(Author: Alec Natas, Vol. 70, No. 3, Chanukah 2015)
Editor’s note: The following is taken from Alec Natas’s Almost Yesterday – Memoirs of a Lithuanian Childhood (SA Jewish Museum, Cape Town, 2014), and is reproduced with the kind permission of the publishers. The memoir first appeared in Hebrew in 1981, published by Hakibbutz Hameuchad. This English-languages version by the author was edited by Evelyn Benatar. Born in Lithuania in 1907, Alec Natas immigrated as a youth to South Africa, where he died, aged 106, in 2007. He was the brother of the eminent Judaic scholar, writer and educationalist Moshe Natas (who likewise lived to be over a hundred).
I was invited to spend Hanukah with my relatives. Hanukah, the holiday of miracles and the pride of the Jewish nation, when the Maccabees defeated the Greeks and saw the miracle of a small jar of oil burning for eight days.
That year I was to have my own private Hanukah miracle. I was told Shmuel would also be there. Shmuel was the only Jewish banker in Kovno. He was driven through the streets in his own automobile, puffing a fat cigar and sitting behind a chauffeur who was dressed in black leather uniform. Shmuel! His name had a magic sound to his family, a name to bring smiles to the lips and tears to the eyes. He was their biblical Joseph. They bowed to him. “Shmuel is coming! Shmuel is coming!”
And in expectation of a visit from him his father, with his myopic eyes, would run about the house, stopping now and again, nervously combing his scraggy beard, perpetually asking, “Ha? Ha? Where is he? Where is Shmuel?” His mother had already combed her hair, put on a new dress and a special smile, a Shmuel smile! And when Shmuel strolled into his father’s house, his four sisters and three brothers greeted him and trailed behind him.
Shmuel was a broad-boned man, short and rotund, serious and unsmiling. “Bankers don’t smile”, he appeared to be saying. Money is too serious a matter to be taken lightly. Shmuel came for lunch one day when I happened to be there. I was afraid to utter a sound that might distract the family from the glory that was Shmuel. Nobody spoke while waiting for him to sit down. His silences were truly golden in a way that pleased me. I could eat as much as I wanted. Nobody saw me. I was invisible behind the aura of light that was Shmuel.
Shmuel had offered to give me a lift back to the studio in a blizzard one day. Since then my prestige with the family had grown. I had sat in a car for the first time in my life, afraid to breath, afraid to inhale the air from Shmuel’s car, afraid to exhale and pollute the gleaming interior with my own insignificant breath. The interior smelled of benzene, hair lotion, expensive leather and cigars.
That Hanukah, I didn’t change my suit since I had no other. I didn’t shave because I didn’t grow hair on my face. The only thing I had was an enormous appetite. My stomach was full of butterflies on that great day. The colourful Hanukah candles burned brightly, reminding us of miracles past and a promise of miracles in the future, perhaps.
The family was nervous. As always, they stood at the windows waiting for Shmuel. The old man kept milking his sparse ginger beard. “Nu? When? Where is he? Where is Shmuel?”
The table was set for Shmuel. It was piled high with crispy rolls. The smell of fried potato fritters caused my head to float free of my body. Only my appetite remained rooted to my stomach.
“Shmuel” someone shouted. “Shmuel is coming!”
Everybody ran out to greet him. We sat round the table. The food was choice and savoury, sweet and filling. I ate as much as my stomach could accommodate. No one looked at me.
“Another latke, Shmuel? More soup, Shmuel? Eat, eat, Shmuel.”
After the meal, Shmuel took out his cigar and ten hands stretched out towards him with lighted matches.
“Children,” Shmuel said, “let’s play Hanukah dreidlach.” He included me in this invitation. I felt very bad as I didn’t have a cent in my pocket. Shmuel took out a wallet so fat with money that I thought he had brought all his money, afraid of leaving it in his bank. He dished out fifty litto each member of family, including me. Fifty lit!! A month’s wages! I wished I could have taken the money home with me.
The game commenced.
It could have been fun but for my fears at seeing my money disappear. I looked up to the Hanukah candles and wished for a miracle. And my miracle happened. Suddenly I was winning! The small jar of oil was burning brightly that Hanukah. Mounds of lits were piling up in front of me. But the fear of losing was bulging in my heart like the money in Shmuel’s wallet.
I wished the game were over. But Shmuel wasn’t in a mood to lose. He dipped into his black wallet and took out more money. He didn’t seem to be a bit nervous. Or was he pretending, I wondered? His mother kept saying, “Perhaps you’ll stop now, Shmuel? You’re losing too much money.” But he never wavered. He certainly had nerves. But then, a banker has to have nerves.
Suddenly, he said, “Enough, children, I’m tired. Have a happy Hanukah.” Everybody gathered their little piles of winnings and put them in their pockets.
Now tea and cakes were served. And again, Shmuel pulled out his wallet and held out a wad of notes. “Here mama, Hanukah money.”
Tears flowed from her eyes. She hugged and kissed him. “Oi, my child, how good you are to us! May God repay you and bless you for being such a good son.”
May God bless him indeed! I ran all the way home, the money burning a delicious hole in my pocket. I was a banker!
How much? How much did I win? The temperature was far below zero but I felt like a burning brand as I ran into my garret. I lit the candle, bolted the door, emptied my pockets and piled my treasure trove before me. Fifty! Sixty! One hundred! One hundred and fifty lit! A fortune! I had never held so much money in my hands before. I was rich! One hundred and fifty lit! One hundred and fifty coupons for borscht and bread at the Workers’ Kitchen! Or a pair of trousers, or a pair of warm shoes to walk in the snow! How lovely to lie in my cold, narrow bed and dream such warm dreams. And I had the power to make those dreams come true.
The Natas family leaving Lithuania for South Africa
