Almonds and Raisins

by Maisie Mosco

  Bessie’s umbrella turned inside out as the high wind lashed the rain against them. “Do something, David!” she snapped struggling to set it right. The collar of her fur coat was clinging to her neck like a drowning cat. “We should’ve got a taxi! Why didn’t we? You’re too mean with my money, that’s why!”

  Providing the answers to her own questions was another of her characteristics, David had learned during their brief courtship. It had not occurred to him to travel other than by public transport, taxis were not yet of his world. But he did not waste time explaining this. There was something more important he had to set straight with Bessie. “You’re forgetting something, aren’t you?” he said tersely.

  “What d’you mean?” she faltered.

  He looked her squarely in the eye. “A bargain is two sided isn’t it? I’ve got a half share in your father’s business, but in return for it you’ve got me.”

  He left her to digest this while he went to fetch a taxi from outside the railway station. Ignoring a sensible suggestion, because of the manner in which she had made it, was no way to start his married life.

  Mrs. Litvak’s boarding house was one of the small, kosher establishments patronised by Jews from the Northern industrial towns. Situated in a side street on the South Shore, the absence of a sea view was compensated by the homely ambience. During the high season, buckets and spades and perambulators made the long lobby a hazardous place to negotiate; children swarmed like sand-flies all over the house and the bathroom was perpetually occupied, sometimes by a guest for whom no bed was available, who would be invited to sleep in the bath.

  In winter, the house was virtually a honeymoon hotel. It was rare for anyone other than newly-weds to take a holiday then and the place assumed a different character. Breakfast was served later and the evening beverage earlier. The gaslight was turned discreetly low in the parlour, so that hand-holding and intimate glances might go unnoticed. Everyone’s favourite dish was inquired about and served at least once.

  This was Mrs. Litvak’s way of ensuring the young couples had a week to remember. She was a businesswoman to her fingertips and knew the honeymoon memory would draw them back year after year, with the children they would surely have; the eldest would probably be conceived in her house.

  The dumpy little widow was also kind-hearted and romantic and wanted to give them what she and her husband had not had themselves. In summer this was not possible, but out of season she did so devotedly. Her pièce-de-résistance was a coal fire in every bedroom, a luxury her guests never had at home unless they were ill.

  “It’s so lovely here, David,” Bessie exulted warming herself by the blaze on their wedding night. She gazed around the little room rapturously, admiring the violet patterned wallpaper, which matched the design on the rug. Even the cows in the gilt-framed pastoral scene above the fireplace seemed to be smiling a welcome.

  David felt better after consuming Mrs. Litvak’s ample fare. He had stayed chatting with the other couples in the parlour as long as he could, but apprehension fluttered within him now he and Bessie were alone together. He was trying not to look at the big bed, wondering how he would find the courage to undress and get into it.

  “Why don’t you get undressed in the bathroom?” Bessie suggested. She did not want him there when she took off her corset.

  When he returned she had put on her nightgown and was lying waiting for him. “Get in already!” she laughed. “I’m not going to eat you!”

  David smiled. “It should’ve been me saying that to you, Bessie.” Somehow the situation seemed the wrong way round.

  “I’m not afraid of you. I love you, David,” she said simply.

  Green eyes, tantalising, drifted towards him from the past.

  Bessie looked at the bright band of gold on her finger. “And we’re married now, aren’t we?”

  He blotted the green eyes out, the past was where they belonged, and got into bed with his wife.

  His sexual experience was nil and neither love nor desire were present to show him the way, but Bessie was brimming over with both and let them guide her. This time, David did not pause to think the situation was the wrong way round. Instinct proved stronger than intellect and once initiated into the magic rites, his maleness asserted itself over the womanly flesh writhing beneath him. Her moan of anguish mingled with his cry of triumph as he penetrated her maidenhead and entered the secret place which marriage had made his own.

  Not once that night did David think of Miriam. It was as though he had been shipwrecked on an island of untold delight. Bessie’s great white breasts pillowing his head, her velvety thighs opening to receive him, the generous curve of her hips which had seemed ugly to him when clothed, possessed him utterly.

  “Have I made you love me, David?” she whispered when they awoke the next morning.

  “You’ve made me want you,” he said telling her the plain truth.

  “That’s the same thing, isn’t it?” she said happily.

  That love and desire were not necessarily twin emotions had come as a shock to David and he did not disillusion her. Thank God they weren’t, he mused gratefully, and that Bessie was a passionate woman who had enabled him to learn this.

  By the end of the honeymoon he had made another discovery. Sleeping together at night forged a daytime bond. He had expected their conversation to be dominated by matters concerning the business as it had been previously, but found himself discussing personal things with Bessie. Sometimes, when they braved the weather and sat huddled together in one of the little shelters on the promenade, he would tell her of his plans for the future.

  “Our future,” she always said contentedly. She could still not believe she was David’s wife, that the miracle which had changed her life had really happened.

  “Wait till we live in a mansion in Cheshire. That’ll show’em, Bessie!” he said exhilaratedly as they walked back to Mrs. Litvak’s for dinner on their last day.

  She did not say, “Show who?” or laugh at his big ideas as Miriam would have done, but smiled up at him. He could feel her pride in him and warmed to her because of it.

  When they arrived home, he went directly to see his mother.

  “So, David?” she said anxiously.

  “Don’t worry about me, Mother. I’m a married man now,” he replied and laughed when he saw her relieved expression. Had she feared the marriage hadn’t been consummated?

  The new sensuality released in him had acted like adrenalin on his system; he could feel the blood singing in his veins, telling him there was nothing he could not achieve.

  On the way to the factory, which he intended to begin reorganising immediately, he reflected that what he had with Bessie was not happiness, but it was not misery, either.

  Chapter 11

  “You’ve made up your mind to be a Mrs. Sandberg,” Rachel said to Miriam one Sunday afternoon.

  Miriam was putting on her new cloche hat in front of the hall-stand mirror. She turned and saw her mother watching her through the kitchen doorway.

  Rachel’s illness had progressed rapidly during the past couple of years. At first the trembling had just made her increasingly clumsy, unable to perform domestic tasks, and Helga had given up her job to keep house. Now her legs were affected, too, and Helga had become her nurse also. A sofa had been put in the kitchen for her to rest upon and sometimes she slept there at night if she could not find the strength to climb the stairs.

  Miriam came into the room. “What do you mean, Mother?”

  Rachel laughed. Pain and disappointment had not diminished her gentle humour, or her appreciation of God’s gifts. She was lying beside the window in a pool of May sunlight, letting it warm her. “What do I mean, she asks!”

  Miriam avoided her eye. “You’re talking about Sammy, I suppose.”

  “Who else? Nathan is only just Bar Mitzvah!” She smiled at her daughter compassionately, but delivered the cruel reminder nevertheless. “And David is married.”

  Miriam sat
down in her father’s wing chair, gripping the arms tightly. Why did she feel as if she was drowning? She hadn’t let herself think about it. Think about what? Any of it.

  “You love Sammy?” her mother asked though she knew what the answer would be.

  Love anyone but David? “No!”

  “So it isn’t fair then.”

  She looked at her mother resentfully because she had made her think about it.

  “The poor boy loves you.”

  “There’s no need to pity him, Mother!” She could not bear to see people’s expressions when Sammy walked past them dragging his leg, or had trouble boarding a tram. In that way she was like David, but David pitied Sammy himself and she did not.

  “It’s only because of you I call him a poor boy.” Rachel glanced wryly at her own weak limbs. “I’m not so good at walking myself these days, but I don’t think of myself as a poor woman.”

  Miriam rushed impulsively to kneel beside her and took her hands, which had once dealt so deftly with the most intricate tasks and now lay limp and useless. “You’re the bravest person I know, Mother!”

  “What has brave got to do with it? But I’d like to see a grandchild before I go, Miriam,” Rachel said with a poignant smile. “Helga will never marry again, some women are like that, so long as they’re needed it doesn’t matter by whom and she’s needed here. Your brother? He’s married to his books!” She surveyed her beautiful daughter. “So you didn’t want Dr. Smolensky and now he’s engaged to Naomi Cohen. You didn’t encourage him so it doesn’t matter. With Sammy it’s different.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ve been seeing him for months. And also he’s a Sandberg. I wouldn’t want you to do to him what David and Esther did to you and Carl, he doesn’t deserve it.”

  “You still grieve about it, don’t you, Mother?”

  “For Carl, no, it was just a flash in the pan for him, his love affair with Esther. If it had been more he wouldn’t have recovered so quickly, all that was hurt was his pride.”

  “What about Father’s pride?”

  Rachel sighed. “That we won’t talk about, but believe me he misses Sarah and Abraham as much as I do.”

  “Even though he blames Mrs. Sandberg for wanting her daughter to have a husband with prospects?”

  “That isn’t what he blames her for. We always knew what Sarah was like, the kind of things she hoped for for her children, how much money mattered to her, but it wasn’t important to us.”

  “Until it rebounded on our family?”

  Rachel nodded. “Me, I could forgive her, but you know how stubborn your father is. A viper in our bosom he calls her. What happened with Carl and Esther was very hard for him to take.”

  “And me and David?”

  “Your father will always love David. But it doesn’t have to be that way with you, Miriam. And marrying his brother won’t help you to get over it.”

  “He hasn’t asked me to marry him, we’re just friends, the way we’ve always been.”

  “That isn’t possible for a man and a woman and you’re old enough to know it. If you’re going to finish with Sammy, you should do it now before it’s too late.”

  Was she going to finish with him? The drowning feeling she experienced when she sat down in the chair had gone and with it the urge to hold on. A quiet lethargy had replaced it, as if she was floating with the tide.

  “Before there’s anything to finish,” Rachel persisted.

  Her outings with Sammy were usually tram rides to the park, or chats in a café. When had she first noticed that he was careful not to touch her hand anymore, that a subtle change had entered their relationship? She liked being with him, nobody could be miserable with Sammy around. He never imposed his opinions on her, or said things to upset her as David had frequently done. With David it had been an equal blend of joy and sadness. Sammy made her neither happy nor unhappy, she was just content to have him there.

  Rachel lay back against her pillows. The effort of saying what she had felt must be said had left her spent. She had waited for Sigmund to speak to Miriam, but for once he had failed to take the initiative in a family matter and she had not wanted to hurt his pride, which had been injured enough already, by telling him what to do.

  Miriam was still kneeling beside her and looked as if all thought and emotion had suddenly been drained out of her. Rachel watched her rise and straighten her hat, then button her jacket, her movements mechanical. “You never wear green anymore, Miriam,” she said and received a wan smile. Something was missing which had once been present in her daughter. Even without it, she was a girl any man would be proud to make his wife, but David had chosen Bessie Salaman. It depended upon what the man wanted. It would be best if Miriam didn’t marry into the Sandberg family and be always under David’s eye. “Find someone else and let Sammy do the same, Miriam,” she pleaded.

  The sluggish tide was still carrying Miriam along and Sammy was a harbour within easy reach. “I don’t think I want to,” she said wearily.

  David experienced no pain when he sat in the synagogue listening to the rabbi intone the holy words which would make Sammy and Miriam man and wife. He loved them both and wished them well.

  Bessie had been querulous with him from the moment she learned Miriam was to become one of the family, but her apprehension remained unspoken and he was pretending to be unaware of it. Six months of living with her had taught him that some imaginary problem or other would always be hovering on her horizon, inspired by the lack of confidence which had dogged her all her life.

  At first he had tried to reason with her, but this had only made things worse. Her fears were at present exacerbated by pregnancy and she asked him repeatedly how he could bear to look at her, twice the size she was. To him her bulging stomach was beautiful, because of what it signified, but she refused to believe this.

  Sammy had asked him to be best man and had seemed relieved when David said the honour should be given to a bachelor. Though the marriage had David’s blessing, he had recoiled from participating in the ceremony, afraid that the armour he had built around his emotions might suddenly crack.

  Moishe Lipkin, who had been away working in Liverpool since the war, had stepped into the breach. David had not seen him since he was a lad and during the wedding party was struck by his engaging personality. He was as lively as his childhood exploits had foretold, small and dapper with a ready smile and a way of listening to what people were saying with his head tilted slightly to one side, as if he was really interested in them.

  “So how d’you like Liverpool?” David asked him.

  “I’d rather be back in Manchester, but I’ve got a good job there, what can you do?”

  It was a hot July day and the gathering had spilled over into the Moritzes’ back yard, which Helga made pleasant with the nasturtiums and sweet scented stock she grew in tubs. David was leaning against the yard door, careful not to brush his new suit against the whitewashed wall. He would be glad when the party was over; the way his parents and the Moritzes were being frigidly polite to each other was unnerving, like a truce called for the day which everyone knew was not going to last a moment longer than necessary. The way his wife’s eyes kept darting between himself and Miriam was a strain too.

  Bessie was lolling on a chair beside Esther and David turned his back towards her and resumed his conversation with Moishe. “D’you work in a factory?”

  “No, a big store. The boss is a pal of mine’s father. Someone I was with in the army, that’s how I got the job.”

  “Do you earn much commission?” David inquired.

  Moishe grinned. “More than anyone else who works there.”

  David was not surprised to hear this. His surmise that Moishe was the stuff salesmen were made of had been correct. “Look, why don’t you come and work for me?”

  “I’m in the retail trade now and you haven’t got a shop,” Moishe countered, but a flicker of interest crossed his expression.

  “I could use a
good salesman all the same.”

  Moishe glanced at Sammy who was standing with his arm around Miriam, talking to the Lenskys. “Sammy’s your salesman, isn’t he? You’re not telling me business is good enough to have two right now?”

  “He deals with customers who come to the factory,” David explained. He had elevated his brother to this position because he was unsuited to any of the more technical jobs as had been the case when he was a boy. But what it amounted to in reality was Sammy displaying the garments whilst David conducted the sales talk. “I need a travelling salesman,” he told Moishe. “How would you fancy it?”

  “All over the country, you mean?”

  “Wherever you can sell my coats. It’s up to you.”

  Moishe’s eyes lit up, he enjoyed a challenge. Then he looked cagey. "What will I earn?”

  “That’s up to you as well.”

  “Plus expenses?”

  “Sure, but I’ll want them in black and white.”

  “You think I’m a fiddler, David?” Moishe said indignantly.

  David grinned. “Why d’you think I’m expecting great things of you?”

  Moishe was not sure whether to react to the insult or the compliment, but David had intended neither. His bluntness was something to which his employees had to accustom themselves. He always spoke the unembellished truth, letting them know where they stood with him.

  “It takes chutzpah to be a fiddler,” he added. “And that’s what ninety percent of selling people what they maybe don’t want is.”

  Moishe was well aware he possessed the special combination of cheek and nerve which no English word could quite describe and had to laugh.

  “But people will want my garments, wait till you see what I’m turning out, and they’ll get even better,” David assured him confidently. “Listen, business has got to improve, how much worse can things get? And there’s still folk around with enough money they don’t have to go naked, especially in what they call the county towns. That’s why I’m making smarter coats, for the ladies who can still afford them. So what do you say, Moishe? If you come in now, while the factory’s still small, maybe your commission won’t be so big, but you could end up sales manager of a large concern one of these days. The sky’s the limit, believe me!”