‘Eat, eat, there’s no shame, only if I go back, Mrs Goldberg finds maybe something in the basket, then shame!’ Solly Goldberg clapped his hands and rolled his eyes in dismay, mimicking his wife’s voice. ‘So tell me, Solly, your shiksa girlfriend, she don’t like my strudel?’ But eventually, despite Solly’s exhortations to ‘Eat, eat, my dear!’ Jessica could not manage another morsel. ‘Okey-dokey, first we eat and now we talk,’ Moishe’s father declared, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. ‘Maybe a little more lemonade, Miss Bergman? For the throat?’
Jessica laughed, shaking her head. ‘I’m full as a goog, Mr Goldberg. Couldn’t manage another crumb.’
Solly shook his head sadly. ‘Tush! Such a no appetite, maybe you should be a bird, a sparrow no less.’
He hadn’t partaken of any of the food himself, content to watch Jessica eat alone, but now he started to dispose of what was left in the interests of not making Mrs Goldberg angry. Jessica had left at least three-quarters of the contents of the basket. After eating steadily for twenty minutes, describing to Jessica between mouthfuls how each delicacy was cooked by his wife, Solly indicated the empty basket and, producing a large bandanna, he wiped his mouth carefully then declared happily, ‘I pray every day I die first — without Mrs Goldberg’s cooking, to be alive would be a big disappointment.’
‘My mother is a good cook, but she couldn’t hold a candle to your wife, Mr Goldberg.’
Solly looked pleased. He’d placed his back against the oak tree and stretched his fat legs straight out in front of him, his big butcher’s hands resting comfortably upon his stomach. ‘Miss Bergman, what you’ve done to Moishe, it can’t be paid back. He is an entire different boychick. But also, I got to thank you for saving my business.’
Jessica looked puzzled. ‘Saving your business?’ Solly spread his large hands. ‘I ask you, who’s heard a kosher butcher his boy is married to a shiksa?’
‘A shiksa? You said that word before.’
‘A gentile, my dear. Moishe is a Communist. He tells me it don’t matter no more — religion is dead, God is finish. Communism is coming next, a Jew can marry a gentile, who cares!’
Jessica laughed. ‘Religion is the opiate of the people?’
Solly looked up, surprised. ‘He said it to you also? Maybe he told you as well that Mr Marx is a Jew, but now dead, a German and the son of a rabbi already, so what’s the problem, it’s not the end of the world? “Moislie,” I tell him, “maybe not for you it’s the end of the world, to be a Jew is not a religion, it is a pain in the tukis!” You know what is a tukis, Miss Bergman? In English, if you’ll excuse I say it, to be a Jew is a pain in the bum!’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘So I say to him, to the boychick, the Communist, “But understand, it’s God’s pain in the bum and when God scratches his tukis, a Jew knows he’s somebody chosen by God special and must keep the faith. So tell me, Mr Shlemiel, Moishe Goldberg, whose pain in the tukis is a Communist? Let me tell you something for nothing, my boy, I’m a butcher, what do I know from Communist? What I know is a chicken is Jewish or gentile, you can’t have both in one butcher shop. I wish it could be so, I could make a lot of money.” Then I say to him, “Moishe, Communist kish mit in hinten!” You know what means that, Miss Bergman? Of course not. It means, Communist can kiss my bum!’ Solly Goldberg shook with laughter and clapped his hands, overjoyed to have Jessica laughing with him.
‘I never thought of a chicken having a religion. A chicken being Jewish,’ Jessica said at last.
‘You better believe! A chicken ain’t Jewish, I’m out of business! But if a chicken is also a Communist, I’m out of business double. How long you think I’m going to be a kosher butcher I tell people they should eat Communist?’
Jessica laughed again. ‘About as long as you’d be a kosher butcher in Bondi if Moishe married me?’
Solly Goldberg clasped his plump hands to his chest.
‘You got it, Miss Bergman, kosher chickens and gentile chickens, they can’t be in the same shop and Communist chickens, they got no profit.’ He pauses and smiles at Jessica. ‘But what you done for my boy Moishe, how can I thank you?’
Jessica smiled back at him. ‘He done a lot for me too, Mr Goldberg. He taught me to read books.’
Solly looked down at his hands, suddenly silent. Then he spoke quietly, not looking up. ‘I’ve come to ask, my dear. You could maybe turn convert? Become a Jew?’ He looked up tentatively to see if the thought offended her, but seeing Jessica smile he continued, ‘We could talk to the rabbi, you could take Jew lessons.’ He spread his big hands. ‘Why not?’ He smiled suddenly. ‘It’s not so hard to be a pain in the tukis.’ He looked about him and made a sweeping gesture with his right hand, taking in the handsome sandstone buildings about them. ‘You already done your fair share of suffering, in this terrible place. If you don’t mind my saying, already you’re practically Jewish, my dear.’
‘That’s just it, Mr Goldberg, I’m in the Hospital for the Insane,’ Jessica reminded him, laughing and liking Moishe’s father immensely. ‘So?’
‘Well, I’m supposed to be crazy. You know, in the loony-bin?’
Solly Goldberg seemed unimpressed with this line of reasoning. He spread his hands and shrugged his shoulders. ‘So? Who’s crazy, who ain’t? Most my customers, they crazy. You should see how they look at my chickens. A kosher chicken is already blessed one hundred per cent, but in the shop comes a Mrs Chicken Shopper to buy one my nice kosher chickens.
‘’’You got a nice chicken for me today, Mr Goldberg?” she asks.
, “Not today, every day I got a nice chicken,” I say to this Mrs Chicken Shopper.
‘’’That one!” She show me a chicken. It’s a nice chicken, hanging quiet and content in the shop. I take it down. “A beautiful chicken,” I say and give it her.
‘’’Ha!’’ she says. She takes it up, pulls the legs away - already she is hating this chicken, she smell its tukis, puts her finger inside, pulls out the giblets, looks down the neck, shake to see if something I don’t know what comes out. Push a finger here, there, everywhere she pokes. If that chicken is alive, believe you me, it’s dead already from cruelty to chickens. Then she point to another chicken she ain’t never touched. “I take that one, Mr Goldberg. This chicken you give me is a disgrace, you ought to be ashamed yourself!”
Solly Goldberg was an excellent mimic and it had been a long time since Jessica had laughed so heartily, thrown her pretty head back and laughed. Solly rolled his eyes. ‘You think that’s crazy? From chicken shoppers I got lotsa stories much worse. And from buying a turkey, you wouldn’t believe.’ He stopped, struck by a sudden thought, bringing his hands up to his face. ‘Oh mine God! That the qualification! To be Jewish you got to be crazy.’ He tilted his head to one side as though he was examining Jessica. ‘Believe me, you
could make already a first-class Jew in no time, my dear.’
Jessica declined Solly’s invitation to take Jewish lessons but thanked him for the honour. ‘I weren’t much good at being a Christian, Solly, I don’t suppose I’d be much good at being Jewish neither.’
Solly laughed, accepting her decision. ‘Being good at being a Jew is impossible, my dear. If you come even close it’s a miracle from God.’
A friendship had been struck between Jessica and the kosher butcher from Bondi that would last a lifetime. Solly Goldberg visited Jessica once a month for the next two years and always came alone. ‘The boychick don’t know about picnics, only books and Communist chickens,’ he’d say as if to excuse Moishe’s absence. But Jessica knew Solly wanted to come alone and she was greatly flattered that he would make a trip so obviously arduous for someone of his stature.