Choose Somebody Else

by Yvonne Fein

  At odd moments during those very final classes I became aware of a profound sadness. I knew it was Carla I would miss the most. Maria-Elena’s gentleness, Ivory’s hearty strength—it was impossible to put a value on them, but I had loved Carla from our first meeting. Something to do with her stinging wit, her biting disdain for all things hypocritical. And how she understood about lying down but, more often than not these days, how she would refuse to do it. I hoped she could take that home to her father.

  I treasured those sessions where we had mocked each other’s belief systems and then interrogated one another about their minutiae. In the end, for all that she could not fathom how I could live such an impoverished life bereft of Jesus, her curiosity regarding my world was extreme.

  Intense days leading up to departure. In just forty-eight hours the school would close for the summer and we would all go our separate ways. Then, a new consignment of students, a new batch of dramas. I wouldn’t be here to see them. Probably a good thing. I think I was done with this place and the fervour it conjured. It was time to leave.

  When these couple of days were up, I would meet my parents and sister in London before flying with them to Tel Aviv, and then onto the kibbutz. Carla was to return to Italy, after which—much in the manner of the nineteenth-century Grand Tour—she would travel with her family all around Europe and then to the United States. Only they would be travelling first class by aeroplane rather than in trains and steamers.

  For some reason there was this dread within me. I had come to understand the extent of her vulnerability. Her family was not one in which she could easily take refuge: she lived in a wintry, friendless place. I found myself wanting to be there, always, just to say: ‘Look out, Carla!’ before she hurtled, with her divine carelessness, over some deadly precipice…

  Annie and her parents were to meet up with us in Tel Aviv, and after a tour around the country, Annie and I would be deposited at Kibbutz S’dot Ester—Fields of Esther—a collective farm not far from Jerusalem where, as volunteers, we would get our hands dirty in the holy earth for five months or so. I wished we could have been there for the entire six months of the volunteer programme, but our parents had made us abide by Lac d’Or’s timetable.

  I tempted the fates one last time. Adélaïde (from France) supplied me with enough Mary J for two last tokes. Oh, what a misuse of parental largesse, but I pushed those musings down.

  For now, the room belonged to me alone because Halime was to spend the summer with Anastasia and, for some reason, both of them had left a few days in advance.

  I bought and smuggled into the school grounds a small bottle of port for Carla and me to share, along with the weed. She came to my room via the balcony that wrapped itself around all three floors of the school.

  She knocked at the French windows and I let her in, leaving the floor-to-ceiling glass pane open after she entered. It would not be good to trap the fumes from both toke and alcohol inside. The bad news was that even though it was already June, icy blasts of wind eventually forced us to close the windows.

  ‘Now the smell will probably waft out into the corridor,’ Carla said.

  ‘Would you rather go back to your room?’

  She grinned at me and said, ‘What do you think?’

  We reclined peacefully on cushions, watching the smoke twirling like silvery lacework above our heads. We sipped port. It was very tranquil but, with all that came after, I had to conclude that God must have been on leave that night.

  Out in the hallway, we heard the unmistakeable sounds of the General’s footsteps on the parquet floor. We knew it was her because her limp, hardly noticeable to the naked eye, was distinctly audible to the naked ear.

  Carla shot me a terrified look and, faster than you could say, ‘Bloody hell’, opened the French windows, darting out and back to her own room.

  Without knocking, The General thrust open the door and absorbed the remains of our merrymaking at a glance.

  ‘I thought I could smell out in the hall something, and here I see deux glasses and deux butts of something that does very much not look like the regular cigarette. Who in here was with you?’

  Of course, I did not say.

  ‘Then perhaps we must to go down to see Mme Mirielle and let her know what is happening with you. Two very serious floutings. But if you will say who was your partner in the law-breaking act of this, perhaps it will go the easier for you.’

  Even in extremis I noted that her English syntax was fractured; less fractured perhaps than Chèf Béranger’s, but still enough to make her sound ludicrous. Yet I didn’t feel the least like laughing. She knocked on Mme’s door and entered without being bidden. I could see her breath coming faster than usual. She probably sublimated her sex drive into just such endeavours.

  She stated her case in a sort of belching, eager French. I understood perhaps two-thirds of what was being said, but it was enough. Madame’s eyes became cold and stony. I don’t think she had ever forgiven me for my father’s question to her on that first night. Perhaps now there could be a settling of scores. So, once the General had skidded to a halt, Madame bade her leave. I saw disappointment writ large on the General’s face, but there was no gainsaying Madame.

  The first thing she said was, ‘Unfortunately, we will have to send your father a telegram in the morning informing him of the whys and wherefores of your expulsion’.

  I felt sick.

  At the very same idiot moment, I noted that there was nothing at all wrong with her syntax.

  I wondered what would happen if I heaved all the port I had just drunk onto the pale rug that covered most of the floor. Pro Hart or Jackson Pollock would have approved.

  Now it was her turn to ask me if I wouldn’t share with her the name of the student who had aided and abetted my escapade.

  ‘You have to understand, I can’t tell you,’ I said.

  Her smile was as cold as the wind outside. ‘Do you think you are being heroic? Is this some Australian notion of mateship?’ Her smile, if it were possible, became even colder. ‘I learn about the cultures of all my girls, you see.’

  ‘Will you really expel me with only two days to go till the end of term?’ I asked, fingers clenched into fists.

  ‘Not if you give me her name.’

  I tried and failed to see why this was so important to her. It seemed like such a petty, such a vindictive display of power. But what really made me want to throw up, more than the port, more than the weed, was that she believed she could cast me in the role of informant.

  Diamonds were hard. However much they understood about lying down, they would never lie down for that, no matter how many people told them they were drunk. And I really was drunk that night.

  So, I simply left her office—no slamming of doors, no heroic orations—and made my way back to my room to find Carla under the covers.

  As soon as I entered, she sat up, her hair tousled, and whispered loudly, ‘What happened?’

  Once I told her the whole miserable tale, I had to restrain her physically from making a useless gesture.

  ‘But I can’t let you do this alone,’ she objected.

  ‘It’s already done, Carla. If you went and confessed, it would go on your record and your father would—–’

  ‘What about your record and your father?’ she demanded.

  ‘I can’t see Monash University caring too much about a Swiss finishing school’s report. And my dad? He’ll be disappointed, and I’ll feel absolutely dreadful but then it will be over.’

  Carla sighed softly. ‘My father would kill me. And he’d find some way to punish me that would—–’

  ‘Shut up, Carla, for God’s sake. There’s nothing more to be said.’

  We held each other close for a long moment and then I shooed her out. It would be folly for her to be discovered here at this late stage.

  Half an
hour later there was another knock at the French windows. Carla stood shivering on the balcony.

  ‘Why are you smoking in here?’ she demanded as she jumped under my eiderdown and pulled it up to her chin.

  ‘I can’t get expelled twice,’ I said. ‘But why on earth have you come?’

  ‘I went and spoke to Mme Mirielle. We’ve had a reprieve.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘When she said she wouldn’t expel me, she realised she couldn’t expel you, either. We’d both committed the same crime, so she couldn’t hand out different sentences.’

  ‘But why wouldn’t she expel you?’ I asked.

  ‘Think about it. A Biancardi being thrown out of Lac d’Or? It would be very serious. Word would spread. Parents would think twice about sending their girls here. They would assume that supervision and discipline must be very lax for such an affair to occur. Still…’

  All at once her expression went from animated to miserable.

  ‘Still, what?’ I asked.

  She stood up. ‘Madame will tell our parents. My father will find out.’

  ‘So why did you have to do it?’ I was bewildered and dismayed. ‘I had it covered.’

  ‘One for all,’ she said and exited stage left the way she had entered, through the French windows.

  Of course, when the time came for farewells, there was much weeping, gnashing of teeth and plighting of fealty among the four of us. We vowed to write regularly and forever. We exchanged photographs and we hugged for the last time. Kristjana came up and shook our hands in that manly way she had, but she hugged Maria-Elena hard and said, ‘Be careful’.

  In the taxi on the way to Geneva airport, I read the letter my father had written a week ago. It had just reached me. At that time both of us were blissfully unaware of the way events would unfurl.

  June, 1972

  Dearest Katherine,

  Your absence has been keenly felt by your mother, your sister and me. I shared your mid-term report card with your mother and Vivienne. It was very pleasing to see how you excelled—even in etiquette. For some reason, this last amused your sister greatly.

  In case you did not already know, the first half of the year was for your mother’s sake. She was enchanted by the cultures and all the subjects you would have the opportunity of exploring at Lac d’Or.

  This second half is for me. You have the opportunity I never had to hold and crumble in your hands the earth our forefathers strode upon. Because of my age, the days are long gone when I might have been able to live on a kibbutz. So it is you who must carry the torch for me and for all those who came before.

  Dad

  All right, so I’ve done the finishing school thing for my mother’s sake and I’m to live the Zionist dream for my father’s—so no pressure then. But before I could even attempt the latter, there would be the little matter of trying to explain my escapade with Carla.

  I won’t forget the disappointment in my father’s eyes. Nor my mother’s tight smile. But I knew as I faced them that there would be no punishment. Neither of them had ever been good at disciplining my sister or me. They had always felt that the soft touch of love was more effective than the raised hand of anger.

  And I could not help but be reminded of my mother’s mortifying experience when she was dragged home—a reverse expulsion if you will. How would a court of law adjudicate on our respective transgressions today? Her holding hands with a non-Jewish boy outside a non-kosher bakery versus my joint-smoking, port-drinking revel with a Catholic?

  There could only be one verdict: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

  THE EARTH LURCHES AWAY FROM THE SUN

  Part II

  JUNE 1972

  It’s such a tiny piece of land, this Israel. It could fit comfortably into Tasmania at least three times; and our two families managed to travel the length and breadth of it in under two weeks. I ached to puff away with Carla, Ivory and Maria-Elena, but even so, the land was a balm on my feelings. It calmed me. I couldn’t really explain it except to say that I had this sense of having come home.

  And, of course, there was Annie. We were friends long before we left Australia, and would be long after we returned. It was a peaceful thing to be with her, to be able to reference Lac d’Or so easily in our conversations.

  Elisheva was the young woman who headed the volunteers’ programme. After having their obligatory chat with her, our parents dropped us off (or dropped us into) the Fields of Esther. Elisheva said something to us very fast, which I didn’t entirely catch for all my twelve years of learning Hebrew (something about eggplants on the roof of the synagogue, I thought), and then disappeared. We waited there unattended for nearly two hours. I felt like junk mail deposited in a letterbox with a ‘no-junk-mail-please’ sticker. I started to think that if ever anyone came to this door it would probably be because they thought the lights had been left on inadvertently.

  Somehow Annie managed to fall asleep on two chairs she pushed together. I leaned back and, for want of other amusement, tried to recall the excursions and journeys we had taken. East Jerusalem stood out in my mind, beautiful, angry: it could erupt into violence at any moment. I generally blocked my ears to politics but soon I would discover that trying to be apolitical in Israel was a bit like going to the Louvre and trying to ignore the Mona Lisa.

  Eventually, Elisheva returned with a couple of assistants. She woke Annie with a kick to one of the chair’s legs.

  I was exhausted. Day One at S’dot Ester and I was ready to go home. Before breakfast Elisheva handed me a map and pointed to a dot located somewhere between the cowshed and the orange groves.

  ‘Nursery,’ she said abruptly and walked off to do more sympathetic outreach work with other anxious volunteers.

  As hopeless as I am with maps, this one seemed somehow even more impenetrable than any other I had tried to read. Something to do with all the place names being in tiny Hebrew script. Until my arrival at S’dot Ester I had always thought I’d been good at Hebrew, but I was fast being disabused of that notion. I scurried into the dining room and sought out Annie. Surely, she could lead me there. But she had laundry duty at the other end of the kibbutz.

  ‘Nursery,’ she said, envy ascendant. ‘You get to plant things while I’m slated to supervise giant washing machines.’

  After breakfast I made my way down there, every few minutes asking passers-by which way I should go to reach the Gan Yeladim. Most just ignored me—Israeli version of being polite—but I refused to be cowed. Gan Yeladim translated means garden of the children and this buoyed me somehow. I would be working in a garden for or with children. Together we would crumble the soil and explore the meaning of the earth.

  God, when had I become so witless?

  Garden of the children—kinder-bloody-garten.

  I was hustled into large sunny rooms, the only ones on the whole kibbutz to be air-conditioned against the suffocating July heat. Directed to a changing table I saw a two-year-old placidly contemplating the action. There had been an outbreak of gastroenteritis. Shit and vomit rising.

  In Hebrew, Shoshana, head of operations here, said something that sounded to me like ‘change the turban’. I knew that couldn’t be right so took a linguistic leap to ‘change the nappy’. My gag reflex worked overtime, but I did it and eventually presented Shoshana with the finished product. She nodded and swapped him for another kid who needed a turban-change. This seemed to go on all morning. Occasionally there was a break for vomit-cleaning duty or a quick cigarette outside.

  This was not the Zionist dream; this was a Zionist nightmare. I envied Annie her laundry detail. Oh, and the heat—the heat. I was not unused to mid-thirties, but here it was a relentless, dry thirty-nine or forty. In Melbourne, after three or four days there was always a cool change. Here, they told me, it could
be this temperature, unbroken, till mid-October. In Switzerland I had dreamed of sun; now I would welcome even thunderstorms and hail.

  Things did not get easier as the weeks passed, but I did adapt and adjust to the bone-aching tiredness, the early rising and the six-day weeks—six days because Sunday was the Christian day of rest, so of course the Jews made it a working day for themselves. Which always struck me as a bit like cutting off one’s nose.

  JULY 1972

  A month passed. The friendship circles among the volunteers were, as they had been at Lac d’Or, made up of various international crews. We spent much of our free time drinking either coffee or beer, depending on the time of day, or arguing heatedly about politics and socialism. S’dot Ester was a different kind of finishing school. On steroids.

  But the kibbutz regulars didn’t have much time for us volunteers. Perhaps it was because we had not committed ourselves to Aliyah. The term means ‘going up’ and was used in the sense of Diaspora Jews emigrating—and going up, making Aliyah—to Israel. For life. Though there was also the concept of Yeridah, ‘going down’, when one could no longer take any more of the Land of Milk and Honey and decided to emigrate to a land, preferably far away. Australia was good. It was far enough away. There were a lot of Israelis living in Australia.

  AUGUST 1972

  Two amazing things happened today. After work (about 3.30 p.m. because we start here at 6.30 a.m. to escape the late afternoon heat), I was wandering over to the room that served as the post office. Elisheva found me and said I was to be transferred from the nursery to the orchards on the following day. No reason given, just the news and a warning not to be late for the truck that would drive us there at around 6.20 a.m.

  I was still digesting that morale-boosting news when the postmistress saw me coming. She held up an envelope covered in multi-coloured stamps and said, ‘For you, Kasserine. From Berlin’.

  It was from Carla of course. I had given her my address, though she could not give me hers. She and her family would be on the move. I read it carefully, incredulously. I reached the part where she wrote: