Mr. Monday and other tales of Jewish Amsterdam

MY FATHER AND MR. LEBOVITZ 51

After two very careful strokes, the blood was running down his cheek. He quickly put new soap on that part of his physiognomy. "Mr. Lebovitz says there is no better medicine to stop bleeding than dried up shaving soap," he announced to no one in particular.

Mother said she was afraid that Father would get bloodstains on his shirt. And how do you get them out? Father became very angry. Mother was more concerned about his shirt than about his life. He might bleed to death. And what would she inherit? A clean shirt.

Notwithstanding her level-headedness, Grandmother was somewhat disconcerted by the sight of all that blood. "Shall I go and call the doctor to come?" she asked.

Father, who could not really believe that Grandmother's concern was entirely honest, declared she was teasing him. He locked the kitchen door. Through the door he shouted, "I will shave alone. All your staring and yakety-yak makes me nervous. If you had not interfered, nothing would have happened."

Mother said, "That's what you get when two such floozies live in the same building as yourself. I'd like to drag that Rosa and Dina over the steps like a washboard. If that keeper of those women, that swindling Lowee, had not had you buy that narrish piece of bent iron, there wouldn't be a bloodbath in my kitchen right now."

Grandma shrugged her shoulders. "If males are not unreasonable, they wouldn't be anything at all. And that husband of yours, when he can't move forward or backwards, he hides behind that non-existing Mr. Lebovitz."

Time passed. They became restless.

Mother wailed, "G-d knows what's going on in the