Read Online Things Could Be Worse by Lily Brett - Free Book Online

such a sense of well-being. It was the same with good towels. Genia felt pampered and indulged every morning when she dried herself with the thick, king-sized bath towels.
    â€˜I’ll bring you the towels on Saturday,’ said Renia. ‘I can’t speak to you for too long today, because I have to cook something for Lola. I am cooking her a cabbage and rice dish. It is her new diet. I make a big pot for the whole week. But, Genia, I looked at Lola last week, and to tell you the truth, I think she is eating the whole pot in one night. Then she goes on another diet for the other days. I don’t know what to do. It’s killing me.’
    Genia felt depressed about Lola. Lola had been a beautiful little girl. With her dark, sausage curls and her lively eyes, she had looked like a doll. Now she was very fat, and her eyes were flat.
    â€˜Renia,’ Genia said, ‘shall we go together to the German Embassy? I have to go this week. Why don’t we go together again?’
    Renia and Genia received ‘reparation’ money from the German government. Genia got slightly more than Renia because she had been a teenager during the war. The German government, Genia’s lawyer had told her, considered it had more to make up for to those people who had also lost their youth.
    Renia had been eligible for this extra payment, as she had only been twenty-one when she arrived in Auschwitz, but by the time Renia found out about the extra ‘reparation’ money the German government’s deadline for applications had passed.
    The amount of money that they received was such a pittance that to label it ‘reparation’ and ‘restitution’ was offensive. Some Jews refused to accept this money, but to most Jews it was an important symbolic gesture.
    The ‘reparation’ money, Josl was fond of saying, was not enough to cover the monthly ice-cream bills he used to run up in Lodz.
    Once a year, all the Jews receiving these payments had to present themselves to the German Embassy, to prove that they were still alive.
    Last year Renia and Genia had gone to the German Embassy together. Genia had picked Renia up and the two women, who talked on the telephone for an hour every day, had driven to South Yarra in silence.
    â€˜Well, can you see that I am alive?’ Renia had asked the man at the German Embassy.
    â€˜Yes, Madam, I can see that,’ he had said.
    â€˜Well, you are blind, sir,’ Renia had said. ‘Because you killed all of us. Those of us who are still walking and talking are not alive, sir.’
    Afterwards the two women had walked along Punt Road to the car. A sudden feeling of lightness had come over Genia. She was alive, and she wanted to prove it. ‘Renia,’ she had said, ‘let’s go shopping and spend this “reparation” money all at once. Let’s decide what we can do with it. Should we invest it in BHP, Renia, or should we buy a pair of shoes?’
    Renia and Genia had driven into the city. They had gone to Miss Louise in Collins Street and bought a pair of Maud Frizon shoes each.
    â€˜All right, Genia,’ Renia said. ‘We will go to the embassy together again. Is Tuesday morning all right for you?’
    â€˜I’ll pick you up at ten o’clock, after my ballet class,’ said Genia.
    â€˜Genia darling,’ said Renia. ‘I have been thinking about Pola Ganz and Joseph Zelman. I think that there is something funny going on between them. It would be shocking. After all, Moishe is a wonderful husband to Pola. What is that crazy woman doing? At her age she needs to shtoop so much? And what about poor Mina Zelman? I know that she is very tall, and maybe Joseph needs to feel he is a big man, so he shtoops with little Pola Ganz. But there are other ways of being a big man. What’s happening to the world today, Genia? I remember when I thought that we had had so much pain and suffering that we would never cause