The Rivals and Other Stories

By Jonah Rosenfeld

A major literary figure and frequent contributor to the Yiddish-language newspaper Forverts from the 1920s to the mid-1930s, Jonah Rosenfeld was recognized during and after his lifetime as an explorer of human psychology. His work foregrounds loneliness, social anxiety, and people’s frustrated longing for meaningful relationships—themes just as relevant to today’s Western society as they were during his era.

The Rivals and Other Stories introduces nineteen of Rosenfeld’s short stories to an English-reading audience for the first time. Unlike much of Yiddish literature that offers a sentimentalized view of the tight knit communities of early twentieth-century Jewish life, Rosenfeld’s stories portray an entirely different view of pre-war Jewish families. His stories are urban, domestic dramas that probe the often painful disjunctions between men and women, parents and children, rich and poor, Jews and Gentiles, self and society. They explore eroticism and family dysfunction in narratives that were often shocking to readers at the time they were published.

Following the Modernist tradition, Rosenfeld rejected many established norms, such as religion and the assumption of absolute truth. Rather, his work is rooted in psychological realism, portraying the inner lives of alienated individuals who struggle to construct a world in which they can live. These deeply moving, empathetic stories provide a counterbalance to the prevailing idealized portrait of shtetl life and enrich our understanding of Yiddish literature.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Syracuse University Press
• Release date: Mar 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9780815654933

Book preview

The Rivals

Two iron cots, a scratched mirror with no frame, a cupboard made out of a lemon box, a couple of chairs with splayed legs, a wobbly table with one leg shorter than the others—that’s my furniture.

A large mouth, pale lips, shrill voice, weepy eyes—that’s my wife.

A ten-year-old girl, a loudmouth, eyes like a fox, thin as a splinter, a puppyish whine—that’s my daughter.

A little boy—clever as anything, thin and dry as a grave marker—that’s my son, who looks about five, though he’s actually seven.

My youngest is two. She’s the size of a week-old baby, but the way she cries and screams you’d think she was a lot bigger.

A short man with a thin little beard and small black eyes—that’s me, myself, I—the husband of the wife and the father of the three kids. What do I do? Nothing at all—I do women’s work.

Early in the morning, as soon as I get up, I start a fire and boil a kettle of water. Then I wake up my wife, give her a glass of tea, and walk her to the market. After that, I start with the kids: I get them dressed, wash them, and keep an eye on them. It doesn’t always work out, though. The baby fusses because she wants her mother, and then her brother starts crying too. I pick up the baby, jog over to the window, rap on the pane; I thump the table, tap a glass to make it ring, click my tongue. Holding the baby in my arms, I settle the boy down too. I play horses with him—sometimes he’s the horse and I’m the coachman, sometimes the other way around. Sometimes we play soldiers. He gives me orders, then I order him: About turn! Left, march! One, two! One, two! While I’m settling the kids down, I make the beds, sweep the house, and make lunch. When the soup is ready, I pour some into a little pot, wash a bowl and spoon, and off I go. I run breathlessly—I don’t have a watch so I always think I’m late. I arrive at the market with my heart pounding. I see the market stalls and all the tables crowding around and between them. There are big heaps of vegetables all over the place: onions, radishes, beets, cabbages, parsley, carrots, potatoes, horseradish, and all kinds of pickled cabbages: bitter, sweet, sour, and fermented. There’s my wife, behind a table with the leftover scraps of vegetables.

During my run I sometimes spill soup on my coat, but I only notice when my wife bugs out her cowlike eyes and greets me with a genteel little curse.

What is it?

Just look at you!

I can hear people choking with laughter. One fat woman with a sunburned, healthy face, sitting across from my wife, rocks from side to side, clutching her stomach with both hands—that’s how hard she’s laughing. My wife pinches chunks out of my rear end. But sometimes I don’t get off that easily. Sometimes, after my wife’s had enough of pinching me, she’ll grab a beet from some girl’s counter and throw it right at my head, and thank God if that’s how it ends. Other times she’ll wait to carry out my sentence until she’s home from the market, and now it’s her turn to thank God for the chance to pick a fight with me. But I’m no goody-goody either. I talk back to her, over and over again, and that can lead to a real battle. She shoves me, I push her back; she punches me in the mouth, I sock her in the ribs; then she starts yelling, and the kids yell right along, and I run out of the house as fast as I can. But eventually, little by little, hardly noticing, I begin walking slower and slower, until finally I’ve stopped and I’m looking thoughtfully at the ground, the sky, the houses, the people walking back and forth.

Just like I stopped without noticing it, I’m not aware when I start walking back. I walk with a heavy, burdened heart, my head full of thoughts, slowly, step-by-step, until I get home again, and I’m standing in front of the window looking inside and watching the kid—the older girl, that is—working away like a good daughter, helping her mother undress the other two and put them to bed, then helping her mother take off her big, heavy shoes . . . and it occurs to me that the kid’s getting to be competition. It’s obvious she’s happy I’m not home, and it’s obvious she’s trying to show her mother they can do without me. After the fire’s died down, I press my face against the windowpane and keep watching. Of course I can’t actually see a thing, but in my mind’s eye I see a woman and a baby sleeping there with a ten-year-old girl lying at their feet. Her husband’s in the other bed: a lazy jerk, a good-for-nothing, useless to God and man alike. Next to him lies their son. They’re all so small and skinny that if you tied them together you’d get one proper person.

I get tired standing by the window so I turn around, sigh deeply, and stare up at the stars, lost in thought. I wish I could see some sort of omen in them. The sky gets closer and closer until I’m right next to it, and then I’m not looking up at the stars any more, I’m like a giant looking down at the earth below. But as soon as I walk into my house, I shrink again. My mouth seems to get small and thin, and like a stupid little thief I scuttle over to where we keep the bread and gobble it up. If my wife’s sleeping lightly, she hears me and curses me up and down. I tell her it won’t happen again, I’ll behave myself. That shuts her up, which means I’m forgiven. I get undressed and quietly sneak into bed next to her. She plays dead, and I pretend I don’t have a clue. What do I care, does she think she’s fooling me? I’ve had three children with her that way, half-asleep. We wake up grumpy, just like nothing happened.

One day—it was a Thursday morning—I put a pot of water on the stove to heat. As usual, I go to help my daughter unbraid her hair so I can wash it, when up she jumps like a jackrabbit and plants herself right in front of me, so angry that her face is all red and puffy. What’s this all about? I ask. No answer, she just glares at me, madder than ever. I ask again, What’s up? No reply.

Don’t you want to wash your hair? I ask.

She ducks her head, twisting her fingers. I don’t need you to wash my hair, she sulks.

What do you mean?

I can wash my own hair.

You don’t want me to wash your hair?

No.

Why not?

I can do it myself.

Well, end of story. No means no. I go to the stove to check that the water’s warming fast enough to wash the two younger kids. Seeing it is, I get the little guy and begin undressing him. But up she jumps, like out of a hole in the ground, grabs him by the arm, and yanks him away.

What are you up to?

She clutches his arm and doesn’t answer.

What are you doing?

No answer. I go over to get him, but she holds on tightly. I’ll wash his hair myself, she growls.

That’s news to me. What do you mean, you’ll wash him?

She’s getting on my nerves. I yank on the boy, but she keeps hold of him.

I look at her a couple of minutes and ask, What’s the bright idea? What makes you think you can wash your hair, and his too?

I feel sorry for Mama, she answers.

What do you mean, you feel sorry for Mama?

I feel sorry for Mama. She works so hard and she has to feed you on top of it.

Yeah, so?

So if I can wash my own hair and dress Yankeleh and Mindeleh, you can go earn a living.

What?

No answer.

You’re going to dress Yankeleh and Mindeleh? Feed them and do the housework?

Yeah, what’s the big deal? Then you can go make some money!

So that’s how it is. It’s no big deal to her that I kill myself all day. As if I don’t do any work! The baby rips out my beard ten times a day. I sing myself hoarse putting her to sleep, and this kid says it’s no big deal and sends me out to make money! Like I’m not earning my keep here, like I’m a useless freeloader! She wants to take my job. So where am I supposed to go, what am I supposed to do? Find work as a nanny? A nanny! What else am I good for? But no, I won’t let that happen! What does that little brat think she’s doing, throwing me out of the house? She’s the one who should go, not me. Out there, where it’s all about earning money, making a living—well, I won’t let her push me around. Like hell I’ll go!

Get over here! Who told you to say that? Your mother?

No! Just me!

You?

I said, ‘just me.’

What do you mean, just you? You thought this up all on your own? Your mother didn’t tell you what to say?

No!

No?

No!

You mean this is all your own idea?

Yes! Mama didn’t tell me anything!

"You mean you want to throw me out of the house?"

She doesn’t answer.

I grab her braid. You understand, I say, that I’m your father?

She tries to pull away.

You understand, I tell her, that I’m your father? A father can do whatever he wants with his kids. I can even kill you. You know a father has to punish his kids, and if they don’t behave, he can kill them, you know that?

I must be yelling really loud because the baby wakes up. The girl twists out of my grip, runs over to the baby, and starts rocking her and singing my song, the one I sing. Then I really go off the rails. What makes her think she can rock the baby to sleep with my song, the one I made up myself? Well, if that’s the way she wants it . . . I stride over to the cradle, shove her out of the way, and begin to rock the baby:

La la la, my sweet little girl,

Mommy’ll make you a sweet little dress,

Daddy’ll wash your sweet little curls,

Mommy will bring you an apple, oh yes,

So close, close your sweet little eyes,

Mommy’ll bring you a bagel, oh my!

La la la, and la la la.

So who cares. I’ll bet she’ll never be able to rock a baby to sleep like I can, no matter how long she lives.

Go away, she spits out. I can rock her myself.

He-e-e-y. So that’s how it is. All right, if that’s the way you want it, I’ll get even with you! I haul my belt out of my pants and whack her as hard as I can on her head, her face, her shoulders. Take that, take that, take that, I’ll teach you how to mouth off at your father, I’ll teach you! You’ll have this to remember me for! And this!

The two younger kids are watching. They start screaming, and that’s when I really blow a gasket. I thrash them both with everything I’ve got. But when it’s all over I clutch at my beard. I go over to the window, prop my elbows on the sill, and cry.

As soon as their mother got home that night, the kids fell all over her, saying how I’d hit them, and that made them start howling all over again. My wife plopped down on the bed, put her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands, and gave me a series of dirty looks, each one enough to freeze the blood in my veins.

At last she raised her head, her eyes brimming over like puddles. What’s going to happen to us? she asked.

I didn’t answer.

What’s going to happen? Tell me . . .

What could I say?

You belong in the loony bin, you know that?

I wanted to argue back, what makes you think I’m nuts? Hasn’t a father ever hit his kids before?

I’m asking you. I’ve supported you all this time, I gave you food and drink, clothes and shoes, the whole eleven years we’ve been married. All that time you haven’t even earned the price of a single meal. I’m so tired, just exhausted, I’m dead on my feet. And now what am I supposed to do? It’s not enough I have to raise the kids, do I have to feed you too? Whoever’s heard of anything like that?

I was practically crying. I’ve never heard her talk that way.

But Mireleh, I pleaded, "she insulted me, she threw me out of the house. I mean, I’m her father—she’s stabbing me in the heart! My own kid throws me out of the house. Really, whoever’s heard of anything like that? You tell me!"

What kind of a man lazes around at home and expects his wife to support him?

Did you tell her to say that?

She stared at me with no idea what I was talking about.

Is that what you told her—to throw me out of the house?

My wife doesn’t say a word. She heaves a sigh and gives me a look that makes my blood turn to jelly.

Did you tell her to wash the kids’ hair? Does she know how? Can she hold the baby for even a minute?

Yes I can, better than him! yells the girl.

"Drop dead, you liar! You little witch! All you can do is talk back to your father!"

"And all he can do is hit her!"

"Yeah, so? And you’re just sitting there? You might not care now, but you just wait, she’ll be talking back to you pretty soon—I’ll bet then you’ll give her a smack or two."

Get away from me, I’m telling you! Are you listening? my wife screams at me.

And that’s how it ended. She sighed a few more times, lay down, and went to sleep.

So I kept my job. I don’t let the kid near the baby. I don’t let her do anything in the house, not even wash her own hair. And when I comb it, I do my best to rip every strand right out of her head.

Thank God! I’m safe for a while. My only hope was to get my wife pregnant—then I’d have nothing to fear from my rival. I know the kid still wants me out of the house. She even said why—she wants her mother to make her a wool dress, and her mother must’ve said she couldn’t, so the kid figured it was my fault. She thinks that if I weren’t around, her mother would make her the dress. That’s why she wants to get rid of me. I was really worried she’d get her way in the end. But now—who cares about her? My wife is so pregnant that soon she won’t be able to walk. I made sure of that, and believe me, it wasn’t easy. She wouldn’t let me near her; she didn’t even pretend she was sleeping. You slackass! The last thing I need is another litter on my hands! She said that every time, scrunching herself up into a little ball. But no matter what she did, I got my way in the end. Now I feel big, even bigger than her. I’m proud of her puffed-up belly. I’m the man, and she’s my wife.

I feel so good that I go for a walk every evening after dinner. I cross my arms, stick out my stomach (I think it must’ve gotten bigger), and walk slowly, with short little steps—one, two, one, two. I don’t care if it rains or if it snows or if the moon’s out—it’s all the same to me. Even when it’s chilly, I take off my hat and let the air in. I’m not worried about my head getting cold; it can take care of