CHAPTER 9. THE ISLE OF CAPRI

… I do like girls, but all I want is for them to like me back, a lot. Dayenu.

In Montagu when I am ten I like to hang out with the older kids. One of them is a girl who is also on vacation there the year I turn ten. She is twelve or thirteen, older, dark, vivacious. Her name is Rosa Ladny, from Sea Point in Cape Town. I’ve never known a girl with such a euphonious name – Rosa – before. She tosses her head and hair scornfully when she replies to boys’ questions. Her mother is solidly built and has an acned face; her father is nondescript. The Ladnys are younger than my parents and walk together in an affectionate, almost sexy way that makes me think. Rosa’s brother, a bit younger than me, is called Ivan. My mother remarks disparagingly on the name Ivan: it’s a Russian peasant name, and why did they give a Jewish boy a Russian peasant name? But I am attracted to Rosa with the flashing eyes and dark looks. I follow her around sometimes and try to get her attention. My father, who babies and embarrasses me with his accent, repeatedly brings me fruit to eat while I am outdoors with the other boys and girls. “My father doesn’t run after me to bring me an apple in the middle of the day!” says Rosa scornfully. Ask not for whom the bell tolls.

There is a red-haired, red-freckled girl called Louise, more my age, that I am friendly with. She comes from some smaller town, not the big city, but her family is spending a week in Montagu at The Baths too. My mother, who, like me, has heard my sister Shulamit’s Eartha Kitt record played repeatedly, teases me about Louise by singing the slightly altered words of Hey Jacque:

Hey, Jacque –
Have you seen Louise? I
s she still in Par-ee?

One afternoon, when everyone is playing outside, I need to go to the toilet. I walk to one of the WC’s at the end of the long outdoor corridor of rooms on the ground level, but it’s occupied. Not to worry. A separate room with a bathtub is right next door, and it’s empty. I enter, lock the door, urinate in the bathtub and then run the tap to clean it. When I emerge, Louise’s mother is right outside and knows immediately that I have not been taking a bath. I am reprimanded.

I don’t really care. My love for Louise is merely platonic. My love for Rosa is visceral, but nevertheless pure. I just want her to like me, a lot.