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"Eh? Vat you are saying? I don' hear so good."
"I said, 'Who's that in the picture, Grandma?" The young woman pointed to a worn photo, black and white of course, in which could be seen a tall, beak-nosed man squinting in the sun, his arm protectively arranged around the much smaller, and much younger Yetta.
"Oh him?!" Grandma Yetta said, her old eyes widening. "No-goodnik!" But she was smiling as she said it. Something gleaming in her eyes told the younger woman she had stumbled on to an interesting story. For the duration of her grandmother's wavering attention span, she might have some material she could use for her college family history project. "A no-goodnik?" she repeated. "Why, what did he do?"
"Ha! Vot didn't he do? He married me." She spit out the word "married" like it encompassed all the evils of which the devil himself were capable, given an afternoon to whip up a good batch.
"You were married before Grandpa?" Now this was going to be juicy, the young woman thought to herself. There was no way the man in the picture could be Grandpa Shmuli. Grandpa Shmuli was many things, but tall had never been one of them.
"If you can call it a marriage." Grandma Yetta pulled her teeth out and stared at them meditatively before putting them back in her mouth. "Vot's for lunch?"
"Oh, no you don't! I want to know who he was!" The young woman took her grandmother's hand and directed her attention back to the picture.
"Vot you vant to know? I was 17 years old, it was vinter, cold like you vouldn't believe. Food vas running out. Ve vere killing the last chicken, and, by the vay, it vas a very skinny chicken, you could hardly make a soup of it. Bones, bones, bones. Then he shows up out of novhere."
"Vat, I mean, what do you mean, out of nowhere?"
"Nothink, that's it, von day he is there. A peckeleh on his back, nothink, just a sack. He valked out of the mountains, he said. This vas of course impossible, no von valked out of the mountains in that time of year. And he came to the shtibele, the, vot you call it, synagogue, Friday night for Shabbos, and my father says, come home for Shabbas meal."
"And?" the young woman asked, as her grandmother fell into a lull and seemed about to do the teeth thing again.
"And vot?"
"And how did you marry him?"
"Vid the rabbi, of course, how else?"
"No, I mean, how did it come about that you married him? Funny," she said, examining the picture again, "he doesn't look Jewish...too tall, and, I don't know, angular..."
"Listen, sveetie, in the vinter, and the only varm place is the synagogue, everybody is Jewish!"
"Okay, okay, grandma." The young woman giggled. "But, you were married to him. Was he...you know..?"
"Vas he vat?"
"Um, you know...did he have a bris?"
"Oh, dat."
"Grandma, don't take your teeth out."
"Vell, vat did I know, you tink I had seen a man before? But no," she said, leaning over conspiratorially, "I don't tink so....I vonder...so dat's vhy vid Shmuli it was never....oh! You von't tell nobody, vill you, sveetie?"
The young woman was trying mightily to keep from keeling over in hysterics. "Oh no, Grandma, don't worry, your secret is safe with me," she said between gasps.
"Grandma?" she asked, after some time had passed in silence. Grandma Yetta had an abstracted look on her face, as if she was lost in reminiscence. Either that or she had gas. The young woman wasn't sure.
"Eh? Speak up, sveetie, I don' hear so good, you know."
"Grandma, do you remember my name?"
"Vot?"
"Nevermind. It's Wendy, Grandma."
"I know dat, sveetie. You tink I don't know, Vendy?" Grandma Yetta pulled her shawl around her in a bit of a huff.
"Of course you do, Grandma. Now, Grandma, what about him, your first husband?"
"You know about my first husband?! Who told you?!"
"You did, Grandma, just a little while ago. The picture, remember?" Wendy said, pointing to the picture album. "You said...that he was a no-goodnik, and I asked you why."
"Of course he vas a no-goodnik. But I vas very fond of him, you know...he had the most beautiful eyes, green and...and gold, like the sun on the autumn leaves... And ven he had to leave the village -- they made him go you know -- he vent first to the rabbi and got a "get", a divorce document, so I could marry again. At first, I vas heartbroken, it meant he vould never come back to me. But then..." She sighed, picking up the worn picture. "Then I realized he had made it sure that I could marry again. He didn't vant I should be an 'abandoned vife.'"
"But Grandma, why did he have to leave?"
"Vell, it vas a lot of tinks. First, he tried to talk my father into farming pigs. Then, he tried to convince us to irrigate the vegetable patch vid the mikveh. And then, he got in an argument vid the rebbe over the goyesche Gott. He claimed," and Grandma leaned over once again in a conspiratorial whisper, "to know vat really happened ven thier Gott raised that man from the dead...Lazurus, I tink it vas. The rebbe vas afraid he vould talk like this around the Goyim and they vould come and make a pogrom. Really, he vas a very vonderful husband, my Binyomin, but..."
"But what, Grandma?"
"Vell, he vas very fond of a drink he made from vheat. A kind of, vat it is, beer. And you know, Vendy," she said, emphasizing her granddaughter's name with a smirk, "how on Pesach, Passover, you don' supposed to eat or drink anytink hametz. That means, fermented. And my Binyomin, vell -- he showed up at the rebbe's seder vid a barrel full of beer. After dat ve could no longer pretend he vas a Yiddele. And ve vere afraid, you know, that the Goyim vould hear. In those days they didn't like so much you know if a Goy and a Yid made to be together. It wasn't that anybody hated him...he vas a good man, my Binyomin. He vas learned like a doctor -- he made medicines from plants you find all around, you know, in the fields. And I tink, I tink he knew how to be a Yiddeleh, a Jew. He vas not stupid about it. He just, he couldn't help to make a joke, or to make a solution if he saw a problem, like, he saw, ve vere hungry, so ve should eat pigs. And," she finished, sighing, "he just couldn't give up his beer, not even for Passover."
"Oh Grandma." Wendy touched her grandmother's face, tracing the path of a tear. "I'm sorry if I brought up a sad memory."
"Vot? No, Vendele, it vasn't sad. I tink he vas a vanderer, that man. He vould never have stayed. He had a spirit, you know, it vas not for him, to stay in that little shtetle, our village. He vas a good husband, vhile he stayed vid me. He called me his little Yettele. Ven he left I vas sad, it is true, but..." And here she paused. Wendy saw the signs that her grandmother's attention span was coming to its end.
"Grandma? But...?" she prompted,
"But," Grandma Yetta replied, a dreamy look in her eye, "that man gave me the best shtupping of my life. You do know vat means shtupping, don' you, sveetie?"
Wendy sat in shock for a moment, then pulled the picture of Grandma Yetta and Binyomin out of her grandmother's hands. Grandma was now staring into space with a peaceful expression on her face. Wendy closed the picture album, pulled Grandma Yetta's shawl more closely around her, and smiling, tiptoed out of the room.