‘Another Noah, Another Ark’

“Noah was a perfect righteous man in his generation.” (Genesis 6:9)

Arielle and Sophia had their inside arms and hands locked as they peered through their rain-muddied bedroom window.

 “I bet”, said Sophia, lifting her free hand to finger a tiny scratch on the splattered glass, “as everyone’s so sad about Noah, there’s  even more rain in the house than there is outside.

“But I can still see the mark Mom thinks was left by the stork when he brought me home eight years ago. I wonder if tears leave stains, too.”

“Umm,” nodded Arielle, who was Noah’s twin sister and had just past  her sixth birthday.

“There are also two bigger marks underneath, from when the stork came back with Noah and me in two baskets and they banged on the glass as he flew in. Dad says he made a really big noise and things have never been quiet since.”

“Until now. I can’t do anything ordinary. I just want to sit down and make my head empty. I feel  bad all the time,  like when I’m very sick.”

“Me, too,” said Arielle, coughing hard to stifle another wave of sobs. “This sounds funny. But I feel like Addy did when we sent her to the doll hospital. Sort of broken. But we can’t mend Noah. He’s not here.

“It wasn’t fair when we were split up at school. If I’d been with Noah, he would not have been hurt. I wouldn’t have let it happen. I would have looked after him. We weren’t only twins. We were best friends. But instead, I heard loads of screaming and felt eleven burning, shooting bangs all over me  in the same places where Noah was killed.

“Do you know, Sophia, lots of things are made like twins? When I couldn’t sleep last night, I thought of the bits in  our bodies which are made in twos.”

“Like eyes, ears, arms and all that?”

“Hmm. I think God wants us to have two of lots of things so when one bit’s not well, the other can  do extra work.”

“I can help by being your extra bit if you like. Don’t forget, I’m also your best friend,” said Sophia, giving her sister a squeeze.

“I want to tell  you I was a little ‘bit’ jealous when President Obama visited and took your picture of Mom smiling and put it in his pocket.”

“I like Mr Obama,” said Arielle. “He’s also really smiley. And I’ve got one more nice thing to remember about Noah.”

“What’s that?,” asked Sophia, as they shuffled, arms still linked, from the window to sit on the bed.

“Well, when I did get to sleep I had a dream which started with the rain. Then the sun came out and I saw Noah on a cloud which looked like a big boat on the sea.

“He was sort of in charge of a long line of children and a man there said, ‘Hey Noah, you’re such a good kid, I want you to look after the others.’ Then he grabbed a girl who looked like me and told Noah to hold her hand.

“You’ll laugh when I say Noah started talking like a taco factory manager. But he wasn’t mean and didn’t boss people about. He just quietly put everyone in twos and asked them to follow him inside the boat.”

“Then what happened?”.

“I woke up crying. But for a second I felt sort of cosy as the dream was like everything was good. But,” added Arielle, “please don’t tell Mom, Dad or Michael about it. They won’t believe me. Let them find out when they meet Noah again for themselves in the sky. He’ll want them on the boat, too.”

“That won’t happen for a long time,” said Sophia. “But when it does, we’ll get Mom to make him a party.”

-----------

*** With sincerest condolences to the families of those murdered in the Sandy Hook Elementary School Massacre. – N.I.W.

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Natalie Wood

(Copyright, Natalie Irene Wood – 21 December 2012)

 

‘Eating Mangled Cherries’

Ingrid had spent almost five minutes fighting her way to a seat on the late afternoon tram between Manchester and Bury. Soon she wished she hadn’t bothered.

“Are cherries in season?,” asked the man by the window, as she sat down heavily, pushing her  parcels between her knees.

“I can smell them,” he continued. “They  are very strong. I like them – lots. But I don’t like  people who smell of them.”

Ingrid turned to snatch a  hasty look at him. Although elderly, in fading grubby clothes, he seemed quite spry. She peeked again.

He was blind. 

She did not reply and tried to swivel aside. Dignified silence was best.

But the man persisted. “Are you Jewish? Jewish women always smell like cherries. Sort of mixed-up sickly sweet and sour. You’re Jewish – aren’t you? I’m sure you are. I can smell you.”

Then he lowered his voice, slid his sightless eyes sideways and waggled his tongue.

“Whenever I’m asked ‘what do cherry blossoms smell like?’, I always give the same answer. Do you  know what that is?”

Ingrid shuddered, still silent.

“What do you think?”, he persisted.  “You don’t know?, he mocked in the same lewd, gruff whisper. I’ll tell you. I say ‘they  literally smell like vagina.’”

Ingrid was cornered. A rat in a trap.

The man’s monstrous crudity was an unprovoked assault – a verbal rape – she was helpless.

Worse, the weight of the extra passengers embarking at Victoria Station had pushed her deep into her seat and against his bulk. She could not move and was terrified by  what may happen if she made a scene. In her imagination, she saw other passengers  sympathising with her assailant, turning her from victim to villain. The reality would never be truly conveyed by the tram’s CCTV camera.

Finally, she spoke.

“We are strangers so I’ve no  more idea of what you can see than you have of my appearance. I can only guess that you knew I was a woman because of my tread and  by how I sat down.

The man grunted.

“I know a little about people with poor sight from my close relatives. My late grandmother ended her days in a home for the blind and my aunt, my mother’s older sister, is registered blind. Other people often remark that their dark, sour tempers were – are – caused by their sight loss. They suggest that  the bad gene has been in the family for so long that it  poisoned Grandma’s personality. I don’t buy that.”

“What d’ya mean?”

“People in my grandmother’s family develop problems with their vision gradually for different reasons. But there are many people who are either born blind or who lose their sight in other ways and yet lead full, happy lives without causing pain to those around them.

“Last week I heard  two women who are close friends and blind since birth talking on radio about their condition. They were very matter-of-fact and jolly. One said she loved smelling flowers. Their one strong dislike is other people’s ‘political correctness’.

“Then there was the local young blind man, Gary Thompson who died when he slipped off the platform at St Peter’s Square and was crushed when he fell under a tram. It was a horrible incident made worse because he had been a volunteer safety adviser for the tram service.”

“I remember. He’d been out with his work mates for a Christmas party. I bet he fell because he was drunk.”

“You enjoy being nasty so I’ll ignore that,” said Ingrid. “But I want to tell you something else before I get off at Heaton Park.

“By chance I knew Gary. He kept himself very busy in many ways. We worked together at the Imperial War Museum North which sometimes hosts events relating to the Holocaust. He wasn’t Jewish. Neither am I. But I  know some Jewish people and they’re like everyone else. They want to get on with their lives without having to apologise for just existing.”

Then as the tram slowed to a halt Ingrid scooped up her belongings and fled  onto the platform.

But as she hurried by she caught a glimpse of the tram leaving the station. Her persecutor was at the same window, eating cherries. Mangled cherries. Her cherries. A bunch she’d left behind.

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Natalie Wood

(Copyright, Natalie Irene Wood – 14 December 2012)

‘A Flasher’s Foreword’

As this is the format, I’ll be brief:

 

With thanks to my parents, without whom I would not be possible.

To the Web, lacking which, this publication would be  impractical, nigh well improbable.

Then you, my three readers, who find my stories ludicrous, even farcical.

Forgetting neither my publicist who ties my lips tight, nor Levi Strauss whose apparel keeps me well buttoned and solidly zipped.

Last but not least, there’s our fine borough council, which  offers companionable solace at  public convenience.

From me and the boys who keep hanging on: For this relief, which beggars belief, much thanks!

Technorati Tags: #fridayflash,Flash Fiction,PerfectlyWriteFamilyTales,A Flasher's Foreword

Natalie Wood

(Copyright, Natalie Irene Wood – 14 December 2012)

‘Reluctant Heroes’

Roman Ben-Manasseh was in the thick of it by the time his students settled in their usual seats.

 

Class convenor, Adela Sugarman  tried to look confident.

“Rabbi Roman says he’s terrified about what could happen to him and his close friends during Operation Pillar of Defence. But we know he’ll do a better job because of it.”

“He’s such a modest chap,” said Penny Raisman. “He’s already gone through a lot although he’s still quite young. I heard that on top of everything else, he’s volunteered for both the Magen David Adom and ZAKA emergency services since coming to Israel. It’s amazing how much people fit into their lives. I  feel so inadequate.”

“Me, too. Ramon called me a ‘hero’ for emigrating to Israel from the U.S. as a retiree, but I’ve had a really easy time,” said Gus Steinman.

Ramon Ben-Manasseh served as part-time rabbi to the Shaarei Tzedek Congregation in Ashkelon but had been recalled for active duty as a gunner along with thousands of other I.D.F. reservists. In civilian life he made up his income with several teaching jobs and was researching for a  book on the history of the ‘hidden’ Jews of Spain and Portugal.

“That we’re here tonight is a tribute to another of Ramon’s skills,” said Adela, distributing the notes and maps he had left for students’ use.

“It’s great that a native Spanish speaker conveys his knowledge of bible to an English language group so ably.

“Most of you may be unaware that Ramon emigrated here alone  from Argentina in his early twenties after discovering that he came from a family of conversos – Jews who had been forcibly converted to Catholicism.

“In a short time, someone who had barely known he was of Jewish stock became fully immersed in Israeli life. First, he took several menial jobs to eke out his immigrant grants. Then, working with other young people he learned good colloquial Hebrew and Arabic and also improved the English he had studied at school.

“Originally, Ramon had intended to become a secular teacher but began to reflect more upon his Judaism, eventually studying for the rabbinate. But it was by no means easy because he had no paperwork to prove his ancestry.

He underwent a full conversion to Judaism, with a circumcision, via the Conservative movement after his application to the Orthodox authorities was rejected.

“We’re very lucky to have him here,” said Penny, “even for a short time. I think we’re talking about a young man on the brink of a brilliant career.

“I’ve just glanced at his notes for the relevant chapters from the Book of Judges and he’s shown  how the story of Gideon and the battle against the Midianites may be compared to the continuing war of attrition we are forced to fight against our near neighbours in Gaza.”

“Well,” quipped Gus. “The stone jars, torches and trumpets used by the biblical Gideon would be a lot cheaper to use than Bibi’s 'Iron Dome’!

“But as a former teacher, I’d like to add this: the view that ’those that can do, those that can't teach’, has become a wicked modern commonplace. Ramon may be a reluctant hero but it makes him a greater ‘man of valour’ both in the field and  on the battlefront  of education. He is blessed with a rare gift that cannot be acquired but which he has honed and polished to a high degree.

“He’s less than half my age with a fraction of my experience,” Gus continued, “but still I find his sessions compelling – even thrilling. He’s by turn authoritative and funny, serious and engaging. I haven’t studied Torah like this since I was pre-barmitzvah – and then it was just another chore.”

But then Gus looked grave. “If things were different,” he sighed, I’d have introduced Ramon to Eva, my granddaughter. My guess is that they would have liked one another very much.”

“So what’s stopping you?”, asked Penny.

“She’d just started training as a combat camerawoman, able to film IDF operations in real-time, when she was shot dead by a sniper while on exercises in the West Bank. She was terrifically ambitious and had written to dozens of film studios in California and the U.K., in the hope she’d have an internship ready  when she’d completed her service.

“I’m no hero. But my son and daughter-in-law will continue to put on brave faces for the rest of their own lives. Eva had been their only child, born after a struggle with fertility treatment. How do you cope with a loss like that?”

*** This story is dedicated to the young men and women in the IDF. Thank you for looking after us. – N.I.W.

Technorati Tags: #fridayflash,Flash Fiction,PerfectlyWriteFamilyTales,Reluctant Heroes,Israel,Operation Pillar of Defence,IDF,Film Unit,Women Soldiers,Torah,Book of Judges,Gideon

Natalie Wood

(Copyright, Natalie Irene Wood – 23 November 2012)

 

 

‘A Living Will’

“He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall obtain mercy.”

‘After I’m gone, say the God I barely recognised  was indivisible; just One.

‘After I’ve gone, don’t recite Kaddish. The dying is for me, not Him.

‘Make the funeral short. Let my body burn. Should these requests be judged thoughtless and unwise, let it be known that I deserve neither prayers,  praise, lies nor crocodile tears. What I did was wrong. You’ll know this, after I’ve gone.

‘Buy less milk and butter. Turn the heating low. Feed the cat. Cut the kids’ hair  monthly, check their homework’s done.

‘Remind them they are Jewish, when I’m gone. When you arrange our son’s barmitzvah, please invite my mum. It’ll please her if you say he’ll be wearing the tephillin once worn by  Uncle Jack.

‘After I’m gone, carry on as normal. Have Janie round for tea. I find your loving comfortable. Let’s not pretend. It’s clear. She’ll be a better mother than I’d ever be.

‘After I’m gone, pin a notice on our door. “This woman,” it should read, “seemed honourable, fair and kind. She was more faithful than her husband, kept a clean house,  gave to charity and taught her children well. But as the final drips of life  seeped from her,  measured by the agonised ticking of the clock, the truth came out. In her dreams, she had killed her father, estranged  her daughter, then waited patiently for oblivion to take her too.”’

-------------

Alan Gershon’s eyes widened as he scanned the letter he’d opened.

“Bea Newman’s gone,” he announced.

“What do you mean? Gone where?”, asked his wife, Noga.

“Sorry! The note I’m reading is from a  Sally Morris, the administrator at The Willows, the hospice in Rainhill Lane. She says Bea died there from leukaemia about three weeks ago and had requested a secular ceremony and cremation. Mrs Morris has also enclosed a so-called ‘living will’ which Bea had managed to scribble about a month before and which she had asked to be sent to me. Here - look for yourself.”

“Hmm,”  said Noga, snatching at the papers. “This isn’t a conventional ‘living will’. Typically, Bea concentrates on practical domestic duties but  makes no mention of medical care or even of a legacy to those who’ll come after. It relates more to her musings on death.

“I didn’t know she’d been  ill but  we’d all lost touch in the past ten years. Anyway, you’ll have to pardon me if I don’t speak too warmly. Bea was a carbon copy of her  dad, ‘Potty Pete’ Blumenthal – a lunatic trouble maker if ever there  was one. This is also just like her – leaving you with the burden of clearing her effects. I bet my bottom dollar she chose you as she still fancied you rotten.”

Alan chuckled despite himself, as Noga continued  her tirade.

“I realise I’m breaking every taboo in the book and that I should respect her passing by reflecting on her positively. But all I can remember is how she abused our hospitality; was forcibly removed from two local synagogues for heckling publicly during services and deliberately caused dissent between  friends with her vicious gossip.”

“I remember,” he sighed as Noga paused for breath. “Yeah, if only she’d stuck to what she did well. At her best – which was at work - Bea was a creative genius and some of her campaign ideas were superb. But too often that same spark became a demonic sprite. That’s why we asked her to leave Raine Rose Communications.”

“But we also know,” said Noga, beginning to read the enclosure carefully, “that Bea was  a deeply troubled and sensitive individual. While most of the details here are invented, she’s sending us a strong, genuine message.”

“Let me have another look,” said Alan. “The wording appears to be based on the traditional Jewish deathbed confession, where the individual  recites the central prayer, The Shema, confirming his or her faith in one God.

“It’s all desperately sad, Noga. It is apparent that she felt she’d been morally rotten and that her horrible illness was its physical manifestation.

“She didn’t want to be offered the regular rituals at death as she considered herself unworthy of them, or even to have a prayer quorum  gather on her behalf to recite Kaddish, the mourners’ prayer.”

“It’s also a cry for help. But it was made too late. I’ll set aside my personal misgivings and suggest we investigate the possibility of a memorial service at the columbarium. One of us could read her ‘will’ and offer an explanation.”

“I suppose it’s possible,” said Alan. “I don’t know how many of our circle would give up their time for such an odd and ‘un-Jewish’ occasion. But you know what they say,” he added, managing another weak smile

“Well?”

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” 

Technorati Tags: #fridayflash,Flash Fiction,PerfectlyWriteFamilyTales,A Living Will,Death,Confession,Funeral,Cremation,Living Will,Shema,Kaddish

Natalie Wood

(Copyright, Natalie Irene Wood – 23 November 2012)

‘Swan Song’

After the tweeting and twirling, the  party began to swing.

“Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday, happy birthday ...”, chirped Aunt Edie, balancing her oversized cake and its 80 candles on the balls of her elegant fingers.

Two hundred and fifty guests – relatives, friends and acquaintances gathered during a long, sometimes strange life – grinned and applauded with gusto.

“Still bringing the house down,” said Second Cousin George, from Birmingham, England.

“Does she ever stop?”, asked Hennie Markus, a new neighbour in plush Herzliya.

“Not that you’d notice,” retorted Nellie, Edie’s one surviving sister, who lived with her in a state of permanent semi-exhaustion. The pair had emigrated from England twenty years before and loved attending productions staged by  Israel’s major dance companies.

But the Hotel David’s Master of Ceremonies was now calling the crowd to attention.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please be seated. Your hostess and birthday girl, Edie Aaronson – ‘Madam Yenita Aronovska’ - wishes to welcome you.

“Boys and girls,” said Edie. “My speech will be brief as I am making a simultaneous translation from Hebrew into Russian, French, English and Yiddish.

“First I offer thanks to everyone for their efforts in joining me for my birthday – most especially those who have travelled thousands of miles from their home countries for the occasion.

“What can I tell you? Life is not easy. If I had not been ‘spotted’ as a kindertransport child from Vienna, perhaps I’d never have made it to London;  met Ninette de Valois, been accepted for the Royal Ballet, nor had the fantastic fortune to  dance just once with Rudolf Nureyev.

“And don’t think”, added Edie mysteriously, “that the splendid Rudy only loved other men … But tonight may not be the correct time to tell that story, surrounded as I am by my darling great nieces and nephews.”

As Edie ended  her speech, the crowd’s uproarious guffaws melted into stares of startled admiration as she kicked off her slippers and dropped the skirt of her  white and silver feathered gown to reveal a   tutu and a pair of  shapely dancer’s legs beneath.

“See,” she said, hooding her eyes and lowering her voice to a stage whisper.

“This is my birthday surprise to you. The waist may be a little thicker and the bosom rather heavier, but the legs and arms are twitching.

“They insist on performing the final moments of the Odette Variation and Dying Swan.

“This, I remind all dance scholars out there, is not part of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake but was originally a solo choreographed by Mikhail Fokine for the great  Anna Pavlova to music by Camille Saint-Saëns.

“Maestro, please,” she nodded at the hotel’s resident pianist and began performing the steps Pavlova had made so famous.

Some minutes later, the pianist faded the concluding bars as Edie’s ageing swan raised and fluttered its wings one last time before sinking slowly, grandly to the  floor.

But she did not rise and as the seconds ticked past, guests grew anxious.

“I wonder if she’s O.K,” growled George. “I hope she’s not done a Tommy Cooper. He was the British comic who died on stage from heart failure.”

But the  swan overheard him, cocked its head and chuckled.

“Don’t spoil things George, please!,” it scolded. “I’ve planned a much better end to my party than merely dying!”

And even as she spoke, a mass of pink-grey tulle and satin exploded onto the dance floor from the direction of the kitchen.

“Come here. Come to me,” she ordered, throwing her arms wide to encompass  her horde of mesmerised great nieces and nephews.

“Tonight you are my corps de ballet. First though, you must help me get up and although you all look lovely in your costumes,  I won’t ask you to dance.

“Instead you will  serve everyone pudding – a confection of meringue swans on chocolate lakes – nothing better for a fairy-tale ending.

“Please don’t forget,” she added,  “leave some for your Aunt Edie. And after that? Well, I’ll have to wait for someone to name a pudding after me.”

Technorati Tags: #fridayflash,Flash Fiction,PerfectlyWriteFamilyTales,Swan Song,Ballet,Israel Ballet,Swan Lake,Tchaikovsky,Royal Ballet,Rudolf Nureyev,Ninette de Valois,Odette Variation and Dying Swan,Anna Pavlova,Saint-Saens,Mikhail Fokine

Natalie Wood

(Copyright, Natalie Irene Wood – 09 November 2012)

‘Of Spitting, Swearing And Other Infantilia’

The Truth Hurts

As I was walking through Tzfat, I met a man who sat and spat. It happens in Jerusalem too. Are these Haredim righteous Jews?

The Holy Truth

The holy citizens of Tzfat – Israel’s highest city - were once very poor. They were also  starving. While the adults lived on soul food, mothers made their children soup from herbs and grass they gathered in the hills. Sometimes they even added some spittle to bind everything – just for luck. ‘Toi, toi, toi.’

One day Yosef, the eldest of  Adina Sofer’s brood of ten, said “Eema,  the Almighty has spoken to me in a dream. He wants us to go to Manchester in England  where many pious Jews like us live very well and have plenty to eat. Please take us, Eema,” he begged. So his mother, fearing worse at home, spat three times and muttered ‘toi, toi, toi’ to ward off The Evil Eye.   

Nothing But The Truth

“Yossi Della Reina,” recounted Shimon Alweisz of Holy Land Magic-Mystic Tours, “was a 16th century rabbi in Tzfat who  tried to defeat  Satan by using Kabbalah. But after his attempt failed, he  turned to a life of sin. Worse was to come. When he died, he was buried outside the communal cemetery by his fellow citizens.

“Now,” explained Shimon, leading a group of enthralled American Christians through Tzfat’s best mystic bits, “Della Reina’s burial spot may be seen next to the central square of the Old Jewish Quarter. What’s more, local people still spit at the grave as they walk past.”

“Don’t be silly!” interrupted Ellen, a Tzfat resident who happened to be passing by  and who believed that blunt interference was her religious duty.

“We don’t do things like that in the Holy City of Tzfat.  But carry on – please do,” she added, wiping delicately around her mouth. “Tell the story as you must. If you think it’s good for your business, then it’s good for ours too. After all, a girl’s got to eat. ‘Toi, toi, toi.’”

So Help Them God

The generations following Yosef Sofer grew fond of life in England,  forgetting their forefathers had migrated from Poland to the Holy Land to restore the ancient places. They became lax in their observance of Jewish ritual, neither eating kosher nor kindling the Sabbath lights.

But one day Yosef’s great-great-grandson, Danny realised that his mother’s family name ‘Sofer’ meant he was destined to be a writer. First, he took creative writing and extra English Literature  classes at school where his studies included the works of the metaphysical  poets.

“Awesome,” he said of John Donne’s Holy Sonnet X1 ‘Spit in my face ye Jews’. I know it’s not what Donne was writing about. But it sort of explains why Jerusalem Talmudic students have been spitting at Armenian Christian seminarians. I want to learn a little about Christianity.”

But Anna, his mother, more superstitious than pious, shivered when Danny announced he intended to  visit Manchester Cathedral.

“I think you’ll be the first person in our family ever to enter any sort of church. Go if you must. But be warned – you won’t like it.”

Then she spat three times and whispered "’toi, toi, toi.’”

Danny just wanted to hear a sermon by the novelist, Jeanette Winterson which was part of the annual Manchester Literature Festival. But later he decided his mother had been right.

First, Winterson’s speech seemed oddly like  an article she had written for  The Times newspaper two years before when she somehow equated the State of Israel with terrorist organisations which aimed to destroy it.

Then Danny felt personally hurt that a writer whose work he had previously much admired should use a phrase like ‘But Jesus is no Jewish princess.’

“If I didn’t know better,” he told his friend, Cliff as they left the building, “that woman was being antisemitic.”

“Be careful what you say, mate. But, yeah … my family have been strong Methodists like, er, forever. Even so, some of Winterson’s  remarks made me feel really bad. My parents are always moaning about how spoilt my sister and I are – and they never mention Jews.

“Also,” added Cliff, “this makes me sound a right geek. But I didn’t like hearing her say ‘effing’ during her talk. It’s O.K. when it’s us,  just messin’ about. But in there …",  he said,  swinging round to point at the cathedral, “it’s supposed to be holy. It didn’t seem right for her to use bad language. It stuck out; sort of jarred – didn’t work.”

“Y’mean  when she mentioned ‘… every bit of effing advertising …’? It also gave me the creeps. O.K., I’m not religious and hardly ever go to synagogue. But still I feel upset by that. Bloody hell, we’d have soon been down the cop shop if someone had heard us go on about ‘lessie bitches’.

“Ha! Y’reckon? We wouldn’t say that about anyone - ever. Would we?”

“But it’s made me decide something,” said Danny, now serious.

“I’ll tell my mum she was right about the cathedral – even if it wasn’t for her reason. Then,” he added with a sly grin, “I’ll ask her if she’ n’ Dad will loan me the dosh to get to Israel. To go to Tzfat”

“I love your nerve, going into that war zone. But isn’t Tzfat where Madonna’s been ?”

“Yeah. But it gets better. I’ve never told you before but it seems my great-great-grandparents came to live in Manchester from there. They also say,” he giggled, “that I’m the spitting image of my great-great-granddad. ’Toi, toi, toi.’”

Technorati Tags: #fridayflash,Flash Fiction,PerfectlyWriteFamilyTales,Of Spitting,Swearing And Other Infantilia,Tzfat,Madonna Jerusalem,Haredim,Armenian Christians,Israel,Manchester,Manchester Cathedral,Manchester Literature Festival,Jeanette Winterson,The Times

Natalie Wood

(Copyright, Natalie Irene Wood – 05 November 2012)

 

 

‘Staying Alive With The Walking Dead’

Prologue

Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp was liberated by British Forces on April 15, 1945. Rev Leslie Hardman, a young Jewish Chaplain, arrived two days later. Sixty-thousand prisoners were found there, most of them seriously ill. A further thirteen thousand unburied  corpses lay strewn around the area, which was dubbed ‘the camp of horror.’

The renowned BBC broadcaster, Richard Dimbleby who accompanied the liberating forces, filed a famous report of the scene. Some of his words are interpolated below.

The intervening 67 years have seen dozens of wars and innumerable  atrocities committed by many regimes in killing fields worldwide.

My ‘factional’ story attempts to show new generations, whom I consider to be unhealthily obsessed with ‘Gothic Horror’, that while the lessons of the Holocaust continue to be studied,  they are never truly learned. 

----------------

Story

Out of the silence came a crazed, wracked voice. But Leslie Hardman did not know it was his own.

“My God, the dead walk!”, his detached voice screeched. “If this is a test from Heaven why wasn’t I set it sooner? Sent here earlier?

“... Here over an acre of ground lay dead and dying people. You could not see which was which ... The living lay with their heads against the corpses and around them moved the awful, ghostly procession of emaciated, aimless people, with nothing to do and with no hope of life, unable to move out of your way, unable to look at the terrible sights around them …”

But for Rev Hardman, British Armed Forces chaplain, pious Orthodox Jew, there were no  moments to lose. He began work by tiptoeing   around the shards of humanity left by the Nazis at Bergen-Belsen, tending the budding shoots of  springtime liberation he was sowing as he went.

First he gazed upon the “staggering mass of blackened skin and bones, held together somehow with filthy rags.”

Next he tried music. But the words of nascent Israel’s anthem, Hatikva (The Hope) – stuck in a dying woman’s throat. 

Then as the tears welled and the lump in his own throat rose, Rev Hardman laid down his despairing head for relief. But his reverie was brief.

“… Babies had been born here, tiny wizened things that could not live ... A mother, driven mad, screamed at a British sentry to give her milk for her child, and thrust the tiny mite into his arms, then ran off, crying terribly. He opened the bundle and found the baby had been dead for days …”

“Rabbiner, Rabbiner (Rabbi, Rabbi),” wailed an inmate – a piteous creature who fingered the double star emblem on his military tunic to ensure it was real.

“Let me comfort you as you have heartened us. You are our own Messiah. May God console you among the other mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.”

Much later, Rev Hardman would recall how he cherished the terrible moment. “Like everything else about my hours in that wasteland, it was sanctified simply because it was beyond belief.

"If all the trees in the world turned into pens,” he said “all the waters in the oceans turned into ink and the heavens turned into paper, it would still be insufficient material to describe the horrors these people suffered under the SS."

Most difficult was the burial of thousands of  corpses, ensuring they were laid to rest according to Jewish custom with the recital of Kaddish – the traditional mourners’ prayer. 

The dead, said Rev Hardman, must be granted the dignity which they had been denied on earth. What’s more, he insisted, the ‘living dead’ – the survivors – should be given the solace of both witnessing, even helping, to ensure that the work was complete.

"This day at Belsen was the most horrible of my life.”

Epilogue – 1

‘Closing The Circle’

Somehow, many people managed to secure a semblance of normality after the war. Rev Hardman returned to pastoral work at a London synagogue, but  also performed duties at a local psychiatric unit and on behalf of  the Holocaust Education Trust.

He was a fervent Zionist and one of his daughters settled in Israel. Recently his grandson, attorney Yoel Hadar,  a legal adviser to the Israel  Internal Security Ministry, had a chance meeting with a Belsen survivor,  Mordechai Chekhnover, now aged 88. "This meeting has closed a circle for me," said Mr Hadar.

Epilogue – 2

The debate continues. Some people, like journalist, Philip Hoare believe the fashion for Gothic horror and its ilk “reflects deeper contemporary fears of the apocalyptic and the macabre: of bad science and corrupt power. It reflects dark times, too, and offers escapism from austerity or insecurity – a safe, containable way to be scared. Most of all, perhaps, it addresses dark themes of psychosexuality.”

I don’t believe the problem’s that profound. I suggest it means that creative writing is at a troubling watershed and that even the world’s best writers are finding themselves unable to create believable three-dimensional characters in life-like situations.

Now I feel angry enough to discuss it in public  after spotting a ‘conversation’ between prize-winning novelists, Margaret Atwood (Canada) and Naomi Alderman (U.K.) who are collaborating in writing The Happy Zombie Sunrise Home, an online serialised novel  being  published in 13 instalments from now until January  next year.

I have decided not to treat readers to the contents. But I will add this:

By an uncanny  co-incidence Ms Alderman’s father, historian Geoffrey Alderman, wrote an obituary to Rev Hardman when he died, aged 95, in October 2008. The rest, I venture, must revert to silence.

 

Technorati Tags: #fridayflash,Flash Fiction,PerfectlyWriteFamilyTales,Alive With The Walking Dead,Holocaust,Bergen-Belsen,Rev Leslie Hardman,BBC,Richard Dimbleby,Philip Hoare,Margaret Atwood,Naomi Alderman,Geoffrey Alderman,Gothic Horror,Zombies

Natalie Wood

(Copyright, Natalie Irene Wood – 02 November 2012)

‘His Memory For A Blessing’

Gillie shook her  husband awake.

“Andy, sweetheart. It’s 8.00 a.m. You’ve thrashed about all night, moaning in your sleep. You’re not well. If you’re able to dress, I’ll take you to see Dr Lewis.”

“What? Oh, God! I  don’t think I’m ill – just –

“I got home after midnight and crept into bed so as not to disturb you. I nodded off the moment my head hit the pillow, but was plagued by terrible, feverish dreams. Let me get in the shower, then we’ll talk.”

When Andy shuffled downstairs, he found Gillie hunched on the sofa staring into space.

“Well …?”

Andy shook his head as he dropped down beside her. 

“I’m O.K., physically. It’s what happened yesterday. Yom Kippur this year should have been  extra special. What higher honour  than to circumcise a baby on the Day of Atonement? What greater pleasure than to do it before a full, loving congregation? But this …”

“Did you try to call me after the fast ended? I switched off all communication. I didn’t want to speak to - see anyone. I couldn’t eat and just sipped some tea.”

“Same here - and no, I didn’t call. I wanted to wait until we were together. There was an emergency executive meeting immediately after services. Unsurprisingly, I’m no longer rabbi and mohel (ritual circumciser) to Southborough Hebrew Congregation. I resigned at once. 

“But I’m likely to be sued for assault and could go to prison. For crying out loud, people I consider my friends were talking of  ‘criminal negligence’. You know how ‘things are never so bad they can’t be made worse.’ As I related my version of events, I heard Sid Rubens call me ‘a baby killer’.

“Darling, that was the last straw. I overreacted; forgot myself, lashed out at him and made his lip bleed.

“’Well,’ muttered Sid, muffled behind a tissue,  ‘you can lead a lad to Torah but you can’t take the goy out of the boy!’ How I restrained myself then, heaven alone knows. What’s the point in advising someone with such deep prejudices that it’s forbidden to remind a convert of his origins?

“How can I even begin to explain to an ignorant bully my troubled journey here? The half life-time I spent studying medicine; my entry into Judaism and then fairly starting over when I decided to re-train as a rabbi?

“Huh,” said Gillie, taking hold of her husband’s hands. “How dare he? His wife, Poppy’s also a Reform convert. His family disowned him when they got married, so their situation is quite familiar!

“To cut my own story short,  I’ve also been drowning in muck. Before  I could leave the synagogue car park, the Lawsons waylaid me, screaming vile insults.

“The old lady – the sweet-faced grandma  – called me a ‘shiksele whore’ who should be jailed. But most distressing was seeing Ellen staring at me in the background,  wailing wordlessly, ceaselessly,  like a betrayed and wounded animal. We’d become very good friends. But that aside, as a woman and a mother who’s also lost a baby, how could my own heart not break? Once home, I did some research on the web and then shut everything down. I’ll tell you more later.”

“Hmm! As it took the couple several years to conceive, I wonder if there was an inherent problem – perhaps a defective gene - which didn’t emerge during fertility tests. 

“Unlikely, I appreciate, but whatever the reason, I keep re-playing the scene  in my head, seeing that lively, handsome little fellow suddenly become a  wrinkled, lifeless scrap as his uncle held him on his lap.

“Gillie, it seemed almost unreasonable, the way he stopped whimpering, then breathing and simply slipped away as I swabbed the wound. I’m sure I’m blameless and that the autopsy will prove it.

“Of course you are”, said Gillie. “But we both know that whatever happens to you personally, the anti-circumcision lobby will gnaw this juicy bone until it splinters. Remember, it was only the personal intervention of Chancellor Angela Merkel that halted anti-circumcision measures in Germany this year.”

“But we’ve also got the problem of the child’s Jewish identity,” Andy reminded her.

“Matters will get grimmer yet when Ellen and Phil realise  their sweet boy  died without a Hebrew name and that there’s no place in mainstream Jewish tradition for a funeral of a new-born infant. It’s as well that congregations like ours are more sympathetic. If and when they feel like talking civilly, I’ll discuss the possibilities of a formal funeral and later, a headstone setting.”

 “First things, first,” said Gillie. “We could both do with some breakfast and then one of us should make an appointment for you to see Rob Stevenson at Simmons, Adam. This is what I wanted to tell you. My web research brought up a link to a story which appeared in the Jewish Chronicle a couple of years ago. A case echoing  ours was resolved when it was decided that the boy died from ‘sudden infant death syndrome’ and the coroner ruled ‘death by natural causes’.”

“Anything’s possible,” mused Andy,  a little brighter. “How about scrambled eggs, toast and tea?”

“Those are the best English words I’ve heard for almost 48 hours,” said Gillie, as she switched her phone back on.

 “By the way,”, said Andy,  “here’s a little dry irony to dunk in your tea. Just before the fast began I counselled a  potential member  who wants to convert. He was brought up in a Christian evangelical home but he believes he’s from Jewish stock.  I’m revealing a confidence that I shouldn’t for this reason: He was passed on to us after being rejected for  conversion by an Orthodox beth din (rabbinical court) as he’s a haemophiliac and can’t be circumcised.” 

“A classic Orthodox reaction -” said Gillie, “ – to use us as a dustbin for one of their rejects. I’ll make sure he’s made very welcome. Once you’re reinstated, of course!”

(Picture Credit: photographersdirect.com)

Technorati Tags: #fridayflash,Flash Fiction,PerfectlyWriteFamilyTales,His Memory For A Blessing,Circumcision,Brit Milah,Sudden Infant Death Syndrome,Haemophilia,Conversion,Yom Kippur,Beth Din,Angela Merkel,Germany

Natalie Wood

• This ‘flash’ has also just appeared  in the November 2012 edition of Live Encounters magazine, edited by Mark Ulyseas. http://liveencounters.net/?p=1970

(Copyright, Natalie Irene Wood – 26 October 2012)

‘Bill And Monica Lived Here’

There were some differences, admitted Monica Sherwin.

First, she told her friend, Gloria Adams  as they discussed the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, her trophy was a cheap, red pull-on skirt. Not a blue designer dress.

Second, she’d never be able to prove anything, as she’d had the skirt dry-cleaned.

Third,  continued  Monica,  she’d    been enjoying  a  simultaneous        ‘relationship’ with Bill Roberts’s son, Matt.

“Anything else?”, gulped Gloria as Monica paused for breath.

“Yes! When Matt realised later  what had been going on, he told several people that I deserved ‘to be raped’.”

“But I must ask,” said Gloria. “You hinted you wanted to get something off your chest about events from the 1970s. Why now? Why me?”

“Good question, Glo’,” grinned Monica. “Potty, but the stories about showbiz guys abusing young girls seemed reminiscent of what happened to me. Anyway, you’re my dearest girl friend so I reckon you’re entitled to know.

“Of course the situations aren’t parallel and you’re probably thinking that as a 22-year-old professional, I had much more in common with posh American Lewinsky than any  disturbed, sometimes disabled British kids in the clutches of people like Jimmy Savile.

“But still, I was woefully immature, rather lonely and allowed both of the Roberts to abuse my trust quite shamelessly. And don’t forget, when I wasn’t servicing them personally I was working my butt off 25 hours a day, eight days a week for their ruddy business.”

“How did it begin?”, asked Gloria.

“Good question! With Matt, it had been the mid-life ‘my wife doesn’t understand me’ twaddle which I’d devoured whole like a chocolate orange.

“But the old man … that was strange. I don’t think he ever had an inkling about Matt and me. His own marriage had  been rotten for years and he simply wanted a soul-mate. Occasionally, I’d do some work for him. Then one day, when quite absently I quoted some verse as he commented on the weather, he looked at me hard and quoted something back.

“At first it was  unrequited love – on my side, anyway. Despite being well into his sixties, Bill still bore the traces of what had once been slightly raffish good looks. I was hooked. A bunny ensnared by a snake ...

“Things moved on. One day I was treated to another old man’s cliché: ‘Y’know Monica,’ said Bill, ‘I’ve not felt like this for a long time.’

“He leaned over me, locked the office door and told me to put away my notebook and switch off the dictating machine. Then he held my hands briefly and kissed me. Most tenderly.

“It was so sweet that I broke down. I felt as if I were centre-stage in a home-grown TV soap. It was an unnerving experience because I’m sure I could have stymied it all at source. But something stopped me.”

“Curiosity?”, said Gloria.

“’Fascination’ – much more than wanting to know what would happen next.

“Then things hotted up. But Bill was canny. We never went the whole hog. No penetration – no adultery. In fact he’d call our sessions ‘a spot of the orals’ and any local difficulty his ‘building problems’.”

“Yuck! And then?”, asked Gloria, fairly bolted to her chair.

“One day we forgot to lock the office door. I was standing with my back to it. Some of my blouse buttons were open. We were about to get cracking when Matt burst in, knocking a hanger off the coat-hook which hit Bill on the nose as I dived aside.

“Matt didn’t notice my appearance because he was concerned for his dad. So that day we got off scot-free.

“I suppose there’s a bit of Napoleon coming next. Like many short men, Bill was fanatical about his personal ‘dignity’. One day he had a spill. Down the front of my skirt. He couldn’t apologise enough. But really he was trying to justify what had happened to himself. He asked me to leave the room so he could have a brush up. But I never saw him again.”

“What?”

“Yeah! He’d not told me he was ill. Angina or something like that. It seems the episode upset him so much that he became over-agitated and had a heart-attack.”

“How was he found?”

“He’d locked his door after I left and a little later a junior tried to enter the room with his afternoon drink. When she couldn’t, she  called for help and you can imagine what happened next. Personnel from the Emergency Services found it difficult to keep straight faces when they examined Bill’s body and found he had been somewhat playful just before his demise. They related this to Matt who was as much bewildered as enraged.

“The burial was delayed slightly as the Coroner was involved. All staff attended. But Bill’s wife, Helene had been suspicious about me and I was told specifically that I was not ‘obliged’ to attend the funeral tea. I took the hint and stayed away.

“I was also in mourning but it was worse for me because I couldn’t confide in anyone. Then I made a terrible mistake.”

“How?”

“The bloody skirt. In the flurry of that awful day I’d barely sponged the stain and didn’t realise it was still visible.

“Then I wore it one evening some weeks later when I went out with Matt. He noticed the mark  and immediately put two-and-two together. He called me a slut and then stalked out of the bar where we’d been sitting. I never saw him again either.

“Next morning, there was a  ‘redundancy notice’ on my desk with a cheque representing six months’ salary. However, Matt’s every bit as cute as his father. He gave me  the customary written references but followed them up with chatty phone-calls to everyone in the trade. He had me black-listed and I never worked in the building industry again.

“Oedipus, Shmoedipus,” said Gloria, a great fan of pop psychology, “as long as you love your daddy.”

Technorati Tags: #fridayflash,Flash Fiction,PerfectlyWriteFamilyTales,Bill and Monica Lived Here,Time Magazine,Bill Clinton.Monica Lewinsky,Jimmy Savile,Oedipus,Psychology

Natalie Wood

(Copyright, Natalie Irene Wood – 12 October 2012)