Mon, February 06 2012
| TITLE: | Cleaning Day, or Where the Babka Really Came From |
|---|---|
| AUTHOR: | Gaelle |
| CATEGORY/TYPE: | Humor |
| RATING/WARNINGS: | PG-13, Gen |
| MAIN CHARACTERS: | |
| DESCRIPTION: | Write story summary here. |
| STATUS: | Complete |
| Note of Appreciation: | Many thanks to Odensdisir for inspiring this bobe mayse (old wive's tale) with her delightful story, "Babka," and also some other more notorious stories. Now, I would be the last one to say that Odensdisir ever got anything wrong, but it's possible that Rebecca was being oblique about the original source of the babka which appeared on the breakfast table on the patio next to the wall which stood in no need of tuck-pointing on that absolutely angst-free morning at Shillingworth Magna. For babka as you may know is a delicious Jewish pastry, and Cook would certainly been intrigued enough to develop a recipe after tasting it, and where did all that angst go, anyway? Consider the Usual Disclaimer to be posted here, nu? |
Such a day I had! You want your Bobe should tell you about it? Pull up, have a glass of tea and listen.
I was over to Golde Ribikoff's house next door, sharing with her a glass of tea and a little bit cake – between you and me, her cake is too dry; she doesn't bake as well as I do – when zoom from the sky there comes this balloon with a little house attached to it, falling. Yes, you heard me right, falling bom out of the air. I rushed to Golde Ribikoff's parlor window to see better. The balloon swooped and angled, straining mightily, but the good earth wanted to have it more than the sky wanted to let it fly, and so it bumped down chmalyeh! Right into my back yard. It squashed the cabbages.
Golde was fluttering her hands and making the sign against the Evil Eye and crying "Oy gevald!" and "Got in himmel!" and other useless things. She would have nothing to do with this goyishe shmontses, this foreign gadget. As usual, it was up to Bobe Lubovitch to make things right. So after pausing at the mirror to straighten my sheitel and my hat, I marched over to my back yard to take a good look at this shmontses, this folly which had made borsht from my cabbages.
From the noises, there were people inside the shmontses. I knocked on its door.
A very nice young man with an oddly trimmed beard opened it up and invited me in.
"Sholem aleycham, I'm Sadye Lubovitch but you can call me Bobe, which is to say Grandmother. Welcome to my back yard which your little balloon house is sitting in the middle of. I saw it fall down and oy! what a whump! Is everyone all right?"
Everyone seemed to be unhurt though very glum. Besides the bearded man, there were three others in the shmontses. There was this very handsome man who you could tell was a fancy dresser, only he was a little bit unkempt at the moment. I hate to say it but from the well-used look of the bottle and the glass at his elbow, it looked like he might be a shikker. The bearded one, who was his serving-man, introduced him to me but all he did was moan, "Saratoga!" and drink from his glass.
Then there was this shaineh maidel, this very pretty young woman, who paced up and down like a tiger in a cage. She made an effort to be polite and conversational, but you could see that the shmontses being in the cabbages was making her meshugga.
The fourth person was a skinny boychik with big puppy-dog eyes and sweet cheeks that I just wanted to pinch. He was studying big papers that had the outline of the shmontses on them, and he was frowning and scratching his head.
The shikker moaned again, muttered, "Erasmus!" and launched another drink down his throat.
"Phileas, for God's sake!" the maidel griped. "You'll have to excuse my cousin," she explained, "he's feeling a bit low right now."
"I should think so!" I exclaimed, looking around. The shmontses was very elegant inside but oy vai iz mir! "It's a miracle that you are all not wailing on the floor from this place. What sort of a way is this to live anyhow? You must get rid of these troubles or you will all be meshugoyim, that is crazy people!"
"Troubles?" the serving-man said. "Where is troubles? Other than the Aurora not working, I mean. Although that is big enough troubles. Master," he appealed, "I not understanding it. Everything working perfectly, and still it does not fly. It is almost as if it is too heavy or something."
"Of course it is too heavy," I said. "The weight of all this tsores would pull anything from the sky. How can you stand it here?"
"Tsores?" said the boychik, turning from his drawings.
"Yes, bubeleh, tsores. Troubles. Misery. Look at it! It's all around you! Especially, you should pardon me for pointing out, around the maideleh's cousin there."
"Scotland!" the cousin moaned, reaching for his bottle again.
"Phileas, I absolutely forbid you to start in on Scotland!" the maidel exploded.
"Scotland!" wailed the serving-man and the boychik in unison. The maidel groaned and rolled her eyes.
"Auntie!" the serving-man cried, reaching for the shikker's bottle. The shikker slapped his hand away and glared at him.
"Fluffy!" sobbed the boychik.
The serving-man, the maidel, and her shikker cousin all stopped and stared at him quizzically. "Fluffy?" asked the cousin, trying his best to focus.
"Yes, Fluffy, my sweet little bunny who died when I was six!" The boychik covered his face with his hands.
"Jules, snap out of it," the maidel commanded. She klopped her cousin on the head. "See what you've done?
"Don't blame him, maideleh, it's the tsores," I said.
The boychik sniffed once, rubbed his eyes, and turned to me. "Pardon me," he asked, "but are you saying that you can actually see this misery, this tsores as you call it?"
"We are all wading in it, it is so deep in here. Can't you see it? It's like the shmutz that collects under the bed, only darker and cloudy and somehow, how can I put it, greasy. See? Here I am kicking some away right now. If you get me a broom and a shmatteh, a rag, I can clean it up for you."
At this mention of shmattehs and cleaning, the serving-man became very anxious. "I clean!" he said. "I am all the time cleaning! How can there be this bad sorry stuff?"
"How can you clean it if you can't see it? Don't be upset. Bobe will take care of it for you."
I worked with the broom and the shmatteh all over the balloon house, while the serving-man followed me around trying very hard to see the tsores I was dusting from the walls and pushing out from the corners. "There there, bubeleh," I consoled him, "I think maybe you have to be a Jewish grandmother to see it. By the time you get to be a Bobe, you have seen so much tsores in your life that you get a sense for it."
Soon, I had swept all the tsores from the rest of the rooms in the shmontses, collecting it near the door. But there was a problem; the tsores kept rolling toward the maidel's cousin just like he was a magnet for it. I asked him to stand and began dusting him with the shmatteh. It was very strange and I don't mind telling you, a little bit fun for this old Bobe to dust off that tall handsome man. Especially because he was embarrassed and kvetched about it.
"Tell me this," I asked him, "how is it that you have so much tsores? You don't look Jewish."
He shrugged. "I suppose I've had some troubles in my life."
"And you brood over them. Constantly," the maidel sniped.
"This isn't usual troubles," I said, herding all the tsores toward the door. It kept wanting to go back and collect around the cousin again. This is so much tsores, it is like some cosmic farshtinkeners have made it their business to make a mess of your life. What a shandeh!" I thought about it and hastily added, "Poo poo poo!" that is to mimic spitting three times so as to avert the Evil Eye.
I swept all the tsores out the door and dusted my hands off in satisfaction. These very nice people should feel much better now. Even as I was thinking this, the maidel's handsome cousin straightened up, fixed his tie, and put the cork back in his bottle. He handed it to me saying, "I suddenly find that I don't want this any more. I feel as if a weight is gone from my shoulders. Thank you, Mrs. Lubovitch."
"Bobe," I corrected.
"Bobe," he said, smiling. Then he took my hand and kissed it, just like a real gentleman. It was quite a thrill, let me tell you. I even began to shvitz a little. Laughing, I used the shmatteh to wipe my forehead, then I uncorked his bottle and had a little taste.
"What do you think of my best brandy?" he asked, still smiling at me.
"It's got enough whoomp going down, but I think I like shnapps better." I turned to the serving-man. "Bubeleh, how are you at digging holes?"
"I am a good digger. Why?"
"Because we have to bury the tsores before it gets all over the shtetl. We Jews have enough tsores of our own without importing any. And while he digs," I said to the maidel, "the rest of you will come to Bobe's house and I will make some lunch for you."
"No, really, that's not necessary," said the maidel.
"Of course it's necessary! Anytime you come visit Bobe – even if it's by accident – you have to eat. I have some nice chicken soup all prepared."
The boychik decided to help the serving-man dig the hole; I showed them a good spot near the shed. The maidel and her cousin I welcomed into my kitchen and served glasses of nice hot tea while I made the soup to heat up. My soup is a distillation of all things good about the chicken (except for the liver, which I make into chopped liver, which let me tell you is another bit of heaven). First there is the chicken itself, which has to be dressed and plucked and kashered with plenty salt on a tilted board so that all the blood drains out. It is nit kosher to consume the blood, since the blood is the essence of life. Then you must simmer the chicken with fresh water and carrots and onions until the skin falls off the bones and the bones fall off the bones and the entire neighborhood smells like chicken soup. The secret to good chicken soup is the chicken feet, which are oy! such a pain to clean but give a depth and richness to the broth. But the crowning glories of the chicken soup are the knaidlech. These you make with matzo meal and good whole eggs and salt and pepper and schmaltz, which is the rendered fat of the chicken. You blend it all into a batter, which must be gloopy in order to produce light fluffy knaidlech. The batter you must leave for a while in a cool place, and then with wet hands you form sticky balls from it. The balls you drop into a pot of boiling salted water, and you simmer them for a good while, all the time resisting the temptation to open the lid and see how they are. You should not cook them in your chicken broth, for knaidlech are greedy and will zup up all the broth into their spongy selves and leave you with nothing. When the knaidech are done, they crowd the top of the water, almost as if they wish to rise up and float around your kitchen. That is how you know you have made a light fluffy knaidel. You spoon them into your strained broth and there you have it, Bobe's chicken soup.
I was about to strain the chicken from the broth when the boychik came to tell me that the hole was done. So I rushed to be done with the soup, and then went out to the back yard to push the tsores into the hole. The two diggers covered it up, and feh! that was the end of their tsores.
I made a bracha, a blessing, over the soup and served it out. For all they protested over how they were not really that hungry and Bobe this isn't necessary, I saw how their eyes lit up when they took their first sips of my rich golden broth. And I heard their exclamations when they took their first bites of knaidel. They all took second helpings of soup. The boychik I made take a third. He is too thin; he should eat.
You know what I think? I think that the chicken soup finished the cure that removing the tsores had begun. The maidel relaxed her tense shoulders; her cousin leaned back and put his bright smile to good use. The boychik's big eyes glowed and his cheeks grew pink. We all talked a good talk while we ate, and this old Bobe figured out a few things.
They were all of them, but the maidel in particular, not eager to tell me how their shmontses came to flop into my cabbages. There was some mishegas about idling about in a balloon, and I would have bought the story if it had just been the cousin and his serving-man, and even the boychik with them. But there was not an idle bone in that maidel's body. She was the one who drove them all; the sun about which the rest of them spun. But that is often a woman's role, nu? This shaineh maidel made a point of her womanhood, spilling out her glorious hair for all to see. She wore no sheitel to hide her beauty under false tresses. I thought she must be a very strong one to cast her unshielded self forth into the world of men every day. And she was a lonely one, too, I figured, without any women to support her; without even a Mamme or a Bobe or a Shvester or a friend. No wonder she was so restless. She had never learned the meaning of rest.
The handsome cousin, in finishing up his soup, coughed and worked his mouth and took out from it a small piece of bone. I tell you, this Bobe was horrified to think that she'd rushed through straining the soup. Then the maidel stopped and smiled at him and stuck out her pink tongue, and on the tip of it was another bit of bone. I started to apologize, but my words just faded dead away. For the handsome cousin reached over to her, sliding his finger into her open mouth and slowly and gently removing the bone.
The serving-man coughed.
"Another bone?" I cried.
"No, no bone, I'm all finished and thanking you very much for the good soup, Bobe, but I must be looking at the Aurora now. To see if she can fly again."
"I have to, too," hastily added the boychik. The two of them sped from the kitchen, leaving just Bobe and the two cousins, who were grinning as they fed each other sips of soup.
I decided that I should check the shmontses one more time to see if all the tsores was really gone. Outside, I couldn't help peering back in through the window.
"What are they doing?" asked the serving-man.
"They look like they're ... yes, they must be checking each other's mouths for hidden bones." I chuckled.
The boychik and the serving-man shared a knowing glance. "They get like that around chicken,"said the boychik. We all laughed together, and then I gave in to my urge and pinched the boychik's sweet blushing cheeks.
We all three of us went to the shmontses for a while, and then when I judged that the cousins had been alone for quite long enough, I went back to my kitchen. The cousins looked flustered and giddy and a little more unkempt than they had before. They thanked me with pretty words and kisses and as the maidel was going from my door, I stopped her and gave her one of my fresh-baked babkas to take with her, and told her to come back and visit Bobe again.
"For who knows if those rotten ones, those farshtinkeners, will heap more tsores on you and your poor cousin. If they do, Bobe will take care of it for you. Especially wiping off your handsome cousin with a shmatteh!"
Shortly after that, the balloon with its little house rose up from my back yard, leaving a patch of squashed cabbages. So I made lots of stuffed cabbage that night for dinner. And that's the whole megillah.
The End