The Rowing Lesson (12 page)

All the shops in George are closed because everyone’s going to the funeral this afternoon, all the customers who bought mints and linens, the neighbours, teachers, the
dominee
, the brothers from the Outeniqua Lodge. The Coloured man who sharpens knives, Nettie’s whole family, every labourer and hedge cutter and woodcutter and Kaaimans River fisherman, garden boy and maid, milkman and butcher’s boy, librarian and hops grower, even an ostrich farmer from Oudtshoorn, and Harris Martens, one of your father’s favourite commercial travellers who’s staying at the hotel. They’re English and Afrikaans, cream-coloured and Bantu, Jew and Malay, plump ladies who bought buttons and trinkets, poor Coloured children whose hands Dad filled with sweets, the old
smous
, Rafael, the enormous matron from the hostel, Doctor Brown, with his cracking black bag and delicate wife, no flowers, please, not for a Jew.

The doctor’s the one who looks at you gravely, when you ask your medical student questions, peering down at you from his high horse. He saw you at the house, before, and influenza is what he told you. A dreadful case of influenza with multiple complications and exacerbations. His defenses crumbled, his guard was down. The disease bore down on him like a wolf on the fold. We did our level best. We administered tincture after tincture. We wrapped him and soothed him but nothing brought him back from the abyss, I’m afraid to say. He fell right in. The Gouritz is nothing more than a trickle, you’re thinking, as your father falls and falls and falls. You’re looking down from the bridge, trying to see him. Forty-seven! He was only forty-seven!

But he’s at the bottom now, where it’s quiet, and there are no more rivers. The cars follow his coffin down York Street, car after car after car. He would have liked to have seen all the models, the new ones and old, the Fords and Chevies, the farmer’s lumbering vehicles, Wolfie’s sports jobbie, slick and silver in the rain. Forty cars winding their way to the synagogue in the rain, Jew and non-Jew alike. Joseph Klein was everyone’s friend. He gave away credit and penny dreadfuls, leftover lumber and free advice. Stupendous bargains at half price. A Grand Display in every line.

Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba
. . . . You’re saying Kaddish for your father in the George synagogue and the words lump and crumble in your mouth, ancient stones scrambling on the riverbed as the water roars in your ears. Son of Abraham who begat Isaac who begat and begat and begat, and now you, son of Joseph, standing up for him because he can’t stand up for himself anymore.
Yitbarakh v’yishtabah v’yitpa’ar v’yitromam v’yitnasei
. . . . Your tears are hot on your cheeks, and you can hear Uncle Oscar telling you, Pull yourself together,
Y’hei sh’lama raba min sh’maya v’hayim aleinu v’al kol yisrael, v’imru amen
.

The cars creep down York Street again, as the sun slowly curtseys, fanning lace-blue clouds in every direction, shafts of light spreading through the rain and mist.

Joseph Klein always dreamed of a Jewish cemetery in George, and now, oh God, it’s today, and he’s the first Jew who’s going to be folded into the earth, right here, at the Pacaltsdorp rail crossing. The Masonic Brethren assemble around the grave, placing sprigs of acacia on the casket and Brother O’Connell, the Irish land surveyor, murmurs, We are all born to die . . . we follow our friends to the brink of the grave. . . . Behind him, the sun shoots bolts of gold across the Outeniqua Mountains, anointing the hills. We see them sink into the fathomless abyss, Brother O’Connell whispers. You’re watching him fall again, this time in front of your eyes, sinking into the damp earth of this new, empty place, where there are no other graves, no other fathers, mothers, brothers or sisters. Joseph Klein, General Merchant, Direct Importer and Showroom Specialist. Pioneer in the new burial ground.
Oseh shalom bi-m’romav, hu ya’aseh shalom aleinu v’al kol yisrael, v’imru amen
.

You drop a fistful of earth into the grave, your hand stiff as a claw. You’re dizzy and sick with death, Mum burbling next to you, a fountain of grief, worry, fear of the future. We’ll be alright, you whisper. We’ll manage. (He was only forty-seven!) Goodbye to the ridge of pines, goodbye to the lonely plot in the new cemetery, goodbye to the town of Pacaltsdorp, a tilted open square above browning houses, next to the rail crossing. Goodbye to Dad.

At home, the dining-room table is covered with plates of herring—pickled, chopped, roll-mopped—liver, chopped and festooned with a mosaic of boiled, grated egg, gefilte fish and a garland of sponge cakes and sticky
taiglach
. It’s a walled city of sharp, savory smells, with the Jewish mothers of George guarding the ramparts, their sleeves rolled up, aprons smeared with boiled carp, horseradish, chicken fat. Wolfie penetrates, reaching over and plucking up a roll-mop. One of the largest . . . (the roll-mop rolls in his mouth) corteges . . . ever seen in George. How about that, Harry! He does his slip and pad, aiming for the solar plexus, but then drops his arms, remembering the day. He was a good man. The aprons come off, and the prayers begin. You’re sitting shiva, and the cakes have just begun.

God Save the King on the radio, the first day of September, 1939. The six pips from Greenwich and then, This is London, here is the news. Wolfie came for prayers, and Uncle Oscar is rocking on his heels and whispering about money to your mother. In the early morning hours, German soldiers crossed into Poland . . . Ssssht . . . The apron mothers and Nettie, Maisie, Wolfie, Uncle Herman and even Bertie suddenly freeze as the voice from London, pukka Royal Southern British, describes how the Germans attacked from three directions, from the sea, from the air, with tanks. Across several borders, from Lower Germany, Slovakia and East Prussia, with the speed of lightning. And now Hitler’s voice ranting, thunderbolts of German crackling through the air waves.
Blitzkrieg!

Skiet en Donder. Donder en Bliksem
. Bertie shouts out his rudest words,
poes
and
piel
and
donner
.
Bliksem! Blitzkrieg!
Mum gives him a
klap
, red stripes on his left cheek, Hitler shrieking at all of you. Nobody wants any more herring, Maisie says, and starts moving the food back into the kitchen. SSSSHT
!
Uncle Oscar is spitting he’s so furious. STOP WITH THE PLATES
!
Mum’s stamping and champing. The sun is setting and it’s time for prayers. The British man is back on and he says that the railway lines have been destroyed by the Luftwaffe, along with hundreds and hundreds of Polish planes. Stop with the planes! Stop with the planes! Bertie hops on one leg, as if he’s got water in his ear. The plates crash in the kitchen sink and Uncle Oscar turns up the knob on the radio so that even the static roars.

Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba
. . . (Mum snapped off the radio, just like that, and told you to start.) Son of Abraham who begat Isaac who begat who begat and begat, and now you, son of Joseph, standing up for him because he can’t stand up for himself anymore. Wolfie, Uncle Herman, Uncle Oscar, Mr. Wolk, Mr. Berelowitz, Izzy So-and-So, Harris Martens, the commercial traveller, Rafael the
smous
and Solly Shipman, saying Kaddish with you. Your father’s still dead, the Hebrew words circling like moths. There’s very little money in the shop. Mum will have to sell everything. Estate of late J. Klein. The public of George and District are notified that all goods in store are offered at marked prices with a special discount for cash. Come early to make your selections.

You have to go back on the train tomorrow. Uncle Oscar says he’ll pay for expenses, the dissecting tools, the white coats, whatever you need, my boy. And, of course, he’ll pay for your studies, as long as you study, young man. You’re going to be a doctor. The planes buzz in your ears, and there’s fury beating in you, while Poland collapses and England declares war. Not your war, Uncle Oscar says. The money’s short.

Whose war is it? There’s a split in the cabinet right down the middle. The fuse is burning on the Fusion government. Hertzog wants to stay neutral but Smuts doesn’t. The train puffs into the station, Mum and Bertie and Maisie silent in the billowing steam, a different goodbye. You’re thinking about the coelacanth in the special railway van, and how it’s in Cape Town already, being restuffed and remounted. It arrived on the same day as a foreign visitor, and there were flags waving in the streets, which Miss Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer thought were for her, and her dead old fish.

You know nothing’s waving for you. You’re neither fish nor fowl, not famous or foreign, just a boy flung into a man,
boytjie
into
mannetjie
. Sometimes you think they must have thrown the best part away when you were born, and kept the afterbirth. The real baby boy is gone. The one who would have grown properly, the one who didn’t kill his own father.

Grave Crisis in South Africa, say the papers. And you can’t help thinking of Joseph Klein, alone in his grave, alone in the new Jewish cemetery in George, with no friends or neighbours, no company. The man who invited strangers and travellers and cousins and uncles into his house, who gave away marbles and toffee and spades for two minutes of conversation, for a story, for news of a bigger world. He gave away everything and now they’re selling the shop for a song. The government’s in big trouble and the twelve cabinet ministers are meeting on a Saturday afternoon. The words in the newspaper wriggle across the page, jump into your lap, as the train rumbles back across the Southwestern Cape. Nothing’s real anymore, and the mountains outside aren’t skipping like lambs. You’re cold to the bone, and you close the window of the train compartment. Eyes closed, you’re counting ministers in the dark. Six are for Smuts, and five are on Hertzog’s side. Smuts, Hertzog, Smuts, Hertzog . . . Choo . . . choo . . . Same old train, same old song, but now there’s a war in the world again.

It’s raining in Cape Town and you can’t even see Table Mountain. Even Signal Hill is swaddled with rain clouds. The old monkeys are on honeymoon somewhere, and the new ones haven’t even thought about weddings. They’re still weeping at your father’s funeral, wiping their eyes under the dripping pine trees. Hertzog believes he’s going to win. And he’s right! Yes, we’ll all stay out of this war, and let the Germans march as they please. The Ossewabrandwag boys will be happy tonight. They’ll break what’s left of your father’s shop. They’ll break you.

You’re back with Mickey and Maxie again, back under the portals of Men’s Residence. Maxie’s drowning in newspapers and Mickey’s a bit drunk but they’re both sorry. They bought you gin and a bucket of oysters, shucked by the oyster boys. You don’t like gin very much and you pour the gin in the bucket and the oysters down your throat, one after the other, like a ruffled seabird. Maxie’s gone mad with the war and everything and he’s forgotten about chem and bot and bio. He’s six pips to the wind, Greenwich mean time every minute of the day, and now this. Smuts’ amendment to Hertzog’s motion, to “continue as if no war is being waged.” Ja-nee, yes-no, the Union will declare war on Germany. The buggers sitting on the fence capitulate and Smuts wins, 80 votes to 67. Hertzog’s resigned! Mickey’s screaming as if the Ikeys just won Inter-Varsity for the first time in half a century.

Dorothy May is not in her seat anymore and her frog is gone. She’s run off to the join the War, is what the boys say, but she comes back to class the day Hertzog asks Sir Patrick Duncan, the Governor-General, to dissolve the parliament and call for a general election. (Dorothy’s leg still jiggles, and you want to take her thighs and hold them still.) Oysters change from male to female—or female to male—at least once a year, sometimes twice or even three times. The larvae are called spats. You remember the taste of the bucket of oysters as if it was still in your mouth, how you swallowed Mum’s tears, Maisie’s, Teddy’s and your own, all that saltwater sorrow in one big gulp, the day you came back to Men’s Residence. Dorothy’s still female and you haven’t tasted her tears, not yet anyway, but she’s the one who tells you about Duncan asking Smuts to form a new government. South Africa’s at war, you know. Her legs twitch at you, shaking the whole world.

And then the letter comes, dated August 29th.

Dear Harold, I feel a bit better this morning, as Daddy seems on the mend. We have had a very anxious time, as Dad flopped out completely. At times there was no pulse, and as for temperature, it didn’t even register on the thermometre, it was so low. Before that, he arrived home very ill and feverish with Flu, and the train journey was definitely bad for him. The doctor was terribly scared of Pneumonia, and thank God that kept away, but then his temperature flopped from high to too low at one time, and then he was real bad. Well, I only hope it ends with the scare we had, and that now he is on the mend from hour to hour, as he needs it. He is delirious most of the time, and grumbles that he can’t get up and go to the shop and the doctor won’t even let him be shaved, and that is also a grumble. He doesn’t even know what harm it is doing him to be so restless, as he must sleep as much as possible to gain all he has lost, but as he doesn’t realize the state he is in, and you can’t reason with him, we can only coax him and try and keep him quiet.

Well, dear, I’ll write on Thursday, and hope to report very good progress. Maisie is helping me, especially in the shop. It seemed to satisfy Dad that there is someone in the shop. He really has that institution on the brain.

Well cheerio, wishing you well,

You read the letter over and over again, searching inside the words for pictures and cures. If only it had come the next day! If only you’d seen him before he flopped out and under, into the next dim world. You could have shaved him (he wouldn’t have minded). You could have saved him from grumbles and Fever, and worries about the shop. He had that institution on the brain, Mum said. You can see the shop resting on his head, as he lies alone in the cemetery, the shop parked on top of the grave, keeping him under.

You fold the August 29th letter very, very carefully, and put it in the drawer with the first letter, dated August 22. The August 29th letter is on the top, with your father’s letterhead on the envelope, The House for Value and Quality (underlined) then J. Klein, in bold letters below. Under his name, in lower case letters, quite small, General Merchant, Direct Importer and Showroom Specialists and then the address, c/o Hibernia and Meade Streets, P. O. Box 40, George, C.P. Phone 35. Your address reads: Mr. Harold Klein, Mens Residence, Groote Schuur, Rondebosch.