The Credit Draper

by J David Simons

  “Hairbrush.”

  She stepped back. He repeated the word, confidently now, knowing he had discovered a combination of letters as potent as anything Papa Kahn might find in the Hebrew texts. He smacked a fist into his open hand, pounding out a rhythm as he taunted her with the power of his new vocabulary. “Hairbrush, hairbrush, hairbrush.”

  She retreated a step with each beat until she turned, ran out of the kitchen, slipping on the spilled water by the bucket. She stumbled, fell forward, regained her balance quickly, disappeared into the hallway. When his panic had died down, he let his body drop to the floor. He buried his head in the crook of his elbows and began to rock back and forth, back and forth on his knees. Between gulps for air, he began to sing. It was the first verse of his bar mitzvah ceremony and he sang it over and over again:

  Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

  He knew his words were in vain. He would never be comforted. By God, by his mother, by anyone. He had struck a rock in anger. He would forever be forbidden entry into the Promised Land.

  Eleven

  AVRAM HEARD THE RABBI CALL his Hebrew name from the bimah. Uncle Mendel sitting beside him suddenly gripped his wrist.

  “It is time, boychik.” The man’s normally ruddy complexion was even more flushed than usual. “When you return to your seat, no longer will you be a boychik. You will be a man.”

  Avram stood up self-consciously in his newly tailored single-breasted jacket with matching waistcoat and short trousers, over which he wore an expensive silk tallith, the bar mitzvah gift of Mr and Mrs Morris Green and their son, Solly. Celia had worked wonders with his bandage, reducing it to a small square which she had stuck over his stitches with fish glue. His hair covered most of the patch and he no longer felt like a wounded soldier of the Torah.

  His time had indeed come. But somehow its passage was unfolding slowly in a tunnel of mental calm rather in a blurred panic, which was how he had always envisaged this day. He glanced up to the women’s gallery where Celia sat on the narrow, steeply-angled seats, angelic in all her Sabbath finery. She waved to him surreptitiously. She wore gloves, which made her appear so much older than her years. Wedged upright beside her, Madame Kahn loomed motionless behind a black veil.

  Deliberately, he gathered together the fringes of his tallith so that they would not snag on the edges of seats or jacket buttons. He squeezed past Uncle Mendel, Nathan and the rest of the row of male congregants who clacked back their hinged prayer-book ledges to let him pass. On the bimah, Rabbi Lieberman was waiting for him, resplendent in white robes, his silver pointer poised over the open scrolls of the Torah. And beside the rabbi, there was Papa Kahn who stepped forward, firmly shook his hand.

  He felt himself ushered forward on to the step which provided the height for him to stand properly by the rabbi at the podium. When he was in position, Rabbi Lieberman cleared his throat and rattled off a series of mumbled Hebrew verses. As Avram waited for his moment, he looked out to the Holy Ark opposite which housed the other scrolls of the Torah. Across the top of the Ark, inscribed in gold lettering, beamed the words: Know where you have come from and to where you are going.

  He shifted on the step, diverting his attention instead to the lettering inscribed in gilt on the blue velvet podium cloth in front of him. Donated by Mr and Mrs Jacob Stein.

  The rabbi stopped his murmurings, indicated with a nod that it was now Avram’s turn. A placard was placed before him. He already knew the blessings by heart. He half-spoke them, half-sung them in a low chant, pausing appropriately for the congregational responses. The synagogue then fell into silence as the space was created for him to proceed.

  He gripped the podium with both hands, waited for the rabbi to settle the pointer on the Hebrew text on the rolled-out parchment in front of him. There were a few hissed ‘Shushs’ from the audience, a couple of empty coughs, then the whole congregation held its breath as he let out his own. He began slowly, his unbroken voice tentatively piercing the otherwise noiseless air.

  Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

  Then another verse, the musical notation forcing him to quickly take up the gentle Hassidic lilt.

  Speak to the heart of Jerusalem

  And cry to her

  That her time of service is ended

  That her iniquity is pardoned

  That she has received from the Lord’s hand

  Double for all her sins

  His legs began to firm, his lungs shook off their anxious shallowness, he began to breathe more easily, more deeply, his voice growing stronger and stronger with each word. Rabbi Lieberman was pointing his progress across the scroll, but he had already abandoned the reading of the text. The words were inscribed in his head, branded painstakingly and indelibly into the parchment of his brain. His voice began to soar. The congregants who usually gave the bar mitzvah boy two or three minutes of polite audience were stunned into listening.

  His voice filled up the vaulted auditorium, the sound of his refrain spreading confidently outwards across the lower level of the synagogue, passing over Solly, Mr Green, and the other wealthier male members of the community who sat at the front, closest to the Ark, closest to God. Then these notes of his moved backwards like a lapping wave, past the rows that included Nathan and Uncle Mendel, to touch the newer and poorer congregants modestly sitting in the shadows at the rear. He could hear his melodies reverently address the closed velvet curtains of the Ark, then wrap themselves around the synagogue’s stout pillars to swirl upwards on vines of song to the women’s gallery. There, for a sweet instant, his voice lowered to a whisper to caress Celia’s ears before drifting on up through the roof. His song burrowed heavenwards through the muck, the soot and the grime of the city to be blown eastwards on the wind across clear blue skies.

  His lungs may have been the driving force but it was the Aeolian harp of his heart that instilled his words with both joyous and wretched emotion as they sailed across purple-green hills, over Lowland mining towns and villages, followed railway tracks past distant rivers and lochs, and on towards the sea. As his melodies passed over shores of shingle, hardy fishermen looked upwards from tangled nets and shook their heads in recognition of the siren sounds that had haunted their sea-faring dreams.

  From the coastline, his music was sucked up by flurries and squalls, protected by gulls and picked up by the mouths of doves. Ever eastwards, this flock of words and music flew on an airstream over the dark choppy surf, past shoals of shimmering fish, lone steamers and majestic fjords to the land of his birth. There, his mother, young and smiling and carefree, hugging herself in excited anticipation, waited to receive the gift of his song. Yellow flowers adorned her hair, silver thimbles patterned her pale blue dress that matched the colour of the sky. Her face filled with joy at the love conveyed in his music which whirled around her in an eddy of sound. Floating above her, the fiddler from the Riga streets played, his music matching Avram’s own and together the words and notes broke off from their circular dance and soared in unison to the heavens. Higher and higher his song went, piercing the clouds, past the moon and beyond the stars, until his words reached the orbit of the Lord’s countenance where they beseeched Him for the forgiveness he craved. By the time he had reached the fabulous crescendo to his bar mitzvah portion even Mrs Carnovsky who sat way back in the woman’s gallery had forgiven him. Rabbi Lieberman stood motionless with the redundant silver pointer in his hand, Madame Kahn had lifted her veil, Papa Kahn’s mouth was agape, Celia was smiling as tears ran down her face. Only young Nathan fully understood what he had heard.

  Glasgow

  1915

  Twelve

  “YOU MUST FORGIVE ME for calling uninvited like this,” Jacob Stein said, as Madame Kahn took his bowler hat, gloves and umbrella. “I have just been with Morris Green along the road. I thought I would come over. It is important business.”

  Of course it was important business. Important business was the least Avram could expect from suc
h a man, who sat in the front row in the synagogue, who donated the books he studied at Hebrew School, who turned up unannounced in the middle of an evening ensconced in a fur-trimmed coat and the rich aroma of sweet brandy and cigars. Uncle Mendel called Jacob Stein a ganze macher – a big shot. After all, Jacob Stein was a bailie, a warehouse owner, a founder of the synagogue. And, of course, Jacob Stein was Uncle Mendel’s employer. And although Avram did not know exactly what a bailie did, Uncle Mendel had told him it was the highest civic office any Jew had ever held in the City of Glasgow.

  “Komm, Celia,” Madame Kahn said. “Du auch, Avram.”

  He felt himself prodded by Madame Kahn into the presence of this large, rotund man with his thin moustache, sweet-smelling hair tonic and powerful voice that rumbled confidently from his belly.

  “So, this is little Celia. Such a big girl she is becoming.”

  Jacob Stein’s tongue licked his fat lips as he bent down to tug lightly at Celia’s black curls, then to squeeze her chin in his hand. “So beautiful, too.” Jacob Stein pulled in close to Celia’s face but she jerked her head away.

  “Celia,” Madame Kahn hissed.

  “Not to worry,” Jacob Stein said, unperturbed. “Ah, yes. And this is the bar mitzvah boy who once filled our synagogue so … heroically … yes, heroically, with his voice. This is …?”

  “Avram,” Papa Kahn interjected.

  “Ah yes, Avram. You’re quite a football player as well, I hear.”

  “Nothing special.”

  “Speak up, boy.”

  “Nothing special, sir.”

  “Hah. Nothing special. Such a modest boy. Only fourteen years old and playing for the senior team. That is something special.”

  Papa Kahn cast a surprised look at Avram, then at Jacob Stein. “You know more about the boy than I do.”

  “I have my spies.”

  “And what do they tell you?” Papa Kahn asked.

  “They tell me what you and I already know. Football is not a career for a Jewish boy, eh?” Jacob Stein looked around the hallway. “There is another boy, is there not?”

  “Nathan. He’s not so well at the moment,” Papa Kahn explained.

  “I see. Nothing serious, I hope.”

  “He feels things,” Madame Kahn said.

  “Oversensitive,” Papa Kahn said, ushering his guest into the sitting room. “Can we get you a little schnapps?”

  Jacob Stein raised his index finger in salute to this suggestion. “An excellent idea.”

  Avram watched the adults move out of the hallway. The excitement was over. Homework waited for him back in the kitchen. But Celia grabbed him by the arm.

  “Don’t you want to know what this is all about?” she asked.

  “I want to know why football isn’t a career for a Jewish boy.”

  “Stop with your football already. There’s a war on. Come on.” She shepherded him to the half-open sitting-room door, pulled him down on to his haunches.

  “Why isn’t football a career for—” he whispered.

  “Shush!” Celia scowled, placing a finger to his lips. “Just listen.”

  * * *

  “Herschel and Martha, l’chaim,” Jacob Stein said, raising a glass of schnapps in turn to each of his hosts. Avram shifted in his crouch, feeling awkward yet curious to trespass on an occasion that merited the uttering of Papa and Madame Kahn’s first names. He watched as Jacob Stein settled his bulky frame into Papa Kahn’s armchair, the fingers of one hand drumming on the belly of his waistcoat, while the other gently swirled the amber liqueur in his glass.

  “The war,” Jacob Stein sighed. “It affects us all.”

  “Yes, I know,” Papa Kahn said. “But we are grateful for your contracts. We prefer to work in our shop making uniforms than in a munitions factory making shells. Don’t we, Martha?”

  “We thank you for your consideration, Herr Stein.”

  “It is all part of the war effort,” Jacob Stein said. “We must be seen to participate. And to volunteer to fight as well. This city raised a whole battalion in only sixteen hours down at the Tramways recruiting station last month. The patriotic urge to fight for King and country is overwhelming.”

  Jacob Stein leaned forward in his chair, cradling his shot glass in his hands.

  “But the Jews are beginning to suffer in all of this,” he said.

  “In Poland and Lithuania,” Papa Kahn concurred. “The situation is intolerable.”

  “No, no, Herschel. The Jews here. Here in Glasgow.”

  “In Glasgow?”

  “Yes, in Glasgow. Our loyalty is in question.”

  “But how? Why? We have shown our support. Jews have enlisted.”

  “That is true. But there is something else.”

  “What do you mean?” Madame Kahn asked.

  “I mean …” And here Jacob Stein cleared his throat. “I mean, it is the question of citizenship.”

  “Citizenship?” Papa Kahn said.

  “Yes, citizenship,” Jacob Stein said firmly, easing back to languish fully in his chair.

  “Citizenship,” Papa Kahn repeated.

  “You know what I mean, Herschel. You are of Russian origin. You do not have British citizenship.” Jacob Stein paused. “You are therefore … in these times of conflict … an alien.”

  “What is an ‘alien’?” Madame Kahn asked.

  “Zar,” Papa Kahn snapped at his wife.

  “Hmmmph,” uttered Madame Kahn. “I have always been a foreigner here.”

  “That may be so,” Jacob Stein continued patiently. “But in wartime this is not so good. Especially in your situation, Martha.”

  “My situation?”

  “You are German,” Jacob Stein said.

  “So?”

  “I’m afraid that makes your situation more complicated. That makes you an enemy alien.”

  Madame Kahn covered a gasp with her hand.

  Jacob Stein went on. “It is last week’s sinking of the Lusitania. So many civilian lives lost. It has stirred up such anti-German feeling. There have been attacks against shops and individuals.”

  “But how can this be?” Papa Kahn protested. “I am working for the war effort. We both are. We are making the uniforms. How can we be aliens? We have lived here for years. How can Martha be an enemy?”

  “It is the law,” Jacob Stein said. “Listen, Herschel. Now is the time to decide.”

  “To decide what?”

  “To choose your nation. Are you a Russki or a Scot?”

  Papa Kahn looked to his wife then back to Jacob Stein.

  “Bah,” he snorted. “You think this is a difficult decision? What do I owe Russia? Nothing. They gave me nothing and took away everything.” Papa Kahn rose dramatically from his chair. “I am a Scot,” he declared. “I am British. I am whatever you want! As long as I can be a Jew.”

  Jacob Stein reached out, tugged on Papa Kahn’s jacket, coaxing him back to his chair. “Come, come. Don’t worry. Of course you can be a Jew. We can all be Jews here. They may try to convert us to Christianity but they do not try to kill us, eh?” Jacob Stein gave a slight laugh which changed to a cough. He continued in a more serious tone. “I think we at the Jewish Representative Council can arrange to rush through your nationality papers but with you, Martha, it might be different.”

  “How different?”

  “I’m not sure exactly. It is out of my hands. Not a local matter. Not a matter for the Glasgow Corporation or the constabulary either. But for the Lord Advocate in Edinburgh, I believe. Or perhaps even the Secretary of State in London. We need to make representations. It will take time.”

  “Time I have.”

  “It’s not that simple. You cannot stay here. You will have to go to some kind of camp.”

  “Camp?”

  “Yes, camp. All the enemy aliens living in Glasgow are being taken to a camp in England. Near Leeds.”

  “I cannot go to a camp.”

  Jacob Stein put out a consoling hand. “I’m afr
aid you have to. The police or perhaps the army will come to take you there. You have no choice. It is best to prepare yourself for this.”

  “Of course I have a choice. I will not go.”

  Jacob Stein ignored her and went on. “Your brother Mendel is in the same position. He too is an enemy alien. But I shall do my best to make sure his work continues to keep him out of Glasgow. Away from the shipyards and out of trouble. He uses a small cottage in the countryside near Oban for his base while he’s out travelling. He can stay there in the meantime. No-one will know to come looking for him.”

  “Perhaps Martha can join him there too?” Papa Kahn suggested.

  Jacob Stein looked at Madame Kahn. “Well? What do you think of this idea?”

  “I … I … I will not run away to the Highlands like some … like some kriminell.”

  “Hrrmph. Have it your way. But, there is also the question of the children.”

  “The children were born here,” Papa Kahn said quickly.

  “That is good. But what about the boy?”

  “Which boy?” Papa Kahn asked.

  “The footballer. Avram. Have you formally adopted him?”

  “We wanted to,” Papa Kahn said. “But we believe his mother might still be alive.”

  “So he is not legally registered anywhere?”

  “We are known as his guardians at the school. But officially registered? No.”

  Jacob Stein thought about this information. “Good. Then he will not be on their list. A minor. A visitor. If the police come, don’t say a word about him. He doesn’t exist. He is a nothing.”

  When the police came, Avram hid in the coal cellar. Through a grille just above pavement level he could still see and hear Madame Kahn as she was led away. “I am not an alien,” she screamed, wrenching herself from the grasp of the accompanying constables. She walked proudly to join the rest of her compatriots in the horse-drawn police wagon. “I am not an enemy,” she announced to neighbours who had come to watch. “I do good works for this country. I make uniforms. I work hard for the war effort. I work until my fingers bleed.” She shook these very fingers at the onlookers. “Jah! I am not an alien. I am not a kriminell.”