Yossi the shoemaker

Yossi found this ancient shoe-making device at the flea-market. Cleaned it up, painted it the brightest red he could possibly find and enjoyed telling his customers how his grandfather brought it from overseas.

“He took a better care of it than he did of his own son, my father, yes…” – Yossi narrated, glancing towards grandpa’s supposed embodiment with a slight rebuke. “I was just a child, only three years old, and already was running around with a cloth, polishing it till it shines and my grandpa made me do it all over again if he found a single stain” – Yossi wielded a boot enthusiastically.

He was a great actor, his customers were listening to grandpa’s exploits with their mouths open. Forgetting to check the shoes after repairment. Great, Yossi had absolutely nothing against it. Of course, he always did a thorough job, but who knows…

Yossi’s grandfather Solomon Markowitz, a respectful accountant from Vitebsk, would probably be genuinely surprised if he found out what an eventful, adventurous life he had had. He might have even gotten a bit envious of himself, since his life was long and very decent, but extremely quiet and even boring. He lay obediently in the Vitebsk cemetery without ever considering a career of a shoemaker, or travelling overseas holding strange devices.

Yossi’s dad, an experienced dentist, loved his son, but was convinced that if only he played his cards right, he could have become a new prime minister in this very decade. “I can’t grasp it” – he complained to the neighbor, – “such a brilliant boy, a future Nobel prize winner in physics, repairs other peoples’ stinky old shoes for pennies in this tiny shop in southern part of Tel-Aviv. Fira, his mother, God rest her soul, would have gone mad, if she was alive…”

And Yossi kept singing, opening his tiny, but neat and cozy little workshop. He sniffed in sharp fragrances of leather and glue with great pleasure, winking at “grandpa’s” device and changing the shoes on it when he felt like it.

And he felt absolutely happy and free.

Five years ago he told himself – I don’t want to be sitting around cramming books all day, because Joseph Chernik can’t afford getting a grade lower than remarkable. I don’t want to freeze in panic before tests, because every test is like a little death.  And listening to my father’s profuse discussions of scientific career, Harvard and Princeton, feel like the doom is near.

And the phrase “You are going to win a Nobel prize” made him sick to his stomach.

The boy was talented, spontaneous and stubborn.

And he had no interest in promoting the science.

He just wanted to live his live.

To repair shoes and sing today, to paint walls and dance, waving his brush, tomorrow. And afterwards to stand on the market and sell fish, hollering joyfully. Why not?! It’s all so fascinating and so much fun. And nobody says with a frown – Joseph, why are you frolicking around? You are wasting your time, physics aren’t going to study themselves, go grab a book…

Yossi hated physics.

Yossi loved people, smell of coffee, seeping out of every wall stone in a jolly neighborhood of Florentin, he loved diving head first into the craziest stories ever, waving his hands and believing his every word, he loved banging on the shoe soles with his little hammer, feeling like his mythological grandpa, a mighty Jewish warrior and legendary shoemaker.

And he knew for sure that one day a petite quiet girl with sad eyes will enter his shop and say – I can’t walk, my heel is broken, can you help me?

And he will fix her heel and help her put the shoes back on and tell her, looking into those bottomless eyes – don’t be sad, sunshine, now that we have found each other everything is going to be fine! Or maybe he will hand her the repaired shoes and say, life is so great and full of amazing surprises, let’s go grab a coffee? Or just take her hand without saying anything and she would smile and squeeze his fingers.

He just didn’t expect the petite quiet girl to tumble into his shop, limping and wailing, trying to tell him through the tears something about her very first interview, about her heel getting trapped in a seamless but deep crack on the pavement, about her new shoes and how everything is lost, she’s good for nothing…

Sarah was trying to take a sip of a smoldering coffee from a large mug that he pushed into her hands, sobbing and mumbling sadly and quietly.

He was standing there, cradling her crippled shoe, smiling and thinking, “Our daughter may have these gorgeous dark-red locks. But then our son will have my eyes. And cheekbones. And forehead. And I am going to tell him a thousand stories about our glorious grandpa, the great shoemaker of Vitebsk”.

“Hey”, – He interrupted her mumbling, – “What are we going to call our daughter?”

Sarah chocked on her coffee.

After coughing and catching her breath, she gave a jolly shoemaker a long, considering glare. Took a deep breath and said, “Tamar, naturally”.

And he knew that now everything is going to be fine for sure.

Translated by Diana Shnaiderman-Pereira