Rush Hour

It was rush hour on the Tube in London. I got on to a train, standing room only. Sitting, comfortably ensconced in a corner, was André, reading avidly from a huge tome on some abstruse notion of mathematics. I watched him for a while, reluctant to disturb his concentration. Stop after stop went by, and still I watched and still he read. Then it came to my stop. I thought it was only right to say hello to him after having watched him for such a long time. So I went up to him in his comfortable corner seat. André, I discovered, was endearingly and very firmly fast asleep behind his huge abstruse mathematical tome……

A snippet from our childhood...

(Granny with Andre and Guy)
The elephants

On Sundays, Granny came to visit. Sometimes Andre and I would go with Papa to fetch her. We'd scramble into the back of the Wolseley, legs sticking to the vinyl seats. Mind your fingers, Papa would always say, but one day the door would get mine anyway, squashing all the insides out in a gooey mess.

Papagallo's, we'd yell, halfway up Louis Botha Avenue, and Papa would stop and get us the best chocolate and lemon gelato in Jo'burg from a small Italian man in a dark, grimy shop, that you could hardly see from the street. Papa, please don't fight with Granny today, we'd beseech with cold mouths and sticky lips. Yeah, why do you fight with her all the time? Piped up Andre with the sticky-up hair, face turned up, sucking ice-cream noisily through the bottom of his cone. She annoys me, just like I'll annoy you when you're grown up and I'm old. And will we shout at you, the way you shout at Granny? Of course you will, he replied, with a sad voice. ... And anyway, he added, who's going to take Granny family-size jars of Vaseline when I die? I try to see his eyes in the mirror, but I can’t.


When we got to Granny's flat, Papa would park and, after gingerly separating flesh from vinyl, Andre and I would race each other into the dark echoing building, first one to hit the lift button won. The lift filled us with fear, but we never considered walking up the two flights to Granny. Clanging gates and grinding gears, doors of steel mesh that opened concertina-like, bars that could squeeze your fingers when they opened or closed. Looking up you could see the ropes loosen and tighten as the lift moved up or down. Papa, what happens if the ropes break? said Andre, but I didn’t want to think about that. You could see down into the shaft when the lift was up, and imagine yourself falling down, down, down into the darkness.

When the lift arrived, you had to pull open the outer door with all your might. Then you had to snap open the inner gate and slide that back. Hop in, and lock yourself into the little cell. When the inner gate slammed shut, the lift took off, rattling and whining. Mind your fingers, Papa would say, then take off up the stairs, two at a time, racing us easily to the second floor. When we got there, Papa was always waiting, his mouth laughing, I won.

You had to knock loudly on Granny's door, and call, Granny! Granny? Until she answered, who is it, even though we always fetched her at the same time every Sunday. Eventually the bolts and chains would slide back and her bulky shape would fill the doorway, smiling from well-oiled ear to well-oiled ear. Kindelach, kindelach, mein she'd say, first giving us kisses on both cheeks, smearing our faces with Vaseline from her lips, and then pinching our cheeks to make sure we were eating enough and getting fat.

Granny still had to potter about, changing from slippers into her outdoor shoes, (a slow and painful process on account of her ingrowing toenails – which she also smeared with Vaseline), checking the contents of a few plastic bags, and a last hand-wash for the journey was essential. Papa was getting annoyed, we could tell by the tone of his Yiddish. They were probably fighting over the contents of one of those plastic bags – sweets Granny wanted to give us. Once, on our drive back home, the fighting reached fever-pitch – and a big bag of Sparkling Fruits went flying out the car window. Andre and I knelt on the back seat to watch the packet explode onto the tar mac, like a tiny firework display, the sweets shone and then faded as we moved away.

Papa and Granny were fighting again, but for us, this gave us time to visit the elephants.


The elephants lived in Granny’s bedroom. On the left of the sparcely furnished room stood the baby elephant – a single bed with nothing more than a mattress underneath its brown bedspread. Noone slept on it. Noone ever had. Next to it, with a gap in between, was the other single bed. But this was the big elephant, with its mountain of eiderdowns and blankets and pillows underneath the brown bedspread. That’s where Granny slept. First we simply stared at it in horror, wondering where she slept: near the bottom underneath the mountain of bedding, or near the top? Or maybe in the middle - like a thick slice of the pink kosher polony we had for lunch on Sundays, sandwiched between slices of rye bread we bought from Kramer's Deli on the way home.

Then, squealing with excitement we'd climb on to the baby elephant and throw ourselves across the gap onto the big elephant. Disappearing into the soft, warm, brown mound, we'd laugh madly, wildly, and do it again, and again until Granny was ready, the fighting had died down,and we'd straighten our clothes, put our shoes back on, and it was time to go.

How to say nothing in as many words as possible (sayings of Andre Joffe)

a selection from a list compiled by Kevin, many, many years ago.

I always say, where there is smoke there is a cigarette.

I always say, Where there is no smoke there is no fire.

My grandfather always said, something is only worth saying if it has value in being said.

Every bird belongs to a group of birds with the same type of feather.

Never let truth or logic get in the way of saying something.

Never eat raw egg it's disgusting.

Everyone remember the one about the three pieces of string?

Three pieces of string came up to a bar. There was a sign reading "No String Allowed." The first piece of string decided to go in anyway. The bartender threw him out, yelling, "We don't serve string here!"
The second piece of string tried to get in, but the bartender threw him out, too.
The third piece of string rakishly ruffled up his end fringes and sauntered into the bar. "Hey!" said the bartender. "Aren't you a piece of string?"
"No," the third piece of string said. "I'm a frayed knot."

Golden Gate Park, San Francisco 1994

A world full of André's

There are millions of brain cells that contain memories of André. Many special memories in the heads of all people who knew André Joffe. They all produce evidence that we all share the same star dust – a matter I once discussed with André. There was The Byrds’ song Turn, turn, turn, played in André’s and Maggie’s house that afternoon after the funeral, a gathering of family and friends full of grief and yet with plenty of humorous thoughts of André.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted...

It refers to that idea of eternity and reuse of new life.

And then there was the plant André once gave to grandmother Dina. She called it 'André'. Not ‘André’s plant’, no it was ‘André’. Like himself it was an easy creature, happy with the smallest thing you would give him. Just a few drops of water, which grandma happily offered every day she could. And when she could not get out of bed at the very end, she would ask others to water her plants: ‘Don’t forget André’.

After Dina died Reina took care of André’s vegetable offspring. Every cutting was named after Dina’s favourite plant, they all became new André’s. She gave them to our sons Simon and Philip, and last week, on Oom Bert’s birthday, she brought André’s to cousins Dirk, Willem and Bas.

Each of these beloved modest green creatures are widely spread evidences of André’s eternal life.

Welcome Note

With many of us being so far away from each other, this blog has been set up for us to share words, pictures or perhaps even videos as the tenth of May approaches.

There are three ways of contributing. One is to post directly. For this you will need to be included as a 'contributor' with a Blogger account. The second is to use the 'comment' button which appears under existing posts.

If neither of these options appeal, you can send me an email at maggiemaymemorial@gmail.com and I'll post it for you.

I'm sending emails to those who I'm still in contact with but there are some people I haven't been in touch with for a while and so no longer have their contact details. Hopefully they will be reached by word of mouth!