A Promised Land?

by Alan Collins

  ‘‘Smoke?’’ Abe laid the tin on the seat between them.

  Jacob shook his head.

  ‘‘Go a beer then, old son?’’ He looked at his wrist-watch, still in its army issue dustproof leather case. ‘‘Yeah, the sun’s over the yard-arm, Jake. Let’s go up and see what’s in the old Silent Knight.’’

  ‘‘Could — could we wait a bit?’’ Jacob stalled. For God’s sake, his bloody rotten luck! He had never, not ever, drunk a beer in his stupid life! And now, here was Abe whom he wanted to be mates with, first offering him a smoke and being knocked back and now assuming that man to bloody man, they would go up the steps, into the cool house, down the bloody hall past Ruti and her bloody mother, into the kitchen where the brand new Silent Knight fridge thumped away to keep Abe’s tall dark bottles of Pilsener frosty.

  Abe took his hand off the truck door. ‘‘What’s biting you, son?’’ He wound down the window and looked along the street. ‘‘I know, you’re jealous of that little twerp Daryl Aarons. You think he’s hanging around Ruth, eh?’’ He laughed, ‘‘I wouldn’t give yer two pennorth of possum poop for his chances, son.’’

  Jacob laughed with him. It was the relief he needed. Now the talk could come, haltingly at first but then unstoppable. He looked through the windscreen at the heat shimmering on the road. The truck cabin was hot and stuffy, the tobacco smoke hung in the air. It was the enclosed private world the boy needed.

  ‘‘Abe,’’ Jacob began nervously.

  ‘‘That’s me name, Jake, fire away.’’

  ‘‘Well, it’s about Ruti — I mean Ruth.’’ He halted, hoping for an interruption from Abe. The man was silent but intent.

  ‘‘I mean, I’m going to be twenty-one soon and — oh, bugger it, Abe, I’ve got to tell someone. I love Ruti, I love her so much it’s like being hungry all day and all night and nothing you do can stop it. You know about us, don’t you Abe? How we were in the Children’s Home together and all that stuff. She’s the only person who really knows me. We need to be together for always, Abe, for ever and ever. That’s how I reckon our life should go. I mean, I haven’t got anyone else, Abe, honest I haven’t. I need Ruti. I suppose that sounds bloody juvenile to you, but it’s the truth.’’

  Well — Jacob hugged the secret to himself — it’s not the whole truth. But he surely wasn’t about to tell Abe of that gritty encounter on the beach which so nearly destroyed his dreams.

  Abe reached for the tobacco tin. Unthinkingly he offered it first to Jacob, then took it back and rolled a smoke. This time it was not so even, wisps of tobacco hung out at the end and he watched the ash die on his pants before he spoke.

  ‘‘If ever I saw a bloke that earned a beer, it’s you, old son.’’ He opened the truck door. ‘‘Let’s get out of the old girl and go up to the house, mate.’’

  ‘‘But Abe,’’ Jacob pleaded, ‘‘what I’ve just said, did you understand me? Doesn’t it mean anything to you?’’

  ‘‘Oh too bloody right it does, Jake.’’ He stepped down onto the road. ‘‘I’ll tell you this for nothing — it puts you and me in the same basket, the only difference is I’m twice your age. But as for the rest of it, I’ve travelled the same road. You know, I was in the army for five years. And before that I was a bloody labourer.’’ Furtively he looked up and down the road then pressed his body against the side of the truck and peed on the tyre.

  ‘‘Sorry about that, Jake, but I was bustin’ and I thought by now we’d be sittin’ in the kitchen givin’ a coldie a nudge.’’ He slammed the truck door — the only way it would close properly. ‘‘It’s a funny thing how our lives are sorta parallel. Now here I am married to a woman I respect but don’t really fall off the edge of me chair for.’’ He wagged a finger at Jacob. ‘‘Now don’t get all hot under the collar about that, old son. I give her a good home and safety and she in turn looks after me simple needs. Now what I reckon about you and Ruth is that as well as bein’ a bit soft on her like, you’re also a bit snobby about her and her education. Like you was tryin’ to improve your own status — is that the right word? — by bein’ with her. A bit like meself for that matter. Like with her mum, I’m gettin’ to know a bit o’ that classical music stuff.’’ Abe sighed then said softly: ‘‘Of course, you can love her too and bein’ the sort of honest young shaver you are, I don’t doubt for a minute that you do.’’

  He waited until the arc of the sprinkler hose had passed, then propelled Jacob in front of him with a force the boy had not experienced before. It communicated itself to Jacob. It formed a magnetic field in and around him. The hair tingled at the back of his neck. Perhaps this power that flowed from Abe to himself was what he had lacked in his life. With it he felt a quiet elation. Even as the two of them mounted the sandstone steps to the house perched at the top, Jacob was flushed with a fever of new ways of handling his life. Now with Ruti, he’d —

  A push in the back from Abe brought him back to earth.

  ‘‘Wake up, old son,’’ Abe said. ‘‘Night time’s for dreamin’!’’

  Jacob leapt the last step and stood on the tiled veranda. As Abe joined him he said as nonchalantly as he could, ‘‘I could go a beer now, Abe.’’ He repeated the sentence over again and again to himself, altering the inflection each time. He wanted it to sound as though he made such a request every day.

  Abe nodded. ‘‘Goodonyer,’’ was all he said, but to Jacob it was the voice of acceptance. That made him and Abe mates for all time.

  Down the long cool hall they went. If it had not been so narrow they would have walked abreast as equals. Jacob, a few steps ahead, drank in the new decor. The hall runner with its brass edge strips, the kitchen with chequerboard tiles on wall and floor. Next to the huge enamel sink, the refrigerator clunked away like a monster heartbeat. The old wooden icebox stood mutely beside it like a poor relation. Thank God they had kept the icebox. It had a settling effect on Jacob. For a shamefully brief moment his heart grew chill as he thought of the many times he and Solly had chipped chunks of ice off the block to suck on a summer’s day.

  He gave a small shudder when Abe lumbered passed him and wrenched the refrigerator door open; but he was confident he could tilt the glass for Abe to pour the two beers just like the experts did.

  They sat at the pine kitchen table, each with a foaming glass. It was a moment to be savoured. No matter how many other occasions like this might arise, this was the one true, definitive meeting with Abe Lewis that enveloped him just as the sun on his back had wrapped itself around him in the rock crevices of the Bondi cliffs.

  Abe Lewis gulped his beer like a man clawing for air. Jacob took frequent small sips that helped him occupy his hands while allowing him to get used to a strange taste. He tried to ensure that the beer level in the two glasses remained the same. The beer began to dull his senses enough to make him aware, seconds too late to compose himself, that Ruti stood in the doorway, her mother a step behind her.

  Abe was on his feet first. He made a mock bow to the doorway. ‘‘G’day, ladees, come to join me and the lad?’’ He pulled out two kitchen chairs and gestured towards them. He held the beer bottle up to the light, judging that there was enough to pour. ‘‘Get a coupla the good glasses for the ladees from that cupboard over there, Jake.’’

  Mrs Lewis edged Ruti aside and from the doorway said in a clipped, metallic voice, ‘‘Thank you Abe, but I will not at the moment, if you do not mind.’’

  Jacob tried to shake off the muzziness in his head. He didn’t like this cotton-wool feeling that wrapped itself around his brain and tongue. It was unlike the time with the whisky, which had given him a delicious boldness. The beer was like a heavy sodden overcoat that slowed him down.

  Ruti detached herself from her mother. She sat at the kitchen table and waited for Jacob to bring the glasses. He put one in front of her and the other where her mother might sit.

  Abe poured for Ruti. ‘‘Sorry about the clerical collar, love,’’ he said, pointing to the head of froth
in the glass.

  ‘‘She’ll be right,’’ Ruti answered with studied carelessness, ‘‘I sometimes get it like that in the pub down the road from the Uni.’’

  ‘‘You what?’’ Abe and Jacob said as one voice.

  Ruti looked mischievously from one to the other and then to her mother.

  ‘‘Oh yes, I know what a clerical collar is on a glass of beer, you ninnies. Do you think I never move out of the bloody library?’’ She took a sip and delicately wiped a blob of froth from her lips. Mrs Kahn was whiter than the froth. Her daughter — she feared the worst — had succumbed to the gentile disease of drink. And for the purposes of this definition, she classified Abe as a gentile. Irma Kahn did a rapid evaluation of the situation. To walk out now would be to leave Ruti alone with these two. She had difficulty acknowledging Abe as a husband whenever she saw him have a drink. Carefully, she came to the table and sat down like a nervous patient in a doctor’s waiting room.

  Abe looked at the now empty bottle and made a little charade of pretending to pour a glass for his wife. ‘‘Sorry, Irmy love, the cow’s gone dry. Would ya like a…a…’’ He couldn’t think of a drink lady-like enough for Irma.

  ‘‘Pymm’s fruit cup,’’ said Ruti brightly. She knew only too well there was no likelihood of that smart drink being in the house. It did have the desired shock effect on Irma and to a lesser degree on Jacob, who was slowly gaining the first glimmer of a side of Ruti he had suspected since that night on the beach but which he had gallantly struggled to reject.

  Irma pretended not to hear. She got up, went across to the sink and filled the kettle. ‘‘You will stay for lunch with us, Jacob?’’

  ‘‘O’ course he will, Irmy,’’ Abe said, ‘‘only afterwards I gotta few little jobs to do.’’ He winked boldly at Jacob. ‘‘Is yer Uncle Siddy still in business, Jake?’’ He winked again. ‘‘He told me once ’ow you used to be a runner for ’im, collectin’ the bets like.’’

  Irma said from across the kitchen, ‘‘I am sure those days are best forgotten. Is that not so, Jacob?’’

  Ruti’s hand was crawling across Jacob’s knee. He kept deathly still, praying that the drape of the tablecloth offered concealment.

  ‘‘I said, I hope —’’ Mrs Kahn repeated.

  ‘‘Oh my word, Mrs Lewis, I’m far too old to be running around with a —’’

  Ruti cut in. ‘‘With an SP bookie’s betting list.’’

  Abe went to the fridge and took out another bottle. As he sat down again, he growled, ‘‘Get off the kid’s back, willya.’’

  He poured three beers expertly. Ruti took hers with her free hand; the other traced little patterns on Jacob’s thigh. She laid her head coquettishly on Jacob’s shoulder. ‘‘I’m going to take you to the Glebe pub one night, Jake.’’

  ‘‘I’ve heard about that joint, Ruth,’’ Abe scoffed. ‘‘All the long hairs get down there — drinkin’ red wine, for Chris-sake!’’

  Mrs Lewis pursed her lips and replaced imaginary escaped hair from the nape of her neck. She stood up, her figure taut as a bow string. ‘‘Drink in Australia — that’s all I see. What a culture. A country of ham and beef shops, packet cheeses, and beer, beer everywhere.’’ She marched through the kitchen to the lounge room. Seconds later the sound of operatic voices filtered through. Ruti said, to nobody in particular, ‘‘Your tiny hand is frozen.’’

  Jacob jumped up from the table. Abe inclined his head towards the hallway. ‘‘Through there, sport. Ah, what a nong I am. Of course you bloody well know where the dunny is!’’ He laughed and finished his beer in almost the same action. ‘‘What about some tucker now, love?’’ he called after his wife. ‘‘The younguns here, not to mention meself, could eat a horse and chase the driver.’’

  Jacob left the room hurriedly. Ruti was laughing—at Abe’s turn of phrase, he hoped and not at his own predicament. He brushed against Mrs Lewis returning from the lounge room. ‘‘Lunch will be shortly,’’ she announced and tied on an apron. ‘‘Are you going to help me, Ruti?’’

  Ruti finished off her glass of beer. ‘‘Ya, mutti,’’ she said and looked at Abe mischievously to see what effect this scrap of German had on him.

  Abe sprang up from the table in mockery of a German officer. He clicked his heels and gave a half-salute. ‘‘Yah, mine Fuehrer,’’ he shouted. ‘‘Ve haff vays of…’’

  Ruti wanted to laugh but her mother’s voice cut across. ‘‘This is not a joking matter, Mr Abe,’’ she said harshly. ‘‘From such so-called humour, my husband died.’’ She turned back to the sink, her rigid stance resolved into a slump. The warmth of the past few minutes had gone. Ruti sat with folded arms; Abe Lewis looked like a man who did not belong in this house.

  As Jacob returned to the kitchen he felt the tension. The light-headedness he had been enjoying from the effect of two glasses of beer evaporated into a silence broken only by Irma Lewis chopping vegetables. Without looking up she called for Ruti to come and help her.

  Abe said, ‘‘Don’t make too much for me, love. I’m not that hungry.’’ He nodded to Jacob, seeking agreement.

  ‘‘Well, er, yes Mrs Lewis, that goes for me too,’’ Jacob said without much conviction.

  Mrs Lewis gave no acknowledgment; the chopper rose and fell without pause. Finally, she scooped the vegetables into a bowl and said, ‘‘It is only a salad. I put it on the table. You eat what you want.’’

  Abe shrugged. He leaned over the table and whispered to Jacob: ‘‘A mate of mine who was a prisoner of the Japs once told me he survived by following the Jap proverb — be like the bamboo — bend with the storm but don’t break.’’ He touched the side of his nose. ‘‘Get me, Jake?’’

  Abe left the kitchen. Seconds later, the operatic music gave way to a race caller. When he returned he had the newspaper form guide. Jacob recalled the time in the printing works lunchroom when he had asked Mr Williams what he fancied for Randwick races. ‘‘Bird shit — if it sticks to the rails!’’ he’d replied. All the men and some of the women laughed dutifully. Jacob, too, had smirked at a joke he barely understood. Now he repeated it to Abe, as a man among men.

  ‘‘Jesus, Jake,’’ Abe smiled, ‘‘I reckon I heard that one when I was knee-high to a grasshopper.’’

  Ruti cleared the table. She almost spirited the two empty beer bottles away, as though anxious to appease her mother. Jacob watched her and felt an electric tingle as she brushed against him. She set four places. Alice, his mother, had also set for four: her own place, his father, Felix, his younger brother, Solly, and himself. He shivered at the realisation that of the four, he was the lone survivor. Ruti noticed and put her arm around his shoulders. She whispered to him, ‘‘You can’t bring back the past, dear Jacob.’’ She circled the table, laying out the plates. When she reached him again, she glanced quickly at Abe, busy marking the form guide, then at her mother, her back still towards them. She took his face in her hands and kissed him on the lips.

  Jacob looked deep into her eyes. From them he learned a new lesson about life. There were kisses that made your head spin, your body glow with a delicious creeping, all-pervading heat.

  And there was the soft, gentle kiss that lingered in the heart long after the touch of lips had disappeared.

  SIX

  ‘‘What did you do in the war, Abe?’’ The question was punctuated by Jacob’s huffing and puffing as he helped unload the truck and take the smaller bales of waste up the steep driveway to the garage which now functioned more as a storage shed.

  ‘‘Eh, what’s that, son?’’

  Jacob waited until they had dropped their loads on the garage floor then repeated the question.

  ‘‘Ah, you don’t want to know about that stuff,’’ Abe said. ‘‘It’s all in the past. What bloody matters, mate, is that I’m alive and here, schleppin’ these bales o’ waste around. I’ll tell you one thing though, Jake me boy, it beats eatin’ bully-beef from a tin in the North African bloody desert.’’

 
; Jacob sat down on a bale. Multi-coloured bits of rag hung out of the end; he pulled on one and it seemed to go on and on like a conjurer’s stream of coloured squares. With a determination that surprised him, he tackled Abe Lewis for the third time.

  ‘‘Look Abe, I’ve been thinking. You don’t know my landlady, Mrs Rothfield but she’s from Palestine and she’s shown me pictures of Australian soldiers who were there in — I think it was about 1916. They were riding camels and there were Arabs and Jews all over the place.’’

  Abe said nothing. He took the piece of rag that Jacob had pulled out and stuffed it back in the bale. He was wearing an old army shirt. On the sleeve there was still the colour patch of the Ninth Division.

  Jacob knew from the newspapers and newsreels that this Division had fought in North Africa; some of them had even been to Palestine.

  ‘‘Did you?’’ he asked.

  ‘‘Did I what?’’

  ‘‘Did you…did you ever go to Palestine, Abe?’’ He started to pull the rag out of the bale again.

  Abe crouched down on the garage floor opposite Jacob. He took out paper and tobacco and rolled a smoke. He lit it and with a fingernail began to draw in the dust.

  ‘‘Funny thing, that, Jake. It’s something I hadn’t thought about since me discharge but now with the papers full of stuff about Jews killin’ the Poms and the Pom police hangin’ the Jews, well…’’

  ‘‘Were you —’’

  ‘‘Now don’t rush me, son, I’m just tryin’ to think back. What’s the date today?’’

  ‘‘The first.’’

  ‘‘Right, the first of March 1947 — a bit over three years since I was there.’’

  ‘‘You were there, Abe!’’ Jacob said excitedly.

  ‘‘Hold on, Jake. I didn’t say I was in Palestine, did I now?’’

  He drew a map in the dust. He showed Jacob where the Suez Canal was, the Nile delta, and Cairo and Alexandria.