other didn’t, too.
3
THE WOMEN’S ZIONIST LEAGUE RAFFLE
They were always raising funds for Israel in those days. There were always more trees to plant, more desert to reclaim, more settlements to settle, more terrorists to fight.
‘Could be good for business,’ said Will when Ma told him about the Women’s Zionist League raffle. ‘Our name up there. I mean, Abe Kotzen’s got a fleet of trucks, or if we could get in with Friedman – might be worth it.’
Whether it was just Carol’s persistent gnawing at my mother, or Will’s harassment, I can’t say, but when Carol phoned Ma and asked for something to donate as a prize, she agreed.
Elliot, unable to form the words of objection yet, sat stiff and listened. It was a strain for him to be in the same room as Will, but the topic had kept him there.
‘We can’t give brake pads as a prize, though,’ said Will.
‘Clutch kits?’ said Ma.
‘We need something more glitzy.’
‘No, Morgan will never agree to that,’ she said.
‘Morgan only knows how to cut costs. He doesn’t think of the future. You have to spend money to make money. Trust me on this.’
‘Are you serious?’ said Elliot. Ma and Elliot stared at him. Elliot’s interests didn’t usually dip into commerce. He fled the room when no one answered, leaving their shrugs in his trail. Ma and Will brushed off his huff as just another inexplicable revolt.
It was hard enough for Elliot to be understood in his own home, never mind out in the town. Some of Elliot’s ideas were so extreme, I must explain, that most people in our town would not have known enough to be offended by them. Instead, they were clumped together and labelled under one banner to keep things simple. It was a town, after all, of simple tastes. Like steakhouse dinners that bore ‘Medium Rare’ or ‘Well Done’ toothpick flags, Elliot’s particular concoction would have emerged through the kitchen swing doors marked Kommunis.
Anything that wasn’t instantly understood in town was labelled ‘communist’; they stuck that toothpick in Elliot’s rump without a moment’s hesitation. Slight in build, Elliot nevertheless grew up tougher than most of the other Jewish kids, thanks to all the kickings he’d taken.
Afrikaners, and a few English boys too, objected to his kind of communism, a kind that announced itself in rip-sleeved punk T-shirts, earrings, winkle-pickers, chains and studs. More than those, though, I think it was the black coat he sometimes wore, repudiating the Far Northern Transvaal climate, that raised his critics’ temperature highest; it turned them red, though only with rage. The coat: this was the most communist of all.
With Elliot in his room, Ma and Will agreed on a diesel generator as the prize with the biggest impact. It wasn’t a glamorous prize, no, but it was valuable, and truly desirable for many who, for instance, owned weekend-getaway game farms beyond the stretch of power lines.
After Will went back to university in Joburg, Elliot was more able to express himself. At lunch, while Ma handed me a booklet of raffle tickets, he did just that.
‘I can’t believe you would support the Zionist cause like this without asking us.’
‘What, I have to ask your permission to do things?’ asked Ma.
‘Well, it’s coming from the business, the prize, isn’t it? So it’s like I’m donating it too. And I object.’
‘You’ve never cared about the business, Elliot.’
‘Zionism is a fascist cause and I won’t support it.’
‘They’re not fascists, the Women’s Zionist League, Elliot. They asked me to help out – what’s wrong with helping out?’
‘Some people you shouldn’t help.’
‘And it’s not just Israel. They raise funds for other things too.’
‘Like what?’
‘Orphanages.’
‘Jewish orphanages?’
‘I suppose.’
‘What about Palestinian orphans? What about black orphans?’
‘Come on, Elliot. You’re being dramatic.’
‘Oh, so just the Jewish orphans, then? And tanks, missiles, bombers, fighter jets, that sort of thing?’
‘Elliot, Carol asked me very nicely. Ida Rabinowitz from the League is sick and they need some help. You know how Carol helps with taking Ben to cheder. Come on.’
But Elliot was already heading to his bedroom, leaving me and Ma sitting at the table alone.
‘Anyway, I’m not selling these,’ I said, ruffling the tickets with a thumb.
‘What do you know about Israel? Anyway, this isn’t about Israel, it’s about Carol Richler and the raffle. They take you to cheder every week and we owe them.’
‘I hate her, and her stupid daughter. And what do you care if I go to cheder? You don’t believe any of it.’
‘For your father’s side, that’s why. Come on, I got you out of Shoshana’s birthday, didn’t I? And the swimming gala.’
‘Okay.’
‘Your brothers give me enough trouble.’
‘I said okay.’
‘Okay. Just try sell half.’
* * *
Ma suggested I walk door to door, which was safe in most parts of town. I roped in my cousin, Jackie, who was a year older than me, half-Jewish and totally bored. But in the evening I had to hand all the untaken stubs back to Ma.
‘No one wanted them. I tried.’
‘Why are these ones torn already?’ she asked.
‘Because we sold them and then they didn’t want them any more.’
‘Who?’
‘These people at the Indian Plaza.’
Elliot let his fork fall on the plate and produced his shocked look. Jackie and I had tried to go door to door selling the tickets. We walked from her house in Compensatie Street past Dungeon Park with its dust and yellowing grass, skipping most doors based on scant evidence of possible rejection: they had people visiting and probably didn’t want to be disturbed; the whine of a circular saw at the back of the house meant they would never hear the doorbell; their car had the born-again Christian fish badge on the boot.
Jackie had wanted reggae beads, which is how we ended up at the Indian Plaza at the industrial edge of town, near the railway station. It was where Indian shop owners had to move their businesses after the law forced them out of town. Two storeys sat in long rows around square parking lots. Metal signboards of a standard size were riveted flush in a strip over the doorways. There was little of the exotic at the Indian Plaza, except perhaps for one and a half Jewish white kids wandering from shop to shop.
In Jada’s Outfitters, Jackie explained the plastic reggae beads – the red, the yellow, the green – but Mrs Jada didn’t know anything about them.
Jackie, in an enterprising flash, offered the Jadas my raffle tickets and had me list the prizes. ‘A Ford bakkie,’ I said, ‘a diesel generator, a TV, a hi-fi …’
‘Good stuff,’ said Jackie. ‘And it’s for charity.’
Mrs Jada, a woman so beautiful I hardly believed she was hidden behind a counter in an anonymous shop on the edges of town and not lauded somehow in magazines and TV programmes, took pity on us, putting a hand under Jackie’s chin. After its plodding start, the day was working out surprisingly well – Mrs Jada