by Rose Zwi
He and Raizel had nothing to hide. For years they had walked home together, occasionally with Berka, often with Leib Schwartzman, sometimes by themselves. On those occasions he had joked with Mrs. Zlotnik while she watered her potted geraniums; exchanged greetings with old Weinbrin who was reading ‘Der Yiddisher Americaner’ over the top of his glasses; enquired after Tova Perlman’s son who had bought a business on the East Rand, or stopped to admire that crazy Mrs. Hirshman’s cats.
Tonight, suddenly, the friendly arc of conversation which had flowed from one side of the street to the other, seemed like a menacing passageway through which he had to walk warily, expecting barbed remarks instead of warm words. He grunted a greeting to Mrs. Zlotnik, ignored Mrs. Hirshman’s cats and barely said hello to old Weinbrin.
They walked past a group of children who were playing ‘Oranges and Lemons’, a game which he had never understood. He wondered at their squeals of fear as they ran through the arch formed by two children. He wondered at his own anxieties and guilts. The senseless games people played.
‘Hey, Dovidke, why do you look so fierce?’ Shmuel the plumber called out as they went past his house. ‘Has Sheinkala presented you with yet another daughter?’
Dovid threw him such an angry look that Shmuel was surprised into silence.
Raizel walked calmly beside him, returning everyone’s greetings, asking after their health, holding back her tears. The four blocks’ walk seemed endless to Dovid. When they reached Berka’s house, in silence, he said goodbye brusquely and was about to walk on when Berka came out of the house.
‘Dovid, Ruthie’s here. She’s in trouble with Sheinka and won’t go home without you.’
Dovid turned back reluctantly and went into the house.
4
When Ruth saw Dovid’s stern, withdrawn face she began to cry again.
‘I’ll bring her home later,’ Berka said as he led Dovid out of the room. ‘And tell Sheinka to act like a mensch. She scares the life out of Ruth with her threats and wails.’
‘So, my maidala,’ he said, putting Ruth onto his lap again. ‘Where were we up to?’
‘The man was walking in the veld,’ Ruth said wiping her nose with the back of her hand, ‘there, behind the plantation, and he tripped over a stone and it was made of gold. Did he turn into a prince?’
‘No. Poor old George just disappeared off the scene and died without a penny to his name. The rich men came up from the diamond diggings in Kimberley and found gold near the rock he had tripped over. And that’s how the mines began.’
‘He was a schlemiel, like Zeide Berchik,’ Yenta said as she came into the lounge. ‘Your Zeide could’ve bought up half of Mayfontein in the early days, for next to nothing. But who wants property? Others bought. Today they’re rich and he’s still mending their boots.’
‘Mrs. Grimm, your fairy tales I don’t need in my business,’ Berka said.
‘Does the child need them? Sheinka’s right. You’re driving her mad with all your stories.’
‘Your tzimmes is burning,’ Berka said sniffing the air with exaggerated concern.
Yenta fled to the kitchen.
‘My father says it’s all ugly, the dumps, the veld, the dam. He wants to go back to Ragaza where there’s snow in winter and rivers and where wild strawberries grow in the woods.’
‘That’s where he was born. You were born here. Do you think the dumps are ugly?’
‘No, but mamma shouts when I go there. And she says a little kaffir boy sank into the slimes dam one day and they never found him again. He was also sliding down the dumps on a piece of iron.’
‘That’s dangerous. You shouldn’t go there alone. I’ll take you one Sunday, any Sunday. Remember when we walked in the veld and picked those lovely kosmos?’
‘I remember. Zeide Berchik,’ she asked shyly, ‘am I ugly?’
‘What a ridiculous idea!’
‘But am I?’ she persisted, dusting particles of sand off her leg. She turned away, afraid of his verdict.
‘Certainly not! You’re going to be as tall and as straight as a young bluegum; you’ve got cheeks like red apples and the loveliest green eyes I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen plenty.’
‘Mamma says I look like my other zeide, Red Yehuda.’
‘He was a fine figure of a man, Yehuda was.’
‘Mamma says he had ugly red hair. She doesn’t like red hair. She says the baby is going to have black hair, like hers.’
‘Your father’s got red hair.’
‘She doesn’t like him either.’
‘Ruthie! You musn’t say such things.’
‘It’s true, Zeide Berchik. I heard her tell him so one night when they thought I was asleep.’
Berka lifted her up and kissed her. Zutzke ran eagerly at their heels as they walked out of the house.
‘Your mother’s not well at the moment but after the baby is born everything will be all right again. Be patient and good and listen to her. On Monday you’re going to school with that nice case and crayons Raizel bought you. You’ll make friends and soon you’ll be playing “Oranges and Lemons” with those children down the street.’
‘I don’t like them. They pull my hair and tease me when I speak.’
‘You’ll speak English better than they do one day, you’ll see.’
Where would my Yenta rest her bosom, Berka speculated as he walked onto Sheinka’s highly polished red veranda where little pots of geraniums stood all along the ledge, screening it from the street. To accommodate Yenta’s ample bosom she’d have to remove half the pots.
The front door stood open and the smell of carbolic soap, boiled chicken and cinnamon buns drifted out towards them. The lace curtains, skilfully darned in places, were white and starched. The linoleum which ran down the length of the passage gleamed.
Dovid and Sheinka were sitting in the lounge. It was obvious that there had been angry words between them.
‘My child!’ Sheinka swooped down on Ruth who stood very still, allowing herself to be embraced. ‘Come. Let us sit on the sofa and look through the photo album together. But first,’ she said looking at the sand on Ruth’s arms and legs, ‘we’ll have to wash.’
Ruth followed her meekly out of the lounge. She loved the photo album which was locked in the sideboard next to the wine and sweets. She knew the inmates of the album better than she knew the people in Mayfontein: the members of the choir who picnicked on the banks of the river; Sheinka’s girlhood friends; aunts and uncles whom she had seen on Yenta’s walls; snow in the streets of Ragaza; and all those pictures of Sheinka where she looked so young and pretty, and not at all cross.
Sheinka always sighed when she brushed off an imaginary speck of dust from the forehead of a dark young man who held a violin under his chin.
‘He might have been your father,’ she told Ruth with a fine disregard for biological fact, ‘but his mother interfered. Much joy she had from the match she forced on him,’ she added bitterly each time she told the story. ‘The girl was rich and ugly and kicked her mother-in-law out of her house after the marriage. Shimon vowed never to play the violin again after we parted, and I promised never to sing again.’
These reminiscences were usually followed by a recital of sad love songs which apparently did not constitute a breach of that vow.
Looking through the album lulled Sheinka into a calm but melancholy mood and Ruth knew that she was safe from nagging or reprimand during this period. Sheinka might even put her arms around Ruth and address her as ‘my poor child’, Ruth never knew why.
‘Where’s Gittel?’ Berka asked, satisfied that a temporary peace had been established between mother and child. ‘I want to wish her a good sabbath.’
‘In the kitchen,’ Dovid replied picking up the ‘Forwerts’. He lifted the paper close to his face, shutting himself off from further conversation. Berka shrugged and walked into the kitchen.
A snowy cloth covered the deal kitchen table. On one side lay a sheet of thinly rolled
noodle dough. At the other end stood Gittel, a white scarf thrown over her head, her hands covering her face, blessing the sabbath candles.
‘Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has hallowed us by His Commandments and commanded us to kindle the sabbath light,’ she murmured rapidly in Hebrew. Then she sighed, and keeping her hands over her face, added a private prayer in Yiddish.
‘God in Heaven, I don’t ask for happiness or riches. All I want is that you should send me a little nachas, a little joy, from my children. What wrongs have I committed that I should have a son in a distant land who has forgotten his mother? He hasn’t written her a single line in two years. I keep a kosher home, I guard the sabbath, I read your holy books even if they are in Yiddish translation. You know how it was in der heim. We women weren’t taught to read Hebrew. You’ve seen how I kasher the dishes and cutlery for Pesach, how I stick the cutlery into the ground and how I soak the dishes in boiling water into which I throw hot coals. I go to shul on shabbas and on all the Festivals and I help the poor when I’ve got with what. Why then, God in Heaven, should you not grant me a little nachas from my children?
‘I don’t complain that I’m dependent on a bad-tempered daughter (forgive her, God, she has her own troubles), or that I have to take charity from a reluctant son-in-law. It is better than taking from strangers, though sometimes I wonder. I’m thankful that I’ve got my own bed—during the War seven of us slept side by side in my mother’s bed—even if it does stand in the dining-room. I’m thankful also that I have enough to eat though you may have noticed that I never touch chicken or other delicacies: I don’t want to be a burden, an expense to Dovid. Anyway, I survive. But if it is indeed your will that I should continue to survive, Lord, I ask you only one thing: a little nachas from my children…’
Berka backed away quietly when he saw the tears run down onto the front of Gittel’s dress through her fingers. He felt guilty about eavesdropping on her conversation with God, no friend of his. Gittel was the only person he knew who made God seem a possibility.
He passed by the bathroom where he heard Ruth splashing about, into the lounge where Dovid sat, half-concealed by the newspaper.
‘Have you written to your mother lately?’ Berka asked.
‘My mother?’ Dovid sat up, letting the paper fall into his lap. ‘Since when do you keep a check on my correspondence with my mother?’
‘Don’t get excited. I only asked. One would think I was prying into your love life. In a moment of weakness you confided that you didn’t write regularly because you couldn’t send money. If you need…’
‘If I need I’ll ask, thank you,’ Dovid said gruffly picking up the newspaper again.
‘Gut shabbas, Berka. I thought I heard your voice,’ Gittel said from the doorway. She had taken off her white scarf and was smoothing down her wispy grey hair. She fingered the front of her dress, trying to eradicate the trace of tears.
‘Gut shabbas, Gittel. I just came to say hello. I haven’t seen you all week. Listen, I have a plan,’ he said going into the passage with her. ‘Yenta wants to go to bioscope tomorrow evening. You’re coming with us this time and I’m not taking no for an answer.’
‘You and Yenta go in good health and enjoy yourselves,’ she said resignedly. ‘What do you want to schlepp along an old woman for? I’ve lived without bioscope for over sixty years and I’ll survive without it. Tonight I fetch “Der Yiddisher Americaner” from Mr. Weinbrin and I’ll have plenty to read and keep me occupied.’
Berka smiled. The Yiddish newspaper was Gittel’s only contact with the outside world. She read the news section avidly and often discussed two-month-old events with him as though they were burning topical issues. She also followed a serialised love story called ‘The Dark Stranger’. She borrowed a line from the heroine which she used whenever she looked tear-stained: ‘I’ve been peeling onions,’ she would quote solemnly. Her favourite column, however, was written by a Miss Breen, the lonely hearts expert, who was her oracle.
‘I’ll fetch you tomorrow evening at eight,’ Berka said firmly. ‘Wear your nice blue dress. It suits you.’
‘Berka,’ she said at the gate. ‘I know you’ve got good reason for disliking Benjamin. Yes, yes. Yenta told me long ago that you signed security for him that time he bought a grocery shop and that you had to pay out a lot of money when he made himself bankrupt, mechula. He’s not a clever man and perhaps not even an honest one, although he is a bit of a rabbi. But he’s getting old, his sight is failing and he’s sick. You’re such a kind man, Berka. Make allowance for him once more. It’ll make things easier for Yenta.’
Berka looked into her large brown eyes which were filling with tears again. She reminded him of Ruth. He hoped that Ruth would not peel as many onions as her grandmother.
‘All right,’ he kissed her finely-creased forehead. ‘I’ll keep out of his way. But don’t ask me to love him.’
God is one. What a fallacy, Berka mused as he walked past Mrs. Zaidman’s house through whose open window he saw the sabbath candles wavering in the soft evening air. Everyone had his private god: Gittel, Hershl, Dovid, even Ruthie. Gittel’s was a domestic god. He sat in his celestial lounge watching benignly as his female worshippers threw hot coals in among the soaking everyday dishes, making them ritually acceptable for the Passover. He beamed with delight when Gittel wrenched the meat dishcloth out of the black servant’s hands just as she was about to dry the milk jug with it; ‘Chaim Leib is to write to his mother, she’s due for a little nachas,’ he thundered when she salted the meat according to the law, allowing the blood to drain before she cooked it. And he assigned her a place in Heaven when she put on her old black hat, clasped her tattered prayer book to her breast and hurried to shul, walking quickly towards it, as custom prescribed, and slowly away from it, savouring the holiness she had imbibed in that musty old building.
Gittel was probably right to site God in a celestial lounge: He was certainly not in Spain, nor in Nazi Germany, nor for that matter, was he an observer at the Moscow trials.
The candles in Hershl’s house were also sending up blue flames to heaven. Hershl’s God was temporarily in exile and had to be consoled with traditional practices and prayers until the day when he would sit on a secular throne in Palestine. And Dovid, his befuddled but beloved Dovid, had an elusive god who would not show his face to mankind until man himself had restored peace and justice on earth.
Berka walked to the corner of First Avenue and Twelfth Street. The synagogue was a block away. The first worshippers had already come out of shul and were being followed by groups of others who fanned out in all directions towards their homes where a typical sabbath dinner awaited them. After they had said a blessing over the wine and the sabbath kitke, they would be served a portion of gefilte fish which would be eaten with horseradish or mustard. At home Berka chose to eat the minced horseradish: Yenta’s mustard looked like congealed ear wax. Chicken soup with finely cut lokshen would be served next, and the main course was the inevitable chicken which had already provided the flavour of the soup, with stuffing or tzimmes at the side. On summer evenings the family would sit on the stoep at the end of the meal and sip hot lemon tea through a lump of hard sugar, and in winter they would gather around the kitchen stove.
Berka shook himself out of his mellowing mood. I’d give a prize to the woman who had the nerve to serve up fish and chips from Davis’s shop on a Friday night, he thought. Slaves, that’s all they are; slaves to habit and tradition.
Echoes of discussions and arguments filtered down through the still summer’s air towards Berka as he stood on the corner in his working clothes, as solitary as the evening star which was rising in a deep purple sky.
5
The service had already begun when Hershl slipped into his seat, followed by Daniel his youngest son. He nodded across the aisle to Leib Schwartzman whose sonorous voice rang through the synagogue, welcoming the sabbath:
‘Come, Oh Cherished one, and meet t
he Bride!
Let us welcome the face of sabbath…’
He found the place in the prayer book for Daniel who watched the congregants carefully and turned the pages when they did. Hershl, in the meantime, joined in the prayers. The synagogue was fairly full but there were few women in the gallery. Tomorrow morning they would come but tonight they were at home, blessing the candles, preparing the sabbath meal. It was hot and stuffy in the synagogue in spite of the open windows, and the cheder boys in the back seats were restive and noisy. The shammas moved menacingly among them, delivering a corrective blow here and there in a practised, absent-minded manner without interrupting his prayers.
Facing the Ark, in the place of honour, sat Uncle Feldman flanked by Isaac Kowarsky and Avram Segal. The latter two had earned their places through piety and learning. Uncle Feldman, after considerable pressure from the Committee, had given a large donation on his seventieth birthday. He had remained a member of the Mayfontein Congregation because here, he confided to Hershl, he was ensured a place of honour. In Houghton, he spat out the name of his suburb with contempt, those newly-rich Jews did not appreciate a man of his calibre.
Hershl watched the old man fumble his way through the service. His chauffeur parked the car half-way up the block and Uncle Feldman came into the shul with the breathless air of a man who had walked ten miles. He was old, Hershl conceded, but he certainly displayed more energy in his Concession Store. Only last week Hershl had seen him sprint across the dusty floor like an eighteen-year-old, to check on the amount his harassed manager had rung up on the till.