Things Could Be Worse (6 page)

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' fingers 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.

Genia felt closer to Esther than she did to Rachel, her first-born daughter. Genia felt that Esther understood her. Esther had been in the audience at the luncheon last week. As soon as the performance was over, Esther had rushed up to her. ‘You were fabulous, Mum,' she had said. She had hugged Genia tightly. It had been a hug that had shut out all Genia's fears and nerves. Esther didn't have the beauty of her sister, Rachel, but Esther had the heart.

Genia thought that Rachel was one of the most beautiful young women she had ever seen. Many other people thought the same thing about Rachel. Rachel had large, green, almond-shaped eyes, flawless olive skin and an elegant aquiline nose. Her face was framed by a head of thick auburn ringlets. At the moment Rachel was between husbands. She had divorced number three, and had just met Boris Zayer, who fulfilled all the prerequisites for husband number four.

Each of Rachel's husbands had been richer than the husband before him. Rachel had started by marrying a struggling young lawyer. She had left that marriage with a small house in South Yarra. Rachel's last divorce had netted her a settlement of two and a half million dollars.