by Alan Collins
‘‘… and you’ll leave here and I’ll never see you again, Ruti.’’ Bill edged us aside and pointed to the notice. He ran his finger down it and stopped at the name of Mitzi Strauss. “I do not see here the name of Manfred’s father.”
A chill came over our little group. We recalled the photographs of Mr Strauss, a nuggety man pictured against a snow-capped mountain. He was wearing shorts and heavy walking-shoes and carried a stick. Manfred had boasted how his father had climbed the Matterhorn. Nobody believed him then. Now I felt a twinge of conscience — maybe he had.
To break the tension, I said, “I reckon the bugger’s stuck on that bloody mountain and he’ll come on later.”
Bill and Ruti, from some inner knowledge I was not privy to, shook their heads in disbelief. “They’ve got him, Jack,” Bill said gravely. He turned to Ruti. “Shall you tell Manfred or shall I?”
I walked away and stood on the veranda. In the distance, I could see Solly still trying to force a goal past Manfred. They fought over the ball and rolled on the ground like pups squabbling. Without the ordered discipline of Mr Goetz those two were continually in trouble. Manfred had an insatiable appetite for food and stole from the pantry while Solly kept watch for him. And now Bill’s tall figure strode across the grass, forced the two boys apart and was speaking to Manfred. I could hear Manfred shouting ‘‘bloody liar’’ but underlying it there was already a discernible note of acceptance. Solly kicked the ball disconsolately then came over to me. “What d’yer reckon, Jack?” he said in a puzzled voice. “Is it worse than being pushed off a cliff?”
These days, Mrs Goetz’s moods varied with the letters she received from her husband. They came in brown army envelopes with sticky tape along one edge where they had been opened, read by a censor and resealed. She was also embarrassed at having to ask me to read them for her. Mr Goetz had been forced to write them in English so that the army censor could read them. This fact, together with the censor’s obliterations of Mr Goetz’s attempts to describe his life as a uniformed labourer in the Australian army, made them almost unintelligible. As the months wore on, his written English improved to the point where he used a swear word Mrs Goetz was quite unfamiliar with. She folded the letter so that only a few words including the swear word showed. “What is this ‘fucking’ sergeant, Jacob?” She saw me squirming. “Aha, younger man, I can tell it is something not nice, nicht warh?”
For the two days before the Sunday of Mrs Pearlman’s letter, she was in a storm. Something from her husband’s new military career had rubbed off on her and she stamped about the Home issuing orders, clothing, and demands for our cleanliness that far exceeded her usual Germanic requirements. By noon on Sunday, everyone was in a highly nervous state, not least because of the dose of senna pods administered the night before so that we would have inner cleanliness as well. I had pleaded that as Solly and I were not expecting parental visits, it was not fair that we too should be dosed.
Bill was right. A minute or so before two o’clock that fine spring September Sunday, we heard the familiar groaning of Mrs Pearlman’s car. Like an uneven picket fence, we were lined up on the veranda, clad in the very best the secondhand clothes cupboard could supply for this important reunion. Solly and Manfred stood together, as different as chalk and cheese but now closely united by their new-found common bond. Perhaps Manfred had suggested to him that they could share Mitzi Strauss between them! Mrs Goetz positively creaked in her starched uniform; she actually stood to attention as the car swept around the last bend in the track.
There was a moment of comedy as the car halted at the top of the driveway. Mrs Pearlman’s gloved hand was out of the window trying to wrench the door open. It would not budge. “Damn thing’s broken,” she shouted through the window. The rear door opened. The tall, unmistakable figure of Mr Willi Schlesinger unwound itself. He took one step to the recalcitrant door, turned the handle, opened the door and bowed to the exasperated Mrs Pearlman.
‘‘Gnadige Frau,” he murmured courteously, “please to get out now.”
Mrs Goetz advanced to meet her. But Mrs Pearlman almost landed at her feet. Right behind her was the roly-poly, volatile, bouncy, bubbling Mitzi Strauss pushing wispy Mrs Pearlman aside in her rush to reach her Manfred. She swept him up, smothered him in lipstick, hugged him to her and filled the air with the most infectious laughter ever heard in the Abraham Samuelson Memorial Home.
The formality that Mrs Goetz had wished for the afternoon (no doubt in deference to her absent Berthold) was shattered. Mr Schlesinger looked at his watch then shook hands with his son, passed him over to his mother, who for a moment appeared as though she might embrace him, thought better of it and kissed him on the cheek. They both possessed the stature of Cologne cathedral, a building they had always admired but never entered.
Mr Schlesinger went up to Ruti. “You are Ruth Kahn, I think? Come with me to the car. Your father needs a little help.” They returned together to the car. He reached in, then backed out, almost carrying Henry Kahn, a pale, white-haired man whose suit hung slackly over his meagre frame. He set him on his feet in front of Ruti, then Irma Kahn emerged from the car and put a walking stick in her husband’s hand. The three of them stood beside the car like a self-supporting triangle held together by love. It was impossible to hear what they said. They made no attempt to join the others on the veranda; Henry, Irma and Ruti Kahn were in a private world of their own.
Watching them, I felt an unreasoning resentment at not being a part of that family; I would even have accepted the weakly Henry Kahn as a substitute father — anything to be constantly in the company of Ruti, who, as I observed her with longing, was obviously the strongest one in that little group. It was her arms that enveloped the other two, comforting and reassuring them. I turned to look at Bill. He was a mirror-image of his father. His mother was hardly more than an accessory to the marriage. I wanted to tell Solly my thoughts, I needed him, as family, to confide in. From the dining-room, his giggling, punctuated by Mitzi’s arch admonitions to him to behave, fell on my ears like intrusive, unwanted music.
This emotion-charged scene of families being reunited and the senna-pod dosing was literally giving me the shits. I also felt a driving desire to do something utterly unacceptable, to destroy the momentary happiness that surrounded but excluded me. I left the veranda and ran over to where Mrs Pearlman had parked the car. At the top of my voice I yelled out:
“That bloody senna tea is giving me the runs, Mrs Goetz.”
From somewhere behind me a voice answered, “Stick a cork up your arse, Jacob!”
A man emerged from behind the car, lifted me high in the air and sat me down hard on the car bonnet.
“Uncle Siddy, you beauty,” I yelled exultantly. “Where the hell did you spring from — how did you find us — what are you doing here — why aren’t you in …’’
He flipped his hat to the back of his head. “Steady on, hold hard there Jake, first things first. I thought you were bustin’ to go to the dunny?” With one hand on my shoulder, he sauntered nonchalantly to the veranda steps. “Now Jake, you go about your business and I’ll find out who’s the head sherang around here.”
The shock of seeing Uncle Siddy appear out of the blue was almost more than the strain on my bowels could stand. I tore away from him, past the little clumps of Schlesingers and Kahns, dodged Mrs Goetz’s outstretched hand and shouted to Solly as I flew down the corridor to the toilets, “Uncle Siddy’s come, Solly — dinkum, he’s here!”
I caught a glimpse of Solly’s chocolate-covered face as I flashed past. The little bugger was sitting on Mitzi Strauss’s knee like a big booby, letting her stuff him and Manfred with the contents of her bulging handbag.
When I finally reappeared, feeling shaky but decidedly more at ease, I had merely to follow the voices to locate Uncle Siddy. His broad Australian accent cut through the Continental voices like a bandsaw let loose in an orchestra. Mrs Goetz’s arms flew in all directions as she tried to conduct a
conversation with the rapid-fire torrent that was Uncle Siddy trying to tell her that “the two dinky-di little nippers you’ve got here are me nephews, the sons of me late brother Felix — may he rest in peace!”
Mrs Goetz had given up and flopped in a chair. “Ach,” she moaned, “I wish my Bertold was here now — he speaks Australian, from der army he has learned it — such words!’’
She was saved from further frustration by Mrs Pearlman, who confronted Uncle Siddy as calmly as though she had seen him only yesterday. “I do not think it very wise of you to come here, Mr Kaiser.”
“What? Not visit me own flesh an’ blood? Come on, Rosie Pearlman, you ought ter know me better than that.”
Mrs Pearlman motioned to me to leave them. Uncle Siddy cancelled her instruction by gripping a handful of the back of my coat. He treated Mrs Pearlman to his most benign smile and said, “You’re poor Normie Pearlman’s widow aren’t you?”
Rosie Pearlman actually simpered; she drew a hankie from her sleeve and nodded. Siddy pulled himself erect in imitation of a military bearing. “Gave his life for his country, Jake, that’s what poor old Normie did — in France, wasn’t it, Rosie?”
Uncle Siddy was scoring points, he was on a winning streak and wasn’t about to let up. “Now hop it, Jake, and fetch young Solly.”
There was no need. Mitzi Strauss was floating toward us like a slice of rich Vienna cream-cake. On either hand like the top and bottom layers were Solly and Manfred. Her perfume preceded her, as cloying as a night in a botanical hothouse. It completely swamped the delicate cologne on Rosie Pearlman’s hankie.
And it had a most extraordinary effect on Uncle Siddy. Like the mustard gas which had laid poor Normie low, the perfume that Mitzi Strauss exuded hit Sidney Kaiser for six — my uncle, who could beat up a slick-haired door-to-door salesman, who had done a stretch at The Bay, who had defied and beguiled the fibrous Mrs Pearlman. His hat came off with a sweep, he buttoned up his coat, pulled his gut in, stuck out his hand and said hoarsely, “G’day !”
Solly ruined it. He grabbed Uncle Siddy’s outstretched hand and yelled, “Did you bring us any busted watches to play with, Uncle Siddy?”
“Ah, so you remember, do you, you little tiger.” He squeezed Solly’s hand and when he released it, a shilling lay in his palm. “There’s a deener for you Solly me boy and here’s another for your little cobber.”
Mrs Pearlman, disgusted at such generosity to small boys, flounced off to inform Mrs Goetz. I too could have done with a share of Uncle Siddy’s open-handedness; instead, in my best grown-up ‘‘now I am barmitzvah and come of age manner’’, I formally introduced Mrs Mitzi Strauss of Vienna, Austria to Mr Sidney Kaiser, uncle of Jacob and Solly Kaiser, once of Bellevue Hill, later of Bondi and now residents of the Abraham Samuelson Memorial Home.
SIX
Mitzi Strauss nervously extended her hand. Perhaps she half-expected to find a coin in it. “I am Frau Strauss,” she started to say, then with a little shrug she beamed at Siddy, “Ach, what does it matter, here in Australia? I am Mitzi — please to call me Mitzi.”
The sun came out from behind the tree-tops. Even the magpies’ harsh call seemed softened at that moment. Solly and Manfred watched the two adults closely. Sensing there would be no clash, they ran off, richer by a shilling each and whatever else might flow from the meeting.
Siddy said, “Pleased to meetcha Mitzi. That nipper of yours, whatsisname, Manfred is it? He’s good mates with Solly, isn’t he?” He turned to me, nudging me with his elbow. “And what about you, Jake? A grown-up fella like you must be lookin’ for girls now, eh?”
I felt a shiver of dislike for Uncle Siddy. In the distance I could see Ruti still closeted with her parents. With all the judgemental brutality of my age, I compared their self-sustaining gentle warmth with the extroverted, will to survive, rough-and-tumble attitude to life of Mitzi Strauss and Sidney Kaiser. I longed to be the man in Ruti’s family, to take the place of her sickly father and thereby achieve a status that I could never have if I lived in the shadow of Uncle Siddy and, who knows, the effervescent Mitzi Strauss.
The two of them were getting on like a house on fire. Questions flew back and forth interspersed with gales of laughter. It was obvious that Mitzi Strauss had quickly informed Siddy that there was no likelihood of Mr Strauss ever coming to Australia. From that disclosure onward, they strolled around the grounds, arms linked, occasionally looking back when Uncle Siddy would call out to me to verify a point in whatever tale he was pitching Mitzi Strauss.
As we neared the veranda I detached myself from them and leaned disconsolately against the wall a few feet away from the Kahns. There was no laughter from them, no outward sign of joyful reunion and yet something reached out to me (or was it something in me reaching out to them?) that drew me into their group while I yet remained apart. Mrs Kahn, grey from her tightly drawn-back hair to her dusty flat-heeled shoes, reminded me of one of the convent order of the Grey Sisters whom I had often seen picking up the winos as they lay in the sand at dusk on Bondi Beach. Her shoulders seemed perpetually bent, ever ready to minister to the needy. As she stooped over her husband I wondered if she had the same courage as those nuns.
Suddenly she straightened up and said something sharply to Ruti. They were helping Henry Kahn to his feet. Ruti beckoned me to join them. Without bothering to introduce me to her parents, she said in an urgent, commanding voice, “Jacob, my father is not well. He needs to go to the toilet. Will you please accompany him.” And as an afterthought, “He speaks quite good English, you know.”
Henry Kahn, a dried twig of a man, laid a feathery arm on mine. I steered him down the corridor in silence, popped him into a cubicle and turned a tap on over the basin full-force to disguise the sick man’s retching. I did not inquire how he was. If he had died that instant behind the half-door of the toilet I would have been glad. I would then apply for the vacancy in the Kahn household for a man to look after Ruti and, grudgingly, her mother also. I flushed at the thought, splashed water over my face, turned the tap off and took a leak. There was now silence from Mr Kahn’s cubicle. I dried my hands on the roller-towel, taking far longer than needed. Still they felt clammy and my heart seemed as though it was being squeezed into a small corner of my chest. Breathing deeply, I called out in a voice not wanting to be heard or indeed answered, “You okay in there, Mr Kahn?”
There was a faint trickling sound from the cistern — and that was all.
There was no point in my looking. I had no wish to see Mr Henry Kahn dead on a dunny seat in the Abraham Samuelson Memorial Home. I had wished him dead and it had happened. My immediate problem was to tell Ruti and her mother and be able to look convincingly upset. I was amazed at my calmness, at the callousness of my reasoning and, most surprising of all, at how my thoughts were racing ahead, planning our future life together, Ruti’s and mine.
I walked steadily towards the swinging double doors of the bathroom. I could hear whistling coming from the other side. I stopped. Nobody in the Abraham Samuelson Memorial Home whistled Lily of Laguna. Uncle Siddy, hands in pockets, pushed the door opened with his boot.
“Ah there Jake, just waterin’ the horse, was ya?”
“See that dunny there, Uncle Siddy. There’s a dead man in there.”
“Go on, you don’t say?”
‘‘Dinkum, Uncle Siddy. Have a look for yourself if you don’t believe me.’’
“Look!” I screamed at him. I pushed the cubicle door open. It caught on Henry Kahn’s legs and stuck fast. The body fell off the seat in a crumpled heap on the tiles. There was vomit and blood down the front of his suit.
Siddy looked quizzically at poor Mr Kahn. “Well, that’s one for the books, I must say, young Jake. It don’t say much for the tucker around here, does it!” He looked at me long and hard. “You don’t seem too worried by finding a dead’un in your dunny, son. You didn’t do ’im in, didja?”
I watched him slide the body out of the cubicle; I was frozen with fr
ight at the implication of his jokey remark. No, Uncle Siddy, I didn’t kill him but I certainly wished him dead. Oh yes, that would go down really well with Ruti. Somehow I could not imagine Irma Kahn grieving for her skeletal husband. Perhaps she would change from grey to a paler shade of grey and then fade out like the images on a film screen. Ruti, now, that was a different matter altogether. We would leave the Abraham Samuelson Memorial Home hand-in-hand and somewhere along the shores of Bondi we would live as husband and wife in a …
Siddy’s voice cut in on me. “Who is he, Jake?”
“It’s Ruti’s — it’s Mrs Kahn’s husband. One of the reffo parents that came here to visit today. They came in Mrs Pearlman’s car.”
Siddy put his arm around my shoulders and led me out of the bathroom. I was surprised to see that it was still daylight, that all the normal sounds of people and children still went on. Mrs Goetz was obviously impatient at the day’s interruption to her routine. She was rounding up the parents like a sheepdog, edging them towards Mrs Pearlman’s car. Willi and Clara Schlesinger had clearly said all they had to say to Bill and stood waiting impassively for the moment of departure. Mitzi Strauss, looking a trifle dishevelled, wagged her finger at the approach of Uncle Siddy who, ignoring her, strode straight past to where Ruti and her mother sat together like two travellers waiting for the last train to God knows where.
They stood up and eyed Siddy suspiciously. He scratched his head, stuck one foot up on the bench and said, “Now, ladies, which of youse speaks English?”
Ruti ignored him. She grabbed my arm. “Jacob, please, where is my father? You have been gone such a long time. I would have looked for you but that silly Mrs Strauss …
“Steady on there, Miss,” Siddy interrupted.
