Things Could Be Worse (5 page)

The comedians were Mr Bensky's favourites. He laughed at their jokes so heartily that other people in the theatre stood up to see who was laughing like that. Sometimes he laughed so hard that his shirt buttons popped and tears ran down his face. Sometimes Lola worried that he would burst with happiness. At interval they always shared a packet of Jaffas, a packet of Fantales and a packet of Columbines.

Mr Bensky applauded each act vigorously and was the first to leap onto the stage if a juggler, hypnotist, comedian or magician asked for volunteers from the audience.

Now, Mrs Bensky was starting to feel edgy. A faint headache hovered at the back of her head. Mr Bensky should have been home by now. She'd told him that the photographer was due at two o'clock.

She parted the plush gold velvet curtains in the family room. Outside it was sunny. Mrs Bensky was pleased. Later on she could lie out on the grass for half an hour or so.

Mrs Bensky had a deep golden tan all year round. She saw her suntan as public evidence of her energy, vitality and youthful spirit.

When Mrs Bensky lay in the sun, she could think about her daughters without anxiety. In the sun she could forget about Lola's weight and not worry about whether Lina would ever find a boyfriend. Sometimes a ray of pleasure crept through Mrs Bensky's thoughts about her daughters; at least neither of her children had ever had an abortion or experimented with drugs.

Mrs Bensky liked to sunbathe in solitude. At home this was easy, for Mr Bensky loathed the sun. Even on his summer holidays he spent his time indoors reading Raymond Chandler. Lina had very pale skin, which blistered if she crossed Collins Street in the sun, and Lola was too embarrassed to put her flesh, olive though it was, into a bathing suit.

There was a loud knock at the front door. ‘Renia, Renia darling, it's Josl.' Mrs Bensky switched off the indoor and outdoor burglar alarms and Mr Bensky unlocked the mortice lock and Lockwood deadlock. He was beaming. ‘Darling, I went to Buckleys and I went to Georges and I had no luck. And then I had a very good idea, I went to Yanek at the top of Bourke Street and Yanek had two and a half yards of white Tissus Michel.'

Mrs Bensky looked at him. ‘Josl, you know I need three yards for a dress.' Mr Bensky lost his beam.

Mrs Bensky had prepared Mr Bensky's lunch: four slices of Pariser sausage, a tomato quartered, two radishes, a spring onion, some lettuce and three Vita-Weat biscuits. On their bed she had laid out Mr Bensky's new white shirt, a finely striped maroon and gold tie, and Mr Bensky's best suit, which was grey with cream flecks. Mr Bensky ate and got dressed.

At exactly two o'clock Michael Beets, the most successful and talented Jewish photographer in Melbourne, arrived with his assistant.

Every year Michael Beets photographed the Bensky family. Mrs Bensky chose the photograph she liked best and ordered a twenty-by-thirty-inch copy, which she put into an ornate gilt-edged frame and displayed with great pride in the lounge-room.

‘Good afternoon, Mrs Bensky. You look wonderful. You're getting younger every day. It's true, you look more beautiful every year. It's a pleasure to see you.'

‘Oh, Mr Beets, I look terrible. I've got a headache and I've had sinus trouble for three weeks. I've taken Amoxil and Abbocillin and Moxacin and nothing helps. Look at how my nose is swollen.'

Lina and Lola arrived separately, at the same time. Mr Bensky kissed Lina hello. Lina had a habit of averting her head when she was kissed, so that the kisser came in contact with a mouthful of hair and the back of her head.

Lola picked up the book that Lina had bought her parents as a gift. It was inscribed: ‘To the best Mum and Dad in the world.' Lola felt nauseous with disgust.

‘Lola darling,' her mother was saying. Lola looked up, still feeling sick. ‘Maybe you'd like to put on a little bit of mascara?' Mrs Bensky trilled.

‘No thanks, Mum.' Lola walked away, smoothing down her dress, which had bat-wing sleeves, was gathered at the yoke and was made out of satiny, black crushed velvet. The dress flowed past Lola's hips, the part of Lola that Lola tried to hide, against all odds.

‘OK, OK, OK, everybody,' Mr Beets called as he shepherded them into the dining room. The dining room was low-ceilinged and rectangular. The bottom panels of the windows, which overlooked the garden, were made of opaque blue glass, a style that was fashionable in Caulfield and East St Kilda in the 1960s. Lola called it Jewish-Chinese architecture.

The Bensky family stood in a row. Mr Bensky patted a block of Small's Energy chocolate in his pocket. Lina blinked rapidly, her face twisted with tension. Lola arranged herself so that she stood between but slightly behind Mr and Mrs Bensky, a position that she hoped would cut her hips down a bit. Mrs Bensky glowed. Her eyes were luminous. A soft expression of serenity lit her face. Everything was ready. One, two, three, click. They smiled for the camera.

What Do You Know About Friends?

In Renia Bensky's world, people were pigs. ‘Don't be a greedy pig,' she would say when Lola reached for another potato. Renia's neighbour, Mrs Spratt, was ‘a dirty pig'. Her favourite grandchild was ‘a little piggy', her cousin Adek ‘a big pig'.

Josl chauffeured his two daughters around every Saturday morning. To the city, to the dressmaker, to the hairdresser. On the way home he liked to stop and buy himself a double chocolate gelato. ‘What a pig!' Renia said when they arrived home.

When Renia talked about Josl's father, who had died in the ghetto, she said, ‘such a pig'. Sometimes she would say a bit more, although the past, their lives before they came to Australia, was definitely out of bounds, their own private territory. Sometimes a small sliver of detail would slip out. ‘Such a pig he was. In the ghetto he cried because he was so hungry. Children were dead in the streets and he was crying because he was hungry.'

Until she was twenty Lola had never seen a pig. When she saw her first pigs, she was fascinated by how unselfconscious they were. They snorted their way through their food, big and pink and bulky. They weren't holding their stomachs flat or sucking in their cheeks. They weren't expecting judgements. They seemed quite happy to be pigs. If people weren't pigs, then they were idiots. Even when she was quite small Lola knew that Mrs Bensky was an authority on pigs and idiots. ‘Such an idiot!' Mrs Bensky would shout. ‘Such an idiot is that Mrs Berman. An idiot, an i-d-i-o-t. She thinks she speaks a perfect English. In the butcher I heard her say, “Cut me in half please.” Such a perfect English!'

Mrs Berman had been Mrs Bensky's friend. Until Mrs Berman left Mr Berman and Mrs Bensky could no longer be friends with her, the two women had baked cakes in Mrs Bensky's kitchen on Saturday afternoons. Mrs Berman made her honeycake and rugelachs and Mrs Bensky baked her lakech. Working in the kitchen together, they looked like good friends.

‘Friends,' Mrs Bensky said to Lola. ‘What do you know about friends? Friends, pheh! You can trust only your family.'

And what did Lola know? She had watched the Benskys and their friends, their ‘company', as they called themselves. The company went to the pictures together every Saturday night and then to supper afterwards. On Sunday evenings they played cards. If there was a good show on, sometimes they went out during the week. They celebrated each other's birthdays, anniversaries, barmitzvahs, engagements and weddings, and were present at the operations, illnesses and funerals.

Lola thought that the company were family. She called them Uncle and Aunty and believed that they would always care about her. What did Lola know?

Mrs Bensky hated Mrs Ganz. She was irritated by the way that Mrs Ganz kept inviting her to fashion parades, card afternoons and charity luncheons. Couldn't Mrs Ganz see that she was very busy? Every day Mrs Bensky had to wash six sheets, four pillow cases, three eiderdown covers and seven towels. She had to scrub and polish the floors, and vacuum the carpets. And on top of this she had to cook and to wash up. She was not the kind of woman who had time to go to a fashion parade. Why couldn't Mrs Ganz understand this?

Mrs Bensky thought that Mrs Ganz had always been spoilt. In the ghetto Mrs Ganz's father had been a Jewish ‘policeman'. Their family had rarely been hungry. In 1943 they were smuggled out of the ghetto and spent the rest of the war hiding in a cellar. Mrs Bensky often chatted to Mrs Pekelman on the phone. She felt that Genia Pekelman had her problems, but above all she had a good heart. Mrs Bensky advised Mrs Pekelman about which clothes suited her best, how to cook a good gulah, where to buy the freshest Murray Perch. She also shared some beauty tips with her, including the fact that if you rinsed your hair with a bit of beer after washing it the waves stayed in much longer. Renia Bensky and Genia Pekelman, both nondrinkers, often trailed an alcoholic air around with them.

Lola learnt about friendship from listening to the two women on the phone. Last week Mrs Bensky had said in an affectionate tone, ‘Genia darling, I bumped into Yetta Kauffman in the city. Such an ugly face that woman has got. You think you are ugly, Genia darling? Next to Yetta Kauffman you are a big beauty.'

This may have seemed harsh to an outsider, but Lola knew that it was affectionate and well-intentioned. In this company one of the friendliest and most enthusiastic responses to anything was: ‘What, what, you are crazy or something?'

Things cooled off between Renia Bensky and Genia Pekelman when Genia took up dancing lessons. She was forty-seven. At thirteen, Genia had been a promising young dancer. She had won a ballet scholarship to study in Paris. She was counting the days to her fourteenth birthday, waiting to leave for Paris, when the Germans arrived in Warsaw.

Now, Mrs Pekelman was learning Indian dance. She went to dancing classes twice a week. She was taught by Madame Sanrit. Mrs Pekelman wore leotards under her sari and practised at home every afternoon. She loved to dance and danced at every opportunity.

If a group of women were having a charity luncheon, Mrs Pekelman asked if she could dance at the lunch. When Mrs Pekelman learnt that Mrs Small was taking a group of voluntary Jewish Welfare kitchen helpers on a tour of the Victorian National Gallery, she begged her to bring the group to her home, where she would dance for them.

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.