Out of Tune Read Online Free PDF

reduced to a smoldering burned rag, the window frame had turned completely black, and there were hundreds of bits
     of broken glass from the window scattered all over the floor amidst puddles of water. At that moment my mother and David walked
     in, my mother looking horrified. Dad was due home from work shortly and I was scared that I would be punished for all the
     damage I’d caused. So I hid in the bathroom. My mother of course told my father what had happened. Dad came to the door of
     the bathroom and said: “Come on, Margaret, come on outside.” And I said: “No, no, no. I know I’ve done an awful thing. I don’t
     want to be punished.” It took my father quite a long time while I stayed barricaded in the bathroom to persuade me that nothing
     was going to happen to me.
    Eventually I agreed to come out, and just as Dad had promised, I didn’t get punished at all. He simply explained to me why
     it was dangerous to play with matches, and that was the end of it.
    There was another incident a few months later where I again did something terribly stupid that could have ended in disaster.
     One of the things I used to be very curious about was the idea of hanging. I’d heard and read about people getting hanged
     for crimes, so I thought I would try to see what this hanging experience felt like. I suggested to David that we should try
     it out. Being my obedient little brother he did what his big sister told him. We went to the back of the apartments with a
     rope (our apartment was part of a small two-story block of four apartments, with stairs between the floors) and I told David
     to go up to the top of the landing while I stood at the bottom of the stairs. He then threw one end of the rope down to me
     as I instructed and I made a noose and put it around my neck. I then ordered him to start pulling. At first it was fine, but
     gradually I could feel the rope tightening around my neck and it stopped feeling fine. Luckily, just as I started gasping
     for air, one of the neighbors came out, saw us, and raced inside frantically shouting, “Mrs. Helfgott, Mrs. Helfgott, come
     quickly!” My mother rushed out, took the rope away from David, and I was saved.

4
THE MOVE TO PERTH

    I n 1953, when I was eight and David was six, my parents decided the family should move to Perth, which is on the west coast
     of Australia, facing the Indian Ocean and more than 2,000 miles by road from Melbourne. I once asked my father why, rather
     than move to say Sydney or Canberra, he chose to go to Perth, which is after all one of the most isolated cities in the world.
     (The nearest city, Adelaide, is over 1,700 miles away.) He told me that he’d taken out a map of Australia and picked the farthest
     place he could from Melbourne. Its distance was precisely the reason for the move. He wanted to make a totally fresh start.
    When my father first came to Australia he had been reasonably successful. But over the years he suffered a string of business
     failures and things hadn’t always gone well for him. (In 1942-43, he had served in the Australian armed forces.) He also worked
     in a knitwear factory, keeping the mechanical and electrical tools in order. But as well as disappointments with work, he
     had become disillusioned with several of his friends in Melbourne, which was particularly painful for him.
    By nature, my father was a giver. He had a big personality with a big heart and would do anything for his friends. Yet several
     of the people he thought he could rely on had let him down badly. In the early days in Melbourne, he used to give shelter
     to newly arrived migrants from Poland—many of them refugees from anti-Semitic persecution—in his house in Pigdon Street. In
     most cases they had no money, and my father would feed, clothe, and look after them without taking a penny. He would find
     them jobs, and help them get established.
    But many of the people whom my father had befriended and helped failed to stand by him