MY LIFE. ©
Chapter 36 - "A lesson in
humility"
How does one start a chapter like this
one?
Perhaps the best way is to make a note
that this is a return to writing these snapshots of my life after the onset of
the pandemic of the coronavirus that is sweeping the globe. Today – 25th
Aril 2020 - is day number 43 of my self-isolation. For the first 4 weeks I
withdrew, not just physically, but also mentally and emotionally. I needed to
find myself within the turmoil that C19 has caused in all of us.
Now, seeing that we are in the best hands possible with our present government,
and that other than self-isolation and prayer there is little else I can do, I
have come back to the land of the living, such as it is today.
(I am revising this now, July 3rd 2020…..fully out of self-isolation
and we are in stage 3 … or is it 4 … of lifting the C19 restrictions. Like
everyone else, I was going “stir crazy” at home where I ended up doing 73
straight days alone.
The pseudo- medical reports are so confusing … mask on .. mask off .. 2 metres
… 1.5 metres… wash hands … alcohol
sprays … older people in greater danger
… young people catching it too … and insomnia big time!
I go out once a day now …just to get out of my flat! But I realise that I feel uneasy doing so. I
find myself hurrying back to the “safety” of my home …and this is wrong … or is
it?
A touch of the heebie-jeebies, or perhaps a darkish cloud of depression … a
well-known acquaintance of mine, sad to say)
And so, on to Chapter 36!
I have to go back in my memory in
order to give some background to the actual story, perhaps as far back as 1955!
That is when I first saw Mordechai Lengui.
It is only a vague recollection but a recollection none the less.
My father and his then business partner, Momi Benady, had a shop in 65 Main
Street commonly known as the Austin Reed Agency, though the company itself was
called The English Outfitters Ltd. It is the initials of which made up the
later trading name of TEO. The shop reached from Main Street to Engineer Lane
and opposite that was a very popular bar called the American Bar. And there one
of the barmen .... " baristas" in today's modern parlance... was Mr
Lengui.
Busy and boisterous, serving sailors thirsty for beer after a 3 or 4 months
stint at sea. It was a treat for me when Dad would take me over there to have a
Coke. I have not managed to find any photos either of the American Bar or of Mr
Lengui himself, this one here shows the American sailors outside the American
Bar.
(Thank you Abigail Kenneth Busuttil for
this photo. If any of you have better pictures please send so that I can insert
into the final draft of this chapter)
Fast forward now to the 1950's.
There were many social clubs in
Gibraltar in those days mainly frequented by men…. and for men. Although TV was
making inroads into these clubs, they were very popular and members could take
advantage of the lower prices for drinks and food that was served there. Some
were sporting bars, each self-respecting football team had such a club, while
others were along social and cultural lines. The Jewish community had one too.
Called the Jewish Social and Cultural Club (JSCC) it was founded by my uncle
Meni Benady, father of the well-known doctor and author Sam Benady, at the end
of WWII .... or possibly even before
that. I think its first location was in Bell Lane but it was later moved to
Bomb House Lane where the Hebrew Primary School is now. Marriages and
Barmitzvahs were celebrated there.
These were more modest occasions than we see nowadays. They were the “after war
years”. Money was not abundant and such events, in any case, were mostly for
family and only closest friends, not at all ostentatious as by today’s overly
lavish occasions. The club was very
popular for card playing and meetings as well, in fact it was the social focal
point of our community, together with our synagogues.
And now we come back to Mr Lengui.
He had taken over the bar and kitchen,
such as it was, from a Mr Attias who had run it until then. I remember both; Mr
Attias leaning heavily on a walking stick and sitting down most of the time
since he was quite elderly in his last couple of years before retirement. Mr
Lengui I recall as portly, rather dark skinned, Yul Brynner haircut, and jovial
with all his adult clients, old-time courteous when ladies were around..... and
to my mind then, a total ogre to kids running boisterously calling out:
"Mr Lengui ...
mi madre dice que me de tostadas con jam y una Coca Cola!"
(Mr Lengui, my Mum says I want toast
with jam and a Coke!)
Kids were not allowed into the bar
area so we had to shout it out from the door or through the dumb waiter; this
between playing football in the school playground that was next to it and not
wanting to miss any part of the game. I can still hear Mr Lengui, interrupted
from serving his whiskeys and beers at the bar, which was his main income, and
shouting back at me:
"Nino! tiene
que esperar no me venga con bullas!"
(Kid, you have to wait, do not rush
me!)
And a few minutes later we would rush
back to him and ask
"Mr Lengui, is it ready!!??"
with the cheek and desperation of hungry children not wanting to miss the
football game they were playing in the playground of the adjoining Hebrew
School .
We were his bane and he was our ogre.
The years passed, we grow up, he grew older.
We were less boisterous and he was, of course, no ogre, just a hard-working
barman in our community club. By the beginning of the 1960s TV was making
mortal inroads into the club lifestyle of Gibraltar. Men stayed home more
often, watching TVE (TeleVision Espanola) Canal Uno ... in grainy black &
white. Topogigio and Franz Johan ….come
to mind. These were becoming family evenings, rather than evenings in which
mothers were home darning socks, or knitting and listening to "las
novelas"!
As an aside, my mother’s maiden aunt, Rachel Levy de Balensi (Valencia) lived with us. For all intents and purposes,
she was my grandma, though we all called her “Tita”. Tall for her generation
with very long hair – blonde in her youth – rolled into a bun at the back of
her head, and always dressed in dark colours. Tita was an excellent cook and an
incredibly patient in-house nanny for me. I loved her dearly …. but HATED it
when in the evenings, she would sit by the stately valve radio of the day to
listen to these overly dramatic novellas. 
Me on the settee, Dandy, Beano & Topper comics strewn all around …and the radio!
Now this radio, millennials take note, was equipped with a small round window
almost in the centre, behind which, by turning a dial on the front, a different
colour disc would appear, letting you know if you were receiving in Short Wave,
Medium Wave or Long Wave transmition. Yellow disc for SW, red for MW and green
for LW. Got it, my little Marconis?
Little David, scared shitless of these
voices from the very depths of the Earth, realised that between each coloured
circle on the disc was a blank white part of the same plastic…… and that to an
old lady of failing eyesight (oh dear God… if I end up in Hell it will be
because of this!) it was very hard to distinguish between the white spaces and
the yellow on SW circle where the novella was coming from.
No sooner would Tita get up to make a cup of yerba luisa, than I would sneak to the radio and jam the dial into
the white area ….yes, all you could hear then was the whirr and white noise of
an untuned radio …. No novella that night!
So instead, poor Tita would miss that chapter of her beloved novella!
“Tita, let’s play draughts?” I’d suggest encouragingly; well I was not going to
let her get bored, now was I?
The next day the conversation between Tita and Mum would go something like
this:
“Tete (that’s my Mum), last night I missed the novella”
“Why was that Tita?”
“I don’t know. All I could hear was interference all night long. … Please ask
Pepe (my Dad) if he can check it out or I will miss tonight’s too”
Naturally, by then I had unjammed the dial ….I never got caught at this… but
still today, 65 years later, my conscience nags me!
OK, back to the Jewish Club and Mr Lengui …
Sorry for digressing, a bit of a "Ronnie Corbett moment" there.
It (TV) was having a detrimental effect on clubs and the Jewish Club was no
exception.
With the energy and bravado of youth, in 1964 we took over the committee of the
Club with me as President. I was barely 18 then, as were most of the rest of
the committee. I do not remember who
comprised the full committee but certainly my "brother from another
mother" as is said nowadays, David Hassan and my “Rascal in Arms”, Toby
(Isaac Tobelem) were two of them. I include a photo taken a couple of years
later of us three at the Casino Royale.
By then he must have been in his 70s and his "temper" had become
notorious among the next generation of kids. The bar itself was less and less
frequented as was the club generally. We, the new blood, we're going to correct
this.
With all the brashness of inexperience
we "summoned" Mr Lengui to a meeting. Talk about chutzpah!
We girded our loins and at the
appointed time, sat around a table awaiting the showdown.
This is my recollection, no doubt
partly faded and partly embellished with the passing of the many years.
Mr Lengui walked in, dressed perfectly
in a starched white barman jacket, white shirt, black tie, well pressed
trousers and shiny shoes. All more so than usual, for he was not a slovenly man
by any means. He walked up to the head of the table where there was an empty
chair, supposedly my chair, and sat down. His dignified demeanour and
eye-to-eye contact with each of us sapped our chutzpah second by second.
Silence reigned.
My prepared speech prepared itself to
go into oblivion.
My cohorts, so supportive until then, were silent as the grave.
Mr Lengui, after staring each of us down
without a single word, addressed himself to me as the President of the Club:
"Señor Presidente, I know you want to get rid of me. You want a
modern Club with a modern bar and young waiters and waitresses around. I think
that is a very good idea. It is good for the youth to take over and improve on
what the older people have left behind."
This was NOT what we had expected. We
were (or we thought we were) ready to do battle!
"If you want to get rid of me, I
want you to know that I am over 70 years old. My wife and I have no other
income but what I make working in the bar. So, if you fire me, we will not have
money for food. It is that simple and I am too old to work anywhere else. Now
you are the new committee and what you say, goes. If you want to get rid of me
tell me and I shall leave without saying a single word more. What happens to my
wife and I is up to you. Good afternoon!"
And with those few words, spoken
without anger, without raising his voice, he looked at each of us once more,
and walked away, leaving us nonplussed.
The sheer enormity of consequence of
what we had decided to do fell on our shoulders like a ton of bricks.
In our enthusiasm we had not taken
account of the human cost to one elderly couple whose livelihoods we were so
ready to shatter with our headlong plans to prove we could make the club into
the utopia we had imagined.
Needless to say, Mr Lengui stayed on
for several more years. I remember going to him and apologising meekly. I
expected a rebuke yet did not get it.
"Thank you" was all he said.
To this day I remember the dignity
with which Mr Lengui handled himself.
To this day I try to think of any
consequences of my actions.
Those who know me can attest that I
should try harder ....and they may very well be right.
Rest in Peace Mr Lengui.
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