‘Do you want tea, Leisel?’
‘No thank you, Pola.’
‘Do you want tea, Deborah?’
‘No thank you, Pola.’
Leisel and her daughter Deborah were standing, anxious to leave for the cemetery, but Pola couldn’t have guests arrive at her house and leave without eating and drinking.
‘Do you want a cold drink, Leisel?’
‘No thank you. I’m ready to go now Pola.’
‘Deborah, do you want a cold drink? I have lemonade, orange juice, mineral water. You take these glasses and I will bring the drinks.’
‘No thanks Pola. I’m not thirsty. Do you want me to carry your bag to the car?’
‘Well, eat these chocolates then. You see how nice they are? Mine little Rachel gave me these. That is her in the photo there on the piano. Isn’t she beautiful? She rings me every day. Eat another. Leisel I am wrapping this one up to go in your bag for later. You might be hungry after the consecration. Leisel what time is it Shabbat tonight?’
‘You must light your candles at 6.00 tonight, Pola.’
‘Ah Leisel, you are a Rabbitsen. Always you are so wise. Isn’t she Deborah? Your mother knows so much and she is so, so kind.’
Sitting on the edge of a well-stuffed chair, Leisel blushed and looked down at the handbag on her lap, hiding her smile.
Finally, Deborah edged and coaxed the two old ladies out to the car, Pola offering hospitality right up to the moment she turned the third key in the elaborate locking system on the front of her gracious old Queenslander home. Leisel held Pola’s bags, stroked her hand, replied gently to each of her remarks and made sure she got the front seat. Now that she was a widow, Leisel saw the back seat as her place.
At 50, Deborah was officially “the young one”. Leisel was 85, Pola was something more than that but had never revealed her precise age. ‘You go off and talk to the other young ones,’ they would say to Deborah when she drove them to music recitals at the synagogue or to the Pesach dinner at the Liberal temple. ‘Don’t sit here being dull with the old ladies.’ But Deborah walked off slowly. She didn’t feel like the young one. Leisel and Pola met their friends, chatted, laughed, gossiped and bought tickets and candlesticks for Jewish charities. They were always in the centre of a group, chatting hard, kissing cheeks, pressing hands. Deborah didn’t know many people at these gatherings and felt she had little in common with those she knew. She was the responsible person, the one who would watch her charges to see they didn’t get too tired, that they had enough to eat. She felt rather dull at these gatherings and noticed her knees were starting to play up. Elderly knees!
‘Ach, God is smiling on Jane’, exclaimed Pola, as they turned on to Brunswick Street, and saw the jacarandas in full flower in New Farm Park. ‘Look at the blue sky he has sent her, the lovely breezes. So beautiful!’
Deborah hoped that Jane would appreciate the beautiful day from her tidy concrete grave. Jane had been buried there eleven months before and now they were visiting her to say Kaddish. The Rabbi would attend. Jane had been the widow of another rabbi and, at one time, a figure of importance in the Jewish community in Brisbane. It was right to pay respect to her for all the work she had done, the money she had given, the kindness she had shown. But for Pola, Leisel and Deborah, she was also an old, dear friend.
For such an occasion it was important to be on time and Deborah had carefully studied the street map before she left home and had started very early. She had been to the Jewish cemetery before but it was on the south side, which was so tricky. How people on the south side ever managed to find their ways home she could never imagine. It seemed so easy to find yourself going in completely the wrong direction whereas, on the north side, if you drove long enough, you always seemed to arrive at the place you had set out for. Just to be sure, she handed the map to Leisel and asked her to watch the way. Pola’s eyesight was nearly gone so it was no use asking her.
‘Oh, dear, I don’t like to give directions’, said Leisel. ‘People ask me what lane to get into. How would I know that?’
Deborah glanced at Leisel in the rear view mirror. Leisel had never driven a car since the time, sixty years before, when Deborah’s father, Jim, had taken her out for a lesson. They both came home, shaken and white and Jim quickly retreated to his study. Leisel said, ‘Your father should have told me to stop. How was I supposed to know? He doesn’t know how to teach.’ What her father should have told her to stop for, Deborah never found out, but driving lessons ceased permanently after that.
Leisel stared anxiously at the street map and Deborah turned right onto the South-East Freeway. As she turned, she knew straight away that it was the right freeway but the wrong direction. She had to drive into the city, turn around and come back again. It was alright though, she still had time; she would only lose ten minutes. After that it would be straightforward.
As they came to the city, Leisel said, ‘I don’t think we should be in the city, dear. We may be going the wrong way.’
‘Yes, a little wrong turn but I’m going the right way now,’ said Deborah.
‘Ah, see how the sun shines on the river and all the people are out to play,’ said Pola, peering out her window. ‘Why are they not at work? People these days don’t know how to work.’
‘No,’ said Leisel. ‘Young people don’t know how to work. And they waste their money.’
‘Don’t talk to me about money. I have just paid for this suit. You know how much it cost me? $400. I told the dressmaker, “I don’t want it embroidered with diamonds, I just want a simple suit,” but that’s what she charged me. Do you believe that?’
‘You look beautiful, Pola. Doesn’t she, Deborah?’
‘Yes, beautiful,‘ said Deborah, swinging the car back onto the freeway and heading south.
‘You think so? I am too thin; don’t you think I am too thin?’ Pola ran her hands proudly over her slender hips.
‘You can never be too thin, darling,’ said Deborah. She and Leisel were inclined to be plump.
‘We need to watch out for the Mt Gravatt exit,’ said Deborah. ‘It shouldn’t be long now.’ Leisel and Deborah peered out at road signs.
‘Mine husband was a wonderful driver,’ said Pola. ‘I never had to worry with him.’
‘You must miss him,’ said Leisel.
‘O, how I miss him. Every day I miss him. The flowers in the garden don’t blossom any more now he is gone. It was so hard when we came to Australia, but my husband was with me so we found our way. I thought we would get off the ship at Melbourne. I could see that was a city and it looked fine. But we had to stay on till Brisbane. Oh, what a small, miserable place it was. I was so unhappy. Of course, it wasn’t bad compared with Siberia. That was the worst. But I was used to living in Prague with its gardens and concerts and beautiful shops. Suddenly I was in a convict colony.’
‘It wasn’t a convict colony in the 50s,’ said Deborah, amused.
‘No, darling, no, but it felt like it. So rough, so uncultured, so coarse. You remember, Leisel.’
‘Yes dear.’
‘That’s the Springwood exit,’ said Deborah. ‘We must have come too far.’ Leisel looked desperately at the map but saw nothing. She turned it upside down and then sideways but there was no sign of the exit they needed.
‘I’ll have to turn around,’ said Deborah.
‘Mine husband never got lost,’ said Pola. ‘ I always felt so safe with him. He was a very good man, a hard worker. Maybe we should stop and ask someone the way.’
Deborah’s hands were sweating and she felt the beginning of a sharp headache. She hunched over the wheel, staring out the windscreen searching for signs. They could still make it if she found the right exit. ‘Oh, there it is. Gaza Road, Mt Gravatt. We’re on our way.’
‘The road to Gaza,’ said Pola. ‘That must be the right way.’
‘It will be easy now. Look we’re on Kessells Road. That’s right. Mum can you see the exit on the map?’
‘I can’t see it. It must be soon but I can’t see it.’ Leisel never cried, but if she did, she would cry now.
‘There’s Garden City shopping centre. I wonder if there was ever a garden there. Or even a tree or a twig,’ said Deborah.
‘We must stop and ask someone,’ said Pola. ‘There is a man in that car. He looks serious like mine husband. He will tell us.’
‘I’ll turn here. I have to turn right soon. I’ll try this one. Oh, we’re in the university. Ok, I’ll ask this man.’
Leisel and Pola watched as Deborah stepped out of the car and spoke to a man. He pointed and waved his arms in a long circle.
‘It’s alright. We’re nearly there. We just have to drive through the university grounds and we’ll come out at the cemetery.’
Pola began to mutter the Kaddish quietly to herself. Leisel stared intently, hopelessly at the map and then looked up anxiously. ‘Deborah, isn’t that Garden City again? We’ve missed the service now. Maybe we should go home. Could you find the way home?’
Deborah’s headache began to pound at her temples and behind her eyes. She wanted to get out of the car, leave the old ladies in it and walk through the endless car yards, traffic jams and road signs of the south side, to the tourist blare of the Gold Coast and on till she came to some quiet beach where she could find a small tin shack and live alone forever.
‘Deborah, there it is!’ called Leisel, over Pola’s prayers. ‘Look, a sign, a sign.’
‘A sign from God,’ said Pola, praying some more.
‘How could we miss it?’ Deborah wondered. ‘Mt Gravatt Crematorium.’
She drove up the road, into the cemetery and only took one more wrong turn before she arrived at the Jewish section and pulled up outside the little temple.
‘Look,’ she said, there are people still here. Pola and Leisel climbed out of the car and went to greet the Rabbi, as he came away from the graveyard towards his car. Deborah drove a little further, looking for a park in the shade, and buried her head in her hands for a minute.
Most of the small group of mourners had already left but Pola was talking excitedly to the Rabbi. ‘It’s alright, it’s alright. Just say your prayers. There’s no harm done,’ he said. ‘Anyone can get lost.’ At his other side, Rivka was also talking excitedly to him: ‘Rabbi, the inscription on the gravestone is wrong! Jane would be so unhappy. Her Hebrew was perfect. A comma is in the wrong place completely. It changes the meaning. And there is a word missing. It is a disgrace.’ ‘Yes, yes, we must fix it’, said the Rabbi, looking hunted. His tradition didn’t allow him to touch women or meet their eyes and it seemed as if he were always uncomfortable around them.
Rivka joined the three women to walk back to the grave and she showed them all the mistakes in the chiselled Hebrew characters. Only she could read Hebrew so the others nodded and listened and tutted a little but only Deborah understood the pain of a comma in the wrong place. Pola and Leisel told Rivka about getting lost and how early they had left and how sorry they were and she said it was fine. You’re here now. It’s alright. And then they all fell silent and looked at Jane’s grave.
‘Remember when the Rabbi came to visit Jane at the nursing home that last time,’ said Deborah.
‘Oh yes,’ said Pola. ‘She was so tiny and worn out but she drew herself up so tall and she said in such a cold, frosty voice, ‘I don’t know you.'
‘Her man was a rabbi and I don’t think she ever really accepted any other rabbis,’ said Leisel.
‘But do you remember, she started to sing after that,’ said Deborah.
‘Oh yes, wasn’t it beautiful. She sang the Song of the Sea all the way through in perfect Hebrew and she hadn’t spoken in Hebrew for a long time before,’ said Rivka.
‘She had such a great spirit.’
‘Yes, yes,’ the women said.
After a while, Pola took out her handkerchief from her handbag and spat on it and knelt on the grave and started to clean it, while the others talked and shaded their eyes from the glaring sun. When she had finished, she said, ‘I must find mine husband’s grave now.’ Deborah held her arm and they walked around for a while till they found the grave of the man who never got lost. Pola knelt down and spat on her hanky and rubbed and murmured until Deborah worried she would expire in the heat on top of her husband’s grave.
Leisel watched quietly. Her husband was not buried here – he was not a Jew. He was economically cremated in a secular ceremony as he had wanted and his ashes were far away. Leisel would not be buried beside him as Jane and Pola were buried beside their men. Her mother would have cast her out if she had lived to see such a thing. But none of the mothers had lived, none of the fathers and the brothers and sisters had lived to see such things. The world was different now.
Finally, Deborah took Pola’s handbag and held her arm and coaxed her stiff old legs to stand. ‘It’s time to go now, dear.’ Rivka walked them to the car and hugged them all goodbye. The journey home was quick and easy. Deborah wondered why the journey home was always so quick and easy when it was so hard to get there. The old women sat quietly with their thoughts and memories. So much loss. So much to remember.
As they pulled up at Pola’s house, she roused herself. ‘Now you must come in and eat with me. It is not like the food in Prague but I have plenty, plenty to eat. Come in and try my little cakes. Leisel will make the sandwiches because I can’t see too well to cut. No, you need to turn the key three times in each lock. That’s it. Now where is my bag? Oh thank you Leisel. Would you like a cold drink? Or tea?’
‘No thank you, Pola,’ said Deborah.