By Adele Hulse

Two and a half years ago we became tenants of old friends who live in Europe. They had grown up in this house in Melbourne, the children of Polish Jews who had lost every other family member to the holocaust. We struck a deal that enabled them to visit home annually for a couple of weeks; they also asked that the hallway and other details in the house be left decorated in the family style and to keep most of the cupboards filled with their belongings.

It wasn’t a problem for me. I’m not a decorator, I don’t care what a room looks like as long as it’s clean and I can work or sleep in it. Eternal tenants, we are used to moving house, copping new landlords. Then one of the family came back and fretted and agonized over every chip, every mark, running her hands over the woodwork looking for stains and tut-tutting eternally. Actually, the place was in very good shape, her reactions were emotional and unrealistic and it was a strain on all of us, so I resolved the next time the family came, they would find nothing to complain about.

I took the whole of December to polish, weed, plant, clean and tidy everything so that it would pass the Jewish grandmother of all inspections in time for their next visit at the end of the month.

This was to be a special visit. One of them was to be married from the house, and a wedding party of four arrived from Europe announcing they would stay a month, at least. This was a bit of a shock to us. I keep a stringent work schedule, which was obviously going to have to collapse as we had to give up all personal space, including our bedrooms.

We also had to take down all the Dharma images and pack them away because the family was raised Communist, and I was well aware of how much they despised all religion as “opiates of the people.” The entire works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Maxim Gorky are enshrined here. Once I told them that I believed Buddhism embraced political idealism and practical socialism just as passionately as their heroes did – they smiled tolerantly at me and I knew they didn’t believe it.

It was hard for my teenage son to give up his room for a mattress on the floor next to me and the dog. “Flexible,” I told him. “If you can’t be flexible you’re going to suffer horribly!” It was hard to wake up every morning to a house reeking of cigarettes: the authorities might have gone a long way with smoking rules in America and Australia but the Dutch enjoy a cigarette at dawn and then all day long. Smokers are oblivious to the stink and happily leave full ashtrays here, there and everywhere.

Meanwhile the place was ablaze with wedding preparations, and plainly, the best way we could cooperate was to exhibit no personal needs at all. “But but,” said my son, “We pay rent. Why do they ignore that?”

“Look,” I said. “This is the first wedding they have ever had from the house. They are absolutely beside themselves with excitement and, I assure you, cannot even see us for stars in their eyes. The only way we can be harmonious with it all is to put ourselves in their shoes, feel how happy they are, how good it feels to come home again – of course we can also secretly tick off the days until they leave and we can fumigate the house with vast clouds of incense and bring out the Gurus again. But if we are not harmonious, if we ‘stand on our rights,’ it will create such a sour note, which will do none of us any good. Flexible, kid, it’s the only way.”

The reception for 80 in the garden was just beautiful. There were laughter and tears and generations of memories, old Yiddish songs and a thousand Mazeltovs. A few days later they were all on planes and we had our home back again. Sometimes creating a big fuss can save lives, sometimes it is a total waste of time.