Mr. Monday and other tales of Jewish Amsterdam

HOW ZELIK MISSED OUT ON TWO INHERITANCES 127

For three whole weeks Pessie did not come out in the street. She sat at home, and she did not receive anybody. When the three weeks were over, out she came triumphantly... Take one guess, what did she come out with?

With a set of false teeth!

In those days that was also a great rarity, and you understand how the family stared when one evening she suddenly took her upper and lower plates out of her mouth and let everybody look at them.

Like a house afire the news swept through the neighbourhood on burning tongues of gossip. Aunt Pessie-with-the-Pricetag has bought herself some false teeth, they were saying. From Dentist Klinger on the Frederiksplein.They had cost her at least a thousand guilders. Unbelievable ...

You will be asking what all these things had to do with me, Zelik, the unlucky nephew. And how did I miss out on the two inheritances? That I shall now relate, so pay attention.

At the time I am talking about, I was just twelve years old, give or take a few months. I was what you say, not meshuga. Someone said once, If you yell 'smart aleck' Zelik turns his head." In those days that was a compliment for a boy not yet Bar Mitzvah.

Well, one evening the whole mishpocheh was sitting around our house. Aunt Pessie-with-the-Pricetag was there too, and you could feel that she was dying to talk about her false teeth. But nobody gave her the chance because they were talking about something else all the time. And then all of a sudden, when it got quiet, I piped up, "Auntie, let us have a look at your plates, how about it? Just take them out of your mouth."