Bernard and Toni liked my father from the moment they met him. Bernard could tell that he could entrust his favourite daughter to this man. They were impressed by the fact that Henek had just moved out of his own apartment so that his brother Izio and his bride Lola could live there while their own flat was being renovated. ‘Not many brothers would do that,’ my mother used to tell me. They were also impressed by the fact that my father helped his parents financially and refused to accept a dowry from his in-laws because it was against his principles.
The affection was mutual. Henek liked Bernard’s gentle, noninterfering nature, and Toni’s direct, commonsense way of looking at life. He knew that girls often ended up resembling their mothers, and when he looked at this youthful well-groomed woman, with her clear complexion, high cheekbones and fine features, he knew he’d chosen well. Curiously, that was exactly what my husband Michael thought the first time he met my mother.
When my grandparents made discreet inquiries about this ardent suitor who seemed to have fallen out of the sky, they heard that he had an excellent reputation professionally as well as personally and came from a respected family. The father, Reb Danil as he was called, was a wise and devout man, who was a member of the Chevra Kadisha, the Jewish burial society, a voluntary position which commanded great respect in the community. When the time came to meet their future in-laws in person and discuss the wedding plans, Toni Bratter, who was the mover and shaker of the family, travelled to Krakow. Sitting in an armchair in the sitting room at the Baldingers’ home in Sebastiana Street, she glanced at the heavy mahogany sideboard with the silver candelabra inside, and the piano with the flowered shawl thrown across it, so much darker and more old-fashioned than her sunny flat in Lwow which she’d recently renovated and in which she had installed a modern kitchen and bathroom.
Although Henek’s father said little, there was an aura of dignity about the old gentleman who looked at her with kind, deep-set eyes. Toni noticed that Mr Baldinger’s jacket had modern lapels, and that his trousers, of fashionable houndstooth check, were superbly cut. It was Mrs Baldinger, his plump, grey-haired wife with very round shoulders, who did most of the talking. The two women discussed their respective families, checked for mutual acquaintances and compared life in their cities. It turned out that in both cities life had become more menacing with right-wing nationalist groups smashing shops and threatening those who did business with Jews.
My grandmother Toni told the Baldingers about the day when her daughter Mania arrived at the Lwow Polytechnic to be ordered to sit on the left side which was now reserved for Jewish students. ‘And you know what hurt the most?’ she sighed. ‘Her friends, girls with whom she’d been friends for years, turned their backs on her, as if they didn’t know her.’
While Lieba served tea and her legendary apple slice, they moved on to the impending marriage. ‘Your Henek is an intelligent, good-hearted man, and he and Bronia seem very much in love,’ Toni remarked.
Lieba gave a heartfelt sigh. ‘I never had any romance in my life myself,’ she said. Personal revelations were unusual, especially to a stranger, so perhaps this remark escaped from her lips before she realised what she’d said.
Toni was taken aback. ‘You’ve had eleven children, and yet you say you’ve had no love?’ she repeated incredulously.
They discussed plans for the wedding and the reception, but it was Lieba’s remark about romance that stayed in Toni Bratter’s mind. She repeated it to her family, shaking her head in wonder. Knowing Lieba’s life story, I think I understand what she meant. She had grown to respect and love her husband, who respected and loved her in return, but that had nothing to do with the romantic love she had dreamed about as a girl.
When Bronia arrived in Krakow before the wedding, Daniel refused to meet her. As she hadn’t yet been granted a gett, according to Jewish law she was still a married woman. As we talk about this fifty years later, something strikes my mother for the first time. ‘I wonder why it bothered him so much that I was getting a divorce. After all, he’d been divorced himself!’
One of the first members of the Baldinger family whom my mother met was Lunia. Many years later, in the arid little garden of her nursing home, Aunty Lunia recalls the occasion with a malicious cackle. ‘Your father told me: “Luniu, I’ve met the most gorgeous girl I’ve ever seen. She’s got blonde hair, but it’s natural, it isn’t bleached, her eyebrows are black, they’re not pencilled, and she has a fantastic figure.”’
Now Aunty Lunia leans forward and from the expression on her ravaged face it’s obvious that she’s relishing every moment of this story. ‘Naturally I couldn’t wait to see this paragon. Well! She did have blonde hair, but it was bleached; she had black eyelashes and eyebrows but they were painted; and as for her figure, well she was very short. I must have made it obvious that I was disappointed, because your father was offended, but that’s how I am, I can’t pretend. I loved your mother and still do, and if they were happy, that was enough for me. But I must say, I was taken aback.’ She laughs heartily, and now I understand why my mother could never stand her sister-in-law.
On 22 May 1936 my parents married in the synagogue in Rzeszow. They chose this city because it was halfway between Lwow and Krakow. At eighty-one, Daniel felt that he was too old to travel all the way to Lwow, while my mother’s parents couldn’t see why they should travel seven hundred kilometres to their own daughter’s wedding. Near the end of her life, all my mother could remember about her wedding was that she wore a cream suit and matching hat, and that her family had attended, as well as Henek’s parents, and his brother and sister-in-law, Izio and Lola. They danced till the small hours of the morning at an elegant restaurant, and the lilac trees were in full frothy bloom.
The only aspect of Bronia’s marriage which distressed her parents was that she had to live so far away. Of their four children, she was the one they loved best. For all his charm, their only son, who was also called Izio, spent most of his time chasing girls instead of studying. Like many Jewish students, he couldn’t get into university in Lwow so they sent him to study medicine in Pisa, but he spent his time chasing the Italian signorinas with their flashing black eyes and flirtatious glances instead of studying. Hania was soft-hearted but she was hypersensitive, always upset about something. Mania was always gallivanting. Bronia was the one they relied on.
On the eve of my mother’s wedding day, her father took her aside. ‘I don’t know what life will bring you but I wish you one thing,’ he told her. ‘When you have a daughter, I hope that she’ll be as good to you as you’ve been to us.’
We are crossing a busy Sydney street when my mother tells me this, and I’m holding her hand. ‘Your hand feels exactly like my mother’s did,’ she says suddenly, full of wonder. By now, she’s starting to fade away, we’ve changed roles and, in a way, I have become her mother. It’s not a role I relish.
‘My father’s wish came true,’ she says, squeezing my hand gratefully. But I don’t think it did. I feel that when she most needed me, I let her down.
CHAPTER 10
In Antwerp in the late summer of 1937, while my parents were settling down to married life in Krakow, Avner announced to his family that they were going for a trip to Poland. Wanda and Adam looked at their father in astonishment. They’d just returned from a holiday at the Belgian seaside, and the new school year was about to begin. ‘If we don’t go now, I have a feeling that I’ll never see my parents again,’ he said.
During the worldwide depression of 1929, Avner had travelled to Antwerp on business for one of Hela’s relatives and had ended up staying in this dynamic but damp Belgian city with his family. Not long after they had arrived, when Daniel and Lieba came to visit, Lieba was shocked to see him and Hela sitting by candlelight because they couldn’t afford electricity. They were broke. It must have upset them deeply to see their eldest son living in such conditions, but Daniel kept his thoughts to himself. It wasn’t his nature to criticise or give gratuitous advice bu
t he volunteered one suggestion. ‘Perhaps you should pray and lay tefillin,’ he told his son. Avner wasn’t interested. He didn’t keep a kosher home, observe any Jewish traditions or even fast on Yom Kippur. ‘We don’t serve food on Yom Kippur,’ he used to joke. ‘Everyone just helps themselves.’
By the time they settled in Antwerp, Avner had made and lost several fortunes in various countries. The boy whom his father had consecrated to the service of God had turned into an entrepreneur, but perhaps God had meant him to be a rabbi after all, because his schemes never came to fruition.
After World War I, when Daniel’s business had collapsed, Avner had got the idea of importing leather into Poland with one of Hela’s uncles. Their firm, Opus Vienna, brought in sought-after leather from Italy by the carload, but when the bank called in their loan, they were wiped out overnight. They were selling in one currency in Poland and buying in another in Italy, and when the Polish zloty plummeted, they couldn’t cover the shortfall.
As part of his dowry when he married Hela, Avner had received a share in the Majerczyk sausage factory, but when he saw the possibilities of importing sausage casings from China and Australia, he went into business with Hela’s uncle. With his flair for publicity, Avner bundled up the merchandise with the shape of a pig cut out of brown cardboard, labelled Hog ze Swinki. Hog and piglets. I presume that these casings weren’t intended for the kosher market! This lucrative enterprise had come to an end when the partners had quarrelled. The end of their partnership turned out to be Lunia’s good fortune, however, because she persuaded Avner to sell the business to her husband Berus, who had been the accountant.
By then Avner was already planning to leave for Vienna, but before he left he discovered that there was fast money to be made in paraffin. Paraffin, which was controlled by a Polish cartel, was very expensive in Poland, but was exported much more cheaply to other countries. Avner crossed the border and, while in Czechoslovakia, placed an order for two carloads of paraffin from the Polish cartel to be delivered to himself in that country. As soon as it arrived, he sent it straight back to Poland where he had trucks waiting to buy it from him at a cheaper price than the cartel charged. He made several trips before packing his family up and moving to Vienna.
The indulgent lifestyle of Vienna suited Avner’s expansive personality. He relished the intimate charm of its cafes where people sat for hours over the best coffee and richest pastries in the world. While the deferential waiter served him sacher torte smothered in whipped cream one afternoon, Avner looked around at the other relaxed patrons tucking into their chocolate cake and had a vision.
He foresaw that every table of every cafe and restaurant in Vienna would have a small vending machine which dispensed chocolates at the drop of a coin. As they gossiped with their friends over coffee, diners wouldn’t be able to resist inserting money and nibbling the chocolates. In 1927 vending machines were a novelty, and Avner couldn’t see how this concept could possibly fail.
As the venture needed capital, Avner turned all his persuasive powers on his parents. When he needed to, Avner could charm a mountain into flying, and he made chocolate vending machines sound like the best invention since the motorcar. Daniel and Lieba were in financial straits themselves but, after considerable discussion, they agreed to mortgage their apartment house in Vienna to lend him the money.
Unfortunately, Avner’s enterprise didn’t succeed. Avner had gone into partnership with a businessman who had less vision than he did and wasn’t prepared to outlay enough money to get the best designer. Their prototype was badly designed, badly made, and dispensed only one type of chocolate. It was a flop. Later, after he’d lost his money, someone else designed a better machine and made the millions that Avner had dreamed of.
When his venture failed, Daniel and Lieba lost more than money. According to Avner’s brother Izio, who told me this several years ago in his small flat in Woodland Hills in Los Angeles, his parents lost the block of flats they’d mortgaged. By the time he told me this, Uncle Izio was ninety years old, depressed and embittered. ‘I idolised Avner all my life, but ten years ago I suddenly woke up and realised that he’d always been completely selfish. From that moment, I couldn’t bear to see him again.’ Nothing is smashed as violently as an idol that is discovered to have feet of clay.
After two years in Vienna, Avner arrived in Antwerp. Life was difficult at first but before long his fertile mind had hatched another scheme. Women were always complaining about the time they spent going from shop to shop looking for fabrics. He would make their life easier by sending the shop to them. His offer was inexpensive and attractive. He advertised three metres of printed silk enticingly packaged in a miniature suitcase. Although this offer proved popular, he was undercapitalised and the enterprise went bust, but he didn’t lose heart. ‘Making the first million is the problem,’ he used to chuckle. ‘After that, making money gets much easier!’
Ever in search of the golden goose, Avner turned his attention to lotteries. During a visit to his brothers Janek and Marcel in Paris in 1934, he noticed that everyone was feverishly buying lottery tickets. Lottery fever was at such a pitch that apart from trying their luck in the Lotterie Nationale, people were even buying tickets in the Irish Sweepstakes. By the time Avner returned to Antwerp, he had it all figured out. He would sell French lottery tickets in Belgium. Initially the exchange rate worked in his favour, but before long the French government made it illegal for people in foreign countries to make money on French lottery tickets. Avner had to quit.
As long as business flourished, Avner bought expensive clothes for Hela, kept a maid, frequented the best restaurants and sent Adam and Wanda to private schools. But even when things were bad, he believed it was important to keep up appearances. ‘A clerk who applies for a position in a torn jacket won’t get the job,’ he used to say. One day when Wanda asked the headmistress for Greek and Latin lessons, she retorted, ‘Tell your father that when he pays his bills, we’ll arrange a tutor for you!’
Whether their ups and downs were due to extravagance, bad management or just a sign of the times, Avner always remained philosophical. Musing about her father’s personality, Wanda says, ‘It’s true that my father was a bit of a fraud, but he was a likeable fraud. He believed in himself, was generous to others and lived life to the hilt.’
According to my cousin Adam, who loves talking about his father’s seesawing business career, Avner decided to resuscitate the mail order business, but instead of silk he sold watches and jewellery. Proudly opening up one of his father’s old brochures, Adam points to advertisements in the form of testimonials from satisfied customers. ‘I am a dentist and know nothing about diamonds, but when I examined yours under the microscope, I was amazed by their purity,’ one of them said. Adam reckons that some of his father’s slogans in the 1935 prospectus were the forerunners of epigrams later used by DeBeers. ‘A woman without a diamond is like spring without roses.’ ‘Fortune in the palm of your hand.’ ‘A carat that you buy today for forty francs will in ten years be worth 16 000.’ Some of his claims were so extravagant that he upset the Antwerp jewellers who made him publish a disclaimer saying that he meant to cast no aspersions on any other retailer!
By the summer of 1937 Avner’s mail order diamond business was doing well, and it was at this stage that he decided to visit Poland. As they left the suburbs of Antwerp behind, Avner accelerated, revelling in the power of his big beige Pontiac which could devour nine hundred kilometres in a single day with no effort. Driving across Germany, they stopped several times for spicy bratwurst, sauerkraut and cherry kuchen in the towns they passed. The pristine prettiness of German towns resembled lavish operetta sets with every window adorned with boxes of geraniums, every front path lined with neat rows of phlox and asters, every house scrubbed until it shone.
Wherever they looked, people were weeding, hoeing, scrubbing and sweeping as if their lives depended on it. There was energy in this land and vigour in its people. Even the stooks in the f
ields and the grass in the meadows bristled with vitality. It was hard not to admire these people in whom industriousness and duty were as deeply ingrained as their fingerprints, but Avner knew that a dark shadow was spreading across this perfect landscape. He’d read Mein Kampf and had no illusions about Hitler’s grandiose plans.
Past Hanover, Avner sped along the autobahn until Hela complained that he was about to take off and fly. ‘Leave the driving to me, Dzidzia, just sing us a song,’ he laughed, using his pet name for her. While Hela’s melodious voice filled the car with Franz Lehar’s waltzes, seventeen-year-old Adam egged his father on to see how fast the Pontiac could go. Wanda, who was three years younger, was lost in a reverie about their last visit to Krakow. Her cousin Tusiek would be sixteen now. Years ago, she remembered him as a sallow, sickly child who used to vomit all over the place, but four years ago he’d changed into a good-looking teenager and she was looking forward to seeing him again. She giggled to herself when she remembered her little cousin Krysia, an angelic toddler who called everyone an arsehole, which made all the adults roar with laughter, except her mother, Aunty Andzia, who was mortified.
Wanda’s mouth watered at the memory of the round blue-black blueberries and the bittersweet wild strawberries which peasant women used to bring every morning in their straw baskets, along with jugs full of thick cream which they poured over their berries and sprinkled thickly with sugar. Wanda sighed and pulled her sweater down self-consciously. She’d put on pounds and pounds during that holiday, and ever since then Adam had called her Fatty, and her mother had warned that no-one would ever marry such a fat girl.
One relative Wanda didn’t want to see was Aunty Rozia who was quite different from the other aunties, so abrupt and impatient, always bossing her around. Rozia was often held up to Wanda as an example of what she might become if she didn’t learn to control her moods. Whenever Wanda lost her temper or shouted, her mother would say, ‘Just listen to you! You’re a hystericzka like Rozia. You’ll end up an old maid just like her!’ As an adult looking back on her aunt’s life, Wanda muses, ‘I didn’t realise that Rozia was difficult because she was unhappy and frustrated. She couldn’t hear what people were saying, no-one really needed her, and the man she’d wanted to marry hadn’t wanted her.’
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