Ann Beaglehole: Replacement Girl

By PENNY BIEDER

On the first page of English Jewish writer Linda Grant's Orange Prize-winning novel, When I Lived In Modern Times, she writes: "Scratch a Jew and you've got a story.

"If you don't like elaborate picaresques full of unlikely events and tortuous explanations, steer clear of the Jews. If you want things to be straightforward, find someone else to listen to. You might even get to say something yourself."

In one delightfully funny paragraph Grant presents the dilemma that confronts all Yids when they get away from the relatives and sit in front of a keyboard.

Wellington writer Ann Beaglehole's first novel could be the New Zealand version of the Grant story.

Both of them could also be termed second-generation stories, a growing category of literature and art and music, where the children of refugees attempt to understand and explain how it was growing up in dislocated, banished households, where the burden of the parents' traumas often became unbearable, where all the next generation wanted to do was go to the beach, eat peanut-butter sandwiches and get to grips with Weetbix.

In Grant's novel, Evelyn's mother dies prematurely and she is suddenly released from family cares and responsibilities and goes to Israel, only to be surrounded by other cultures coming to terms with the obstacles and hardships of a new country.

In Replacement Girl (the title refers to those children who were born after an older sibling died) Eva, who arrives with her parents in New Zealand from Hungary in 1956, thinks she will find her own sort of peace by marrying a New Zealander called Douglas Simpson, "not being in the least interested in dating boring Jewish boys".

In this bittersweet, wry first novel, Eva rebels against her awkward, anxious parents who smother her with worry as they make their way in a strange new land.

Her mother repeatedly tells her to be careful, her father, and soon her grandmother who arrives after them, endlessly recite stories of Hungary, stories that encompass World War II as well as the horrors of Communism.

Eva is forever trying to please and placate her parents while at the same time distancing herself from their "otherness".

Beaglehole (who herself emigrated to New Zealand after the Hungarian revolution in 1956) portrays a small community of Hungarian Jews huddled together in Wellington in the 1950s and 70s, dreaming of good coffee and cakes. While their past is grim, both their spirit and sense of humour blaze more strongly than ever.

They are determined to be positive about their new country, but this is not always possible.

Cultural clashes constantly loom and the newcomers are just as capable of bigotry as their neighbours.

When Ruth marries Douglas the whole group is taken aback: "The list of Douglas's faults contained the following: he wasn't Jewish; he wasn't central European; he didn't show affection; he couldn't show his feelings (if he had any, which my mother doubted); and he wasn't a normal human being - no English person was."

The central theme of the novel is Eva's ongoing relationship with her parents and its effect on her marriage.

She has to shut them out to a certain extent to make her own way in the world, but she is naturally drawn to their struggle and their sadness.

Sometimes a little claustrophobic, but mostly written with a clever, light touch and a perceptive knowledge and memory of childhood born of close observation, Replacement Girl succeeds in illuminating the loneliness, frustration and despair of those forced to start again with nothing in a new country.

But it also manages to be funny, sharp and hugely entertaining as Eva reinvents herself and, as is always the case, gets to know her new country far more quickly than her parents.

When she realises that she can never provide a completely safe anchorage for those who are adrift in an ocean of bad memories, she finds a kind of peace and comes to love the wide open landscape, the wild beaches and the dark green bush of her adopted country. And she comes to love its people, too.

Beaglehole's first novel is quite an accomplishment. She is unafraid of shining a light into some of the darker corners of post-war New Zealand.

And she bravely does not shy away from portraying the new immigrants, warts and all, in their conflicted state.

Ultimately though, Eva must see that, much as she wishes it were otherwise and no matter how dutiful a daughter she is, the only person she can really help and comfort is herself.

Tandem Press

$27.95

* Penny Bieder is a freelance writer.