by Trevor Sacks
I put the badge down behind the radio and made a pretence of looking for my orange plastic football; he made a pretence of suggesting it might be in the back garden.
‘Okay, I’ll look there,’ I said and turned for the door.
‘You can steal from me, Ben,’ he said.
‘I didn’t,’ I said, facing the door.
‘Yes-thanks.’ It was his ultra-affirmative, I suppose, his catch-all catchphrase. We didn’t know where he got it, or exactly what he meant by it. It was his and only his, and somehow it always seemed to fit.
He still hadn’t looked up from the yellow boot. ‘Better you steal from me. I don’t care. But nobody else.’
‘Yes, Shadrack.’
‘Yes-thanks.’
My second crime hadn’t been as glorious as the first. Roy’s Uptown had seemed like a prank, but this crime had consequences. I began to consider whether the other didn’t, too.
3
THE WOMEN’S ZIONIST LEAGUE RAFFLE
They were always raising funds for Israel in those days. There were always more trees to plant, more desert to reclaim, more settlements to settle, more terrorists to fight.
‘Could be good for business,’ said Will when Ma told him about the Women’s Zionist League raffle. ‘Our name up there. I mean, Abe Kotzen’s got a fleet of trucks, or if we could get in with Friedman – might be worth it.’
Whether it was just Carol’s persistent gnawing at my mother, or Will’s harassment, I can’t say, but when Carol phoned Ma and asked for something to donate as a prize, she agreed.
Elliot, unable to form the words of objection yet, sat stiff and listened. It was a strain for him to be in the same room as Will, but the topic had kept him there.
‘We can’t give brake pads as a prize, though,’ said Will.
‘Clutch kits?’ said Ma.
‘We need something more glitzy.’
‘No, Morgan will never agree to that,’ she said.
‘Morgan only knows how to cut costs. He doesn’t think of the future. You have to spend money to make money. Trust me on this.’
‘Are you serious?’ said Elliot. Ma and Elliot stared at him. Elliot’s interests didn’t usually dip into commerce. He fled the room when no one answered, leaving their shrugs in his trail. Ma and Will brushed off his huff as just another inexplicable revolt.
It was hard enough for Elliot to be understood in his own home, never mind out in the town. Some of Elliot’s ideas were so extreme, I must explain, that most people in our town would not have known enough to be offended by them. Instead, they were clumped together and labelled under one banner to keep things simple. It was a town, after all, of simple tastes. Like steakhouse dinners that bore ‘Medium Rare’ or ‘Well Done’ toothpick flags, Elliot’s particular concoction would have emerged through the kitchen swing doors marked Kommunis.
Anything that wasn’t instantly understood in town was labelled ‘communist’; they stuck that toothpick in Elliot’s rump without a moment’s hesitation. Slight in build, Elliot nevertheless grew up tougher than most of the other Jewish kids, thanks to all the kickings he’d taken.
Afrikaners, and a few English boys too, objected to his kind of communism, a kind that announced itself in rip-sleeved punk T-shirts, earrings, winkle-pickers, chains and studs. More than those, though, I think it was the black coat he sometimes wore, repudiating the Far Northern Transvaal climate, that raised his critics’ temperature highest; it turned them red, though only with rage. The coat: this was the most communist of all.
With Elliot in his room, Ma and Will agreed on a diesel generator as the prize with the biggest impact. It wasn’t a glamorous prize, no, but it was valuable, and truly desirable for many who, for instance, owned weekend-getaway game farms beyond the stretch of power lines.
After Will went back to university in Joburg, Elliot was more able to express himself. At lunch, while Ma handed me a booklet of raffle tickets, he did just that.
‘I can’t believe you would support the Zionist cause like this without asking us.’
‘What, I have to ask your permission to do things?’ asked Ma.
‘Well, it’s coming from the business, the prize, isn’t it? So it’s like I’m donating it too. And I object.’
‘You’ve never cared about the business, Elliot.’
‘Zionism is a fascist cause and I won’t support it.’
‘They’re not fascists, the Women’s Zionist League, Elliot. They asked me to help out – what’s wrong with helping out?’
‘Some people you shouldn’t help.’
‘And it’s not just Israel. They raise funds for other things too.’
‘Like what?’
‘Orphanages.’
‘Jewish orphanages?’
‘I suppose.’
‘What about Palestinian orphans? What about black orphans?’
‘Come on, Elliot. You’re being dramatic.’
‘Oh, so just the Jewish orphans, then? And tanks, missiles, bombers, fighter jets, that sort of thing?’
‘Elliot, Carol asked me very nicely. Ida Rabinowitz from the League is sick and they need some help. You know how Carol helps with taking Ben to cheder. Come on.’
But Elliot was already heading to his bedroom, leaving me and Ma sitting at the table alone.
‘Anyway, I’m not selling these,’ I said, ruffling the tickets with a thumb.
‘What do you know about Israel? Anyway, this isn’t about Israel, it’s about Carol Richler and the raffle. They take you to cheder every week and we owe them.’
‘I hate her, and her stupid daughter. And what do you care if I go to cheder? You don’t believe any of it.’
‘For your father’s side, that’s why. Come on, I got you out of Shoshana’s birthday, didn’t I? And the swimming gala.’
‘Okay.’
‘Your brothers give me enough trouble.’
‘I said okay.’
‘Okay. Just try sell half.’
* * *
Ma suggested I walk door to door, which was safe in most parts of town. I roped in my cousin, Jackie, who was a year older than me, half-Jewish and totally bored. But in the evening I had to hand all the untaken stubs back to Ma.
‘No one wanted them. I tried.’
‘Why are these ones torn already?’ she asked.
‘Because we sold them and then they didn’t want them any more.’
‘Who?’
‘These people at the Indian Plaza.’
Elliot let his fork fall on the plate and produced his shocked look. Jackie and I had tried to go door to door selling the tickets. We walked from her house in Compensatie Street past Dungeon Park with its dust and yellowing grass, skipping most doors based on scant evidence of possible rejection: they had people visiting and probably didn’t want to be disturbed; the whine of a circular saw at the back of the house meant they would never hear the doorbell; their car had the born-again Christian fish badge on the boot.
Jackie had wanted reggae beads, which is how we ended up at the Indian Plaza at the industrial edge of town, near the railway station. It was where Indian shop owners had to move their businesses after the law forced them out of town. Two storeys sat in long rows around square parking lots. Metal signboards of a standard size were riveted flush in a strip over the doorways. There was little of the exotic at the Indian Plaza, except perhaps for one and a half Jewish white kids wandering from shop to shop.
In Jada’s Outfitters, Jackie explained the plastic reggae beads – the red, the yellow, the green – but Mrs Jada didn’t know anything about them.
Jackie, in an enterprising flash, offered the Jadas my raffle tickets and had me list the prizes. ‘A Ford bakkie,’ I said, ‘a diesel generator, a TV, a hi-fi …’
‘Good stuff,’ said Jackie. ‘And it’s for charity.’
Mrs Jada, a woman so beautiful I hardly believed she was hidden behind a counter in an anonymous shop on the edges of town and not lauded somehow in magazines and TV pro
grammes, took pity on us, putting a hand under Jackie’s chin. After its plodding start, the day was working out surprisingly well – Mrs Jada had her flawless hand on my shoulder, this triumph layered with the success of selling most of a booklet of tickets I thought I’d be lumped with forever.
Mrs Jada, Mr Jada and an elderly man I took for Mrs Jada’s father bought several between them and were about to see us out the door when Mr Jada noticed the Star of David on the tickets.
‘What is W.Z.L.?’ he asked.
‘The Women’s Zionist League,’ I said, happy to provide a smart answer and hoping to impress the family of Jadas with my talent for abbreviations.
‘For Israel?’ said Mr Jada.
‘Israel?’ said Grandfather, looking at his son-in-law in case he hadn’t heard right.
They all stood there looking at us. ‘And orphans,’ I said, trying to retrieve additional impressive information.
The Jadas wanted their money back and I had to take back their tickets, separated forevermore from the perforated stubs in the booklet.
‘You tried to sell them to Muslim people?’ said Elliot. ‘You moron. You’re lucky they didn’t string you up. I would’ve.’
‘Elliot,’ said Ma.
‘What?’ said Elliot. ‘I mean, if I was Muslim. Ben, come on, don’t you watch TV? Muslims and Jews? The PLO? The war in Lebanon?’
‘Ja, but our Muslims aren’t like their Muslims,’ I said.
‘Our Muslims? See what you’ve done?’ said Elliot to Ma. He was standing up now.
‘What I’ve done?’ said Ma.
‘The political consciousness in this house is at an all-time low. Are you aware of what’s going on even in your own country? Do you know there’s a State of Emergency? People can be arrested for nothing at all, put in jail for as long as the fascists want. They can search you.’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ asked Ma.
‘Black people have curfews, like children.’
‘Cool it, Elliot—’
‘What are we doing about it?’ asked Elliot loudly. ‘Selling raffle tickets for fucking Israel. Your son is trying to get Muslims to pay for your filthy war. This is what you get for associating with Zionists.’
He walked out the room.
‘Stop calling them Zionists,’ she shouted after him. ‘It’s Carol and Aunty Phyllis and the rest. You know them.’ Turning to me, she said, ‘Ben – don’t go to the Indian Plaza any more unless you’re with me or Elliot, okay? Now I suppose I’ll have to buy the ones that have already been pulled out and give them away.’
‘Jackie wanted reggae beads and we were there already. I didn’t know.’
‘Okay, we’ll sort it out. I’ll explain. Which shop? Do you remember?’
‘I think it’s the one we went to for Elliot’s bar mitzvah outfit.’
‘Jesus, Ben.’
* * *
Joss and I sat next to each other on the gritty hardwood floor while Mr Groenewald, the headmaster, told a boy to shut the assembly hall doors. I didn’t tell Joss about what had happened at the Indian Plaza. He probably knew it wasn’t a good idea to sell Women’s Zionist League raffle tickets to Muslims. The pinched expression on Mrs Jada’s face still stung. It was embarrassing that I hadn’t taken in Elliot’s views about Zionism, though he’d laid them out often enough. These things just didn’t seem a part of my childhood world.
‘I can’t sell those fucking things,’ I whispered to Joss. ‘Nobody wants them.’
‘I got rid of mine at Friday night dinner. One shot.’
‘Who’m I gonna sell them to?’
‘Hey, you know who you should try? Leo Fein. After the thing at Roy’s he’ll definitely help you.’
‘He’s probably got already. Anyway, I can’t just pitch up and ask him. And I don’t know where he lives.’
‘I know,’ said Joss. ‘I’ll come with you.’
Mr Groenewald commenced his announcement. ‘This is a very serious job. That is why we have chosen you, because it is serious and we think you can be responsible. You might know that there are elements in our land who want to destabilise things, destroy what we’ve built here and cause chaos. They don’t want to talk, they use violence.
‘Boys and girls, there are terrorists who are trying to take away our country. They don’t come out and fight, like soldiers. They use bombs, and they run away. That is why we must be vigilant. Do you all know what “vigilant” means? It means we must use our eyes, we must use our ears, and if there is anything funny, you must always tell a teacher.’
Frequent mention of the words ‘limpet mine’ on TV news, and culminating in two explosions in a bar and restaurant in a coastal city, seemed to agitate a particular paranoia in some of the town’s adults. For twelve-year-olds, though, with shorter timelines to reference, it seemed normal; after all, normal is just what you’re presented with.
Mr Groenewald showed us a kind of chart, which we’d become quite used to seeing in schools and other government buildings. It was a three-dimensional moulded plastic poster that displayed full-colour representations of various explosives: a limpet mine, a hand grenade, a stick grenade, a landmine, an oily letter bomb, a block of plastique.
‘If you see anything strange, tell us immediately. Someone puts down a strange packet: you tell us. You hear people talking about something that could be dangerous to you, your friends, your family or your school: you tell us.’
We were broken into groups and told we’d have to come in to school fifteen minutes early from now on, to patrol the area we were assigned. Barry Jennings and Georgina Melck were in my group, and our area of inspection included a passageway at one end of the school offices and the foyer of the school hall.
I’d always felt drawn to Gina, or at least ever since I’d heard the story of her mother having tried to kill herself. This gave her a darkness, a hidden life, a complexity and a gravity that were rare and appealing.
I don’t know whether this story was true because neither I nor anyone I knew was brave enough to ask her. That she was beautiful was not even something I considered. She was unusual, and that, to me, was more important.
We did know that her parents were divorced and even that seemed unusual in our town. I liked the blackness of her hair, how boldly it had chosen its hue – not in an is-it-black-or-just-dark-brown way, but an extreme, definite, saturated black. You knew where you stood with that hair. And not only that, but Gina had a fine rasp to her voice that scared me but held a promise I couldn’t quite grasp at the time.
* * *
After Mrs Dorfman dropped Joss off at my house that afternoon, we walked up Ireland Street, past the house with the half-built boat that had sat half-built forever in the yard, past the reservoir, and over Potgieter Street, so long and straight it ended nowhere.
On the other side was Bendor, a newer section of town – or at least it seemed so, because the face-brick here was brighter, rougher, redder, and there were thickly painted walls like slabs of plastic. The lawns were spongy and sliced by driveways of interlocking paving stones leading to shaded entrances. Baby palms with brush cuts and fan-tailed cycads were in beds of dark soil and each garden was edged with considerate, sloping kerbs.
We came to one of those face-brick houses, one with a kind of rounded tower that rose out of a flower bed. We could hear voices and laughter from the back – men’s voices. Joss rang the bell and the voices died. I heard a chair scrape and footsteps, and could imagine Leo Fein walking through the house towards us. He opened the door and looked from Joss to me and back again.
My trepidation in approaching Leo Fein was not born merely of shyness, but lay in my dread of his reaction to my arrival at his front door: after our joint escapade, how would he react? Would he be angry? Should I be laying low? Worse, would he even remember me?
‘Boys,’ he said, ‘what can I do for you?’
I took the booklet from my pocket and said, ‘Would you like to buy some raffle tickets?’
‘Raffle? For what?’
‘For the Women’s Zionist League,’ I said.
‘For Israel,’ said Joss. The Dorfmans had a natural grasp of the power of dramatic presentation.
‘For Israel, hey? Come with me, boys. Today might be your lucky day. Maybe we can do some business here.’ He led us into his house. ‘Want some juice?’
‘Ja, please,’ said Joss. We could hear the laughter of men who smoked heavily coming from beyond the sliding doors to the patio. The tiled room where we stood had a high ceiling and the biggest TV I’d ever seen. To my right were double doors that led to a room, somewhat darkened. I pointed inside to Joss, who followed my finger with his eyes and nodded, impressed.
It was a study with a heavy desk, and floating around it, like the recreation of a WWI dogfight, were stuffed birds – eagles and hawks and such, swooping and hovering, some perched. I froze at the threshold of the sanctum sanctorum with its aerobatic, deathly tableaux. The glass eyes saw beyond their prey, beyond time, beyond me.
Leo Fein came out propping a tray with our juices and an ice bucket on one arm and closing the door to the study with his free hand. He landed a look on me, a brief consideration, and I wondered what it meant: an enquiry as to my identity, or an offer of advice. But it was Ma he asked about instead.
‘She’s fine,’ I answered.
‘Good. Let’s go, boys.’ We took our glasses and followed him to the patio.
Around a wrought iron table sat three men, all tanned, all smoking. One was in his early sixties with grey hair at his temples and a cleft chin, wearing Aviator sunglasses. The other two both wore sandals, one in a safari suit and the other, with curly hair almost to his shoulders, in denim shorts. A bottle of Johnnie Walker Black stood more than half-empty in the centre of the table.
‘Gents,’ said Leo Fein to his guests, ‘these are our town’s finest Jewish boys. Say hello.’
We shook hands with each of them.
‘Transvaal Jode,’ said the man with the sunglasses. ‘Just like you, hey, Fein? Boerejode. Glad to meet you.’
The other two barely spoke and when they did it was with accents I couldn’t place. French, maybe.