Lola Bensky

by Lily Brett

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Lola.

  ‘You should ask them,’ Linda said.

  ‘I haven’t got any relatives apart from my parents to ask,’ Lola said.

  ‘Well, ask your parents,’ said Linda.

  ‘She’s going to,’ said Lillian.

  ‘My father’s family came from Russia,’ Linda said.

  ‘I thought your father was born in America,’ Lillian said.

  ‘He was. Just,’ said Linda. ‘My grandparents, Louis and Stella, met at Ellis Island while their documents for entry into the United States were being processed. My father was born the following year.’

  ‘That’s why he seems so American,’ Lillian said. ‘He doesn’t act very Jewish. And neither do you. You love to ride horses, and you love the countryside. You’re not afraid of snakes and spiders and you’re a nature lover. That’s not very Jewish at all.’

  ‘We were Jewish but we didn’t make a big deal out of it,’ Linda said. ‘I don’t think about being Jewish much, if at all.’

  ‘She barely knows what Passover is,’ Lillian said.

  ‘That’s true,’ said Linda. ‘My father didn’t feel very Jewish. Or maybe he didn’t want to feel Jewish. I remember when we bought a beach house in East Hampton, he didn’t want too many Jews to buy houses there. He thought it would provoke anti-Semitism.’

  ‘You mean more anti-Semitism,’ said Lillian. ‘East Hampton is about one hundred miles from New York,’ Lillian said to Lola. ‘It has huge, secluded estates of old blue-blood families. It’s where they go to get away from New York. And part of getting away from New York means getting away from Jews.’

  ‘You don’t need Jews to have anti-Semitism,’ Lola said. ‘You just need anti-Semites. That’s one of my father’s favourite sayings. It sounds even better, in Yiddish.’

  ‘You can speak Yiddish?’ Lillian said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Lola.

  ‘Linda probably doesn’t even know what Yiddish is,’ Lillian said.

  ‘I do,’ said Linda. ‘I just can’t understand any of it. I think my father really wanted nothing to do with his Jewishness.’

  Even if they had wanted to, Renia and Edek would not have been able to discard their Jewishness, Lola thought. Their anguish, their sadness, their wariness was as clear as if it had been printed on them and illuminated and enlarged. And their lack of language sealed the deal.

  Lola would later learn that a lot of people wanted nothing to do with Jewishness. It wasn’t just Linda’s father, Mr Leopold Epstein, who became Mr Lee Eastman, who wanted to ditch all Jewishness.

  Some of America was also eager to have nothing to do with Jewishness. Breckinridge Long, the assistant secretary in charge of the visa division of the US Department of State, wrote in a memo in June 1940 to his colleagues, ‘We can delay and effectively stop for a temporary period of indefinite length the number of immigrants into the United States. We could do this by simply advising our consuls to put every obstacle in the way and to require additional evidence and to resort to various administrative devices which would postpone and postpone and postpone the granting of visas.’

  ‘A temporary period of indefinite length’ was a clever phrase, Lola thought, when she read Breckinridge Long’s words. Breckinridge Long, a wealthy man and a personal friend of president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was a smart man.

  He was a good liar, too. In order to crush a proposed government resolution to establish a secret agency to rescue Jewish refugees, he gave false testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee saying that everything was being done to save Jewish refugees. Ninety per cent of the quota places for Jews and immigrants from Fascist regimes were left unfilled.

  The nightclub was filling up. Lillian had told Lola that The Scene, along with Max’s Kansas City, was the place to be seen and to see everyone you wanted to see. Linda was talking about her horses. Lola wondered if anyone else at the club that night was talking about their horses. Thinking or talking about horses was for the idle rich, Lola decided. Neither Renia nor Edek would ever be rich. And they couldn’t afford to be idle. Being idle made it easier for errant, aberrant and abhorrent thoughts to seep in. Once they got in, they made themselves at home and seemed impossible to evict.

  The only time horses were mentioned in the Bensky house was when Renia talked about her very pious father giving her a piece of horse meat, in the ghetto. The eating of horsemeat was prohibited under Orthodox Jewish dietary laws. ‘He said to me,’ Renia said, “I can’t eat this meat, but you must eat it. It is more important to live than to be kosher.”’ Renia usually cried after telling this story.

  Lola couldn’t understand Linda’s love of horses. She couldn’t really understand people’s attachment to any sort of pet, although she wasn’t sure that horses fell into the category of pets. They seemed too big to be pets. Surely, pets had to be small enough to be able to be picked up and petted. Or maybe petting something had nothing to do with being able to pick up the animal.

  Lola wasn’t interested in horses. She didn’t even like dogs or cats. Edek had brought home a dog from the dog pound when Lola was about ten. A black dog with a mean demeanour. Because the dog was black Edek named it what he’d heard was a popular name for black dogs in Australia – Nigger.

  Nigger barked a lot. And liked to bite people. Every now and then Nigger escaped and Edek would go running after him, down Nicholson Street, North Carlton, shouting, ‘Nigger, Nigger, come back.’ Edek had no idea what the word nigger meant. Neither did Renia, or Lola. When Lola found out, several years later, that nigger was a derogatory, racist term, she was mortified. Luckily by then Nigger had bitten the postman, the milkman, the doctor and several passers-by and had to be returned to the pound.

  ‘Did you two know each other in Australia?’ Linda said.

  ‘Lola would have been in kindergarten when I left Australia to live in New York,’ Lillian said.

  Lola laughed. She knew Lillian had been living in New York for about six years. ‘I think I was just about to start high school,’ Lola said.

  ‘Yes, while I was interviewing Rock Hudson you were a good little schoolgirl,’ Lillian said.

  ‘I don’t think I could have been all that good,’ Lola said. ‘I was always being kicked out of class. Mainly French and German class.’

  ‘You were kicked out of class?’ said Lillian. ‘So was I. I was kicked out of French and maths, and I was constantly kicked out of Latin class. I asked too many questions, and girls weren’t supposed to do that. The Latin teacher would kick me out before the class even began. I’d go outside and sit on the verandah.’

  ‘I used to crawl along the brick wall below the panes of glass that made up the upper half of the classroom wall to get to the boys’ classrooms, which were at the other end of the hallway. There was always some boy who’d been kicked out I could talk to.’

  ‘Why were you kicked out?’ Linda said.

  ‘For talking too much, I think,’ Lola said. ‘I wasn’t doing anything terrible. Most of the time, I was planning what to have for lunch.’

  ‘Hey, the two of you were destined to meet,’ Linda said. ‘You’re both Australian, both journalists, both fat and both got kicked out of class.’

  Lola wanted to kick Linda. What she had said, even if it were all true, was just plain mean. She didn’t think Linda was a mean person. She was just a bit blunt. More truthful than she needed to be.

  ‘You forgot that we’re both Polish Jews,’ Lillian said.

  Linda was about to reply when she spotted Jim Morrison just near the stage. She ran over to him. Something was clearly going on between them. Linda was gesturing and reddening. And Jim Morrison had his back to her half the time. Linda looked as though she was pleading with Jim Morrison, although she didn’t seem to Lola like the type to plead. Jim Morrison was looking into the distance. He didn’t look like the type to be moved by pleas of any sort.

  ‘They have a thing going,’ Lillian said.

  ‘It looks as though w
hatever thing they had going has gone,’ said Lola.

  Lillian laughed. ‘I think you’re right,’ she said. ‘Linda won’t take this lying down, although I’d guess it’s all about lying down.’

  ‘Looks to me like the lying down is over,’ Lola said.

  By now, Jim Morrison was shaking his head. And Linda was looking a bit tearful. Lola felt sorry for Linda. She looked defeated. But Lola knew Linda well enough to know that the defeat wouldn’t last long.

  ‘Are you going to come back to New York after you’ve been to Los Angeles?’ Lillian asked Lola.

  ‘By the time I leave Los Angeles, I’ll have been away from home for over a year,’ Lola said.

  ‘Melbourne is too small to be your permanent home,’ Lillian said. ‘You can visit Melbourne from time to time, but don’t stay there. Think about it. I’m being very serious.’

  Melbourne didn’t seem that small to Lola. It did seem far away, though. Far away from everything. She tried to change the subject. ‘Do you know who’s playing at Monterey?’ she said to Lillian. ‘They’ve got an incredible line-up. The Mamas and the Papas, The Who, Simon and Garfunkel, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, Ravi Shankar and a lot of others.’

  ‘I know,’ said Lillian. ‘There’s a band called Big Brother and the Holding Company playing. Their singer Janis Joplin is sensational. Call me after Monterey and we can talk about your plans.’

  ‘After Monterey, I’m going to Los Angeles,’ Lola said. ‘I’m interviewing Sonny and Cher in their house.’ Lola hesitated for a moment. ‘In London, Cher borrowed my false eyelashes,’ she said. ‘They were my best pair, diamante-lined. I couldn’t get them back from her in London. Do you think I should ask Cher to give them back to me when I see her in LA?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t you?’ said Lillian.

  ‘Because I feel silly,’ said Lola.

  ‘Just ask her,’ Lillian said. ‘She’s supposed to be very nice. I’ve heard she depends on Sonny for everything. Poor thing.’

  It was hard for Lola to think of anyone who had a body as sleek as Cher’s and a mane of thick straight black hair and wardrobes full of glamorous clothes as ‘a poor thing.’ Maybe Cher was a poor thing. Lola had been bothered by the way Sonny hovered and answered too many of the questions Lola had asked Cher. Maybe she should just let Cher keep the diamante-lined false eyelashes.

  Lola saw Linda sitting on the floor at the side of the stage. The Doors were setting up. Linda was already photographing them. Everyone at the tables quietened down. The Doors started playing. After half an hour of The Doors, Lola had a headache. It wasn’t just the volume of the music or the theatre of what seemed like a well-rehearsed provocative piece of carelessness and abandon. It was Jim Morrison himself who disturbed her.

  He was long and lean and swayed sideways like a snake when he sang. He had the sultry good looks of a movie star. His mouth seemed to be part of a permanent pout. His blue-grey eyes appeared to be unattached to a heart or a soul. There was something dead at his core, Lola thought. Jim Morrison was wearing low-slung, black leather pants that were so tight they could have been painted on to him. Lola would read later that he had his trousers especially made to emphasise the crotch. Jim Morrison licked his lips with a reptilian slitheriness while he sang. He looked poised and poisonous. And disconnected from everything around him.

  Lola was surprised at her reaction to him. She hadn’t expected it. But inaccessible people bothered her and Jim Morrison appeared to be completely inaccessible. The Doors finally finished their set. ‘That was unendurable pleasure,’ Lillian said to Lola.

  ‘Unendurable pleasure?’ Lola said. ‘What was pleasurable about it?’ she said.

  ‘The music,’ said Lillian.

  ‘There’s something about Jim Morrison that really freaks me out,’ Lola said.

  ‘Do you think it’s because he appears hypnotised or in a trance?’ Lillian said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. No one else in the audience appeared to be freaked out by Jim Morrison. Most people looked high from the performance.

  Lola could see why Jim Morrison was compelling. His movements on stage were suggestive, aggressive and unleashed. There was an intensity and an arrogance to him. He was surly, sullen and sexy. He screamed and caressed or throttled the microphone. He was wild and dangerous. Every now and then, he lurched and staggered blindly around the stage as though he could fall at any second. As though he were more than a little out of control.

  ‘Come over with me. I’ll introduce you to him,’ Lillian said. Lola had been to Max’s Kansas City with Lillian a few times. Each time Lillian, who appeared to know everyone there, had introduced Lola as Australia’s best journalist. Lola would follow that introduction with an embarrassed insistence that she was far from Australia’s best or top journalist. Until one night when Andy Warhol stared at her with his stark, white face and said, ‘Don’t be so humble, you’re not that great.’ Lola would later hear that quote attributed to Golda Meir, but even if it was not an original Andy Warhol, it did the job. Lola kept quiet and let Lillian pronounce her greatness.

  Andy Warhol was one of the weirder-looking people in Max’s Kansas City’s raucous crowd of exhibitionists. The bar was where Lillian held court every night when she wasn’t at The Scene. Max’s Kansas City was frequented by painters, sculptors, filmmakers, musicians, writers, poets, actors, fashion designers, models and the occasional socialite or member of the Kennedy family. The very elegantly dressed Duke and Duchess of Windsor were there the night Andy Warhol addressed Lola’s lack of greatness.

  ‘I don’t want to be introduced to Jim Morrison,’ Lola said.

  ‘You have to meet him,’ Lillian said, ‘He’s going to be huge. Make arrangements to interview him. He does his own publicity, so do the interview now, if he agrees.’

  ‘Now?’ said Lola.

  ‘Yes, now,’ Lillian said.

  ‘Jim,’ Lillian said, ‘I want you to meet Lola Bensky. Lola is one of Australia’s top journalists. Her stories are read from one side of the country to the other and she’s a fabulous writer. She’s interviewed, among many other people, Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney.’

  ‘I haven’t interviewed Paul McCartney,’ Lola said to Lillian. Lillian elbowed her in the side. ‘I had a cup of tea with him,’ Lola said. ‘He told me his mother died when he was fourteen. I said my mother lost her parents at seventeen and her brothers and sisters three or four years after that. He said loss was a pretty stupid word to use. I said I couldn’t agree more. You can lose socks and umbrellas and even underpants, but you can’t lose your mother or your father.’ Jim Morrison barely looked at Lola. Up close, his face had a chubbiness that could have looked innocent on someone else, but on him looked malevolent.

  Lillian spotted Paul Newman and went over to talk to him. Lola was left standing next to Jim Morrison not sure what to do or say. She would have infinitely preferred to be talking to Paul Newman.

  ‘Could I arrange to do an interview with you?’ Lola said to Jim Morrison.

  ‘Why do you want to do that?’ Jim Morrison said.

  ‘Because I think you’re going to be very, very famous and that’s what I do – I write about famous rock stars,’ Lola said.

  She thought it was a lame answer and was trying to think of a better one when Jim Morrison said, ‘These days in the United States you have to be a politician or an assassin to be a superstar.’ He spoke very slowly, as though each word was weighted with a meaning that needed to be digested. ‘Sit down,’ he said to Lola.

  ‘Here?’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘Now?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, now,’ he said.

  Lola grabbed her chair and got out her notebook. Has a sullen demeanour and a brutal ruthlessness about him, she’d written in her notebook while she’d been watching him perform. She quickly turned the page, although she thought he would probably be quite pleased by that description.

  Lola knew that Jim Morrison wa
s born in Melbourne, Florida. She hadn’t known there was a Melbourne in Florida. She’d thought that she lived in the only Melbourne there was. She didn’t think she’d mention the Melbourne connection. It didn’t seem like the sort of bond that would move Jim Morrison.

  There was a carefully applied carelessness about Jim Morrison, Lola thought. Jim Morrison, despite his world-weary gestures and postures, was only three years older than Lola. She knew that Jim Morrison didn’t get on well with his parents. Jim’s father was a highly decorated naval officer. On the official biographical information about Jim Morrison, he had listed his parents as dead. Lola knew that they weren’t dead.

  ‘You look as though a lot of things bother you,’ Lola said to Jim Morrison. Oh God, she thought to herself, she hadn’t meant to say that. She didn’t have a list of questions prepared.

  ‘A lot of things do bother me,’ he said. He spoke very slowly, as though the words and the spaces between them were freighted with other interpretations. ‘A lot of things do bother me.’ That was a pretty clear sentence. Lola thought there was a limit to the number of ways it could be interpreted.

  ‘What sort of things?’ Lola said.

  ‘I hate the sound of heavy breathing,’ he said. ‘Especially when I’m trying to sleep.’

  That sounded reasonable. Lola was a very light sleeper herself and was woken up by the slightest sound. She thought it probably had something to do with the fact that Renia used to regularly wake up screaming in her sleep and Lola and Edek would have to reassure Renia that it was a dream, before they could all go back to sleep again.

  ‘My brother had chronic tonsillitis,’ Jim Morrison said. ‘His breathing was very noisy. A couple of times I taped his mouth shut while he slept. He used to wake up gasping for breath.’ Jim Morrison started to laugh at the memory. It was clearly a memory that amused him. Lola watched him laughing. Even his laugh had a cruel, almost feral component.

  ‘I used to throw rocks at him, too,’ Jim Morrison said.

  ‘Why?’ said Lola.

  ‘For the fun of it,’ said Jim Morrison. ‘I rubbed dog shit on his face once. Nice fresh dog shit.’