(Author: Charlotte Cohen, Vol. 64, #1, Pesach 2009)
Mrs. Weinburg lived in a flat on the second floor of a block that stood right opposite my grandmother’s house.
They had both been immigrants, both spoke Yiddish and English (with a slight accent), both kept a kosher home, did their shopping early in the morning, and cooked themselves a hot midday meal – full of goodness: a stew, or braised chicken or meat with vegetables. (I doubt whether my grandmother ever tasted ‘steak and chips’ in her life! That, together with things like ‘ice-cream and hot-chocolate-sauce’, a ‘fondue’ or ‘cooking with wine’ were considered alien and rather decadent – and something I doubt whether she would ever have contemplated eating or giving to her family.)
They spoke about ‘the kinde’, about ‘shikses’, about ‘having mazel’ – and they spoke about each other behind each other’s backs. They never discussed politics, world affairs, sex, or finance – except when the price of potatoes went up. Their lives extended only to their homes, their children, their grandchildren (most important!), how to save money, and centred around the kitchen.
They both rested in the afternoon, attended the same shul, played rummy, kept the Blue Box in prominence and paid cash for everything.
But that’s where the similarity ended.
Whereas my grandmother was small and sprightly, Mrs. Weinburg was big and buxom. Granny wore her hair short and permed. Mrs. Weinburg rolled her hair into a big bun at the back of her neck.
Whereas Mrs. Weinburg was known as ‘Bobba’ to her family, my grandmother was never called that. She was ‘Granny’ – not only to her grandchildren and sons and daughters, but to her maid, the gardener, the postman, the vegetable man, the grocer and in fact, the whole village. (Actually, as a child, I simply assumed she had been named ‘Granny’ at birth.)
Whereas Mrs. Weinburg’s speciality was cheesecake, Granny’s was teiglach. And although they apparently did the same things, they had different views on everything.
They lived across the road from each other for ten years, but never ever regarded each other as friends – only neighbours. Similar in background and outlook, they nevertheless considered their association as one more of chance than of choice – that they’d been thrown together merely because they lived opposite each other in the same street.
Each morning when they returned from the shops, each would stand in their own kitchen and prepare a hot midday meal. Never once did they sit down to have lunch together. Never once, in the ten years, did Granny refer to Mrs. Weinburg as anything besides here legally married title. They were not on first name terms. It was ‘Granny’ and ‘Mrs. Weinburg’.
Granny would cook lunch for ‘the girl’ (the English equivalent of ‘shikse’) as well, and would seat her at the kitchen table at precisely 12.30 a.m. so that Granny could serve it to her. Granny was a creature of habit. Never mind not entertaining Mrs. Weinburg to lunch, Granny never ever entertained the thought of eating lunch any later. One of the main reasons was probably that Granny always felt slightly intimidated that she had domestic help at all, and considered it mandatory that ‘the girl’ had to ‘go off’ at 1.00 p.m. – by which time everything used in the kitchen would have to be washed up, dried up and put away.
Mrs. Weinburg always ate her lunch at 1 p.m. It was her theory that this gave one’s breakfast time to digest and that it would sustain her longer and that the afternoon would not stretch out so much in front of her.
Being neighbours, they did pop in to each other every now and then, to have tea, to complain about their children and boast about their grandchildren. When they did, they always brought something over for the other on a small while china plate. It was hard to imagine how it started: a piece of freshly-baked strudel would be brought over – aimed primarily at a compliment on how good it tasted or how light it was. The plate would then be returned with a piece of ginger cake. And once again, the plate would arrive spread with a little chopped herring. I don’t think either remembered whose plate it was originally. Yet each regarded the other’s offering with conjecture and suspicion; that it was not any gesture of friendship, but rather that it was ‘owed’ – and because an old Jewish tradition directed that one should never return an empty plate.
For ten years, they remained wary of each other, sizing up and criticizing each other where they could and accepting each other with resignation as a necessary evil.
Every Saturday morning, Mrs. Weinburg would fetch Granny for shul and they would go to God’s House together to pray and pay their respects to Him.
When they returned, Granny would always tell me that Mrs. Weinburg had not stopped complaining all the way there and all the way back how her feet were hurting her. And Granny would invariably add that this was entirely Mrs. Weinburg’s own fault as she was too mean to buy a pair of genuine leather shoes. And whenever Mrs. Weinburg saw me, she would shake her head and comment how Granny walked almost a mile further down the main road so that she could buy potatoes one cent cheaper. “She’s got enough money to buy Africa”, she would say, “Does she think she can take it with her?” And then Granny would tell me how Mrs. Weinburg always asked if she could ‘borrow’ her newspaper when she had finished reading it, and that Mrs. Weinburg’s meanness was getting on her nerves. And Mrs. Weinburg would remark how she found Granny sewing two old dishcloths together to make a washing-up lappie – which she considered to be the height of meanness when Granny could easily buy Africa if she wanted.
They both regarded the Sabbath as holy. Another statutory law was that one did not spend – or even touch – money on a Saturday. However, Granny loved going to the matinee at the bioscope on the corner every Saturday afternoon. To her, this was also religion: She never got over the thrill of being entertained by Hollywood movie stars, and for just the price of a cinema ticket, being magically transported into a world of comedy, drama, romance and adventure. But to honour the Sabbath, as she had to, and in order not to break one of the ten commandments, Granny had an arrangement with the bioscope manager whereby she could purchase her ticket on a Friday afternoon.
I think Mrs. Weinburg would also like to have
gone to the matinee – but she never dared!
To her, what Granny did was illegal. “She’s
twisting the law to suit herself” she told me.
To Granny’s mind, she was not guilty of breaking any laws or twisting anything, and she continued buying her ticket on a Friday afternoon so that she could go to the matinee on Saturday. Mrs. Weinburg spent Friday afternoon getting herself ready and preparing something to take to her daughter, where she went every Friday night for dinner.
……. And then came the night of the fire.
Mrs. Weinburg was fetched as usual by her sonin-law on Friday evening on his way home from work. Granny was already in bed at 7.30 p.m. She always retired early on Friday nights as she was tired from the day’s activity in preparing for Shabbat (on Friday afternoon, Granny’s kitchen remained open and in operation until 4 o’clock) and so that she would also be fresh for her walk to and from shul the next morning and for her matinee in the afternoon.
She was summoned by an intrusive, insistent ringing of her front door bell. With much trepidation and demands to know who it was or she’d call the police, she opened the door when the caller identified himself as the man who lived in the flat directly below that of Mrs. Weinburg’s. He spoke with great urgency. Did Granny know where Mrs. Weinburg was?
Apparently, someone who had been walking in the street, happened to glance up at Mrs. Weinburg’s window and saw a fire.
Getting no reply from Mrs. Weinburg’s flat, he reported it to the couple who lived downstairs. They went out to investigate, and also saw “flames leaping from the inside of the window”. He said his wife had already called the fire brigade and if Granny knew where Mrs. Weinburg was, could she contact her.
“She’s at her daughter’s house” Granny panted. She peered behind him into the street and saw a number of people already gathered to watch how the fire was progressing, including all the tenants of the flats who had evacuated their premises.
With hands trembling and heart pounding, Granny grabbed the telephone directory and frantically paged though it for Mrs. Weinburg’s daughters name, which she couldn’t remember as her mind had suddenly also gone blank. “It starts with a ‘Sh’”, Granny shouted at the man, “They live in Forest Drive. Sh- … Sh- …may be Shw-”
“Sher?’ he suggested helpfully. Granny shook her head.
“Schultz? Schnieder? Shapiro? ..”
Granny remembered. “Shulman!” she shrieked, “It’s Shulman!”
The man looked up the telephone number and left Granny to call Mrs. Weinburg.
Granny knew that the time for diplomacy and tact had come – and to remain calm.
Mrs. Weinburg’s daughter answered the phone.
“Good Shabbos,” Granny said pleasantly. “Do you think it’s at all possible to speak with your mother? I have some important news for her.”
Mrs. Weinburg came to the phone. “Hello!, hello!” she said.
“Well, hello, Saidy” said Granny (as this was the first time Granny had ever addressed Mrs. Weinburg by her first name, without hearing anything else, this alone would have been enough to place Mrs. Weinburg into a state of shock), “Have you finished your dinner yet?”
“Almost” said Mrs. Weinburg, “We’re just on the pudding”.
“Your daughter’s a good cook, isn’t she?” said Granny.
“She’s coming on,” said Mrs. Weinburg.
“Look, Saidy, I don’t want you should get upset or anything, but perhaps you should ask your son-inlaw to bring you home now, because your flat is just burning down.”
Five minutes later, Mrs. Weinburg arrived at Granny’s house in her son-in-law’s car and in a state of acute shock. The fire engine had just arrived as well and was parked on the pavement alongside Mrs. Weinburg’s window. She took one look at Granny, threw herself into her arms and burst out crying. With tears in her eyes and a stiff upper lip, Granny rose to the occasion.
“Saidy” she said as she patted her, “Just don’t worry! The insurance will pay for everything. Have a little brandy. It’ll calm your nerves.”
Mrs. Weinburg was almost fainting. She was escorted across the street, supported on each side by her daughter and by Granny – resplendent in her old pink wool dressing-gown and a floral doek over her curlers – to keep her ‘set’ in. Her son-in-law had gone ahead to examine the disaster from the road. There was no doubt. Flickering flames could be seen from the inside of the window. The fire brigade had not lost a second: They were already upstairs and broken Mrs. Weinburg’s front door.
Granny, with her arm around Mrs. Weinburg, kept comforting her ….. “You can sleep at my place, Saidy. I’ve got a spare bed – with linen, and of course, you can eat your meals with me. Your son-inlaw will fix up the insurance … Maybe if they can just save some of your clothes – although you look very nice in what you’re wearing … and a nightie I can always lend you.”
Mrs. Weinburg looked catatonic. She remained like that even when her son-in-law emerged from the front entrance of the building, with two firemen in tow. They appeared completely overcome.
“There’s no fire!” they announced.
The words were uttered with a mixture of relief and disbelief – mainly the latter. Everyone stared at them with only disbelief.
But it was true!
After breaking into Mrs. Weinburg’s flat, all they had found burning were Mrs. Weinburg’s two Shabbos candles, which she had religiously lit before she left and which were still flickering on the sideboard in front of the window- which is where she always kept her candlesticks.
It was true she had forgotten to close the curtains, and that in the night, from the street, the reflection of the light on the window pane, did make it look like flames. No one could be blamed for thinking it looked like a fire, and acting accordingly.
But from that night, things were different! False alarm or not, real or imagined, the fire remained as authentic as if it had actually happened.
Mrs. Weinburg and Granny had now suffered adversity together. They had undergone the same trauma. Both had shared the experience of helplessness in the face of catastrophe; and of needing a friend and being a friend. Mrs.Weinburg had turned to Granny in her time of trouble – and Granny had offered and strengthened her with her consolation.
Someone once said: “The same flame that melts the butter, makes the iron hard” – which has no real relevance to this story, except that it’s a nice line. …. But from that night, Mrs. Weinburg (Saidy) and Granny, became friends.
I never heard Mrs. Weinburg complain about Granny again, or vice versa. They took pride in each other’s ‘achievements’. They emulated each other whenever they could.
Granny told me that Mrs. Weinburg’s daughter had given her an old dress, which Mrs Weinburg had let out and lengthened slightly and moved the buttons and taken off the collar and which now looked better than new! And did I have any old dresses that Granny could renovate for herself for summer?
And Mrs. Weinburg told me of this wonderful idea of Granny’s of saving all the old bits of soap and putting them all into a little bag, which one could then soak with the washing to save using washing powder.
And Granny told me that if I had a simchah, I should order the cheesecakes from Mrs. Weinburg because there was no one in the whole of Africa who could make them better.
And one day, after coming out of shul, Mrs.Weinburg reached the conclusion that it would actually be quite legal to go to bioscope on a Saturday afternoon – provided you walked there and back and bought your ticket on a Friday, like Granny did – and didn’t tear any paper.
She always, therefore, made sure that she went to the toilet at home before accompanying Granny to the matinee.
….. And so, although there had never been a real fire in Mrs. Weinburg’s flat, the light from her flickering Shabbos candles continued to shine and burn brightly in their lives for all the years that followed. They never lost the warmth that they found on that fateful night.
Charlotte Cohen is a frequent contributor of essays and short stories to a wide range of South African publications, both Jewish and general. The above first appeared in the 22 March 1985 issue of the Zionist Record and SA Jewish Chronicle and was that year’s winner of the Jacob Gitlin Library’s 25th anniversary short story competition.
