Lucky Packet

by Trevor Sacks

  I hadn’t seen her so excited, so willing, to spend on things we didn’t need. She was used to tightening belts under Morgan’s orders, not picking them out from clothing store racks. This was a woman who, only a few years before, hadn’t allowed me to wear the nice jersey just anytime, but made me save it for special occasions, so that I’d worn it exactly twice by the time I outgrew it.

  I became the frugal one in the Jadas’ shop, unsure of buying two shirts, when one would surely do for Friday night and Saturday morning, and finally accepting the jeans and the new belt in the headiness of this process of being newly fitted. We walked out with several bags and not a stitch of burgundy.

  The family started arriving on Friday at about lunchtime, the cousins and aunts and uncles from Joburg and Rustenburg, all for me – for one important event in my life that my mother and brothers disregarded as a developmental milestone.

  But we all forgot about those details because you always do when humans get to socialise, whatever the excuse: bar mitzvah, church service, voting. Smiles have been seen, even, at funerals.

  I was swept up in this warm, familial bonhomie all the way to shul. I wasn’t even nervous on the way there, and being on the bimah instead of looking up at it felt comfortable, even right. Seeing my family in their seats under the star lights of the shul lampshades, I knew they were all rooting for me. There was nothing to be nervous about.

  I sang – we sang – and the songs are better on a Friday night. The sound wove itself strongly around my ears and I listened for the unfamiliar voices of my uncles, singing for me. It was a triumph.

  Between my duties I would look up and see the ladies in their evening wear, and once I even locked eyes with my Uncle Isaac, who had tears in his.

  After the service, the Rabbi was complimentary about how I’d commanded the bimah and sung with strength. My aunts kissed me and uncles shook me by the hand, shook me to elation.

  That was Friday night’s service: over in the blast of a chorus.

  The family returned to our house for dinner. Conversations weren’t centred on me any more. I suppose the bar mitzvah boy can only generate so much discussion in a weekend.

  And Leo Fein was there. Would Ma be talking to him if she knew the underhanded business of his life? Would any of the uncles around the table be listening to his anecdotes and assessments?

  It was too much to expect that the note would’ve had any effect. Whether Mr Coetzee had even found it in his briefcase, or whether he would have acted at all had he found it – I suspected I’d left too much to chance.

  I watched Ma and Leo Fein answer my uncles’ questions about business in town. Her face, I had to concede, was like a rose. So trampled is that metaphor of beauty, mystery and the feminine that I hesitate to use it here, but I do because I suppose it was then that I understood why it had been grabbed at by so many hands.

  I laid my Friday-night outfit across the chair at my desk, recited Sh’ma and went to bed.

  * * *

  Whatever had carried me aloft into shul on Friday night was gone by Saturday morning. There in the empty shul on the plush red carpet, the velvet curtains hiding the ark with the scrolls of twisted letters, the women’s balcony looming above me, that’s when the full and solemn weight of Sabbath bore down on me. It was not so much a fear of the Lord as a general, urgent and undirected fear.

  My uncles and the Rabbi were talking about the order of events, who is called up when and which section follows after the last one; all the things I’d almost grasped in cheder frayed into confusion again. And I had the time to think of all the eyes that would be staring at me.

  By the time the congregation started to arrive my throat had shrivelled, and seeing the Jewry’s eyes on me in the light of a holy Saturday morning gave me a shudder, along with the crushing feeling of impending judgement; I was sure to be found unworthy and my uncles and aunts would side against me, because we are Jews first, nephews second.

  In the year before my bar mitzvah, I’d collected what scraps I could about what it was to be a Jew, to paper them over myself for this one day. My ignorance and ineptitude were sure to show through the chinks. I wondered then, quite seriously – had anyone ever failed a bar mitzvah? I was a pretender to the bimah and was sure to be found out in this test of manhood.

  Elliot looked grim at having to enter the shul again and his yarmulke sat at an angle. He wore proper jackets in those days, the kind he’d refused to wear at his own bar mitzvah, but also earrings and hair that stood stiff in various directions.

  Will came in behind him. ‘Think of the cash,’ he said in a whisper.

  Everything I’d tried to remember about the order of the liturgy fled from me as I walked up the stairs of the altar. I was left blank. The Rabbi may have cued me, I can’t be certain, but almost without me knowing about it, I’d begun.

  What is there to say about leading the service as a thirteen-year-old except that it’s excruciating? I couldn’t look up into the women’s faces or down at the men’s for fear of losing my place. I felt the anxiety of not having the Rabbi next to me, guiding my voice and my hand with his own convulsing limb. To some extent it felt as if I were watching a movie of it all, entitled My Bar Mitzvah.

  I began with a strong voice and concentrated on the cantillation, the turns and trills. But before I’d reached the third line I’d slipped into a comfortable monotone, the extremes of the melody having being flattened to a middling drone.

  Whatever adrenalin I’d manufactured had time to dissipate. I noticed then that I was leaning my chin on my hand, propped up by my elbow next to the scroll. I had to lift my head to shake myself out of the stupor. My Bar Mitzvah was dragging.

  For the first time, I had the courage to look into the faces – women above, men below – and saw they were as bored as I was. Ma had been right: nobody listens.

  But the reading was done; somehow I’d reached the end. The memory I have of walking out of the shul, although obviously inaccurate, is a wide shot of the double doors bursting open and releasing me, the congregation like a wave behind me. The relief was enormous.

  I was flooded with aunties’ lipstick kisses and mazel tovs. Sean and Markos and Joss were there in their own smart clothes, shaking my hand. Besides the handshakes and kisses, men plied me with envelopes and women with wrapped gifts.

  I walked down to the hall, surrounded by my friends, and Elliot and Will helped carry some of the presents. On placing my spoils on a table inside the hall, I had to face first one and then another person I would usually rather have avoided. But in that moment of release and elation, with the service behind me, it surprised me how welcoming and gracious I felt towards them both.

  Shoshana was already at the table and made sure I was there to see her place a rectangular gift in shiny blue wrapping on top of the other boxes. ‘So you’re a man now,’ she said.

  ‘Well, at least it’s over with.’

  ‘You were average.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Are you still gonna come to shul?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, although I hadn’t thought that far ahead; the bar mitzvah had been such a finite point.

  ‘Well, see you around.’ She walked past the buffet table with the pink fish mould, the gefilte fish, the salads and fanned slices of cucumber and carrot prepared by the ladies of the Jewish Women’s Guild. She walked to her table in the hall, decorated like all the others in blue and white and silver, and sat next to Carol, who blew me a kiss.

  ‘That your girlfriend?’ said Leo Fein, who appeared next to me.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘She’s not.’

  ‘I bet you’ve got a few after you, hey? This is for you, china. Mazel tov, boy.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, taking an envelope from him.

  ‘I was watching you up on the bimah. You were a man – but I knew it already. I could see a long time ago you’re good under pressure. Proud of you, my boy,’ said Leo Fein and he walked through the hall, greeting a few people in that
easy, almost sloppy, manner of his. Again, I couldn’t help a little of the old admiration I’d felt for him at our first meeting returning. I buried a sudden pang of guilt for sending the anonymous note of betrayal.

  But a new anxiety shot through me: the speech. It was as if none of what I’d just been through in the shul counted for anything. I’d achieved nothing at all, nothing that could help me deliver a speech in my own language to an attentive audience. All the goodwill that had swelled around me and held me aloft after the service broke up was sucked away again and I was left alone as if on a frigid, empty beach.

  I ate very little of the starter and felt in my pocket for the speech, written in full on two A4 sheets, and in point form on reference cards.

  Ma never liked speaking in front of an audience, so Will said he’d say a toast in my honour. I’m sure he said pleasant and encouraging things, probably made a joke at my expense; I fiddled with the reference cards and a button on my jacket and smiled a lot.

  I rose and took out the speech on the A4 sheets – the cards weren’t in the same pocket any more. ‘Rabbi Fischer, the Hebrew congregation, Mom, my family and friends,’ I began. The order was important. ‘I’d like to thank you all for coming to my bar mitzvah.’ Now that I’d started reading, I wasn’t going to stop and try to recite the thing. I heard shuffling, I heard coughing, but all I saw were the words. My eyes never moved from the page and up into the faces of the luncheon guests in the hall of blue and white and silver.

  ‘The ladies of the Jewish Guild have done a wonderful job with the delicious food.’ There were a few claps. My left hand twiddled my jacket button. ‘I’d like to thank my family for travelling from Johannesburg and Rustenburg.’ A list of names followed. ‘And especially my Uncle Victor who came all the way from Compensatie Street.’

  There were a few laughs and my uncle Victor shouted out, ‘Hey, you bloody terrorist!’

  ‘In Jewish tradition, thirteen is when a boy becomes a man. I’ve been a man for …’ – the page said ‘[look at watch]’ and I made a show of looking at it – ‘ … ten minutes now, and boy have things changed.’ There was polite laughter.

  In the brief moment when I glanced away from the words to turn a page, I saw a few people looking off in the direction of the door to the side. ‘So if anyone wants to buy me a whisky and a cigar, see me after the speech.’

  Two men sporting prominent moustaches stood at the door, surveying the room. One wore a blue suit and a wide tie with an orange floral print, the other a brown suit and brown tie. They were large and serious and loomed over the guests as they traced their way between the tables, scanning.

  ‘But seriously, I look forward to my new responsibilities as a Jewish man, and being a part of the community.’ I glanced up again. The two men walked over to Leo Fein. ‘I’d like to make a toast,’ I said, skipping ahead to the end.

  People’s eyes were on Leo Fein, no longer on me. One of the moustachioed men was whispering into Leo Fein’s ear with a cupped hand while his partner stood at ease, in the military sense.

  People rose to lift their glasses while I made an Irish toast – it’s what I found in Will’s book of Jokes, Toasts and Speeches. No one remembers what it was because, although one or two managed to say ‘cheers’ and drink and clap, their eyes and minds were clearly on Leo Fein being escorted out of the shul hall by the men with wide ties and moustaches.

  I tucked away the speech. I no longer had to say things in front of people, or sing or chant or remember the order of the service or remember to thank everyone. I stopped and watched, with everyone else, Leo Fein leaving.

  The note had hit its target, was all I thought, and I wished it hadn’t. Ma looked scared and sent Will off to find out what he could. As everyone lined up for the gefilte fish and salads, the talk was about how those two men had lifted Leo Fein up under his armpits. Government men, they said.

  Could a stupid little note be so powerful an instrument, I thought. I was dismayed at what a stupid little boy I was. I wasn’t a man at all. I was a baby giant set loose in the city with clumsy, destructive limbs, toppling buildings and towers, strewing cars in its play. More than that, I was a coward.

  I wanted to retract whatever power I had conjured with that note and hated the vain satisfaction I’d felt with myself over selecting those words at the time of writing.

  * * *

  No photograph exists to record my outfit or my expression, haggard or relieved, after the bar mitzvah. There was too much to think about besides the bar mitzvah, I suppose. Even though I was meant to be the main attraction, Leo Fein had stolen the show and, as it turned out, a large part of the family fortune.

  11

  A HUNDRED SHEKELS

  I was frightened by my mother’s state after Leo Fein’s disappearance. If I could have anticipated how it would have affected her, I would never have thought of intervening. The best I could do now, I decided, would be to remain silent on the whole matter.

  Over the days that followed, I hoped her sadness would abate but it only worsened and transformed into fear. That desperation is not something I can bear to think about for too long, but it formed a presence in the next stage in my family’s history and must be represented in the telling. Memories of that portion of my life play out like a dream in which your teeth crumble and fall out and there’s nothing you can do to save them.

  There were so many phone calls and meetings between Ma and Will and Morgan in those days, one worse than the next in its news and effect. One of these took place on a Thursday evening. The three of them talked in the living room while I lay on the carpet writing my thank yous.

  In front of me I had the stack of cards, envelopes and presents so I’d know whom to thank and for what. Just when I thought every ordeal of the bar mitzvah was over, there was this last one.

  Dear Mr and Mrs Markowitz [or Kotzen or Friedman or Hirschowitz or Schultz – there were so many letters just like to this one],

  Thank you so much for attending my Bar Mitzvah. It meant so much to have you there on my special day [and so on]. Thanks also for your thoughtful present – that pen is going to come in very handy with all these thank you notes! [Or whatever other dimly appropriate sign-off I could think of.]

  Yours sincerely,

  Benjamin Aronbach

  I had a clutch of pens – for some reason, the standard bar mitzvah present of the day. There were a few cheques and some cash, a book of quotations, and a Remington shaver that would have no use for another five years. Writing in a large hand to fill up the blue, absorbent letter paper, I listened in on the conversation the adults were having.

  ‘We’ll find him, Margot,’ said Morgan.

  ‘What if we don’t?’ asked Will.

  Morgan didn’t answer, the unnatural optimism he’d displayed a moment earlier evidently having a draining effect on him.

  ‘We have to be realistic,’ said Will. ‘We have to look at what we’ve got, and where we can go from here. How do things stand with the property?’

  ‘Van Jaarsveld will have the deed soon,’ said Morgan. Ma looked at her hands. ‘Got connections with the council.’

  ‘It wasn’t a fair price,’ said Will.

  ‘She said she needed the money urgently. That’s the compromise. Price had to come down.’

  ‘I know, but come on.’

  ‘Was signed, William. Can’t be reversed now.’

  ‘So we just lose our property, like that?’

  ‘Afraid so. Now, they’ve sent through a lease.’

  ‘Already?’

  ‘Short term.’

  ‘How short?’

  ‘Six months.’

  ‘They want us out?’

  ‘Have plans, I suppose.’

  ‘They’re kicking us out of our own property?’

  ‘It’s their right.’

  ‘We have to fight this.’

  ‘Don’t see how. They want us out. They have plans.’

  ‘Braam van Jaarsveld’s wanted that land
for a long time. Wants to build a hotel.’

  ‘Margot,’ said Morgan, ‘have you heard from him? Fein?’

  ‘No, Morgan,’ she said. ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘Best bet is to try get something back from him. Beast of a man.’

  ‘Bloody crook,’ said Will.

  I could see Ma’s blood rise at this rare show of unity between Will and Morgan, a unity they’d last displayed when the prospect of Leo Fein in Ma’s life was an irresistible dinner table joke. ‘No, I haven’t heard from him,’ she said. ‘I don’t expect you hear from people in exile. Or worse. We don’t know what he’s been through – it could be something much more terrible than we’re facing. You saw those policemen – you don’t know what they’ve done to him. None of us know.’

  ‘Ma, if you do hear from him, though, we have to get it back. One way or another. Even if the business makes money—’

  ‘—which it isn’t,’ said Morgan.

  ‘—Van Jaarsveld won’t give us an extension and we’ll be out on our arses. Leo Fein has to give back the money. What did he tell you he was doing with it anyway?’

  Ma folded her arms. ‘I told you. An investment, that’s all.’

  There was a silent moment as everyone, I suppose, considered their own capacity for foolishness and credulity. My forearm ached from the cursive script of the thank yous, but it was no match for the squeeze I felt over my chest.

  ‘You’re sure you haven’t heard from him?’ asked Will.

  Ma folded her face into her hands.

  ‘See if you can speak to Van Jaarsveld, Morgan,’ said Will. ‘At least for some more time.’

  ‘Won’t do any good. But I’ll try.’

  ‘God, Margot,’ said Will. ‘That was a really stupid thing.’

  ‘I know it was,’ she said. ‘I don’t need to be reminded of it.’