by Alan Collins
‘‘Yes, it certainly will be,’’ Jacob agreed nervously. It was Mrs Rothfield’s idea. In all the years she had known Jacob, the nearest she had come to Jacob’s old home was when Joshua had driven slowly past it and she had peered hard out of the van window at the old-fashioned mansion perched on the hill, with its steep buffalo-grass lawn which Jacob and his brother Solly had rolled down in a happier childhood.
‘‘A house like that will have at least one big room, like a ballroom maybe, that would be marvellous for a party,’’ Mrs Rothfield had said, nudging Joshua and laughing. ‘‘Abe will let us have it, you leave him to me.’’
The old woman revelled in the party arrangements. She told Joshua with glee: ‘‘Your grumpy father, bless him, has given me an open cheque book. Abe has got the cleaners in and that alte kucker (old shit) Siddy will supply for nothing the drinks.’’ But what gave her delicious if not malicious pleasure was ordering the catering from Mitzi Strauss, haggling with her, telling her (as if Mitzi didn’t know) not to make ham sandwiches — ‘‘we don’t want to offend nobody’’.
One evening, after Joshua had ‘‘enjoyed’’ one of Mrs Roth-field’s home-cooked meals, they sat at the table working out who to invite. Abe had earlier pointed out to the old lady that he was obliged to ask Ruti, her husband ‘‘the fang farrier’’ and their daughter. He saw his step-daughter and granddaughter only on the major Jewish festival holidays when they invited him to dinner at their posh North Shore home. As in the early days, the old ex-soldier relished parking his battered ‘‘waste merchant’’ van outside the homes of the rich.
There was no point in being vague or coy with Mrs Roth-field. Years back she had pushed and pulled his father and then taken over Peg. Now she was playing the same game with him. The merest mention of a girl’s name in Mrs Roth-field’s hearing stimulated her formidable inquisitorial skill. She would bore in on Joshua until the subject’s life was laid open and dissected like a kosher chicken prepared for the pot.
In a weak moment Jacob had revealed to Mrs Rothfield Laura’s visit to the printery and told her of the two of them being closeted together. It excited Mrs Rothfield: she laid equal value on both sex and politics: ‘‘It’s what makes the world go round!’’ Where her ‘‘grandson’’ was concerned, she would guide if not actually control such important events, just as she had done with his father before him.
Having disposed of the mandatory invitees, Mrs Rothfield zoomed in on Joshua. ‘‘Nu?’’
‘‘Nu what?’’ Joshua stalled.
‘‘Nu, meaning what about the young people? What about’’ — the old woman attempted a roguish look — ‘‘what about that girl — Laura — you told me about? I hear that she is — what do they say today — a stirrer. What does she stir, Yossele, mmm?’’ Now she brought her head down close, ‘‘Yossele, you can tell me. I won’t say nothing to nobody. Tell Booba if this is the right one. After all, you’re almost twenty. When I was your age I was already an old married woman of two years. But that’s how it was in Poland.’’
Joshua gave her a cuddle. ‘‘You are a cunning old fox. All right, so you know about Laura Philips. We’re good mates, Booba. Yes, I would like her to come to my party but don’t go reading too much into that.’’
‘‘You going to print her stuff?’’
‘‘Depends on Dad, doesn’t it?’’
‘‘Don’t worry, I’ve already fixed it.’’ She watched with undiluted glee the surprised look on the young man’s face. It started with anger and ended up in pleased acceptance as Joshua grabbed the old lady and waltzed her around the room. ‘‘I think I’m pretty keen on her,’’ he gasped out.
‘‘What means ‘keen’? Is this a word to tell that you love a young lady? Is she more than a chaver? On a chaver you’re keen but I think, Yossele, you have more feelings than that.’’ They sat down and Mrs Rothfield wiped her eyes. ‘‘We’ll put her number one on the guest list, eh?’’
Together they made up a list. Joshua put down the names of some university friends. He considered asking Ilan then rejected the idea; the old lady might wheedle something out of him. He gave her the oldies to do. When he looked at her list, Joshua saw that she had included Mitzi Strauss and her son Manfred. ‘‘Look,’’ she explained lamely, ‘‘your dad and Manfred were together in the children’s home. Not to ask would be rude.’’ But what the old lady really wanted was to see Mitzi Strauss and Uncle Siddy, her one-time lover, in the same room together!
Between them they had a total of about thirty. Although nearly half were ‘‘oldies’’, Mrs Rothfield assured him that they wouldn’t stay longer than the time it took them to have maybe a dance and a cup of tea and a piece of cake. ‘‘And of course, we want to wish mazel tov to our birthday boy.’’ Joshua kissed her goodbye and left her working out how much cake they would need.
The jangle of mechanical sounds that emanated from various sections of the printery was as soothing to Jacob as a fullblown symphony orchestra. If there was the slightest discord, he could identify it as surely as a conductor could detect a wrong note. This morning, all the machinery was in harmony. Which was just as well because the discord in his thoughts was quite enough to cope with. He had printed two of the leaflets that Laura had left with Joshua. The one calling for volunteers for Israel was picked up by Ilan, who took the bundle and tossed some money at Jacob ‘‘to cover your costs, chaver”. Joshua watched Ilan carefully, ready to head him off should he mention the gun-running episode to Jacob.
Laura’s second leaflet protested against the war in Vietnam. ‘‘Escalate the Peace’’ it was headed. ‘‘Withdraw from Vietnam — No Death by Ballot.’’ The first Australian conscripts had left in April 1966 despite mass protests. The conservative government of Harold Holt promised to increase the Australian forces from 1500 to 6000 by a ballot. As young men turned eighteen, they had to register for national service. Their birthdates went into a lottery-type draw. Proven conscientious objectors were exempted and those on study courses were exempted until completion of their studies.
Now the 5000 leaflets on bright yellow paper were stacked and ready for Laura to collect. She had asked Joshua to take them with him to Abe Lewis’s house where she had intended to give them to a group who would distribute them. Joshua had flatly refused; he had no wish to abuse Abe’s hospitality by involving him in a political scene that he had openly disapproved of. ‘‘Just you remember, young fella, that right or wrong, they’re our bloody soldiers up there doin’ a lousy job an’ I for one ain’t goin’ to make it any tougher for them.’’
Jacob clearly wanted them out of the printery. He ordered them shifted to the outermost point, the edge of the loading dock, first making sure that the printery’s label was not on the package. He said acidly to Joshua, ‘‘Perhaps your lady friend can take them away.’’
Tomorrow night was Saturday. Joshua’s actual birthday, a few days earlier, had by mutual agreement with Jacob and Mrs Rothfield gone unmarked except for a bottle of wine at one of Mrs Rothfield’s execrable dinners, made even more unpalatable by her sincere efforts to provide kosher food for Jacob. They drank a toast to the birthday, managing not to make any allusion to the past.
Joshua could not help noticing that the generation gap between his father and Mrs Rothfield had almost closed. Whether it was their united concern in caring for and guiding him or just plain ageing, they now seemed to agree on all matters pertaining to himself. If there was any room for argument, you could be certain the old lady would be the winner. This was how she could be so sure that Jacob would print Laura’s leaflets. It had absolutely nothing to do with the subject matter of the leaflet. Mrs Rothfield’s political focus was centred on Jerusalem and reached only to the borders of Israel. Any upheaval outside that did not interest her. What did stir her was the sniff of a romance between Joshua and Laura, a girl she knew only by Joshua’s briefest description — and the fact that she was Jewish.
By the time the printery was due to close for the weekend,
Laura had not collected her leaflets for the simple reason that Joshua had not told her they were ready and waiting. He put them in the van and drove home, leaving them on the front seat. After he had showered and changed, he would take them around to her place himself. He had not been back there since the night of the gunrunning episode.
Joshua checked the mailbox for his flat. It contained a few dodgers for local tradespeople and one long envelope with no stamp but an Australian Commonwealth Government crest on it. Income tax, he thought and ran upstairs. He dropped the lot on the kitchen bench and headed for the shower. He dressed in black cords and a check lumber jacket. He wanted to match Laura’s carefully contrived casual wardrobe. It was the same proletarian ethos that, had he known it, had once beset his father.
He went back into the kitchen, took out bread and butter and some cheese that looked a little dubious. He swept the advertising dodgers into the rubbish bin; the government letter now lay on the bench in isolation and could no longer be ignored. Joshua resented its intrusion on his evening. He picked it up and stuffed it unopened into his jacket pocket. He threw the cheese out and spread peanut butter thickly instead. Grabbing the sandwich he switched off the lights and locked the flat.
Outside Laura’s narrow-fronted house, he parked the van, tucked the package of leaflets under his arm and climbed the steep sandstone steps to her front door. He had no need to knock; Laura was framed in the doorway, the light flittering through her Indian cotton ankle-length dress. She encircled him with her arms. Attempting the same affectionate gesture, Joshua dropped the cumbersome bundle of leaflets which burst open, fanning out all over the entrance hall. He swore but found the words muffled by her kisses. Joshua was glad when they broke their embrace. His strong erection could only be disguised by his bending down and gathering up the spilt paper.
Laura squatted down beside him. It was then she noticed the long white envelope half out of his jacket pocket. She saw the Commonwealth crest and without hesitation she removed the envelope. She held it in front of Joshua.
‘‘Bloody hell, Joshua darling, do you know what you’ve got here?’’ Giving him no time to reply, she tore it open. The hard, crisp white paper trembled in her hand. An enclosed draft card fluttered to the floor. In a frightened, choked voice, she read out to him the stilted official language which did nothing to disguise the fact that Joshua Kaiser was required to report to a ranking officer at Victoria Barracks, for the purpose of a medical examination preparatory to undergoing military training at a depot to be designated.
Joshua was white with shock. The passion that had so recently ruled him now left him. He felt empty and speechless. He looked over the top of the letter into Laura’s deep brown eyes and saw anger. She folded the letter and put it back in its envelope, then almost ceremoniously handed it to Joshua. They stood up and faced each other. The letter would become either a barrier between them or a bond to unite them, depending on the next few moments in their lives. Their eyes were drawn to the anti-Vietnam war leaflets still scattered at their feet.
Laura took the call-up notice from him. She retrieved the draft card from where it lay among the leaflets. In a level voice, as though she were issuing unarguable instructions, she said: ‘‘Tomorrow night at your birthday party, Joshua, you will tell everybody your news and, what’s more, you will let us, your friends, know what you decide to do about this.’’ She tucked the letter back inside his jacket then slipped it off his shoulders and hung it over a chair. She kissed him. ‘‘Tonight, nobody is going to have you but me, Joshua Kaiser, whether you are a ballot-box soldier or a …’’
‘‘Draft dodger?’’ he asked. But she had slipped away. He followed her thoughtfully into her bedroom.
SIX
‘‘Oy, the noise, what a geschrei from that singer, such a voice should be for selling schmatters in the market!’’ Mrs Rothfield, retreating to Abe Lewis’s cavernous kitchen, still held her hands over her ears despite being two solid brick walls away from the source of the noise.
The double doors that separated the dining room from the lounge had been folded back to make a marvellous space. All the heavy furniture had been moved to the sides of the rooms and the table laid out for a buffet.
What the band may have lacked in talent it made up for with amplification which bounced around the high ceilings and blasted out onto the Bellevue Hill streets. The music was a compromise between rock-and-roll and folk. Had Mrs Roth-field listened at least to the folk, she would have heard songs of protest with which to sympathise. Laura sang them in a tremulous voice that seemed to Joshua endearingly at odds with her otherwise determined manner. He called Mrs Roth-field to come and listen. When she did, she expressed qualified approval then asked Laura to sing an Israeli melody, ‘‘Eliahu’’. Joshua was thrilled that Laura knew the song; Mrs Rothfield held his hand and sang along with her.
It never occurred to Joshua that his father, Uncle Siddy and Abe should not be present at this twentieth birthday party, despite some cracks from a few of his friends. And no command or request would have stopped Mrs Rothfield from coming. Siddy had appointed himself barman. He told Jacob: ‘‘These kids are bloody wowsers, Jake. They hardly drink at all.’’ All his preconceived ideas of that generation being ‘‘a bunch of work-shy layabouts always on the piss’’ were knocked for a six. He was so shaken by this discovery that he himself proceeded to lower the level in the Scotch bottle at an alarming rate.
Abe Lewis, dressed in his Lodge dinner suit, drifted from room to room not quite believing his old home could be host to such a lively event. His late wife, Irma, a pallid woman of arid dignity, would not have approved. His stepdaughter Ruti at first had refused to come. Whilst Jacob had no wish to remind her that she had been his first love, he did speak to her of their years together in the Abraham Samuelson Jewish Children’s Home and their childhood vows. So Ruti came, accompanied by her daughter who stayed just long enough to be excused. The car that had brought her and was parked behind Abe’s truck took off with the girl still closing the door. Without her snobby husband and daughter, Ruti was almost the warm and loving girl Jacob had known more than twenty years ago. Mitzi and Manfred Strauss had declined their invitation, pleading a previous engagement. Mrs Rothfield would not have the satisfaction of witnessing an encounter between Mitzi and Uncle Siddy after all.
During a lull in the music, Mrs Rothfield came out of the kitchen and stood in a huddle with Jacob and Ruti. They were watching Joshua. On the one hand they were pleased that he had hardly left Laura’s side all evening — Mrs Rothfield was already planning a wedding, again in Abe’s home! Yet they were also perturbed by his tenseness and the terse way he spoke to them.
‘‘On such an occasion as this he should be happy,’’ Mrs Rothfield said. ‘‘He almost told me to mind my own business. I told him, just as I’ve told you in the past, Yakov, you are my business, Joshua Kaiser, make no mistake about it!’’
Abe joined them. So did Uncle Siddy, walking across the floor with the exaggerated care of the drunk. The band had stopped playing (‘‘What a blessing,’’ the old woman murmured) and the young men and women were gathered in groups. Jacob was not sure if it was his imagination, but it seemed as though there was a dividing line down the centre of the room, with each group occupying its own territory. Joshua and Laura stood on the little platform where the band had played. To Jacob, it was like a no-man’s land.
The unnatural quiet of the evening was broken by Uncle Siddy staggering into the centre of the room and putting an empty beer bottle on the floor. He crouched down and before actually falling over, spun the bottle around. ‘‘There’ya, lads and lassies, a bloody great game — we’ll take a bloke and a sheila from each side that the bottle points to and they can go off an … an …’’ He fell in a heap on the floor and passed out. Joshua’s friends were not sure of the etiquette required for dealing with Uncle Siddy’s exit. There was restrained laughter until Abe Lewis came forward, gently lifted the old man to his feet and took hi
m off to a bedroom.
When Abe returned to the big room, Laura went up to him and whispered. The stocky ex-soldier looked frightened. He gripped Laura’s hand and shook his head. Laura freed herself and went to the band’s platform. Their microphone was still in position. She lowered it and tapped it for sound then stepped down and went over to Joshua. She steered him onto the platform beside her.
‘‘Listen everybody, tonight is a very important …’’ Some cheering broke out and a few voices started singing ‘‘Happy Birthday’’. Laura started again. ‘‘Yes, that’s OK but we’’ — she took Joshua’s hand in hers — ‘‘that is, Joshua has something to tell you.’’
Mrs Rothfield could hardly contain herself. She was already halfway across the floor when Abe Lewis brought her back to stand once more with himself and Jacob. ‘‘What did I tell you, Abie?’’ she gasped. ‘‘Our Yossie is going to …’’
Abe had no need to ask her to be quiet. Joshua took the microphone from Laura, raised it to his height and said: ‘‘Shut up everyone, it might be my birthday but the truth is that my number has come up in the draft and, and …’’
Laura grabbed the microphone from him and shouted: ‘‘He’s not going to Vietnam. We’ll fight it, won’t we Joshua?’’ She threw her arms around him, smothering him with kisses.
A deep voice came from the other side of the room. ‘‘Why don’t you let the lad speak for himself, eh?’’ Abe Lewis went on: ‘‘Our family aren’t shirkers, love. We know when it’s right to do our duty. I done it and I’m proud of it. It may be a shithouse war — show me one that ain’t — but ya can’t let ya country down. Sometimes — most times — it don’t make sense, war that is, but I sleep easier at night knowing I done the right thing.’’