Almonds and Raisins

by Maisie Mosco

  Abraham came to eat lunch with him in the office that day, though he usually ate with the lonely Salaman. He was apprehensive about the effect of the latest anxiety upon his son.

  “Look at those troublemakers!” David pointed his pickled cucumber at the three youths who sat munching their food with their heads together, in a corner.

  Abraham separated two slabs of black bread to see what was inside them. “Cream cheese again, your mother thinks it’s good for me. Why do you call them troublemakers?” he said tentatively.

  David’s reply was caustic. “What would you call them?”

  Abraham thought carefully, no better equipped for mental concentration than he had ever been.

  “Well?” David barked.

  But his father was not to be hurried into saying what perhaps he did not really mean. “Boys who are sticking up for their rights,” he pronounced.

  David was outraged. “Since when do they need to? With me for a boss?”

  Abraham eyed him warily. “You’ll think I’m a communist if I say anymore to you.” He ate some of his sandwich, with a faraway look on his face. “Times are changing, David. There could be a Labour Government in England soon, like never happened before.”

  David glared through the glass panel at Mendel and his two henchmen, which was how he had begun to think of them. “Is that what’s making them so cocky?”

  “Listen, Ramsay MacDonald, he’s a godsend to the workers. He could do great things for them.”

  “If I didn’t know you can’t read English, I’d think you’d been borrowing Mendel’s books, Father!”

  Abraham chuckled. “So I didn’t go to night school like your mother. She can do the reading for both of us.”

  David turned his back on the glass panel and ate some of his lunch, though he was not hungry.

  His father studied him surreptitiously, noting the new shadows beneath his eyes and the deep groove above the bridge of his nose, put there by anxiety and tension. His resemblance to his mother was more striking then ever, she too had begun to look older than her years at David’s age. It was what responsibility did to some people.

  “Even when you were a lad you were a boss, David,” he said wryly. “Coming in here straight from school and telling Salaman what to do!”

  “He needed telling.”

  “Such a chutzpah you had! You never thought like a worker. Me, that’s what I’ve been all my life. And before I found this job, I saw conditions elsewhere to make your hair stand on end. This place, even in the old days, was a Buckingham Palace compared to how some factories still are.”

  “There aren’t enough factory inspectors to cope with the job, Father.”

  “With you they don’t need any.”

  David thought of all he had done to improve conditions for the staff; yet it seemed there were some who were not satisfied! In addition to the structural alterations, the whole place had been thoroughly cleaned and a new lavatory installed with a handbasin beside it. The whole hour for lunch was also one of his innovations. Contented workers meant better output, as he’d told Salaman when he protested about the capital outlay, but David had turned a deaf ear to his father-in-law’s grumbles. He’d learnt from Bessie that her father was not just a tenant, but owned the house and also those on either side of it and the revelation had excited him. Sooner or later he would acquire the adjoining property and extend the factory further. After that would come a brand new building. His mind had galloped ahead, plotting and planning. What Abraham had just said made him think of it again. His father was right, he had always thought like a boss. From the day he entered the factory at the age of fourteen. Never like a worker.

  He bit into the apple which Auntie Rivka said a healthy man must eat for his bowels every day. “I look after my workers, don’t I, Father?”

  “And the ones who’ve been here for a long time and known you since you were a boy trust you, David. For the others it’s different, they don’t trust bosses. How do they know you won’t change? Or maybe sell the factory some day? To someone not like yourself, who will exploit them like they saw happen to their fathers? Like is still happening, believe me. And for the coal miners, Maxie my underpresser says it’s terrible.”

  “To hell with what Maxie says!”

  David had never sworn in Abraham’s presence before and his father looked shocked.

  “What’ve the coal miners got to do with machiners and pressers, Father?”

  The question was beyond Abraham. He knew what he was trying to tell David, but was unable to express it. “A worker is a worker,” he shrugged. It was the best he could do.

  And a boss is a boss, David thought glancing at the clock to make sure the lunch break had not over run the allotted hour. There were still ten minutes left. “All right, Father. So maybe they have to band together to get better conditions and wages sometimes,” he conceded.

  Abraham looked relieved. It was what he had been trying to say.

  “But not in my factory,” David added emphatically.

  “Of course not in your factory,” his father echoed, hoping there would be no trouble with those who thought otherwise.

  After Abraham had returned to the pressing room, David could not concentrate on the designs he was making for a new range. Moishe had interested buyers as far south as Cheltenham and this was keeping the factory going, boosting the flagging local trade. Though David was no artist, he had a keen eye for the subtle detail which lifted a garment from the run-of-the-mill and his rough sketches were usually easy for Eli to follow through. Today they were hopeless and he flung down his pencil in disgust.

  He could see Mendel and Jake busy at the machines. Ought he to dismiss them, or not? Times were changing as his father had said and a Labour government would lend strength to the unions. If he sacked his three troublemakers it would not stop the snowball from rolling, others would come in their place.

  What had he got against the unions? He agreed with what they were fighting for, but other manufacturers, with union shops, had told him what this meant in effect. Rules and regulations which had to be strictly observed. Everyone going on strike if just one worker had a grievance, because grievances were taken to the shop steward instead of directly to the boss. A union shop would mean the end of the family feeling which even in bad times had always been present in the Salaman workroom. And delegation of authority to hostile hands.

  A few days later the matter came to a head. A representative of the Tailors and Garment Workers’ Union, which had been formed in 1920 and was the strongest organisation the trade had ever had, called and asked permission to hold a meeting in the workroom. David saw Mendel’s satisfied smile when the man entered the office and guessed it was his doing, but did not refuse the request.

  “Don’t worry, David. I’ll tell you everything that goes on,” Abraham assured him.

  “How can you attend it? You’re the boss’s father.”

  His father looked as if he had been deprived of a privilege and David had to laugh. “You joined the enemy when I married Bessie!”

  “But we were both workers before then and easy for us it wasn’t,” Abraham reminded him. “Even though one of us thought like a boss.”

  The meeting was held during the lunch hour and they went downstairs to eat with Salaman, whose sister Rivka sent food for him every day as Bessie had previously done. The overbearing woman was still in residence cosseting her niece, thought it was now three months since the dead child was born.

  David sat listening to his father-in-law upbraid him for what was taking place upstairs, but could not make the effort to defend himself.

  “Give the workers an inch and they want a mile!” Salaman told Abraham adapting the cliché to his own exaggerated requirements. “Before my son-in-law showed them the way, what did they know from better conditions? Tea breaks? Higher wages and excuse me, new lavatories? Mr. Ramsay MacDonald should God forbid be the next prime minister they’ll soon take over the building!” He cast a baleful glan
ce at David, as though the prospect of a Labour government had been brought about by him personally. “What kind of lavatories, excuse me, do they have at home? And newspaper they, excuse me, wipe their behinds on, not like the luxury we give them here!” David’s purchase of toilet rolls had been the final straw to him and he had still not reconciled himself to good money being flushed down the drain.

  The tirade continued, but washed over David. His father’s reminder that they had once been working class had lodged in his brain. He had never really thought about class as such before. Of how it set people on either side of a barrier. Made them enemies. Did he feel different from the people he employed? Most of whom he’d known for years and years. When he was a boy, there’d just been the Jews and the Gentiles, the former struggling to establish themselves in the latter’s country. That had been the difference between himself and Jim Forrest. But suddenly there were two kinds of Jews and the realisation shocked him. Those who were not his kind would never need to arm themselves against him, but now he was able to understand why some of them thought they must and did not blame them. The unions were their insurance for the future, as the acquisition of wealth would be his.

  “If they want a union shop they’re entitled to it,” he said cutting into something Salaman was saying and watched him turn blue in the face.

  For several days the workroom seethed with debate, but David shut his eyes and ears to it. He had come to terms with himself and the situation and would make the best of it as he had done with everything else.

  It was Eli who brought him the workers’ decision. He looked up from some statements he was preparing and saw the cutter standing in the office doorway with his thumbs tucked into the pockets of his shiny serge waistcoat.

  “I’ve got good news for you, David,” he said without bothering to step inside. Wasting time and breath was not his nature and in his view plenty had been wasted upon all this. “We’re not going to be a union shop. Who needs trouble?”

  He returned to his bench without further ado, but not before David had noted the gleam of triumph in his eyes. Eli was as pleased about the outcome as he was.

  David had expected Mendel to be the spokesman; he would surely have been the shop steward had the vote gone the other way. Eli telling him informally warmed his heart and he realised how much the family feeling among them all meant to him, that he’d dreaded the inevitable loss of it more than anything else.

  At the end of the week Mendel gave in his notice.

  “I’ve got nothing against you, you’re entitled to your opinions,” David told him. “What’ve you got against me?”

  The intense youth looked at him contemptuously, but did not reply. Later, Jake and Maxie left, too, and David learned that all three had got jobs in a big factory which was a union shop. He put them from his mind, but something told him it would not be the last he would hear of Mendel.

  Chapter 13

  Sarah stepped off the tram on Waterloo Road and pulled her scarf closer around her neck, to protect it against the March wind. Coats and scarves were not as warm as the shawl she used to wear. She crossed the road carefully, looking to the left and the right. There were more motor cars about, nowadays, lorries, too, and Abraham was always telling her to mind the road.

  She had never travelled on a tram unaccompanied before, but had enjoyed the feeling of independence, paying her own fare and chatting with the lady sitting beside her. The tram began its journey in town and had been full when it reached her stop, but a young Gentile had offered her his seat. In Russia he would have expected me to get up for him, she had reflected dryly, and a nice kick I’d have got to remind me. She rarely thought of those days anymore, but occasionally something would occur to prod her memory, making her want to laugh or cry.

  She turned the corner into Bellott Street, admiring the tall, terraced houses, some with privet hedges springing from behind the low, brick wall. Until last year, there had been no reason for her to venture beyond the perimeters of Strangeways, but now two of her sons lived in this pleasant neighbourhood and she was proud that they did.

  Her expression tightened as she rapped on David’s front door, letting the brass knocker bang three times. Her hand came away dirty from the contact and she glanced down at the steps which had not been donkey-stoned for some time. When a woman lost pride in the outside appearance of her home, what was going on inside her heart?

  Auntie Rivka opened the door and raised her eyebrows. “Today you’re visiting us, Mrs. Sandberg? So when do you clean your Shabbos chicken and chop your fish?”

  Sarah would have to stay up half the night to complete these tasks. No Jewish housewife ever had time for social calls on a Thursday, but she had wanted to come when David was not at home and no other ladies would be there. She smiled without replying, noting Auntie Rivka’s use of the word “us,” which confirmed her suspicion that Salaman’s sister considered herself part of David’s household.

  Auntie Rivka led the way into the kitchen.

  “How are you keeping, Mrs. Finkel?” Sarah inquired politely, sitting down in David’s wing chair to remind his aunt-in-law of her own position in the family.

  “Only middling, Mrs. Sandberg.” The heavy woman lowered herself with difficulty onto the sofa, pushing aside the blankets David used when he slept there at night. She sighed wearily. “Such a load I’ve got on my shoulders! But what can you do? Can I walk out and leave my own brother’s motherless child?”

  “I heard your daughter moved to Liverpool last year. So how is she?”

  “How can she be with a husband like that? Who takes her to live away from her mother?”

  David had told Sarah that if he were Auntie Rivka’s son-in-law Liverpool would not be far enough.

  “And Bessie? She’s no better?”

  “She’ll never be better. What can you do?”

  Sarah picked up the shopping bag she had with her and went upstairs to see her daughter-in-law. Auntie Rivka was right behind her, wheezing as she climbed the stairs.

  “The poor little dollink looks terrible,” Auntie Rivka said when they entered the bedroom.

  Sarah thought Bessie looked healthier than they did, but was careful not to say so. Everybody should have such a nice long rest, petted and pampered! But something had to be wrong before they would want to. “So, Bessie,” she said cheerfully.

  “I’m not feeling too good today, Ma.” All Sarah’s children-in-law called her Ma. Ben, the first, had set the pattern.

  “Who can feel good when they never breathe the fresh air? There’s such a nice breeze outside this afternoon, you should take a stroll with me across the road to the park.”

  Auntie Rivka looked at Sarah as if she had taken leave of her senses. “You want her to get pneumonia?”

  “Before pneumonia she’d have to catch a cold, and wrapped up warm in the fur coat she bought for her trousseau, she wouldn’t catch one.”

  Bessie’s aunt sat tight-lipped on the only chair in the room, her folded arms resting on the table of her bosom.

  Sarah was still standing. “An invalid she isn’t,” she said pleasantly.

  Bessie slid lower beneath the perineh and closed her eyes to prove she was.

  “She had a stillborn child is all,” Sarah added in the same casual tone sitting down on the edge of the bed.

  A tear rolled down Bessie’s cheek, then a great sob engulfed her.

  “To come here and mention it, Mrs. Sandberg!” Auntie Rivka rose from her chair belligerently.

  “I’m entitled to come to my son’s house, Mrs. Finkel. And it’s time somebody mentioned it.”

  “My poor little baby,” Bessie gulped.

  Auntie Rivka was outraged. “All this time I don’t let my poor niece break her heart! What good will it do? I tell her. It won’t bring back the child, better not to think about it. And now what does her mother-in-law do?”

  Bessie looked at Sarah wanly. “Auntie’s right, Ma.”

  “Your auntie is always right, dolli
nk. If my own dollink daughter had only taken her mother’s advice, she wouldn’t be married to that dogsbody and living in another town with my three dollink grandchildren.”

  “Your auntie is wrong, Bessie,” Sarah said after the lengthy interruption. “What are tears for but to wash away sorrow? And how can a person forget, if first they don’t let themselves remember? The way to forget sadness is to put joy in its place. You should have another child, Bessie.”

  “With the aggravation her husband gives her, how can she?” Auntie Rivka took up her customary position by the bed with a protective hand on Bessie’s shoulder, as she had on Sarah’s last visit.

  Sarah’s eyes were like daggers. How dare this interloper insult her beloved son whom everyone respected? “You mean with you sleeping beside her every night in his place how can she!”

  “I’m tired,” Bessie said pitifully. The confrontation taking place over her head was too much for her and she was frightened by its intensity. “Maybe you should go home now, Ma, before it gets dark.”

  “A good idea,” Auntie Rivka rasped.

  Sarah moved to the chair and settled herself comfortably. “Nobody is waiting to hit me on the head and steal my purse. And I’m not in a hurry.” She would not leave until Bessie was ready to begin living again. She had made up her mind about this when she decided to come and too much was at stake for the mission to fail. Also, she knew the stillborn child alone was not responsible for the disaster David’s marriage had become after little more than a year.

  “How old are you now, Bessie?” she asked putting a thoughtful expression on her face.

  “You know how old I am, Ma.”

  “I m sitting here thinking is it possible my daughter-in-law Bessie is still only twenty-three, when she looks ten years older than my daughter-in-law Miriam already.”

  Bessie got out of bed to study her face in the mirror as Sarah had known she would.

  “You should be lying down, dollink! Your poor legs are so weak,” Auntie Rivka protested.