Perfect Family Tales And Other Trivia

The art of the short-story writer is that of the cartoonist. It is the magical craft of creating entire worlds with a few simple strokes of a pen. Tales told by an idiot? Maybe! But my tales are also a mix of reality and fantasy; truth and lies; some based on my own family; others, not. Readers must guess which characters are real; who are inventions - and who are an amalgam of both. Please draw the boundaries for yourself.

Sunday 27 January 2013

‘All The Black Years’

Yahrzeit.LightLast night  we kindled a memorial light and recited a prayer. Then Aunt Leila drove us  into the Galilee hills to meet a woman who had spent her life collecting pictures. Aunty said she was quite mad.

When we arrived we stumbled over thousands upon thousands of photographs, pen-and-ink drawings, pencil sketches and cheap reproductions of oil  and water-colour works which lay in huge scattered heaps about a  cavernous room barely lit by old-fashioned tapers. All pertained somehow to a genocide; to the many attempted annihilations of one people by another.

Curiously, many of the  incidents they recorded did not happen during the Nazi Holocaust. At first glance they appeared to have no direct connection to  the Jewish experience. 

Into the gloom walked Adina Foreman, a woman who wore a vague, distracted air like a badge of honour. “Welcome to the Viktor Hartmann Gallery,” she said with a lilting accent  as I squinted, attempting  to  see her face among the flickering shadows.

“I hope you’ve been told that I’m distantly related to Hartmann, the Russian architect and painter, through descendants of his French relatives. They were my mother’s family.  Since arriving in Israel in the early years of the State, I’ve made it my business to memorialise him, just like his composer friend, Modest Mussorgsky, via his piano work, Pictures At An Exhibition.

“But my show is quite different from that which triggered Mussorgsky’s music. Hartmann was barely ‘Jewish’ and Mussorgsky was often openly anti-Jewish despite their personal friendship. So my aim here is to recall the numberless, often nameless atrocities which are perpetrated  by powerful people against those they perceive as weak.”

“Why else have you done this – and in such an unusual way?”, I asked Adina. “Surely your faint link to Hartmann is not the only  reason?”

“Before I answer you, I want you to shut your eyes. Tight. Yes, like that,” she added, as I squeezed my lids together firmly.

“Now, you’re in solitary confinement.  A wasteland. The deepest well. The back-side of the moon. Whatever your personal horror. A place sometimes named in quaint  Yiddish as alles schwarz jahren’ - ‘all the black years’. A dot so distant  – imperceptible - as to remain unmarked on any map.

“During the late 1890s, my grandfather, Sol Saltzman’s family trudged from such a place in Latvia on the Baltic coast to begin  new lives in England. Like other Jewish émigrés, they  were shocked when they discovered they had not landed in the USA! But they stayed, settling on the coast again -  at Grimsby, in the northeast. Most married; had large families and established successful businesses. Others did not fare well, pining for the tiny coastal hamlet where they had once eked out an existence making amber jewellery.

“Finally, Sol’s niece, Beila Saltzman bore England no  longer. She packed her belongings, gathering her four children to return to the village she recalled as overlooking a beach against a sparkling sea. We believe all was well until the Nazis came to power and latent anti-Jewish feelings surged with them.”

“What happened?”, I asked.

“No-one is absolutely sure; not even Dad, who was a professional historian.  But he discovered during some brief research post-war  that Beila and her brood had been among those rounded up for execution on the beach during the summer of 1941.

“’My darling girl,’ he said, ‘suddenly I teetered on the edge of a depthless pit. Yad.Vashem.Hall.Of.NamesI glimpsed over the brink to witness our cousins being mown down on a Baltic beach just as I - in another universe - would have  been striding through the Cumbrian Fells,  contemplating nothing graver than the pleasures of a lunchtime drink.’ 

“His terrible words resounded in my fragile teenage soul, making me determined to emigrate here to Israel once I had completed school. The rest, your aunt must have told you. But there’s one more detail.

“Do you recognise this face?”, Adina demanded, snatching at an image from the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem, The Holocaust History Museum in Jerusalem.

“She looks like you.”

“This is Gillie, my cousin – Beila’s daughter. Thank God, my father’s version of events was not wholly true.   Beila and her three boys were murdered. But somehow Gillie, the youngest, managed to evade arrest.

“Luck stayed with her as she was found and then kept safe by one of the few local families who helped Jews. They were quite marvellous, passed her off as their daughter and later helped her to get here after the war.” 

“What’s next?”

Adina smiled faintly.

“You and your aunt are our only visitors tonight. So I’d like you to kindle a memorial light marking International Holocaust Day. This is a custom not observed widely in Israel as our own Yom Hashoa is such an important day in the national calendar.”

How could I decline? Tell her we’d performed the ceremony at home? She would tell me that the ‘black years’ had not returned. They’d never gone away.

 

Pianist Lazar Berman with Viktor Hartmann's pictures

Natalie Wood

(Copyright, Natalie Irene Wood – 27 January 2013)

Sunday 20 January 2013

‘Samson, Delilah – And A Slice Of Treacle Tart’

The phone barely beeped  before it was answered.
“Hello. Phil E Stein. Turf Accountants. How  …”
“Phil, you don’t have to be posh with me,” whispered Hazel Judge. “The beast’s watered and fed and we’re raring to go.”
“Ha-ha! Samson or Delilah?”

“Sam, of course! Delilah’s muzzled and thumping her tail like crazy. I’ll tell you more when you arrive. Please get the boys round, double quick. Sam’ll sleep tight for hours but he’ll be a ton weight to bundle into the back of the van.”

When Phil turned up with his mates, they were shocked by what they saw.

Samson Judge, six foot six inchesMr.Universe tall, once boasted the  physique of a prize body builder. Now his bloated,  flabby  form was straddled supine and naked across the kitchen floor. He was bound by ropes; his head had been shaved and what looked like honey  dripped from every orifice.

“For chrissakes, Hazel. What have you done? I know we want to teach Sam a lesson. But a joke’s a joke ...!”

“Phil,” retorted Hazel, “he owes you a bloody fortune – and me a huge apology. He’s a great geezer. If he wasn’t, I wouldn’t have put up with the gambling and womanising for twenty years.

“But he’s also a religious nutter. I  can’t stand his pious ‘turn the other cheek’ malarkey on Sunday mornings, followed by everything else once he’s down at yours. I’ll give him ‘lay preacher’! Just because he never touches red  meat or  drink through habit, it doesn’t make him an angel.”

“But how did you get him like this?”, asked Phil.

“I made him his favourite dinner, including a huge helping of treacle tart, which he loves almost as much as he adores Delilah. To wash it down, I bought a bottle of that red non-alcoholic wine, Vida Vita and chucked in crushed Temazepam pills. They should do the trick as they are supposed to help you sleep like the dead and    can even make you lose your memory. But here’s the magic:

“The scalping. I did it after Sam fell asleep. You know how he’s always insisted  his long hair was tied to his masculinity and that’s why he wouldn’t have it cut? I’d been nagging him for ages to chop it off as it’d become a coarse, tangled mess. It also made him look like an ancient hippy, so  I took matters in hand and did the job myself.

“But there’s more. When he gets  soppy with me, Sam starts quoting Scripture which makes me very cross. He started up again yesterday and what with the new teenage lady friend and the dosh  he owes you lot, I finally lost patience. Now you’ve seen the results.”

“But I’m still a bit puzzled, Hazel,” said Phil, as the other lads started to drag Sam off the floor to take him to the van. “Why the ropes and honey?”

“It’s not honey, it’s treacle and it’s  part of the same reason why I shaved him. One of his favourite bits of Bible is the story of Samson and Delilah. That’s how our precious bloodhound got her moniker.

Tate.Lyle“Whenever I’ve made the tart, he’s stared intently at the label on the tin illustrated with the lion and the swarming bees, and then read it out solemnly, like he was in church: ‘Abram Lyle & Sons, Sugar Refiners.’ Then the motto, ‘Out Of The Strong Came Forth Sweetness’. The words are part of a riddle that Samson posed to his enemies, the Philistines. The performance really annoys me. So I decided to add treacle to the mix.

“Anyway, if you send Samson and the boys to Martin’s Mill, we won’t be disturbed. The place has been disused for years. I’ve got booze and nosh which we can enjoy on the upper floor while we watch Sam’s antics below. I remember from when I worked there that there’s a loose floorboard we can remove to view the circus when he wakes up.”

When Hazel and Phil arrived at the mill with Delilah, they found Sam manacled to the central pillar of the old shop floor. Despite Hazel’s best efforts, something had roused him. But he could barely move, mainly because the treacle had set hard and stopped him  speaking. He couldn’t ask for help or see much either, as strings of syrup had dripped from his forehead and stuck to his eyes.

As Hazel and her friends moved about upstairs, they heard what may have been the rumble of distant thunder. After all, the noise from the CD playing on the ghetto blaster drowned out everything except the sound of their raucous laughter as Delilah, muzzle off,   howled to the tune of the Tom Jones classic.

“If Sam doesn’t like this,” said Hazel, “it’s his fault. He taught her. Our mutt’s the only one I know which does Karaoke to the sound of her own name! They sing along together and make a great duo.”

As she spoke, the crowd gazed through the hole they’d made to see Samson’s huge frame wracked by frustrated, incredulous sobs caused by his sudden inability to move. Then, as the dog whined on, there was a gluey coughing and spluttering  followed by a familiar voice growling the song’s concluding line, “Forgive me Delilah I just couldn't take any more.”

Moments later, with an almighty heave, Samson Judge,  former  Mr Universe and champion weight lifter, pumped his final iron. He tore down  the decrepit  pillar to which he’d been  chained, bringing with it Hazel, Phil, their friends and his beloved hound in a hail of dust and rubble.

Several weeks later, after the fuss had subsided and the district coroner had recorded multiple deaths by misadventure, there was a memorial service at the church where Samson had preached.

“A horrible affair,” said  Rev Tom Waters, giving the address. “Sam was a strong personality who heaped trouble on his own head, but brought down the house – and everyone else - with him.”

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Mark.UlyseasThis piece first appeared in the February 2013 edition of Live Encounters magazine (http://liveencounters.net/?p=2562) edited by Mark Ulyseas, a faithful supporter of Israel and all matters Jewish.

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Author’s note: There are hundreds of versions of the original  biblical story. By luck, researching for my own, I found this YouTube clip featuring a new film to be released later in 2013. The brief description below is not mine. – N.I.W.

 

“Samson and Delilah’s world is small – an isolated community in the Central Australian desert. When tragedy strikes they turn their backs on home and embark on a journey of survival. Lost, unwanted and alone they discover that life isn’t always fair, but love never judges”.

Natalie Wood

(Copyright, Natalie Irene Wood – 21 January 2013)

Friday 18 January 2013

‘Strangled By Shame’

A frightening ride through the streets of New Delhi had so exhausted Rafi David that he barely spoke for hours.

Then he grimaced. “I must apologise for being so uncommunicative. I’d almost forgotten how it feels to be caught in a mob like that. It’s about thirty years since I was last here. But,” he told his friend, Marcus Daniel, “the experience has given me some thoughts about how to begin our lectures.”

“I’m glad you said that,” said Rev Daniel, a U.K.-born Protestant minister. “Certainly we need to restructure  the opening talk. What do you have in mind?”

indiastory_CulturalCalligraphy2Rev Daniel had invited Israeli Professor Rafi David to India to co-present a course based on their speciality, The Hebrew Bible For The E-Book Age. Both devotes of interfaith work, they had developed a strong relationship over the Net but had not previously met in person.

I’d like to examine the texts of the Book of Judges as though the events had taken place in modern India,” said Professor David. “The crowds of  protestors we drove through earlier, make me ponder the parallels between the recent gang-rape and murder of the girl pseudonymously dubbed ‘Damini' by social networkers and the unnamed concubine who died after being attacked by members of the Tribe of  Benjamin.An Indian activist prays as she takes part in a  vigil for the Delhi rape victim. She had been sent to them as a bribe to prevent her husband being sodomised. Her death eventually led to unprecedented civil war in ancient Israel. The current public protests are painful reminders of what could happen here.”

“That’s a great idea but we’d be driving home a very harsh message. The publicity our work receives in the religious Press could filter through to Muslim and Hindu extremists who would not appreciate the implication,” said Rev Daniel. Indian.Jewish

“But,” argued Professor David, “ on the other hand we may receive support from fellow academics and even the intelligent public. They could be persuaded that biblical stories should  be viewed not only in the context of the period in which they were written but seen also as a way of explaining why civil war erupted then and has to be avoided now.”

“But Rafi, you’re also suggesting that we take them out of that context and re-plant them in the modern world where barbaric atrocities  take place daily without any biblical reference. To draw this argument to its logical conclusion, our studies could themselves cause uproar and bloodshed.”

“My dear Marcus,” said Rafi, “don’t forget that I, too, am Indian by birth and I believe most strongly that we should take the risk.”

“All right,” said  Rev Daniel, “let’s mull it over and make a final decision tomorrow.

“But on a lighter note, I can reveal without contention that you are already a hit with several of my women students. Those  who have seen your photograph are competing as to who will be the first to present their dissertations on the tale of Judge Deborah and Yael to ‘the handsome Israeli professor’.”

“Ha-ha! Very flattering. But I must be direct with you,” said Rafi, serious again.

“You know I’m single. Indeed, I’ve been celibate for many years. But,” he faltered, “I’m - also gay. I had a brief – finally horrible - experience with someone while at university in Tel Aviv. He was straight but experimented with homosexual sex simply for ‘fun’.

“He despised me as desperately as I then loved him. One day he stage-managed a fight,  overpowered me and then raped me. He ripped open my backside and then sauntered away,  banging my front door behind him. 

“He left his course soon afterwards and I never saw him again. Believe me,” sighed Professor David, “it’s not only  violated women who are loath to tell their story. I often feel that I’ve spent my entire adult life suffocating slowly in a smog of all-enveloping shame.”

Natalie Wood

(Copyright, Natalie Irene Wood – 18 January 2013)

Friday 4 January 2013

‘The Company Of Friends’

Eileen shuffled uncomfortably in her chair. Time was passing. She had to speak or miss the moment.

“There’s no use waiting any longer. Marie’s not coming here again. Ever. She told me when we bumped into each other just before the holiday.”

The whiff of a dozen unhappyGroup.Therapy Christmases hung on the air. Everyone at the  McAvoy Centre therapy group had something to complain about. Why was Marie so special?

“She was really upset when I saw her,” continued Eileen. “She looked most frail and told me an odd story.

“She said that during her most recent psychiatric consultation, Dr Lawson had told her that she didn’t consider her clinically depressed; that she was being dishonest with herself and simply  seeking attention.”

“How horrible! You don’t expect your psychiatrist to turn on you when you’ve gone to her for help,” said Charlie. He was the group’s veteran member - and a good source of gossip. 

“So, what happened?”

“Things got worse. She  had seen Dr Lawson late afternoon and when she arrived at work the next day she discovered two people from the personnel department had been to see the doctor about her. They had affected to ‘express concern’ about what they described as her ‘hostile’ behaviour in the office. But Marie said they were just interfering bullies who wanted to get her dismissed. One of them boasted about what they’d done. ‘Rita laughed when she told me’, is what Marie said.”

“Eileen, I don’t believe that! Everyone knows about patient confidentiality,” said Paula.

“Anyway, I don’t understand how personnel could know of Marie’s activities away from work.

“I’m terrified of anyone – anywhere - finding out that I come here. Most people can’t see the difference between ‘emotional’ and ‘mental’ illnesses. If, for instance, my boyfriend knew I’m  anorexic, he’d mock me like hell and run a thousand miles.”

“But I’m afraid the  situation with Marie did occur,” interjected Joan, one of the group leaders. 

“Generally, we frown on chitchat about members in their absence. We’ve made an exception today because we feel partly responsible  as a team that Dr Lawson was deceived into seeing the people from KleenCo Industries without Marie’s knowledge - let alone her consent. As you say, most people who have contact with the mental health services do not divulge any information to their workmates.”

“’But ‘hostile’? If anything, Marie’s  too – er well – open, even affectionate with people she barely knows,” said Eileen. She’ll tell her tale to anyone who’ll listen. I think that’s partly because she’s  lonely but mainly because she’s been in the same job for far too long. She needs a new life where she can make some genuine friends. Maybe Dr Lawson was trying to tell her that, but was being ‘cruel to be kind.’”

“I wonder why she has stayed at KleenCo when she hates it there so much?”, mused Paula.

“I think I can answer that,” said Eileen. “It’s the same reason why I stayed with Roy for fifteen years despite the shouting matches and the fisticuffs. It’s what you get used to. The routine  – the sameness – are strangely soothing. We didn’t have children or money woes to trouble us. It was simply easier to stay than to pack up and go; to find another bloke; to have to start over …”

“So Eileen, what about you and Roy? You never have told us,” said Charles.

“We had one row too loud, too long, too many. We were in the kitchen. I grabbed the carving knife, more to emphasise a point than to do any damage. But Roy tried to yank it from me by the blade. Ha! Talk of ‘waiting’: our accident-in-waiting lingered no longer and Roy died of an unintentional stab wound to his stomach on the way to hospital.

“Luckily the judge was more sympathetic than Roy’s mother and I got off with a two year suspended sentence for involuntary manslaughter.”

There was a brief, shocked silence before Paula asked if anyone knew where Marie was.

“She’s quite safe but I’m sorry to say she’s now in hospital.”

All eyes were back on Joan.

“It’s quite simple. She’d fallen out with her daughter and felt abandoned. So on Christmas Eve she swallowed enough anti-depressants to make herself sick, but did not endanger her life. Then she took a taxi to Fernlee Hospital and got herself admitted to the psychiatric unit. She’s still there, now.

“’Just for some companionship,’” is how she sees it. ‘The company of friends’”.

Natalie Wood

(Copyright, Natalie Irene Wood – 04 January 2013)