6

Chana-Merka the Fishwife

When Rubinshteyn the Folklorist left Vilna to gather folklore somewhere else, the fish market was in turmoil. He’d been coming to the market regularly to collect curses, sayings, and aphorisms. Chana-Merka, whose tub of fish stood at the entrance to the market, was the main source for his merchandise. Rubinshteyn had spent so much time collecting material from Chana-Merka that a little romance had developed. She was smitten with the folklorist, even though one of his legs was a little shorter than the other. The other fishwives, especially Pale Tsirl, were expecting a wedding. But Rubinshteyn, the old bachelor, got scared. He went to the passageway where they sold secondhand things, bought himself a green backpack, and limped away from Vilna, planning never to return.

Chana-Merka took his disappearance very hard. Apart from the honor of someone like Rubinshteyn coming to visit her to polish off a bit of carp or to savor a glass of tea with a babka, he’d crawled into her very heart. A good few years had passed since her husband, Orke the Net Caster, had drowned in the Narotshe Lake, and she longed for the warmth of another body. Apart from his leg, Rubinshteyn the Folklorist was quite a presentable man. Chana-Merka was impressed by his refined manners, the way he sat at the table without trying to lay a hand on her.

But why had she bothered? It all came to nothing in the end anyway. Rubinshteyn left Vilna and nothing more was heard from him. Chana-Merka felt like a widow once again and tried drowning her sorrow in her tub of fish. Although she no longer let loose with humorous quips and curses, every so often she still blurted out a saying strong enough to pierce a person’s seventh rib. Sadly, not even a good day’s earnings could lift her spirits.

One winter Friday just before Shabbes, Chana-Merka was cleaning a heap of minnows from her tub. Instead of hollering and sending the water gushing through the market, she just let it quietly trickle under people’s feet. This didn’t compare with her exploits when she’d been in her full glory and the commander of the fish market.

The other fishwives understood her mood full well. Chana-Merka had dreamt a sweet dream, but it washed up on shore. Pale Tsirl, whose tub of fish stood next to Chana-Merka’s, ranted and raved. She hissed that they should have shortened Rubinshteyn’s other leg before he started coming to the market to collect curses.

Tsirl didn’t know how to comfort Chana-Merka. Should she tell her that Osher the Clucker, from the trade after all, was pining after her? He was ready to take her exactly as she was, with only the shirt on her back. But Chana-Merka had experienced something better, a man who could hold a pen in his hand, so this would be no comfort to her. It’s true that Osher the Clucker was a big shot in the fishing business, but he didn’t compare to Rubinshteyn.

Pale Tsirl decided to have a talk with Chana-Merka. “It makes no sense to eat yourself up alive because of the folklorist, that cripple. He didn’t appreciate the curses and little jokes you gave him. Or even a woman like yourself—you offered him his own plate and spoon and a good piece of fish. May he be well, but may he shit in his pants and have brown shoes at Passover.”

The two women were walking home from the market one sunny Friday. Chana-Merka, who’d once been such a chatterbox, jabbering constantly, didn’t utter a single word. Pale Tsirl tried to cheer her up. “Chana-Merka, a curse on men. There are a lot more fish in the sea. You aren’t ugly. You can certainly still say, ‘Good morning, mirror. Pretty one, don’t despair.’”

Chana-Merka sighed. “I gave that saying to Rubinshteyn to record.”

“You’re still talking about Rubinshteyn? Can’t you get that cripple out of your head? He used up all your expressions and went somewhere else in search of another pack of used odds and ends. A plague is what he’ll find to record outside Vilna. He’ll have to limp around the entire region for a year to land what you gave him in a single week. And it won’t have that special Vilna flavor.”

Chana-Merka sighed louder. “He once said that in Bialystok . . .”

Tsirl was furious. “What about Bialystok? How can Bialystok compare with Vilna? Here, you have the proof—that Institute, now what’s it called?”

“The Yiddish Institute.”

“See how easily you remember the name,” Tsirl marveled at her friend’s memory. “Exactly. They didn’t build that Institute in Bialystok, or in Grodno, or Groys Vileyke, but in Vilna, obviously. Because Vilna is a city with curses, little jokes, and crazy people. It’s unique. Vilna has what an institute like that needs.”

“What of it? He took what he found here and left for another city to gather stuff for the Institute.”

“So he left. You think the entire business will go under?” Here Tsirl came up with a plan for her friend. Thanks to this plan, YIVO, the Yiddish Scientific Institute in Vilna, was enriched with a collection of curses, little jokes, and sayings truly to be envied.

Tsirl urged Chana-Merka to do nothing less than to set off for the Institute and tell them where their folklore came from. “Everything Rubinshteyn brought them, he got from you. Why don’t you offer to bring in the merchandise yourself and let Rubinshteyn bust a gut? There’s no better way to take revenge on him.”

Chana-Merka wasn’t thinking about revenge. Her heart was broken. She’d grown accustomed to Rubinshteyn and then he’d taken off and left the city. Chana-Merka figured he didn’t like her. Perhaps he thought she was beneath him. Why talk about revenge?

But Chana-Merka took up Tsirl’s plan for an entirely different reason. During the few months she’d spent with the folklorist, she’d become infected with the folklore bug. At first she’d shrugged her shoulders, thinking, “What’s the point of all this?” But gradually she’d come to understand that all the Vilna curses, insults, biting expressions, and aphorisms could easily be forgotten. In years to come, people might think that life in Vilna had been dry and humorless; without cutting words, without the hucksters who dragged customers into the shops from the street, without the bobesnitzes who sold boiled beans with a little saying and a tune, and without even the fish sellers in the Zaretshe market.

Chana-Merka was no simple peasant from the village. She’d managed to complete a few classes in the Devorah Kupershteyn Folk Shul for Girls. Thanks to her teacher, Gershon Pludermakher, she’d learned to hold a pen in her hand. Rubinshteyn the Folklorist had scratched off a bit of her crudeness, something a fishwife needs to earn her bit of bread. Some of the refinement that Chana-Merka had developed in school, particularly from Pludermakher’s teaching, showed itself.

One beautiful morning, Chana-Merka set off for the Institute to discuss the delivery of goods. “I want to speak with the top boss,” she said. The top boss of the Institute was Dr. Max Weinreich.

An ugly specimen known as Zelda the Researcher quivered and fretted, “Why do people come here and pester Dr. Weinreich?”

But Chana-Merka didn’t give up. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I also have rights here in the Institute.” One word followed another and soon people in the Institute realized that the woman with the gold front tooth was Rubinshteyn’s folklore source. Her name did appear on his lists. When Rubinshteyn had been around, she’d been seen a few times standing outside the Institute. The first person to recognize her was Zelda the Researcher, who’d had her eye on Rubinshteyn even before Chana-Merka.

Dr. Weinreich was delighted with Chana-Merka. He saw in her a confirmation of his theory that research without the common people isn’t worth a groschen. He’d recently written an article on that topic for the Institute journal. Dr. Weinreich sat Chana-Merka down opposite his desk, wiped his glasses, and got down to business. “Absolutely, you should bring in more material, on all topics. Here in the Institute, we’ll file it where it belongs.” He assured her that what she had given Rubinshteyn was more precious than gold. “Every curse and local expression is as sweet as sugar.”

Chana-Merka left the Institute feeling elated. Dr. Weinreich had said to her, “Mrs. Solodukhin, you possess the ultimate charm. After a single conversation with you, a person can string together a strand of precious Yiddish pearls.” It was true. Chana-Merka had presented Dr. Weinreich with language that warmed his soul.

The first list Chana-Merka supplied were Vilna curses. She didn’t submit all of them because some were too crude to say out loud. But she collected a pack of curses that were far from Rosh Hashanah greetings. They are:

May you get a piece of straw in your eye and a splinter in your ear and not know which one to pull out first.

How long do they think she’ll be sick?? If she’s going to lie in bed with a fever for another month, let the month last five weeks.

May a fish ball get stuck in your throat.

They should call a doctor for you in an emergency and when he arrives, they should tell him he’s no longer needed.

May your teeth be pulled out on a winter night and may you give birth on a summer day.

You should grow like an onion with your head in the ground.

May all your teeth be pulled out except one, and in that one you should have a toothache.

Doctors should know you and you should know doctors.

May you speak so beautifully that only cats understand you.

He should feel good. Good and dead.

May you be lucky and go crazy in a more important city than Vilna.

Chana-Merka wanted to add, “You should swallow an umbrella and it should open in your stomach,” but she remembered that everyone knew that curse. They’d even used it in the Yiddish theater. So she erased it.

During the evenings, Chana-Merka sat in her tiny room on Yatkever Street, preparing the lists for YIVO. Dr. Weinreich had told her to write everything down. It was all useful merchandise. He suggested she compile a list of words related to fishing. “What are the various tools called in Yiddish?” he asked. Filling his order, Chana-Merka wrote:

Words used in fishing, heard from my husband, Orke the Net Caster, who drowned in the Narotshe Lake:

a zavadnik: Someone who casts the nets.

tonyeven: To pull the net out of the water.

durkhshvenken di ozyere: To traverse the lake from shore to shore with a net. Literally, to rinse the lake.

When fish lay eggs, people say they’re playing.

As an added treat, Chana-Merka wrote out the names of the different varieties of apples and pears:

Types of apples: tulske, papinkes, olivne, siere, aportn, tshernohuzen.

Types of pears: margaratkes, sapeshankes, bures.

Chana-Merka collected the fruit names at the lumber market. When she started asking questions and writing the answers on a little piece of paper, the market women looked at each other over the tops of their baskets. They all felt badly that some cripple, who’d also come around asking questions and jotting things down, had hurt Chana-Merka. Everyone in the Vilna markets knew the story of Chana-Merka and Rubinshteyn.

The Institute was abuzz. The researchers and visiting students were enjoying the latest list of aphorisms that Chana-Merka had provided. After each one was read aloud, the entire group exploded in laughter. Only Zelda the Researcher, the specialist in Jewish cuisine, made wry faces. She argued that Chana-Merka’s collections were not scientifically sound and had not been collected with the appropriate methodology that proper ethnology demanded. But prattling on with fancy terminology didn’t help her. Dr. Weinreich said that Chana-Merka’s collections would be valued for their authenticity, specifically because they were taken directly from the mouths of the people. To acknowledge the importance of Chana-Merka’s material, he took the list of aphorisms in hand and read them aloud to everyone present:

Everyone desires the nipple.

A wife known as a blessing can sometimes be the greatest curse.

In a fire, even the slop pail can help.

Of an ugly girl: She looks like a cross-eyed herring on heels that are too high to be flat and too flat to be high.

God pays honestly, but He takes His time.

A lowly boot also has ears.

Even a humble hut has windows.

A poor man complains when he has two weddings in one day. Where will he eat the next day?

Even a thief should maintain his honor.

If my grandmother had wheels, she’d be a locomotive.

At this, Dr. Weinreich doubled over with laughter and stopped reading from the collection of Vilna aphorisms and sayings.

One hot summer day Chana-Merka was standing next to her tub, waiting for a customer to come along and buy her last few barbels at a bargain price. She’d recently lost interest in the whole fishing business. Looking to switch to another line of work, she started hatching various plans.

Itske the Redhead had offered her a share in his bar on Yatkever Street, not far from her little room. Pale Tsirl warned Chana-Merka against it. “A tub of fish is an honest business. If you don’t like a customer, just chase her away with the tail of a carp, saying, ‘Madam, buy smelts instead. This fish isn’t for you.’ But all sorts of thugs come into a bar. You have to put on a sweet face, wiggle your bottom, and ask them what they’d like, when really you’d like to see the back of them. Here at the tubs, the entire city knows you, Chana-Merka, but at Itske the Redhead’s, you’ll be nothing more than Chana-Merka the waitress.”

So Chana-Merka didn’t take Itske up on his offer. But she no longer felt happy standing next to the tubs. When Rubinshteyn had spent time with her, she’d felt important. And in the Institute they’d treated her like an empress, fussing over her. Dr. Weinreich shook her hand. If only she could devote herself to folklore, like the young men and women who worked in the Institute. But they were so well-educated; she couldn’t measure up to them. She had nothing but her tub of fish.

Heaving a sigh, Chana-Merka looked around for a customer. At one time, before she got involved with folklore, she’d lured her customers by yelling witty sayings, praising her merchandise to the sky. But now she ran a respectable business, which was no good for the tub of fish.

Pale Tsirl fretted. She watched her friend sink lower and lower. Chana-Merka just wasn’t the same. Tsirl chastised her. “The only gleam left is from the gold tooth in your mouth. Pretty soon you’ll be like Zelda the Researcher, that drab, old maid.”

As Chana-Merka stood waiting for her final customer, she noticed off in the distance, at the edge of the market, a man walking toward her, dragging his stiff leg behind him. He stopped every ten or twelve steps, perhaps because of the heat. As the limping wanderer trudged toward the row of tubs, the green backpack hanging off one of his shoulders shone in the bright sunlight.

Chana-Merka stood at her tub, absolutely still. She couldn’t be wrong. It had to be Rubinshteyn the Folklorist. He was too close for her to be just imagining him. He kept walking until he stood right next to her. She didn’t know what to do. She stood still, leaving it to Rubinshteyn to limp the last step and take her hand that was clenched around the edge of her tub.

Rubinshteyn took the step. His hand clasped Chana-Merka’s. They stood together, without saying a word. They left talking for later, when they sat at the table in Chana-Merka’s tiny room and Rubinshteyn enjoyed a glass of tea and a piece of gefilte fish.