Th e Village Musicians

Charlotte Jewish News September 2021

An original story By Izzy Abrahmson

The people of The Village were not known for musical ability. To call them tone deaf would have been a compliment.

The day after Yom Kippur, a peddler lay an assortment of instruments on a blanket in the middle of the round village square – a flute, a clarinet, a violin, a trumpet, and something brass that looked like goose’s neck.

“What is that?” Young Doodle pointed.

“This is a saxophone.” The peddler picked it up and played the villagers on a journey of sound that led them up and down, around and back and through colors, and shapes, and open space.

When he stopped there was tumultuous applause. “Now, who wants to play?”

Doodle grabbed the saxophone, and blew a discordant blat that sounded like a fat man accidentally sitting on a duck.

His foster father, Reb Levitsky was mortified.

The peddler winced. “Very good. You played A-flat. By the way, all my instruments are for sale.”

Reb Stein, the baker, snapped up the clarinet. Reb Gold, the cobbler, purchased the violin. Bertha Shimmel outbid Reb Cantor, the merchant, for the trumpet, and Reb Levitsky bought the saxophone for Doodle.

“It’s almost as big as he is,” hissed Chaya Levitsky.

“He’ll grow into it,” her husband whispered, as young Doodle received his first – and only lesson.

Finally, the delicate brass flute went to Bulga the Fisherman. It looked impossibly tiny in Bulga’s thick hands.

“Best salesman I’ve ever seen,” muttered the disappointed Reb Cantor, as he left the synagogue.

Relieved, Shoshana Cantor patted her husband’s hand. Hearing him sawing away at a fiddle would have been agony.

To say that the villagers of Chelm were unable to play their new instruments is an understatement.

They were beyond bad. They were epically atrocious.

Reb Stein’s clarinet sounded like a wounded chicken. Reb Gold’s violin reminded his family of violent swarms of bees and mosquitos. Bertha Shimmel’s trumpet blasts echoed from the hills, and prematurely curdled her goats’ cheeses. Bulga the Fisherman had gone off on one of his voyages, so one could only imagine the havoc unleashed on the open sea.

Worst of all were Doodle’s attempts at the saxophone. He seemed fixated on discovering new and unusual sounds. Atonal, non-tonal, negatively tonal? There weren’t words to describe.

“I don’t know why they call it playing an instrument,” a distraught Reb Levitsky moaned. “I think he’s murdering it. He’s certainly giving me thoughts.”

Ten years passed, which took far longer than expected.

Now, Doodle was engaged to be married to Rachel Cohen on the day after Yom Kippur, both for luck and to save money.

Wise Rachel Cohen told her husband-to-be, “Everyone will have gorged at the Yom Kippur break-fast, so at our wedding banquet they’ll eat less. Hopefully.”

As long as he didn’t have to think about it, Doodle, like many men, was amenable to anything that made his bride-to-be happy.

It was only after Doodle smashed the glass and everyone shouted, “Mazel Tov!” that they realized the wedding musicians from Smyrna had failed to arrive.

A wedding without a hora circle dance was untenable. The bride and groom had to be lifted in chairs!

“Didn’t you send the band’s deposit?” a tearful Rachel asked.

Bewildered, Doodle answered, “I thought you did!”

The villagers leaned forward both eager and embarrassed to witness the married couple’s first fight.

“Wait,” shouted Bulga the Fisherman. “I have my flute.”

“I’ll get my clarinet,” declared Reb Stein.

“My violin is in my workshop,” said Reb Gold.

“I actually brought my trumpet along,” Bertha Shimmel admitted.

The two men ran off, and a space for the quartet cleared in the round village square.

Silence mixed with a deep feeling of dread, as the villagers recalled the sounds that had repulsed them so many years before.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Reb Cantor whispered to Rabbi Abrahms, who raised both hands in a shrug.

Bulga stood at the front. “I’ll start. You join.”

The others nodded, and set their instruments to ready.

Bulga lifted his flute and began.

The quiet was broken by a single note, slightly off, then resolved and held steady. It flowed into the same note repeated, but longer, which transformed, and rose, then fell.

It was a rich and sweet sound of air and brass and light.

A shiver of goose bumps tingled the bride and groom’s arms, as they recognized the sweet and joyful beginning of Have Nagila.

The clarinet joined, tentatively at first, and then the violin.

“Let us rejoice!” they called. “Let us rejoice!”

And at the next line of, “Let us rejoice and be happy!” Bertha Shimmel’s trumpet came in so vibrantly that it blew the roof off the chupah!

Next moment, everyone was up on their feet, holding hands and circling the round square, while singing in miraculous harmony, “Hava neranenah – Let’s Sing!”

It was a dance! A celebration. And a marathon.

The band only knew the one song, but it was the right song. They played it relentlessly, only pausing long enough to eat a bit of brisket or drink a glass of wine.

Then, as the sun began to set, Chaya Levitsky brought Doodle his saxophone, and gave her adopted son a kiss on the cheek.

Martin Levitsky grew concerned, remembering the time a mouse had dropped dead when Doodle played.

“I don’t know any tunes,” Doodle admitted as he hung it around his neck. “But I’d like to play my love for Rachel.”

He nodded, closed his eyes, inhaled, and then opened his eyes and saw his wife.

He had loved her for as long as he could remember. He knew every inch of her face, the shimmers of her hair, the softness of her voice, the lift of her smile.

Rachel’s eyes also filled with joy at the small kind boy who had become her strong kind man.

Doodle played what he felt. There was no melody. It felt like a breeze, a sunbeam, the smell of fresh baked bread.

For a moment that lasted forever there was nothing else.

By the time the villagers blinked and came back to themselves, Doodle and Rachel had gone home to their new house

“That was something.” Reb Cantor grinned. “You guys used to be so bad.”

Bulga the Fisherman licked his chapped lips and shrugged. “After ten years of practice?”

Reb Stein and Reb Gold laughed in agreement.

“In another ten years,” Bertha Shimmel suggested, “maybe we can learn Lechah Dodi?”

Reb Cantor left the musicians, and went home to his own wife, happy that the New Year had begun.

Izzy Abrahmson is the author of the award-winning “The Village Life” books and podcast. Look for “A Village Romance and the forthcoming Chanukah book, “Winter Blessings,” fi nalist for the National Jewish Book Award for Family Literature. Find out more at www.IzzyAbe. com.