Читать книгу Degas' Dust - Carnie Matisonn - Страница 12

Our principal at Roosevelt High School seemed concerned only with achieving a high matric pass rate. Mr Rees spent large amounts of his time trying to persuade the parents of students he thought would not pass matric to leave school and become tradesmen. He actually denied many pupils the opportunity to write matric, because he had so little faith that they could pass.

I played in his school orchestra under the wobbly baton of his drunken Scottish music teacher, Mr McMillan, and was soon invited to play in the orchestra of Greenside High School in their production of Chu Chin Chow, at which Rees was guest of honour on the opening night.

I also had the lead part in our school play, so the school was well aware I was artistically inclined, but none of this mattered to Rees. All that counted was the elusive 100% matric pass rate, no matter the cost – and ensuring that all boys played rugby.

My interest in Mozart, Vivaldi, Purcell, Beethoven and Bach grew by the day – in inverse proportion to my growing disinterest in the unpredictable bouncing of a rugby ball – the be-all and end-all for most of the other boys my age, and particularly at my school.

The music also helped to reconnect me, if only fleetingly at times, to my family. At home, our family’s primary rituals revolved around the magic of music, to which my developing skill with the bow began to contribute more. Whenever the opportunity presented itself – which was increasingly less often, as my father’s absences from home grew longer and more frequent – we’d make music together.

My mother would play the piano, me the violin and my father would sing. The most memorable moments were those when Natie sang the lilting old melodies of his beloved Yiddish. Most of all, I remember the Yiddish song Zogneit Keyn Mol. His deeply felt singing perfectly complemented Eva’s technically perfect touch on the piano.

He also enjoyed Autumn Leaves, songs from Love Boat and themes from the movies, such as Annie Get Your Gun and Exodus, the political partisan song.

Sadly, none of those songs and extraordinary evenings were ever recorded.

At those times, my older brother, Alan, would sit in his bedroom, taking no interest. My younger brother, Jonathan, would gaze at his clarinet until he decided the effort of playing it was not to his liking. My sisters, Kaylene and Joanne, were still very young. But they enjoyed the music and would clap along with pretty smiles.

In this way we entertained ourselves and wove the fragile illusion of happiness, if only for the length of a few songs. Our melodic soirees, the music drifting off through the house’s open windows, are the warmest and virtually only contented memories I have of my family and childhood.

Alan, who had been plagued by allergies as a child, was older by twenty-three months, but had never been brotherly towards me in any way. I tried to excuse his lack of kindness or simple consideration towards me by blaming our father for often telling him how worthless he thought I was. Whatever the reason, sensitivity eluded my older brother, and single-mindedness and determination were his best qualities. I would have loved a decent relationship with him – but that was never to be. I did my best to cultivate some connection, but Alan was always too preoccupied.

Jonathan, known to everyone as John, was four years my junior and a talented and, by contrast, sensitive and troubled boy. Life at home was kinder for him as Natie’s ally, though. John and I, too, had little to do with each other, which wasn’t helped by Natie choosing John as a confidant. Their closeness should have allowed for a healthy relationship between them, but it turned out to be entirely destructive. John seemed willing to subject himself to limitless hours of Natie’s never-ending tales of woe. No doubt, my father despised me because I showed no interest in his self-pity, and made no secret of that. But my brother was deeply affected by Natie’s apparent inability to manage his life.

And while my little brother wanted to help our father, of course he could not. No one could.

Natie was a force of constant interruption and distraction for John whenever his work commitments hadn’t taken him away from us. When John sat at his desk trying to study, Natie would spend hours talking to him about the latest saga that was captivating him in his ever-smaller world of theatre, fantasy and failure.

But our father’s world was not one I wanted to be part of any more, and so we brothers drifted apart and that gap grew wider when we left home. I last saw John when I left the shadow of Aasvoëlkop more than fifty years ago, though he went on to become a brilliant and acclaimed journalist.

It was a different matter with my sisters, because they had far less contact with our father. Kaylene, ten years younger than me, always bubbled with personality, charm and talent. I tried to be the father she never had. Joanne, the youngest, had even less experience of family and would end up coming to live with me when she was twelve and I was a young man on a career path.

When it came to ignoring or avoiding the bigger issues, my father was the master – the ultimate escapist – particularly when at home. He simply locked himself away in his world of make-­believe. This saved him from following in his father-in-law’s footsteps off the edge of a building, but it also meant he quietly accepted his fate, which grew ever more unkind the more defeated he became.

As time wore on, he cared less for the responsibilities of husband and father and more for how to pass his remaining days in the least unpleasant ways possible. Predictably, that involved increasing amounts of alcohol.

Whatever relationship I had had with Natie was, to all intents, over.

Because of a dual accident of being born in December and starting school a year earlier than many others my age, at the age of sixteen – in 1962 – I matriculated. I set about gaining admission to a local university. It was something of a surprise for me to discover I needed a considerable deposit, payable on registration as a first-year student.

There was no way I would be able to afford even the registration, never mind the fees. I’d have to find a job and try to save money.

There was also the small matter of my brother Alan’s education. He was almost two years older than me, but as his birthday was in January he was only a year ahead of me at school. In the opinion of our fanatical headmaster, his marks had been so low he should have abandoned school in Standard 8 and become an artisan. But Alan was a quiet fellow who had made up his mind to become a doctor. His final-year results were not enough to blow back the hair of anyone at Wits University, but he somehow managed to also obtain a university pass in Afrikaans. That opened up a whole other world of possibility for him.

Without distinctions in any subjects and a decidedly average aggregate, Wits was out of the question. Their unwritten rule was a first-class matric with distinctions in maths and science as the bare minimum.

But these were interesting times. The University of Pretoria was an entirely Afrikaans university operating with substantial government grants on a modern campus with well-equipped laboratories and state-of-the-art equipment. Their facilities outshone those at Wits. It had a large sporting campus with amenities, gardens and recreational facilities that made the Wits offering pale by comparison. Academically, it could also hold its own. It was a statement by the apartheid government that Afrikaans was not only winning the present, but would have a stranglehold on the future too.

Despite this, and due mainly to reputation, the Pretoria university’s fees were less than half those at Wits and the entry requirements were also less stringent. The university had been established to give a leg up to Afrikaans graduates, and its policies arguably formed the basis on which today’s Black Economic Empowerment legislation is based. By definition, its students were meant to be Afrikaans-speaking Christians. All the same, Alan managed to enrol for his first year of medicine. One can only imagine what he told them to gain admission, but such was their enthusiasm for educating “Afrikaners” that they turned a blind eye to his low school results and welcomed him as a freshman in the faculty.

Alan moved to Pretoria and lived with Eva’s uncle and, later, her cousin. Shortly after he started, he summoned me to meet with him.

After explaining it had been no small feat to be accepted as a medical student and, after waiting for me to acknowledge all that he had been through, he said: “I am now going to need money to pay for my university fees, my anatomy skeleton, my books and course material; no one can do medicine part time. One of us will have to work.” He didn’t even pause for breath before adding: “Which is you.”

I was hardly surprised. But I wouldn’t be sold into indentured servitude without a word of resistance.

“And why so obviously me?” I asked him.

He replied coolly: “You’re only doing a BA and will have lots of time in between to work. And besides, you won’t pass anyway.”

It was no use getting angry. I knew my brother too well. He also knew he could depend on me just as I knew I would never be able to depend on him. In his mind, this was honestly what passed for a candid, practical discussion of a problem he had clearly already thought through, the solution to which was as undeniable as it was inescapable.

I took a deep breath and said: “Well, thank you for considering me for this honour. But what is the rest of your enterprising plan? Even if I do work to pay for both of us, we will need money for your registration fees right away.”

He’d thought about this too. “Eva’s brother-in-law Gerry told me I could come to him if I had financial problems.” Gerry was a successful ear, nose and throat specialist.

“So phone and ask him for a loan,” I told him. “And I’ll pay it back to him over a period of time.”

Alan dialled the number. Suddenly, it turned out, Uncle Gerry seemed to have developed acute amnesia, unable to recall anything about his earlier magnanimous gesture. Alan replaced the receiver despondently.

“You will have to call Gertie,” he said.

Gertie was our widowed aunt, Eva’s sister, who’d married a phenomenally successful insurance salesman, Chummy. He’d won the Sun Life of Canada prize for top agent in the world for nine consecutive years and published a book, Sales by the Million. Chummy had died of a heart attack aged just forty-four while on a visit to Japan – leaving Gertie wealthy. I made an appointment to visit her at Chummy’s old office in the city centre.

The interview started with an outburst from her as to what right Natie had to produce five children knowing full well he was incapable of supporting them. She went to great lengths to explain how she had been waiting for the day one of us would come to her, cap in hand.

Once her diatribe passed, I mustered the courage to explain how desperate we were. We immediately needed R47 to pay Alan’s registration fees, but I would repay it over only six months. Gertie didn’t appear to believe me and made a point of phoning the university in my presence to check whether it was the right amount and if it was due and owing.

She went straight back to her complaints. “Your parents had no right to have so many children. You are strong and healthy and there is no reason why you and your brother should not be labourers.”

Had it been only my future on the line, I would have left right there and then and made a point to never see Gertie again. But I had a feeling this was my brother’s one and only shot at realising his dream. There was simply nowhere else to turn.

So I kept trying to make it clear to her I was not asking for any­thing for myself. Leaving with nothing was not an option for me and she probably realised she was up against someone even more stubborn than she was.

I left her office with an undertaking that she would indeed pay Alan’s outstanding account directly and I could then repay her. It was then left to me to visit the university bookshop and come to an arrangement with them for credit on Alan’s behalf.

Gertie had humiliated me. I am not sure what I imagined I’d encounter: perhaps an understanding relative who might deem it a pleasure to advance funds for a bright and promising nephew struggling to pay his fees at medical school. It wasn’t as if we were begging her for money to put a drug-addicted brother through rehab. Alan was a good boy with big dreams and she had more than enough money to spare. I’d perhaps half expected her to offer to pay for him out of sheer kindness. But this was not to be.

My resentment at her remark about our being better suited to becoming labourers also never left me.

But at least my brother had his chance to become a doctor – and I wanted him to succeed more than ever, if only to prove people like Gertie wrong. I had few doubts he would excel, despite his previously poor academic record. I knew that once Alan put his mind to something, it was as good as done.

He would make a brilliant doctor, I thought, though probably too cold, a little too lacking in sympathy. All the same, he would not be the first medical scholar with a heart of ice.

Now Alan’s desperate benefactor, I abandoned my caravan and responded to an advert for lodgers at Number 51 Honey Street, Berea, an old double-storey house owned by two quiet survivors of the Treblinka concentration camp, Sam and Mrs Kursman.

I told Mrs Kursman – whose first name I never found out – that I could not afford her minimum rate of R25 a month, including breakfast, to stay in one of the bedrooms. I asked if she might consider a rate for me to sleep on a stretcher in her garage.

She politely declined, as her seven cats already tenanted that space. But Mrs K was a kindly soul, intent on doing her best to accommodate as many people as she could.

She suggested I buy a stretcher and place it in the pantry adjoining the kitchen, as long as it would still be possible to open the door and slide through the gap. I assured her I would find a stretcher small enough to allow someone to squeeze between the wall and the door. It would be more than enough for me.

I found a stretcher for R10 and kept my meagre belongings in a cardboard box below it. We agreed on a rate of R14 a month, excluding electricity. To start with, there was neither a light nor electric plug in the room anyway.

Mrs K, however, later agreed to let me connect a wire to a defunct electrical connection in the ceiling and attach a globe to the end of it. All I needed was a screwdriver and a bit of insulation tape. Thanks to that single bulb, my rental went up by fifty cents a month, but the improvement was priceless. I placed pictures of my favourite paintings on the walls and enjoyed being welcomed home each evening by this sliver of a room and its colourful array of Impressionist images. Unable to afford any original art, the pictures, of course, were all cut out of magazines and second-hand books I had come across at junk sales.

When I looked at that art, bathed in the orange light from my bulb, I didn’t feel like a vulnerable teenager living in a pantry. I felt like a man in touch with greatness. I could lose myself in the colourful expanses captured by those poor reproductions. But through the eyes of those artists, my world felt limitless.

To me, of all the French Impressionists, the one whose work I found most fascinating – much like my granduncle Karnielsohn once had – was Claude Monet, who had produced a vast series of paintings called Mornings on the Seine. To create them, he had painted Paris’s river in its many guises throughout his life and used that inimitable setting to explore the transformative effects of light and atmosphere. Monet’s painting Impression, Sunrise led to the word ‘Impressionism’ in the first place. One can only guess how many hundreds of perspectives of the Seine he produced before he died in 1926. Many other Impressionist painters were inspired by the light, beauty and mystery of Paris’s lovely river and took to setting up their easels along its banks, the very place my great-uncle probably met and befriended some of them.

I derived great comfort from those photographs of the old masterpieces. I could imagine myself one day taking long walks along the riverbank, gazing over the shoulders of aspiring artists – and perhaps identifying the next Monet myself.

Standing in that spartan pantry with the idea of doing anything like that must have seemed like a remote and impossible dream, and anyone seeing me there could not have had the faintest idea of the grand thoughts swirling through my young mind. How big and sweeping my ambitions were … transcending anything that humble space might have suggested.