Yiddish Sayings Mama Never Taught You

The weather was unbearably warm for the end of October in the north where the dock jutted out into the Yellow Sea. She could have imagined the two-story ferry from her remote Manchurian town. When she finally arrived at the platform, Jun hesitated and looked back again. Even to the last, she was unsure.
How many times had she made this fateful departure? The men were off in their own world, worrying about how they might busy themselves on the long voyage and what mischief they might find.
“The boat’s pushing off,” said Xin.
She met him an hour ago, when Chen unloaded her to his brother for safe keeping while he went about other work. Now this stranger appeared to read her mind. The strangers were always the first to understand. He watched her as she sat on the dock tearing at her newspaper, picking it apart letter by letter.
“Once we go, you’ll never come back,” he said.
It was better, then, to never know? But you’ve gone this far.
Xin was to observe cargo while his brother disappeared into a crowd.
Duty called the itinerant tea drinkers and card players.
The sea took its hold underneath them. A heavy charge filled the silence as the ferry engine surged. She looked for something to give her balance, but found only Xin’s presence. He made himself all too available. His brittle parka brushed against her and a sense of revulsion came over her.
“I need hot water,” she said. A simple request to turn his zeal in other directions.
“Uff,” he grunted.
Hot water was easy to find early in the voyage, but Xin would have to set out to fetch it. Xin paced around her for a moment, reluctant to leave her alone.
Jun reached inside her coat to produce some proof of legitimacy, though paper, she knew, meant little to any of them.
Xin clucked and stuttered in the direction of Chen and whatever chums he had quickly amassed. They stood far off the easterly railing where they had slowly turned to the business of gambling. A great centerbeam divided the boat and partially hid the men from view.
By the time Chen appeared, twelve hours had passed, and the weariness of the travelers took hold. In the meantime Jun had probably slept, though she could not remember hot water or tea. Likely Xin had not returned.
“They’re all from the north,” said Chen. “They come this way to avoid Darien so none of them will be sent to fight, or so they think. They’ve come all this way only to turn around and go home. But in the end, they’ll be fighting. They say on the last push a million and a half died. Like pebbles in the ocean, aren’t they?”
“Why would they go back, then?” asked Jun.
“You’d know better than I,” said Chen. “I do this for the money.”
He was too vague to provoke some response from her. Though she paid him to cross the sea, he ensured her that she was entitled to little. “You seem more desperate than the rest.”
“You’ve done this a hundred times, haven’t you?” she asked, a dependency of hers pushing on him, but providing no details.
“You’ve paid your fare,” he said. “So we get you to Fukuoka, and you figure out the rest.”
“But I need to get to Tokyo.”
“But that’s not where we’re going,” he said.
“And if I pay more?” she asked.
“Pay as much as you like,” he said. “We’re still not going near Tokyo. Too many Americans. Too many police.”
Chen looked up as his brother approached. She thought Xin might be more accommodating in conversation, since Chen was not going to be the one to calm her nerves. Chen grabbed hold of the small bag he carried and began pushing through the crowd. The collective on board was committed to the ferry’s path, and all eyes cast a stone fortitude in the direction of the stern.
“But I’ve already paid him once,” Jun said.
“He likes to be paid as many times as possible,” Xin said.
“But how will I get to Tokyo?” she asked.
“Shifting priorities,” said Xin, “you’ll have to keep pressing your case.” Three days before Jun had found Chen, one of a few smugglers hocking their services in the unknown cities of the north. Jun went to the town leader and asked him for help. She explained her problem to him and he recommended the railway station as the place to find the kind of person she was looking for.
Between the station and the tin goods market was a ponderous stall in the middle of the street. Three beggars were looking for a meal. The choice was easy. Jun had not thought to ask how Chen arrived there. She was so committed to accomplishing the task that very day, that as soon as she gravitated toward him, she believed her work was as good as done. She failed to recognize the outward bearing of a fox.
She asked the price to enter Japan. He did not object, nor question her motives, nor complicate with further detail. She watched him as he fingered through the buried ferry tables. His dim response suggested that he could easily accomplish what she asked, but he tripled her price.
Before they had arrived in Beijing there were other stops in the North, along the barriers of the ancient Mongol path, then further south. Chen left her standing in the marketplace without a thought, and more than once she had to work to find him. Amid the carcasses and the pelts, Chen was consumed with the search for a weapon. He passed the leather tanners. Her head spun from the stench of the oils, all trapped within the tent and ready to be scraped from the carcasses. But he knew what he had come for, and as quickly as Jun had found him, he had decided upon a sleek, very modern pistol.
Jun noticed at least half the money he quietly demanded leaving his hands. She gawked up at the beaver pelts and the yak skins. She could hardly believe she had undertaken this on her own. In Tanjin it was much the same story, when Chen turned away, only to count his money a second time. She decided he was considering how much effort to put into the transaction. Would he, in fact, follow through on what he was paid to do? She noticed the train approaching, but neither she, nor the train, had jarred his attention. An intimate story to one was worth a nickel to another. Chen looked out the window and stared down the aisles. Bored without your abacus?”she said. She realized the abacus occupied a place very near his heart.