Things Could Be Worse

by Lily Brett

  Moishe had hoped that Sam would be born in Australia. He had gone to the Australian Embassy every day to ask if the visa had been approved. ‘I want my child to be born in Australia. I want that he should be very Australian,’ Moishe had pleaded. But the process couldn’t be hurried.

  The Ganzes arrived in Australia in May 1949. They spent the first month at the migrant hostel at Bonegilla. Pola and Sam slept in the women’s quarters. Moishe was in the men’s dormitory. Pola’s bed was in the middle of rows and rows of beds. The toilets were outside. There were no lights at night. Sam wasn’t well. He had diarrhoea. At night, Pola changed his nappies in the dark. As soon as she had a clean nappy on him, he had another bout of diarrhoea. Pola had been nervous about coming to Australia. Australia was proving to be worse than her worst fears.

  Moishe found a nice room in Brunswick. The Jewish Welfare Agency furnished the room, and the Ganzes moved in. Moishe was happy. Things were looking up.

  Pola put on her best dress and went to Georges, the most exclusive department store in Melbourne. She took a pencil and a notepad. In the dressing room of the Ladies Daywear department, Pola sketched half a dozen of the blouses that they had in the store.

  Moishe bought some fabric. Together, in their room in Brunswick, Pola and Moishe made copies of the blouses. Moishe got orders for these blouses from several small retailers around Melbourne. Champs Elysees Blouses was in business.

  ‘Mum,’ said Sam, ‘I’ve put a deposit on a sideboard. It’s antique and it’s very beautiful. It will be a good investment. In another few years it will be worth twice what I am paying for it.’ ‘Good, darling,’ said Pola. She liked Sam to be happy.

  ‘It was very expensive,’ said Sam. ‘But this sideboard is one of a kind. You’d never find another one like it, and it’s going to look fabulous in my den. I took Ruth to see it, and she adores it.’

  Mrs Ganz, unfortunately, didn’t adore Ruth. She thought that Ruth had married Sam to better herself. Ruth came from a poor family. She had adapted herself very well to a moneyed lifestyle. Too well, thought Pola.

  ‘Well, darling, enjoy this sideboard,’ said Pola. ‘How much did you pay for it?’

  ‘Fifty thousand,’ said Sam.

  ‘What, are you crazy? Fifty thousand? Does it have eighteen-carat gold cutlery in the drawers? Are you a meshugana? You are, you are mad.’

  Eventually Pola calmed down. It was only money, she thought. Sam was their only son. What did it matter? Nobody was hurt by the purchase. Pola did feel, though, that it would be unwise for Moishe to know that Sam had paid fifty thousand for a sideboard.

  When Moishe was angry with Sam, he would call him a ‘little prince’. ‘He doesn’t know what it is to work hard, to earn your own money,’ Moishe would say.

  Moishe was disappointed in Sam. Not that he voiced this disappointment. Moishe believed that to air a problem only made the problem seem worse. Sam had been a mediocre student at school, and had failed his matriculation year. The Ganzes had no alternative. They had taken Sam into the business.

  Pola and Sam worked out a scheme whereby Sam would pay for the sideboard with three separate cheques. He would tell his father that he was buying three pieces of furniture, not one. Fifty thousand for three pieces would seem reasonable.

  Moishe didn’t notice Sam’s purchases. He had other things on his mind. His two daughters both wanted to leave their husbands. Moishe didn’t know what to do.

  Last week Debbi, the elder daughter, had told him that she was leaving her husband, Oscar. She was in love, she said, with Adrian Gartener. Moishe didn’t see that there was much difference between Oscar and Adrian Gartener. Why Debbi was transferring her love from one to another bewildered Moishe.

  ‘Love, love,’ he raged to Pola. ‘They all talk about this big word love. It is not “love”, but “LOVE”. Tell me Pola, can you see that that Adrian Gartener is any more of a mensch than Oscar Kreutzer? They are both pishers.’

  Helen, the Ganzes’ other daughter, was also looking for fulfilment. She had said to her father, ‘Issy is a nice enough person. He’s good-hearted and kind to the children, but I can’t bear him to touch me. It’s not that he wants to touch me so often. Luckily, he is not all that interested. But when he moves towards me in bed I feel sick.’

  Pola Ganz knew that Helen had been having an affair with one of her colleagues at the University of Melbourne. She had told Helen to be sure to be absolutely discreet. ‘Darling, for a few hot minutes in someone else’s bed, you don’t throw away a good husband,’ she had said to her daughter.

  The Ganzes had supported their sons-in-law through university. Afterwards, they had set them up in business. They had bought Issy a law practice, and Oscar a dental surgery.

  Moishe felt tired thinking about his daughters. Moishe had thought that the days of having trouble with his children were over. What was wrong with young people today? They had no stamina. They had to be gratified immediately. Their love life had to be perfect. Their sex had to be the latest up-to-date manoeuvres. If they were not having simultaneous orgasms they looked for another partner.

  What about love? And tenderness? And patience? And loyalty? Life, for his children, was too transient to allow for love, thought Moishe.

  Pola and Moishe had given their children everything. The children had been spoilt and coddled. Moishe had set up Champs Elysees Blouses one block from Elwood Primary School so that Pola could take hot soup to school at lunchtime for Sam and the girls.

  Still, his girls were better than other people’s girls, thought Moishe. Look at poor Renia Bensky. Her Lola, who was so clever at school, had refused to go to university. And then she had married a goy. At least, through marriage, thought Moishe, Lola had become a wife and a mother. Before that she had been a hippie. She had walked everywhere, even in Collins Street, barefooted, with bells around her neck and long dirty dresses. Moishe had felt so sorry for Renia Bensky.

  And, Moishe thought, his Debbi and Helen were better than Genia Pekelman’s Esther. Esther was always pre-occupied and distracted. She couldn’t finish her sentences. Her anxiety blinded her. Last year she had driven through an amber light and killed an elderly man. She hadn’t seen him. Izak and Genia Pekelman had visited the man’s family to see if there was anything they could do to help. The family had said that there was nothing that the Pekelmans could do for them. There were no witnesses, and the death was recorded as an accident. Izak made a large donation to the Royal Children’s Hospital in the dead man’s name.

  Sam Ganz had a problem. The price he had agreed to pay for the sideboard was seventy thousand, not fifty thousand. He knew his parents would never understand. They really weren’t very educated, thought Sam. They knew nothing about antiques. He had to find twenty thousand dollars.

  All Sam’s and Ruth’s expenditures went through the company’s books. That was how Pola knew exactly how much Ruth spent at Figgins and Georges and David Jones every week.

  Sam frowned. He would have to find a way to pay the extra twenty thousand dollars. Maybe he could give his friend Solly Rosenberg a cheque for twenty thousand. Sam could tell Moishe that he was buying Solly’s computer for a very good price, to use at home. Solly could then write out a cheque for twenty thousand, which Sam could give directly to the antique dealer.

  At Champs Elysees Blouses, Sam earned a hundred thousand dollars a year. He also received one-fifth of the company’s profits. Sam was a wealthy man, but he felt like a small boy who was not allowed to be in charge of his own pocket money. Sam tolerated this discomfort. Now and then he thought of doing something that interested him more, but he couldn’t think of anything.

  Every winter Pola and Moishe went to Surfers Paradise for three weeks. Pola went at the beginning of June, and when she came back, three weeks later, Moishe went. They both felt that they couldn’t be away from Champs Elysees Blouses at the same time.

  ‘If Sam is the Managing Director, he should be able to manage the factory,’ Ada Small often said to th
e Ganzes. ‘Moishe, Sam is thirty-two. He is not a baby. He can look after the business.’ But Pola and Moishe both agreed that it would be unwise for them to be away from the factory together.

  Every Sunday the Ganz family had lunch together. Sam, Debbi and Helen, their spouses and their children came to Pola and Moishe’s house. Pola’s housekeeper, Mrs Staub, prepared the food. Pola was one of the few women in their group who had a full-time housekeeper. ‘I work all day. Why should I work more when I come home?’ Pola would say. She always felt a need to defend her use of a housekeeper. The food that Mrs Staub made was delicious. Pola’s friends and Pola’s children regarded Mrs Staub’s meals as inferior because they were not cooked by Pola.

  Today Mrs Staub had prepared gefilte fish, chopped liver, a grated egg and onion salad, a potato salad, roast chicken, and chicken schnitzels for the children, and a salmon patty for Issy.

  Issy Segal was a fussy eater. Every day for breakfast Issy had a bowl of Kellogg’s cornflakes. He had been having this breakfast for twenty years, since he was ten. For lunch, he had one cheese sandwich. White bread with Havarti cheese. For seventeen years, Issy had had a slice of Kraft cheddar in his sandwich. One day Debbi had said to her brother-in-law, ‘Couldn’t you try another cheese? A real cheese. That stuff you’re eating is plastic. Try Havarti.’ Issy did. And now he ate Havarti cheese in his sandwich. Last year, Debbi had suggested Issy try some Jarlsberg cheese in his sandwich. Issy said that he was perfectly happy with Havarti.

  Every Sunday Issy picked at his salmon patty. The rest of the family ate heartily. ‘This is a very good gefilte fish today,’ said Pola. ‘Last week you couldn’t get Murray Perch in Melbourne. The places that had a Murray Perch were selling them for a fortune. It happens every Pesach. The fish shops save their stocks of Murray Perch for just before Pesach, and then they put up the price. They know that at Pesach they can get double the price.’

  ‘Mum, we can afford to pay a bit more for a Murray Perch,’ said Debbi. ‘It is easy for you to say that,’ said Pola. ‘Listen to her,’ continued Pola. ‘She says “we can afford”. Who is this “we” that can afford this? Who is this “we” that has earned the money to pay this price for a Murray Perch? Is it you, my darling daughter?’

  Luckily, just at that moment, one of the grandchildren dropped a piece of beetroot onto his white shirt, and everyone was diverted from the issue of who earned the money in this family.

  The matter of food took over from the matter of money. Pola, Debbi and Helen all tried to push food into the children.

  ‘Harry, have some chicken.’

  ‘Melanie, please eat the schnitzel before the potato.’

  ‘Jonathan, you have to eat the fish before you can have any salad.’

  ‘Jason, you know that salmon patty belongs to Daddy. Have a chicken wing.’

  ‘Have you had a drink yet?’

  ‘Don’t drink the lemonade before you finish your meal.’

  ‘Don’t eat so much egg, you’ll be sick. Have some potato instead.’

  ‘Eat more egg salad, it’s good for you.’

  This was the main conversation at the lunch table.

  After the meal, Pola and Moishe played with the grandchildren, and Debbi and Helen washed the dishes. The sisters had never got on well. They had never confided in each other. Each thought that the other was the favoured daughter. But they had a few things in common. They both wanted to leave their husbands. They both despaired of their brother, Sam. And they both hated Ruth.

  ‘Did you see that outfit that Ruth was wearing?’ said Helen. ‘I saw it in Gucci. It cost three thousand bucks.’

  ‘Three thousand bucks!’ said Debbi. ‘Jesus, by the time our kids grow up there’ll be no money left in the business, the rate that Ruth’s going through it. I noticed, too, that she had another new ring. Sam keeps buying her jewellery. First of all Sam bought himself a wife. He did, he bought Ruth with that car and that big engagement diamond. And now he just keeps paying. He’s an imbecile.’

  ‘I wonder what she’s got that makes her worth all that expenditure?’ said Helen.

  Helen contemplated telling her sister about her affair with Malcolm Bourke. Sometimes she longed to be close to her sister, but something prevented her. Helen decided against telling Debbi. Debbi might use the information against her in some way.

  Helen knew that her affair with Malcolm Bourke had no future. Malcolm wasn’t Jewish, and Helen couldn’t imagine being married to a non-Jew. There was a comfort and a familiarity and a trust that she felt when she was with Jews.

  Helen had rarely found Jewish men sexy. Standing at her mother’s kitchen sink, Helen closed her eyes for a moment. She thought of Malcolm licking her, manipulating her. She thought of Malcolm caressing her buttocks, his head between her legs. Helen had to steady herself. She felt limp.

  On the few occasions that she and Issy made love, he left his pyjamas on. Helen would lift her nightie to just above her waist. For three minutes they would be joined in a wordless union.

  Helen wondered if she would ever find a Jewish man she couldn’t wait to fuck. Would there ever be a Jew that she would lust after? Be hungry for? Feel hot about?

  There was Charles Roth. He was their solicitor. He was small, articulate and fiery. He had a spark and a swiftness that Helen found attractive. He wasn’t overly concerned with himself. He seemed indefatigable. His enthusiasm was infectious. Charles Roth had put himself through law school by playing the piano in jazz bars at night. Now his law practice was very successful and he was a wealthy man. Charles Roth was, however, married. And happily married, Helen had heard.

  Never mind, Helen thought. She would make an effort to meet as many Jewish men as she could. It was better to try and find another husband now than in ten years’ time when she would be middle-aged. Anything would have to be better than the brief intertwining of the pyjamas and the nightie.

  ‘It’s better that I leave now,’ Helen had said when her mother suggested that she wait until the children were older. ‘Mum, the kids will be happier if I’m happier. Issy is at the surgery until eight every night. They’ll see just as much of him. If I wait until I’m forty, I’ll probably have forgotten what it feels like to feel like a real woman.’ ‘Helen, darling, there is more to a good marriage than a good shtoop. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about,’ said Pola Ganz.

  Helen and Debbi had finished the dishes.

  ‘Debbi, I’m not happy with Issy,’ said Helen. ‘Can we have a cup of coffee somewhere tomorrow, and talk?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Debbi. ‘I’ll meet you at The Place at nine.’

  Debbi and Helen left Oscar and Issy in the same week.

  ‘Look, Pola,’ said Moishe, ‘if people are going to talk, let them get all the talking about us over with at the same time. It’s better that the girls did it together. Otherwise we would have everybody talking about us this week, and then again everyone talking about us next week, or next month, or next year. Now, they will get double the pleasure in their talking, and we will get it over with at once.’

  Pola could see the good sense in that. Everyone in the community would get twice as much joy in the Ganzes’ failure as parents, and the Ganzes would only have to endure the humiliation for half the time. Moishe could always see the good side of a bad situation, thought Pola.

  ‘You think, Moishe, that I should speak to Sam about that Ruth?’ said Pola. ‘I mean, Moishe, if we have to have people talking, and marriages finishing, and grandchildren who are going to suffer, then maybe I should suggest to Sam that he leaves that bitch Ruth. Three divorces wouldn’t be any harder than two divorces. We could get a special bulk price from a divorce lawyer. Things couldn’t be worse. Sam could be comforted and looked after by his sisters, who would understand exactly what he is going through. What do you think, Moishe?’

  Moishe started laughing. He had known Pola for thirty-four years, but her efficiency still surprised him. ‘Pola, I think that maybe we should leave the matter of hi
s marriage or his divorce to Sam himself.’

  Pola was disappointed, but she knew Moishe was right. Still, Pola couldn’t resist making a few enquiries.

  ‘Sammy, my darling, does Ruth cook you the schnitzel the way that you like it?’ she said to her son.

  Sam looked bewildered. ‘No, Mum. Ruth doesn’t cook schnitzel. She doesn’t fry any foods. She can’t bear the frying smell. She says it stays in her hair for hours.’

  Pola put her hands over her mouth to keep her response inside her.

  Sam was puzzled by his mother’s concern about Ruth’s cooking. He was glad that Pola was distracted. He needed some peace and quiet. Yesterday Sam had bought a hat stand for ten thousand dollars. It was a beautiful hat stand. This hat stand had cerulean blue ceramic balls at the end of every hook, and a ceramic sculpture of an owl at the base.

  Now Sam had to figure out how to pay for the hat stand without the transaction going through Champs Elysees Blouses’ books. Sam thought that Pola and Moishe might just be pre-occupied enough with the divorces not to question the purchase of another home computer. He could repeat the cheque-swapping routine with Solly Rosenberg.

  Moishe was with his solicitor and his accountant. They were trying to organise the family finances so that their assets would be protected in case of financial disputes in the property settlements of their daughters’ divorces.

  Moishe had a headache. Everything was in joint names, in trust funds for the children, in trust funds for the grandchildren. They had already had two lawyers and two accountants working on it for a week.

  Moishe noticed that Sam had bought himself another computer. Some people are easily pleased, he thought. If only his daughters would settle for another computer.