Replacement Girl

by Ann Beaglehole

  I try harder than ever. I stop going to the youth group and singing songs about making the desert bloom. I no longer go blue-box collecting. At the Israeli Independence Day celebration, I refuse to put on my blue shirt and to stand in the middle of the stage holding up the Israeli flag. The others in the youth group are planning to go to live on kibbutzim as soon as they are finished at varsity.

  For my future, I want something else. I want to get a scholarship and go to study overseas, in England, Canada, America – anywhere but Israel.

  Except for Tomi, none of my friends are Jews.

  ‘Tomi goes to concerts with his father,’ says my mother. ‘He happily takes his mother’s arm and walks with her along the Parade. He visits us and talks, and listens to us too. He is a very good boy. Why can’t you be more like him?’

  ‘Please let me be.’

  ‘Running after William. You think I don’t know what’s going on, but I see it all. What’s the use? Non-Jews, even nice ones like lawyers, are in the pub every day, straight after work. When they come home, they knock you about. Is that what you want for your life?’ says my father.

  ‘Let me be. Leave me alone.’ But they don’t. So I say it: ‘The Nazis don’t excuse everything that happens in this house.’

  My mother, shaking with anger, rushes from my room. My father hurries after her.

  ‘Don’t you want your own life, Tomi? Don’t you want to forget the past?’

  ‘We’re all they have, Eva. They’ve been through so much. I can’t hurt them.’

  I can’t bear to listen to Tomi. When he asks me out I say no. I’m always in a hurry when he phones.

  During the Six Day War, at the emergency meeting, they are chanting:

  Never say that there is only death for you

  Though leaden skies may be concealing days of blue

  Because the hour that we have hungered for is near

  Beneath our tread the earth shall tremble: We are here!

  From the land of palm tree to the far-off land of snow

  We shall be coming with our torment and our woe

  And everywhere our blood has sunk into the earth

  Shall our bravery, our vigour blossom forth!

  We’ll have the morning sun to set our days aglow

  And all our yesterdays shall vanish with the foe

  And if the time is long before the sun appears

  Then let this song go like a signal through the years.

  This song was written with our blood and not with lead

  It is not a song that birds sing overhead

  It was a people among toppling barricades

  That sang this song of ours with pistols and grenades.

  So never say that there is only death for you

  Leaden skies may be concealing days of blue

  Yet the hour that we have hungered for is near

  Beneath our tread the earth shall tremble: We are here!

  The fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto sang this song. I’m sobbing inside. My heart is pounding; I want to hurl myself into the fray. I’m almost sucked in, but not quite.

  Tomi has his ear stuck to a transistor, accosting everyone he knows with the latest reports and his views of recent developments. He takes the news of every Israeli victory as a personal triumph. He and other Jewish students sing Hebrew songs in the varsity cafeteria. I avoid the place when they are there. Their singing makes my skin prick with embarrassment.

  ‘There’s a call to Jewish youth to volunteer for service in Israel,’ says Tomi. I’ve never seen him so excited. ‘Ten chaverim from the youth group volunteered right away! I’m going to volunteer myself. Eva, Eva, let’s get married and go to Israel together.’

  ‘I don’t have any desire to go to Israel. And about getting marr…’

  ‘Think it over, please, at least, think it over.’

  Later that day, he phones to say that his parents have asked him not to go. ‘They need me here,’ he says.

  ‘Just do it, go anyway.’

  But for weeks now, application forms for scholarships that would take me away too far and for too long from my parents have remained untouched, cluttering my desk.

  ‘I can’t,’ he says, so quietly I can hardly hear him. ‘It would kill my mother.’

  Very early in the morning, the phone rings. It’s Klára.

  ‘He’s in hospital.’

  My mother can hardly make out her words. It seems that Tomi was injured driving into town. He had been at home studying for his forthcoming exams. When the accident happened he was on his way to pick up his parents, who had been to the pictures in town. The cause of the crash is not known for certain but is believed to be the other driver’s fault. He is also a young man and was not injured.

  Tomi’s injuries are internal and external, and he has head injuries too. He wears a mask to help him breathe. It makes it hard to understand his words. You can’t even tell if he is speaking English or Hungarian. His mother is crying beside his bed. His father is watching his every breath. I take Tomi’s hand. It is ice-cold. I do not believe it is the end. Until it is. Then it’s too late. Too late.

  ‘Shema Yisroel,’ croons Rabbi Rosenblum.

  ‘Shema Yisroel,’ the men repeat.

  The Chevra Kadesh is only half full. Tomi has no brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, aunts or grandparents. A few boys and a teacher from his school are sitting at the back. Zsuzsi and her parents, Joe and his parents, and Stephen with Paul Szép and Dr Steiner are at the front.

  Dr Steiner is crying when he gets up to speak.

  ‘He tried so hard, so hard to find his way into the life here.’

  When he sits down again next to my mother he blows his nose with her handkerchief.

  In broken English, my father speaks about Tomi’s life:

  ‘We first met the Kunzes in the refugee camp. Klára and Sándor and Tomi, their little boy, came to New Zealand, as we all did, with high hopes. It wasn’t easy to settle in a strange country, but they worked hard to give Tomi the best education. Then he was killed in the prime of life…’

  Only one line of the speech, the last, is not spoken in English. ‘May he rest in peace,’ says my father in Hungarian.

  ‘I wish you long life,’ the rabbi says to Klára and Sándor, after the Kaddish is said.

  At the cemetery, we stand silent as Klára throws herself sobbing onto Tomi’s grave. My father and Dr Steiner pull her away and hold her while she screams over and over until her voice is spent: ‘For pity’s sake, let me go to my son.’

  The paper bag is in my mother’s lap.

  ‘What’s in the bag?’

  She opens it a fraction to let me see. Stones, little stones.

  We are driving slowly along the winding hilly road leading to the cemetery. The afternoon sparkles; puddles of water gleam. Cars pass, crammed with children and dogs. It is the May school holidays.

  ‘So many different religions,’ my father says.

  We pass the Greek Orthodox, the Seventh Day Adventist, the Assyrian Christian, the Coptic. Bunches of flowers are everywhere. Then they end. We have come to the Jewish part. The hills are pink and mauve. The sky so bright.

  My mother places the stones with care one by one upon Tomi’s grave.

  ‘Look, how they spelt his name. With a “y” not “I”. My father looks angrily at the writing.

  ‘Remember, Eva,’ my mother says. ‘It was already cold. October. And dangerous. Remember how the road crossed over the bridge and through the hills to Buda?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘I remember,’ To please her. She looks relieved and takes my hand.

  But it isn’t true. I don’t remember.

  Then suddenly I do. Not the road to Buda but another cemetery, before the Revolution. ‘Why do we put little stones on the graves?’ I am asking.

  We are visiting the grave of my grandfather Imre, who died of typhus a month after coming back from the labour camp in Russia.

  ‘Because it is the custom,’ answers my w
eeping mother.

  We walk home slowly, my mother and grandmother clinging to each other, my father holding my hand. In the pocket of my winter coat, my other hand is clutching one little stone from Imre’s grave. To help me remember the grandfather I have never known.

  At the Kunzes, people come and go; the mirrors in the house are covered and uncovered. It is soon over. Klára says she has so much to do. She will make a list for the odd job man: sweep the path, clear the guttering, dig out the gorse in the backyard. Another list of jobs is Sándor’s: give Tomi’s books away, dispose of his records, answer the letters. She is always on the telephone. She is constantly rushing about. She cannot stand to stay in the house.

  ‘We are booked every day, you know.’

  That ends. They turn down invitations. My mother says it is hard to get either Klára or Sándor out of the house.

  ‘You will survive this,’ she tells them. ‘After all you lived through the war.’

  Sándor has turned into one of the living corpses of Auschwitz. He arrives at our door.

  ‘Please come in,’ says my mother.

  ‘No. Come with me,’ he says.

  We follow him to his house to find Klára rummaging through the shelves and drawers of the wardrobe where Tomi’s clothes were kept.

  ‘There is a bad, musty smell,’ Klára says.

  As we watch, shirts, ties, jerseys, jackets, shorts and trousers are hung out on the line. When there is no more room, Klára drapes them over shrubs and pot plants on the deck. His shoes are lined up by the hedge. Socks, singlets, pants cover the plastic tables and chairs. Before long the entire garden is strewn with Tomi’s clothes.

  ‘Now you will tell me what is on your mind,’ says Dr Steiner.

  ‘Nothing’s on my mind.’

  ‘Your mother phoned me. Such a loving, such a concerned mother you have, my child. On this occasion, she has something real to worry about.’

  Not a word will he force from me, not a word.

  ‘Your mother was weeping a little. She needs my help. “Talk to her, please talk to Eva,” she said. I am here for you to tell me what is bothering you, my child.’

  ‘Nothing is bothering me.’

  Nothing daunts Dr Steiner. Not my silence, not my rigid facial expression.

  ‘But your mother feels…’

  ‘How does my mother feel?’

  She knows you are breaking your heart…over him, over that boy. What is his name…William? She knows he is not worth it…’

  ‘I don’t need your help.’

  ‘When was the last menstruation? We need to act fast.’ Dr Steiner’s Ws are all Vs. ‘Unless you think adoption is best. I can arrange…’

  ‘Never. A stranger’s not going to bring up my child.’ My voice comes out blurry. It feels as though someone else is speaking, not me; as though it is someone else in this hot surgery, not Eva Fáber.

  ‘No, not that,’ says my mother.

  ‘So, then, I will write a letter to the clinic.’ Dr Steiner is already getting out the paper from the drawer, unscrewing the top of his pen.

  ‘No,’ I shake my head.

  ‘Children are precious,’ says my mother, putting her arms around me. ‘You don’t bring them into the world unless you can do for them your very best.’

  ‘Listen to her,’ says my father. ‘She knows what she is talking about.’

  I shake off my mother’s arms; I try to block out their voices.

  ‘Listen to your mother, she knows what it is like to lose a child.’ My father’s hand trembles as he wipes his forehead with his handkerchief.

  ‘Your education is not even finished,’ says my mother. ‘And where is the father, tell me that?’

  William is drawing together the red curtains, making a warm, darkish glow in the room. My mouth is dry as he unfastens the buttons on my shirt, struggles with the clasp on my bra … ‘You’re so sweet, Eva,’ William says.

  ‘Eva darling, one day you will meet a man, a man who really loves you.’

  ‘Listen to your mother,’ says my father.

  ‘Your mother knows what is best,’ says Dr Steiner. ‘Not always do I think so in the past, but in this case I know she is right.’

  My legs shake as I slip off my pants. William, still wearing his jersey, is kissing my neck, my shoulders, my arms. The rough wool chafes my nipples as we lie on the bed, face to face. When at last he takes off his jersey, I run my hands over his skin, slick with sweat…

  ‘I know this country, Eva, after more than thirty years here. I know what it is like for children without fathers.’ Dr Steiner is gabbing on, gabbing on. He sounds as though he just got off the boat yesterday.

  William’s penis is pressing against my groin. With eyes shut, arms outstretched, I wait impatiently for his hands, which are rough, urgent; for his lips, soft, insistent; for his penis, warm and hard. It hurts so much as he thrusts, and then it slides in easily.

  ‘A few days ago comes to me a young mother with a child. The child has bad bruises on his buttocks, his arms, his thigh. For years she has brought up her child alone. What a struggle she has had, always on the move, never knowing where the money to buy food and clothes is next coming from, moving from boarding house to boarding house, trying to placate landladies who get upset if they hear a baby cry. Trying to stop the baby crying. Trying to earn a living, but not wanting to leave the child alone or with strangers.’

  William is pushing, pushing as far as it will go. I am stretching, stretching. He winds my legs around him.

  ‘And now, at last, the young woman has met a man she loves, but the man does not like the child. The child annoys him – not for any good reason, just because it is not his child. So he beats the child. The mother does not know what to do. She does not want to lose the man…’

  Steady in and out goes William until his body jerks; there is one spasm, then another. More jerking. He takes his thing out. So this is it! This is what it feels like! I want to giggle. I want to jump up and phone Zsuzsi.

  ‘When the little baby died, I thought I would never live again.’ My mother is crying. My father is holding her hand. Dr Steiner is wiping his eyes with tissues. ‘But you start again somehow. Darling Eva. Be strong. Do what has to be done. It is for the best.’

  William’s eyes are shut, his breathing quiet. It is so peaceful together on the bed.

  Dr Steiner’s hair is almost grey. His shoulders jerk as he writes the letter. A white sheet is almost covered with his black spidery handwriting.

  I lie on the tangled sheets, in the hot room, watching William getting dressed. He draws back the red curtains, opens the window.

  ‘Don’t go yet.’

  I have to, Eva. Sorry.

  ‘Why you’re always rushing away?’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘You are.’

  ‘You tire me out.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Your feelings, Eva, they’re…so strong…’

  Dr Steiner is already signing the letter. It is for the best. We all know it; I know it. All that matters now is to get away outside, away from the stifling surgery, away from Dr Steiner, from my parents, from everything.

  WELLINGTON, 1971

  ‘All marriages are hard.’

  I remembered hearing my grandmother say those words to my mother as I lay in bed with fever in the room that smelled of yeast cakes and furniture polish. Was this still in Hungary or were we in New Zealand already?

  ‘All marriages are hard,’ she said. ‘But they’re a gehenna if you marry the wrong man.’

  ‘What’s a gehenna?’ I called out.

  ‘A dark place filled with sulphurous fumes and everlasting fire,’ someone replied.

  You could never tell how a disagreement with Douglas would turn out, even when it was about a trifle.

  ‘Stop fussing,’ he said. ‘It’s only my mother coming.’ He put my tea down on the table next to our bed. With a clatter, spilling some onto the saucer.

  Only his mo
ther. There was no one in the world who made me more nervous than Daphne Simpson with her honeyed affability. When she came into town to visit, scarcely had she said hello before she was on the phone to the people she really wanted to spend time with.

  His mother. He had told me about the way she used to behave when Douglas was a child and his father was away. Daphne couldn’t handle the children and looked to Douglas, as the oldest, to help her in a battle of wills with Hamish and Jenny, especially with Jenny. Douglas remembered his sister’s calm, clear voice repeating, ‘I hate you, Mum, I hate you.’ It was the kind of scene Douglas loathed, wanted to get away from immediately; but he couldn’t because Daphne looked to him to help impose her way about all sorts of ridiculously trivial things. She would fret about how you held your fork, who you went out with, what time you got home, whatever. And she would never give up until she had her way. There was only one word for it, though he hated to place this label on anyone’s behaviour; the word that came to mind was ‘irrational’.

  But all that had nothing to do with my relationship with Daphne.

  ‘Why doesn’t your mother like me?’ I asked Douglas. He gave me a baffled look, but said nothing. Was it because I was the only person she knew without a PhD? Or because I threw out her precious whitebait fritters after one mouthful? But who could stand those tiny eyes staring as you chewed?

  As I sipped my tea, I thought about my mother’s relationship with Douglas. She seemed to be always anxious when he was around, escaping to do some urgent chore in the kitchen if she found herself alone with him. The surprising thing was that Douglas and my grandmother got on. She brought him cakes or chocolate when she visited, and invited him to walk with her around our garden. He seemed pleased to oblige.