MOSTLY ABOUT MORRIS

 Morris Shiffman and Shirley Futeran

Morris apparently matriculated in 1972.

Shirley would have matricated in 1971, if she had lived. 

Both of them, had life been different, would have been great writers. However they may have done in other subjects, when it came to English essays, they were top- markers. 

But Shirley died in her Standard eight year. There was a lot of speculation about her death. She died on Table Mountain. Did she jump, was she pushed, or did she fall? She was an avid hiker. She had written a beautiful essay about it. Our class teacher, who was obviously touched by it, read it out to us. Like me, Shirley had lived in Oranjezicht, on the slope of the mountain (in fact, a block away from me). Of course this is one of those sensational events which a school child never forgets. 

There was an alternative story, that she had been up there with a boyfriend, and that something sinister happened - but I was sceptical about that story because she had been quite a shy girl and it came as a surprise to me that she had a boyfriend at all - although now that I think about it I do know that she had fallen in with quite a radical crowd, HaShomer Hatza'ir, shortly before her death. I know this because she had come round to my house one night with some considerably older guy to try to recruit me into their movement. But I was a dyed-in-the-wool member of Habonim, and I was unmoveable. 

That older guy: could he have been the boyfriend? 

And then there was the third story - that Shirley had been pregnant and that she had leaped to her death. I hope very sincerely that that wasn't the reason for it. The story didn't sound right but you never know. 

And then there was Morris Shiffman. He was a very awkward boy and he lived in a small flat right across the road from the school. I don't remember ever seeing a father. He lived with his mother and I got the impression that life was a struggle for her. I lost track of him, as I did with so many of the class, immediately after we finished school. He had never been a friend except in the most peripheral sort of way. 

And then one day in the year 2000 while I was doing my parental duty as a guard on the school perimeter, I found Morris - or rather, he found me - 29 years after last seeing him. 

Parents volunteered to do security duty outside the school grounds on a roster basis and on that particular morning, after the kids were safely in the grounds, our security team prepared to wrap up our shift. In contrast to the cacophony ten minutes before, silence descended. One by one we called in our positions on our walkie-talkies and began to move towards the security office. 

The road outside the school was empty now, still and quiet. Suddenly I heard someone call my name. I looked around. I saw no-one. After a brief pause whoever called my name again, loud and clear. I scanned the surrounding street but still, I saw no-one. But I was sure I knew which direction the call came from. 

There was a small cafe directly across the road from the school gates. It had been there since my own school days. This voice had come from that cafe - but still, I could see no-one. Whoever it is, must be inside that doorway, I thought, and I started to cross the road to check it out. 

Then I noticed a pile of grey blankets against the cafe wall next to the entrance. The kind of cheap, rough blankets that vagrants carry with them to use as a bed, or for warmth or shelter. As I got closer I realised that part of what I had thought was a blanket, was actually a dishevelled, grubby-looking adult. One bare foot protruded from the blanket. But that face, I thought - I know that face! 

He was looking at me with a keen and steady gaze and a big smile, as if all this were the most natural thing in the world. I was battling through the mists of memory, the abyss of all those years, that face - and he knew my name. Who was he? And then the penny dropped. This is Morris. Morris, what's-his-name, you know, Morris! Jesus Christ! What the hell…? 

He didn’t get up, but he extended a grubby hand out of the blankets with the clear intention of shaking my hand. For the tiniest fraction of a second I hesitated. I was ashamed of that hesitation, but then I reciprocated, and we shook hands and then there we were, a couple of idiots grinning at each other with nothing to say. What do I do now? Ask him how he is? I can see how he is. How’s the family? - Probably not appropriate. What’s happening, what are you doing with yourself these days? - no, not appropriate either, I guess.

I wasn’t exactly ready for my own words when they came out - “What happened to you?” I got the impression that he actually got a kick out of the shock in my face. Perhaps this was his party trick, this was how he greeted every ex-Herzlian who he recognised. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said slowly, “I guess I just never got going, you know …” he was gazing down the road, probably to avoid my eyes. He made a vague gesture, part faux drama, part the words that he didn’t have.

I didn’t want to sit down on the sidewalk and he wasn’t going to stand up so this wasn’t going to be a long conversation. As it was there were too many questions that I couldn’t ask. I was disgusted at myself for being self-conscious about being seen with him. What a prick I am, I thought. Suddenly it occurred to me that there actually was something that I could do to show a tiny little bit of goodwill. He hadn’t asked for money and he obviously wasn’t going to, but clearly he needed it. My wallet. I have a wallet in my jacket pocket. I hauled it out. “Oh, no, no, no,” he said.

“Morris, it's nothing,” I assured him. I have no idea what I gave him. I just emptied all the cash notes out into my hand and without looking at them I stuffed them into his blanket. “Its OK”, I said, “just take it”.

“Well - well, thank you” he mumbled. He was embarrassed. Maybe I should have thought of a better way to do that, I thought.

I turned to go, “Keep well Morris” I said, and fled up the road to my parked car. When I drove away, I turned down the first side street I came across in order to avoid having to drive past him. I was in shock, I was hurt, I was smitten with guilt - for what, I have no idea.

You see, I explained to myself as I drove down to my office, the problem is that Herzlia is all about success: Herzlia wants to hear the success stories of the big achievers who it can brag about: the politicians, rocket scientists, famous doctors, lawyers and judges, philosophers, captains of industry, great benefactors of worthy charities, inventors of the New World, authors, Nobel Prize-winners - the honour, the power and the glory of this noble school goes on and on … except that that isn’t the whole story, is it?

So here’s this poor bastard who once had a fine, sensitive, brilliant mind, an only child who lived with his poor mother until she died, and then he just - got lost. Totally lost. Nobody gives a shit about his fine mind. He has no guidance, he has no support, he’s too clumsy and impractical to figure out a way to survive, so he ends up on the street. Herzlia doesn’t want to know him because he’s such an embarrassment. He is not one of the school’s favourite sons. He has so little initiative that he can’t even move away from the school that he once went to - he still sleeps in its shadow, thirty years after matric.

By the time I got into my office I had worked myself up into a righteous froth. I called the Jewish social workers’ office. “Rene, do you know that there’s this beggar sitting on the pavement outside the gates of Herzlia School, who actually matriculated there?”. I fired off at the poor woman.

“Calm down” she said. “Morris Shiffman. Yes, we know all about Morris. Honestly, we’ve tried. We still try. But he won’t come in. We wanted him to move into the Home, but he won’t come. We still keep an eye on him, though.

If you think you can do anything with him you’re welcome to try. But I don’t think you’ll be able to budge him.”

So he’s known, I thought - I’m probably not the first to blast poor old Rene like that on Morris’ behalf.

So here’s my question then:

We have this fine old establishment, this school with so many success stories in the form of rich and famous Alumni - but there’s this inexplicable collateral damage, casualties falling by the wayside, students who deserved better - they became nobodies, tramps, suicides, shadows within shadows, and the school and its alumni know about them, but we (myself included) - we ride on by and pretend it doesn’t happen!

How do you explain that?

Morris died in January 2019 and he's buried at Pinelands No. 2 Jewish cemetery.