6/9/99

Guilt-edged art

    There are pictures in Tamara Rose's mind, and she can't let go of them: a tattered boy, maybe seven years old, begging on a street corner in Cape Town, crying in the wind and rain. He is shoeless. He is black. Tamara saw this, then went to her three-story home filled with beautiful furniture, gleaming silver, a swimming pool, tennis court and manicured garden.
    That was a long time ago, at the height of apartheid, but Tamara has felt guilty all her life.
    Today, she is finally doing something about it.
    The pictures she can let go of -- paintings and drawings from her long career as an artist -- will raise funds tonight to give something in return to black Africans.
    She has donated 118 original works of art to be sold or auctioned, with all proceeds going to the Head Start program in Rehovot. Head Start boosts education for Ethiopian children, getting them to an Israeli level by teaching them to read and write Hebrew before entering first grade.
    The Hadassah Women's Organization is selling the pictures between 7 and 10 p.m. at the Shalom Hotel, and again on September 27 at the Plaza Sheraton, both in Jerusalem, where Tamara now lives.
    "I lived in luxury on the backs of the blacks: all for us, and nothing for them," says Tamara, who has exhibited widely as a member of the Israeli Artists Association. "I took from Africa, and now it is my turn to give back to the Africans in Israel." She is not getting a percentage of the profits.
    The effort won't directly help the tattered boy, or the maids, nannies, cleaners, gardeners and chauffeurs who slavishly waited on her family. But the principle is being addressed, and other needy Africans will benefit.
    The memories burn a hole in her soul. "We ate off china plates and drank from china cups; the maids had tin plates and enamel cups. My mother walked around like a jailer, with keys jangling; everything was locked up, even the sugar and flour."
    She recalls a servant named Peter, who worked for her neighbor. "He had a wife and children, but was only allowed to see them once a year, at Christmas."
    Apartheid has finally been eradicated, but it is still not merely a matter for historians. It is very much alive in the psyche of many older South Africans.
    Just last year, Tamara relates, she and her mother reunited with Johanna, their maid for 20 years. "Johanna and her husband Andre invited us to lunch. She has gone up in the world and now makes teas at the University of Cape Town. She made lamb chops, my mother's favorite -- but our hosts would not sit with us at the table." Even then, in the midst of the Mandela era, they could not "elevate" themselves to dine with white people.
    "I asked a maid at the old-age home where my mother now lives what her wage is; she earns 1,000 rand a month, or the equivalent of about 700 shekels for a full time job. I gave her a generous tip. She blessed me and my family, and said God would take care of me for the rest of my life. She seemed amazed that she could be deserving of that amount of money! But what did I give her? The equivalent of 50 shekels, for chrissakes."
    The worst of it? "I was criticized for tipping too generously."
    Tamara flaunted social propriety even as a young woman. "When I studied Fine Art at the University of Cape Town, I took our old gardener to look for driftwood for me to sculpt. The risk was enormous, we could have been arrested: a black man and a white woman in a car together."
    Her sister was once stopped by a policeman, because she was driving with her colored friend Agnes. They were breaking the law: Agnes was sitting in the front. The policeman ordered her to the back seat. 
    Tamara's amends, the sale of her art (pastels, ink, pencil and oils), is the best she can do: contributing her life's work for the welfare of Ethiopian Jews. "From Africa to Africa," she calls it.
    "I feel like Ehud Barak, when he apologized to the Moroccans."