Petty Business

By Yirmi Pinkus, Evan Fallenberg and Yardenne Greenspan

As they do every year, Yosef Zinman, a well-to-do Tel Aviv grocer, and his beloved wife Zippi plan a vacation during the holiday of Sukkot to Seefeld in the mountainous Tirols region of Austria. This year, Zippi decides to invite her sister, who has fallen on hard times with a failing perfumery business. Soon, more and more relatives join in on the trip, and the expenses quickly begin to add up. To gather all the funds needed, the family goes into the business of inexpensive clothing and fashion shows for workers’ unions. The summer promises handsome revenues, but as the Zinman family nears their goal, they become increasingly vexed by their competing interests.

A tragic-comic novel in its essence, Petty Business chronicles a year in one family's life, set against the backdrop of Tel Aviv’s rapidly changing global economy in the early 1990s. Pinkus’s biting critique of Tel Aviv’s provincial character and its residents’ shtetl mentality is delivered with a perfect combination of wit, humor, and tender pathos.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Syracuse University Press
• Release date: Nov 24, 2017
• ISBN: 9780815654179

Book preview

PART ONE

Two Businesses

1

Two Sisters

A.

"Seven in the morning. You’re probably thinking: what’s so special about seven in the morning? And that’s where you’d be wrong, Mrs. Gitlis, because their seven in the morning is not our seven in the morning. Over there it’s still half dark, and sometimes rainy. Who’d be crazy enough to want to get out of bed? But me, I’d get up real quiet so as not to wake Tzippi. I’d put on a sweater and go out on the balcony. What can I tell you, Mrs. Gitlis, it takes your breath away! Now you and I have known each other for more than a little while, haven’t we Mrs. Gitlis, and you know I’m not a person that gets worked up over nothing. So if I say it takes your breath away—I mean, AWAAAAAY!—here’s you, and there in front of you, the whole of Austria. Just like that. The forests, the mountains, the snow. Not another soul around, maybe a cow or two. But otherwise—gornisht! Nothing! And the smell of green, and the flowers. What flowers! And those little houses, and you can hear bells from far away . . . two hundred grams?"

Make it three hundred, but sliced thin.

People say, Yosef Zinman is a millionaire, Yosef Zinman can afford it. Let’s say that thank God I’m wanting for nothing. So that means I’m supposed to go to London? Sit in the Hilton, against my will? I’m very sorry but I’m not interested in hobnobbing with the who’s who. Here comes Dvora, you can ask her.

It’s true. In our family there are no snobs, said Dvora Saltzman.

Give me an easy chair in a little inn and I’m in heaven. Anyone who understands what Seefeld is knows what I’m talking about. There’s this one inn we’ve been going to for years now. Exactly ten minutes from the center of town. Cozy place. Eight rooms, tops. The owners, they took a shine to us. Nice people, both him and her. You should see the smiles they give us. Not once did we get to our room and there wasn’t some chocolates waiting for us, on the house. They really know how to treat people. And you know the funniest thing of all? We’ve never paid more than forty or fifty dollars a night! . . . You want a little more?

No, that’s enough. It’s already too much for me. What about these? Are they fresh from this week?

Came in two days ago. Look how pink. You want?

Let me see . . . you know what? Go ahead, give me four halves. But wash your hands first.

Where were we? Seven in the morning. So anyway, a person’s got to eat, right? And what do they give you for breakfast, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you. The lady of the house sure knows how to work up a person’s appetite. Take the hard-boiled eggs, for example. Now who isn’t familiar with hard-boiled eggs? So just to make them look nice she puts them in a kind of wicker basket shaped like a chicken. And never once are those eggs cold, there is always a little warmth left in them from the boiling. And the yolk—you’ve never seen a color like that. Bright orange. Not like our eggs.

You don’t say . . .

"I only hope, Mrs. Gitlis, that one day you’ll have the chance to eat such an egg. And the cheeses, and the rolls . . . I happen to be crazy about homemade jams. So every morning I find two jars of jam next to my plate. Sometimes it’s raspberry, sometimes it’s apricot. Depends on the season. And everything is served with also bitte, also bitte. She hands you a cup of coffee: also bitte. Pours some milk for you: also bitte. I wouldn’t be surprised if she says also bitte when she farts."

He paused to allow the two women to chuckle.

"We finish eating and take a walk down the pedestrian mall. The shops sell all kinds of tchotchkes, you know, like animal figurines made of crystal. For your information, that’s an Austrian specialty. Not interested? Across the street there’s a bakery that makes your eyes pop out of your head. How can I describe it? It’s impossible! The strudels, the tortes, the little plum tarts with krishkelakh sprinkled on top. He sighed and nostalgically patted his bloated paunch with its protruding navel. What can I do? I’m only human. But don’t think that Seefeld is just sitting around and stuffing your face all day long. There is what to do, and how! Take us, for example: we love a nice excursion. So we get in the car and drive. Ever heard of the Zugspitze?"

Mrs. Gitlis was forced to admit, shamefacedly, that word of such a place had never reached her ears, which prompted Yosef Zinman to tell her about this mighty mountain and about the wide balcony at its summit where tourists in sunglasses and parkas sit drinking beer and sunning themselves in the snow. Now ask me what there is to do in the evening.

"Nu? What?"

Oh ho! You should know that I’m a person who likes to raise a little hell. In Seefeld, you go out every evening, without exception. After all, why go there if not to have some fun? There’s this one place we really like, a sort of restaurant-nightclub all in one. There’s a floor show during dinner, usually sixties music. Before dessert is served we’re already up on the dance floor, pulling everyone along after us: young people, old people, Italians, French. You don’t get the riffraff there, only the right kind: the lawyers, the doctors, the professors. It’s often the same people over again, year after year. Two years ago we went with Danny and Dolly Shem-Tov, from the dry cleaners; we happen to be friends with them. One evening I ordered screwdrivers for the whole table, on me. On trips, I like to be generous. Danny Shem-Tov drank a little too fast and decided some Dutch guy was hitting on his wife. ‘Danny,’ I told him, ‘don’t get such ideas in your head. This is Seefeld! I dance with this chick and she dances with that guy and it’s no big deal. Take it as a compliment that your wife attracts attention.’ But he got all puffed up and turned as red as a monkey’s ass and stood up all at once from the table right in the middle of them dancing the paso doble.

And what happened? asked Mrs. Gitlis, taken aback.

Nothing. Up close he could see that the Dutch guy was three sizes bigger than him. Dolly Shem-Tov was so embarrassed she looked like she wanted to dive under a table. Will that be all, Mrs. Gitlis?

I don’t know. What else do I usually take?

You got enough low-cal yogurt at home? Prunes? The gummy candy you like . . . ?

Do me a favor, Yosske, his sister-in-law Dvora butted in, I’ve got to get home. Just give me two poppy-seed challahs, not the burnt ones. Add a carton of skim milk to my account, too. I’ll call in later with the rest of my order.

You don’t scare me.

Tell me, are the kids coming with you tomorrow?

"Tuvia for sure will, he wouldn’t miss your cholent, especially in this weather. But Shirley? I couldn’t say, Yosef Zinman said with a sigh as he wiped his hands on his trousers. Depends on her mood."

I’ve got to run, we’ll talk later. Shabbat Shalom, Mrs. Gitlis. Sorry for butting in.

Toss in a kilo of Osem flour, what the heck, Mrs. Gitlis said, coming out of her reverie.

Thus, with a bag dangling from one hand and a bag dangling from the other, Dvora Saltzman crossed Judah the Maccabee Street and went up the stairs to her apartment. It was already eight-thirty in the morning and once again it was starting to rain. She entered the kitchen out of breath, tossed her bundles onto the countertop, and turned to her husband, Shraga Saltzman, who was sitting in a tracksuit drinking a cup of coffee without even a single, insignificant thought floating through his head. Shraga, she said—these are the exact words she uttered—I’m sick of it. Just once I want to go to this Seefeld everyone’s always visiting.

B.

Family by family was the world created, each with its own core, its own essence—a motif, a desire, a talent—around which all the family members circle, each in his own way, never tiring of discussing it over and over again. We have heard, for example, of literary families: the grandfather was a bookseller, one granddaughter edits a journal and flits about wildly with poets while another, whose name precedes her in translation circles, gets starry-eyed each time she thinks of the name Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky. We know, too, of musical families: at every family gathering someone will pull out an accordion and a darbuka drum; the head of the family will burst into song, the grandmother will astonish everyone with a cadenza that is especially hers and all the others will join in for the chorus. And let us not forget the historical families that never grow weary of recounting the glory of past generations, or, on the contrary, families that adhere to the principle of suspicion, whereby at Friday night dinners they will recount a litany of intrigues plotted against them and will try to reveal the schemes hiding behind the smiles of neighbors, clerks, local politicians, and even one another, incessantly suspecting that their children are freeloaders, their siblings, deceitful, and even they themselves cannot be trusted.

The Zinmans, and their relatives the Saltzmans, preferred to focus on their intestines and the functions therein. They took an interest in knowing what was excreted from people’s bodies and under what set of circumstances, and whether suffering was involved or perhaps pleasure. They always listened cheerfully to one another, encouraging the speaker to report on everything taking place within his bowels. Their advice was plentiful: your movements are sluggish—try this, do that; your movements are too swift, irritable—take this or that. Their bag of tricks was stuffed full of incidents—a hair-raising treasure trove!—that had befallen them in the past. Upon leaving the lavatory they would issue comparatives and superlatives, and if some special episode had occurred they did not hesitate to pick up the phone to the others. No texture was foreign to them: a volcanic stomach was thought to be a sign of virility in a man and an expression of joie de vivre in a woman. Flatulence was so pleasant to them that they created and bestowed upon it its own special language, each term representative of a different embodiment of the phenomenon, from minor releases, the traces of which evaporate in a flash, to Napoleonic displays that make a formidable impression on others. And if their luck held out and someone among them passed wind in a manner heard by all, their laughter could bring them to tears. Thus, the reader can imagine that slow-cooking stews were the apotheosis of their family life.

In the early days of 1989, a frost took hold of the country. Storms lashed out for an entire week without mercy. Pine trees fell, streams overflowed; in Safed, water froze in the pipes; in Jerusalem, boilers were lit day and night; and in Tel Aviv the traffic lights broke down again and again, wreaking havoc on traffic. For a whole week, residents of Tel Aviv walked about in soaking wet socks and helplessly chased after the skeletons of umbrellas snatched from their hands by the winds. Finally, on Saturday afternoon, the storm abated. The water that had flooded the streets receded at last into the drainage system. The sidewalks glistened. A fine scent of wet earth arose from all the gardens and yards. The streets were nearly completely tranquil, except for here and there a barking dog or a passing car whose wet tires raised a thin whisper. Windows were hidden behind shuttered blinds. Apartment stairwells steamed up with the smell of cooking foods, and anyone who cocked an ear would hear the joyous sound of cutlery clinking in the apartments. At a little before two o’clock on Judah the Maccabee Street in north Tel Aviv, the entire family gathered at the home of Dvora Saltzman for cholent.

Who even wanted to get out from under the covers? grumbled Aunt Masha Lifschitz, a tiny, dignified crone shrouded in a cloying scent as she wiped the soles of her shoes on the straw welcome mat. As far as I’m concerned you could have saved yourselves all the trouble of this luncheon.

Greetings! bellowed the shopkeeper Yosef Zinman as he walked in, his potbelly leading the way. "What a smell, Dvoraleh. Great job—you can smell the cholent all the way down to Café Alexander. We are going to have a gooooood time!"

"Maybe you’re going to have a good time, said the old woman, turning her head to him, but I feel sorry for your poor wife. What a concert she’s going to get afterwards."

Shraga, hang Ciotka Masha’s coat up for her, the hostess instructed her husband as she kissed Aunt Masha’s soft, powdered cheeks, two virgin plots of land in a field of wrinkles. And where’s Tzippi? Didn’t she come with you?

In place of an answer came the family whistle announcing that the stylist Tzippi Zinman was on her way up the stairs. Her magnificent head appeared first, then her shoulders and her body ensconced in a red coat with frizzy lining. She was carrying an enormous jar containing homemade pickles.

Shabbat Shalom to one and all! she proclaimed. I’m starving, I haven’t put a bit of food in my mouth all day.

Where are the kids? her sister asked, gazing toward the stairwell.

Tuvia is parking the car, Tzippi Zinman said. And Shirley—who knows? Yesterday she went to sleep at a friend’s house and we haven’t heard from her since.

Although the two sisters do not, strictly speaking, look alike, you would not doubt for a moment that they are blood relations. Both are quite tall—identically so, in fact—and have the same ample family breasts and rounded figures. The similarity between them, however, does not stem from any of these but, rather, from an accrual of details: gestures, expressions, intonation, and other small but decisive factors inside which is folded an entire lifetime. The four decades they have spent living side by side have distilled themselves into a pronounced family look that is unmistakable: the pursing of lips that accompanies the end of questions; scratching the tip of the nose in moments of embarrassment; the preference for wide tunics that fall nearly to the knee; and the huge plastic-frame glasses that both wore. Dvora had always been considered the more beautiful of the two, and even now, at forty-eight, she still turned heads. She wore her hair short and cut like Princess Diana’s, with soft highlights that blended well with her delicate skin and green eyes and hesitant, captivating smile. And yet her sister overshadowed her; the wife of the prosperous shopkeeper had a weakness for plunging necklines and swirling skirts and leather bags adorned with huge metal bangles. Her honey-colored hair burst forth like a lion’s mane, although on closer inspection one would find her scalp to be slightly denuded thanks to her habit of incessantly curling, straightening, dyeing, and washing her hair. Her gestures oozed theatricality, and whenever she waved her arms—which happened regularly—all her bracelets would jangle. On Judah the Maccabee Street she was considered a bohemian.

What’s new with your people, Shraga? Tzippi asked, her blue eyes shining and her smile full of teeth as she handed her coat to her brother-in-law.

Your sister is sucking the will to live right out of me, but other than that, everything’s fine, he joked. Shraga Saltzman was lean and haggard, not tall, and his thinning hair was an unnatural shade of red. What do you say about all this rain?

Shraga, move. You’re blocking the way in. Yosske, Ciotka Masha, do me a favor and go sit at the table.

Need help with the pot?

No, I can manage with Tzippi. Sit, sit.

They all moved to the dining room and sat in their regular seats. The two brothers-in-law sat at the head and foot of the table, while the seats closest to the kitchen were reserved for the two sisters. Just as they were about to serve the cholent, their older brother, one Avrum Shlossman, a retired antiques dealer—now twenty minutes late, as usual, knocked at the door, carrying—also as usual, a gift for the hostess: a Rosenthal china sugar bowl.

The Saltzmans’ apartment was divided by a long wall that separated the public rooms from the three bedrooms. While the living room was narrow, the furniture was capacious. The couch and armchairs, bought on a greedy spree in one of the more expensive stores in Tel Aviv, were now worn and seedy, and the nickel plating on the legs of the table was peeling here and there. In one corner stood a television set; in another, a hazelnut china cabinet. Even though the time had already come to freshen up the living room as Tzippi Zinman had pointed out on numerous occasions, Dvora had managed to enhance the charm of the room with the help of all sorts of trifles: a lace curtain, potted plants, vases, a large Dutch plate hanging on the wall, and other such touches. It was stuffed, crowded, overflowing; everywhere there were signs of a desperate effort to grow and spread beyond what was physically possible. Once, the living room had been smaller and opened onto a balcony, but that had been annexed some fifteen years earlier. The enormous dining table, glowing with furniture polish, was nearly always in a dim corner at the opposite end of the room. At mealtimes, and especially on such a gloomy Saturday, it was necessary to turn on the lights.

What a day I had yesterday, Yosef Zinman began as he poured salt energetically over the mountain of food on his plate. "What can I tell you? The place was like a loony bin. Peretz must have made fifteen deliveries, the poor schlump. Three to the Bavli area, one to Hamedinah Square, and then all the usuals. Rebecca, the American, placed her regular monthly order. What a pain in the tuches, I’m telling you. How many times have I told her, ‘Rebecca, not on Friday!’ I mean, we both know it’s not urgent for her, so what does she care if I send Peretz around on Wednesday, when it’s peaceful, no pressure. She likes to be annoying on purpose. And she’s on the third floor, no elevator, and those people drink a lot, kein eyna hora. All those bottles of soda alone take him four trips up and down. How did it go by you?"

Not bad, muttered Shraga Saltzman.

"You don’t have to tell Yosef any meises, Dvora scolded him as she stirred the cabbage salad. We barely had a soul in the place all day."

Gitlis didn’t come in? She said she’d stop by after the vegetables.

Yeah, yeah, she came by. Big deal. She did us a big favor and bought local-made hairspray. That’s not the way a perfumery makes any money.

I’ve never liked her, said Avrum Shlossman as he blew on his fork. She’s a miser. Even back in Mother’s time she’d drive you crazy over every shekel.

A completely insufferable woman, proclaimed Shopkeeper Zinman. May her ass clog up.

I saw her last week at Dr. Etziony’s, announced Tzippi Zinman. You should all know that she is not a healthy woman. Have you noticed how jaundiced she looks lately?

You’d better remember to bring me with you to her funeral, Aunt Masha warned her nieces and nephews, arching her penciled eyebrows (which in her opinion brought out her eyes, but which in fact gave her a permanent look of doubt). She drew her mouth toward a hollow marrow bone drenched in fat and noisily sucked out all the bits of barley that had taken refuge inside. Her large, intelligent eyes, with their puffy eyelids above and pale, drooping bags of skin below, glared at the people seated around her. As she chewed, her broad lips moved as if of their own accord. The tip of her impressive nose quivered with concentration. If you add to all these the tuft of short, dyed brown hair you find yourself with a portrait of an aged hatchling. The matron Lifschitz had one shortcoming she was unable to overcome, even though it embarrassed her: her astonishing gluttony coupled with the lazy desire of a spinster or old bachelor to dine at the tables of others. Although she was certain she kept this hidden, it did not go unnoticed by her relatives, but because they treated her dignity with care, as is proper with the lone, grand remnant of her generation who would one day leave behind a handsome inheritance, she was invited to all family functions.

There goes another client down the drain, lamented Dvora. A person could go crazy from it. The old ladies expire, the young ones don’t even come in, and if they do, they buy the knock-offs made in some Arab village that sell for five shekels. There’s almost no one left who understands handmade products. Carmela Nakash, now there’s a serious client, the poor thing; what she pays a month for that awful skin of hers . . . if it weren’t for her and four or five others like her we’d have had to close up shop ages ago.

Where’s Bina? asked Fat Tuvia, raising his eyes from his plate of cholent and wiping his meaty lips. Why isn’t she sitting with us?

She isn’t feeling well again. Something she ate.

She could at least say hi. I’ll go call her.

Let her be, the poor thing. It took her so long to fall asleep . . . Dvora Saltzman said.

Shraga, you old gonif! Making off with the entire plate of kishke, huh? This was Yosef Zinman ribbing his brother-in-law. Pass some over here!

What for, Yosef? Aunt Masha said, her lower lip protruding. Believe me, you sure don’t need it.

Let every man look at his own plate, said the object of her concern. Dvora, I’ll tell you what your problem is. You people don’t keep your business up-to-date. Worse than that: you haven’t updated anything for years. Years! When’s the last time you remodeled? When your mother was still alive.

And just where are we supposed to get the money for that? Excuse me for saying so, Yosef, but it’s easy to give advice when the cash register in your place never stops ringing. You and Tzippi can replace a refrigerator any time you want. What do you think? That I don’t want to remodel? That I wouldn’t like to finally have a proper window display, a new counter . . . I’m embarrassed to tell you what condition the floor’s in.

You kill me, Dvoraleh, Tzippi said. It’s not like in Mother’s day. You don’t have to do everything in real wood these days, just the veneer. And how much would that cost?

I don’t even have the money for wood veneer. The little I manage to scrape together I’d rather set aside for my Tuvia in America, so he’ll study and make out a little better than his mother and father.

All the while her husband, Shraga Saltzman, sat at the head of the table with his red-dyed thinning hair, hunched over the stew on his plate and eating contentedly, as though it were not he being discussed, as though his in-laws had not, long ago, pinned such high hopes on his insurance business. Even he himself could not for the life of him recall the last policy he had sold, and although he had never officially closed his agency he spent most of his time doing nothing at all behind the counter of the perfumery that his wife had inherited from her parents.

You know what, Dvora? said Tzippi. I have a fashion show this Tuesday evening and no one to help me. Why don’t you come? You can help with the folding and dressing the models and I’ll pay you 120 shekels. Why not? Yoss, leave the pot alone already. Come on, enough! You’re going to gas me up all night!

Now you remind me? Yosef Zinman said with glee, his face contorted. Let me enjoy life a little!

Is there dessert? asked Tuvia as he extended his plate to receive a little more of the beans. The shopkeeper’s son was his spitting image. Although he was not yet twenty-three years old he sported a potbelly not much smaller than that of his progenitor.

Look at yourself, said Aunt Masha. Such a handsome boy, and so fat.

I don’t know, Dvora said with hesitation. You’ll probably need me from the afternoon . . . how can I leave Shraga alone in the store?

You yourself said the place is empty, Tzippi retorted. So what does it matter?

"And what if some client does come in? There needs to be a woman there."

You two are disgusting! shouted Aunt Masha. You just keep shoveling it in and shoveling it in, especially you, Yosef, with that ulcer of yours . . . what kind of example are you for the boy? Shame on you!

In a tizzy, the old woman stood up and pushed her chair back with a flourish, bent down to pick up the pocketbook sitting on the floor next to her, and marched off to the bathroom. Even before she had reached the wall that divided the apartment in two, a grin rose on Yosef Zinman’s face and he bit his lip, stretched his chin, and