Almonds and Raisins

by Maisie Mosco

  “Why not?” Jim wanted to know.

  “It isn’t kosher.”

  “What does that mean?” Hawkins inquired.

  David and Carl explained the Jewish dietary laws to the other boys and why they were required.

  Moore, who was Catholic, took off his glasses and polished them thoughtfully. “It’s a bit like not eating meat on a Friday.”

  “Or giving something up for Lent,” Jim added, then had to tell the two Jewish boys what Lent was.

  The next day, Jim brought David an apple in return for the fish ball. “Go on, eat it. It’s kosher,” he grinned.

  David got a warm feeling because Jim accepted what he was and respected it, and sat for a moment musing on the way knowledge helped people to understand each other.

  “So bite into it already!” Jim said mimicking David’s Jewish idiom jokingly. The way the Jewish boys spoke was a mixture of Lancashire accent and something peculiarly their own.

  David did not mind Jim mimicking him, he knew it was not intended to be an insult. He munched the apple, which was sweet and unblemished, different from his earnings at Mr. Radinsky’s, he thought with a smile and told Jim about his evening job.

  Jim looked astounded. “When do you do your homework if you have to do that in the evenings?”

  “Jewish evenings’re longer than other people’s,” David laughed. “They have to be.” He explained about his Bar Mitzvah classes.

  “Being Jewish isn’t easy, is it?” Jim said thoughtfully.

  David had never thought he would hear a Gentile say that. But Jim didn’t know the half of it.

  After this, the friendship ripened. Jim gradually learned of the Sandbergs’ ordeal in Russia and began to look at the Jewish boys in school with new eyes. Although small for his age, he had a strong personality. Certain boys in the class had anti-Semitic tendencies bred in them by their parents and though not overtly so to David and Carl, revealed this in their absence.

  “If you want to be a Jew-hater, don’t be one in front of me,” Jim warned them and they watched what they said in his presence from then on. He thought of telling them what David had been through, but decided his Jewish friend would not wish this. And why should he have to be pitied, tolerated because he had suffered? He was no different from anyone else and should be accepted for what he was, in his own right.

  Jim’s mind was similar to David’s, able to pick out the crux of a matter from the detail and act accordingly. When he spoke of David at home, which he often did, his father said he would like to meet him; his law practice was expanding and David might be suitable material to be an articled clerk, as Jim would be after he had been to university.

  Jim did not tell David about this immediately, but several times invited him home for Sunday lunch. “I’ll make sure we have fish,” he said reassuringly. “My family won’t mind doing without their roast beef and Yorkshire pud for once.”

  But David always had to refuse. The whole of Sunday morning was spent at his Bar Mitzvah class. In the afternoon he worked at Mr. Radinsky’s and after that there was his homework, which could not be done on Friday night or Saturday because of the Sabbath. Even if none of these things had stood in his way, he could not afford the train fare. Jim lived in Cheshire, where many of the wealthy professional and business people of Manchester had their homes.

  “Look, you’ve got to come to my birthday party, you’re my best friend and it wouldn’t be the same without you,” Jim declared when his birthday came around.

  David had not realised the Gentile boy thought of him that way, or held him in such esteem, and was profoundly affected when he learned it. But they never saw each other outside school hours, how could Jim think of him thus? He reflected on his own friendship with Saul Salaman, which was on another level from his relationship with Jim. A purely Jewish level, born of their Jewish upbringing. Jim’s life was not like his, it was all of a piece, school and home both part of an integrated whole. His own was split down the middle, the ghetto one half and his daily going forth to the world outside it the other. Would it always have to be like that? Until now, the ghetto had encompassed all of it and the problem had not arisen.

  Jim’s party was to be on a Saturday, which increased David’s predicament. When he explained, his friend would not take this seriously, though he had always shown the greatest respect for David’s religious observance.

  “It’s daft! How can you go through life never going a nowhere by tram or train on a Saturday? It’s the day when everything happens. Everyone has their parties then. And not riding on a train isn’t like not eating pork because pigs are mucky creatures, is it? That Jewish law makes sense, even though I eat pork myself.”

  Eventually, David borrowed the fare from Carl and with his parents’ wrath ringing in his ears slammed the door and went. Jim’s reaction to the Sabbath travel ban had made it seem nonsensical to him, too.

  Once on the train, his excitement mounted. The dingy buildings soon gave way to green fields and the snakelike glint of a river. Trees and bushes, creamy with a froth of blossom, flashed by and were instantly replaced by more, the leaves and petals of a richer hue. Hawthorn and laburnum, flowering cherry and copper beech, towering oaks and slender silver birch, a feast for the eye and balm to the soul of a boy whose horizon was the Strangeways ghetto. Then the houses began to loom up, solid and imposing. Not cramped together in humble little terraces, grimed by smoke and soot, with donkey-stoned doorsteps jutting into the street, but set in gardens; each one at least a mile from the other it seemed to David as he viewed them from afar through the window and wondered which of them was “Forrest Dene.”

  Jim was waiting for him on the station platform and looked different in his tweed jacket and flannels. David’s instinct had told him not to wear his school blazer and he was glad he had obeyed it, though his outfit was not as smart as his friend’s. He was still in knickerbockers, which were somewhat too small for him, but felt his Sabbath suit was presentable otherwise.

  “It’s not a bad little village,” Jim said as they strode down the High Street.

  “Alderley Edge is famous, people come here for picnics, just to see it.”

  “But you don’t think of it like that when you live here,” Jim smiled.

  Some of the shops reminded David of the ones he had seen in The Shambles, with black and white frontages, but these were freshly painted and everything about them smacked of quality. The pyramids of fruit in the greengrocery seemed to have been hand polished and the vegetables looked as if they had never seen soil. He couldn’t imagine Mr. Radinsky taking such care, or his customers having time to notice it if he did.

  “My mum gets her dresses there,” Jim told him as they passed a window displaying a vase of roses and an elegant gown unsullied by a price tag.

  David thought that single garment would probably cost more than his mother had spent on clothes in her whole life.

  Jim halted outside a confectioner’s. “Might as well start spending my birthday money! I’ll treat you to your favourite cake.”

  “There’s nothing here I recognise,” David laughed staring into the window.

  Jim left him to admire the baker’s art and went into the shop. “Allow me to introduce you to a jam tart,” he said when he came out clutching a paper bag. “Though I can’t quite believe you’ve never met one!”

  “How d’you do,” David grinned sinking his teeth into it.

  They turned off the High Street and began to climb a steep incline.

  “You’ll see the Edge in a minute, we have to pass it,” Jim said carelessly.

  How can he take living here for granted like he does? David wondered breathing in the fresh clean air as they walked past tall hedges, so thick and luxuriant they seemed like the outskirts of a wood. Behind them rose homes built of mellow brick and soft, grey stone, where boys like his friend lived with their families and every day was like this for them.

  The view from the Edge took his breath away. To be able to step o
ut of your house into this, instead of Moreton Street and Bury New Road. Meadows and copses, green and more green stretching below as far as the eye could see. Miles and miles of it, with the Derbyshire hills rising in the distance. How could anyone be so lucky, having this on their doorstep?

  Jim dragged him away. “Come on. My dad wants to meet you before the others arrive.”

  David could not think why and his senses were so besotted with the beauty he had just beheld he did not bother to ask. Then they reached Jim’s house and he stopped thinking, as the rest of the day assumed a dreamlike quality through which he moved in a trance, savouring the feel and smell and flavour of it, though his brain seemed to have stopped working and was recording nothing.

  Years afterwards, when Forrest Dene was advertised for sale, in the Guardian, the day returned to his memory in detail, made poignant by the passage of time and he saw a gawky lad with too much brilliantine on his hair shaking hands stiffly with the smiling father, in a library which was a room in itself, not just shelves in a kitchen; the mother who smelled of lavender and was not careworn, but laughed a tinkling laugh as she served lemonade on a velvet lawn; the little sister playing with a puppy in a pool of sunlight, whilst a maid with a big bottom and a frilly cap and apron retied the ribbon in her hair. But all he could remember when he arrived home that evening was eating the strawberries and cream, which he had never tasted before. And he knew he wanted to live that way.

  Chapter 9

  Sarah stood at the scullery sink, scrubbing the frayed collar of the lodger’s shirt. Tonight she would have to tell Abraham, it could not be put off any longer. She tried to occupy her mind with other things, to set the new anxiety aside. Salaman was now paying Abraham fifteen shillings a week and thought it was a fortune. But older children ate larger portions than little ones and the Friday night chicken was no longer sufficient for Saturday also. Dinner on Shabbos these days was just tsimmes and gravy. Thank God for David’s job with Radinsky. Next year he’d be earning money instead of the greengrocer’s throw-outs. But it was not yet next year. Why wouldn’t Abraham leave Salaman and go where the pay was better? She knew he had had offers and turned them down.

  She rinsed the shirt and sighed. Lodgers, what could you do with them? They expected to be waited on hand and foot for the little they paid you. She put the laundry into the zinc tub which the family took turns to bathe in, once a week. Her lodgers she made go to the public baths, they could take it or leave it, though in other ways she tried to treat them like one of the family. Some she’d had in the past were pleasant fellows, but Manny Zelnik, her present one, was a churlish, middle-aged man and she wished she could afford to tell him to go. Soon, she’d have to, there wouldn’t be space to accommodate him. After David’s Bar Mitzvah he would be a man and Esther must be moved into a separate room.

  What would David say when he learned his mother was pregnant? Boys of his age knew how babies were made. Would he be shocked to think of his parents that way? But first she must tell Abraham. When he knew there would be another mouth to feed, perhaps he would leave Salaman. The pregnancy was not welcome, but maybe it would do some good.

  She was hanging the washing on a clothes horse in front of the fire when Sigmund walked in. In Strangeways, doors were left on the latch during the day and it was not unusual for someone to pop in for a neighbourly chat. But it was only women who did so.

  “Something’s wrong?” she greeted him. The last time he had paid her a morning visit it had concerned David and she felt apprehensive. What was going on with her high-school-boy son now? “Tell me already!”

  Sigmund shrugged, which meant there was something. Then he smiled, so maybe it wasn’t anything bad?

  “First I want to tell you David’s Bar Mitzvah suit is ready for a fitting.”

  “And second?”

  He removed his pince-nez and studied them, then replaced them on his nose. “He has it in his head to be a solicitor.”

  Mr. Forrest’s offer to article him had been relayed to David after they met at the party. Jim had not wanted to build up his hopes until it was definite. As usual, David had consulted his mentor Sigmund.

  “It’s not such a terrible thing to be,” Sigmund chuckled when Sarah looked at him uncertainly.

  Sarah sat down on the nearest chair, which fortunately was right behind her. Her legs felt weak and the room was spinning round. Don’t get any big ideas, she’d said to him. And now this!

  “He’ll make plenty of money,” Sigmund informed her.

  “And you have to be a millionaire before you can be one.” She picked up the poker and gave the fire an angry stir. “Remember when he cut off his hair? So here is another result of it.”

  Sigmund remained silent, but his eyes were twinkling roguishly.

  “From one thing comes another,” Sarah said accusingly. “Why d’you think I blamed you when he went on a train on Shabbos? Because it was you who came here to make peace between David and me after he cut the hair. If you hadn’t talked me out of it, I’d have made him grow it again. He wants to look like all the other boys at the new school, you said. Don’t make things harder for him, you said. And I let you persuade me you were right. Never before have I compromised on our religious teachings and the first time I do, look what comes of it. I shouldn’t have listened to you, the next thing he’ll want to cut off his nose so he shouldn’t look Jewish!”

  “A nose he can’t live without. And who says he doesn’t want to look Jewish? So he wants to look English also, what’s the harm? Here is not Russia or Austria. In this country a Jew can also be an Englishman. But this has nothing to do with him studying law.”

  “Except that you encourage him to think everything he sets his heart on he can have.”

  “If you don’t want your son to be a solicitor, all right,” Sigmund shrugged.

  Sarah took David’s patched undervest from the clothes horse and turned it over to dry the other side. Sigmund must be meshugah, out of his mind encouraging the boy to aim so high. “What has wanting to do with it?” she asked him bitterly. All the things she wanted for her family rose like a mirage before her eyes and drifted away. For the unborn child in her womb, who knew what the future might bring? But for David, now? Impossible.

  After Sigmund had left, Sarah could not settle to her usual Monday routine and went to dust the parlour, though it did not need dusting. It was the best furnished parlour in the street and, not for the first time, she mused on how and why she had acquired it. Everything in it had come from Salaman. First, he had sent the sofa on which his wife had lain dying, though Sarah was not aware of this. The china cabinet and a pedestal with an aspidistra to stand upon it had followed, then he had brought the hearthrug and a small, octagonal table to stand in the middle of the room. Sarah had not wanted to accept any of them, but Abraham had insisted, and she had grown accustomed to having them.

  For Abraham they were a constant reminder of his first day at the factory. Giving things away did not tally with his employer’s penny-pinching nature and it was as if he had wanted to clear his home of everything that made him think of his dead wife. Abraham could not look at the sofa without seeing the picture which had engraved itself on his mind that morning and it deepened his compassion for Salaman, for whom the removal of these mementoes of his married life had done nothing to lessen his painful recollections.

  It was in the parlour that Abraham learned Sarah was pregnant. The grumpy lodger had not yet returned from his day’s stint shmearing waterproofs, but the children were in the kitchen and she beckoned her husband into the front room when he arrived home from work, unable to contain her secret a moment longer.

  “Sit down, you look tired,” she said scanning his face.

  Abraham could feel the chill of the room striking his lungs and began to cough, wondering in a distant part of his mind if the steam from the pressing irons had begun to affect his chest. They never used the parlour, why had she brought him in here? What was so wrong it couldn’t be told
in the children’s presence, or wait until they had gone to bed? He remained standing, his back to the window. He could never bring himself to sit on the sofa because of its associations.

  Sarah had lit the gas mantle and he was silhouetted against the darkness outside. His shoulders seemed more hunched than they used to be. Bending over his cobbler’s bench had made its mark on his posture while he was still a youth, but wielding the heavy irons in the factory had added to this. Love for him welled over her, concern too. How hard he worked to provide for them. And now she must tell him his burden was to be increased. But was it not love which had brought this about? Hers for him and his for her? The knowledge strengthened her. It was the only solid, unchanging thing in their lives.

  “There’s going to be another Sandberg in the Spring,” she said simply.

  Abraham’s expression lit with relief. “I thought it was bad news.”

  “And who could blame you for thinking it isn’t good news either?”

  He was by her side in two strides, gathering her close. Then he held her away from him and smiled into her eyes. “A child is a blessing, Sorrel. God is good to us.”

  Salaman came into the pressing room and sat down on a stool. “How goes it with you, Abie?” he asked morosely.

  We’re going to have another child, we don’t have to struggle enough, Abraham wanted to say. His joy at the news had not blinded him to what it meant. And next week is David’s Bar Mitzvah, he felt like telling Salaman. We’ll have to provide cakes and wine for the whole congregation, or how will we hold up our heads? So it isn’t a big congregation, even a small one is too large for our purse. He smiled and said nothing. By now he knew his employer came to him to pour out his own troubles, not to listen to his. And who else did the poor fellow have to talk to? His relatives had lost patience with him because he had not yet remarried and the loneliness was his own choice.

  “The matchmakers have found me a widow. Like Venus de Milo she looks,” Salaman confided.