21st Century Bogatyr

Friday, February 11, 2022

On A Planet Safe for Yidden

by Zvi Baranoff

She stood at the sink, ostensibly washing dishes but mostly staring out the window at the bleak landscape.

How bad had life on the Home Planet been that so many Yidden boarded ships and traveled across the void to come here and settle on the Planet Birobidzhan?

She had no way of actually knowing. The last of the ships laden with immigrants and supplies had landed long before her own mother was born and not even a word had arrived from the Home Planet since.

She could, in her dreams, catch a glimpse of a better place somewhere else but this was the only world she knew. She could also imagine a world with pogroms, wars, pollution, grinding machinery, floods, famines and plagues dominated by Outsiders of ill intent. But, about that she could not really know either.

What did this world have to offer? The air was breathable. The gravity was tolerable. The ground could be farmed. Most importantly, this was a land without persecution. This was a land without goyim. A Yid could live here without fear, the founders determined. Of course, she didn't know from goyim any more than she knew from dybbuks or sea monsters. She truly never knew fear. On the other hand, she really never had much hope.

Out the kitchen window one could see a few bushes, an occasional chicken running about, and then the endless savanna - a whole lot of nothingness as far as the eye could see.

Along one side of the house ran an alleyway. The other side was a shared wall with neighbors that she disliked. In front of the house there was a stoop and a sidewalk and the street.

The children ran in and out of the kitchen, the youngest wearing a droopy and somewhat poignant diaper that was overdue for changing.

She would acknowledge her kinder, sometimes with a pat on the head or a scratching behind the ears and sometimes with a swat or a potch on the toches.

It was all one and the same. She called them Tantele and Mommala and Ketschele and Yingela and other such terms of endearment, although she certainly could remember their names when she really needed to, which wasn't very often.

She sighed and sighed again. "Oy. Life is hard," she thought.

She mostly had the house to herself. The children ran in and out, this is true. But, mostly they were out and she didn't worry much about them. The neighborhood was safe. The town was safe. A bissel larger than a shtetl but smaller than a shtot.

She knew how Yidden lived in the sparse settlements scattered in the hinterlands. There was little appeal to her for that hard life in a small village where everyone knew your every thought, action and fart.

She had also been to New New York and New Jerusalem, the two largest cities on Birobidzhan. They were noisy, crowded, dirty, sketchy and sometimes dangerous places. The theater districts, the restaurants and the shopping made the occasional visits worthwhile. However, she could not possibly live in either of those places.

No. This town that was bigger than a shtetl but smaller than a shtot fit her just fine. The view from her kitchen window, however, was beginning to seriously wear thin. She left the wash rag in the sink with the remaining dishes and went looking for her youngest, to change his diaper and take him for a walk.

"Ketschele!" she called. "Come see Momma. Let's go for a walk." The yingela crawled out from under the table. His name was Dovid but he answered to any term of endearment that his mother chose.

Indeed, he was his mother's favorite and she spoiled him, in her own way. He loved his mother and he loved going for walks with her.

She gave him a perfunctory cleaning, wrapped him in a clean cloth diaper, and dressed him for an outing. She looked in the mirror as she fastened the top buttons on her blouse, adjusted her skirt and tied a kerchief over her hair, assuring that she was properly dressed before leaving her home.

When they reached the first intersection, they could see the corner minyan of ne'er-do-wells in the alley huddling in a circle. Her husband, not surprisingly, was in the center, dreyen - spinning a dreidl. The men were waving banknotes in the air and shouting at each other and at the spinning top.

Her Man was shouting "Gimel! Gimel!" as the top spun. She stopped and gawked in his direction. The dreidl came to a stop and when she saw his shoulders slump, she knew it landed on a shin. Now, he would be in a foul mood and broke, to boot.

She took the yingela's hand and headed in the opposite direction. "Let's go to the park," she said to her little one.

She didn't consider her Man a bad person. She thought of him as mostly unlucky. He worked, on and off. When he did, he would bring his paycheck home. When he worked, he would often come home tired and cranky, but he was always good to the children.

When he gambled, he often lost. When he won, he would bring most of his winnings home and spend that money lavishly on his family.

He never beat her. He never even yelled at her. He drank schnapps a bit, like most everyone, but rarely to excess. He never came home roaring drunk.

Maybe once in a while he would go and lie down with some kurvah. Usually, after a bit of a bender and a losing streak at the dreidl with the boys in the alley. Afterwards, he would be full of remorse combined with self-pity. He would attempt to make amends, when things bottomed out for him.

No Man is perfect. He certainly wasn't. On the other hand, he wasn't the worst. He was her Man and she was his Wife and they had each other, for better or for worse.

And, he had given her some wonderful children. She loved them all. Even though motherhood was a lot of work, they each brought her nachas. She also took some pleasure in her presumption that her two favorite children were probably fathered by men other than her husband.

Her second child, sweet Sadie, the lovely little girl, was most likely the result of a liaison with that gorgeous rabbinical student who's name she couldn't remember.

She met him during the Sukkos harvest festival celebration. He was only in town for the Holy Days. It was a semi-rural break from his studies in New Jerusalem.

They made love in a haystack and in a barn and in an open field. She smiled whenever she thought of her seduction of that yeshiva bocher. And she thought of him whenever she saw her daughter, the resemblance in her beautiful eyes.

Her youngest, the one whose hand she held, was also probably not fathered by her husband.

His father was most likely the good-natured shopkeeper that smelled like aftershave, with the clean hands and a nice smile. The clothing store was on the other side of town.

He made love to her in the dressing room in the back of the store. They made love standing up, with her skirt hoisted above her waist. He entered her from behind in that little mirrored room.

He made her feel alive. She went to his shop every day for a week, except Shabbos, of course. Then she was satiated and she hadn't been back even to that side of town since.

She and Dovid went to the nearby park. The light filtered through the trees. What a lovely day.

The boy climbed on the jungle gym for a while and then the slide. She pushed him on a swing for a bit.

When a small herd of goats arrived, the child ran excitedly to greet them and she followed along as well. The goats brought back happy thoughts of her own childhood and of her own mother, of blessed memory, may she rest in peace.

They meandered towards the far end of the park. There was usually a vendor or two selling food, and so there was that day, as she had expected. They stopped by a cart where an old man was selling knishes.

She fished about in the folds of her clothing, retrieving some money - her knipple - from it's hiding place.

When she was young, her mother told her that every woman needs her own gelt. "Don't rely on a man," her Momma told her. "Not any man, not even a husband. Especially not a husband," her mother insisted. "Men will disappoint you. Men will let you down. Take care for yourself. Every woman needs her own knipple."

She took those words to heart. Because of that, she never did without and neither did her children. Not when her Man was "between" jobs. Not when her Man was on a long losing streak with the dreidl. Not even when he was passed out drunk in the arms of some kurvah.

She bought a warm knish, wrapped in a napkin and returned her knipple to it's hiding place in the folds of her clothes.

They sat together on a park bench. She nibbled, pecking at her food like a foigel, a bird. Dovid devoured the food, ravenous like a wolf. This child of hers was always hungry, with a seemingly unending lust for life.

They wandered over by the pavilion where the klezmorim gathered and listened to the music for a while. She smiled while Dovid danced about. Then, they did some window shopping on their circuitous way home.

Dovid cried a bit outside of the toy store, begging for the airplane he saw displayed in the window. She pulled him down the street with a combination of promises and admonishments.

She had already spoiled the child enough for one day. A mother cannot give her children everything. His tears, they both knew, were just for show and of no real consequence. The tears quickly evaporated.

It was nearly sundown by the time they approached their house. It had been a lovely excursion for the two of them.

When she opened the door, she smelled food cooking. The house had been straightened and swept. There was a vase filled with flowers on the dining room table. Her Man was in the kitchen, finishing up the dishes. He smiled when he saw his wife and the child.

He was always glad to see little Dovid. Of all the children, of the entire brood, Dovid was his favorite. Dovid, as well, was happy to find Papa in the kitchen.

"The stars align and it is mazel all around!" said her husband. Then, he turned to the yingela and said "Dovid, I have a present for you. Come give Papa a hug." The child was in his arms before he barely finished these words and he carried the toddler into the living room where there were actually two presents for him; a toy truck and a picture book.

The Man and the kind played on the floor while she made herself comfortable by loosening some of her clothing and putting away her kerchief. Her husband could barely contain himself. Words sprung from him like a babbling stream.

"Oy," he began. "You wouldn't believe! My luck had been going from bad to worse! Nothing was going my way. Every spin was bad. It was all nisht, nisht when it wasn't shtel arayn. I was beginning to wonder if one of those mamzers hadn't slipped me a loaded dreidl."

"I was down to just a few sheckles when I saw you and the little Ketschele heading out for a walk. Just then, a beam of sunlight shone on me like a message from the Divine. You always bring me luck, my dear."

"On my next dreyen I hit a gimel. From then on, it was all gants, gants, gants. I was just raking in the cash. Some of those shtarkers were probably beginning to suspect me of using a loaded dreidl, keinehora." he said and he spit three times to ward off the evil eye.

"So, I gathered up my winnings and left those ne'er-do-wells to their drinking and kvetching and licking their wounds. I had gelt in my pocket for once and I had better things to do."

"I went and did a little shopping. I bought gifts for all the children and a little something for you, as well," he said. He pulled a new silk kerchief from one of his pockets and handed it to her. Indeed, it was very pretty.

"The other children have all been fed and washed. Let's feed Dovid and put him to bed. We can eat by candlelight, just the two of us."

"Anyways," he continued. "The big news! As I was leaving the store where I bought that pretty scarf, as I was walking out that door, I literally bumped right into an acquaintance of mine and I startled him. He tells me that he was just thinking about me and he has work for me if I wanted and I can begin on Sontag. So, right after this Shabbos, I am, once again, a working man!"

He smiled at his wife and with that he picked up Dovid, carried him into the kitchen and got the yingela into his highchair.

While her Man fed their child, she headed to the bathroom to wash up. There, in the bathtub, she saw a carp swimming. Well, to be more accurate, a fish that they call a carp on Birobidzhan and that the rabbis have declared to be kosher. The family would have fresh fish for Shabbos.

By the time she had finished freshening herself, her Man had the yingela fed and his hands and punim clean. Her husband carried his favorite child to the boy's bedroom and was reading him a bedtime story.

"My Man has a job. There is food in the house. The kids are all well. Ales iz gut!" she thought. Immediately, she said "Keinehora!" out loud. She didn't want to bring herself or her family any bad luck.

She could hear her husband's lyrical voice as he read nonsense rhymes to Dovid from the boy's favorite bedtime book. She smiled as she remembered how sweet her Man was when they were courting and how handsome he was when he stood under the chuppah.

"Abi guzunt. That's the main thing," she said, to no one in particular.

This is not a Jewish story. It is, however, a story about Jews. One does not need to be Jewish to read this tale any more than one needs to be a Hobbit or an Elf to read Lord of the Rings.

This story is a work of fiction. The setting for this tale is in the distant future, on the far away Planet Birobidzhan. This planet was settled by Jewish exiles from Planet Earth.

The population of Planet Birobidzhan has been cut off from the Home Planet for a long time. They have developed their own unique culture, traditions and linguistics.

The language spoken on Planet Birobidzhan is primarily Yiddish. I have sprinkled a significant number of Yiddish words and phrases throughout the telling of the tale. I also refer to various Jewish religious and cultural touchstones.

To make this story more accessible, I have included a glossary of words and phrases in Yiddish and Hebrew that are used as well as some explanations of religious terms and holidays.

I hope that readers find this to be useful.

The link to the Glossary is here:

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2023/01/a-useful-guide-glossary-to-planet.html?m=1

פּלאַנעט ביראָבידזשאַן

Do you want to read more about Planet Birobidzhan? Here are all the posted installments so far, in the order that they were posted. Just click your way through the story!

1 On A Planet Safe for Yidden

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/02/on-planet-safe-for-yidden.html

2 Yenne Velt: A History of Planet Birobidzhan

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/02/yenne-velt-history-of-planet-birobidzhan.html

3 Another Globe, Perhaps?

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/02/another-globe-perhaps.html

4 Bereshis: The Transport & Transformation of the Founders

http://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/03/bereshis-transport-transformation-of.html

5 The Town of First Landing

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-town-of-first-landing.html

6 A Personal History of an Early Settler on Planet Birobidzhan

http://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/05/a-personal-history-of-early-settler-on.html

7 Chickens, Jews Harps & Cronyism

http://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/07/cronyism.html

8 Dovid's Neshumeh

http://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/07/dovids-neshumeh.html

9 The Octogenarian and the Youngster

http://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-octogenarian-and-youngster.html

10 An Otherworldly Havdalah

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/08/an-otherworldly-havdalah.html

11 The Courtship & Marriage of Bathseba

http://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/08/the-courtship-marriage-of-bathseba.html

12 A Job, an Apartment & Two Honeymoons

http://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/08/a-job-apartment-two-honeymoons.html

13 The Pathway Into the Stars

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/08/the-pathway-into-stars.html

14 Abi Guzunt

http://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/08/abi-guzunt.html

15 A Dozen or So…

http://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/10/a-dozen-or-so.html

16 Tamar's Sketchbook

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/11/tamars-sketchbook.html?m=1

17 An Apologetic Interlude in the Galactic Tale

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/11/an-apologetic-interlude-in-galactic-tale.html?m=1

18 Tamar's Mushrooms

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/11/tamars-mushrooms.html?m=1

19 Intergalactic Travel Can Not Be Done on the Cheap

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/12/intergalactic-travel-can-not-be-done-on.html?m=1

20 Unauthorized Fire on Planet Birobidzhan

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/12/unauthorized-fire-on-planet-birobidzhan.html?m=1

21 Tamar and the Klezmorim of Planet Birobidzhan

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/12/tamar-and-klezmorim-of-planet.html

22 Heresy, Flimflam and Death

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/12/heresy-flimflam-and-death.html?m=1

23 On a Distant Planet, An Apartment in the City by the Sea

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2023/01/on-distant-planet-apartment-in-city-by.html?m=1

24 The Girl with a Fiddle on Planet Birobidzhan

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-girl-with-fiddle-on-planet.html

25 Tamar and the Scholars of Planet Birobidzhan

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2023/01/tamar-and-scholars-of-planet-birobidzhan.html

26 The Tropics of Planet Birobidzhan

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-tropics-of-planet-birobidzhan.html

27 The Beaches and Coastal Shtetls of Planet Birobidzhan

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-beaches-and-coastal-shtetls-of.html

28 A Pre-launch Reunion

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2023/01/a-pre-launch-reunion.html

29 The Launch Was Imminent

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-launch-was-imminent.html

30 Liftoff Into the Unknown

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2023/01/liftoff-into-unknown.html

31 Across the Void, Down a Wormhole & Into the Snow

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2023/01/across-void-down-wormhole-into-snow.html

32 Flourishing on Planet Shney

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2023/01/flourishing-on-planet-shney.html

Friday, December 24, 2021

She Climbed Out of the Water

"If the river was whiskey

I would be a diving duck

I would swim to the bottom, but I would drink my way up"

Songwriters: Jesse Lee Kincaid / Sleepy John Estes / Stephen Nicolas Gerlach / Taj Mahal

This is a fictional work in progress. Links to the rest the story are at the bottom on this page.

by Zvi Baranoff

I guess one way to measure the strength of an organization is by how well it functions without you. I suppose by that standard we were just hunky-dory.

Everyone had busied themselves with the work at hand. No one had even noticed that I hadn't been around or bothered to ask where I had been. No one even asked me where, when or how I came up with the vintage threads and the brand new fedora. Not that I could have explained it even if my life depended on a plausible explanation.

There wasn't really much for me to do for the time being, but I certainly didn't want to even vaguely appear to be irrelevant and out of the loop. That's never a good look. It leads, even amongst friends, to the possibility of being cut out or being handed a short shrift. So, I did my best to appear to be paying attention to business.

I was, however, quite distracted. I kept poking around, looking for the Penny Arcade or an elevator. I made some queries but with each question I asked, the looks that the Pineys gave me convinced me that I was very unlikely to find an elusive pathway to another time and place. Anything resembling a simple or logical explanation of my time away was seriously remote.

I was being pulled emotionally in multiple directions. I was feeling a genuine longing for the young beauty of the distant past. This longing was assuredly magnified by the rediscovery and then the loss of my youthfulness.

I was also increasingly homesick...and I was missing another woman closer to my own age that lives on the opposite continental coastline.

We had a lot of shared history. We had jumped the broomstick and lived together for many years. Later, we made it official, marrying in the Central Philadelphia Temple of Aphrodite by a very dear High Priestess.

We no longer lived under the same roof but we did live in the same neck of the woods. We saw each other often. That is, when I wasn't tangled up with some sort of monkey business. But, I need to macht a leben.

Making a living sometimes gets complicated. It was really, really complicated this time around. This trip was intended to last a few days but one thing led to another and seasons had passed.

I missed her dearly. I knew for sure that she was really pissed at me for being gone so long. I could feel it in my bones. There was nothing I could do but to soldier on and finish this mess up. Then, I could go home.

Frank had incredible management skills and a good handle on sorting through the merchandise. I really had no reason to distrust him but my old habits and patterns, well... I poked around, got under foot and was generally a nuisance.

I would occasionally pull a book that grabbed my eye, appealing to my personal interests or as a title that would please one of my clients or even someone in my very small circle of friends. Other than that, I was being pretty useless. Frank was being pretty tolerant with my presence, all told.

Frank methodically separated the volumes by language and category as well as by condition and other market determinants. He oversaw the re-boxing of the merchandise with particular recipients in mind. He visualized the transportation methods for each load. He worked as if it was a dance in a most sophisticated and complicated ballet.

All told, watching Frank work was a beautiful thing at first. Interfering once in a while was also mildly entertaining. When it all became too tedious, I would usually end up back in Bo's lounge with a fat Cuban cigar in one hand and a Mason jar of corn whiskey in the other. Bo was a good host and he had a great sound system and a helluva music collection.

Bo drank his home-brewed elixir all day long with no obvious signs of an interference with his equilibrium. It was for him aqua vitae, the water of life, his essence, his religious practice and his daily norm.

A steady stream of cousins and nephews and nieces would flow through in order to talk with Bo. He acted as a host, confidant, chief executive, and bartender. Corn whiskey in hand, they discussed the daily business of this Piney criminal family enterprise.

The family discussions were mostly impossible for an outsider to follow. Not that I wanted to know what was going on. I really didn't. Almost none of this was any of my business and what I didn't know, I couldn't be held responsible for...or ever be forced to testify about.

They spoke their own jargon. They used subtle body language. They left much unsaid.

While I was there enveloped in my personal cloud of cigar smoke accentuated by a corn whiskey haze, a new arrival would approach Bo and they would simply ignore me and carry on as if I were a potted plant or a piece of furniture.

Bo would ask about "that jawn" and the fellow would tell him the "cuz" was taking care of it and then bring up "the other jawn" and some "other cuzzie" and Bo would nod or shrug and the cousin would scratch or wink and they seemed to understand each other and make decisions about important matters.

As for myself, all that moonshine was knocking the slats out from under me. The more time I spent in the Piney command center, the more snookered I became. Although I do dearly love a good whiskey, I was finding the perpetual haze to be discomforting.

I needed some time above ground, breathing some air that wasn't tinged with tobacco and at least a short break from the White Lightning. I went out for a walk and had an overwhelming feeling of familiarity with my surroundings. When I saw the rock with initials carved into it, I knew why.

High School was an eternity ago for me, but suddenly it was as clear as yesterday. It was my Senior Year. The day was warm. On our lunch break Greg and I slunk off to the nearby woods for a smoke.

The girls were a couple of grades below us. Good looking kids. A blonde and a redhead. They were in the woods for the same reason that we were. We all hated school. We decided to ditch the rest of the school day and cruise about in my car.

Maybe it was because we were a little older or because we had weed or because I had a car or maybe it was the weather. Maybe it was the combination of all of these things that acted as an aphrodisiac. We all got along splendidly. I steered that car out of town and into the Jersey Pine Barrens, down some unpaved roads and out to a secluded swimming hole.

I am not sure how serious I was when I suggested that we go skinny dipping. However, the words were hardly out of my mouth when the girls had peeled out of their clothes, each dropping their threads in a pile near my car. They giggled and squealed as they skipped towards the water. Greg and I really didn't have much of a choice but to follow along, not that we were complaining.

We all splashed about for a while. The water was chilly, but the sun was warm. We left the water behind us and found a secluded sunny spot where we entertained ourselves in other ways.

They were an adventurous pair with perky breasts, alabaster skin and long straight hair. They rode us as if we were amusement rides on the Steel Pier.

I remember their arms waving about and their hair being tossed as their heads swayed and they bounced on us, shouting and hooting. Greg and I were pressed to the ground surrounded by bushes.

It was a whole lot of fun. Afterwards I awkwardly carved barely legible initials into a rock, the rock that I had just discovered. I stared at the rock trying to make sense of the scratchy markings.

I can't remember if it were the blonde or the redhead that straddled me that day, nor the name of either of those girls. I suppose that after all these years that matters very little.

What I did recall most clearly was the rash from poison ivy that later covered my entire backside from my neck to my ankles. The rash vexed me for days. I looked about and noted that poison ivy still grew quite thickly where I was standing. I was very glad to be wearing boots and long pants.

I went back closer to the water where there were some sandy patches and there I sat, watching the subtle rippling on the waterway. There was some splashing in the distance that caught my attention.

She climbed out of the water without a stitch of clothing on her. She walked to where I had been sitting.

It was then that I realized that this was the same swimming spot that I had driven to from Atlantic City in that 1925 Studebaker. I had felt sure that I would never see her again, but there she was. "I thought I might find you here," she said.

She sat next to me and laid her head on my shoulder. She held my hand. It was all incredibly comforting. I must have dozed off for a while. When I awoke, she was once again gone.

I returned to the underground compound.

I rummaged through boxes of books. I drank corn whiskey. Time passed.

Then, I found a photograph book about Atlantic City in the 1920s. I was in Bo's lounge leafing through this when I found myself facing the image of the woman that I seemed to know so well from that era, although I still had not learned her name.

The book was open on my lap as I gawked. Bo looked over my shoulder. "That's my great grandmother," he said.

"How could that possibly be?" I asked him. I didn't tell him about my personal encounters with his great grandmother.

"She lived in Atlantic City. She was involved with some Jewish gangsters during Prohibition. She was a model or actress," he told me. Then he showed me her picture in a family photo album.

There was no doubt that the woman in the book, the woman in the family album, and the woman emblazoned in my memory were one and the same. No doubts whatsoever.