‘Elizabeth, Mama.’
‘Elizabeth?’ Rebecca frowned, thinking a moment. ‘I don’t know an Elizabeth? Not from the reform synagogue, I hope?’ She looked immediately suspicious. ‘Her surname, if you please?’
Abraham brought his fist to his lips and coughed, ‘Fitzsimmons. Mama, she’s ah . . . not Jewish.’
Rebecca promptly refused to meet the plain-looking Elizabeth, declaring later that she would rather die than see her only son marry a gentile. She turned and cried loudly to David, ‘My son, he wants me to die! I have no time left, but he wants I should die tonight!’
‘No, Mama, that is not so,’ Abraham cried. ‘Give me a chance to introduce her to you, I know you’ll change your mind!’
‘Not enough boobs to feed a hungry mouse!’ Rebecca declared out of the blue, again directing this remark to David. It was true enough, Elizabeth possessed a very small bust, but as his mother was bedridden and had never laid eyes on her, nor David for that matter, Abraham could not imagine how she could have known this.
His mother was a determined woman but she usually submitted to his father’s will. He now turned to David for his help. ‘Father, I thought . . . ?’
‘Stop!’ David shouted. ‘Not another word! Get rid of the shiksa, you hear! We work with gentiles, we do business with gentiles but we don’t marry them! Get rid of the goy!’ He looked sternly at his son. ‘You hear me, Abraham?’ David pointed to the door. ‘Out she goes!’ Then he added, ‘Wait for me in my study after you’ve sent her home.’ Abraham, deeply distressed, hesitated. ‘G’arn . . . be off! Oh, and give her a ten pound note for her father, tell him to buy a revolver and use it on himself, he ain’t worth a pinch of shit, the stuck up bastard!’
‘Thank you, David,’ Rebecca cried, taking her husband’s hands in both her own and clutching them fondly to her breast. ‘I am not long for this world, you must find a nice Jewish girl for Abie before I die, the boy knows from women nothing!’
Abraham, distressed by his mother’s stubborn refusal, became even more confused when, upon his return from seeing the tearful Elizabeth to her home, having attempted to comfort her and to assure her that he intended to fight for her, he marched into David’s study to have it out with his father once and for all. ‘Father, I cannot accept your rejection of Elizabeth,’ he cried immediately upon entering.
But before he could continue David held up his hand. ‘Sssh! Not so fast, my boy. Not so fast. Close the door. Rejection? What rejection? You have my blessing to marry the girl one hundred per cent.’
Abraham wasn’t sure he’d heard his father correctly. ‘What? But in Mama’s bedroom you . . . ?’
David nodded. ‘She’s dying, have you no compassion for a dying woman?’
‘But why, Father?’
‘Your sons will be gentile,’ David replied simply. ‘It is time we stopped being Jews.’
‘Stopped?’ Abraham was deeply shocked. ‘But we are Jews!’
‘You are, I am, your mother is, but your children won’t be.’
‘But Elizabeth could turn, she’s agreed to convert. We have already discussed it.’
David looked unblinkingly at Abraham until his son could no longer meet his father’s eye. ‘She could, but she won’t.’
‘But Mama? You said yourself, it will break her heart?’
‘That’s why I wanted to see you, your mother will be dead soon enough.’ David shrugged. ‘So what’s so hard? You’ll stay stum until after the funeral.’ He gave a philosophical shrug. ‘It’s not such a long time, just don’t shtoop her, you hear? I want your children to be born within wedlock, everything kosher.’
Rebecca died three months later of consumption, much as the family physician had predicted she would. Abraham married Elizabeth and, for the first time in his life, he was truly happy.
When after a year there was no sign of offspring, David started to put on the pressure, demanding that the couple get on with it. When after four years there was still no offspring, David had had enough and he decided Elizabeth was to blame, his son had married a barren woman.
‘She must go! Make a settlement, not too much, she has eaten our bread too long for too little!’
But, for the first time in his life, Abraham dug his heels in and stood up to his father and refused. ‘Father, Elizabeth is my wife and I love her. If we are not to have children then that’s God’s will.’
‘God’s will! God’s will! Can’t you see the shiksa is too bloody in-bred, she’s all dried up inside, look at her tits fer Chrissake!’ David, accustomed to having his own way, continued to rant and rave, threatening to throw his son out of the business without a penny if he didn’t divorce Elizabeth.
Abraham stayed calm throughout the tirade. ‘Father, it’s no use, you may do as you wish to me. Elizabeth is my wife and I love her.’
In the end David had no further recourse. There were no substitute heirs in the immediate Solomon family. Ann, his sister, was a spinster and gone over to the other side, Sarah had married and had two children, girls and both quite dotty, not suitable as heirs and unlikely to find husbands, Mark had gone bush on the mainland and was said to have taken an Aboriginal wife.
Abraham remained David’s only hope for a grandchild with the unbanished Elizabeth the obstacle.
David, who himself had married late in life, refused to believe that it might be his own son firing blanks. He knew that eventually he would find a way to get rid of Elizabeth. Equally, he was aware that he was already in his sixties and running out of time. His lack of an heir other than Abraham began to preoccupy him to the extent where he grew morbid and introspective.
As often enough happens with men who suddenly become conscious of the fact that their allotted time in this mortal coil is coming to an end, David began to dwell on things spiritual.
In a man as iconoclastic and venal as David Solomon this was a curious notion in itself, but his spirituality took an even more bizarre twist. His son’s declaring that their lack of offspring was God’s will began to obsess him. Soon he started to believe that maybe it was God’s will, that he was being punished by a Jewish God for allowing Abraham to marry a gentile.
Though he was wise in the ways of the business world, he was essentially an uneducated and, at heart, superstitious and ignorant man. Reluctantly admitting to himself that his miserable son and his gentile wife had, for the time being, beaten him, David visited Rabbi Dr Abrahams, the rabbi of the Melbourne synagogue.
Since the death of his wife, Rebecca, and the marriage of Abraham to Elizabeth Fitzsimmons, the Melbourne Jewish community had seen very little of the Solomon family, a problem of some significance as it represented a regular source of funds which had now dried up.
And although Abraham’s marriage to Elizabeth Fitzsimmons had created a great deal of delicious gossip amongst the synagogue congregation and was seen as a betrayal of the faith, Rabbi Abrahams, essentially a pragmatic man, was sufficiently worldly to know that religion of any kind cannot exist solely on the piety and pennies of the poor and so he welcomed David warmly.
‘A great pleasure to see you again, Mr Solomon. Since your beloved wife’s tragic demise we have not enjoyed your attendance at synagogue.’
‘Too busy,’ David replied brusquely, and then lost no time in getting to the purpose of his visit. ‘Rabbi, my son Abraham has been married four years and . . .’ He paused and shrugged his shoulders, ‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing? No children, eh?’ The rabbi stroked his beard. ‘A shame, it is written, every Jew is entitled to a son.’
David nodded. ‘Yeah, well we ain’t got one!’ he’d snapped, then came straight out with it, ‘What would it take for my daughter-in-law to become pregnant?’
Rabbi Abrahams looked surprised. Witchcraft and superstition usually belonged to the poorer end of his congregation. He pursed his lips and spread his hands wide. ‘As far as I know, the same as always, a boy and a girl and a feather bed, the rest is God’s will.’
David w
as not in a mood to share the rabbi’s homely wit. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said impatiently, ‘that’s what I mean, God’s will. Can you get God to change His mind? Can you pray for a grandson? A pregnancy and a grandson?’
The rabbi shrugged. ‘The one is impossible without the other.’ He thought for a moment. ‘You want me to pray? To ask God your daughter-in-law should be pregnant?’ He stroked his beard. ‘Hmm . . . certainly, it’s possible to ask Him.’ The rabbi could not quite bring himself to believe a man as rich and cynical as David Solomon was so naive in spiritual matters as to expect him to be able to bring his personal influence to bear on the Almighty.
On the other hand, Rabbi Abrahams knew an opportunity when he saw one, though he was not quite sure how far he could go with David Solomon. Certainly the rich old man was a gift from a merciful God, that much he knew for sure. And, furthermore, one which didn’t come along every day. And so he decided to hedge a little.
‘Mind you in this matter, when the girl party is a gentile, there could be er . . . complications.’
David Solomon was delighted. Complications he knew about, whenever money was about to be discussed the word ‘complications’ occurred frequently.
‘Complications, what complications?’
‘You see, it is a matter of ears,’ Rabbi Abrahams said, thinking on his feet.
‘Ears?’
‘Will God listen with His Jewish ear or His gentile ear, that is the question?’
‘Both!’ David exclaimed. ‘How much?’
‘Both?’ The rabbi looked doubtful. ‘I must remind you I am a rabbi, Mr Solomon, a Jew. While I have the utmost respect for the gentile ear of God, I am only familiar with the Jewish.’ He shrugged. ‘Alas, I am permitted to pray only to one ear.’
‘One ear?’ David thought for a moment. ‘How much for one ear?’
Rabbi Abrahams smiled and spread his hands wide. ‘We pray always that God will provide a little Jewish school we hope to attach to the synagogue. A little place of scholarship for our children. Maybe even your grandson?’ he suggested slyly.
‘Send me the plans, get me a quote.’ David jabbed his forefinger at the rabbi. ‘Though I warn you, I will obtain another myself, we don’t want another incident like your predecessor, that villain,’ David paused, ‘whatsaname?’
‘Rabbi Dattner Jacobson,’ Dr Abrahams sighed, referring to the rabbi before him who had been publicly accused of lining his own pockets.
‘Yes, that crook, we’ll have none of that, there’ll be receipts needed and shown, down to the last copper nail.’
The rabbi bowed his head slightly. ‘But of course, everything must be kosher.’
‘So? What about the other ear?’ David now demanded.
‘The other ear?’
‘Yes, the gentile ear? I must have both ears!’ David announced. ‘I can’t take no chances.’
The rabbi rubbed his bearded chin once more. ‘For a small commission, say ten per cent, for books you understand, in the school, I could talk to the bishop. We could maybe make a little arrangement?’
Arrangements, like complications, were the things David knew most about. ‘The bishop?’ David shook his head. ‘I’ll not do business with the Papists, with them damned Catholics,’ David said emphatically.
‘Not so fast, not so fast, my friend,’ Rabbi Abrahams said soothingly. ‘My friend the Anglican Bishop of Melbourne, James Moorhouse, I could have maybe a little talk to him?’
‘And he’s got the best gentile ear? Better than, you know, that other lot?’ David asked suspiciously.
The rabbi clasped his hands together and brought them to his chest. ‘After the Jews, the best,’ Abrahams assured him. ‘He is a good God-fearing man who, it so happens, needs a new roof on the baptistery of St Mark’s. On the other hand, the Catholics have a brand-new cathedral and God would maybe not be so willing to listen to their needs at the present moment.’
‘Fifty per cent now, fifty per cent when the child is born, no commission on the goy roof, but a thousand pounds bonus to you if it is a boy,’ David said, extending his hand to the rabbi.
‘We will pray for the boy through both ears,’ the Chief Rabbi promised, accepting David’s outstretched hand. It had been a rewarding day. At the very worst half the cost of the new infant school was paid. Furthermore, with half the price of his new baptistery roof on St Mark’s guaranteed and, in the process, a firm relationship established with the powerful bishop, it could do the increasingly prosperous Jewish community in the city no harm. Even if the collective prayers were to fall on deaf ears, the ledger for God’s work in the city was suddenly in excellent shape.
Precisely eleven months after David’s visit to the rabbi Joshua was born. Rabbi Abrahams, clearly not a man to lose an opportunity to capitalise on this wonderful act of nature, accepted David’s cheques together with his bonus.
Carefully folding the two bank drafts into his purse, he addressed his source of pennies from heaven. ‘Mr Solomon, God has provided you with a fine, healthy boy, but there has been no bris, he has not been circumcised.’ He sighed. ‘There is even some talk about, a rumour no doubt, that he is to be raised as a gentile?’
David shrugged. ‘It’s your law,’ he replied with a dismissive shrug. ‘His mother Elizabeth is a gentile, my grandson is born a goy.’
Rabbi Abrahams had flinched at the vulgar expression. ‘Our law, certainly, Mr Solomon. It is true, your grandson is technically a gentile.’ He paused. ‘On the other hand, if your son’s wife, Elizabeth, is willing to turn, to convert to Judaism,’ the Chief Rabbi spread his hands and smiled, ‘then it would give me great pleasure to personally instruct her in the Jewish faith. Believe me, it would be a happy occasion for the Jews of Melbourne if I could tell the members of the synagogue that the Lord God has provided Abraham Solomon with a fine Jewish son and a grandson to the illustrious Mr David Solomon.’
David was unimpressed with the praise and he thought for a moment then announced, ‘No, Rabbi, we will leave things as they are, that is the best thing to do.’
The rabbi was somewhat taken aback, in fact, barely able to conceal his dismay, for he had fully expected David to comply with his request. ‘But why, Mr Solomon? Your father Ikey Solomon was a Jew, a member of the first synagogue in Hobart, your mother Hannah was a Jew, also your dear departed wife? You are a Jew, your son Abraham is a Jew? God has answered our prayers, you have a grandson. Why?’
David looked sternly at the rabbi. ‘Rabbi Abrahams, I am a plain-speaking man and you have cost me a great deal of money. Not only have the Jews of Melbourne benefited, but I have also allowed you to kiss the arse of a bishop of the Church of England. Mind you, I am not complaining, we made a deal, as you say, I have a grandson and you now have your school and the goy bishop has a new roof over the heads of his Sunday Christians.’ He paused for a moment and then said, ‘Now, answer me this, please, Mister Rabbi of Melbourne. How do I know it wasn’t the gentile ear of God that answered my prayers for a grandson?’
That, with his son, Joshua, the outcome, was the very first time Abraham had gone against his father’s wishes. Now, with Hawk waiting for David’s answer to his business proposition he has once again defied him. Abraham reasons that if his father, coming to the end of his life, isn’t able to accept Hawk’s generous rescue plan for Solomon & Co. he, with the remainder of his life ahead of him, has no reason to reject it. On the contrary, he knows himself quite capable of running Solomon & Co. on his own and, without the constant harassment and interference of the old man, he relishes the opportunity.
Abraham can feel his ambivalence growing, but nevertheless feels duty bound to ask once more for his father’s co-operation. ‘Father, I have accepted Mr Solomon’s offer, I shall not relent. Will you not do the same?’ It is the last time he will ask and, for the remainder of his life, he will bitterly resent having done so.
Ignoring Hawk’s presence David looks up at his son and bellows, ‘Yes! Damn you! Count me in!’ The task his mind has set
him at this moment is to leap from his chair, cross the room and leave it, slamming the door behind him. But he is an old man and rising from the deep leather chair is an onerous business, though he does so with as much vigour as he can muster and crosses the room to the door, forcing his old legs to hurry. He turns at the door, ‘S’truth! A nigger chairman!’ then exercising his bad temper he exits, slamming the door behind him as hard as he may.
‘I apologise, for my father,’ a red-faced Abraham says. ‘It has all come as a great shock to him.’
Hawk looks up at David’s son. ‘I sense you would have preferred him to stay out eh? Well, never mind, it’s settled then.’ Abraham will later recall how Hawk had clasped his fingers together and brought his chin to rest upon his hands. Then looking down into his lap he had given a deep sigh. ‘Thank God, after thirty-eight years,’ he’d heard Hawk whisper.
Hawk loses no time drawing up the documents and in a month they are signed by David and Abraham and notarised. He plans to stay another month so that he might learn all he can about the new brewery, though he has learned that Abraham is more than competent to see to its completion and seems anxious to be allowed to do so. Hawk feels they will get on well enough and intends to be home soon with Hinetitama, Ben and Victoria. He does not think of Teekleman as family, but simply as an obese presence to be tolerated. He has since learned that the Dutchman has left his employ, but thinks little of it. Hinetitama is well provided for and her husband does not need to work to keep his household going. Hawk will sort out any other details upon his return.
However, two days after the completion of the contracts Hawk receives a telegram from Hobart.
TEEKLEMAN DEAD HINETITAMA IN TROUBLE ANN
Chapter Six
THE RETURN OF
HINETITAMA
Melbourne 1914
September 25th 1914, the day of the big military march past, is typical of that time of the year in Victoria. It commences with a thin pre-dawn drizzle, clears up a little just as the paperboys hurry in the six o’clock dark to their allotted street corners then persists foul all morning, with flurries of rain and sudden gusts of bone-chilling wind that invert umbrellas and send hats skidding along the mirror-wet pavements.
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