On the way home his father dropped into the town’s only inn, leaving Lubji sitting on the ground outside, guarding their purchases. It was not until the sun had disappeared behind the town hall that his father, having downed several bottles of slivovice, emerged swaying from the inn, happy to allow Lubji to struggle with the sleigh full of goods with one hand and to guide him with the other.
When his mother opened the front door, Papa staggered past her and collapsed onto the mattress. Within moments he was snoring.
Lubji helped his mother drag their purchases into the cottage. But however warmly her eldest son spoke about them, she didn’t seem at all pleased with the results of a year’s labor. She shook her head as she decided what needed to be done with each of the items.
The sack of grain was propped up in a corner of the kitchen, the potatoes left in their wooden box and the fish placed by the window. The clothes were then checked for size before Zelta decided which of her children they should be allocated to. The shoes were left by the door for whoever needed them. Finally, the buckle was deposited in a small cardboard box which Lubji watched his mother hide below a loose floorboard on his father’s side of the bed.
That night, while the rest of the family slept, Lubji decided that he had followed his father into the fields for the last time. The next morning, when Papa rose, Lubji slipped into the shoes left by the door, only to discover that they were too large for him. He followed his father out of the house, but this time he went only as far as the outskirts of the town, where he hid behind a tree. He watched as Papa disappeared out of sight, never once looking back to see if the heir to his kingdom was following.
Lubji turned and ran back toward the market. He spent the rest of the day walking around the stalls, finding out what each of them had to offer. Some sold fruit and vegetables, while others specialized in furniture or household necessities. But most of them were willing to trade anything if they thought they could make a profit. He enjoyed watching the different techniques the traders used when bargaining with their customers: some bullying, some cajoling, almost all lying about the provenance of their wares. What made it more exciting for Lubji was the different languages they conversed in. He quickly discovered that most of the customers, like his father, ended up with a poor bargain. During the afternoon he listened more carefully, and began to pick up a few words in languages other than his own.
By the time he returned home that night, he had a hundred questions to ask his mother, and for the first time he discovered that there were some ev
en she couldn’t answer. Her final comment that night to yet another unanswered question was simply, “It’s time you went to school, little one.” The only problem was that there wasn’t a school in Douski for anyone so young. Zelta resolved to speak to her uncle about the problem as soon as the opportunity arose. After all, with a brain as good as Lubji’s, her son might even end up as a rabbi.
The following morning Lubji rose even before his father had stirred, slipped into the one pair of shoes, and crept out of the house without waking his brothers or sisters. He ran all the way to the market, and once again began to walk around the stalls, watching the traders as they set out their wares in preparation for the day ahead. He listened as they bartered, and he began to understand more and more of what they were saying. He also started to realize what his mother had meant when she had told him that he had a God-given gift for languages. What she couldn’t have known was that he had a genius for bartering.
Lubji stood mesmerized as he watched someone trade a dozen candles for a chicken, while another parted with a chest of drawers in exchange for two sacks of potatoes. He moved on to see a goat being offered in exchange for a worn-out carpet and a cartful of logs being handed over for a mattress. How he wished he could have afforded the mattress, which was wider and thicker than the one his entire family slept on.
Every morning he would return to the marketplace. He learned that a barterer’s skill depended not only on the goods you had to sell, but in your ability to convince the customer of his need for them. It took him only a few days to realize that those who dealt in colored notes were not only better dressed, but unquestionably in a stronger position to strike a good bargain.
* * *
When his father decided the time had come to drag the next two cows to market, the six-year-old boy was more than ready to take over the haggling. That evening the young trader once again guided his father home. But after the drunken man had collapsed on the mattress, his mother just stood staring at the large pile of wares her son placed in front of her.
Lubji spent over an hour helping her distribute the goods among the rest of the family, but didn’t tell her that he still had a piece of colored paper with a “ten” marked on it. He wanted to find out what else he could purchase with it.
The following morning, Lubji did not head straight for the market, but for the first time he ventured into Schull Street to study what was being sold in the shops his great-uncle occasionally visited. He stopped outside a baker, a butcher, a potter, a clothes shop, and finally a jeweler—Mr. Lekski—the only establishment that had a name printed in gold above the door. He stared at a brooch displayed in the center of the window. It was even more beautiful than the one his mother wore once a year at Rosh Hashanah, and which she had once told him was a family heirloom. When he returned home that night, he stood by the fire while his mother prepared their one-course meal. He informed her that shops were nothing more than stationary stalls with windows in front of them, and that when he had pushed his nose up against the pane of glass, he had seen that nearly all of the customers inside traded with pieces of paper, and made no attempt to bargain with the shopkeeper.
The next day, Lubji returned to Schull Street. He took the piece of paper out of his pocket and studied it for some time. He still had no idea what anyone would give him in exchange for it. After an hour of staring through windows, he marched confidently into the baker’s shop and handed the note to the man behind the counter. The baker took it and shrugged his shoulders. Lubji pointed hopefully to a loaf of bread on the shelf behind him, which the shopkeeper passed over. Satisfied with the transaction, the boy turned to leave, but the shopkeeper shouted after him, “Don’t forget your change.”
Lubji turned back, unsure what he meant. He then watched as the shopkeeper deposited the note in a tin box and extracted some coins, which he handed across the counter.
Once he was back on the street, the six-year-old studied the coins with great interest. They had numbers stamped on one side, and the head of a man he didn’t recognize on the other.
Encouraged by this transaction, he moved on to the potter’s shop, where he purchased a bowl which he hoped his mother would find some use for in exchange for half his coins.
Lubji’s next stop was at Mr. Lekski’s, the jeweler, where his eyes settled on the beautiful brooch displayed in the center of the window. He pushed open the door and marched up to the counter, coming face to face with an old man who wore a suit and tie.
“And how can I help you, little one?” Mr. Lekski asked, leaning over to look down at him.
“I want to buy that brooch for my mother,” he said, pointing back toward the window and hoping that he sounded confident. He opened his clenched fist to reveal the three small coins left over from the morning’s bargaining.
The old man didn’t laugh, but gently explained to Lubji that he would need many more coins than that before he could hope to purchase the brooch. Lubji’s cheeks reddened as he curled up his fingers and quickly turned to leave.
“But why don’t you come back tomorrow,” suggested the old man. “Perhaps I’ll be able to find something for you.” Lubji’s face was so red that he ran onto the street without looking back.
Lubji couldn’t sleep that night. He kept repeating over and over to himself the words Mr. Lekski had said. The following morning he was standing outside the shop long before the old man had arrived to open the front door. The first lesson Lubji learned from Mr. Lekski was that people who can afford to buy jewelry don’t rise early in the morning.
Mr. Lekski, an elder of the town, had been so impressed by the sheer chutzpah of the six-year-old child in daring to enter his shop with nothing more than a few worthless coins, that over the next few weeks he indulged the son of the cattle trader by answering his constant stream of questions. It wasn’t long before Lubji began to drop into the shop for a few minutes every afternoon. But he would always wait outside if the old man was serving someone. Only after the customer had left would he march in, stand by the counter and rattle off the questions he’d thought up the previous night.
Mr. Lekski noted with approval that Lubji never asked the same question twice, and that whenever a customer entered the shop he would quickly retreat into the corner and hide behind the old man’s daily newspaper. Although he turned the pages, the jeweler couldn’t be sure if he was reading the words or just looking at the pictures.
One evening, after Mr. Lekski had locked up for the night, he took Lubji round to the back of the shop to show him his motor vehicle. Lubji’s eyes opened wide when he was told that this magnificent object could move on its own without being pulled by a horse. “But it has no legs,” he shouted in disbelief. He opened the car door and climbed in beside Mr. Lekski. When the old man pressed a button to start the engine, Lubji felt both sick and frightened at the same time. But despite the fact that he could only just see over the dashboard, within moments he wanted to change places with Mr. Lekski and sit in the driver’s seat.
Mr. Lekski drove Lubji through the town, and dropped him outside the front door of the cottage. The child immediately ran into the kitchen and shouted to his mother, “One day I will own a motor vehicle.” Zelta smiled at the thought, and didn’t mention that even the rabbi only had a bicycle. She went on feeding her youngest child—swearing once again it would be the last. This new addition had meant that the fast-growing Lubji could no longer squeeze onto the mattress with his sisters and brothers. Lately he had had to be satisfied with copies of the rabbi’s old newspapers laid out in the fireplace.
Almost as soon as it was dusk, the children would fight for a place on the mattress: the Hochs couldn’t afford to waste their small supply of candles on lengthening the day. Night after night, Lubji would lie in the fireplace thinking about Mr. Lekski’s motor car, trying to work out how he could prove his mother wrong. Then he remembered the brooch she only wore at Rosh Hashanah. He began counting on his fingers, and calculated that he would have to wait another six weeks befo