hear her pounding down the corridor behind me.
‘You’re fucking dead.’
I had no reason to doubt that she meant it. I ran across the playground and into the main building. She seemed to be gaining on me; I could hear her breathing. I ran into the boys’ toilets, found a free cubicle and locked the door. I was safe. She wouldn’t dare cross the threshold and even if she did, she’d be halted by the Fort Knox type security of my cubicle door. She didn’t even hesitate. I heard her crash into the boys bogs and two seconds later she broke down the door and beat me up in front of an amazed crowd of boys who, sensibly, did nothing to help me. I put up very little resistance. I just curled up into a ball and waited for it to end. A male teacher appeared shortly afterwards and dragged her off me. We both got suspended for a week for fighting and she got an extra day for breaking the cubicle door. We got on quite well after that. I don’t think she could quite believe what I’d done. She thought it was ballsy.
I was always talkative. I enjoyed getting laughs. As an adult, I’ve built a career on this nonsense but at the time, it got me into serious trouble. I insulted our Hebrew teacher Miss Felberg by loudly proclaiming, when I thought she was out of the room, that learning Hebrew was a complete and utter waste of time. She was in the store cupboard, and came out raging, looking directly at me.
‘Did you say that?’
Even in my first year, I had something of a reputation. I saw no point in denying it. ‘Yeah’.
‘Why do you think it’s a waste of time?’ she asked.
‘Because it is,’ I said, not giving her much to work with.
‘I think you should apologise to me and also to the rest of the class who are all interested,’ she said.
I got up and stood at the front of the class. I looked around. I knew for a fact that no one was any more interested than me.
‘I’m sorry . . .’ I said. A long pause. ‘. . . that you have to learn Hebrew.’
There was a big laugh from the class. It felt good. Miss Felberg, however, was not laughing and threw a blackboard rubber at me. It swooshed past my head and clattered into the wall behind me. I was watching a lot of cricket at the time and I thought that she had a decent throwing arm. I decided that if it ever came to it, I would not risk a quick single if she was fielding.
‘Come with me,’ she said ‘We’re going to see Mrs Abrahams.’
This was not what I was hoping for. Mrs Abrahams had a fearsome reputation. She believed in discipline and God. I had no interest in the first one and I was rapidly losing faith in the second. I was well aware of her temper. I was used to adults shouting, but usually it was at each other. I wasn’t looking forward to having her considerable ire directed at me.
We went to her office. Miss Felberg told me to sit down while she informed the secretary what I’d said. The secretary didn’t laugh, which made me think that Miss Felberg had told the joke wrong. The secretary took Miss Felberg into Mrs Abrahams’ office, and I heard them having a short chat. Miss Felberg emerged and then harrumphed off without giving me a second glance. I waited.
Time passed. I looked around, tried to think about other things. At one point, I started whistling. The secretary stared at me and I stopped. I waited some more. After a time, Mrs Abrahams popped her head out of the door and indicated that I should go in. She was dressed immaculately. She was attractive but in the way that made it perfectly clear that any thoughts in that direction were to be redirected elsewhere. Aside from her face and hands, there wasn’t an inch of flesh on display. Her clothes were beautifully made and her hair was perfect. She was shouting as I came in.
‘This is a Jewish school’.
She pointed at the mezuzzah (a small scroll attached to doors in Jewish homes and places of work; the person passing through the door is meant to touch it and kiss their hand as a show of devotion to God) on the door. Just in case the fact that the school was called The Jewish Free School and all the men had to have their heads covered and we spent thousands of hours being taught Hebrew and Old Testament religious knowledge were not enough in the way of clues.
‘We teach things that will make you better able to contribute to the Jewish community. And one of those things is being able to speak Ivrit [the Hebrew word for Hebrew]. Do you understand?’
I didn’t get a chance to answer either way.
‘A waste of time?’ Her voice got louder. ‘Why would you say such a thing to Miss Felberg? How could you say that learning Ivrit is a waste of time? Who are you to decide what is and isn’t a waste of time? That is an insult to the other pupils, to the teacher, to me, to the school.’ She paused. ‘To Israel.’
I suppressed a laugh. I was imagining people in Tel Aviv phoning each other:
‘Did you hear what Ian Stone said?’
‘No.’
‘He said that learning Hebrew is a waste of time.’
‘What? The little prick!’
She moved round the desk and came up very close to me. It was like the scene in Alien where the monster gets really close to Sigourney Weaver. Apparently, I hadn’t completely suppressed the laugh.
‘Why are you laughing?’
‘I’m not laughing’ I said, while sort of laughing.
She was really shouting now.
‘Your gross disrespect for our teacher and the language is disgusting’.
‘Christ. Keep your hair on,’ I said.
*
Later on, when I relayed the conversation to Simon, he started laughing and continued for about a minute and a half.
‘You fucking idiot,’ he said. ‘She was wearing a sheitel.’
‘A what?’
‘A wig. Religious Jewish women shave their heads and wear a wig.’
‘What? Why? How do you know this?’
‘My mum told me. A man is not to look upon a woman’s hair. It says it in the Torah.’
‘Where?’
‘I don’t know. In the hair section.’
‘I don’t understand. Why can’t they look at a woman’s hair?’
‘Because it will drive them wild with desire.’
‘Hair?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Fuck off.’
‘I’m telling you. She must’ve hit the roof.’
We were both laughing now. ‘She did.’
That was one of the few days at school where I actually learned something. At the time, in Mrs Abrahams’ office, I didn’t understand any of this. All I could see was her going bright
