Mr. Monday and other tales of Jewish Amsterdam

77 Air. Monday and Other Tales of Jewish Amsterdam

creature away from the tub. Of course they lost. Grandma threatened to go on the balcony with the washing and scrub there, so that the neighbours would think her daughter let her do the wash at her age. And that was that.

The opinion of the neighbours played an important part in Mother's life. Grandma Gittel knew how to profit from that fear. If she thought there was a reason for her to be angry about something, she stopped eating. Then Mother nearly died for shame.

But Grandma did not care for that, in her rather obscure way she enjoyed the sweet satisfaction that the neighbours would think her daughter was starving her to death.

She was a fanatic in this, too. Once she fasted for two whole weeks. During this time she did not eat a single crumb or drink a drop of water. Finally my father called a doctor, and he forced the obstinate creature to eat and drink. I honestly believe she would have fasted to death if she had felt that was the only way to win what she wanted.

But with the same fanaticism, Grandmother Gittel stood guard over her family like a true matriarch of an ancient tribe. Maybe some members of that tribe did not take her sovereignty seriously, but she felt her power undisputed. The family was the only world she acknowledged. Although she had never heard of Ptolemy, she was convinced that her world was the centre of the Universe.

In every family there are quarrels now and then. Grandmother Gittel made herself the judge and arbiter in all our disputes. She would listen, then give her opinion. She had strong sympathies and even stronger antipathies