"William Tenn - My Mother Was a Witch" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tenn William)

arsenal. She must have found them painfully slender against such an opponent.
When she raised her eyes again, the women waiting for action leaned forward. My mother was
known to be clever and had many well-wishers, but her youth made her a welterweight or at most a
lightweight. Mrs. Mokkeh was an experienced heavy, a pro who had trained in the old country under
famous champions. If these women had been in the habit of making book, the consensus would have
been: even money she lasts one or two rounds; five to three she doesn't go the distance.
"Your daughter, PearlieтАФ" my mother began at last.
"Oh, momma, no!" shrieked the girl, suddenly dragged from non-combatant sta-tus into the very eye
of the fight.
"Shush! Be calm," her mother commanded. After all, only green campaigners expected a frontal
attack. My mother had been hit on her vulnerable flankтАФmeтАФand was replying in kind. Pearl
whimpered and stamped her feet, but her elders ig-nored this: matters of high professional moment were
claiming their attention.
"Your daughter, Pearlie," the chant developed. "Now she is fourteenтАФmay she live to a hundred
and fourteen! May she marry in five years a wonderful man, a brilliant man, a doctor, a lawyer, a dentist,
who will wait on her hand and foot and give her everything her heart desires."
There was a stir of tremendous interest as the kind of curse my mother was knead-ing became
recognizable. It is one of the most difficult forms in the entire Yiddish thaumaturgical repertoire, building
the subject up and up and up and ending with an annihilating crash. A well-known buildup curse goes,
"May you have a bank ac-count in every bank, and a fortune in each bank account, and may you spend
every penny of it going from doctor to doctor, and no doctor should know what's the matter with you."
Or: "May you own a hundred mansions, and in each mansion a hundred richly furnished bedrooms, and
may you spend your life tossing from bed to bed, unable to get a single night's sleep on one of them."
To reach a peak and then explode it into an avalancheтАФthat is the buildup curse. It requires perfect
detail and even more perfect timing.
"May you give your daughter Pearlie a wedding to this wonderful husband of hers, such a wedding
that the whole world will talk about it for years." Pearlie's head began a slow submergence into the collar
of her dress. Her mother grunted like a boxer who has been jabbed lightly and is now dancing away.
"This wedding, may it be in all the papers, may they write about it even in books, and may you enjoy
yourself at it like never before in your whole life. And one year later, may Pearlie, Pearlie and her
wonderful, her rich, her considerate husbandтАФmay they present you with your first grandchild. And,
masel tov, may it be a boy."
Old Mrs. Mokkeh shook unbelievingly and came down a step, her nose wart twitch-ing and
sensitive as an insect's antenna.
"And this baby boy," my mother sang, pausing to kiss her fingers before extending them to Mrs.
Mokkeh, "what a glorious child may he be! Glorious? No. Magnificent! Such a wonderful baby boy no
one will ever have seen before. The greatest rabbis coming from all over the world only to look upon him
at the bris, so they'll be able to say in later years they were among those present at his circumcision
ceremony eight days after birth. So beautiful and clever he'll be that people will expect him to say the
prayers at his own bris. And this magnificent first grandson of yours, just one day afterward, when you
are gathering happiness on every side, may he suddenly, in the middle of the nightтАФ"
"Hold!" Mrs. Mokkeh screamed, raising both her hands. "Stop!"
My mother took a deep breath. "And why should I stop?"
"Because I take it back! What I wished on the boy, let it be on my own head, every-thing I wished
on him. Does that satisfy you?"
"That satisfies me," my mother said. Then she pulled my left arm up and began dragging me down
the street. She walked proudly, no longer a junior among seniors, but a full and accredited sorceress.


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