Hester Street Page #5

And you can sit all day

and read the books, huh?

What do you say?

Joey!

Joey, come here!

Don't bother, Mr. Bernstein.

Oh, here he comes, Yossele.

The slack season already?

Mister, wait one minute.

Yossele, stay by me.

Go. I'll send him up in a minute.

Slack season.

No work three, maybe four months.

Take off.

Take off!

Yankel!

What happened here?

She looks like a wet cat!

Mama!

Take him to my house.

Have a little water.

Another man would thank God

for such a wife.

Look how she keeps the place.

Like a mirror!

A flower in the window even.

Why do you do this to her?

What I do?

With one tochiss,

you can't dance at two weddings.

You think you're better off

with the dancing girl?

Gitl told you?

She didn't say a word, I swear.

Don't get excited!

She didn't say a word!

I don't care for no dancing girls!

I don't care for nobody!

Especially that one,

that shnoosa!

I'm an American fellow.

A Yankee, that's what I am.

And that's all!

Oh, it's no use.

Oh, kinder, kinder!

You have a quarrel and that's all.

You make a peace.

Give a good kiss.

What you kicking about anyway?

Mind your own business!

Listen, Podkovnik,

I was in this country when you were still in

Russia hauling on the bellows!

You can't pee up my back,

and make me think it's rain.

Get outta here!

Never! Never! Go.

Who knows what you do! Maybe kill her.

You wanna call a policeman? Go.

Call a policeman! I will tell him

what is doing in this house!

He will be back, that one.

Don't worry.

I don't want him back.

Enough.

Mamie, how can you fix?

Gitl won't agree to divorce.

Money. Money, money, money, money.

I ain't got.

I got.

You got?

You knew I got, didn't you?

Never!

How much you got?

Three hundred and forty dollars.

You little peach, you!

Used to be 365,

but for the 25 you borrowed,

I already said Kaddish.

Ah. We'll keep by enough

to start a dancing academy.

We're done in the sweatshops.

Finished.

In the first, Podkovnik

will not come home no more

whether you say yes or no, missus.

Or as we say, irregardless."

You agree to a divorce,

Miss Mamie Fein is giving you $50.

You don't agree, no $50.

All right.

You got a little one.

Ach.

Ach.

What can I do?

What can I do? What can I do?

Seventy-five dollars.

Seventy-five dollars, you'll get

a new husband, one-two-three. Huh?

What kind business we got here, missus?

All right, $100.

One hundred dollars!

What am I saying?

It's out, I said it, that's all,

it's finished.

One hundred dollars.

You're a rich lady. Mazeltov!

Mr. Bernstein,

is all right, these things?

Mrs. Kavarsky say, for a divorce

a woman must not look like an old broom.

So I go today by Delan--

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