by Trevor Sacks
Will gave a great sigh, and this became his hallmark whenever he was thinking about the terrible foolishness with which our mother had acted. Ma wouldn’t stand for any more head-on criticism, not from her son, and so Will resorted to this single mannerism, expressing in a breath how he felt about the whole affair.
I pulled the next gift envelope out to examine what I needed to write. This one, in a beautiful hand on Lion Brand letter paper, read:
Dear Ben,
Mazel Tov! Well done on your Bar Mitzvah. You’re a man now.
Leo Fein
Out fluttered two crisp fifty-Israeli-shekel notes, which I hid under my stack of thank yous. No more letters, I resolved, and with a twist I housed the point of my fourteen-carat, gold-electroplated Sheaffer pen.
* * *
The information about the demise of our family fortune, such as it was, filled me drop by drop, and it wasn’t long before I was heavy with it.
I never asked my mother to explain in detail what had happened and how our future was withering, for fear it might draw confession from me. I deduced that she’d given Leo Fein money and he’d promised to return it with a profit. My mother, for her part, never sat me down to tell me about it, I suppose because she wanted to protect me, or felt the situation could yet be saved, or was simply too heavy with her own feelings.
We generally gave her space since none of her sons were equipped to comfort her in that other loss she’d suffered. It must have hurt and embarrassed her to be left by a man, whatever the circumstances. This she bore alone.
I speak only for myself and Will because we were present. Elliot was concentrating on his final high school year in Johannesburg while the family’s finances came apart. He’d never had the slightest interest in the business, or its money, or any money whatsoever, actually. All that mattered to him then was his portfolio and it was impressive enough by the end of that year to earn him a scholarship at a London art college. It cheered Ma up to hear it, although its effect was attenuated by the knowledge that we’d be losing him too.
I also had my final exams to think about at that time. It was only primary school but it was the last year of it before I entered high school. In the selfish way of children, I was able to sequester myself to some degree in my own affairs.
But the information kept dripping in and exams didn’t last forever. By the end Morgan had advised us starkly of our situation. We were to cut a new notch for belt-tightening and we moved out of our house to a townhouse in Uncle Victor’s part of town, near the municipal swimming pool.
When my friends came to visit, I told them, ‘They’re using our old house for something. It’s just for a while and then we’ll move back.’ Much of our furniture was gone, and what remained seemed oversized in the new place. It felt for a short while like we were on a trip, but the absence of familiar spaces and objects made me homesick for our house on Jorissen Street. Worst of all was the absence of Shadrack.
Ma had asked Victor to help and my uncle put him to work in his concrete wall business. I missed Shadrack’s crematorium cuisine, and his steadfastness, especially as my mother underwent her transformation. She didn’t talk about art or politics or ideas any more. She barely talked at all.
I only ever invited Markos, Roger and Sean to the townhouse once. Whether it was they who were uncomfortable in the small space or me is hard to judge but we went to the municipal pool together that afternoon instead of hanging around the house. After that, we spent our Fridays at Markos’s or Sean’s.
As for Leo Fein, he hadn’t been seen since my bar mitzvah. Only Uncle Victor talked about him. We went over to my uncle’s house more often, sometimes twice a week for dinner, and he’d say to Ma, ‘Jeez, that was a lucky escape you had with that Fein character, hey Sis?’
Ma’s lips would tighten and she’d be quiet, no doubt hoping the moment would pass or that Aunty Bernice would change the topic.
‘I mean, it could’ve been worse, hey?’ he said. ‘I hear he’s in Tel Aviv now. His son even had to leave. “Exiles”, they’re calling them.’ At this he let out a contemptuous puff of air. ‘I wonder what nonsense he’s up to there.’
Jackie and I would sit in her room, listening to records and looking at a map of the world to see where we’d rather be, or play in the garden. More than ever we wanted to be away from our parents, with Victor and Bernice in the final bitter stages of their marriage.
We were doing handstands out in the garden one evening in the glare of the square light that hung under the eaves.
‘Did you get some cool stuff for your bar mitzvah?’ she asked.
‘Some. I got some books and the tape player. And a bit of money.’
‘What are you gonna buy with it?’
‘Nothing yet. It’s in an investment.’
‘For what?’
‘For the business. Will says I’ll get it back when I’m eighteen.’
‘You can stay here if you want.’
‘Why would I stay here?’
‘In case you don’t like it at your new place.’
‘I like it there. It’s cool.’
‘You don’t have a pool. You can’t even fit your stuff into the house.’
‘It’s just temporary. Until things are okay with the business.’
‘My dad says you have to sell the business.’
‘Your dad’s got a big mouth. And he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.’
While Jackie was upside down I pulled on her arm, to make her fall. She toppled over and there was an immediate change in the way her face reflected that garden light. She began crying and I ran inside to tell Aunty Bernice.
Bernice, a former nurse, had decided Jackie had a broken wrist and the X-ray at the hospital proved her right. I cried longer than Jackie that night, and the next day I came in timid and fragile to visit. I said sorry to her, managing – just – to look her in the face. It came as some relief that no one seemed quite as upset as I was, and they laughed at my sheepishness.
The break between Jackie and me healed far quicker than her wrist, which was fortunate, with our respective troubles. Victor and Bernice drifted from each other like ice sheets, Victor into the warming waters of a new relationship and Bernice increasingly into isolation. Bernice grabbed the one thing she could, Jackie, and moved to Johannesburg.
Eventually, with Victor’s empty house and our empty pockets, it made sense to move in with him when he offered. This situation – like the townhouse and, indeed, the sale of Great North Diesel and Auto Electric – was always meant to be a staging point on the way to improvement. And it was easy to feel this was true under Will’s spell. He always had a great, sweeping effect on our mood when he was home because he made us believe we’d been successful once and were worthy of it still. It was inevitable, in fact.
Our house in Jorissen Street was gone and Will was in negotiations to sell the business off, although it was looking more and more likely that it would be sold piecemeal, the parts fetching a greater sum than the whole; our debts to the bank had not gone away and the business, as a going concern, wasn’t what it used to be.
Increasingly, a legal pursuit to recover our lost money from Leo Fein became the only option for us. Ma was not willing to engage but Will took up the fight. He spent costly hours in lawyers’ chambers. It settled into a long-running chase, the patterns of it emerging, becoming routine. It would be a lengthy process, the lawyers assured us.
* * *
The loss of our home on Jorissen Street, taken on its own, I could have endured. But it was Ma’s reduced state that truly distressed me. She represented so much of the world’s promise to me – a woman who’d travelled, who’d studied, who’d created, who felt the injustices of our country but was crushed now by injustices of her own. She was hurt and diminished.
In some sense, her own diminution had a parallel effect on me. In the years that followed, my prospects narrowed. I was shackled, too, with the guilt of being the one responsible for Leo Fein’s arre
st, for the dissolution of Great North, for Shadrack’s upheaval and, ultimately, for Ma’s state.
I couldn’t confide in her, though it was exactly what I needed. Instead of unburdening myself, I was dragged down by that weight in my teenage years. There was little point in struggling to surface, to hope.
* * *
The year after my bar mitzvah, Ma and I travelled to Joburg to see Elliot off to London. We met Will at the Turffontein racetrack, where he worked for a bookmaker named Skamandrios to pay for his studies, and the four of us went to the airport together. Elliot had an army-surplus rucksack leaning against him as we sat in the cafeteria overlooking the planes. We all ate chips with a glowing tomato sauce off a paper plate.
‘You still going to shul, Jewboy?’ asked Elliot.
‘No,’ I said.
‘Knew it would wear off.’ It had worn off immediately after the bar mitzvah, in fact – as he’d said, as I’d sworn it wouldn’t. It was a relief not to be bound to going to cheder and, especially, Saturday morning services (which were surely a sign of a vengeful God, if He existed at all, to take up such a valuable part of the week). I missed the Rabbi but not the religion and even the nightly recitation of Sh’ma Yisrael had slipped away.
God Himself had slipped away, and with surprising ease. He was on holiday after shul (or I was from Him), and while I still thought it possible that He was there, it was significant that He hadn’t actually been there through my family’s crisis.
I’d prayed for God to remove Leo Fein, but I knew it had been me, not Him. In truth, I never expected Him to show up, since my family’s rationalism marinated me to the bone, whether I wanted it to or not.
The burden of belief had fallen to me to save my heathen family, to even out the points with the Great Scorekeeper on their behalf. But all the while it had been a heavy cloak, a garment that didn’t suit me, didn’t fit me, scratched me inside it. So I threw it off; I shucked religion, and was lighter for it.
‘How are the lawyers?’ asked Elliot.
‘Stealing our money faster than Leo Fein,’ said Will.
Elliot sneered. ‘You gonna to keep going after him?’
‘Fuck yes, I’m going after him. It’s our fucking money, Elliot.’
‘Shh, Will,’ said Ma, looking around at the other tables. She had never been one to worry over swearing but resorted to an act of prudishness now to avoid the conflict between her sons.
We ate our chips.
‘Of course I’m keeping after it,’ said Will again, unable to quell the defence of his mission. ‘That’s what needs to be done. And who else is gonna do it?’
‘Why don’t we just let it go?’ said Elliot.
‘Yes,’ said Ma. ‘Just let it go.’
‘No,’ said Elliot, ‘I mean the money. Let the money go, get on with our lives.’
‘So you’re fine,’ said Will, ‘and so that’s okay then, is it? What about us? And what about when you come back, with a useless degree and can’t get a job? I’m not bailing you out.’
‘I’m not asking you to. And who says I’m coming back?’ Elliot quit the chips. ‘And I do care. That’s why I’m saying, forget about it, it’s only going to make you miserable and bitter. Just do something else.’
‘Daddy built that business from nothing. You just want to throw it away?’
‘Well, Daddy’s not here, is he?’
‘You’re a baby,’ said Will. ‘You don’t know what the real world is. But you’ll find out eventually. I’ve got to get this off.’
Rubbing the tomato-sauce stains on his fingers with a thin paper napkin, Will left the table and strode in the direction of the men’s.
Besides the idea that my father had been a good man, there was still little I knew for certain about him, except that he hung over us, even in death. He was a gap that everyone tried to fill with their memory of him and which contained, inevitably I suppose, a large part of themselves.
‘We wouldn’t be in this mess if Daddy was around,’ said Ma. ‘Sometimes I agree with you, Elliot. But Will’s right, too. It’s our money.’
‘That money is the result of a system of inequality and oppression.’
‘We’re not Randlords, Elliot. We didn’t build a mining empire on the backs of black labour.’
‘Maybe not directly, but you can bet things were easier for us than they could have been. Should have been. I’m glad we lost it.’
‘And what about your brother here?’ she said, indicating me. ‘Who’s going to feed him? How is he supposed to get to university?’
Never before had the implications of our fall slapped me in the face like they did then. I’d heard the conversations about the present straits, but no one had come out and said anything about the future. It’s an indication of the level of agitation with Elliot my mother felt then, too; she’d always tried to protect me before.
‘People in worse situations do it,’ said Elliot. ‘It’ll be good for us all.’
Will returned, his fingers still carrying the tomato-sauce stains.
‘Elliot,’ said Ma, ‘I’m proud of you and what you’re doing. And I even envy you for how you feel. But don’t impose those feelings on us. At least give your brother here a chance to see for himself. To have the same things you had, growing up, let me remind you.’
‘Why don’t you ask him what he wants?’ said Elliot. ‘Ben?’
I didn’t think Ma would indulge this question from Elliot but she turned to me and waited. She’d always been the one who’d known how to fix things between us all but she’d lost something and was looking at me – to me – for an answer. Will and Elliot waited, too.
In that moment, with that question hanging there, I didn’t think at all about what I wanted. I cravenly groped for the right answer, not even knowing what my answer was.
Without Leo Fein to hunt, there’d be no reminder of my part in the family’s ruin. And maybe Elliot was right and we’d adjust to a reduced way of life without too much consequence.
But nobody wants their options picked off like ducks at a shooting gallery and so, motivated by fear for myself, and for Will and Ma (because what would there be now, without the business, the house, the savings, the policies, and even without the hope of catching Leo Fein?), I said: ‘I think we should get our money back.’
* * *
We’d moved in with Victor and so Shadrack had no house to clean or garden to tend, and no backroom in Jorissen Street to live in. Victor had his own gardener, a man named Jeffrey whom I used to watch roll his tobacco in yellowing newspaper. But one afternoon, we saw Shadrack with him in Victor’s backyard.
Shadrack was carrying his tins of glue, the slender hammer and his lasts to fix Jeffrey’s shoes. ‘You’re big now, Ben,’ he said to me. ‘A man.’
I shook my head. ‘No.’
‘No,’ he said, too.
‘How is Elliot?’
‘He’s gone overseas now, Shadrack.’
‘Yes-thanks. That’s good. And William?’
‘He’s okay. He’s working in Joburg. Studying still.’
Shadrack laughed. ‘He’s too naughty, that one,’ he said, although I didn’t quite understand why Will amused him. To most people I knew, Elliot was the naughty one. But Shadrack, perhaps from some deeper knowledge that came from tending us all as boys, knew more about us than we did, than even our mother did.
Ma came into the garden and almost as soon as she saw him, she began to cry.
‘Oh, Shadrack,’ she said. ‘What has happened to you?’
‘You mustn’t cry now. People have to walk still, so I fix their shoes.’ But Shadrack wiped his own eyes with a handkerchief. ‘My eye,’ he said.
‘Is it okay?’ asked Ma.
‘It’s better.’
‘Where do you live now, Shadrack?’ she asked. ‘Can you stay with your wife? She still works for Viljoen?’
‘If I come to town, I stay with my wife. Otherwise, I go home for the family.’
Shadrack’s wife
was his second, Ma told me, and she lived in the backroom of the house she cleaned in town instead of with Shadrack. We saw her seldom but knew she was an elegant woman, mostly from their wedding photograph.
The rest of Shadrack’s family lived in a village about forty kilometres away, but he was always unclear about which of his relations lived there, and at some point I stopped trying to figure it out. So much separated us besides our new living arrangements.
‘But when do we go home?’ asked Shadrack. ‘Back to Jorissen Street?’
‘I don’t know, Shadrack,’ said Ma. ‘We lost a lot of money, you know. We lost Great North.’
‘Yes-thanks.’
‘Will is getting it back for us,’ I said.
Ma was silent.
‘Ben,’ said Shadrack, ‘it’s a blessing to be rich, and it’s a blessing to be poor; even to have nothing.’
‘How can you say it’s a blessing?’ I asked.
‘Because then you are clear,’ he said, tapping his hand over his heart. ‘You understand?’
I nodded.
‘Yes-thanks.’
But I didn’t agree; I wasn’t clear. Simply losing everything wouldn’t rinse clean the crevices of my scheming heart and brain, and nothing could wash my innards of the guilt I felt for ruining the Aronbachs, Shadrack and – for better or for worse – Leo Fein.
1992
1
KARATEKA
Guilt pulled at my insides for a long time after my bar mitzvah, and every small decline in our fortunes in the years thereafter tugged on the viscera further.
First losing the business, then losing the house I grew up in; the family holidays, reduced from great coastal expanses of time to the hot springs at Tshipise with its pee-temperature swimming pools – all were physical reminders of our comedown.
I didn’t get to talk much to Ma about our family’s new situation since Uncle Victor and Nadine were always around. The affair had started when Nadine began to visit Victor’s cement wall business regularly, doing her rounds as a rep for a corporate gifts firm – branded mugs, keyrings and so on.