Almonds and Raisins

by Maisie Mosco

  The new Esther was too striking not to be noticed. Even Carl Moritz, who would probably not have been aware that the Town Hall was no longer there had it been whisked away from Albert Square in the night, looked startled when they met at a tram stop. Carl worked in a bookshop near to Esther’s place of employment and they had once travelled home together. On that occasion Carl had kept his eyes glued to his book as usual. This time he did not even open it.

  “What’re you staring at?” Esther asked him. “Anyone’d think you’d never seen me before!”

  “There’s something different about you,” he muttered as they boarded the tram and found seats side by side.

  Esther swivelled her body round on the polished bench and smiled at him. “Is there?”

  He swallowed hard and nodded.

  She had not yet begun wearing make-up when Carl last saw her, or the tight belt she had added to her coat, but had no intention of telling him so. “Perhaps it’s just that you’ve never really looked at me before,” she said instead and a strange tingle warmed her as their eyes met. The jolting of the tram threw her against him and when he put his hand on her arm to steady her he kept it there, in a way which told her he was feeling the tingle, too.

  “What are you doing tonight?” Carl asked when they alighted at their stop, keeping his voice as casual as he could.

  “Nothing much. What’re you doing?”

  “The same.”

  They laughed and strolled along the main road in the rain, which had just begun to fall. Esther put up her umbrella and Carl took it from her and linked her arm, so it would shelter him, too.

  I’d never have done that with a girl I’d only just met, he thought. And yet, in some ways, it was as though he’d just met Esther. He’d sat beside her hundreds of time, sometimes sharing a chair because there was never enough seating when their two families got together, but the experience had never been thrilling before. He wondered if there was any precedent in the great works of literature for the way he felt; as if someone had put a spell on him. Love at first sight was a common romantic theme, but he could not recall reading about love at the umpteenth thousandth meeting.

  “You and I’ve never done anything much in the evenings, have we?” Esther said.

  The words had a cosy sound for both of them, as though they were two of a kind.

  “So we’ll start doing, if you’d like to.”

  “Of course I’d like to.” She looked up at him with a smile which asked how he could have doubted it. He was only a few inches taller than her, but with a stocky manliness, much as his father had been in his youth, fair haired and fresh complexioned. Quite good-looking in a way, she noted with surprise. “Why didn’t we think of it before, Carl?”

  He gazed at her earnestly from behind his horn-rimmed spectacles. “That’s what I’ve been wondering, Esther.”

  “You know I never knew you had blue eyes.”

  “You think I knew yours were brown?”

  “But we should’ve known. Seeing we grew up together. It’s daft!”

  “Well it certainly seems it now! What shall we do tonight, then?” Carl asked jauntily, leaping over a puddle and steering her round it.

  What a lovely word “we” is, Esther reflected. “I wouldn’t mind going dancing.” She had never been, the ghetto girls did not go unescorted. Nor did she possess a dance frock, but perhaps her brown taffeta would suffice, if she tied a scarf around her waist to give it a sash like some of the gowns had in the shop?

  “I can’t dance, Esther.”

  “You’ll soon learn.”

  “And I’m afraid I can’t afford it,” Carl apologised.

  “Never mind, we’ll find something else to do.” Esther’s disappointment only lasted for a moment. Where they went wasn’t important so long as they were together, she thought as Carl smiled into her eyes and the delightful tingle warmed her again.

  When she arrived home, she did not set the supper table as she usually did, but went upstairs and lay on her bed, savouring the wonderful thing that had happened to her.

  Her mother appeared in the doorway and eyed her anxiously. “Something’s wrong, God forbid?”

  Esther leapt off the bed and kissed her. “No, Mother! Just the opposite!” She had a boyfriend at last, though she had not expected the faceless sweetheart of her dreams to materialise, if he did at all, as Carl Moritz. “"I’m in love, isn’t it marvellous?”

  “Some no-good traveller you’ve met at the shop? He’s probably married,” Sarah said apprehensively. That such a fate would befall her daughter now that she worked in town had become one of her secret fears. “He’s Jewish, I hope?” The city centre was full of Gentiles and this worried her, too.

  Esther was standing dreamily by the window, watching the rain pour down.

  “So who is he already?”

  “Guess.”

  “I haven’t got time to play games, the soup will boil over.”

  “Carl Moritz.”

  “Jokes she’s making now!”

  “No I’m not, Mother.”

  “It’s really Carl?” Sarah sat down on the bed with a look of profound astonishment on her face.

  “I knew you’d be surprised.”

  “Surprised? I need smelling salts! I’ve never had such a shock as you’ve just given me. Carl knows about this?”

  “Of course. He’s in love with me, too,” Esther said confidently. “It happened to us both at the same moment. On the tram coming home from work.”

  “Tell me how, I’m trying to believe you.”

  “You haven’t got time, the soup’ll boil over,” Esther teased.

  “Right now the soup is not on my mind. How could such a thing be? With someone you’ve known all your life? While you’re riding on a tram to Strangeways?”

  “You fell in love with Father on a frozen river! The place has nothing to do with it.”

  “I loved him before then. It was there I made him love me.” Sarah eyed her daughter sharply. “You made up your mind to catch Carl?”

  “Why would I wait until now if I was going to do that? He’s the last boy I would’ve thought of trying to catch, that’s what’s so wonderful, Mother.”

  “It is?” Sarah said doubtfully.

  “The way it just happened, like it does in story books. What does it matter how, so long as it did?”

  The rest of the family were as taken aback as Sarah, but recovered quickly and supper was eaten in a festive atmosphere.

  “I can’t get over Carl asking our Esther to go out with him,” David grinned. “He’s always been scared stiff of girls, even the ones he’s fancied.”

  “Who were they?” Esther asked jealously.

  “Never you mind. But he was too shy to speak to them.”

  “Well he couldn’t be shy with me, could he? He already knew me.”

  “And as long as you won’t mind spending your honeymoon in a library you’ll be all right!”

  Nathan laughed. “She might as well go and live in a library as marry Carl.”

  Esther took her brothers’ good natured teasing in good part. She half expected to see a thick volume tucked beneath Carl’s arm when he called for her after supper, but reading had momentarily ceased to absorb him, she had superseded it. And the way he looked at her and she at him confirmed without a shadow of doubt the unlikely tale Sarah had heard from her daughter.

  “So now I’ve seen it with my own eyes, but I still can’t believe it,” she said to Abraham later. “All these years they don’t even notice each other and suddenly they’re struck by lightning!”

  “You wish they hadn’t been?”

  Sarah did not reply.

  “Listen, you wanted your daughter to have a young man, so now she’s got one. And Carl couldn’t come from a better family. Be satisfied.”

  The following afternoon, Sarah went to discuss the phenomenon with Rachel and found her huddled by the fire, though it was a warm day.

  “You’re not feeling well, Rach
el?”

  “A little off colour,” Rachel shrugged. “But we’ve got better things to talk about! Who would have thought it, Sarah? A double wedding we’re going to have maybe.”

  The assumption that Esther and Carl would probably marry was not precipitate. Jewish boys and girls rarely went out together if their intentions were not serious. And David and Miriam’s betrothal was taken for granted by both families.

  “Who would have thought it is right!” Sarah echoed.

  Rachel laughed softly. The gentle repose which had first drawn Sarah to her was still there and her appearance had hardly changed; the same mellow contentment emanated from her and her eyes were as youthful as they had always been. Only the dusting of silver on her hair registered the years.

  “How long have we known each other?” Sarah asked sentimentally. Her mind had flown backwards, as minds are inclined to do at such moments; the beginning of her daughter’s courtship marked a milestone in her life.

  “A mathematician I’m not!” Rachel chuckled.

  “To me it seems like always. But what is a bit of time between friends, you said to me the day you gave me the Sachertorte to taste.”

  “And such a future we have to look forward to together. Two lots of grandchildren we’ll share, God willing.”

  Sigmund came in from his workroom beaming. “What do you think about those two! Rachel thought her son was going to be a bachelor and the right girl was there under his nose, waiting. We couldn’t wish for anything better, eh, Sarah?”

  Sarah was not so sure and was ashamed of her conflicting feelings, which she hoped she had successfully hidden beneath her smile. With David and Miriam, he would be the breadwinner. She didn’t want Esther to occupy that position if she married Carl, but felt it was highly likely. Carl was a nice boy, brainy also, but the wage he received at the bookshop was barely sufficient to support himself, let alone a wife and family. Money he would never have and, like the rest of the Moritzes, seemed not to care about. She’d lain awake worrying about it the whole of last night, but swallowed her misgivings and nodded, with the smile still on her face.

  “On a warm day like this my wife fancies having a big fire in the grate!” Sigmund said scattering pins on the rug as he unbuttoned his waistcoat. “What can you do with her?” He looked at Rachel. “You took the medicine?”

  “Sure I did. Such a fuss he’s making!”

  “I need you to darn my socks,” he chuckled.

  “Helga’s already darned them.”

  Sarah surveyed her friend anxiously. “You don’t feel well enough to darn his socks?”

  “Ill she isn’t,” Sigmund declaimed.

  “So why does she need medicine?”

  Rachel held out her hands and could not keep them still.

  “The medicine will cure it,” Sarah told her confidently. But she had not liked what she saw. Trembling hands were not a cold in the nose.

  “Doctor Smolensky’s a clever boy,” Sigmund said. “Everyone swears by him.”

  “P-p-p! We should never need him.”

  Sarah made some tea, for which the Moritzes had long ago acquired a taste, and said Rachel could come to her house and do the same for her when she felt off colour. But intuition told her the condition was more serious than it appeared.

  On the way home, she wondered if Sigmund knew more than his cheerful manner indicated and hoped Dr. Smolensky was as clever as he said. She’s heard there was a new young doctor at the local surgery, but hadn’t known he was Jewish. Sigmund’s voice had been full of respect when he mentioned him. And why not? The whole world respected a doctor.

  When she entered her kitchen, Nathan was sitting at the table engrossed in one of David’s books. She gazed at his intent little face, the dark eyes drinking in the words from the page, and made up her mind what he would be.

  Chapter 6

  Salaman stood outside the workroom listening to his employees discuss the unofficial strike which had brought some of his competitors’ factories to a standstill. Harry Rothberg, who owned a place across the street, had called to see him last night and warned him not to stand for any nonsense.

  “Let the others bang their head on the wall! They’ll learn their lesson when they don’t get their job back afterwards,” Eli was declaiming.

  “Why would we strike? We’re not even members of the Union here,” Issie shouted above the noise of the machines.

  Salaman made a timely entrance. “Which Union?” he guffawed.

  The workers were surprised to see him. Since Saul’s death he had largely withdrawn from life himself and gave the appearance of being a broken man, cosseting himself in his kitchen where he sat by the fire in a splendid leather armchair with a blanket around his legs, poring over the Talmud whilst Bessie fed him cakes and toffees.

  Everyone tittered politely because it was the boss who had made the jest, but it was not a laughing matter. Several different unions represented the trade, which meant there was no real muscle in any of them. But the main reason for continued exploitation was the trump card held by the employers; the majority of Jewish garment workers still thought they were lucky to be employed and feared they would lose their jobs if they joined a union.

  Salaman settled himself on a stool beside the cutting bench and caressed the gold watch-chain adorning his paunch. “Who needs to strike when they work for Isaac Salaman?” he asked unctuously.

  David was standing behind him and cast a glance of loathing at his beefy back.

  “They’re striking because their wages have gone down to what they were before the war, like they have here, even though there’s still a bit of a boom in the trade,” a squat young woman said bravely from behind her machine.

  You tell him, Millie! David thought savagely. He had pleaded with Salaman himself on the workers’ behalf, but to no avail.

  “And when the bit of a boom is over, what will I pay you with, if I dole out all the extra cash now?” Salaman treated Millie to an oily smile. “Didn’t I pay you the week you had off to sit Shivah for your poor mother?”

  “I’m very grateful,” she muttered.

  “Listen, I’m a charitable man, a person only has one mother.” Salaman allowed his smile to embrace the entire workroom. “Wouldn’t I do the same for any of you?” He waited for the chorus of assent to die out. “And when do I ever sack anyone? Believe me, if Millie doesn’t catch a husband she’s got a job here for life!”

  David saw Millie blush to the roots of her sandy hair and finger the unsightly mole on the side of her nose. He controlled the urge to throttle his employer for capitalising on her plainness and escaped to the pressing room.

  Salaman heaved himself off the stool. “How many garments have we finished this morning, David?” he inquired following him.

  Since David’s return from the army, the management of the factory had slipped painlessly into his hands, for which he was receiving an extra ten shillings a week. But the promotion was not formally acknowledged by Salaman and occasionally the employer would lift himself from the trough of despondency into which he had sunk and charge upstairs to issue instructions to the workers. David had expected him to do this when he entered the workroom and was relieved he had not. Afterwards he would have had to countermand them because Salaman had lost touch with the business and this usually entailed arguing with Eli, who had learned his trade at Salaman’s cutting bench and still considered him the one who gave the orders.

  He began checking some garments which had just been pressed, ticking them off on a list and tried to ignore his employer’s presence.

  Salaman smiled at Abraham who was working industriously. “Here they know which side their bread’s buttered on, Abie,” he declared with satisfaction. He rubbed some grime off the window in order to see through it and gazed at the Rothberg factory which was presently idle. “Isaac Salaman’s workers know a good boss when they’ve got one!”

  David kept his eyes glued to the paper in his hand, but his father knew he was finding it d
ifficult to contain himself. “One of these days Salaman’ll get what he deserves,” he seethed when their employer had gone.

  “He hasn’t suffered enough already?” Abraham sighed as he manoeuvred his iron into the armhole of a coat. “To lose a wife and an only son?” He coughed and spluttered as a cloud of steam enveloped him.

  David could hear the phlegm rolling around on his father’s chest and watched him spit into his handkerchief. “How can you be sorry for someone who pays you a pittance for ruining your health in a poky little room like this? You can’t even open the window, he’s got it nailed down because he’s frightened the place’ll be burgled. Sometimes I don’t understand you, Father!”

  Abraham shrugged and picked up his iron again. But David was sickened by the avaricious man’s exploitation of the human beings who spent their days in the atrocious conditions he imposed upon them. Some of Salaman’s employees had been with him all their working lives and had witnessed the rise in his fortunes from a few sewing machines crammed into the front room to the hive of industry now occupying most of his large house. Yet despite the expenditure of their own sweat and toil to achieve this, and the meagre recompense meted out to them, a grudging sentimental attachment to the place was evident in their attitude. They thought of it as “their” factory and continued to respect their unscrupulous employer, the way a dog ill-treated by its master is grateful to lie secure at his feet.

  The afterwards envisaged by Eli, when Salaman’s workers would still have jobs and the strikers would not, was short-lived. Raincoats were the staple product and the long, dry summer of 1919 struck a near lethal blow to the trade.

  All but key workers were laid off and the Jewish relief organisations besieged; it was not in the immigrants’ nature to queue for the dole along with the Gentile unemployed, in times of severe deprivation they preferred to turn to their own for succour, rather than receive what they considered charity from the English government which had given them refuge.

  The Sandbergs and Moritzes were among those who did not seek relief from any source, their pride would not have allowed it. Consequently, both families found it difficult to survive.