A Sephardi Life in Southeastern Europe. Aron Rodrigue
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the viggnas whistles and the grunts of workers as they hammered the iron, or those summer weeks spent at the farm in Bania,6 where we watched the lighthearted, lively fieldwork. My grandfather oversaw everything, not neglecting the pleasures, quiet pleasures that consisted in watching the men and women who harvested the land dancing in the evening around great fires, to the sound of flutes and bagpipes.
After my grandfather’s death, these excursions, these holidays, continued until 1877, the eve of the Russo-Turkish War, but it seems to me they no longer had the mark of cordiality, of good humor, that had earlier characterized them. The quarrels that accompanied the division of my grandfather’s effects projected a shadow of mistrust, of ill-humor, on the entire family, which got worse and worse, leading to the almost total dispersal of the shared inheritance, of which there now remains only odds and ends.
On this subject, I cannot understand why, at the death of my grandfather, my parents did not ask for part of the inheritance due my mother. At the time, it was an accepted principle that daughters had no right to the paternal inheritance, but lawyers supposedly offered to claim part of the fortune left by Tchelebi Juda. My father refused them.
My childhood was thus spent in a mediocre financial condition close to poverty. Nevertheless, my father was still the wealthiest of his three brothers and, because of this, he had to supply a dowry and marry off his two sisters, Venezia and Rébecca. He faced up to all these burdens, even though his own family was gradually growing: Rosa was born in 1868, Elia in 1870, soon after a sister, Esmeralda, who died, and Régine in 1875. We lived in succession with Samuel Avdala (where Rosa and Elia were born), then with Mochon de Ham Aron, and finally in our own house, acquired in about 1875, situated on what is now 1 Moïseova Street.
This progress in our way of life reflected a certain prosperity in business. This business developed little by little: in addition to a shop of manufactured goods we had in the marketplace, my father established a branch in the Turkish quarter; in addition, he established relations with Salonika, from whence he imported copper, colonial foodstuffs, etc. It seemed that fate would shine on us. You will see what happened, and how that modest position was mercilessly destroyed by my Uncles Moïse and David.
Even at my grandfather’s death in 1870, my uncles, fearing my father would demand part of the inheritance, incited him to abandon his trade in manufactured goods, promising him the moon if he would become their agent. The store was liquidated and my father was sent to Kyustendil in the middle of winter, to recover something or other. All I remember of that adventure was that my father almost froze to death on his horse during the journey, that upon his return he developed a grave illness, and that, as soon as he had recovered, he hastened to reestablish his shop and to take up his trade as in the past. That is all my grandfather’s inheritance ever gave us.
A few years later, my father, before heading for the fair in Uzundje7 as was his habit, bought iron from my uncles to be resold at the fair; the proceeds of the sale were to be used to make the necessary purchases for the store. That was in 1876: business was bad, given the troubles in Herzegovina and the war between the Serbs and the Turks. The bonds for 60 Turkish pounds that my father had subscribed to with my uncles could not be paid. My uncles, furious, obtained authorization from the pasha of Sofia to have my father thrown in prison. I no longer remember how many days he was incarcerated, but I remember every detail of my father’s stay in prison, the food I brought him from the house, the anguish and tears of my mother, the curses she heaped on her brothers, the scene with her mother, and, above all, my father’s attitude of resignation. Such a scandal would not be possible today; but under the Turkish regime that was ending, my all-powerful uncles could easily crush a poor defenseless man. And they did so without scruples.
My father returned to his business soon afterward; he reopened his store. Since there had not been a bankruptcy properly speaking, all his bonds in circulation were paid in full, except the 60 Ltq.8 to my uncles, which I redeemed in 1886 for 25 Ltq. I was wrong in this, for my uncles were in debt to us—because of our weakness in fact—for at least a hundred times the 60 Turkish pounds. In any case, the trade in manufactured goods was reopened and continued until the Russian invasion in 1877.
I have gone into some detail regarding our means of existence during my early childhood because it explains some of the traits of my father’s character and of mine as well.
My father had a frail constitution. At the age of two he contracted an illness, which was taken to be a fever and which lasted two years. I would not be surprised if this were simply a bout of tuberculosis which went away on its own. This sickly childhood left him weak all his life, subject to frequent stitches in his side, which were treated with bloodletting. In addition, he was dyspeptic, and hence inclined toward melancholy and hypochondria, a common illness in the Arié family. His extreme irritability translated into repeated and painful migraines, which made the slightest annoyance painful; the most insignificant incidents made him angry. Hence, his suffering, at times physical, at times moral, had very early impressed upon his fine and distinguished physiognomy the imprint of sadness and pain. The joys of this world were rare for him, at least until he had to leave Samakov, which is to say until he was about forty years old.
My character was to be modeled on his. I understood very early that life is a serious business. I do not remember committing any of those childish pranks that everyone keeps in his distant memory. From the age of four I was sent to the meldar,9 where I had the following teachers in succession: Béhar Melamed,10 who taught me to read; Harbi11 Haïm, who taught me the prayers, the perascha,12 and the En-Jacob;13 Moïse Alcalay, who gave me a few notions about Hebrew grammar; and finally, Harbi Abraham Cohen, with whom I translated the Talmud from the age of ten.
We were also taught a bit of Turkish; in 1874 I began spending two hours every day at the Conak,14 in an office, where I copied administrative documents, of which I did not understand a word. That is where my father came looking for me the day the Alliance school opened in January 1874. Everything I know in Hebrew and Turkish I learned during the first ten years of my life, for beginning in 1874, I devoted myself to French and neglected all the rest.
School exercises were not the only things I was obliged to do; exercises of piety occupied a large place in my small existence. Every day there were the three prayers at the temple, winter and summer, not counting the extra prayers, the ticoun-hatzot.15 Very often during the month of Eloul,16 I awoke before dawn to go recite the sélihot.17 On Saturday, a day of recreation, I read the Perascha, Targoum,18 Perakim,19 Psalms, and then, after dinner, the Zohar20 at the midrasch, in the company of a lot of old men. And you had to pay attention, not lose a word, not stand around gaping, for I was being observed and I got a slap—more than once, right in the synagogue—for allowing myself to daydream. That was the education of the time. It was harsh in general, but for us it was particularly rigorous. It is therefore not astonishing that my father’s home has left me with only austere memories and that the joys of childhood remained almost unknown to me, as they did to my brothers and sisters.
One should not imagine, however, that being at home was like being in prison. The seriousness of our life was often enlivened by music. My father had a musical ear and sang well, though with a head voice. Every Friday night we rehearsed part of the Pizmonim,21 from collections passed on in the family from generation to generation; I believe I remain one of the last repositories of these melodies, many of them harmonious. Rabbi Moïse Alcalay and Haïm Serouma, a singer from Sofia, added to this repertoire a few Turkish songs from the time, which we were taught at the meldar and, later on, at school.
Apart from these distractions, we had the habit of getting together in the winter to entertain ourselves, to play a game with empty cups, one of which concealed a ring. We accompanied ourselves with rather grotesque traditional Turkish songs, which greatly amused the spectators-actors. I often accompanied my father at these feasts, and played my own little role in them.
1. Nissim is a Hebrew given name that can be translated as “miracles.” It was the custom to change the name of a sick child to hasten recovery. See Michael Molho, Usos y costumbres de los Sefardies de Salonica