by Rose Zwi
Joel rose unsteadily from his chair and put Berka’s pipe into his trembling hand.
There was still time. He could withdraw. And be a glorified shopkeeper all his life?
‘It’s true Dad…’
Berka quivered. He stood close to Joel and thrust his powerful short-fingered hands near his face. Joel blinked and held his ground with difficulty. He squeezed his own carefully manicured nails into his palms.
‘Look at these hands!’ Berka said with controlled rage. ‘Look at them. Stained, hardened, cracked and calloused. With work. Honourable work, once I had washed off the stinking entrails and meat from your uncle’s kafferita. Your soul will stink like my hands did if you enter his service.’
‘Joel, Berka, what’s the matter?’ Yenta came rushing in from the veranda followed by Hershl.
‘Say you’re bluffing,’ Berka pleaded with Joel, ignoring Yenta. ‘Tell me you wanted to punish me for goodness knows what crime I committed against you. Tell me it’s not true. The devil himself could not have thought up a worse punishment.’
Joel looked uncertainly from Yenta to Berka.
‘Dad, try to understand…’
‘Out!’ Berka roared. ‘Out!’
Hershl stepped forward to intervene. Berka looked like a biblical prophet as he towered above Joel, his grey hair awry, his eyes smouldering, his voice cracked and terrible. Joel stood motionlessly before him in his pointed shoes, his thin moustache twitching.
Hershl stopped in his tracks as a painful groan tore itself from deep within Berka. He tried to speak but could not. In a paroxysm of rage and despair he ripped his shirt apart with his work-worn hands.
‘Eili. Eili,’ he cried. ‘Lama azavtani!’
12
‘The one at the back, the shiny one, with the cracks. You sure it’s got seeds? By me rye bread without seeds isn’t rye bread. And lax you’ve got?’
‘Over at the delicatessen, Mrs. Zlotnick.’
‘Thanks,’ she said taking the bread and turning towards the Passover counter.
‘Crazy. Look at them,’ she said. ‘Six deep, shouting, pushing, grabbing. You’d think there was going to be a famine next week. The lax I’ll leave. This place is like a madhouse on Sundays, especially before Yomtov.’
Yenta served calmly behind the Passover counter, unharassed by the clamouring customers. In Berka’s slippers she could stand on her feet for hours.
‘Take already another box of pletzlach,’ she urged the indecisive shopper who was loaded with parcels. ‘What you’ve got is only for one tooth. They’re made with this season’s apricots, guaranteed kosher for Passover. Mrs. Hirshowitz,’ she turned good-naturedly to a fat woman who started guiltily when Yenta addressed her. ‘They’re fresh, believe me. No need to touch and press. Sorry, Jankala. I didn’t have time to make wine this year. The rebbetzin’s selling. Try hers. Not as good as mine but guaranteed kosher. Next please! My dear Leib Schwartzman, you don’t have to drag the matzos with you. Hershl will deliver in his van.’
‘Coming Leib, coming,’ Hershl said looking around the kitchen door. ‘Go to the cash desk. I’ll take your order.’
He returned to the kitchen which smelled of damp concrete. Faigel removed a large tray of cheese blintzes from the oven.
‘Careful!’ she warned as Hershl approached the tray. ‘Use the gloves. You’ll burn yourself.’
He was hailed from all sides as he walked down the shop with the steaming blintzes.
‘The French loaves will be ready in an hour, Itzik. Go home. I’ll bring you one, two—how many do you want?— on my way home. No, Mrs. Jacobs, I didn’t raise the price of matzos tuppence a box. The manufacturers did. No pirogen today, Jankala. No time to bake with this rush on,’ he said putting the blintzes down on the counter with a sigh of relief. The tray had burned his hands through the towelling gloves.
He was writing out Leib’s order when he saw Mrs. Pinn striding purposefully towards him. It was too late to retreat into the kitchen. He stretched himself to his full five foot four and smiled politely.
‘Fluxman’s sell salt herrings at sevenpence,’ she hissed. ‘Yours are eightpence.’
‘Then, my dear Mrs. Pinn, you must buy them from Fluxman.’
‘They haven’t got any at the moment.’
‘Ahah! When I haven’t got herrings I sell them at five-pence.’
Hershl turned to Leib who was grinning delightedly.
‘Leib, I warn you. If Chaya hears rumours that you’re buying Faigel’s blintzes, you’ll be thrown out of the house. A divorce you can get for such disloyalty,’ he added, pointedly ignoring the indignant Mrs. Pinn who glowered at him before storming out of the shop.
‘You’re the only one who can handle that Gestapo bitch,’ Leib said with admiration. ‘Such scathing politeness. But be careful. She’ll discover a mouse in your bread and report you to the health authorities.’
‘She can go to…’ Hershl mumbled looking towards the counter where Yenta was working cheerfully. He wondered that Mrs. Pinn had the gall to come into the shop at all.
By two o’clock the shop was quiet again. Hershl sat down behind the cash desk and lifted his feet onto the cross bar. That’s where he felt his increasing weight most, on his feet. He ate too much and had no exercise. It was years since he had ridden his bicycle. He patted his stomach critically. It would do him good to miss lunch today. He usually did on Sundays. Faigel went home at one to eat with the boys and he remained on with a few helpers.
‘See you at four,’ he called to the counterhands who were taking off their light blue overalls which he had made obligatory wear. ‘Be back in good time for the afternoon rush.’
He beamed when he saw Yenta coming towards him with a steaming cup of tea in one hand and beef on rye in the other.
‘Yenta, you’re spoiling me. I’d just decided not to eat lunch.’
‘And make yourself sick? Denks Gott you’re healthy. A little paunch doesn’t matter. It makes a man look prosperous. Brisk today, eh?’
‘It always is before the festivals. Yentala,’ he said looking down at her slippers through which her big toes were protruding. ‘Berka needs a new pair of slippers.’
‘A klog! I forgot to change. Fancy walking down Main Street like this. Behind the counter nobody sees,’ she said hurrying away.
A remarkable woman. Hershl watched her bow-legged progress towards the kitchen. Perhaps all women were strong in adversity. She had grieved for a week after Joel left home, then dry-eyed but gaunt she came to him with her proposition. She had two hundred and seventeen pounds in her Post Office savings account. She was as strong as a horse. Were these sufficient qualifications to buy herself a small share in his business? If not, she had others: Nobody, as Hershl knew, pickled cucumbers like she did. Her gefilte fish was outstanding. She knew five different ways to prepare herring. For the Festivals she would make taiglach, pletzlach ingberlach. All she wanted was a small salary and one day, please God, when the business was paying well, she would take a proportionate part of the profits. Money was secondary: she needed an occupation.
‘What’ll I do with money? Buy myself a chemist shop? A new house Berka doesn’t want. A dowry for Raizel I won’t need… Anyway, it’s a gamble and as dog racing shows no profit, I’ll try business. What do you say?’
With Yenta’s money and with loans from the millers Hershl had remodelled Sharp’s Delicatessen. He installed wall fittings, added another refrigerated counter and put down a new floor. Then he leased the shop next door which he converted into a bakery. He engaged another baker and several apprentices. Dirk managed the bakery. In his newly-acquired van which he drove with unwarranted confidence, Hershl delivered bread all over the city. After the Passover, however, he was taking on a permanent vanman as he himself was needed in the shop.
Hershl stirred his tea thoughtfully as he looked around the shop. It was more than a shop; it was an institution. And not in the way Leib meant either. My sales assistants may be elderly or unfortuna
te but they’re loyal and hardworking, he rebuked Leib who said that Sharp’s had become an old aged home. What’s more, they create a homely atmosphere.
At first only he, Faigel and Yenta had worked in the shop. Then Sara Sher’s husband died, leaving her destitute. Hershl put her behind the bread counter. When Gershon Green’s business in the country failed, he gave him a job at the delicatessen counter. Werner Neuberg, a refugee from Germany, was in charge of the meat department. In spite of his volatile moods and the shake in his hands, he was a genius at smoking and pickling meat. The demand for his products had become so great that Werner was training an apprentice butcher. In addition to this permanent staff, a host of widows and other needy women came in to work on Saturdays and on Sundays when the shop was busiest.
On these days people came from all over Johannesburg to buy hot bread and delicatessen and to meet people whom they might not have seen since they landed in Cape Town. Old friendships were renewed over smoked lax and pickled herring; new ones were created in the free-for-all discussion that arose among strangers. They stood around the counters and in the passages, parcels in hand, talking about old times and new occupations; about the world situation and the Nazi threat. Hershl thought of leasing Leib’s old smithy when he moved out in a few months’ time, and converting it into a tea room where everyone could debate in comfort. He would call it ‘The Diet’, and engage a Chairman, not a Manager.
He smiled at his fantasies. He was well-pleased with the success of his business though it left him with insufficient time to go to synagogue on Friday evenings. In spite of all this activity, he never lost sight of his ultimate goal: to settle in Palestine with his family.
‘If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,’ he chanted wistfully, wishing that his days in the Diaspora were already over.
He had little to complain about. The boys were growing into fine reliable lads. Moishala was in his first year at High School and Joshua would join him next year. Daniel was well-settled in school and Faigel had stopped agitating about moving out of Mayfontein.
Their next house, God willing, would be in Zion.
‘Hershl, I’ve taken some smoked fish and a few blintzes for Berka’s lunch,’ Yenta said as she came out of the kitchen. ‘It’s as well that he hardly notices what he eats these days. Poor man. He’s taken it hard. I’ll be back at four. Finish your sandwich, Hershala. You’ll need strength for the big rush.’
Berka had taken it very hard. Hershl saw him towering over Joel… Ach, it was too painful to recall. Perhaps if he, Hershl, had spoken to someone about the conversation he overheard that night between Benjamin and Uncle Feldman, this irreparable rift between Joel and Berka might have been averted. Over-delicacy could be as disastrous as Mrs. Pinn’s obsessive nosiness.
Berka had barely adjusted to his break with Joel when that shattering incident with Raizel occurred. Hershl sighed. It was his fate to be witness to all Berka’s heartbreak.
One evening after a long tiring day in the bakery he and Yenta had walked home together. It was a cold night and the air was full of smoke from a veld fire. As they approached Yenta’s house they heard shouting and crying from within. Berka rushed out at that moment with a wounded cry, followed by Raizel who was sobbing.
‘Nachas from children!’ Berka shouted, his voice thick with drink. He thrust a piece of paper at Hershl. ‘Here, read this.’
‘You should know what everyone in the suburb knows,’ Hershl read, reluctantly. ‘Your daughter Raizel is having an affair with Dovid Erlich. If you want proof, watch his workshop on a Wednesday afternoon.’
Berka snatched the note from Hershl and staggered off in the direction of Dovid’s house, followed by Yenta who was wringing her hands.
‘Come!’ he commanded when Raizel lagged behind. ‘Once and for all we shall learn the truth.’
By this time all the neighbours had come onto their verandas, hugging their jerseys around them. For a while Hershl stood helplessly at Berka’s gate, then went home. A short while later Berka strode blindly out of the Erlichs’ house, followed by Dovid who rushed like a madman towards Mrs. Pinn’s house. He dragged her out from behind the lace curtains, onto the veranda where in full view of the astounded neighbours, he slapped her across the face. She ran from neighbour to neighbour shouting hysterically:
‘You’re a witness! You’re a witness! You saw him hit me.’
But the frightened neighbours had apparently seen nothing and heard nothing and Mrs. Pinn’s threatened action for assault came to nothing. And from nothing, Hershl mused, even Mrs. Pinn could not make a court case.
Faigel tried several times to tell him what ‘they’ were saying, but Hershl sternly forbade her to repeat the gossip of the suburb. All he knew was that Berka had withdrawn from the community. He gave up his work on the Refugees’ Fund, his own creation; he visited none of his old friends; there were no more talks on his veranda, no poker games, no impromptu suppers at his house on Sunday evenings.
After a while he forgave Raizel but Dovid, like Joel, had died for him.
Gittel and Yenta continued to see one another regularly and on Friday evenings they still walked to old Weinbrin to fetch the ‘Yiddisher Americaner.’ Ruth visited Berka only at his workshop: Sheinka had forbidden her to go to the house.
At first Berka had avoided Hershl, but the latter persisted in his visits to Berka’s workshop, ignoring his deliberate rudeness. While Hershl spoke to him Berka hammered away at his last in silence. One day, however, when Hershl was speaking about the situation in Europe Berka broke in bitterly:
‘What hope is there for humanity as a whole when on a personal level sons betray fathers and friends deceive friends?’
From then on the stone on Berka’s heart was lifted and contact was re-established between him and Hershl.
‘I’m at home with the Boers,’ he answered when Hershl taxed him with his withdrawal from the Jewish community. ‘They’re simple, open-hearted people, narrow but honest. You know where you are with them. If they call me a bloody Jew I give them a bloody nose. They don’t bear a grudge and neither do I. But with our Jews it’s different. They greet me with solemn faces and pretend nothing’s happened. But behind my back they whisper and they judge. They’ve made Raizel’s life a misery.’
The rhythm of life in First Avenue had been broken and Hershl mourned its destruction. He could not bear the aridity which had followed on Berka’s misfortunes. On Friday evenings Hershl sat alone on his veranda, waiting in vain for the play to begin. But the stage remained in darkness as though in sympathy with the tragedies being enacted on a larger scale in Europe.
Hershl felt out of tune with the world, guilty: amid chaos and destruction his own life ran smoothly. But at least it gave him strength to help others, especially Berka. Hershl drew him out of his private hell and talked to him of world affairs. There was plenty to talk about in those dark years of impending tragedy, nineteen thirty-eight and nineteen thirty-nine.
In China there was war, though the Japanese were retreating; in Spain, Franco was making a final thrust to the Mediterranean and the government forces were all but beaten; in Russia the mock trials and the real executions continued; in Palestine there were riots and massacres. And Chamberlain, that umbrella-carrying hypocrite, was running like an errand boy to Hitler with peace offerings. He reminded Hershl of Joel—he did not tell Berka this—with his moustache and his false smile. In the interests of ‘peace’ he was sacrificing people and lands that were not his to dispose of. While Hitler made a triumphal entry into Austria, he wrote notes of protest. After the Anschluss nobody was safe. The Germans massed on the Czechoslovakian border and wherever Hitler went the persecution of Jews followed.
‘If Chamberlain hopes to satisfy that voracious monster’s appetite,’ Hershl told Berka, ‘with titbits of Austrians, Slavs, Czechs and Jews I, Hershl Singer, no great politician but not a fool either, can inform him that he is making a big mistake: the monster will swallow him up as well, umbrella and all.’
/> ‘And who will listen to Hershl Singer?’ Berka asked, taking out the nails from between his lips. ‘Only Berka Feldman. And mainly because he’s a captive audience behind his last and in danger of swallowing nails if he argues.’
The whole world went deaf and blind while Jewish judges were thrown out of their jobs in Vienna; students forced out of universities by Storm troopers and Jews thrown into jail and deprived of their livelihood. Jewish merchants were made to stand outside their own shops, some of them the greatest and most famous in Vienna, with placards around their necks reading: ‘Do not buy from Jews’. Shops were daubed with stars of David and Hitler Youth offered protection by installing themselves in the shops and purloining the takings.
And names like Sashenhausen, Dachau and Buchenwald were appearing in the newspapers. The atmosphere was heavy with foreboding.
Daily the queues outside the foreign consulates in Vienna grew longer and more desperate. The Swiss announced that they could not take in refugees without means of subsistence; other countries followed suit. And Jews could leave Austria and Germany only by impoverishing themselves. There was an average of a hundred suicides a day among Austrian Jews. Hershl understood but abhorred these suicides.
‘Let them die fighting, protesting, not by their own hands,’ he said to Berka.