Almonds and Raisins

by Maisie Mosco

  “Are you going to cut it, or aren’t you? If not, I’ll do it myself.” There was no aspect of the trade David could not tackle and the staff knew it. Everyone had stopped working to watch the exchange.

  Eli stopped rubbing his chin and picked up his shears; he was not going to be usurped at his own bench.

  David had won his first real battle with a worker and his authority was never questioned again. Issie was asked to sew the garment and complied without hesitation.

  David paced the workroom like a father awaiting the imminent birth of a child and at dinnertime could barely contain himself, waiting for Issie to stop eating and resume work. When the coat was finished he took it to Abraham to be pressed.

  “He’s been like a lunatic all day!” Eli exclaimed to Issie. “And when the boss sees that sample, believe me I don’t want to be there.”

  “Make a good job of it, Father,” David said watching Abraham wield the iron.

  “If you’d stop breathing down my neck it’d be easier!”

  “It’s a very special sample.”

  “That I can see.”

  “And what do you think of it?”

  “It doesn’t look like a raincoat.”

  “It’s not supposed to, that’s the whole idea. All I have to do now is convince Salaman it’ll sell.”

  “I wish you luck, David.”

  When David took the sample downstairs his employer barely glanced at it.

  “Do what is best, David. It’s all right, I trust you,” Salaman said with a flicker of a smile. None of his days were good, but this was an especially bad one, his dead wife’s birthday. He could hear her voice reproaching him for not sending for the doctor. He pulled the blanket closer about his legs and resumed reading the Talmud.

  Bessie showed more interest. “Let me try it on,” she requested.

  David’s heart sank. Bessie was the only person who had more influence over Salaman than himself and he knew the sample would not fit her, which would certainly prejudice her against it. But he helped her to slip it on.

  “You’re catering for skinny-Lizzies like Miriam Moritz I see,” she said acidly, popping a button off in her vain attempt to fasten it. “It reminds me of my covert coat.”

  “It was seeing you in your covert coat that gave me the idea,” David told her employing the truth to his advantage. “So if we do well with them, it’ll be because of you, Bessie.”

  “Why shouldn’t we do well with them?” she asked with a pleased smile.

  David left the factory early and went to meet Miriam outside the millinery shop. The weather had brightened during the afternoon, but the sky was now overcast again and he saw her glance up at it as she pulled on her gloves.

  She’s thinking she ought to have brought her umbrella, he smiled to himself as he crossed the road to where she was standing. The sample was her size, perhaps Salaman would let him have it at cost price when the range was made and then he could give it to her. Skinny Lizzie indeed! His pulse raced as he watched her smoothing down her jacket and skirt, the way she always did, then settling the collar of her frilly blouse. He allowed his imagination to remove them and a vision of flimsy lingerie and silky-soft curves sent his temperature soaring. He should be ashamed of himself!

  She had on a green and white hat, made from some bits and pieces her employer had given to her, but David was sure she looked more fetching in it than the smart Gentile ladies who patronised the Jewish milliner did in the expensive concoctions she made for them.

  “Is something wrong, David?” Miriam asked. He had never come to meet her from work before.

  “No, something’s right, love!”

  “That’s a change,” she said with the bitter edge which had crept into her voice lately.

  On the tram, David began immediately to tell her about the sample coat. Her lack of interest was like cold water dashed in his face.

  “Nothing excites you, does it?” he said eyeing her impassive expression.

  “Well not the kinds of things that excite you.”

  She was as beautiful as she had always been, but the glowing vitality he remembered was no longer there. When had it left her and why? She hadn’t been the same since the day they went to Alderley Edge. But nor had he. And events since then hadn’t helped.

  “How’s your mother?” he asked.

  “I can’t bear to talk about it.” The trembling hands had been a symptom of Parkinson’s disease, for which even the brilliant Dr. Smolensky had no remedy, “Every time I look at her I wonder how God could let it happen.”

  They sat in silence as the tram turned into Waterloo Road, where a new ghetto had mushroomed in Hightown.

  “And she could’ve done without what your mother did to her!” Miriam flashed accusingly.

  David did not reply and sat cracking his knuckles, a nervous habit he had recently acquired.

  “I wish you’d stop doing that, it sets me on edge!” Miriam snapped.

  “Perhaps it’s because you’re always on edge that I started doing it.”

  “Who wouldn’t be? With one thing and another.”

  “Look, it’s a year already since Esther jilted Carl. She’s married to Ben now, so why don’t you try to forget it?”

  Miriam laughed abruptly. “With our parents still not speaking to each other?”

  “We agreed not to let that come between you and me, didn’t we?”

  “It’s easier said than done, David.”

  David took her hand, but there was no answering pressure and he let it slip back onto her lap. “By the way, Esther’s expecting,” he said conversationally. His sister was a forbidden subject, but how could things ever be right with him and Miriam while he had to watch his words?

  “I don’t want to know.”

  “Why not?” he persisted. “You’ll be the baby’s auntie one day.”

  “Will I?”

  David felt as if a lump of lead had suddenly been deposited in his stomach as he heard her express the doubt they had both begun to feel.

  Miriam turned to look at him, her eyes sparkling with challenge. “If you really want to marry me, what’re you waiting for? Until you can afford to live in a house like Forrest Dene?” She laughed humourlessly. “We’ll both be old and grey by then!”

  “Even if it takes that long, I’ll do it!”

  “Why is it so important to you?”

  “You wouldn’t understand if I tried to explain. You’re just like your brother.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my brother!”

  “Esther’d still be working in the gown shop if she’d married him.”

  “From what I hear, she’s standing behind her husband’s market stall and it isn’t even his yet.”

  “But it will be, when the owner retires and Ben pays him off. Just like I’ll have my own factory sooner or later. Esther’s helping Ben to build their future, not trying to keep him stuck in a rut, the way you’re doing with me! When do you ever give me a word of encouragement? Why can’t you?”

  “Because money doesn’t matter to me. All I want is you.”

  “Grow up, Miriam!”

  She turned away from him and he sat cracking his knuckles again. Why must she always depress him this way? He’d been over the moon when he went to meet her.

  When they alighted from the tram, raindrops the size of pennies were spattering on the pavement and David took Miriam’s hand and ran with her to shelter in Mr. Halpern’s shop doorway. “If you had one of my smart new coats, you could wear it to work even on fine days and still be ready for a downpour, Miriam.”

  “They’re not your coats. They’re Isaac Salaman’s,” she reminded him flatly.

  “Damn you!” David exploded.

  Miriam’s expression crumpled, then she turned and fled as she had when they were a boy and girl on their way to a dance. David stood for a moment remembering it and it seemed to him now that one way and another she had always eluded him; even when her physical presence had been there, the per
son she really was had never been his.

  Mr. Halpern stopped lathering a customer and opened the door to speak to him. “You’ve had a tiff with Miriam? So you’ll make it up, don’t worry.”

  David looked at him unseeingly.

  “So run after her already. Like a dummy he’s standing here!” The kindly little barber shoved him into the street.

  Miriam had almost reached home when David caught up with her. He grabbed her arm and turned her to face him. “If you weren’t always trying to belittle me, I wouldn’t’ve lost my temper. But it’s not as if this was the first time, is it?” He touched her bedraggled hair and the sodden hat sitting like a bruised water lily on the back of her head and an aching tenderness thickened his voice. “I suppose you think I met you from work to tell you about the sample?”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “I know you well enough not to waste my time leaping on trams just to tell you things like that. It was just that it made the future suddenly look brighter. And I thought we should fix our wedding date.”

  She stared at him mutely.

  “But I couldn’t bear rows every day of my life and that’s how it’d be if you kept on like you are doing, love. A man needs a wife who’ll give him some support, not the opposite.”

  Miriam knew he was waiting for her to tell him she would try to be what he wanted and the promise almost slipped off her tongue. But she could not pretend to be other than how she was. “You’d better not risk it, then,” she heard herself say.

  For a split-second David could not believe she had said it, then it was as if the entire gamut of human emotion ripped through him; sorrow and anguish, despair and despondency, injured pride and disappointment, regret for the wasted years and for what was now not to be, searing jealousy of the unknown man who would replace him in her life, and the terrible finality of loss all had their way with him, one after another; sardonic humour, too, the bitter irony of himself and Miriam ending their love affair drenched to the skin because she had taken him down a peg about a raincoat. Anger gripped him last as he stared into the cool, green eyes which seemed to be mocking him. The words were still echoing in his ears. “You’d better not risk it, then.” She might just as well have told him to go to hell!

  The reply Miriam knew was the only one he could give her shot from his lips like a bullet from a gun, straight into her heart. “I’m not going to!”

  She did not allow the tears stinging her eyelids to gush forth until he had turned and walked away from her.

  Nathan was lying on the bed reading when David entered their bedroom.

  “Are you all right, David?” he asked alarmed by the look on his brother’s face.

  “Sure.”

  “No you’re not. Something’s happened, hasn’t it?”

  David sat down beside him. “Oh yes.”

  It had to be something disastrous from the sound of David’s voice. “Who did it to you?”

  “When you get older, Nat, you’ll find there’re some things we do to ourselves.”

  “Mother says everything’s fated.”

  “Well don’t let her fool you, it’s not.”

  “Have you done something to yourself?”

  “And I’ll probably regret it.”

  “So why did you do it?”

  David shook his head wordlessly and lay back to bury his face in the pillow.

  Nathan touched his shoulder timidly. “Can’t you undo it?”

  David glanced up at his brother’s handsome face. Nat had a sensitivity none of the other Sandbergs had, how would he stand up to the knocks life meted out? His vulnerability wouldn’t be an asset. Now he’s at Manchester Grammar there’ll be no stopping him, but things’ll have to look up if we’re going to send him to university, David thought, then he laughed at himself. Instead of moping about Miriam, here I am thinking of family matters, he reflected dryly. But at least that’s something positive. He got off the bed and combed his hair which was still damp from the rain.

  “Can you?” Nathan asked watching him.

  “Can I what?”

  “Undo whatever you’ve done to yourself. I’d do it for you if I could.”

  “Would you?” David smiled. How childish Nat still was, but he’d been more sheltered than the rest of them.

  “I’d do anything for you, David.”

  David laughed, but the expression of devotion had touched him. “When there’s something you can do I’ll ask you, Nat. Now let’s go down for supper, it’s no use crying over spilt milk.”

  Since David had come to terms with his lot, positive thought and action had become second nature to him and even if he did not resort to it immediately, sooner or later this painfully achieved philosophy came to his rescue and saved him from sinking into despair. There was no hiatus in his acceptance of the break with Miriam. Subconsciously he had been preparing himself for it. When he went into the kitchen he told the family his romance was over. He knew that hearing himself say it would help to finalise it in his mind.

  Outwardly, the others were more affected than he was. Sarah’s heart ached for him, but it was his own decision. This time she couldn’t be blamed, the way the Moritzes had held her responsible when her daughter had jilted their son.

  Esther was thinking of this, too. “We had sweet and sour mackerel for supper the night I broke it off with Carl,” she said quietly.

  “And if I’d known Sigmund Moritz was going to cut me dead in the street the next day, it would’ve stuck in my throat,” Sarah replied serving her a double helping of the succulent fish because she was eating for two. “And when I went to the house to make the peace with him, what did I find? The back door is bolted which it’s never been before and he doesn’t hear me knocking at the front, or see me through the window though he’s sitting there hand stitching a jacket!”

  “What’s the use of raking all that up again, Ma?” Ben said practically. “It’s over and done with.”

  “Tell me how it’s over and done with when Rachel and Sigmund haven’t spoken to us ever since? You think it doesn’t hurt your father-in-law and me, just because we don’t talk about it?”

  “So what can you do?” Abraham shrugged heavily.

  “They’re not out of friends with me and David and Sammy though, are they?” Nathan reminded his parents.

  Sarah sighed. “After what’s happened with David and Miriam, I wouldn’t bank on it.”

  “Will it still be all right for me to go there and borrow Uncle Sigmund’s books?”

  “It’d be best if you didn’t,” David said beginning his meal.

  Sarah was still standing with the fish server in her hand, staring into space.

  “Sit down and eat already!” Abraham said to her tetchily.

  “I’m not hungry.” She glanced at his plate and saw he had hardly touched a morsel himself. Who could swallow food when they were choking with memories? The lengths to which Sigmund’s hurt pride had carried things she wouldn’t have believed possible; it wasn’t in Rachel’s nature to prolong the rift between their families, but she wasn’t a woman to go against her husband. Not a day passed by when Sarah didn’t think of her dear friend languishing in near-helplessness, and being unable to lend the comfort and support she would gladly have given was a constant sadness. Now, David had rubbed salt into the old wound by casting Miriam aside. She sighed and replenished Esther’s plate, which was still half full.

  “Do’you think I’m expecting twins, Mother?”

  Sarah looked at her smiling daughter, whom she had saved from a life of discontentment at so great a cost and managed to chuckle. “You’ve eaten an egg with a double yolk, Esther? P-p-p! Where would we put them?”

  Chapter 8

  News travelled fast in Strangeways, there were so many meeting places. Work and shul, the grocers, the butcher’s and the barber’s, and every street corner. David and Miriam’s broken romance was a nine-day wonder, but it did not take nine days for Bessie Salaman to make up her mind. She had stopped mooni
ng over David openly a long time ago, adult propriety demanded it, but she had loved him as long as she could remember and still did.

  Most people, including David himself, thought she had got over it and her father had never been aware of how she felt. Even in the days when she had tried to woo David with food and dogged his footsteps in the factory, Salaman had been too full of his own frustrations to notice his daughter’s and was taken by surprise when she told him what he must do.

  “Come downstairs, David. I want a word with you,” said one morning.

  Their employer’s presence among them intrigued the workers, it had been some months since he last showed his face. He smiled at them benignly and this was rare, too.

  David was no less puzzled than the rest of the staff as he followed him into the kitchen.

  “Sit down my boy.” Salaman gestured to the leather wing chair which was reserved for his own exclusive use and David’s perplexity increased. “Help yourself to a cigar.”

  “I don’t smoke, Mr. Salaman.”

  “So you’ll have one anyway.” He thrust a box of Havanas under David’s nose, compelling him to take one and remained standing with his hooded eyes fixed upon him.

  It’s like being scrutinised by an eagle, David thought. There was something predatory in Salaman’s expression.

  “You’ve become like a son to me,” his employer sighed averting his gaze.

  A moment of silence followed and David could feel Saul’s presence in the room.

  Salaman blew his nose and dabbed at a tear which had trickled down his podgy cheek. “I don’t have to tell you how I’ve suffered. But I still have my Bessie, bless her.”

  “I’m sure she’s a comfort to you,” David said stiffly, unable to summon up sympathy for the man he despised.

  “Please God I’ll also have a grandson some day,” he added with a watery smile.

  David ran his finger along the inside of his collar, which felt as if it was glued by sweat to his neck. Salaman kept a fire blazing in the grate even in warm weather. How much longer must he sit here? He knew Abraham had always been the recipient of their boss’s confidences. Was the honour now to be his, too? He hoped not.