Mazel Tov

by J. S. Margot

  “I’m sure you looked beautiful,” I said, studying her face, trying to picture how she’d looked, professionally made up.

  “Have you got any photos?”

  “They’re not ready yet. We went to Maison Roger. And we’ll go back there on the day of the wedding.”

  “Who is Roger?”

  “Don’t you know Maison Roger? On Avenue Louise in Brussels?”

  I knew Avenue Louise all right. The most expensive shopping street in Brussels, full of exclusive boutiques. The average dress cost the equivalent of ten months’ rent.

  “Queen Fabiola goes there. And all the princesses. It’s the best hairdressing and beauty salon in the country. Sometimes Mummy has her hair done there. Mummy doesn’t wear a wig…”

  “Have you ever seen Queen Fabiola’s hairdo?” I joked.

  “I know. But Roger is very good.”

  “Will you wear a wig later?”

  “I’ll wear a wig if my husband wants me to. There are some very nice wigs.”

  “But you’ve got such lovely hair. Why would you hide it under a wig? Can you imagine me wearing a wig…?”

  “You are not a juive. You don’t have to.” She burst out laughing. Still smiling, she said: “The gentleman who did my make-up was like a girl.”

  There was a short silence.

  Amused, I waited for her to go on.

  “If you know what I mean,” she ventured, looking at me questioningly, as if expecting a long answer or explanation.

  “Was he a homosexual?” I asked.

  “Shhhhhh,” she whispered, covering her mouth with her hands in shock and glancing at the bedroom door. “Shhhh…”

  “What? Is ‘homosexual’ a forbidden word?” I teased.

  “Shhhh.”

  “What should I say, then?”

  She hesitated. “Yes, I think you may use that word.”

  “Do you know what a homosexual is?”

  “Shhh! I think I know, oui. A man who wants to be a woman.”

  “That’s not quite right. A homosexual is a man who falls in love with other men, and who has sex with those men.”

  The S-word made her jump. Her hands started to shake a little, and when I saw that I was happy in a strange, possessive way, the way it makes you happy to realize that two things you always felt went together apparently still do, even many years later. Elzira’s eyes gleamed, her raised eyebrows testifying both to her prudishness and her curiosity.

  “Was he nice?” I asked.

  “Yes, very,” she said. “And he had des mains très fines, very delicate hands.”

  “Why do you think he was a homosexual?”

  “He made movements that les hommes de chez nous don’t make. He moved his hands in a funny way. And when he walked it was just as if he… comme s’il faisait du patin à glace, quoi.”

  I grinned. Her image of the ice-skating man was both funny and apt. Yet I also had to think of My Own Private Idaho, a film Nima and I had just seen in Cartoons Cinema, in which the two main characters—played by River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves—confront the issue of desire between men. Halfway through the film, Nima had walked out.

  “But he makes people up very well,” she said. “Il comprend les femmes, Mummy says, and that’s true. That’s why it’s so good that he works there. And that he isn’t a Jew. I believe that there are Jewish men of that kind. But not in our community. Among religious Jews there aren’t any such men.”

  “I’ve got friends who are gay,” I said. “And there are girls, too, who are homosexual. Girls who fall in love with other girls. Do you know what they’re called?”

  I thought: she has no TV and rarely if ever goes to the cinema, and the Disney films she’s seen don’t feature any gays. She has no access to any reading matter that could educate her in these things—novels, newspapers, magazines—though I’d once seen a copy of Paris Match lying around their house. So from whom would she learn anything about the diversity and complexity of human sexuality if not from me?

  “Lesbians,” she said. She pronounced the word in the Dutch rather than the French way. The existence of lesbian relationships didn’t seem to bother her, however. At least, she didn’t go into the matter further. Of course, I’d already introduced her to Andreas Burnier (the pen name of Catharina Irma Dessaur, a Jewish author from Holland who wrote about her homosexuality).

  I said: “My gay friends daren’t tell their parents they’re attracted to men. Their parents expect them to marry and have children. These parents, too, are quite sure that there aren’t any homosexuals in their family.”

  “I don’t mind that a gentleman who resembles a girl touched my face,” was her response.

  “But you should listen to what I’m saying,” I said.

  “J’écoute!”

  “Being silent about something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

  “It’s not a problem that the make-up man touched me.”

  “Why would it be a problem? You just said he made you up beautifully.”

  “I heard about it.”

  “What did you hear?”

  “I heard about it.”

  “What, Elzira? You’re talking in riddles!”

  “About that disease.”

  For a moment I was perplexed. Then light began to dawn. But just to check I asked: “What disease?”

  “Two. Both with names that are shorted.”

  “Shortened.”

  “You know what diseases I mean. Tu me taquines.”

  “I’m not teasing. You mean HIV or AIDS?”

  She looked down at the floor and nodded.

  “They say all these men are sick,” she said. “But Mummy says that isn’t true.”

  “Your mummy is right.”

  “Could I get sick?”

  “You don’t catch HIV and AIDS just by someone touching you, Elzira. Only by having sex with someone who’s infected.”

  “Tssst.”

  “Or through a blood transfusion. And by no means all homosexuals are sick! So you shouldn’t talk like that…”

  “In Antwerp there are hairdressers who guarantee that all the equipment in their salons is sterilized after each use: the scissors, the combs, everything. So the clients won’t become sick.”

  “Where are these salons, then?”

  “I don’t know. I heard Mummy talking about it. It’s on a sign in their window: we sterilize all instruments.”

  “I’d like to see that. I’ve never heard of such a thing—it’s ridiculous! You can’t get infected through a haircut! I’ll bring you some information about the disease as soon as I can. Scientific information. And personal accounts. I can recommend a few books for you.”

  “They can’t be hairdressers from our community.”

  “Why not?”

  “We don’t have homosexuals.”

  I sighed. So she’d managed to get the word over her lips. In the plural, even.

  Forty

  “Which one is the prettiest, do you think?”

  I was waiting for Elzira in her room when Mrs Schneider came in with a carrier bag from The Short Way, an Antwerp lingerie store on Mechelsesteenweg. I knew its window, just as I knew the windows of many unaffordable shops.

  She spread out four diaphanous garments on the desk. Two bodysuits with sleeves and two without, made of silk or satin with insets of see-through lace. Lingerie of the most exquisite, luxurious kind.

  “I would like to choose two. They are for Elzira. She will soon turn seventeen.”

  I was in my mid-twenties at the time. Never in my life had I worn such sexy underwear, of such an expensive brand. Just regular bras were expensive enough; I’d grown up with Damart. In my family, underwear and nightwear had only to be robust
and practical. Even though I’d left home years ago, I still slept in stripy cotton or flannel pyjamas of the kind favoured by old men. If I wanted to look sexy at the breakfast table I unbuttoned the top. That had to do. If it was really hot, I wore a tank top.

  “You prefer which one? Is the white the most pretty, do you favour the grey or is the salmon pink more to your taste?”

  She picked the bodies up carefully one by one and held them out in front of her, moving with typical measured elegance. Each had a matching robe, as silky-smooth as a kimono. She draped the precious garments—Chantal Thomass, La Perla—over the desk and stepped back a few paces to study both the result and my expression.

  “The white one’s really pretty.”

  “Preferably white than salmon-pink?”

  “The salmon-pink one’s pretty too.”

  “Which you would choose?”

  “The black sleeveless one with the zip or the long-sleeved white one,” I answered firmly. She nodded, rewrapped them all slowly, then asked when I was planning to become a mother, “because to wait long is not good”.

  Not put out by her sudden question, I said that for now I had no wish to have children.

  “That time will come.”

  “I’m not so sure. If it does, I’ll give it careful thought. But I won’t let anyone talk me into parenthood. I think I’ll be happier without children.”

  She stared at me, her eyes wide.

  “You have a problem?” she asked. There was a hint of suspicion in her voice. A reaction I’d seen before when young women said that motherhood wasn’t for them.

  “A gynaecological problem, you mean? Not that I know of.”

  “That you do not want children I do not understand. I think you will be a good mother. And your husband, Nima?”

  It was unusual for her to say his name. I was touched.

  “Nima thinks the same way.”

  “It is that he is far from his family, perhaps,” she said after a while. “But for that very reason he should start his own family here. That is better for everyone. We know that. Over the course of history we, the Jews, have often had our families torn apart. But we have gone on with our lives, notre existence. Nous avons résisté, toujours. We build new families, we uphold our values and way of life, even during those times when we were obliged à nous convertir, to convert, yes, siècle après siècle, century after century, and still we choose for new families.”

  One thing led to another.

  Suddenly she was telling me about the times she gave birth and about the gynaecologist who had delivered her four children. They’d all been normal births, without complications. Simon had been very overdue, but oh, how great was their joy when their first child turned out to be a son, and their second too, and they were eternally grateful to this gynaecologist, because Judaism requires you to be eternally grateful to anyone who is good to children.

  The gynaecologist wasn’t Jewish, which surprised me once again, this modern note in their orthodoxy, the fact that the Bible or the rabbi allowed a doctor with treyf hands to touch the most intimate parts of a married, religious Jewish woman.

  She gave me his name and the address of his consultancy: “For when it comes time for you.”

  A week after this conversation, Elzira handed me a present that felt very soft, and was wrapped in many layers of white, crackling, tissue-thin paper, tied with a white ribbon.

  That evening at home I wore the sleeveless black bodysuit with the zip. Mrs Schneider had guessed my size correctly. Just in case, a card was enclosed, explaining how to exchange the gift. On another card, tucked between the folds of the packaged garment, was the message: “With many thanks for what you do for Elzira.” Signed: Aaron and Moriel Schneider.

  Mrs Schneider’s gynaecologist—these days the son has taken over his father’s practice—is now mine.

  Forty-One

  One day grandmother Pappenheim fell over, no one knew why, on the corner of Simonsstraat and Mercatorstraat, where she’d just bought her meat, vegetables and French crossword puzzles.

  The lady who ran the bed linen shop outside which she collapsed ran to her straight away, and when Gabriella Pappenheim couldn’t get up, even with the help of some passers-by, she immediately rang for an ambulance, then called the Schneiders’ home telephone number and Mr Schneider’s office, because that was one clear advantage of living in this small, closed community, which also had its drawbacks: everyone knew everyone, and everyone knew to which family people belonged. Hatzalah, the volunteer emergency medical service set up by Jewish communities in many places in the world—including latterly in Antwerp—did not yet exist, otherwise the poor lady could certainly have been able to count on lightning-quick assistance from young, Jewish emergency responders. These backpacked paramedics leap onto their fluorescent yellow motor scooters for anyone in need, of course, but you mainly see them weaving through the busy traffic of the Jewish neighbourhood—“we’ll be there in four minutes”.

  Gabriella Pappenheim had to wait a quarter of an hour before the regular ambulance took her to Sint Vincentius, a Catholic hospital right in the middle of the Jewish neighbourhood.

  I heard this all from Jakov. I don’t know if that was the same hospital where he and his brother were circumcised when they were eight days old by a mohel, an official circumciser. The fact the Schneider boys had had their foreskins removed in a special suite of an Antwerp clinic was something I’d learnt from Mr Schneider, who passed on this glad tiding after telling me a “hilarious” joke. The one about the tax inspector going through the books of a synagogue, alert for Jewish skulduggery. “He says to the rabbi, ‘I notice you buy a lot of candles. What do you do with the wax drippings?’ ‘We send them back to the candle makers, and every now and then they send us a free box of candles,’ answered the rabbi. ‘Oh,’ replies the auditor. ‘What about all the matzos you buy? What do you do with the crumbs?’ ‘We send them to the manufacturers, and every now and then they send us a free box of matzos.’ ‘I see,’ the auditor says. ‘And what, rabbi,’ he goes on, ‘do you do with all the foreskins left over from the circumcisions you perform?’ ‘Ah,’ says the rabbi. ‘We send them to the tax office, and about once a year they send us a complete schmuck.’”

  Gabriella Pappenheim had broken her right hip, and was given an artificial replacement. Her rehabilitation took months, and for a while, on walks with Monsieur, Elzira would push her grandmother’s wheelchair through the streets of the Jewish neighbourhood, accompanied by a housekeeper or Sara.

  Granny Pappenheim temporarily moved in with her son’s family. After his voluntary stint in the army, Simon was now studying medicine. His room had been redecorated in the meantime, in cheerful yellows and greens.

  Despite her living on the premises, I saw Mrs Pappenheim so rarely that I asked Elzira if she was all right. Elzira told me not to worry, she was slowly but surely getting better.

  “Doesn’t your granny get lonely sometimes?” I asked.

  “There’s always someone with her, in the kitchen, in her room or at the physiotherapist. When we’re not there, the nurse is. Granny doesn’t like to talk very much. When I take her out for a walk she hums songs and tunes, and I hum along with her, because I know the songs and melodies from when I was small. And Monsieur loves it, I can see it by his tail, he wags it comme une pendule qui a perdu le sens du temps.”

  One Wednesday afternoon, grandmother Pappenheim entered the house in her wheelchair just as I was leaving.

  “Good afternoon, Madame,” I said.

  “Shalom,” she said.

  “I was glad to hear that you’re doing well.”

  “At my age, doing well is an extremely relative concept,” she laughed bitterly.

  “Only a few more months and you’ll be walking about again,” I said, trying to cheer her up.

  “A
long time ago, during the war, I was skin and bone. Now I’m just skin,” she said.

  I was shaken by the hardness of her words, by the vision they conjured up of a very different world. She saw that.

  “Don’t look so shocked, young lady. I have advanced osteoporosis—bone loss. I have almost no bones left.”

  “You must eat well and drink lots of milk,” I said in my brash innocence.

  “Children must eat and drink well, because children must grow,” she answered. With her sinewy right index finger she toyed with the satin bow at the neck of her dress, over which she wore a pearl necklace. “Just because the nurse treats me like a child, doesn’t mean I am a child. ‘So how’s Madame today?’ and ‘Was Mrs Gabriella a naughty girl last night?’ To die decently is the only task I have left.”

  She took my hand and studied my fingers. “Why don’t you wear a ring?”

  “I don’t wear jewellery.”

  “None at all?”

  “I’m allergic to certain substances.”

  “Allergic to gold?”

  “To all metals.”

  “Then you must wear diamonds,” she said, her chin uplifted. She regarded me sternly, this woman whom I’d compared to a volcano. Now, injury and a major operation seemed to have tempered her fire. Or had Mrs Pappenheim broken more than her hip? Was she insinuating that her will to live had been crushed too?

  “I must go, Madame,” I said, at a loss to know what to say.

  “Come up to my room,” she commanded. “Drink a cup of tea with me.” Her wheelchair just fitted in the lift, with me squeezed next to her.

  Forty-Two

  From Simon’s room, Mrs Pappenheim rang the kitchen. “A yid hot lib dem geshmak fun a yidish vort in zayn moyl,” she said after she’d hung up, and when Krystina came up shortly afterwards to serve us tea and cake, she repeated this sentence twice, and Krystina, as she left the room, nodded in agreement.

  Mrs Pappenheim asked me what she had said. I had to confess I didn’t know, but assumed it was an old saying, some piece of folk wisdom. She wrote down the sentence phonetically, in the Roman alphabet, on an old Paris Match. Her ornate handwriting was at odds with her sober appearance. For that very reason, it suited her.