The Mighty Walzer

by Howard Jacobson

  I don’t mind admitting, though, that I’d have liked to see Gordon le Goy married to my Channa, thereby signalling the beginning of the end of the Weinbergers. But what father ever gets to live to see his fondest hopes realized? My little Channa returned full circle whence she’d came and married a Vulvick. I flew in to Manchester from Venice especially for the wedding. The full frummie monty. Bride waiting on the chuppah in her new sheitel, just come from a vaginal scrutiny in the ritual baths, hopeful as a morning flower with all her petals open. Bridegroom wrestled to her side, his fringes flying, putting up a fight — Don’t make me, don’t make me! — the one with everything to lose. How’s a father meant to feel when he sees that? You’re lucky to have her, you kuni-lemele. A boy with pin wheels stuck to his ears is lucky to have anyone, never mind my lovely Channaleh. But then I was lucky to be invited. The whole shlemozzle at the party after, too. Some party! Men on one side of the screen, women on the other, for the women must not be inflamed by the sight of the black hats dancing. But I’m coming to all that. And in mitigation of the horror of it, I must say that if I hadn’t flown to Manchester for Channa’s wedding to Shmuelly, I wouldn’t have known about the Ninth World Veterans’ Ping-Pong Championships, in town at the very same time I was.

  But I’m coming to that too.

  After Fay, they were lining up to drop.

  My grandfather went next, of an infection brought on by ingrowing toe-nails. He had stopped cutting them and was bending them over and pushing them back inside instead. We laughed about it at the funeral.

  And a few years after that, Gershom of bowel we don’t say what, quickly followed by poor Dora of loneliness. She’d got to know no one in south Manchester. Gershom had kept her locked up in his ex-boarding house, made her butter bagels and cook lokshen soup for him, made her play ping-pong with him, and once in a blue moon took her out to bingo. Her body wasn’t found until about five days after her death. Still relatively fragrant, apparently, because of how cold her bed was. Gershom had forbidden her to use the heating, except for an hour on the most freezing mornings, and she was still obeying orders.

  But then I have reason to be grateful she wasn’t splashing his hard-earned spondulicks about.

  Dolly died of fright, like Fay. The t word again. She too didn’t make old bones, but her passing was somehow less upsetting than the others’. Perhaps because we had mourned for her already. ‘I take consolation in this,’ my mother said, ‘she did better than any of us ever expected she would. At least she had a life.’

  She had a life. She started her own dancing school in Rusholme in partnership with her shlemiel map-reading husband and was engrossed in Old Tyme every day she was alive thereafter. ‘I’m never bored,’ she told me on one of my visits home. Her voice was like a needle skidding across vinyl. ‘I don’t know what people mean when they say they’re bored. I think boredom is a betrayal of life.’ By life she meant ballroom dancing. Boredom is a betrayal of ballroom dancing. And when my mother said at least Dolly had a life she meant at least she had ballroom dancing. Whether she ever got over Dora’s betrayal of her we never knew. But Dora stopped dancing once Gershom took her south, never swirled under a spinning ball of light again, and that must have made it easier for Dolly.

  So they were all gone, all the Shrinking Violets, and my box was empty now. Not an S for spinster Saffron left for me to cut to pieces even in my imagination.

  My mother took the passing of her sisters hard. It was an accumulation of grief. With the death of each sister she had to mourn afresh the death of the sister previous, and the death of her mother in all of them. She carried her head slightly aback, like a boxer, knowing only too well where the next blow was coming from, but not knowing when. ‘Aloof,’ some members of my father’s family called her, but no one could have been less aloof. She was punch-drunk.

  My father’s side lasted longer, as they were built to do. And when they did go they were so old you scarcely noticed. The first exception to this was uncle Motty who passed away in the lavatory, no doubt still trying to bang the last drop out of his penis. And then, before anyone could recover from the shock of Motty, my father himself.

  The fight had gone out of him after he went mechullah. You might not have known that had you never met him in earlier days. On the face of it he was still a great pleaser, still carried toys around in his pockets, was still waiting for the big something, still parked his van — that’s to say Sheeny’s van — in some odd places, still had ants in his pants. But he wasn’t the same man. He’d lost his cheyshik for life. His will for it, his desire. The big thing wasn’t going to happen; he knew that even though he still waited. He kept his ear cocked, just in case, but it was force of habit more than anything else. The big thing had passed him by.

  He worked for Sheeny Waxman for two or three years, then they parted amicably. Enough. Enough, for both of them. In the end it was Sheeny who called it a day. Medical reasons. Pitching was wearing out his throat. He kept losing his voice. If he went on going berserk from the back of a lorry much longer he would lose his voice and not get it back. I heard rumours that he had bought a car showroom with a Jaguar concession in a partnership of the hoarse with Benny the Pole, but by then I’d lost contact with him. Cambridge and Sheeny didn’t mix. For his part my father was relieved to be out of it. He hadn’t been able to bear not being his own boss. Yes, yes he could just about accept the idea of working for my mother — since no one would believe he really was working for her anyway — so yes, a little swag shop on Victoria Avenue was just the ticket; but it turned out he didn’t have a lot of heart left for swag either. As his only biographer, I designate these his Wilderness Years. He just wandered around. He shmied arum. He patshkied. He’d knock up a set of shelves for my mother, then he’d go for a wander. He’d install a new security grille, then he’d be off shmying again. The grille was one thing but the lock, the lock … Looking for just the right lock with just the right barrel, inspecting the stock of every locksmith in Manchester, could take a week, a fortnight, a month. You never knew where he was going to turn up. You never knew where you would see him next. I was hardly ever at home but the few times I did come back I had to organize search parties to find him. Salford was where we always started. He seemed to like it there. Salford suited him. The junction of Great Cheetham Street and Bury New Road, past the Rialto, down through Albert Park to Pendleton, taking Cromwell Road between the Racecourse and the Greyhound Track, neither of which held the slightest intrinsic interest for him, turning right at Brindle Heath for Irlams O’ Th’ Height or left to Seedley and Eccles and all points west. The functional part of town. The hinterland of the city. But also the way out. Definitely not warehouse or cash-and-carry territory, and not the nest-hot Salford of his birth either. It was unassociational Salford he liked. Big barren spaces. Wide roads. Colliery views. Places where he could buy timber. Weigh out nails. Pick through locks. Measure lengths of iron. Test alarm systems. Stop for a toasted cheese sandwich. Patshky about. Shmy arum.

  But at least he no longer had any invoices to lose.

  For twenty-five, thirty years he tsatskied. It was his revenge on the big thing that never happened. You won’t approach me, I won’t approach you. If the mountain won’t come to Mahomet, then Mahomet will just have to shmy around.

  Big Thing 5. Joel Walzer 21.

  Well done, Joel. Except that when you whop Big Thing, no one’s watching.

  For twenty-five, thirty years he tsatskied, filled his arteries with cheese, and then he died.

  I took my turn to sit up with him during some of his last nights in hospital, sat at his bedside holding his hand, while the other old men with blockages trailed hopelessly from their beds to the lavatories and back again, shaking their heads, carrying their cardboard chamber-pots in front of them, empty, empty, always empty.

  One night while he was dozing he suddenly tapped himself on the forehead and said, ‘Well that’s that sorted.’

  ‘What is, Dad?’


  ‘What?’

  ‘What’s sorted?’

  ‘Oh, hello Oliver, where are you now?’

  ‘I’m here, Dad, with you.’

  ‘Tsedraiter! I mean where are you living now?’

  ‘Venice.’

  ‘Venice? Very nice.’ He changed his position in the bed, agonizingly slowly, using his elbows. He didn’t like it when anybody tried to help him. ‘Where’s Venice again?’

  ‘Italy. It’s the one with all the gondolas and canals. We used to do a coffee table with Venice on, remember.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me about coffee tables.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No, I remember. Lots of water. I didn’t know you liked water. You can’t even swim, can you? You’d better not tell your mother you’re near water.’

  The things he knew about me, my father. The things he’d had time to notice, after all.

  ‘I’m not there for the water,’ I said.

  ‘So what are you there for?’ Father to son. It’s all right, Oliver, you can tell me. Nekaiveh, eh? Bad boy. Tell me, tell me. Remind me of what it’s like to be somewhere you’re not supposed to be, with your eyes black and your heart thumping.

  But I was, as I’d always been, a failure to him. A nebbish, primmed up by my aunties, prigged and prissified by Yorath and Rubella. A milksop.

  ‘I suppose I’m there for the light,’ I said. Just what he wanted to hear. ‘And the buildings. And my work.’

  He nodded. Ah yes, work.

  ‘And I’m like you,’ I said. ‘I enjoy shmying arum. It’s easy to get lost in Venice. In that regard it’s like Salford.’

  ‘Is it?’ He seemed impressed. ‘Is there a gaff there?’

  ‘It’s all gaff,’ I said. ‘It’s just one big gaff’

  ‘So what are you doing in a place like that? You always hated the gaffs. You’re like your mother. She always hated the gaffs.’

  ‘Not always, Dad.’

  ‘She did. Always. Too sensitive. Wouldn’t say boo to a goose. Still won’t.’

  ‘I meant me. I didn’t always hate them.’

  ‘You did. You couldn’t wait to get away.’

  ‘It’s not true. I had some good times on the gaffs.’

  ‘Name one.’

  ‘Dad!’

  ‘Go on, name one.’

  ‘What about when the pig attacked us at Bakewell.’

  ‘Oh yes, the pig. Oink, oink! I’m sorry I missed that.’ He smiled at the recollection, tried to laugh, but ended up in a tangle with his tubes, having to bang the phlegm out of his chest.

  ‘And London Road,’ I said. ‘The day we found the Copestakes’ van on the bomb site before us and you decided we’d push it out of the way …’

  This time he had to laugh, phlegm or no phlegm. ‘The look on your ponim,’ he said. ‘I can still see the look on your face when the side door opened and those nutters fell out.’

  ‘And what about the bricks?’ I said. ‘What about when they put bricks under the wheels to stop us pushing, so we had to run round taking them out, and they had to run round putting them back under, and we had to run around taking them out again …’

  He held his hand up to get me to stop. Otherwise he would die laughing. I noticed the see-through plastic dog tag round his wrist. What was that for? Identification in case he got lost wandering from his bed to the lavatory? He used to have wrists like Victor Mature. He could have pulled a temple down with those wrists once upon a time. Even when I’d last seen him he could have shaken a small synagogue. Now, in a matter of a few months, they had become a little old man’s wrists, a frail tracery of sunspots and chicken bones, incapable of trembling a lulav.

  Enough, Oliver, stop, you’ll make me die laughing. Well, why not. Better that way. Die choking on your own laughter, Dad. Die grinning that big daft boyish shmerkle with which you won the heart of my mother, the one you employed to wow them at the World Machareike Championships that sultry Saturday afternoon in 1933 when you felt that something big was still within your grasp.

  The one I didn’t inherit.

  So no, I wouldn’t stop.

  ‘And what about the look on your face,’ I went on, ‘when Copestake called me a you-know-what? And the cops had to come to pull you off him? And what about the time you let me roast at the back of the edge with a nest of suitcases under my jumper? And what about Sheeny’s mad antics when he’d plunder everything and you’d get furious with him …’

  But he was asleep now, haggard, ravaged, his breath troubled and uncertain, his cheeks wet.

  And now my mother sits alone, surrounded by swag, with her head set further back on her shoulders than ever, tensed, blind-eyed and all-seeing like Tiresias. Yes, she knows where the blow will come from. It will come from us, the children or the children’s children, the only ones she has left. She has the air of someone who now does not expect to die herself. She will be here until we have all gone. It’s her job to be here until we have all gone, to shepherd us out, as she shepherded us in. To bear the scars left by the going of every one of us. So she sits and waits. And counts.

  The last time I saw her she apologized for having given me life.

  That’s how grave we have become, what’s left of us.

  ‘Don’t be foolish,’ I said. ‘What can you possibly suppose you have to apologize for? I have loved, I am loving, my life. I would not have been without it. I thank you for it.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘That makes me feel better,’ she said. ‘But I know how hard it’s been for you.’

  I shrugged, as if hard was nothing. ‘That’s part of it,’ I said. But then suddenly rebelled against the idea that I’d had it hard at all. ‘Not that I’m sure I know what you mean,’ I added.

  She looked at me long and evenly, my mother Tiresias. What did she know? I found my colour changing beneath her scrutiny. A phenomenon that had not occurred for forty years. Did she know about my box? Did she know what I’d done to Grandma, and to Aunty Dora and to Aunty Dolly and to Aunty Fay? Did she know about Lorna Peachley and what I’d wanted her to do to me? Some things a mother should not know about her son. Some things a son should not know his mother knows.

  But if she did know she kept the details to herself. ‘You’ve had your disappointments,’ she said.

  I wasn’t sure I even wanted to concede that. Doesn’t I’ve had my disappointments usually mean I’ve had only disappointments. Whereas I —

  ‘You’ve nothing to apologize for,’ I said again, backing off. This was all too elemental for me. Another reason I was holed up in Venice — to escape the final act of Families.

  ‘Well I hope you’re telling me the truth,’ she said.

  And that was that.

  In fairness to her, it’s hardly surprising her mood was grave. I was over for Channa’s wedding, and a lot of unanswered family questions were suddenly back buzzing around our heads.

  Sabine had returned to Manchester with the children immediately we split up. No point hanging around the Christian world once Mr Shaygets himself had pissed off. From a fatherly point of view there was some advantage in this since it meant I could see my children whenever I was home for a funeral. But I suppose that from a filial point of view that was hardly well calculated to give me a good press. How come Daddy only ever comes to see us when someone’s died? Eventually Sabine would have had to tell them. Daddy isn’t a good man.

  Herself, the moment she took up her Manchester matronage Sabine reverted to being the good woman it was always in her Vulvick genes to be. No more hiding in cupboards with waiters from the Mogambo whom she was unable to respect. She let it be known that she had her one good eye fixed on an Orthodox marriage the second time around, but there was nothing doing. The Orthodox don’t give second time around. She settled in the end for quasi-mystical Zionist folksie, a freckled Canadian/Israeli who’d seen God at the Wailing Wall and now ran a travel agency on Bury Old Road, specializing in holidays for people desi
rous of doing likewise, and this was enough to direct my children into a course I would never have chosen for them. By the age of six, Channa (at this time still Charlotte) knew the words of every new Israeli folk song, was starting to be kitted out in those long, ill, shapeless you-can’t-see-my-cunt dresses to which all eerie cults are partial, had turned cross-eyed on account of the amount of Torah reading she was doing, and looked like the mother of ten children herself. Only two years her senior, though he was already more bent and crooked than his great-grandfathers on both sides, little Baruch (at this time still known as Marvin) was as fringed as a sultan’s tent, and as white and furry as a moth. When I lifted him up in my arms I felt I was holding cushion stuffing.

  ‘This isn’t my wish for them, you know,’ I told Sabine. But there is no repeating her reply.

  It was getting time for me to back off anyway. Sabine’s new husband was wanting Marvin and Charlotte to call him daddy, and that’s the point at which you either stand and fight or quit the scene once and for all.

  And we all know what a fighter I am.

  If I found it undignified to battle for the points at deuce in a game of ping-pong, imagine how I relished the prospect of brawling over who had the right to have my children call him daddy. You want? You want that badly? Here, have, you sick fuck!

  I consoled myself, in so far as I allowed myself to think about it once I was back in Saskatchewan or Wellington or wherever, by imagining a time when they would rebel and come to me. I will be in the middle of a class on Silas Marner; there will be an unexpected knock on my office door; I will shock my students by my trembling; I will rise and go to see who it is who’s knocking, and I will find — yes, them, them, who else, no longer moth white, no longer cross-eyed, no longer flocked and frocked and fringed, two of the fairest and most secular children you have ever seen, bouncing up and down on the balls of their bold bare brown feet, crying, ‘Daddy, Daddy, look at us, we have run away from Yahweh!’ And I will take them in and smother them in kisses.