Replacement Girl

by Ann Beaglehole

  ‘That was the end of my job. Not that your mother and grandmother found out for quite a while, for I would set off each morning as though I was going to work. I walked the streets of Pest where they were not likely to run into me. It was only about three weeks later that I owned up to what had happened.

  ‘Losing the job was a major blow. During our remaining years in Hungary, I couldn’t find decent work. My act to undermine the regime, as it was perceived by the authorities, also counted against my family. There was little chance that you would ever be able to have a university education, for instance. Your grandmother was extremely upset, panicstricken even. But your mother backed me up. She told me she was proud of what I had done. It had just been a smile and a snigger. But many were too cowardly even for small acts of defiance.’

  I turn to look at my father. Eyes shining with obstinate satisfaction, he falls silent. When he starts speaking again, it is about his childhood.

  ‘You know, Eva, that because my father died when I was still so young, we were always poor. I had to leave school when I was only fourteen to help my mother in the shop. If only my mother hadn’t married again. My stepfather beat her and made her life a misery. My sister escaped as soon as she could. I wanted to leave too. One morning I got up, bag packed, ready to say, “I’m off to work in Budapest. There is more for me in the big city. There is no place for me in this house while he is around.”

  ‘When she saw my bag she said, “You’re going out on business? What time will you be back?”

  ‘“Yes, on business,” I said. “I’ll be late.” I kissed her and walked away, but I was home again before the end of the day.’

  My father sighs.

  ‘Sometimes, the idea hits me that the jewellery and the photos are still there in the ground. Perhaps my stepfather didn’t find them, nor did the concierge. One day I want to go back and have a look. I want to see the photos again – of my mother, my sister, her child – before I die.

  ‘Where was the waste ground?’ I ask him.

  ‘Not too far from where I used to take you walking when you were a little girl.’

  A fuzzy picture of stone walls and cobblestone pavements comes and floats away again. I nod.

  As we stand together on the band rotunda overlooking the bright Pacific, the harbour and hills of Wellington vanish and my father is looking out at Lánc Bridge, the hills of Buda and the waste ground at Óbuda.

  The Webbs invite me to go on a picnic at Days Bay.

  ‘Take the warm cardigan,’ my mother says.

  With lurching stomach, I squeeze into the back of the car between William and one of the little sisters. At the grassy park across the road from the beach, Mrs Webb spreads out the rug, and from the basket appears our lunch. There is pale pink luncheon sausage and lots of lettuce, which she breaks into little bits. She slices up tomato and cucumber, and pours orange cordial into cups. There is also the spongy white bread, already sliced, and a pie.

  ‘Come and eat,’ she calls out. No one comes. Stan and the children are down at the beach. When they come back, dripping and shivering in the cool breeze, Mrs Webb ties a rope between the car and a tree branch. Soon several rows of togs and towels are flapping in the breeze. Soon everyone has had enough of the picnic and it is time for a cup of tea made from the hot water Mrs Webb brings from the tearooms.

  ‘Come and help clear up and put the rubbish in the bin,’ she calls out. No one comes. I clear away the rubbish. William and the younger girls are kicking a ball around on the field. Stan is getting ready to go fishing.

  William and I and the other girls spend the afternoon playing cricket and swimming in the sea. When the sun goes down, Mrs Webb makes more tea. I help her butter the bread. It is peaceful. Nearly all the bread is buttered before Mrs Webb says a word, something about the bread. Stan returns and sits on the rug, drinking beer with the red-faced men he has been fishing with. Mrs Webb tries to get the men to move so that she can tidy the rug. William and I slip away for a walk in the bush. After a while we find a mossy bit under a giant fern and lie together kissing under the speckled sky. When it gets dark, I squeeze beside William in the car and we drive back to Kilbirnie.

  ‘They get me in a corner and yell “dirty Jew”.’ Tomi is telling me of his troubles at Wellington College.

  ‘In New Zealand, no one cares about that.’

  But what do I, blue-eyed with brown curls that caress my dimples and go nearly blonde when bleached by the sun (I think of myself as looking a little like Melanie in Gone with the Wind), with my almost accent-free English, know about that? When people ask me occasionally where I come from, I say Newtown.

  Tomi is dark, short, plump. He is a quiet, sleepy, shy sort of boy. Sometimes we go up to the pines in the town belt and he reads out loud some of the poems he has written. If I’m in the mood, I let him kiss me. At other times, when he tries anything, I say, ‘Stop it’ in an impatient voice or giggle when he touches me until he flushes with embarrassment.

  He asks me to go out with him to concerts and dances. I usually say no until I need a partner for my school dance; then if nobody more suitable is available, I invite Tomi. When at the last minute I manage to find someone else to go with, Tomi says he doesn’t mind.

  ‘Perhaps one day you’ll feel about me as I do about you.’

  This is unlikely, for I am already in love with someone else. He is blonde, blue-eyed, tall and has rippling muscles from rugby and harriers training. He is William Webb who lives across the lane.

  I stay in my room thinking about William, gazing at the curtains of his bedroom, which I can see as I lie on my bed. From my desk I can sometimes see him in the garden or sitting at his desk. But why doesn’t William ask me out? If he likes me enough for kisses and cuddles, why not a proper date?

  My parents and grandmother don’t understand what the trouble is. I’m taken to Dr Steiner. He prods with clammy hands and, peering at me with his bulging eyes, checks my heart, lungs, kidneys and liver.

  ‘So what is upsetting the young lady?’ he says in Hungarian.

  ‘Nothing,’ I reply in English.

  ‘The young lady is as fit as a fiddle.’

  How utterly ludicrous Dr Steiner’s English idiom sounds mangled by his thick Hungarian accent.

  ‘Listen, Kati. Some of my young Kiwi patients – I have a few of these too – suffer from being neglected. The people raising them are distracted by unhappiness or alcohol, or by too many children. Their kids are denied attention, or they don’t get enough of the right kind of attention. By contrast, this young lady, and my other young Hungarian Jewish patients, have too much of it. They suffer from too much attention.’

  My mother’s not listening. ‘If only we had gone to America,’ she says. ‘I blame New Zealand for this.’

  Dr Steiner is writing a prescription and telling us his life story.

  ‘I came to New Zealand before the war, one of the lucky ones who got away before the worst excesses of the Nazi regime. This has been for me a wonderful country. I have never wanted to go anywhere else.’

  ‘You have a child yourself?’ my mother asks him.

  ‘No, nor a wife. My nearest relative is cousin Marta in Tel Aviv. This is for you, three times a day.’ He gives my mother the prescription. ‘It will help your nerves.’

  My parents aren’t the only ones in the circle to have problems with their child.

  Sándor and Klára Kunz worry because Tomi lies on his bed listening to the hit parade and won’t let his mother tell him what to wear. Nor are his school marks good enough. Rudi and Vera are upset because Joe is still pestering them about wanting to give up the piano. Maria and Gábor Ranki have the most to contend with.

  The conversation at dinner is fascinating. ‘What did poor Gábor do to deserve such a daughter?’ says my father. ‘Zsuzsi is driving him into the grave with her behaviour.’

  ‘Ah, that Zsuzsi.’ My mother is frowning. ‘Do not talk to me about Zsuzsi. Poor Gábor and Maria.’

&nbs
p; Zsuzsi was on her best behaviour during the short time she was dating Michael Cohen. The trouble began when he said to her, ‘You’re not one of us. I’ve found out about you. Your mothers not Jewish.’ By this time it was Rosh Hashonah. Wearing an orange and yellow children’s party hat and carrying a large plastic bag, Zsuzsi marched up to Michael in the synagogue. From the bag, she removed a medium-sized pig’s head, with one glassy eye.

  ‘That’s for you because you’re a stupid pig,’ she shouted over the babble of praying voices, and threw the head at him.

  Her actions resulted in the Ranki family being visited by Mrs Shapiro, who summoned Rabbi Rosenblum.

  Zsuzsi and her parents were sure that he would forbid her to go near the synagogue again. But the meeting with him went like this:

  Rabbi: ‘Why do you mock your family, your religion, your God, my child?’

  Zsuzsi: ‘I don’t know.’

  Rabbi: ‘What can I say to you? I’m not a young man. I don’t like to waste either my time or my words.’

  Zsuzsi: ‘No, Rabbi.’

  Rabbi: ‘I can see that you are a young woman with a strong sense of justice, Zsuzsi. Make sure you use those qualities to fight for the Jewish people, not to bring disgrace on them. Now I’ll tell you a story about waste. It happened to two boys, just a bit older than you.

  ‘The boys wanted to give their mother a new and different birthday present. They went from shop to shop, until to their wonder and delight, they found a parrot that spoke Yiddish! This astonishing bird cost £500, but the devoted sons decided it was worth it. Think of the hours and hours of pleasure their old-fashioned mother would derive from conversing with the extraordinary parrot; and think of the admiration the bird would receive from their mother’s circle of friends!

  ‘So the sons bought a beautiful gilded cage, and placed the parrot inside, and had the unusual birthday gift delivered to their mother.

  ‘A few hours later, in great excitement, they telephoned her: “Mamma, mamma, how did you like your present?”

  ‘“Delicious,” said Mamma.’

  When he had finished the story, the rabbi said, ‘And now, my child, I am more than ready for the coffee and Strudel your mother has so kindly offered me,’ and shuffled out of the room.

  What has Zsuzsi done this time?

  ‘When the Rankis got home,’ my father says in a grave voice, they found her asleep in their bed. Beside her was a man. He looked to be around thirty years old.’

  He pauses.

  ‘He was a goy.’

  ‘So what?’ says my mother.

  ‘What do you mean so what? Your daughter’s friend Zsuzsi was found by her poor parents in their bed with a goy and you say so what.’

  ‘Would it have been a decent way to behave if he’d been Jewish?’

  When they stop arguing, my father tells us the rest:

  ‘When the Rankis threw him out, Zsuzsi told them she wanted to go flatting. As poor Maria chased Zsuzsi round the house, trying to shut her in her room to stop her leaving, she crashed through the glass kitchen door. Blood everywhere from cuts, but Maria is not seriously hurt, thank God. Dr Steiner patched her up. Poor, poor Gábor and Maria to have such a daughter. You see, Eva. Marrying out. It never works.’

  The next day is Saturday. Saturday night is picture-going night for the circle.

  ‘You and Gábor must come out as planned,’ my mother tells Maria on the phone. ‘I will pick you up and collect Stephen Lucas on the way.’

  ‘Why does he have to come?’ I ask. Stephen is still without a wife despite all his efforts. I used to enjoy playing chess with him until the day he cornered me in the Rankis’ kitchen and covered my lips with his flabby, smelly mouth.

  ‘Poor Stephen gets very lonely,’ my mother says, ‘especially at weekends. It is hard enough here when you are with your family. It is much worse for young people by themselves like him.’

  The film we are going to is The Inn of the Sixth Happiness with Ingrid Bergman. In spite of the embarrassment of going out with my parents and the circle, I love going to the pictures. The films we see are all about love and war. My favourites are The Young Lions and Me and the Colonel with Danny Kaye. Me and the Colonel is the story of a refugee, played by Danny Kaye who is so poor that all his belongings fit into two small suitcases. But even though he is poor and short and also a refugee, he wins the beautiful French woman Suzanne, whom he loves, and triumphs over the big bully of an army colonel who is making his life a misery.

  When Zsuzsi still used to come to the pictures, before she started going out with men, she and I would sit together as far away as possible from the adults. This was so that we could talk undisturbed, avoid being asked to translate the film, and make sure we didn’t hear the loud voices of our parents picking out the foreign names when the credits came on. It was so irritating the way the best stars, directors and everyone important to do with the film all turned out to be Jewish or Hungarian.

  In the foyer waiting for the Kunzes to arrive, my parents have almost run out of sympathy, patience and advice for Maria and Gábor in their new calamity.

  ‘Did you ask Dr Steiner for something to calm you down?’ My mother says in a tired voice. ‘I find the white pills are the best.’

  Maria shakes her head and dabs her nose with her non-bandaged hand. Gábor, oblivious to the Saturday night crowd, has tears in his eyes. Like my father, he is soft and utterly lacking in self-control.

  ‘We have been trying for a long time to stop her seeing this old man,’ says Maria. ‘She wants to be in a flat so that she can see this bad man.’ Her voice is loud, and I notice one or two people turning their heads to look at us.

  ‘I ordered her to return to the house, but she would not,’ says Gábor. ‘I have no control over my little girl.’

  Thank goodness Sándor and Klára have arrived and the film is about to start.

  ‘Where is Tomi?’ I ask as we file in. He is usually willing to translate for the adults.

  ‘He has to study. His marks are not good enough,’ Klára says.

  As the only English speaker present the burden is mine. I end up with Maria on one side and my mother on the other.

  The lights dim as we all stand for ‘God Save the Queen’. My mother picks this time to shuffle in her handbag for bits of toast. She never goes out without spare food.

  ‘Sh, sh.’ As I turn my head, I notice that behind us is William – with someone. Unless I turn round again, I cannot see with whom. Just my luck.

  My grandmother is sitting next to my mother. The shorts flicker by to the accompaniment of their loud whisperings. ‘What is he saying? What are they talking about?’ says my grandmother. My mother’s responses are even noisier. ‘I can’t understand what is happening,’ my grandmother complains, not whispering.

  At the same time, Maria is badgering me:

  ‘What’s going on? What did the woman say?’

  ‘Do you realise that you are stopping me hearing what the film is even about?’ I burst out when the interval comes.

  ‘How well Tomi translates for us all when he comes, and without complaining. Why are you so selfish?’ my mother says to no one in particular.

  I escape to the crowded foyer. I have just found a spot well away from them when William approaches.

  ‘Long time no see. Come over again sometime. Cheerio.’

  He goes to the counter and I watch him return to the auditorium carrying two ice creams. As I slide into my seat, I see that beside him is a girl with long platinum-blonde hair. Is it because I haven’t been playing hard to get that he never asks me out?

  The curtain rises and The Inn of the Sixth Happiness begins. But I take in little of the film and scarcely even notice the whisperings of ‘What’s he saying? What’s happening?’ around me.

  At last it is over, the curtain closes and we file out.

  ‘Tempus fugit, as the poet says,’ says Miss Bentley, who has a long nose. She takes us – the top fourth form at Wellington East Girls�
� College – for Social Studies.

  ‘Open your books, girls. Hurry up.’

  Today we are finishing off our essays on the Second World War and starting a project on the monarchy.

  Each girl reads out a bit from the School Bulletin, which has an article and some pictures in it about the royal tour.

  ‘Any comments, girls?’ says Miss Bentley.

  I put my hand up. Unlike the others in my class, who usually don’t say a word unless it’s dragged out of them, I can never resist the chance to discuss something, though the teachers call it arguing.

  ‘Yes, Eva,’ says Miss Bentley with a sigh.

  ‘The people lining the streets don’t seem very excited about seeing the Queen.’ I’m looking at a photo of people standing in neat rows, limply holding flags.

  ‘Our New Zealand temperament is fairly conservative and unemotional in matters of public display of feeling,’ says Miss Bentley firmly. ‘And that’s as it should be.’

  Although I can never resist saying something, I often feel uncomfortable afterwards. Does Miss Bentley like me? I wonder.

  ‘Get on with your essays quietly,’ says Miss Bentley when she leaves the room. She writes ‘Hitler’ and ‘War’ on the board. As soon as the door closes, some of my classmates set about filing their nails, teasing their hair and doing breast improvement exercises.

  My friend Mary, who prides herself on being different, says, ‘The German people aren’t responsible for what happened to the Jews. They had no choice but to conform. The average person has to think about their own skin.’ We discussed all this yesterday and I had thought my arguments had finally convinced her.