Jessica (45 page)

‘No, sir, I don't think so. We come down in the train and come straight on here.'

‘Very well, Miss Bergman, you may stay in one of our minimum-security wards until your committal is confirmed.' He reached over and picked up a small brass bell and rang it. A sullen-looking nurse of indeterminate age appeared at the door. ‘She's to be placed in a low security ward until further notice,' the weary physician instructed, scribbling an admission slip and handing it to the woman.

‘Come,' the nurse said, taking Jessica roughly by the elbow and escorting her to the door. ‘We'll have no crying here, stop it at once!' And so life in a mental asylum began for Jessica.

Tommy Holbrook took a step towards Jessica then stopped. ‘Don't let the mongrels beat ya, Jessie. You come home soon, ya hear?' he called after her.

Dr Warwick looked up and in a desultory tone said, ‘Constable, in the time between now and your becoming the police superintendent, it might be as well to keep your opinions of those of us who labour in this parlous institution to yourself.'

‘Yes, sir. Certainly, sir,' were the last words Jessica would hear spoken by someone from home for almost four years.

Jessica never received a second examination, and she was never officially declared insane. The system simply took over and she became an inmate, an anonymous set of digits, Number 4281, which gave her no rights and no freedom and, because of her insanity, was regarded as attached to a name without a personality of its own. Jessica soon learned that her only hope of returning to the outside world was to be examined by three outside doctors appointed to the governing board. Each would be required to see her separately, a task which no one in the wards could remember ever having been undertaken. The three-member examining board only visited the hospital twice yearly and when they did, they enjoyed a splendid lunch given by the Medical Supervisor which invariably terminated in the late afternoon after brandy and cigars and with a great deal of
bonhomie
from all concerned. They left promptly at four o'clock, usually too inebriated to walk in a straight line. Jessica also learned that there was a further catch to this impossible scenario for escape. No such examination could be held until her family or someone of equal responsibility first agreed to take her under their supervision for a probationary period of six months after her release from the asylum.

In her first year at the institution Jessica wrote to Hester and Meg on seven separate occasions to beg them to meet these conditions — to give her a chance to prove her sanity, promising in return not to make trouble.

She received no reply. Hester and Meg had utterly deserted her.

She then wrote to old Dr Merrick, explaining her circumstances and begging him, as an act of mercy, to come to Sydney to identify her as the patient he had found to be pregnant. But the letter was returned unopened with the notation on the front of the envelope by the Postmaster at Wagga Wagga:
Addressee deceased.

Under Jessica's gentle care and friendship, Moishe Goldberg made such splendid progress that after a year, and with the importuning of the Chief Rabbi of Sydney who somehow arranged for the three gentlemen doctors to assess him, he was allowed to leave, and placed into the care of his family. The impossible had happened and Jessica comforted herself with the notion that if it could happen once then it could happen again.

Moishe Goldberg had been away from Callan Park barely a week when he arrived back to visit Jessica with an armload of books. As it turned out, the books were simply an excuse to visit her. They'd gone for a walk within the high walls of the institution and Moishe had halted under one of the English oaks in the park, the pride and joy of the hospital, which was described in a government report concerning the lunatic asylum as ‘A garden of pleasure, a bit of Old England in a faraway land'.

‘Jessie,' Moishe said suddenly and clumsily, ‘marry me.'

Jessica was completely taken aback. She had never contemplated the likelihood of a proposal from the young Jew. Moishe had once told her he couldn't marry until after the revolution, after the overthrow of the capitalists. This decision had not evolved from a discussion concerning his feelings towards her, but was simply a statement he'd made in the course of some conversation. ‘A man going to war does not leave a wife behind to mourn him should he die,' he'd declared rather melodramatically at the time, reminding her of Jack.

‘What do you mean?' she asked now, touching her chest. ‘Me marry
you?'

Moishe nodded, increasingly embarrassed.

‘Why?' she asked, too surprised to be tactful.

‘Jessie, just think, it could be your way out of here! Besides, I now know I love you.' Moishe raked his bony fingers down his face. ‘I've been gone a week and I've not slept a wink for thinking of you.'

Despite the knowledge that marriage to Moishe Goldberg might eventually lead to her freedom, Jessica refused his compassionate offer. She was smart enough to know that whatever had happened between herself and Moishe, he'd never be completely cured of his dark moods and she didn't want another Joe in her life. Besides, she didn't love Moishe Goldberg. Jack Thomas, she told herself, was the only man she would ever love. She would find another way to gain her freedom.

In her imagination Jessica could see Joe shaking his head. ‘Jessie, yer too bloody stubborn, get the hell out of there, girlie! Yiz can always bugger off from that Jewboy!' Moishe's father, Solly Goldberg, a butcher of kosher poultry with a nice sideline in German sausage, had been overjoyed at the news of Jessica's rejection of his son's proposal of marriage.

However, he was also a man of conscience and felt he owed a debt to Jessica for the return of his prodigal son to the bosom of the family. And so he decided to come out to Callan Park to thank her, not only for her care and kindness to Moishe but also for rejecting his son's hand in marriage.

Bondi Beach to Rozelle is a long way to come on a hot Sunday and Solly Goldberg was a big man, sufficiently rotund so that his arms were only just long enough for his hands to clasp about his middle. He took the electric tram into the city from Bondi Beach and then the omnibus from the Town Hall out to Callan Park, lugging a large basket loaded with several bottles of lemonade and crammed with Jewish delicacies which Moishe's mother had prepared for Jessica.

Solly Goldberg was plainly not accustomed to any activity which required self-locomotion and by the time he arrived at the asylum he was huffing and puffing like a sawmill engine.

Jessica had been waiting out the front for him, having been informed of his proposed visit by Moishe who, despite her rejection of him, still came to see her each week. She didn't quite know what to expect. While Moishe spoke often enough of his father, he'd never taken the trouble to describe him. Jessica supposed he might look somewhat like Moishe, who was tall and almost thin enough, he often joked, to slide through the brass letter slot in a door.

Therefore it was somewhat of a surprise when a huge bear of a man with a red and profusely sweating face lumbered up the path leading to the main entrance of the asylum. Seated at the back of his bald head, he wore a brown derby hat — which Jessica was later to discover covered a skull cap — though without a single hair on his head she could never understand how either managed to stay on Solly's cranium. He was making heavy work of his progress and when he eventually reached her he stood for a moment, panting. ‘Miss Bergman, my compliments,' the huge man said breathlessly. Jessica noticed that the coarse cotton shirt under his jacket was so wet with the effort of his journey that it clung to the surface of his expansive stomach and clearly showed the outline of his navel. The
tzittzit
— the tassels hanging from his waist, which he later explained to her were the fringes of his prayer shawl, that he wore inside his shirt — dripped with perspiration.

‘Mr Goldberg?' Jessica asked tentatively.

‘Solly Goldberg, kosher butcher,' Moishe's father announced. Then, placing the basket at his feet, he wiped his hand on the backside of his ample trousers before extending it to Jessica.

‘Nice ter meetcha, Mr Goldberg,' Jessica replied nervously, her hand lost in his huge, clammy paw.

Solly Goldberg took a step backwards and, with his head tilted slightly, he appraised Jessica. ‘So pretty,' he said, ‘but too thin! If you were a chicken I send you to the fat farm.' He had a merry laugh and Jessica's nervousness began to disappear. ‘Come, Miss Bergman, we make a picnic. I talk, you eat.'

Jessica helped Solly Goldberg to spread a picnic rug under one of the English oak trees in the asylum grounds. He set about the task of attending to her appetite. With a sweep of the hand he indicated the large basket. ‘Miss Bergman, everything we have here, compliments Mrs Goldberg. Eat, my dear, tomorrow maybe comes a pogrom, who knows?'

Jessica, who hadn't seen as much delicious food in over a year, could scarcely believe her eyes.

‘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?'