by Diana Finley
Later, in the growing heat of the following morning, they stand at the ship’s rail and watch as a British naval frigate approaches. The British are so close that the white shirts of their uniforms are clearly visible. A roar of protest rises from the gathered refugees. A woman near Anna lifts her baby high in the air over the side of the ship. The little boy thinks it is a game. He kicks his legs and laughs.
‘I will throw my son into the sea rather than return!’ the woman screams.
‘Please stay calm,’ shouts the British officer. ‘We must check your ship – we will not harm anyone. You should be able to land.’
The mother lowers her baby. She hugs and kisses him, sobbing uncontrollably.
On this occasion, the British are primarily interested in checking the vessel for weapons. Their feet clatter down the iron steps and stomp through the hold. A few officers set up a table on deck and passengers are required to line up. Individual papers are given a cursory glance, and their owners an intimidating glare, as if to warn them that the British are not to be meddled with, and then all are waved on impatiently. When the ship is finally permitted to proceed, the refugees stand mute and drained on the deck.
‘Look, Anna, the Carmel hills,’ Jakob whispers, pointing at the hazy rise of the land. Low houses cluster around the harbour and straggle back among olive and cypress groves. A faint hum of vehicles and voices grows louder as they approach the shore. The air is warm, an exotic mix of unfamiliar smells drifting back and forth like gentle waves on a beach.
In her hand Anna holds a small piece of paper, crumpled and damp: a precious scrap on which an address is written.
* * *
It is a whitewashed two-storey house, its plaster crumbling, the wooden door bleached grey-white by the sun. The shutters at the windows hang unevenly. They knock cautiously. After a few moments the door creaks open a crack and a woman holding a small black-haired girl on her hip peers out.
‘Yael? We are Anna and Jakob.’
The woman scrutinises their faces, then smiles broadly, puts the child down and swings the door open.
‘Come in, come in. You are welcome here. Say “shalom” to Anna and Jakob, Rachel.’
The little girl smiles shyly from behind her mother’s legs. Anna crouches down and says, ‘Shalom, Rachel.’
‘Ah, very good! Already you speak Hebrew!’
‘If we can get by with just “shalom”, then yes.’
‘One word will soon become many,’ Yael continues in Yiddish. ‘Now come, follow me.’
She leads them up a steep, dark staircase and along a passage. There is a small cooking area along one wall: a black stove, a sink with a metal drainer, a shelf on the wall with plates and dishes, some pans of varying size dangling from hooks beneath the shelf.
Yael opens a door and dazzling sunshine engulfs them. As their eyes adjust, Jakob and Anna put their meagre bundles on the floor and look around a large room, almost painfully bright. The walls are white. The wooden floorboards have been scrubbed so hard they are bleached pale, almost white. There is a small wardrobe, a simple table and two chairs, all made of wood. The bed is old and it, too, is wooden-framed. The mattress sinks a little, but looks clean. They exchange glances. Yael watches.
‘Ah, you have no bedding! I should have thought. Look, don’t worry, it’s fine. I will lend you some sheets and pillows until you can get some of your own.’
Jakob shifts uncomfortably.
‘No, no, thank you. We will manage with just our clothes for now. It’s warm enough.’
‘Pshh – nonsense! You have to have sheets.’ Yael studies Jakob’s face. ‘Well anyway, I will get them and you can use them or not, as you please.’
She returns a short while later with a pile of bedding. Rachel carries a small tray with some bread, olives, and a pale mixture in a bowl. Yael explains it is a local dish made of mashed up beans and oil. There is also a small bowl containing some coins.
‘Just until you can get some local money yourselves.’
Yael begins to usher Rachel out of the room.
‘Thank you, Yael. You are very kind.’
She pauses and looks steadily at Anna, her eyes dark and penetrating.
‘We all arrive here with nothing. Now rest, you must be tired, both of you.’
They eat the food hungrily. It restores their spirits. They unpack, their minimal belongings looking forlorn in the empty space of the cupboard. They make up the bed with Yael’s sheets.
‘We will use them for now, just so that we don’t offend her. As soon as we earn some money, we’ll buy our own.’
‘She seemed perfectly happy to lend us what we need. Surely there is no shame in that, Jakob? Sometimes people get pleasure from helping.’
Jakob frowns and shakes his head. ‘You can be so naive, Anna. If we accept help from others, we are immediately in their debt. It puts them in a position of power over us. I’d have thought you, of all people, would realise that.’
A hot rage rises in Anna’s chest. She bites her lip. Will their lives always be like this?
Later they walk together along the sea front. Their ramshackle ship has already disappeared, but there is an array of small boats moored in the harbour, mostly fishing boats. They turn away and explore the streets rising behind Yael’s house. Nothing in Anna’s life has prepared her for this place; everything is so different, so foreign. People stare at them, as though knowing they do not belong. She can’t tell who might be friendly, who a threat. The air itself feels alien, thick with heat and unrecognisable smells. She thinks of the apartment in Mariahilferstrasse, with its smell of furniture polish, fresh ground coffee and good familiar food. She thinks of Kaethe, wholesome and pink in her starched apron, of Mamma lying pale in her bed.
One narrow street leads to another. Some have rough cobbles, others compressed mud, which covers their feet in a thin film of dust as they walk. The houses lead directly from the streets and alleys. People stand in doorways and watch who passes. Anna feels many pairs of eyes following them as they walk. Despite the evening sun, little light penetrates the alleys, shaded by buildings of clay or stone on either side. Somewhere in the distance a muezzin calls people to prayer, his voice plaintive in the still air.
They come across a bakery, open even at the late hour. The baker’s apron is floury and stained. Sweat darkens his armpits and glistens on his face. He scoops large flat loaves from the sides of the oven with a huge wooden shovel and places them on shelves, their dry crusts scraping on the surface.
‘Do you think the food is clean?’ murmurs Jakob.
‘It’s been baked in the oven. Bread is bread everywhere.’
They buy a loaf, and a bag of peaches, for the morning.
The next day Anna returns the tray to the kitchen. Yael insists she sits down. She makes two small cups of thick strong coffee, and joins Anna at the table. She is a stocky woman, with a broad face and fine slanting eyes. Anna guesses she is eight or ten years older than herself. Yael talks slowly and steadily; about how she and her elderly parents came to Palestine some fifteen years previously to escape anti-Semitism following the revolution in Russia. She met her husband David in Palestine. He was a ‘Sabra’, born on a kibbutz. Now they are all dead, she says, and she has only Rachel. Anna nods but does not feel able to ask more about her husband’s death. Yael sits resting her chin on her hand, looking at Anna as they talk.
‘Everyone in Palestine has a story to tell,’ she says, ‘and most of them are tragic – why else would they leave their homes and struggle to this place?’ The child, Rachel, creeps cautiously towards Anna and stands gazing at her. Anna reaches out and gently draws her in to stand leaning on her lap. She strokes the smooth skin of the little girl’s arm and feels the comfort of her weight against her.
Anna tells Yael of her home in Vienna, of her parents, and her work as a governess and nanny; how she would like to work with children if possible. But they agree that as she speaks almost no Hebrew, this is out of the question. S
he did learn some English at school. Yael suggests Anna might try to get a job at Spinney’s, a British-owned department store, where many of the customers are English. She knows a woman who works as a floor manager, and could introduce Anna to her. Anna eagerly agrees.
* * *
Maya Rosenberg looks her up and down doubtfully.
‘Do you have a black or grey dress, no tears or patches? It can have a white collar, but no other colours. Also some clean, plain shoes, in black or grey. They must be smart but also comfortable; we’re on our feet all day.’
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ Anna blurts. She does a quick mental calculation. Her only dress is black. It is very old and worn, but perhaps it will do. She has no black or grey shoes. Her only shoes are the pair she is wearing now. They are brown, faded and very shabby.
Mrs Rosenberg agrees to take Anna on as a sales assistant for a two-month trial, provided she looks the part. She can start the following day. Anna is thrilled and appalled in equal measure.
‘What can I do for shoes?’ she wails at Yael. They gaze down at her feet.
‘Hmm. You can’t wear mine, your feet are smaller. I have an idea – come.’
Yael takes Rachel by the hand and links her arm in Anna’s. She leads her to a dark and cramped shop deep in the old quarter. Shoes of every size and type hang at the window and on the walls, and stand stacked on the counter. The smell of leather and polish reminds Anna of her father and his self-imposed nightly task of cleaning the family’s shoes. Yael greets the shoemaker in Arabic and engages him in a lengthy conversation. He leans over the counter and studies Anna’s shoes, scratching his head. He gestures to her to take them off and hand them over. She looks uncertainly at Yael. Yael nods impatiently and gesticulates as the shoemaker has done. Anna places her shoes on the counter and stands in her bare feet. The man hands her a pair of coarse rope sandals. Yael pushes her out of the shop.
‘There,’ she beams. ‘No problem!’
‘What do you mean? I can’t wear these!’
‘No, no, no! Don’t worry. Just put them on for now, to go home. Tonight, we come back. He’ll fix your shoes. He’s a good man. You’ll see.’
That evening, Yael and Anna work on the finishing touches to her work outfit at the kitchen table. Rachel leans against her mother’s shoulder, watching. Jakob returns from his own search for work, to find them giggling like schoolgirls together.
‘See here, Jakob,’ says Yael, holding up the shoes, miraculously restored and gleaming black, ‘how smart your wife will be tomorrow!’
Jakob strokes Rachel’s head, but does not smile.
‘How did you pay for them?’ he asks Anna quietly.
‘We only had to pay the shoemaker for his work – just three shekels.’
‘You had that?’
‘It was a loan, Jakob,’ Yael says. ‘Soon you’ll both be earning.’
Jakob sighs and goes up to their room, his feet thumping on the wooden stairs. Yael and Anna exchange glances.
The following morning at Spinney’s, Anna presents herself neat and businesslike. As well as the shoes, she wears her black dress, clean and pressed, and softened by a little white lace gathered at the neck, cut from an old dress of Yael’s. Maya Rosenberg walks a slow circuit around Anna and nods her approval.
Over the next two months, Anna works hard at her English, which is scarcely more than school English at first. Somehow she seems to get by. The polite formality of her relationship with customers suits her. It makes no personal demands on her; they remain strangers. The main thing seems to be to listen to their needs and to compliment them on their choices. She learns to make non-committal comments, which customers can interpret to suit themselves.
‘It shows off your figure perfectly, Madam.’
‘That colour brings out the blue of your eyes.’
‘I understand this style is popular in London at present.’
Anna keeps her eyes on the customer’s image in the mirror – the fine cut of the dress, the beautiful peach colour, the sapphire blue, soft ochre, maroon, or turquoise like the depths of the Mediterranean. She avoids looking at her own drab reflection, as black and dreary as mourning.
After the trial period, Mrs Rosenberg informs her that she is liked by the customers, and her work is satisfactory. She is offered a permanent position. Meanwhile, Jakob finds a bookkeeping post with a building firm. In addition, he spends three evenings a week studying to complete his architectural qualifications. He also works part-time on a voluntary basis in an architectural firm, to broaden his practical experience. He is always tired, but pleased that they are making their way in their new world.
Their wages together enable them to pay Yael the modest rent and buy a little food. Of course, they have repaid her small loan. A few weeks later they manage to buy some cheap bedding from a street stall. To Jakob it symbolises newfound independence.
* * *
After they have been in Palestine for a year, Jakob suggests that maybe they should have a child. They have never talked about it before; the idea takes Anna by surprise.
‘A child?’
Jakob is offended. ‘Perhaps you don’t want our child?’
‘Of course I do, Jakob. It’s just that … well … do you think we can afford it?’
Yet, the more she considers it, the more she is drawn to the idea of a baby. Perhaps a child will bring some joy into their lives, perhaps even help to bind them together. The months pass and no baby comes. Jakob and she rarely talk about it, and he never openly refers to the events of previous years. He suggests she visits a doctor. The doctor, a kindly Jewish man in his sixties, assures them he can find no physical reason preventing her from becoming pregnant. It is important to relax, he tells them; stress can work against conception. Anna firmly believes that she is to blame for her childlessness – that it is a punishment.
She becomes extremely fond of little Rachel. Sometimes when she returns from work, they play together or she reads Rachel a story in the warm courtyard at the back of the house. She loves to feel the soft weight of the child’s body on her lap, the fusty smell of her hair, the smoothness of her little limbs. Sometimes Yael watches from the doorway, noting the tenderness with which Anna holds her child, the fervour of her kisses. Often she makes Anna a cup of coffee and sits with her in the yard. One day she invites Anna into her kitchen, where she has laid some clothes out on the table: two dresses, a skirt and a blouse. She suggests Anna could borrow her machine and alter them to fit.
‘You are always so kind, Yael, but I can’t accept,’ Anna says, thinking of Jakob. She caresses the fragile material of a cream-coloured dress. It slips through her fingers like water.
‘What’s kind? Should I throw them away? I can’t wear them any longer – look at me.’ Yael pats the curve of her stomach and hips. ‘If you’re really worried about accepting them, you could help me with a little sewing in exchange – I’m no good at it.’
From this time, Anna is often in Yael’s little parlour. She sits at the treadle, taking in one of the new dresses, altering or repairing a garment for Yael or Rachel, or making curtains to brighten the old house. Slowly, Yael and Anna grow closer. For the first time she feels able to trust Yael enough to speak of the past. Yael listens and nods. Sometimes she strokes Anna’s arm affectionately, or hugs her. Sometimes she talks of her own life in her pragmatic, matter-of-fact manner; how her husband David was killed by Arabs as he patrolled the kibbutz, how Yael found out she was pregnant with Rachel only after David’s death.
‘Do you hate them?’ Anna asks.
‘Hate them? Hate who?’
‘The Arabs.’
Yael frowns and considers this question. ‘No, I don’t hate them. They believe this is their land, just as we do. We are all just looking for a place in the world, a place we belong – a safe haven. Of course I hate what they did to David, but actually, as individuals, I often prefer Arabs to Jews. They are not so rigid, not so tight-arsed and self-righteous! Look at Jakob!’<
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Anna looks at Yael in shock, and they both laugh.
‘I’m sorry, Anna. Jakob is a fine man, and he worships you, but does he have to be so miserable, so serious all the time? Does he have no sense of fun?’
‘I think I am responsible for destroying whatever sense of fun Jakob once had.’
Yael grabs Anna’s wrist and holds it firmly.
‘Don’t ever say that! You cannot be responsible for another person’s temperament. Don’t take that on to yourself.’
‘Jakob is talking of returning to Austria to bring our parents out.’
‘What! Is he mad? You know what is happening back there – and he wants to go back?’
Acquaintances from Vienna have arrived in Haifa recently with stories of cruelty, tragedy and terrible hardship. They brought a letter from Jakob’s mother and grandmother, a letter crying out with fear and sorrow. His twin brother Paul was shot dead while resisting arrest. Julia and Paulina now have no means of support or protection. They are terrified and barely surviving. Many neighbours have been taken away or have simply disappeared. Anna’s mother died just as the Nazis marched into Vienna. Her father is still there, hiding, with some help from former employees, Christians, but it is becoming more and more dangerous.
‘Bastards!’ Yael spits. ‘Nazi pigs! Don’t let him go, Anna. It’s suicide.’
‘Do you think I haven’t told him? You know how stubborn he is.’
* * *
Anna tells Jakob she is taking on a part-time job coaching a schoolgirl, a doctor’s daughter, in English.
‘I thought your own English was not so good.’
‘It’s improved a lot since I started at Spinney’s – certainly good enough to help a ten-year-old child with her schoolwork. I can go after work, on one of the evenings you’re studying.’
She does not mention that the family lives in the Arab quarter in Wadi Ara, or that she needs to travel by local bus to reach their home. She loves the adventure of the bus journey: its rattling, vibrating fragility, the heat and dust, the chatter and laughter of her fellow passengers and the smell of garlic, spices, and hot human bodies. At first they stare at her quizzically, but after a few weeks Anna is greeted like an old friend by regulars, a seat always offered to her. Often her neighbour presses a piece of bread with black olives wrapped in paper into her lap, saying, ‘Yalla, yalla.’