Things Could Be Worse

by Lily Brett

  She loved to feel the earth on her legs, on her hair, on her scalp, on her hands. Lying there, blended into the earth, Renia Bensky felt happy.

  Loti Luftman’s Daughter

  When she arrived in Australia, ten-year-old Michelle Luftman was put into grade one. ‘When her English improves we will move her up,’ the headmaster said to Esther Borg, Michelle’s guardian.

  ‘Mister Herbert,’ said Esther Borg, ‘Herr Professor, this girl is very clever. She can speak French. She travelled on a boat by herself for eleven weeks to come to Australia. She sat at the captain’s table every night. She organised it herself. She had no-one else to organise anything for her. You know that she is an orphan. Herr Professor, if a girl is so clever that she sits at the captain’s table, don’t you think she doesn’t deserve to be in a class with five-year-olds? Don’t you think you could put her with children of her own age?’ ‘All in good time, Mrs Borg. All in good time,’ said Mr Herbert.

  ‘It’s lucky my Rivka learns French at school,’ Esther Borg said to Ada Small, who could speak French, ‘and it’s lucky I have got you, Ada, to help me, because, to tell you the truth, I don’t know what I would do with Michelle otherwise. At least she eats everything that I give her. That you can say about her for sure, she is a very good eater, but she is a bit wild. I am used to my Rivka. She is such a good girl. She studies hard. She doesn’t give me any trouble. This one, this Michelle, if I ask her not to dip her bread into her milk, she says, “Why?” I tell her it’s not nice. But she doesn’t care to be nice. She just keeps on putting her bread into her milk. And I know she can understand what I am saying. Oy, Ada, what am I going to do? You think God thought I didn’t have enough troubles already?’

  Michelle Luftman was the daughter of Esther’s third cousin, Loti Luftman. ‘I wonder if she has got some of her father’s bad blood,’ Esther said to Ada Small. ‘You know, Ada, Loti married a bad type. He was a gambler with a big eye for the girls. Loti’s parents didn’t give their blessings to the marriage. This did upset Loti, but she was so madly in love with this gambler that nothing else mattered. They left Lodz in 1937 to live in Paris. I heard that Loti’s mother was never the same after her daughter left.’

  When Esther was asked by the Jewish Welfare Agency whether she was willing to take in her cousin’s daughter, she was horrified. She’d hardly known Loti, so why would they ask her to take in Loti’s child? Mrs Silberman from the Jewish Welfare Agency had explained to Esther that welfare agencies in Paris were looking for orphaned Jewish children who had been in hiding during the war or who had lived as Christians in Christian families. They were reclaiming these children and placing them with Jewish families.

  Esther was superstitious. She was frightened of not doing the right thing. She reminded herself that it was the greatest honour, in God’s eyes, to look after an orphan. And so Esther had said yes, she would take Michelle into her home.

  Sometimes, at night, Esther wondered how Loti had died. She knew that she had died in Auschwitz. She knew that by the time Michelle was born the gambler had already left Loti for a wealthy French woman. Esther had heard this news from her cousin in Lodz. Esther had also heard that in 1939 Loti had wanted to come home to Lodz with the baby, but her father had told her that things were very bad in Poland and that she and the baby would be safer in Paris.

  Loti was making arrangements to leave for Grenoble when the Gestapo began rounding up the Jews in Paris. Loti knew that the Gestapo were making surprise raids on Jewish homes. Each time Loti returned to her apartment she left the baby in her pram in the street while she checked the apartment. Inside the pram Loti kept a note. It read: ‘This baby is not to be moved until I return. I have only gone inside for a short while.’

  The day that the Gestapo were waiting for Loti, she had parked Michelle outside Monsieur Renard’s bakery. Monsieur Renard knew Loti and always kept an eye on the pram. Monsieur Renard watched the Gestapo take Loti away. She didn’t even glance in the direction of the pram. When Loti hadn’t returned by the time it was dark, Monsieur Renard wheeled the pram to his sister’s house. He asked his sister to look after the baby until Loti’s return. Monsieur Renard’s sister kept Michelle for a few days before giving her back to Monsieur Renard. ‘She looks too Jewish,’ she said to her brother. ‘I’m not going to be killed or run the risk of my family being killed for one small Jewish child.’

  Monsieur Renard, a middle-aged bachelor, was heartbroken. Michelle was such a sweet child. She could already say a few words, and she was always in a good mood, always smiling. She didn’t look Jewish. With her blonde hair and heart-shaped face, she looked more Norwegian than Jewish. But his sister would not change her mind.

  Monsieur Renard took Michelle home with him. He kept her hidden in the back of the bakery. Several times a day he would step out of the shop to see if he could see any sign of Loti coming back. After four months Monsieur Renard knew that he had to make a decision about Michelle. Although she was an obedient child, and kept very quiet while the shop was open, it was becoming more and more difficult to hide her. Once, when he hadn’t been able to pop into the back and see her for a few hours, she ran into the shop and hugged him.

  She was his cousin’s child, he explained to a curious customer, and he was looking after her while his poor cousin recovered from tuberculosis.

  But he was nervous. There were many Nazi collaborators, and it was impossible to recognise them. Monsieur Renard’s sister heard of a Catholic woman who would take Michelle in, for a small fee. ‘Just until her mother comes back. Just until after the war,’ Monsieur Renard said to Madame Guillaume. Michelle screamed and screamed when Monsieur and Madame Guillaume came to the bakery to collect her. She clung to Monsieur Renard. It took both men to disengage Michelle from Monsieur Renard. After Monsieur and Madame Guillaume left with Michelle, Monsieur Renard howled like a child.

  Michelle stayed with the Guillaume family for eight years. Pierre and Marie Guillaume were good to Michelle. They took her to church every Sunday. She was a curious child, and a quick learner. By the time she was three she could recite the rosary. Several times a day she would say, ‘Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.’ She would, if she was asked, say that her mother was Jeanne Lafitte, cousin of Monsieur Renard. ‘My mother is very sick in a sanatorium,’ she would say.

  Monsieur Renard sent a small weekly stipend to Madame Guillaume, but he never came to visit Michelle. A visit, he thought, would disturb her. It would do her more harm than good.

  When Michelle was six, Madame Guillaume gave birth to twin boys, Alain and Auguste. Michelle doted on them. She fed them, she sang to them, and she walked them round and round the square in their big double pram.

  ‘I don’t know how I would have managed without Michelle. She is a gift to me from God,’ Madame Guillaume said to her husband. When the war ended, Madame Guillaume became very agitated. Every day she ran down to the letterbox to see if there was any news of Loti Luftman.

  One day a letter arrived from Monsieur Renard. Loti Luftman had perished in Auschwitz, he said. Madame Guillaume could not contain herself. She wept with relief. She did not want to experience her happiness at the expense of somebody else, she told the priest at confession, but she was overjoyed that Michelle was now hers.

  On the other side of Paris, Monsieur Renard’s sister was bothered by her conscience. Finally, she phoned the Jewish Welfare. ‘I have to do this,’ she said to her husband. ‘I have to make sure that that poor little girl knows who her real people are. I deserted her once, and I am not going to desert her again. It is not right that she is being brought up as a Catholic.’

  The day that the people from the Jewish Welfare came to collect Michelle, the whole Guillaume family was crying. Michelle clung to Madame Guillaume. ‘Maman, maman, don’t let them take me,’ she screamed. ‘Maman, maman, don’t let them take me!’

  Mrs Polonsky from the Jewish Welfare escor
ted Michelle on the train to Marseilles. ‘This woman is taking me away from my mother,’ Michelle told everyone in the carriage. She repeated it whenever anyone walked through. Nobody took any notice. When Mrs Polonsky tried to put her arm around Michelle, Michelle bit her. When they reached Marseilles, Mrs Polonsky put Michelle on board the boat for Australia. The purser agreed that it would be best if they locked Michelle in her cabin until the boat was ready to leave. When the boat sailed Mrs Polonsky heaved a sigh of relief.

  To celebrate Michelle’s first birthday in Australia, the Borg family went out to dinner at Giuseppe Botticelli’s Italian Cuisine Restaurant in the city.

  ‘Have you got a French onion soup?’ Esther Borg asked the waiter.

  ‘We have a beautiful minestrone, but madame, if you wish, we will make you a French onion soup,’ said the waiter.

  ‘Good,’ said Esther. ‘This girl is French, from France you understand, and she likes an onion soup.’

  ‘Excuse me, this is not onion soup,’ Esther announced when the soup arrived. ‘This is kapushniak.’

  ‘Madame, I assure you that this is French onion soup,’ said the waiter.

  ‘This is kapushniak. Polish cabbage soup. And it is not such a good kapushniak,’ said Esther.

  ‘You expect an Italian to make a good kapushniak? You are crazy,’ said Josl Bensky. The Borgs had invited the Benskys to join the celebration.

  ‘You have to be very careful about what you eat in a restaurant,’ said Renia Bensky.

  ‘Yes,’ said Josl. ‘I did eat some worms last week and oy Gott was I sick. Sick like a dog. I usually don’t eat those worms, but they were in a special dish a girl did bring to the factory for her birthday.’

  ‘Josl, they are not called worms,’ said Renia. ‘They are called prawns.’

  ‘You are, like always, right, Renia, they are called prunes,’ said Josl.

  ‘Prawns, Josl, not prunes,’ said Renia.

  ‘Prunes and prawns. Sounds like the same thing to me,’ said Josl.

  ‘Josl, you have to learn to say the right word,’ said Esther. ‘We are in Australia and in Australia we speak English. Oy, look who is at the table in the corner. It’s Mr and Mrs Belgiorno from the fruit shop. Good evening, Mr and Mrs Belgiorno. Good evening.’ Esther lowered her voice: ‘She is eating crapes. Crapes is a fish with a shell. It is not trayfe, but maybe one day we will try a crape. After all, none of us is religious.’

  ‘It’s not a crape, Mum,’ said Rivka. ‘It’s a lobster.’

  ‘It’s for sure not a lobster, it’s a crape,’ said Esther.

  ‘I think Esther means a crab, not a crape,’ said Max Borg.

  ‘Oh. I know what Mum meant,’ said Rivka. ‘She meant a crayfish.’

  ‘That is what I said, a crapefish,’ said Esther.

  ‘It’s not for me, such a crapefish,’ said Josl.

  The next day Max Borg came across Mario Belgiorno in Lygon Street, Carlton.

  ‘How you like that meal last night at Giuseppe Botticelli’s?’ asked Mr Belgiorno.

  ‘It was very nice,’ said Max. ‘The kapushniak was not so nice, but I can’t complain if an Italian can’t make a kapushniak.’

  ‘I had a polenta,’ said Mario Belgiorno, ‘and this morning I ring Botticelli and I say to him, “Why you put on the menu something you can’t cook? I come from Venezia and every Friday we have polenta and fish. You must have a German cook because he put bacon in the polenta.” I say to Botticelli, “We don’t put bacon in the polenta.” ’

  Max reported this conversation to Esther.

  ‘I knew this restaurant didn’t know what they were doing,’ she said. ‘The kapushniak was shocking.’

  When Michelle was twelve, Esther Borg went to see Mr Herbert again. ‘Herr Professor,’ she said, ‘I beg of you to put Michelle into at least grade six. She is a very intelligent girl. So she doesn’t want to learn about the grazing lands of Gippsland or the discovery of the Darling or the story of wool, so is this so terrible? What is it about these things that she should be so interested in? Herr Professor, it is something shocking that a twelve-year-old girl should be in grade three. Herr Professor, she is an orphan. Don’t you make special allowances for orphans?’

  ‘Mrs Borg, I can see your point of view, but I have a school to run and I can’t put a child up who refuses to do her projects,’ said Mr Herbert.

  Michelle was happy in grade three. She was with the same children she had started school with in grade one. Michelle liked her classmates. She often told them stories about the Guillaume family. The children loved the stories of the twins and how no-one except Michelle could get them to eat beans.

  Sometimes, on the way home from school, Michelle would stop at St Kevin’s church around the corner from the South Street Primary School. She could still remember her prayers. She never prayed for anything in particular. She was just soothed by the presence of God.

  The few times that Michelle mentioned God or the Guillaume family to Esther Borg, Esther would try to stop her from speaking. ‘Shush, shush, Michelle,’ she would say. ‘You mustn’t upset yourself. That is in the past, and the past has gone. You are our daughter now and we love you like our own daughter. You must forget the past and think of the future. And better still, you could think of your school work. A girl like you in grade three, it is shocking. Also, you could stop, once and for all, dipping your bread in your milk.’

  ‘I don’t know how Esther manages with that Michelle,’ said Josl Bensky to Renia. ‘This morning Max came to pick me up. He had Michelle in the car. She jumped into the front seat. I said to her: “Excuse me, I am going to sit in the front seat.” She said to me: “No, I am. It is my car, not your car.” Is that a nice way to behave?’

  ‘You know, Josl, I feel sorry for Michelle,’ said Renia. ‘She was dragged away from a family who loved her. I hear Esther doesn’t even let her write to them. So what, so they were Catholic? She was happy. Is it such an important thing to be Jewish? Look at all the people who died because they were Jewish. Why is it so wonderful to be Jewish? And what sort of a Jew is Esther Borg? Josl, what sort of a Jew is she? Does she go to synagogue? Does she observe even the holiest of holy days? Of course not. So this poor child got dragged from a good family to come and live a Jewish life. Is it such a good life, Josl, that it is better for her?’

  * * *

  Michelle left school at fifteen. She had completed grade five.

  ‘I did my best,’ Esther Borg wailed. ‘The child wouldn’t do her projects. What could I do?’

  Max Borg got Michelle a job in the Baumes’ grocery shop. Michelle worked there with Mrs Baume and her son, Shmul. Mr Baume worked in a factory. Baume’s was the first kosher grocer shop in Melbourne. Michelle weighed and served pickles and herrings. She sliced sausages and packed breads and bottled oil. Sometimes women left their children with Michelle while they went next door to the butcher’s.

  ‘Michelle is a wonder with children,’ Mrs Baume told everybody, ‘and she is a wonder in the shop. I don’t know how we managed without her.’

  Michelle talked to the customers and she talked to Shmul. She talked to Shmul every day. And Shmul listened. On the eve of Michelle’s sixteenth birthday, Shmul asked Michelle to marry him.

  ‘I need this like I need a hole in the head,’ Esther Borg said to Max when Shmul asked for Michelle’s hand in marriage. ‘What for does she want to marry a religious boy? Is this what she came to a modern country to do? To be a religious fanatic? Thank you, no.’

  But Max Borg gave the couple his blessing. ‘He is a good boy, Esther, and he will be a good husband to Michelle,’ said Max.

  On their wedding night, Michelle said to Shmul, ‘Shmul, maybe if we are very lucky we will have twins.’

  ‘Maybe we will have two sets of twins,’ said Shmul.

  ‘You know, Renia, Michelle won’t eat at my house any more,’ said Esther. ‘That’s what I needed, a religious maniac. She goes to synagogue, she keeps a kosher house. My God, she even
wears a shaytl, with such beautiful hair, she wears a wig. I said to her last week: “Come on, just take one piece of klops home.” She wouldn’t. What did I need this for? Soon she won’t even have a glass of water in my house. And with that shaytl on she looks like she lives in a village in Poland. I should have been able to see what was happening between her and that Shmul.’

  ‘What you should be able to see, Esther my darling cousin,’ said Renia, ‘is that Michelle looks happy.’

  ‘Happy, happy, what does Renia Bensky know about happy?’ Esther said to Max that night.

  ‘Esther darling, if Michelle won’t eat with us maybe you could cook at her house and then everything will be kosher and we can eat there with them?’ said Max.

  ‘I have got a shocking headache from being with Renia Bensky, so please leave me in peace,’ said Esther.

  A year after the wedding, Esther saw Mr Herbert outside the school. ‘Hello, hello,’ she called to him. ‘I would just like to tell you, Herr Professor, that my Michelle has done very well. She has found herself a beautiful husband. He is good to her like gold. And any minute now we are going to be grandparents. And let me tell you, Herr Professor, that she has done all of this without your help. She has done all of this without the projects about the mighty merino or the death of the dinosaur. Yes, Herr Professor, my Michelle has done very well and she has done it all by herself.’

  An Illness

  Lola Bensky looked at her mother fussing around her younger sister, Lina. Lina had been born with one leg shorter than the other. So what, thought Lola. All it meant was that she limped. But her mother seemed to think it meant Lina’s life was in danger.

  Mrs Bensky was sitting on Lina’s bed. ‘Lina darling, it’s time to get out of bed and get ready for school. Sit up and drink your orange juice, darling.’

  Lola grimaced. She didn’t think Lina was a darling.