The Shtetl: A CREATIVE ANTHOLOGY OF JEWISH LIFE IN EASTERN EUROPE
Translated and edited by Joachim Neugroschel
 
STEMPENIU: A JEWISH ROMANCE  - SHOLOM ALEICHEM

STEMPENIU AND HIS BAND

The sensation made by Stempeniu and his band when they came to a little town, the turmoil they aroused, simply cannot be described.
"Hey look! There's a four-horse wagon coming round from behind the mills. It must be the in-laws!"
"Nope! It's the musicians. That's Stempeniu and his gang!"
"What? Stempeniu? Stempeniu's here already? Now that'll be a merry wedding for Haym ben-Tsion-damn his eyes!"
Jewish wives blushed. Jewish girls set about combing their hair and weaving their long braids. Boys rolled their pants up to their thighs and ran to welcome Stempeniu. And even grown men, bearded husbands, let out smiles, which meant they were thrilled that Stempeniu had come to play at Haym ben-Tsion's wedding. Fine! Why not? Why should they care? It wasn't costing them any money, was it?
By the time the wagon fetched up at the inn, the street was chock-full of people. Everyone was curious to catch a look at Stempeniu and his gang, and so they stood there for a moment.
"Just look at them shoving!" everyone yelled, and shoved to the front, as Jews are wont to do. "Just look at him elbowing his way, he wants to be the first! What's there to look at? Haven't you ever seen musicians before?"
That's what each Jew said, pushing his way up to the wagon, while the musicians emerged one by one.
The first to step down was Yokel the Bassist (who played the contrabass), a nasty man with a squashed nose and with wads of cotton in his ears. Next came Leybush with his clarinet, a drowsy mannikin with thick lips. He was followed by Haykel Hump, tile Haykel Hump, the hunchbacked wedding jester. Then out jumped a man with a tangle of black hair and with hair all over like a wild man from the desert, and terrifying bushy eyebrows. That was Shneyer-Meyer the back-up fiddler. A couple of boys came leaping after him, ferocious-looking creatures with swollen cheeks, blackened eyes, dreadful buckteeth the size of shovels. These were the apprentices, who were still working for nothing, but later, in time, they might turn into respectable musicians. Last but not least, who should come rolling out on crooked bowlegs, but red-haired Mekhtshi the Drummer, with a drum that was twice his size. His face was beginning to sprout a beard, a reddish growth, but only on one side, the right side, while the other half of his face, the left side, was naked, as barren as a steppe. Mekhtshi the Drummer, you must know, had first married at thirty, and rumor had it that his wife was a hermaphrodite ....
The town scamps had probably spread the news that Stempeniu was coming with his band. Every so often, a schoolboy sneaked in and gave the drum a bop or twanged the G-string of the contrabass. The boy got a whack in the nape of his neck from Yokel the nasty bassist. And little by little, the street began boiling and bubbling, for the bridegroom had also arrived in town with dozens of young men who had driven out to meet him on the other side of the mills. And the town of Yampeli did shout and was glad.
And: like Yampeli, like Stristsh, and all the other little Jewish towns that had the privilege of having Stempeniu at a wedding, and that's how it was in Mazepevke, where Stempeniu made his home. In short, the whole world was in a turmoil over Stempeniu!

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