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Almonds and Raisins

Page 9

by Maisie Mosco


  Removals usually took place on a Sunday, when friends and relatives were free to lend a hand, and the Sandbergs’ was no exception. But first they had to buy some furniture and Chaim led the way to Bury New Road, trundling a big handcart he had borrowed from his uncle.

  “Just look at all the people!” Sarah gasped when she saw the thronged pavements. Malka had allowed her to do the marketing most days since the time she bought the onions and she had also visited the Moritzes several times in the evenings, with Abraham, whose opinion of them had changed as hers had. But this was her first Sunday morning excursion and she could not believe her eyes. “If a goy would get off the tram here, he’d think he was in a foreign country,” she laughed.

  The air was throbbing with Yiddish voices raised in debate, or talking excitedly as people stood around in groups or milled around beside the shop windows. Housewives with scarves tied peasantwise around their heads nursed babies bedecked with red ribbons to keep the evil-eye away; elderly Hassidim conversed with friends whilst their pious wives, in ill-fitting sheitels, stood patiently by their sides; small boys in yamulkes chased each other in and out of Mr. Radinsky’s biting into cucumbers still dripping with brine from the greengrocer’s barrel; marriages were being arranged, recipes and remedies exchanged, the Talmud earnestly and vocally delved into outside Mr. Halpern’s barber shop, and the garment trade heatedly discussed everywhere.

  The Sandbergs and Berkowitzes pushed their way through to the second-hand shop where a motley collection of other people’s discarded furniture spilled out onto the pavement. Tables and dressers. Bookcases and china cabinets. Sofas with the horsehair stuffing protruding, exchanged for something better by those who had gone up in the world and elaborate sideboards and gilt-framed mirrors, sold for a song by those whose luck was down. What a wealth of speculation it conjured up and sometimes an item envied in a neighbour’s house would be there for the asking.

  “There’s Mrs. Lemberg’s fancy hearth rug!” Malka exclaimed espying one. “I wonder how much he wants for it?”

  “Don’t bother to ask,” Chaim replied. Before he knew it a man could be steered into this Aladdin’s cave by his acquisitive wife and find himself outside again, the owner of some monstrosity. Malka had acquired her green chaise longue that way, which Chaim had had no intention of buying. “Once bitten!” he jested to Abraham though it was not a joke. Because no money changed hands, there was an air of fantasy about the transactions. Only when the dealer came knocking for his weekly payment did the purchaser come down to earth.

  “So let’s go inside,” Sarah said impatiently. “With so many people in the shop, it could take all morning to get served.”

  “Not the way you go shopping!” Abraham chuckled.

  Sarah always knew exactly what she required and bought no more and no less. She could have furnished her whole house there and then, but she was not one to run up unnecessary debts and only the barest essentials were loaded onto the handcart. A deal table and some chairs for the kitchen; mattresses for the children which would lie on the floor until bedsteads could be afforded; a bed and a marble-topped washstand for the lodger they had not yet got, whose comfort was more important than the family’s.

  “What about a mattress for you and me?” Abraham asked her.

  “We can roll ourselves in the perineh for a bit longer.”

  “Oy vay!” he laughed ruefully. He knew it was useless to argue with her.

  David would have liked a bookcase, but had not dared to ask for one. He knew what his mother would have said. “Who has a bookcase when they haven’t yet got a bed? Or any books to put in it?” He’d have a book soon though, he thought as he helped to push the cart to Moreton Street, as soon as he’d learned to read English without stumbling over the words. Mr. Moritz had promised to give him one as a reward.

  He wished his mother would ask him, sometimes, how he was getting on with his lessons at school, so he could tell her he was doing very well. Mrs. Moritz always asked Carl. When Carl and his sisters got home from school, they had cake and lemonade and told their parents all about their day. Perhaps it’d be like that for him and Sammy now they were to have their own home. And he would have a bookcase, even if it wasn’t a real one. An orange box would do and it could stand empty in the new room he was to share with his little brother, until he’d earned the prize Mr. Moritz had promised him. His hopes and dreams went hand in hand with determination and a practical turn of mind, despite his tender years.

  The Berkowitzes were invited to a wedding that afternoon and could not stay to help Sarah and Abraham settle in, but Sarah did not mind, she was pleased to have her new house to herself. Apart from the additional bedroom, it was much the same in size and layout as Malka’s, but when everything was in place the kitchen echoed with emptiness by comparison.

  “Here, I’ll be able to put something down and find it again,” she said to Abraham.

  “Here we can be ourselves,” he laughed.

  Pleasure and satisfaction glowed in his eyes and their blueness sparkled as it had not done for a very long time. His hair was awry from the day’s exertions and Sarah noticed that one of his sidelocks had grown longer than the other. I’ve hardly looked at him since we left Russia, she thought with a pang. What has life done to us? Looking at him now, she marvelled anew that he had wanted her. Weak he might be in some ways, but such a handsome man.

  Abraham’s delight in their new home was plain to see, but Sarah was secretly disappointed. The room looked cold and uninviting. The curtains she had brought from Russia had been hung at the windows, but the red chenille emphasised the bareness and she longed for her house in Dvinsk with its lived-in look, which years of family life had made that way. Would any house on this foreign soil ever feel like home to her? She sat down at the table and a tear coursed down her cheek, the first she had allowed to do so since her uprooting; even on the night they arrived in Malka’s house, when homesickness suddenly overtook her, she had fought the tears back.

  “Sorrel, the children are watching you,” Abraham said quietly.

  He only called her by this pet name at intimate moments. But was this not one? When her heart was being wrung out of her? If they had been alone, he would have taken her in his arms and she knew he wanted to, but could not bring himself to do so whilst the children were there. He held her gaze for a moment, then inclined his head to where David, Sammy and Esther sat huddled together on the floor, their eyes riveted to her. They were feeling the strangeness too and part of it was seeing their mother weep.

  She looked at them gravely, then a smile illuminated her face and she went to kneel beside them, gathering them into her arms. “What a goose I am!” she laughed as Abraham put a match to the fire he had just laid in the grate and it began to blaze. Home is not bricks and mortar, she thought cuddling her children close. It’s wherever a family is together.

  After they had eaten kefulte fish Rachel Moritz had sent round for their supper, and the children were tucked up in bed, Sarah unpacked the wicker box which held her treasures, she had not bothered to do so whilst staying with their landsleit. Nothing was chipped or broken, which seemed a good omen and when the ornaments were in place on the built-in dresser and the mantelpiece, the room had a different appearance and no longer seemed unfriendly and cold. Oval-framed portraits of her parents and Abraham’s, reverently hung, looked down on them benignly from the dingy walls, as if wishing them luck in the years ahead. Sarah allowed herself to shed one more tear, remembering them, but vowed it would be the last. Their parents had been practical people, who would have told her not to waste her time crying for them.

  She was drying her eyes when someone knocked on the front door. Abraham left her to recover her composure and went to open it. He was astonished to see Isaac Salaman standing on the doorstep.

  “A nice surprise, eh, Abie?” Salaman said.

  Abraham was not sure if he thought so or not as he invited him in.

  Sarah had not met Salaman, but had h
eard about his unpredictable character and hoped he had not come to give her husband the sack. Who could know with a person like him? Abraham had said he was capable of anything. Any other boss would dispense with someone’s services at the factory, but this one might not have the patience to wait until tomorrow. She felt sick with apprehension, building up the notion in her mind, waiting for Salaman to speak. She watched him appraise the room and was glad they had had time to give it the finishing touches.

  “A nice place you’ve made of it, eh?” he said admiringly. Then his face puckered and he shrugged, spreading his hands.

  He’s stopped smiling because he knows what he’s come to tell us means we won’t be able to pay the rent, Sarah thought and was now convinced that her husband’s dismissal was imminent. But Abraham knew his employer was thinking of his own lonely home now he was a widower.

  Salaman’s next remark confirmed this. “Children aren’t everything,” he told them. “And who would know this better than me?” He collected himself and beamed at them. “So come with me, Abie. I’ve got a gift outside for you.”

  A gift was the last thing they had expected and he chuckled at their surprised expressions. “You thought I was a skinflint, maybe?”

  Before they could deny this he waddled from the room, propelling Abraham with him. “Come already! From this you’ll get more pleasure than I’m getting.”

  He had hired a horse and cart and brought them the double bed he no longer needed. Abraham had joked at the factory about not being able to afford one.

  “So enjoy it is all I ask,” he said when they tried to thank him and departed as abruptly as he had arrived.

  Sarah spent the rest of the evening polishing the tarnished brass bedstead until it shone like gold and when they retired for the night she stood in her nightdress admiring it. “It’s the most beautiful bed I ever saw,” she said softly.

  “But beds are not for looking at,” Abraham smiled helping her into it.

  He turned out the gaslight and got in beside her, stretching his long legs luxuriously.

  Sarah snuggled close to him. “Now we have everything,” she whispered as he took her in his arms.

  The next morning, before the children were awake, they were drinking tea together at the kitchen table when Chaim walked in through the back door.

  “Yesterday you said there’s nothing you wouldn’t do for us,” he reminded them without preamble. “I didn’t think I’d be asking you a favour so soon.”

  “Whatever it is we’ll do it,” Sarah assured him.

  “We want you to take Nicholas,” Chaim requested.

  Abraham looked at Sarah and saw her pale.

  “I’ve brought him with me,” Chaim said opening his coat which he was holding around him. The cat was half-asleep against his chest. He lowered it gently onto Abraham’s lap. “It upsets me to part with him, but what else can we do?” He stroked his ferocious pet’s silky coat regretfully. “To take him with us to Leeds would be a cruelty, he’d be a stranger there and he might get run over trying to find his way back.”

  Sarah put down her tea glass. “What is Chaim talking about, Abraham?”

  “How can he know when I haven’t told him yet?” Chaim smiled. “I didn’t know myself until my rich Uncle Hershie, who’s got a big trouser factory in Leeds, came banging on my door last night. He came to Manchester to the wedding we went to yesterday and fell out with Uncle Mottel for not putting him to sit beside the bride and groom when we had the meal. It was my Cousin Bluma, Uncle Mottel’s daughter, who got married. My uncles’re never going to speak to each other again after what they said to each other and to get his own back on his brother, Uncle Hershie decides to offer me a fat raise if I’ll move to Leeds and be his righthand man instead of Uncle Mottel’s. He knows how Uncle Mottel relies on me. We’ve been up all night, packing. In case I change my mind he wants us to move today.” Chaim blew his nose on a damp handkerchief. “And I’ve caught a headcold on top of it!”

  “You don’t mind letting your Uncle Mottel down?” Abraham asked him.

  Chaim grinned. “After how he’s treated me it’s a pleasure.”

  Sarah eyed Nicholas who was snoozing cosily.

  “See how docile he is?” Abraham said to her encouragingly.

  “When he’s asleep!”

  “Listen, I know how you feel about Nicholas, Sarah,” Chaim told her. “But you’ll get used to him, like Malka did. She even stroked him goodbye this morning and he didn’t scratch her hand.”

  “She was wearing gloves?”

  “Cats like a little stroke now and then,” Abraham smiled.

  “So I’ll let you do it.”

  “You’ll take him?” Chaim smiled with relief. “He knows you, so he won’t run away and Malka and me will be happy he’s got a good home. Also, you’re getting the best mouser in Strangeways.”

  “Don’t remind me.” Sarah watched Chaim take a milk-crusted saucer from his pocket and sighed resignedly as he put it down beside the hearth. Nicholas was now in residence. She picked it up and took it into the scullery to scrub it before filling it. Even a cat would not be expected to drink from a dirty dish in her house.

  “Such a big favour you’re doing us, Sarah,” Chaim said gratefully.

  Abraham watched her back away as the animal leapt off his lap and began lapping whilst she was putting down the saucer. “Only for you and Malka would she do it,” he laughed.

  “Listen, Abie,” Chaim said when Abraham saw him to the front door. “Uncle Mottel’s head presser Hymie is leaving next week, he hasn’t told Uncle yet. You fancy the job?”

  “It’s nice of you to think of me, Chaim. But I’d rather stay where I am.”

  “Uncle pays piece rates, you’d take home more money.”

  “I don’t want to leave Salaman’s.”

  Chaim eyed him incredulously. “You’re going to be a permanent fixture there? Where’s your head? A presser can do all right for himself once he knows the ropes. With a bit more experience and a few contacts you’ll be able to do like Hymie’s got in mind, plenty of them do it. They set up a contract with a big factory for so many garments a week, then they get together a team of underpressers to do the work. The boss pays them and before they pay the others they take a nice cut for themselves. It’s like having your own business without having any overheads, the work gets done in the factory. One of my neighbours has already paid off for all his furniture that way.”

  “I’m very pleased for him, but me, I’m satisfied where I am. And do me a favour, Chaim, don’t mention about this to Sarah when she calls round to see Malka before you leave.”

  “Would I make trouble between a man and his wife? But why’re you glued to Salaman’s?”

  Abraham shrugged and gave him no answer. Chaim would call him a fool if he explained how he felt and if Sarah knew she would think he was carrying gratitude too far, he would not be able to make her understand. The circumstances under which he had got his job and all the events of his first day there had forged an unspoken bond between himself and Salaman. He knew this was why his employer had given him the bed and the gift had secured his lifelong loyalty.

  Chapter 6

  The Moritzes were part of a small circle of Viennese who met in each other’s houses for coffee and conversation, as they had at home. It was not until Rachel befriended Sarah Sandberg that she became aware her other friends considered themselves superior to women like Sarah.

  Why didn’t I realise it before? she thought one Sunday when Paula Frankl was sitting in the kitchen with her, whilst Sigmund fitted her husband’s new suit.

  “You look like a peasant with that shawl round your shoulders,” Paula had just laughed disparagingly. “But at least you don’t walk out in the street in it, like they do.”

  “Who do you mean by they?” Rachel asked though she knew.

  “Jokes she’s making!” Paula helped herself to a piece of Sachertorte from the dish on the table. “How I wish I was back in Vienna.” Her
expression grew nostalgic.

  “The lilac will be in bloom just now, such a wonderful perfume filling the air.” She glanced through the window at the dingy brick wall which enclosed the back yard, then tilted the silver fob-watch pinned to her rust velvet jacket to see the time. “Three-o’clock on a Spring afternoon. The Kärntnerstrasse will be full of elegant people. Remember when we were girls, Rachel? How we used to stand on the corner beside the Palais Todesco and watch all the fine carriages go by? Once, we saw one of the Rothschilds drive past with his wife. How carefree she looked, I’ve never forgotten it.”

  “Nor have I. But she didn’t live in Eisenstadt like we did, with a chain festooned across the street to separate us from the rest of the city.”

  “Did you have to remind me?”

  Rachel studied the other woman’s pretty, petulant face and wondered, as she often had, why a gentle intellectual like Ludwig Frankl had married such a shallow creature. “What’s the use of only remembering the good things?” she shrugged. “I too miss Vienna. Who wouldn’t? But folk like us, who weren’t wealthy or important enough to be accepted in spite of being Jewish, weren’t part of anything except the ghetto. So they did us a favour and allowed us to move freely outside it, to taste what Vienna is. Who wants their favours?”

  “You didn’t want to leave any more than I did. Why’re you talking this way?”

  Why am I? Rachel asked herself. Something was making her want to bring Paula down to earth, but she was also putting into words her own feelings. “Because it’s the truth,” she said quietly.

  Paula played with her gloves edgily, crumpling them on her lap, then smoothing them out again. “Sigmund’s done a good job on you! When Ludwig said we were coming to England, I didn’t speak to him for a week and I still think it was your husband who influenced him. Yetta Stein thinks he talked Max into it, as well.”

  Max Stein was a mountain of a man, with an ego to match his size. “Nobody could talk Max into anything,” Rachel smiled.

 

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