Oedipus in Brooklyn and Other Stories. Blume Lempel

      

       Oedipus in Brooklyn and Other Stories

      English translation and introduction © 2016 by Ellen Cassedy and Yermiyahu Ahron Taub

      Paul Lempel is a copyright owner of the original Yiddish-language works, the English-language translations of which appear in this volume.

      All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including electronic storage and retrieval systems, except by explicit prior written permission of the publisher. Brief passages may be excerpted for review and critical purposes.

      This book is typeset in Bembo on 11.5 over 15.5

      Book design by Sandy Rodgers

      Cover art, “Innocence Reflected,” by Fran Forman

      Photographs of Blume Lempel courtesy of Paul Lempel

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Names: Lempel, Blume, author. | Cassedy, Ellen, translator. | Taub, Yermiyahu Ahron, translator.

      Title: Oedipus in Brooklyn & other stories / by Blume Lempel; translated from the Yiddish by Ellen Cassedy and Yermiyahu Ahron Taub.

      Other titles: Oedipus in Brooklyn and other stories

      Description: Simsbury, Connecticut: Mandel Vilar Press; Takoma Park,

      Maryland: Dryad Press, [2016] | The first eleven stories in this volume were published in Yiddish in “A rege fun emes” (A moment of truth), by Blume Lempel (Tel Aviv: I.L. Peretz Publishing House, 1981). The second eleven stories were published in Yiddish in “Balade fun a kholem” (Ballad of a dream), by Blume Lempel (Tel Aviv: Israel Book Publishing House, 1986). | Includes bibliographical references and index.

      Identifiers: LCCN 2016035817 (print) | LCCN 2016036370 (ebook) | ISBN 9781942134220 (E-book)

      Subjects: LCSH: Short stories, Yiddish. | LCGFT: Short stories.

      Classification: LCC PJ5129.L4175 A6 2016 (print) | LCC PJ5129.L4175 (ebook) | DDC 839/.134--dc23

      LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016035817

      Mandel Vilar Press / 19 Oxford Court, Simsbury, Connecticut 06070

      www.americasforconservation.org / www.mvpress.org

      Dryad Press / P.O. Box 11233, Takoma Park, Maryland 20913

       www.dryadpress.com

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      The first eleven stories in this volume were published in Yiddish in A rege fun emes (A Moment of Truth), by Blume Lempel (Tel Aviv: I.L. Peretz Publishing House, 1981). The second eleven stories were published in Yiddish in Balade fun a kholem (Ballad of a Dream), by Blume Lempel (Tel Aviv: Israel Book Publishing House, 1986). These stories were translated with the kind permission of Blume Lempel’s son, Paul Lempel.

      “Pastorale” appeared in Yiddish in Di goldene keyt (Tel Aviv: No. 122, 1987). “The Fate of the Yiddish Writer” appeared in Yiddish in Yidishe kultur (New York: Vol. 48, November/December 1986). “The Death of My Aunt,” translated by Ellen Cassedy, and “Neighbors over the Fence,” translated by Ellen Cassedy and Yermiyahu Ahron Taub, appeared previously in slightly different form in Pakn Treger, the magazine of the Yiddish Book Center. “Pastorale,” translated by Ellen Cassedy and Yermiyahu Ahron Taub, appeared in KIN: Journal of Literary Translation (Ottawa: Issue 8, April 2016). “The Little Red Umbrella,” translated by Ellen Cassedy and Yermiyahu Ahron Taub, appeared in The Brooklyn Rail: In Translation (Brooklyn, NY: April 2016).

      The Hadassah-Brandeis Institute and the Sonya Staff Foundation provided financial support for the translation project.

       Dedicated to Blume Lempel’s husband Lemel,

       who, seeing the atrocities being visited upon European Jewry,

       had the foresight and good fortune to move the family from Paris

       to New York before the outbreak of war in 1939,

       and to Blume’s brother Israel Pfeffer,

       who remained in France and fought with the underground.

       He was captured by the Nazis and murdered in 1944.

      — Paul Lempel, son of Blume and Lemel Lempel

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Even the Heavens Tell Lies

Pachysandra

The Death of My Aunt

Images on a Blank Canvas

Neighbors over the Fence

      The Debt

      My Friend Ben

      Oedipus in Brooklyn

      Cousin Claude

      A Yiddish Poet in Paris

      The Power of a Melody

      Yosele

      The Bag Lady of Seventh Avenue

      En Route to Divorce

      The Little Red Umbrella

      Her Last Dance

      Waiting for the Ragman

      The Twin Sisters

      A Little Song for a Jewish Soul

      The Invented Brother

      A Snowstorm in Summerland

      Yosemite Park

      Pastorale

      The Fate of the Yiddish Writer (essay)

       Translators’ Acknowledgments

       About the Translators

       INTRODUCTION

      Blume Lempel (1907-1999) was a remarkably original storyteller — unique in her style, her narrative strategies, and her subject matter. With their lyrical, idiosyncratic imagery, her sentences often evoke an unsettling blend of splendor and menace. Many of the storylines are characterized by restless flashbacks, jarring juxtapositions, uneven pacing, and abrupt endings. “I like to start at the end and work backward,” she said. “Or start in the middle. Or begin with some strange subject and then change the character entirely and start all over again.”

      Lempel’s narratives migrate between past and present, Old World and New, dream and reality. Some stories resemble collages whose carefully arranged fragments reverberate against one another, wandering from modern-day New York to prewar Poland, bedtime story to passionate romance, old age dementia to girlhood dreams. The boundaries between real and unreal can be fragile and permeable. Cosmic landscapes rub up against domestic scenes. Multiple time periods coexist on a single page.

      Lempel was drawn to subjects that were seldom explored by other writers in Yiddish in her time — abortion, prostitution, women’s erotic imaginings, incest. With rare acuity, she explores her characters’ inner lives; faced