Dragons & Butterflies: Sentenced to Die, Choosing to Live (7 page)

On a Saturday night a couple of days after my operation, we had a disco at Arcadia. The majority of the younger kids went to Saxonwold Primary School, and many of their friends came to the dance. It was here that I met a pretty girl named Andy Raven, who may have been slightly younger than me. She had long black hair that cascaded down her shoulders almost to her lower back. While we were slow dancing and she was really close, I became aroused and experienced an instant pain in my groin. Without saying a word to her, I ran to the toilet and pulled down my pants. My stitches were stretching and the wound had opened up. No more slow dancing for me that night! The revelation of me being Jewish was both painful and interestingly educational as I began to embrace the culture bestowed upon me by my maternal grandparents.

During school holidays the children in the orphanage who weren’t able to spend the holidays with their loved ones had the choice of either going to Durban and staying with a Jewish family there (Joan chose this option) or attending Bnei Akiva youth camp down on the coast. From the first year at Arcadia this was what I opted for. Going to Bnei Akiva camp was the best thing that ever happened to me in those early days at Arcadia. Each of us at the home had, at some stage in our young lives, experienced things that were too painful to think about, let alone talk about. Those experiences would nevertheless have a profound impact on the way we thought and functioned. Not only did Bnei Akiva enable me suppress some difficult childhood memories, but it also gave me a sense of belonging and worth. Finally I could begin to embrace what appeared to represent the beginning of a more wholesome life.

Instruction in Judaism, and the requirement to keep Shabbos (the Sabbath) and daven (pray) three times a day, formed an integral part of our routine. I remember one year, on our return from camp, Danny had become much more religious and was influential in encouraging some of us to become more observant and devoted. It was also compulsory for all the children to learn basic Hebrew.

In 1972, Doc and Ma retired. The new incumbents at Arcadia were Philip and Sylvia Duzzy, and their arrival coincided with preparation for my Bar Mitzvah, the ceremony where a Jewish boy of 13 years old becomes recognised as an adult. There were three of us who were having our Bar Mitzvah. Mr Duzzy was an excellent
chazzan
(cantor) and he taught me my Bar Mitzvah portion, but, because my Hebrew wasn’t up to scratch, I learnt it by rote. I dreaded my sessions with Mr Duzzy. He had the most terrible breath, which made me even more eager to learn my Torah portion as quickly as possible.

Then the big day finally arrived when I became a man and could now be counted as one of the
minyan
, the quorum of ten Jewish adults required for certain religious obligations when worshipping in the synagogue. The
shul
was packed. The only relatives of mine who were there were my mother and sister, but my good friend Harry from Parktown Boys’ High School came along, too. I was dreading standing on the
bima
and singing in front of all the guests. My legs were shaking. When it came to my turn to sing, one of the senior Arc boys, Gary Joffee, attempted secretly to record me by trying to work between my legs a microphone attached to a cassette recorder. He kept touching me, and, as nervous as I already was, having him fiddling around between my legs made it even more difficult for me to concentrate.

The atmosphere in the
shul
was incredibly spiritual. Everybody was silent. I felt as if
Hashem
was there, watching and blessing me as I made my transition into manhood. After the reception, and when all the guests were gone, we boys sat on our beds checking out our gifts. Unlike the other boys, I received only a few envelopes with vouchers and cash.

A few months after Joan and I went to live at Arcadia, our mother went back to Hungary. She stayed in touch, but her visits during our time there were periodic and never for very long. After a couple of years she returned to South Africa and stayed for a while with friends in Vanderbijlpark and Johannesburg. Then she went back to Budapest again and would come out on holiday when she could. When she did come to see us, she brought gifts of clothing and toiletries. For her, these visits were always emotional, and I think they brought her as much pain as they did joy.

As for me, I loved it at Arcadia and it did not take me long to adjust to life there and to accept that this was my home. While I enjoyed my mother’s visits, I didn’t really understand the emotion around them or whether I needed to feel anything. The fact that she came to see us whenever she could, as she had promised, showed us that she cared, but I never wanted to leave when she left or to consider a life outside of the life I had made at Arcadia.

My two fathers – Fritz, my biological father, and Janos, whose negative influence in my tender years remains with me to this day – played no active role in my life. My sister Joan was my family.

Television came to South Africa in 1976, and I remember the occasion when Arcadia received its first set. It had been donated by a benefactor and there was a whole ceremony to mark its arrival. Many of us refused to pose for the photo because we saw the whole affair as a publicity stunt intended to glorify the benefactor and to an extent humiliate the recipients. Some Arcs were sensitive to this type of exhibitionism; in comparison to our peers from the different schools we attended, we led an underprivileged lifestyle and we didn’t need to have it rubbed in. Nevertheless, this did not diminish our excitement and enthusiasm at actually having our very own TV.

On the first night that we were going to witness the debut of the new phenomenon, everyone scrambled to get to the library straight after dinner to try and get the best seats. The table where I ate was right next to the entrance to the dining room and adjacent to the committee room, and so I was the first to reach the door. I grabbed the door handle and yanked, expecting the door to fly open. It was locked. By then most of the kids were piling up behind me and a slight commotion of chatter and confusion ensued as we impatiently waited for the door to be opened. Then we heard the clanging of keys and an all too familiar voice, shouting with authority.

‘Line, line, line up!’

It was Vicky.

The muttering of discontented kids persisted in a low moan as a few of us reluctantly began to form a semblance of a queue. Then, before I could stop myself, I yelled, ‘Would you like us to buy tickets as well?’ This was greeted with an outburst of laughter by the other children, but Vicky didn’t appreciate my witticism.

‘Get to your room! You are punished. No television for you!’ he shouted, grabbing me by the arm.

‘Who wants to watch stupid TV anyway?’ I mumbled cockily under my breath as I made my exit.

As they watched me go, everyone fell silent. It was as if there was a collective realisation that, in future, this form of entertainment would also become an instrument of punishment.

Although the novelty of television had worn off even before I got to watch it, my spirits weren’t that easily dampened. I was only too aware of the conveniences the TV room had to offer. I settled down in my dormitory, but before long I was summoned by Vicky. He put his arm around my neck, pulled me into his embrace, and in an apologetic tone said that I was welcome to go and watch TV if I wanted to. I thanked him and expressed my regret at my disrespectful outburst. I think I learnt a very important lesson that night: it didn’t matter who was wrong or who was right in a confrontation: in order to pacify or bring about a cessation of hostilities between two parties, an apology went a long way. This would stand me in good stead many times in my life.

In the weeks and months that followed, the library, which officially became known as the TV room, became a refuge and a safe haven from the many distractions that were part of everyday life in Arcadia. For those of us who, on occasion, bunked out of the home, the TV room also became our alibi. When asked where we’d been we would innocently respond: ‘We were watching TV.’

Watching TV also gave us the opportunity to get intimate with the girls. I mean, what could be more romantic than watching
The Brady Bunch
of a Friday evening while holding your girlfriend’s hand?

When I was about 14 years old, puberty set in with a vengeance. My interest in the opposite sex was becoming fervently apparent. By then Sammy Lasker, Charles Goldman and I were well into our unrelenting reign of mischief, and there wasn’t a single room in Arcadia or a building in its vicinity that we couldn’t get into. However, most of our attention was focused on the girls, especially the seniors. One favourite activity was to target a girl and stalk her. Then one of us would distract her while the other would come from behind and look up her dress. Sometimes we even used this ploy on our female teachers.

The ideal focus for our prying adolescent eyes was the public telephone. Here, the girls seemed to spend hours on end talking to their boyfriends and not focusing on anything else. A pen-size flashlight became an indispensable commodity for us, and Charles Goldman also kept a small mirror permanently in his pocket. We eventually got bored with this game, though. We wanted to see the real thing – a completely naked woman. And so this became our mission.

At that time I was secretly in love with one of the girls at Arcadia. She oozed femininity and had all the qualities that appealed to me, so we began to devise a cunning plan to see her without her clothes on. After several failed attempts, we figured that the best time would be on a Saturday morning, just before lunch and before the senior girls returned from a morning basking in the sun at the swimming pool, which was a regular activity in summer. Sammy and I swam and sunbathed, the picture of innocence, while inconspicuously keeping an eye on her. She was the type of girl you couldn’t help staring at anyway, and no doubt she was accustomed to it. After a while she began gathering her things together and preparing to go indoors. Sammy and I sprang into action. We sprinted to the senior girls’ dormitory.

After some careful manoeuvring, we managed to sneak into her room unnoticed. I hid under her bed while Sammy crawled under my sister Joan’s bed. And there we were, anxiously awaiting our target’s arrival, hearts in our mouths. I was suddenly nervous and starting to become apprehensive. I wasn’t sure that I could go through with our scheme, after all. I mean, what if we were caught? We were dead quiet, but the silence was almost deafening. Beads of sweat formed on my forehead. Then we heard the creaking of the wooden floorboards, which intensified with the approaching footsteps and seemed to reverberate with the pounding of my heart.

I suddenly decided I was too young for so much excitement. I desperately wanted to get out of there. How on earth had I got here in the first place, I berated myself. Much as I wanted to, I couldn’t blame Sammy. I was in it as deep as he was. It was too late to abort the plan.

The door opened. I covered my eyes with both my hands and pulled my knees to my chest, panic setting in. I expected to be caught at any second. I vowed not to open my eyes nor to move a muscle.

Nothing happened. After a couple of minutes the sounds of the girl’s distinct, methodical movements, together with sheer curiosity, got the better of me. I straightened my legs and removed my hands from my face. I took a peep across to Joan’s bed where my eyes met Sammy’s. He winked and gave me a thumbs up. My eyes slid towards a pair of dainty feet. Bare feet. I edged forward a little more and there, right before my very eyes, was a fully naked female body in all its splendour.

It was a breathtaking moment. She was everything I’d imagined, and more. She had obviously just taken a shower as the towel she was using to dry her hair covered her eyes. I could feel my breathing growing heavier. I wanted to touch her, but instead I retreated into the shadows under the bed. She took her time dressing, which allowed Sammy and me a few more good peeps, but soon she was dressed and then there was silence. I couldn’t understand what she was doing that was taking so long so I edged forward again to look, accidentally moving the bedspread. She was busy applying mascara, her face close to the mirror. Unbeknown to me of course, from the angle of the mirror she had a clear view directly under the bed behind her …

Her shriek was piercing. ‘What the hell are you doing, you little brat?’ she screamed, grabbing the bedspread and pulling it up. ‘Are you mad?’

I almost had a heart attack. I had to do some quick thinking if I wasn’t going to get myself killed.

‘Shhhh!’ I whispered, putting my index finger over my lips. ‘Keep your voice down.’ I looked up at her innocently, my eyes wide.

A mixture of confusion and bewilderment spread across her face.

‘We’re playing catches and I’m hiding from Charles,’ I whispered again, even more softly.

‘Oh,’ she responded, her face going totally blank.

I decided to push my luck. ‘Do me a favour? Could you go and check if Charles is anywhere outside or near the stairway?’