-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
Summary | Excerpt | Reviews | Beyond the Book | Readalikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio
Book Reviewed by:
“Oy, your mother gave you quite a big jug to carry just half a quart of oil. You
seem to find it rather heavy. . . .”
My brother tells us about it.
“Lucky she didn’t look inside the jug! It would have meant the end of my
scheme.”
Pola, my sister, finds him selfish.
“You think only about yourself. What about the salesgirl? She would have lost
her job!”
We’re always hungry. When Anschel brings home a potato, he divides it into eight
parts. Food is so scarce that we rejoice when we eat one-eighth of a potato or
two.
The market comes to our courtyard on Tuesdays and Fridays. It isn’t a big one
like they have in Warsaw. Peasants lay out their vegetables on the ground. They
sell turnips, beetroots, beans, cabbage, pickled cucumbers in a bucket, homemade
vodka—and above all, potatoes. The kids sing a ditty:
Sunday, potatoes
Monday, potatoes
Tuesday, potatoes
Wednesday and Thursday, potatoes
Friday, potatoes
Saturday, potato cake.
The courtyard is large, with houses on three sides and stables on the fourth. We
live in a big room plus a small kitchen, on the second floor of a four-story
building. At night, we stick two folding beds together and the five of us sleep
there, as close as sardines in a can. They put me in the middle. In winter it’s
warm and cozy, but in summer I’m too hot.
They say that rich people have pipes that bring water into their homes. In our
courtyard, people gather at the fountain all day long to fill up pitchers, jugs,
tin cans. We keep water at home in a barrel. In winter, it freezes during the
night.
Four outhouses stand in the courtyard, just under our window. I imagine that
stinking gnomes live underground in a huge palace, the outhouses being its
turrets.
I like to sit near the window. I watch the fountain, the outhouses, and
especially the stables. They contain twelve carts, which are just simple wooden
platforms drawn by two horses. I admire the skill of the carters when they tie
mountains of scrap or rags on their platforms. Ah, these carters are tough men.
Every evening, they get drunk on vodka in a filthy tavern on this side of the
courtyard, then they cross back to the stables, singing and staggering, to sleep
with their horses. Some of them are Jewish. I know we’re Jewish, too, but I can
barely understand them. The language they speak sounds like Yiddish, but it
contains strange words. “It’s slang,” my mother says.
I notice that my brothers often come home with cuts and bruises all over their
faces and bodies. Every other day, my mother sews up their old sweaters and
their pants.
“The Poles attacked us,” they say.
“We ran, but they caught us.”
“They ambushed us at the corner.”
Why do the Poles attack the Jews? That’s a great mystery. For a long time, I
thought that the word Jew actually meant “poor,” but in fact these Poles who are
not Jewish are often as poor as we are.
My brother Schmiel says that in Warsaw, on the other side of the Vistula River,
the Jews live together in neighborhoods where the Poles do not enter. Our
neighborhood, Praga, is “mixed,” which means that we can’t escape the Poles. We
must be careful.
I stay at home because of my crooked legs, but I walk better now. I’ll soon go
out into the courtyard and the streets. I’ll have to face theses terrible Poles.
My brothers are cowards. As soon as they see a Pole, they run away. I won’t give
in. I’ll fight. I’ll be as strong as the carters. When a carter argues with a
peasant, he comes right up to him and grabs the lapels of his jacket. The
peasant falls to the ground right away. At first I didn’t understand what
happened. Then, after seeing many fights from my window, I noticed that the
carter gave a butt with his head or a kick with his knee between the peasant’s
legs. The carter’s move is so fast that you hardly see it. I’ll grab the Pole by
his jacket lapels and knock him out!
Excerpted from The Fighter by Jean-Jacques Greif, Copyright © 2006 by Jean-Jacques Greif. Excerpted by permission of Bloomsbury USA. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
 (1).gif)
I am what the librarians have made me with a little assistance from a professor of Greek and a few poets
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
