Things Could Be Worse

by Lily Brett

  Some of the company were embarrassed by Genia Pekelman and her dancing. Mrs Small was furious. She said to Mrs Bensky, ‘Look at her! She is so big and fat and ugly, and she wants to dance for everybody. When she moves her big tuches around the room it is shocking.’

  ‘She can’t help it,’ Mrs Bensky replied. ‘She doesn’t know how she looks. She is not so intelligent.’

  As well as pigs and idiots, Mrs Bensky knew about intelligence. She dismissed most people as ‘not intelligent’. One year Mrs Small, who spoke Russian, Polish, Yiddish, French and English, interpreted for the members of the Moscow Circus when they came to Melbourne. Mrs Bensky was clenched with anger for the entire season.

  ‘She thinks she is such a big intelligence,’ Mrs Bensky railed. ‘What does she read, this big intelligence, this Mrs Intelligentsia? Maybe a Women’s Weekly under the hair dryer once a week? I remember her mother delivered our milk in Lodz. Two big cans across her shoulders, she walked from house to house in bare feet. And both daughters finished school at twelve. Now, suddenly, Ada Small is a genius. She tells everybody that she matriculated in Poland. Soon she will say she was almost a doctor. Everybody who came here after the war was almost a doctor. Mrs Ada Intelligentsia thinks she is important because she is translating for an acrobat.’

  Mrs Bensky did know about intelligence. She was the only one of the group who had been at university. She still kept her student card in her handbag. In 1972, Mrs Bensky enrolled at Melbourne University. She did one semester of ‘Physics In The Firing Line’. Lola had suggested that Mrs Bensky study Russian or German, languages she was fluent in. Lola thought that this would have been a gentler introduction to university life, but Mrs Bensky insisted on ‘Physics In The Firing Line’. Science had been Mrs Bensky’s great love in Lodz. When she spoke about Copernicus and the planets, Mrs Bensky was at her most tender. It was science that Mrs Bensky wanted to go back to.

  In Lodz, Mrs Bensky came top of her class every year. She was every teacher’s favourite student. Her curiosity was as immense as her ambition. Other people in the neighbourhood laughed at her father for wasting his money on a daughter. ‘You’ll make her too clever for a husband,’ one neighbour repeated regularly.

  At the University of Melbourne, Renia Bensky was so tense she could hardly hear the lecturer. His words flew around the auditorium. Mrs Bensky had to grab each word and put it in its correct place. Sometimes she lost a few words and the sentences didn’t make sense. She sat in a sweat through most of the professor’s speeches. Later she learnt that this heat was menopausal.

  Renia worked feverishly on her first assignment, ‘Molecules And The Future’. At last it was finished. Fifteen pages on bright yellow notepaper. Lina corrected the English, and they hired a professional typist to type the essay.

  Mrs Bensky got a ‘C’ for ‘Molecules And The Future’. She wept and wept.

  Mr Bensky tried to comfort her. ‘This assignment, Renia darling, is out of this world. Something special. There is no question about it. It is perfect, believe me.’ But Mrs Bensky went on weeping.

  Mrs Small gave Mrs Bensky her sympathy and support. ‘I think it is anti-Semitism,’ she said. ‘For what other reason would he give such a beautiful piece of work only a “C”? He is an anti-Semite, for sure.’

  Most of the company called around to offer their condolences. They knew it wasn’t Mrs Bensky’s fault. A ‘C’ for Renia Bensky, whoever heard of such a thing? Everybody knew she was too intelligent. But Mrs Bensky was inconsolable.

  She rang her tutor, a young, pale-faced boy of twenty-five, to ask if maybe it was her English that wasn’t perfect. Maybe that was why she had got a ‘C’.

  ‘Excuse me, tutor,’ she began, ‘I want to know if you have made a mistake with my essay. I think the English was very good. My younger daughter who is a lawyer with an honours degree did correct my writing, so it couldn’t be my bad English. And my English is very good. She didn’t find many mistakes at all. I understand you did give young John Matheson an “A”. Well, he told me himself that I did understand the molecules much better than him. In fact, I explained some of the facts to him. So, he got an “A” and I got a “C”? Maybe I shouldn’t have hired a typist? Maybe you think I have got money to burn or to throw away that I hired a typist? My husband worked very hard for fifteen years in factories so I could afford a typist. Maybe you were prejudiced against my typing? Did Mr Matheson type his essay? I’m sure not. As a matter of fact I know his mother, Mrs Matheson. She told me he was talking about how much I know about molecules. You know, I, myself, don’t think you are an anti-Semite. My friend Mrs Small does, but she is not intelligent. She doesn’t see we are in a modern world and this is not Poland.

  ‘So, do you have an answer, Mr Tutor? Do you know how many years I dreamed of going to university? Do you know this? I dreamed of studying at university when I was a small girl. And I kept dreaming. Even in Auschwitz, when I didn’t dream any more, sometimes when I was standing in roll-call for six hours, barefoot in the snow, I would try to think about what subjects I could study one day.’

  Now Mrs Bensky was crying. ‘Do you have an answer, Mr Tutor? When I came to Australia my sister-in-law said to me that all women work in Australia. She said to me I should have considered if I could afford to have a baby before I got pregnant. So I took my baby every day to Mrs Polonsky, a woman in Carlton. I had never been apart from my baby. Sometimes I vomited on the tram on the way to the factory. I felt so frightened. Josl told me that Mrs Polonsky was a good woman and nothing would happen to little Lola, but I couldn’t stop being frightened. When I finished work I picked Lolala up. Mrs Polonsky lived just next to the university, and when I stopped vomiting, I made myself a promise that one day I would go there. Did you hear me, Mr Tutor?’

  Mrs Bensky left ‘Physics In The Firing Line’ six weeks after she had begun. She left the University of Melbourne a wiser person. The rest of the company acknowledged this and accorded her new respect. ‘She studied at Melbourne University,’ they now said when they spoke of her.

  I Wonder Why She Looks So Happy

  Genia Pekelman looked at herself in the mirror. Her thighs looked strong. They were muscular, not fat. Her breasts had fallen, but they were looking better than they used to. Less limp.

  She positioned herself in front of the full-length mirror, adjusted the legs of her leotards and began to dance.

  Genia felt alive. She could feel her muscles. She could feel her heart. She could feel her strength.

  She moved gracefully and rhythmically. She moved in time to the chorus of her veins and arteries. In tune with the movement of her blood.

  Her head and arms and legs were in harmony with the stars and the moon and the sun. That was how Genia Pekelman felt. Connected. Anchored. Part of the world.

  When Genia Pekelman was dancing, she could forget everything else. Genia had a lot to forget. She often thought that she had so much to forget that she could dance her way through ten lifetimes and still not have danced enough to forget everything.

  The memories that Genia Pekelman was trying to forget would leap out unexpectedly and leave her breathless.

  Last week, in Pruzansky’s butcher shop, a customer had asked for a kilo of calf’s liver. Mr Pruzansky was carefully slicing the liver. His blade was sharp and slid easily through the soft liver. Genia was watching, but she saw another blade slicing another liver.

  She saw Shimek Greenbaum cutting a liver with a blunt piece of tin. The liver belonged to Abe Korner. This was in Bergen-Belsen, in the last few weeks before the camp was liberated. Genia had just turned nineteen. Germany was losing the war. The front lines were disintegrating. The Germans were evacuating their forced-labour camps and concentration camps. Thousands of prisoners were brought to Bergen-Belsen on foot and by rail. In the week of Genia’s nineteenth birthday, in April 1945, twenty-eight thousand new inmates were dumped into Bergen-Belsen.

  Typhoid raged. Corpses rotted in the barracks. Rats ate prisoners’ finge
rs and toes while they slept. And starving prisoners ate the inmates who had died.

  There were things that Genia kept forgetting, memories that she fought to remember. Genia struggled to retain a clear picture of her parents.

  Shmul and Mania Buchbinder, Genia’s parents, were both dentists. Genia was their only child. They doted on her. Genia had piano lessons and ballet classes. A tutor came to the house twice a week to teach Genia French. At ten, Genia had read Madame Bovary in French.

  Mania and Shmul had such hopes for their beautiful and clever Genia. Mania would tell Genia about the writers and the musicians they had had in the family. For hundreds of years the Buchbinders had produced extraordinarily gifted people.

  Shmul’s mother, Yetta, was one of the best-loved Yiddish actresses in Poland. Genia adored her grandmother, and often travelled with her parents from their home in Lowicz to watch Yetta Buchbinder perform in Warsaw. ‘What fine silk you are spun from, my child,’ Genia’s mother used to say to her.

  Genia was pampered by all of her relatives in Lowicz. Her uncles brought her presents from Europe, and her aunties combed and plaited her long auburn hair. Genia never minded being an only child. She felt as though she had many mothers and fathers and many brothers and sisters.

  Mania and Shmul Buchbinder died in Auschwitz. Yetta Buchbinder died in the Warsaw ghetto. All the aunties and uncles died. There had been eighty-seven Buchbinders in Lowicz. After the war, Genia was the only one left.

  At home this morning, Genia was practising her arabesques. For a few years she had studied Indian dance. She had enjoyed that, but it was ballet that made Genia Pekelman truly happy.

  Genia was in the Advanced Senior class at the Dancing Academy in Brighton. She was the oldest member of the class. She was twice as old as her teacher.

  Genia knew that people laughed at her. Sometimes she laughed at herself too. Sometimes she could see that she looked absurd. A crazy woman. There she was, fifty years old, the owner of eight pairs of leotards, endless leg-warmers, and two white tutus!

  Genia didn’t mind people laughing. They were not her real audience. When Genia danced she was in another world. She wasn’t in Melbourne. She wasn’t in Bergen-Belsen. She was in a dream. This dream was in a place where everything was as it would have been if it were not for the war.

  Her parents were there. Her grandmother was there. Her uncles and aunties were there. They had all known that Genia would be a ballerina, and they were such an appreciative audience. This morning Yetta had clapped and clapped when Genia had balanced an arabesque perfectly. Her ballet teacher from Lowicz, Madame Kasner, was there. Last week Madame Kasner had said to Genia, ‘Genia darling, we have to be grateful to Olga Ramanova, who told us when you were six that you would be a great dancer. Do you remember when she performed in Lowicz?’

  Of course Genia remembered Olga Ramanova. The Russian ballerina had patted Genia on the head, and told her that if she practised hard she could possibly one day dance with the greatest of the Russian ballet companies. And little Genia had practised and practised.

  Last Thursday Genia had danced for a small group. It was the Eastern Division Bridge Players’ luncheon. Genia knew that some of the women were mocking her, and that the rest of them felt sorry for her. After her performance, Genia was getting dressed in the bathroom when she heard Mina Blatt say to Marilla Rose: ‘It looks something shocking to see a woman of her age jumping around as if she is a young girl. I wonder why she looks so happy.’

  ‘You are right, Mina,’ said Marilla. ‘Who knows why she looks so happy?’

  Genia had been dancing for forty-five minutes when the telephone rang. It was Renia Bensky. Renia had rung to see if Genia needed any towels. Josl was going in to Shavinsky’s warehouse. Both women had linen cupboards large enough to service a small hospital.

  ‘All right, Renia, ask Josl to buy me six of those nice cream bath-size towels.’

  Genia could never have too many sheets or towels. The feeling of clean, pure cotton sheets on her bed gave her such a sense of well-being. It was the same with good towels. Genia felt pampered and indulged every morning when she dried herself with the thick, king-sized bath towels.

  ‘I’ll bring you the towels on Saturday,’ said Renia. ‘I can’t speak to you for too long today, because I have to cook something for Lola. I am cooking her a cabbage and rice dish. It is her new diet. I make a big pot for the whole week. But, Genia, I looked at Lola last week, and to tell you the truth, I think she is eating the whole pot in one night. Then she goes on another diet for the other days. I don’t know what to do. It’s killing me.’

  Genia felt depressed about Lola. Lola had been a beautiful little girl. With her dark, sausage curls and her lively eyes, she had looked like a doll. Now she was very fat, and her eyes were flat.

  ‘Renia,’ Genia said, ‘shall we go together to the German Embassy? I have to go this week. Why don’t we go together again?’

  Renia and Genia received ‘reparation’ money from the German government. Genia got slightly more than Renia because she had been a teenager during the war. The German government, Genia’s lawyer had told her, considered it had more to make up for to those people who had also lost their youth.

  Renia had been eligible for this extra payment, as she had only been twenty-one when she arrived in Auschwitz, but by the time Renia found out about the extra ‘reparation’ money the German government’s deadline for applications had passed.

  The amount of money that they received was such a pittance that to label it ‘reparation’ and ‘restitution’ was offensive. Some Jews refused to accept this money, but to most Jews it was an important symbolic gesture.

  The ‘reparation’ money, Josl was fond of saying, was not enough to cover the monthly ice-cream bills he used to run up in Lodz.

  Once a year, all the Jews receiving these payments had to present themselves to the German Embassy, to prove that they were still alive.

  Last year Renia and Genia had gone to the German Embassy together. Genia had picked Renia up and the two women, who talked on the telephone for an hour every day, had driven to South Yarra in silence.

  ‘Well, can you see that I am alive?’ Renia had asked the man at the German Embassy.

  ‘Yes, Madam, I can see that,’ he had said.

  ‘Well, you are blind, sir,’ Renia had said. ‘Because you killed all of us. Those of us who are still walking and talking are not alive, sir.’

  Afterwards the two women had walked along Punt Road to the car. A sudden feeling of lightness had come over Genia. She was alive, and she wanted to prove it. ‘Renia,’ she had said, ‘let’s go shopping and spend this “reparation” money all at once. Let’s decide what we can do with it. Should we invest it in BHP, Renia, or should we buy a pair of shoes?’

  Renia and Genia had driven into the city. They had gone to Miss Louise in Collins Street and bought a pair of Maud Frizon shoes each.

  ‘All right, Genia,’ Renia said. ‘We will go to the embassy together again. Is Tuesday morning all right for you?’

  ‘I’ll pick you up at ten o’clock, after my ballet class,’ said Genia.

  ‘Genia darling,’ said Renia. ‘I have been thinking about Pola Ganz and Joseph Zelman. I think that there is something funny going on between them. It would be shocking. After all, Moishe is a wonderful husband to Pola. What is that crazy woman doing? At her age she needs to shtoop so much? And what about poor Mina Zelman? I know that she is very tall, and maybe Joseph needs to feel he is a big man, so he shtoops with little Pola Ganz. But there are other ways of being a big man. What’s happening to the world today, Genia? I remember when I thought that we had had so much pain and suffering that we would never cause pain or suffering to each other. I was stupid.’

  It worried Genia that Renia was so suspicious. If Pola and Joseph were having an affair, then it had probably been going on for a long time and not hurting anybody. Who knows whether they are or they are not? thought Genia. She didn’t care.

>   What had gone wrong with Renia Bensky? Genia wondered. When Genia had first met Renia in 1950, Renia had been so kind. Renia was still hopeful then. Later she had hardened. They had probably all hardened, thought Genia.

  What had been taken away from them in the war, Genia thought, what they had lost, was their trust. Renia had never regained her trust. She was suspicious of everything. In 1950, thought Genia, Renia had still thought that she would be able to regain her trust.

  ‘Anyway, I am not going to think about Joseph Zelman and dear Pola Ganz any more. I have got better things to worry about,’ said Renia. ‘Poor Lina, she has got this week such an allergy. It wasn’t enough that she did become allergic to food, now she is allergic to her dog. And she loves her Pandy so much. Such a stupid dog, and she loves him.’

  Renia had talked for months about Lina’s allergy to food. ‘Poor Lina,’ she had said to anyone who would listen, and many who didn’t want to hear. ‘She eats nothing at all. As soon as she puts anything into her mouth, she puts on half a stone. So, she eats nothing. The doctors said it was an allergy to food. My poor Lina is allergic to food.’

  Genia’s husband, Izak, was sceptical. ‘She doesn’t eat anything and she puts on weight? It doesn’t sound like an allergy to me. Maybe Lina could market this allergy. If the doctors could find out how a person can eat nothing and not die, we can save the whole Third World.’

  After talking for fifteen minutes about Lina’s blotches caused by her allergy to her dog, Renia was sounding a bit flat. ‘How is Esther?’ she said.

  Esther Pekelman, Genia’s younger daughter, stammered. She couldn’t finish her sentences. Esther’s thoughts always trailed off in a nervous stutter. All the fears that Genia managed to contain, Esther displayed. In many ways Esther was a barometer for the whole Pekelman family. If things were difficult for the family, Esther wore the symptoms of that distress. When times were calmer, Esther looked better.