Even after the police had gone, Avram stayed down in the dust and the darkness. He was as unafraid, unaffected and as unemotional as the lumps of cold black coal piled around him. When he returned to school the next day, he found he now belonged to a group of immigrant children taunted and branded ‘aliens’ by the others. But for him, the humiliation was far worse than that. For he knew that he wasn’t even worthy of being an ‘alien’. He was a nothing.
Thirteen
AVRAM CREPT INTO THE BEDROOM. Nathan lay on his bed staring at the ceiling. Since the outbreak of the war, the boy had steadily become more morose, declining into a consistent melancholy until eventually he was confined to his bed.
“I know what’s wrong with you,” Avram whispered.
Nathan turned to him, his eyes sunk deep into potholes of misery.
“Do you hear me, Nathan?” He wanted to shake him, to spark some life into the lethargy of the boy he now thought of as a young brother. “Do you hear me?”
Nathan rubbed his head against the pillow in a nod causing a blob of spittle to escape from his mouth, roll down his chin.
“I learned this English language,” Avram said. “And you lost your language. Don’t you see? I have stolen your words. Do you hear me?”
Silence.
“And you are stealing my suffering, Nathan. Somehow you know how I feel. Deep inside. You know that I am a nothing. It is because of me you have all this pain.”
Nathan’s dry lips began to mouth some syllables. Avram moved his head in closer, trying to decipher meaning from the hoarse rasp at his ear. He pulled away.
“I can’t hear you. What are you saying?”
The sound from Nathan’s throat breathed stronger and Avram leaned in again. He wasn’t sure what he heard but he thought Nathan had said, “I forgive you, Avram. I forgive you.”
* * *
“These are hard times,” Papa Kahn said, as he stood in the centre of the sitting room flapping a letter from Madame Kahn.
Papa Kahn had come to appear less grand to Avram now. The man’s features had grown sallow, his beard untidy, lines that had once danced fleetingly on his forehead now formed permanent trenches of anxiety. He was surrounded by a perpetual gloom that buckled his shoulders, seeped into his spirit. On the rare times Papa Kahn was at home rather than in his shop, Avram would see him stooped in bowed vigilance at Nathan’s bedside.
“Mary will work for us full-time,” Papa Kahn announced. “With Uncle Mendel kept away by these alien restrictions, she can take a room in his flat.”
Avram glanced at Celia. She looked exhausted. Since Madame Kahn’s departure, he had helped out in the house where he could. He ran errands after school, beat the carpets, hauled in the coal, scrubbed the grate until it shone. But the real onus of maintaining the home fell more and more on the shoulders of Celia who looked after the rest of the flat as well as Uncle Mendel’s, prepared the family dinners and tended to Nathan’s needs. She cleaned out her brother’s bedpans, changed his sheets, read him stories even though she was never sure if he was listening. Avram felt pained to see the weariness that grew around her eyes, the tightness contained in her brief smile of acknowledgement to him whenever he entered her presence.
Papa Kahn continued speaking, still with his wife’s letter in his hand. “But how can we even compare our own troubles to those of the Jews suffering in the Pale of Settlement and Galicia? We can live where we want, work where we want, worship where we want. We might be distrusted because of our nationality but we are not persecuted because of our faith. Think of your fellow Jews in Russia.”
Avram tried to think of his fellow Jews in Russia. He tried to think of his mother. He tried to think of Madame Kahn. But all he could think about was the fact that Mary’s presence would now be permanent in the household.
Papa Kahn brought his wife’s letter close to his eyes. “And do you know what your mother writes, Celia? In the middle of all this war, all this tzores. She writes that she wants soap.” Papa Kahn read from the page. “I do not care what my circumstances are, I will always retain my dignity. I will always bathe with expensive soap. Please, Herschel, send me bars of expensive soap. Lavender soap.” Papa Kahn held out his arms. “Where will I get such soap in times like these? Avram? Are you listening to me?”
Fourteen
AVRAM SHIVERED NEAR THE TOUCHLINE as dark clouds skulked across the sky, dribbling their drizzle onto the red cinder recreation pitch. Some parents had come down to watch the semi-final against Victoria and Cathcart Boys’ Club, and they now stood under umbrellas in scattered huddles along the perimeter. Papa Kahn wasn’t among them. Papa Kahn wasn’t even aware the match was being played. For he knew Papa Kahn had no time for such a frivolity as a game of football. So he stood alone and parentless in the cold, trying to salvage some joy from the importance of the fixture. If his team won today, they would play in the Glasgow Boys’ Clubs final at Hampden Park, Scotland’s national stadium. With real nets and white lines painted on rolled grass. With a capacity of close to 150,000 spectators for the important games, although the Boys’ Clubs final would only attract a few hundred, maybe even a thousand. But Roy Begg said all the scouts would come to watch. Scouts from the big clubs. Though Avram knew there was only one club for him.
He was wearing Solly’s boots, their too-largeness sorted by a couple of pairs of extra socks. His number eleven black-and-white-striped jersey clung damply to his skin. An older boy had worn it for a game the day before, and it remained unwashed. At least the rain would give it a good clean from the sweat and grass stains that endured. He preferred to play on grass rather than this cinder that gathered pools of water and scoured the skin on his legs if he fell in a tackle. Which was often.
“They’ll try to snuff you out,” Roy Begg warned him. “Bundle you out of the game early.”
It was a serious threat. Even though he was only playing a couple of years above his age, the rest of the players loomed like giants. Begg still called him a runt. He was too small to be of use through the centre where he lost out in the air or could be blocked easily by sheer physical strength. But out on the wing, he had space. Space to turn the size of his opponents against them, to weave their legs in a tangle, to outpace their lumbering forms. Until their frustration turned into desperate hacks and lunges he would have to try hard to avoid.
“Escovitz. What kindae fuckin’ name’s that?”
Avram looked up at his opposite number. A lanky, red-haired lad with a long, freckled face and teeth poking out at different angles that forced his thin lips into a permanent sneer. The boy was hugging himself in a twisted embrace to keep warm. It was as if his arms were all buckled up in a straitjacket.
Avram said nothing, knelt down, fiddled with the laces on his boots.
“Sounds like a Hun name.”
He tugged one of the loops into a tightness.
“It’s a Gerry name. You’re a bloody Gerry. A bloody Hun.”
“It’s a Jewish name.”
“Jew. Hun. All the same.”
“It’s not.”
“Ginger Dodds can smell a Hun a’ the way from here to Parkheid.”
“I’m not a Gerry.”
“We’ll see.”
The whistle went and a body blow from Ginger Dodds flattened Avram to the ground, expelling the air full out of him. From the touchline, he could hear Begg calling for him to get up and get on with it, but the strength had gone from his legs. He lay in the wet cinder, sucking in air in shallow swallows to avoid the pain that swamped his chest. The game went on above him. He managed to prop himself up on his arms but by the time he got to his feet, Victoria and Cathcart had scored. He patted his cheek, raw from a scrape in his fall. His jersey was soaked and streaked red from the cinder. Dodds was back facing him.
“Goal straight off, Hun boy. We’re gonna fuckin’ hammer you.”
This time Avram avoided the sweep of the elbow that came with the whistle blow. But Dodds stuck with him, tugging on his arm, pul
ling his jersey, running a boot down the back of his shin. Avram tried to twist away from his marker, find some space to take a pass, but the tall shadow stuck with him. He jogged backwards, sprinted forward, moved out of position but Dodds was always there, taunting, stinking of sweat, breathing his venom on to the back of his shirt.
When Avram eventually did get the ball, his legs were taken in a scythe from behind. He tried to push his hands out to break the fall, but not fast enough. He bounced on to his bruised chest, then spun over on his back. He felt as if a giant anvil had settled in a crush against his ribs. It was difficult to breathe.
“You all right, boy?”
“My chest, sir.”
Begg was tugging at his shirt, rolling it up his body. His one eye took a worried swoop over the injury while his fingers prodded. Avram flinched from the searing soreness in his ribs.
“Hmm. Nothing broken.”
He felt liquid on his skin.
“This’ll hurt before it gets better.” Begg massaged his ribs with some liniment. The pain made him cough until the firm strokes began to soothe. Then quickly his shirt was pulled down and he was hauled to his feet.
“It’s no long to the end of the half,” Begg said. “Try to keep out of his way. Then I’ll sort you out.”
Avram jogged stiffly back on to the pitch. Dodds trotted up beside him.
“Next time, you won’t get up, Hun boy.”
Avram tried to shrug him off, but Dodds stuck in close.
“Ye’ll no get away from Ginger Dodds.”
And he didn’t. Avram was marked out of the game. Wherever he went, Dodds would follow. And when the referee wasn’t looking, there was always a tug at his jersey or a clip against his heels to remind him of the attention being paid. The only cheer to his miserable afternoon of frustration came when his team scored just before half-time to tie the game.
At the break, Begg grumbled as he rubbed in some kind of embrocation over his chest then wound a roll of bandages tight around his ribs.
“I can’t shake him off, sir.”
“I see that.”
“But what can I do, sir?”
“Well, he’s too big for you to take on.” Begg plucked at the thong that held his eye patch to reveal the deep ridge scarred across his forehead. Then his fingers moved to scratch the back of his bull neck in a thoughtfulness until he seemed to make up his mind. “Stand right out at the touchline when you line up again,” he said.
Avram did as he was told. Ginger Dodds took up a stance opposite. Begg stood watching close on the side-lines. The whistle went for the start of the second half, but before Avram could move, Begg stepped forward fast between them and slammed an elbow into Dodds’ face. It was a strike so swift in its execution that Avram could hardly believe it had actually happened. Dodd’s cheek bone caved in from the ferocity of the blow and his legs collapsed from under him as he crumpled with a yell on to the cinder, clutching the side of his face. Begg was over him, dabbing a cloth to his cheek which was rapidly purpling into a swelling. Ginger Dodds spat blood, then a tooth.
“What’s going on?” The referee had stopped the game and plodded over.
“He ran into that lad of mine,” Begg said. “He’ll be all right.”
“Lost something too.” The referee stooped to pick up the bloodied tooth. He pinched it between thumb and forefinger, brandished it at Avram.
“Dangerous play. I could have you off for that.”
“This one’s been at him all game,” Begg intervened as he dragged his victim to his feet.
The referee seemed to ponder the difference in the size of the two boys. “Well, get him off the pitch so as we can get on with it.” He flicked the tooth into a puddle, wiped his hands on his shorts then blew his whistle.
Begg shoved Dodds back on to the pitch. The boy’s left eye was puffed up fleshy like a piece of raw liver and he wobbled on his feet. Avram wondered if Dodds knew who or what had hit him.
“Ah’ll get you for this,” Dodds slurred at no-one in particular.
But from then on, Dodds kept his distance, finally giving Avram the space he craved to work the wing. He did his best to execute his tricks with the ball, but his injury had taken its toll. He couldn’t move smartly or twist away. He took passes but he laid them off quickly. He shirked tackles. Almost in a mirror of his own frustration, the game dragged on with neither side able to pluck a victory out of the dreary afternoon. Then, against one of his team’s few attacks, the Victoria and Cathcart full-back in a tackle scrambled the ball over his own bye-line for a corner.
All of Avram’s team bar the goalkeeper came to jostle for position in their opponent’s penalty area. Begg was behind the goal, pointing feverishly here and there at his black-and-white shirted players.
Avram flinched from the pain that snapped across his bruised ribs as he bent to place the ball on the corner arc. He felt like David, the young shepherd boy, selecting the round, smooth pebbles that would fly the fastest and the most accurate towards their target. But instead of pebbles, he had a mud-caked soggy leather ball, split and torn in places along the seams so that he could see the taut pinkness of the blown-up pig’s bladder within. He tried to pick out his centre-forward, Big Tam, who was racing back and forth across the goal signalling frantically at his cropped head. It was a head as tarnished and nobbled as any soldier’s helmet. It was a head worthy of any Goliath.
But as soon as his foot swept through the ball, Avram knew he had hit the angle all wrong. Instead of his intended straight cross to Big Tam hovering around the penalty spot, he had put too much curl on his kick. Yet somehow he sensed that his own wrongness had diverted the leather sphere on to its true path. At first, the ball soared on a trajectory that looped high towards the goalmouth. It soared too high for Big Tam, too high for the goalkeeper who had come off his line to check Big Tam’s run, too high for Ginger Dodds and a defender across the face of the goal who both leaped to head the cross but missed. Then, just as the ball should have faded away on a curl beyond the far-post, it seemed to stop and hang in mid-air as though waiting for its fate to be decided. The wind dropped and the rain ceased. A sheet of newspaper floated down into a puddle. The ugly vapours from the power station stacks lining the horizon sagged down into the grey sky. A skinny dog ran onto the pitch in pursuit of a mis-thrown stick. The players stood stonecast in their positions, set into their tableau with limbs akimbo, heads back and eyes wide-open. Waiting. Waiting for the ball to continue. Waiting for the curl. And when the ball did continue, when the curl did come, the ball didn’t drift off behind the bye-line or over the bar as everyone had expected. Instead, it dipped and slipped into the goal just inside the far-post.
Roy Begg stood behind the goalmouth, staring blankly at the match ball which had bounced into his arms. The other players remained transfixed in their positions. The referee’s whistle ripped through the stillness. A mass of black-and-white shirted players came to life and rushed towards Avram.
“Patsy,” Big Tam shouted. “Yer a bloody genius.”
“I didn’t mean it.” Avram looked at his feet, clad in their cinder-stained leather boots. The same feet that at eleven years old had once walked him from the docks at Clydebank to the Kahn’s flat as if they had a mind of their own. “I don’t know what happened. But I didn’t mean it.”
“Disnae matter,” Big Tam shouted, spluttering with excitement. “Disnae matter you didnae mean it. Ten more minutes and we’re in the bloody final. We just need to hang on.”
And hang on he did. Ten long minutes. With his chest aching from the bruising but blown up with pride.
Fifteen
ON HIS JOURNEY HOME FROM THE RECREATION PARK, Avram saw the lamplighter doing his rounds. He was a man as tall and thin as the pole he carried, clad in a dark Corporation uniform that merged with the encroachment of the night. The endless routine had honed the man’s task to a minimum of skilled effort that made Avram stop and watch. First came the simple claw back of the lamp’s glass door
with the pole’s hook. Then there was the neat flick on the switch with a twist of the same device. Finally, the smooth insertion of the flame through the glass entrance to ignite the gas jet. A whoosh and there was light, first blue, then softening into a yellow glow which melted the darkness like a warm bath on a cold night.
“Did ye win, lad?” the lamplighter said with a glance to the boots hanging around his shoulders.
“Yes, we won.”
“Looks like ye took a battering in the process.”
Avram nodded. “The light on the pole? How does it stay on all the time?”
“A drop of water on the mineral. Some kind of chemical reaction I do not rightly know how to explain that gives off its own gas. Strike a light and ye’ve got a lasting flame. Same stuff for the lamp on a bicycle. Carbide, it’s called.”
“I don’t have a bicycle.”
“Maybe ye’ll get one for Christmas.”
“I don’t celebrate Christmas.”
The lamplighter cocked his head to the side in puzzlement. Then a look up and down the street seemed to bring him his answer. “I see. This is the Jew neighbourhood, isn’t it?”
Avram shrugged, always a bit fearful when his religion was separated out from the Protestant and Catholic faiths dominating the city. But the lamplighter seemed friendly enough and it was hard to avoid the facts staring him in the face. There was the synagogue on the corner, the kosher butcher with its Star of David painted on the window pane, the greengrocers further up with its sign in English and Hebrew lettering. Then came Papa Kahn’s tailoring shop. Most of the neighbours he knew were Jewish.
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