Choose Somebody Else by Yvonne Fein

Author:Yvonne Fein
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wild Dingo Press
Published: 2018-04-30T16:15:11+00:00

NEIGHBOURS

Vale Sholem Aleichem

Awhile back, before Acland Street was taken over by the buskers and the bikies, the dopers and the smokers and, of course, the hippies, it was a wonderful place to visit. On the other hand, it was not such a wonderful place to live.

Why do I say this? Because too much was always going on there. Back then you could go and find out whether or not Mottl Rosenberg, the rag-trader king, who everybody knew was shtupping his secretary, had been kicked out by his wife yet. You could hear how Feingold’s daughter was coping since her no-goodnik of a husband left her like you’d leave a plate of cold soup. And you could join the crazy mixture of arguments and hot air with the over-seventy, ex-firebrands, more hair in their ears than they can keep on their heads. In their youth they had all been socialists, that is, until their factories started showing a profit. But even so, without their debates, Acland Street would lack its spice and its fire.

Headquarters was at the Scheherazade (RIP, 2008), smoke-filled—when having a puff indoors was not a felony—noisy and full of gesticulators. They ordered pancakes, latkes, cheesecake—anything that would send their cholesterol sky-high. And whatever they ate they washed down with enough coffee to fill an oil tanker. An outsider would have called it a death wish, but what do outsiders know?

If you came in alone, chances were that you wouldn’t be alone for long. There was always someone who would approach you and strike up a conversation—the way that Abie Symons did with me, a while ago now, on just such a typical Sunday morning.

Now I know Abie. In fact, he lives only a ten-minute walk from my place, but close you could never say we were. Mind you, his Ruthie and my Tamara (such a beauty compared to—well, never mind) were good friends. Although my Tamara is married with two children and a prince of a husband, she still found time to quite often have a coffee with that poor girl and try to convince her to use some lipstick occasionally or at least shave her legs.

Tamara told me some incredible things that this Ruthie confided in her. Anyway, I was still surprised when Abie seated himself—no hello, no nothing—and said, ‘Moishe, I’ve got a problem’. To tell you the truth, I was embarrassed. Why come to me? But the very long story he told me would have been enough to make Stalin cry. (All his teeth should fall out except one to make him suffer). What chance did someone like me have—my wife is always telling me I’m everyone’s shmatte—against such a miserable tale?

And that’s what I meant when I said that Acland Street is a good place to visit but not to live. Who could stand the pressure?

Still, I forgot entirely that incident until one Friday morning at breakfast a few months later when my wife was as usual doing her forensic inspection of the Hatch, Match and Despatch pages of the Jewish News.

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