Flies in the Milk

By Shirley Friedman

Flies in the Milk is the true story about the difficulties of two unhappy people in search of love in the 1960s Sando, an Israeli Secret Agent, and Shirley, actress and singer. They meet by chance in Johannesburg, and Sando phones for a date. When she reluctantly agrees, his strange question I wont come like a fly in the milk? reveals to Shirley a desperate need for love. Soon Sando is head-over-heels, but Shirley discovers he is married. She leaves to sing with a band in Salisbury, and when Sando follows, realises she loves him. When called back to Israel, he is interrogated when he passes through the Suez Canal and hailed as a hero, but miserable without his love, he sends her a plea to join him. The bliss of their reunion is soon marred, and though Sando is now divorced, they have to leave the country immediately. Their travels through seven countries are fraught with difficulties bad accommodation, accusation of stealing, no work and very little money, amongst others. Then, finally almost home, theres an horrific car accident and death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Mar 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524676285

Book preview

FOR SANDO

Our time together was very short, but will never be forgotten.

Every love story is unique,

yet somewhere along the path,

like familiar places on a map,

different stories touch

and create a bond between

two lives, two loves.

FLIES IN THE MILK

SHIRLEY FRIEDMAN

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AuthorHouse™ UK

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Bloomington, IN 47403 USA

www.authorhouse.co.uk

Phone: [phone]

© 2017 Shirley Friedman. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 03/09/2017

ISBN: 978-1-5246-7629-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-7628-5 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

South Africa, May to June, 1964

Port Elizabeth & Johannesburg – June

Rhodesia – July to October

Johannesburg, November to April

Johannesburg to Israel – May 1965

Israel – May To June 1965

Israel/France – June & July 1965

France – July to December

Southampton to Johannesburg – 1965/66

South Africa, May to June, 1964

I t was a pleasant winter’s night, and the wail of a siren cut across the evening noises of neon-lit Kotze Street like a hot knife through butter. Early cinemagoers turned to watch as a silver-grey Cadillac roared past, mounted the pavement as it screeched round the corner, and careered down Edith Cavil Street towards Joubert Park, followed by the flashing light of a police car.

Further down the street, a group of Italians stood outside Doney’s Coffee Bar, ogling all the attractive girls passing by; two cars idled in front of a parking spot as their owners indulged in a word fight over whose parking it was; and a maid in a torn pink overall screamed intimately across the width of the pavement to a well-dressed gentleman whose many teeth flashed white in his black face.

On a third floor balcony of Thames House, I lifted my heels a little so I could see over the wall, and leant on my crossed forearms to watch the conglomeration of humanity below me.

‘Hillbrow,’ I said aloud, ‘the Soho of Johannesburg. Or so they say.’

Looking straight down people looked like flat circles propelled by flexible limbs going backwards and forwards. Cars were different-coloured beetles, and their headlight beams were antennae as they moved, hesitating one behind the other, criss-crossing, or smoothly filling and vacating gaps in the inanimate ranks at the kerb.

Opposite the building, some drew into the open space before the Service Station, and I could hear as if it were in my own flat, the shouted remarks of the black attendants and the clear ‘ting-ting’ of the air-pressure gauge. Faintly, almost covered by the traffic noises, the sound of water being disgorged through the mouth of a gargoyle head could also be heard.

What a place to put a fountain, I thought. I wonder why?

Hillbrow was always busy, being the most popular suburb in Johannesburg, but tonight was Saturday, the busiest night of them all.

‘All those people…going somewhere.’

I turned and looked through the wide window into my flat - bright, pleasant…yet depressing. Directly in front of me, at the end of a short passage, was the front door, on which was proclaimed in large letters made of black adhesive tape ‘YOU WERE WARNED!’

‘Who was warned? Me or them?’ I muttered.

It had seemed fun at the time to decorate the newly acquired pad with bold black letters stating ‘ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER WITHIN!’ and GRAZE or LOO. Then I had put a few bright record covers on the inner door - Allen Sherman’s head resting on a bed of nuts, and Joan Baez with a guitar - whilst on the wall to my left there were travel posters of France and Britain.

Now I studied the floodlit monuments of Paris…L’arc de Triomphe and Place de la Concorde, and wondered what it would feel like to be there, to see them with my own eyes.

Turning a little, my gaze caught the guitar and fencing foil hanging on the right-hand wall. Bit phoney, I thought, but better on the wall than cluttering up my one cupboard. A circle of light emanated from the wine bottle lamp standing on a low, square table which, together with two divans, formed a neat angle in the near right-hand corner. I noticed that the red shade was a little crooked, so that the edge of the light touched the legs of a tiny white stool in the far corner of the room, on which stood the telephone, taunting me with its silence.

I sighed, rubbing my cold arms, and wondered whether I should phone Toni and chat for a while.

‘No. It’s Saturday night. She’ll be going out.’

Toni was 19, and always had arrangements, but it wasn’t easy for me to fit in with her crowd. I could still remember remarks her mother had made: ‘It’s not nice for a young girl to go around with a divorced woman. And she’s a good ten years older, blah, blah, blah!’ But Toni and I had the same sense of humour, and got on very well.

I had met her on the bus one afternoon. There I was, chomping on chocolate, until I caught her eye. Embarrassed, I explained: ‘I’m nervous! Just got a call that my little son nearly got run over.’ Then I offered the chocolate to her. ‘Want some?’

Toni declined with a smile, and we got into a discussion on the difficulties of being a single parent in the 1960s, and had been close friends ever since.

I sighed again, and turned back to the bright lights and busy people below me. Then unexpectedly, the telephone rang, its bell breaking the silence of the empty room as a stone ripples the surface of a pond.

My pulse quickened. Maybe it’s Bobby? I thought, hurrying to answer. It would be a relief to get away for a while. Probably not! my pessimistic self warned, preparing me for disappointment.

I lifted the receiver and answered. ‘Hallo?’

The voice on the other end was not familiar, and had a distinctly foreign sound. ‘That is Shirley Arden?’

I said it was, my heart resuming its normal beat, my mind resigning itself to another evening alone.

‘You won’t remember me,’ the voice presumed, ‘the Israelien, Sando Goldstein. I met you at the Nite Beat about a week ago.’

My mind flew without hesitation back to the evening in question. It had been one of the occasional bright spots in my life, a temporary release from boredom.

Once in a while, Jan van Wyk - a young folk-singer who lived on the sixth floor of Thames House, asked me to accompany him to the Nite Beat Coffee Bar where he was employed, and sing with him. My vivacious personality went well with his rather heavy plodding manner, whilst our voices blended harmoniously.

On that night, I had worn what I thought of as my ‘uniform’ - black slacks and boots, black jersey and bright red corduroy waistcoat – and had carefully arranged my Star of David on a chain round my neck. With my dark hair and tanned skin, I had often been taken for Greek…Italian…Spanish…whichever was the fancy of the onlooker, and I thought it better to show that I was Jewish.

The Nite Beat was crowded as always with young and old people - in blue jeans, stovies, or even smart wear; there were those who came to see and those who came to be seen. The dim lights threw mysterious shadows on the African masks, and on the miscellany of faces packed around the tables, all sharing one thing in common - a need for companionship, to be part of a human nucleus, and not alone - as I myself did.

Recently I arrived home from these excursions into the ‘land of the living’ full of tension, my neck and shoulders rigid, my head already throbbing with pain, and, in an effort at self-analysis, wondered whether it wasn’t due to an unconscious searching of the crowd to find ‘Mr. Right’.

Trying to relax my already stiff shoulders during an interval, I had started with fright as a hand tentatively touched my arm.

‘Scuse plis…you Jewish?’

My startled eyes beheld a short, Slavic-looking boy; then I smiled.

‘Yes, of course, why else would I wear this?’ I said, pointing to the Magen David on my sweater. I added with a touch of intuition ‘Are you Israeli?’

‘Ken…Yes, I from Israel. Not long here…one week…I know nobody - no girls!’

He halted in anticipation, and I thought quickly. At some time in my life I had been warned ‘Don’t go out with Israelis, they’re only interested in ONE THING!’ Yet there was no doubt I had a fondness for Israel and its people, whom I felt had set an example, against all odds, on how to create a viable country in just 16 years.

I gazed at the young form in front of me, eyes looking anxiously into mine, and felt sorry for him, alone in a strange country, but I didn’t really want to get involved. Suddenly, I had an idea…

‘Look, I can’t help you, but my sister and her husband have just come back from living in Israel and speak a little Hebrew. Perhaps they can. Have you a pen and paper?’

A tall man had appeared behind the young boy, and handed me a pen and cigarette box to write on. There’re two of them! I thought, at the same time frantically trying to remember my sister’s phone number.

‘Oh hell, I just can’t think of it,’ I said, feeling embarrassed in case they thought I was trying to back out. ‘They’ve only just got the phone. Look, here’s my number!’ I scribbled it down. ‘Phone me there tomorrow sometime, and then I can give you their number. It’s in my address book.’

‘Sank you, sank you,’ the boy had said. ‘I will phone. My name is David.’

I noticed vaguely that the tall Israeli was now discussing folk-singing with Jan whose fair face contrasted strongly with the darker face nearby, and I was rather relieved when the crowd began to call for more songs, and the Israelis had to return to their seats.

‘You do not remember?’ said a voice in my ear, bringing me back to the present.

‘Oh yes I do,’ I said, ‘but surely you are not David, the young boy.’

‘No, I am the other one…er…the tall one.’

‘How did you get my number?’ I queried. ‘Was it from your friend?’

‘He is not my friend, just one of my countrymen. He is strange here, so I took him to some places to meet people.’ His voice took on an unconscious air of superiority. ‘I am already here a month.’

My voice sharpened a little. ‘Well, I’m glad he’s not your friend,’ I said, ‘because he phoned my sister and asked her to throw a party to introduce him to some Jewish girls. What a cheek!’

‘He is young and foolish. But I did not phone to talk about him. I wondered if tonight you would go out with me?’

I couldn’t help laughing. ‘You Israelis have got a cheek. To phone a girl at…’ I glanced at my watch ‘…six thirty-five p.m. on a Saturday night, and ask her for a date. It’s just not done.’

‘I am sorry if I do wrong,’ said the accented voice with concern, ‘but I have phoned a few times. There was no answer.’

Astonished, I thought briefly of the few times I had spent the evening watching other people in the Cul de Sac coffee bar in order to break away from my lonely room, and reflected how perverse life was.

‘Oh, I see. Then you have some excuse.’ I laughed. ‘I forgive you.’

‘Well, can you come? You are not busy?’

‘Busy?’ I repressed a snort of laughter, and then tried to remember what the Israeli had looked like. The impression was very vague. All I could remember was a grey man - grey hair, a grey-looking skin, and grey aura about him. Tall, but old…too old for me, I thought, opening my mouth to refuse the invitation - and then suddenly, like an awful mirage, visions of another lonely evening loomed before me. I hesitated, and then said ‘No-o-o-o, I’m not busy.’

All the time we were making arrangements about where and when to meet, my mind was asking questions. Am I doing the right thing? Isn’t he too old? What if I don’t like him? But when I put down the receiver, I was somehow no longer quite so wary. It had been that strange question he’d asked. ‘Are you sure it will be alright? I don’t want to come like a fly in the milk.’

Strange though the idiom was, I understood at once. This man had been badly hurt by some woman, I was sure of it, and suddenly I felt a flow of sympathy, and my doubts disappeared.

By the time Sando arrived, I had been waiting nervously for about ten minutes, once again a little doubtful of my wisdom in making this appointment. I took the opportunity to study him as he looked around my flat.

As I had remembered, he was tall, and he moved with a rolling motion. His short wavy hair was liberally sprinkled with grey, but the hazel and green eyes were bright and penetrating. Two sharp furrows divided his cheeks making his face look narrower than it actually was, and probably contributed to the impression of age. However he had one of the sweetest smiles I had ever encountered.

Studying him objectively, as it were, I realised that he was a handsome man, who was probably younger than he looked. The lines on his face told of much suffering, and still there was that impression of greyness.

However, his quiet, assured air suggested that he was no novice at dealing with women, and I felt a sudden, quick thrill of excitement. What would it be like, going out with an older, experienced man? I thought, shivering a little in anticipation.

Sando turned from contemplation of the posters of Paris.

‘I have been there,’ he said. ‘And to Holland, America, Russia…’

I went to stand beside him.

‘Is it just like that? Just as beautiful?’

‘Yes, just as beautiful.’ His voice was quiet and confident as he turned to me. ‘I will show them to you some time.’

I laughed, and yet somehow, somewhere deep inside me, there sprang to life a seed of belief.

Lying happily exhausted in my bed that night, I thought back over the evening. Just a film at the International, followed by a short stroll through Hillbrow, but seen through Sando’s eyes, it had been fascinating.

I had seen behind the façade of Hillbrow that evening as we slowly walked past brightly lit windows, dark alleys, and rapidly emptying bioscopes (the popular South African name for cinemas). Cars had flowed in from all over Johannesburg, and disgorged their parcels of humanity. The streets were packed, and you could hear a dozen languages within one block. As we walked, we had caught a fragrant whiff from a shop which sold Chinese fried chicken, and then were engulfed in a sudden blast of sound from a noisy bar as a door opened and closed. And all the time we had talked - of this and that, of life in general. Then Sando really surprised me.

‘I speak eight languages, but my English is not so good,’ he said, ‘so please be so kind as to correct me when I make mistakes.’

I was astounded. ‘Eight languages?’

He ticked them off on his fingers. ‘French, Italian, German, Romanian, Hebrew, Yiddish, Arabic and English.’ Then he added with a smile…’Parlez vous Francais? Sprechen sie Deutsch?’

Eight languages! Somehow it was exciting, I didn’t know why, but the thought gave me a thrill. There was no doubt about it - I was impressed by the tall Israeli, by his intelligence and understanding, by the way he expressed himself.

Glancing at the crowded Coffee Bars, which seemed to carry a cloud of tobacco smoke around them, I offered to give Sando coffee at my flat.

‘I don’t have any liquor. Sorry!’

‘We Israelis are not very fond of liquor,’ he assured me, making a statement for the whole nation in what I was to learn was his inimitable way.

There the conversation continued over steaming coffee mugs. Sando told me he was Romanian-born, and that after Romania was occupied during the war, he had been put in a German Labour Camp along with other men in good physical shape.

‘It was terrible. A great deal of labour, and not much food, so I was determined to escape.’

‘How did you manage to do that?’

Sando hesitated, and then said: ‘I sharpened a fork, and waited for an opportunity, then stabbed one of the guards in order to get out.’

I gasped, and my eyes widened as he glanced up at me.

‘That sounds terrible, but…’ He had no words to explain how easy it was to do such a thing under the circumstances, so went on… ‘I am sure that God forgave me, because right under my nose he put the chance for me to get away quickly. I came across a Nazi motorcyclist who had left his bike and was relieving himself by a tree, so I crept up and com…com…

‘Commandeered?’ I offered.

‘Yes - commandeered the bike and raced to the port. There I managed to stow away on a French ship, climbing up one of the lines past the rat catcher.’

‘Climbing is pronounced without the b,’ I said, continuing my self-imposed job as English teacher. ‘What’s a rat catcher?’

‘A large bowl-shaped metal…er…’ His hands waved in the air as he tried to find the right word ‘…to stop rats coming on board.’

I could almost see it happening…the tall slim figure climbing silently up the rope, nearly falling as he passed the concave disc.

‘Then I hid in the bilge tank…that’s at the bottom of the ship, where filthy water collects. I was soaking wet, but stayed there for several days. Alas I was caught when I went out to steal some food, so was handed over to the French police when the ship made port.’

I grimaced. It was a frightful story. ‘What happened after that?’ I asked.

‘Thanks God, I was rescued by the Jewish community.’

Shaking off the gloom, he continued: ‘Later I helped Jews who wanted to get to Palestine on illegal ships, and ultimately took my turn to land on the beaches of Haifa. There we were met by Jewish activists and hidden in the cities.’

He also told me that he had been in the Israeli Merchant Navy for eight years. That’s a seaman’s walk, I thought. I should have known.

‘Enough about me!’ he said. ‘I want to know about you.’

He asked questions, and gradually drew out from me the story of my marriage and divorce.

‘I was only 17 when I met Robert,’ I said. ‘We had emigrated from England after the war, and it was my first experience of sex, so not surprisingly, I got pregnant, and was married and had a child before I turned 19.’

‘So young to have such responsibilities!’ Sando said.

‘My husband was very immature in some ways, so after eleven years of constant debt and arguments, I took our two children, our clothes, my tape recorder, and moved out. We were living in Durban then, whilst my family were in Johannesburg. Robert couldn’t wait to sell everything. First the fridge was sold, then our lounge suite. I knew it was an act of defiance, but it was also one of the reasons I stuck to my decision. I found a boarding house where we could live, and someone to take care of the children after school, and started looking for extra work. Unfortunately, my son Michael developed Rheumatic Fever shortly afterwards…but he came through it without problems, and is nearly thirteen now. Little Stephen is seven.’

Sando looked around my studio flat. ‘Where are they?’

‘They don’t stay with me. They’re in Arcadia, a Home for Jewish Children.’

Then, seeing the look on his face, and filling a need to justify myself, I explained: ‘You see my husband very rarely sent maintenance, and my salary didn’t go very far. I was really struggling…never had spare money to even take the children to the Zoo on a weekend. I had a helper to look after them when they came from school, but often Stephen wasn’t home when I returned from work – he would be out visiting friends. Then I would have go searching for him or wait for him to turn up. On the other hand, Michael had no friends and sat at home day in and day out. I thought he was becoming anti-social. It was worrying.’

I stopped for a moment, reliving the time in my memory, and shivered.

‘Then one day I got a call that Stephen had nearly been run over. I rushed home from work – you could see the imprint of the car tyres on the tips of his school shoes!’

I shook my head. ‘Something had to be done! My parents couldn’t help, so I made enquiries, and finally found out that if the children went to Arcadia they would have proper care and supervision, attend a good school, and would be able to go to University eventually if they wanted. There was no way I would be able to do that, so after much soul-searching, I decided to apply to send them there.’

‘But that’s a terrible thing to do to children!’ Sando exclaimed. ‘Of course,’ he added, ‘I can understand that they interfered with your freedom.’

‘It wasn’t like that!’ I cried out, eyes wide as I tried to hold back the tears. ‘Most of the children are from broken homes, and they are very well cared for, I made sure of that.’

The dam burst. ‘You think it was easy? You think I don’t miss them? Everyone I asked for advice told me it was my decision, that I had to make it alone, but people are always ready to judge afterwards.’

I sobbed uncontrollably, tears and mucous flowing like rivers from my eyes and nose. ‘What was I to do? Go back to my husband and let them grow up in an atmosphere of tension and stress? In my opinion that’s even worse, but don’t you think I wonder sometimes whether I’ve done the right thing?’

I stopped, panting with the intensity of my emotions, great sighs bubbling from my throat, and Sando gently handed me an enormous white handkerchief.

‘Have they been there long?’

I shook my head. ‘Just a few months.’

‘You visit them?’ he asked quietly.

‘Yes, every Sunday,’ I sniffed, the already sodden handkerchief applied to the base of my flushed nostrils.

‘Can I come with you next Sunday?’

I stared at him amazed, and he drew my swollen face to his, and kissed each still-damp eyelid.

‘You cry like a child,’ he said tenderly, ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you.’

With a gasp of misery, I crept into his comforting arms, and he held me tightly, and rocked me like an infant, crooning softly ‘My poor katzele, my poor poor little cat.’

He kissed the top of my head, then the tip of my nose, and each eye, catching the tears brimming on my lids with his lips, and the sweet comfort had grown and flamed as our lips met.

I sighed. It had been wonderful. Not purely passion, but understanding, comfort and tenderness.

‘You have a body like Venus de Milo,’ he said, cupping a breast in each hand, ‘and the sweetest softest lips I have ever kissed.’ He touched them gently with his, in an action that sent flames shooting along each nerve in my body.

‘You…you don’t think I’m too fat?’ I said haltingly, when I could breathe again. ‘I eat too much…for comfort I think.’

His tender kiss erased all my doubts, and the touch of his hands was a message of acceptance. He had the lines of age upon his face, but his body was that of a youth, tempered with the steel of experience, and I had known that whatever had gone before, this was somehow, in some way, different.

It was well into the morning before he left, dragging himself away. I stood in a flimsy robe on the balcony, looking down into the quiet streets disturbed only by the occasional car or group of youths wending their way homewards, until his motorcycle parked at the kerb had exploded into life, and he waved and rode off into the distance.

Sando phoned the next evening, and the next. I was busy in the evenings with rehearsals for ‘Tunnel of Love’ a comedy in which I played a woman who was always pregnant. My brother Bruce who had already made quite a name for himself as an actor and director, was directing this one and did not like visitors at rehearsals, so in order to see me, Sando used to pick me up from my day job, rush us home on his motorcycle, feed me on chicken soup and chicken (cooked by himself), take me to rehearsals, and be waiting outside when I finished.

Once he was late, and I took a lift with someone else, so he roared like a demented nightrider through red lights and stop streets to my flat, worried as to how I could have got home…as though I had never looked after myself before he came.

Sometimes he couldn’t meet me, and would instead phone unexpectedly at midnight or later, just to check up on me I thought. Woken from my sleep, I sat naked on the floor by the telephone, hair tousled, eyes aglow as I chatted…gay, teasing, provocative…assuring him of my fidelity, and feeling as pure as I was born.

He began to dominate my conversation, and friends asked, ‘who is this Sando Goldstein? What does he do? What is he like?’

Above all, who could describe those wonderful trips on his motorcycle…roaring through the streets dressed in thick sweaters and boots, with the cold wind biting at our noses and cheeks? I loved the warmth of his back curved against my body; the strength of his muscles; my arms gripped tightly around his waist. I loved the wind whipping through my hair; the fierce vibration beneath me as I took the bumps and jolts with my feet and calves like a jockey riding a horse. I loved riding through crowded streets, arms loose, body balanced and swaying with the