almost made her forget to hide the jewelry in the cedar closet! Sheyn voltn mir oysgezen, think if we hadn’t brought along the wet face cloth, it’s already so hot and we have such a long road ahead, a good thing we’re already past the Canadian-U.S. border, she worries that something might be wrong with our passports. When the border patrollookedatourluggageherefusedtobelievewewereonlygoingfortwo weeks.Arewecomfortablebackthere?There’splentyofroomatherfeetfor the extra pillow. Too bad, I say to myself, we didn’t take the Mercier Bridge to cross the border at Malone, catching a glimpse along the way of the giant teepee outside of Caughanauwake, but then it would have meant stopping at Huntingdon , tempting Father to drop by the factory for a bit, not just another delay, but another chance to be reminded of how Mother put her foot down when they came to Canada: Never again would she live in a factory town, that was something for Nat and Sally to do to save money, but four years in Krosno were enough, when the day’s entertainment was a walk into town and back, every mother pushing her own perambulator, you had to prove to the other mothers how dedicated you were, and after Krystyna died in childbirth she hardly had anyone to talk to, and if we lived in Huntingdon, Dovidl might have fallen off the roof just like cousin David did and had a 109 18 Cape Cod limp for the rest of his life, God forbid. So let’s sing a Chastúshka, shall we? Po úlitsa khodíla bolsháya krokodíla aná, ana, golódnaya bilá! What a relief to be singing so soon the song that never fails to raise our spirits , “A great big crocodile went walking on the street and she was ever-sohungry .” Guess what she read in the Tog-morgnzhurnal yesterday? That this was David Bergelson’s favorite Russian song and he sang it to his granddaughter just before the Soviet secret police came to take him away. The subject of Krosno comes up anyway, after we safely cross the border at Champlain, because Father compliments her on her new summer hat. What a laugh! It reminds her of Shmuel Dreyer’s visit when he came to Krosno to check up on her after they were married. He comes in, Dreyer does, looks around, then compliments her on their dining room table made of inlaid wood. Vos vúnderstu zikh? Papale said after Dreyer went back to Vilna. “What else was there in our apartment to single out for praise?” Just so, her summer hat. Who, indeed, were we the envy of? Certainly not of the other Roskies. See how Papale bends over backward not to provoke his brothers, or any of her sisters-in-law, may they live and be well. So as not “to tear their eyes open” he refuses to buy a new Oldsmobile, will drive this one into the ground. See if we don’t have a flat tire as we had last summer. Why, we should have seen the Packard they had in Czernowitz! King Carol didn’t own a finer car. Papale begrudged himself a chauffeured sedan, but as director of Caurom he had no choice, until they arrived in Lisbon and were waiting for a ship. There was a ship at anchor that could have taken them to Uruguay. Papele said no. If they were to quit Europe, it had to be for a country where all citizens were equal. Uruguay, he maintained, was like Romania , with a corrupt government, a tiny elite, and a peasantry still enslaved to the land. Papale was always such a democrat. Not like his brothers who walk all over him. That brother of his, a gangster without a revolver, took everything they had to ransom his wife and daughters, wouldn’t let Binyomin in as a partner, had him banished to Lindsay instead, to get him out of the way, and cheated Papale and Ben out of their shares in Lion Rubber. chapter eighteen 110 If only Daar hadn’t died on the eve of their arrival to Canada, they could have gone into business with him and let the Roskies stew in their own juices. Time for a Bundist song. Papale, you sing the chorus. I am a little tailor of the best. Chorus...