“It’s an aeroplane,” Avram yelled.
“Well, it’s not a bloody Zeppelin,” the pilot said in an English accent. “But it’s a thirsty one.”
The pilot slid himself onto the wing, dropped to the ground. Avram was surprised how young he was; there couldn’t have been more than four of five years between them, his blond hair thick but cut short, still matted down from the tightness of his helmet like a field of wheat flattened from the lying in it. The skin on his forehead and around his blue eyes shone pinkish-white in contrast to the rest of his face ruddy from the wind, streaked with oil.
“And is this your very own servant?” the pilot asked, raising his eyes in the direction of Megan running awkwardly in her uniform across the field.
“No, that’s Megan Kennedy. The gamekeeper’s daughter.”
“What happened?” Megan asked breathlessly.
“Ran out of petrol,” the pilot replied. “On a reconnaissance test up from Carmunnock. Thought I had enough to get out and back. Must have been way off in my reckonings.”
“Reconnaissance,” Avram repeated, savouring the length and importance of the word. “What does that mean?”
“Just having a look-round. A reckie. For the RFC – Royal Flying Corps – that is. Scouting the terrain. Doing the same against Gerry in France. Once the tests are finished.”
Avram ran his hands over the silver-painted wing. “What’s it made of?”
“Metal body. Wings covered with fabric.”
“What happens when it rains?”
“The fabric’s coated against letting in water. Otherwise the wings would get too heavy from absorbing the moisture. It’s just the poor pilot gets soaked.”
“Can I get up?”
“On you go.”
Avram hauled himself up on to the wing close to the fuselage. Clinging on to one of the struts, he swung his body round so he could sit down and let his legs dangle underneath.
“Just sit steady,” the pilot said. “No clambering around.” He handed Avram the leather helmet. “Try this. And you too, young lady? Take the goggles. I can put you on the other side.”
Megan let herself be lifted up on to the opposite wing. Then the pilot stepped a few paces back from the nose of the plane so he could view his two passengers.
“Like bookends,” he pronounced.
Avram found himself observing the scene from the pilot’s perspective. He could see himself perched on the wing, legs swinging back and forth underneath, with the helmet hanging loosely over his head. Megan, on the other side, goggles strapped over her mane of hair, laughing as the pilot pretended to film them with some imaginary crank-handled two-reeled camera. The pilot was speaking to Megan but he couldn’t hear what was being said, his sense of sound muffled as if he were hearing everything from underwater at the Corporation Baths. Movement seemed to have slowed too until the whole scene crystallised. This was it. Of course, this was it. This was the strange bird Mrs Carnovsky had read in his tea-leaves. The bird the likes of which she’d never seen before. He must hold these moments tight to his memory – the spring sunshine glinting off the aeroplane fuselage, the amusing antics of the pilot, Megan’s disembodied laughter, the feel of the rough nap of the wing fabric under his palms, the sense of lightness that pervaded his whole body. Then the voice of the pilot, clearer now, asking him a question.
“Can you tell me where I might find some petrol?”
“Megan could tell you. She’s from around here.”
Megan had dropped down from her side of the plane, scrambled up from underneath the body.
“The castle must have some,” she said. She had pushed the goggles back off her face to form a strange band across her hair. “The Laird keeps automobiles and motorbikes there.”
“The Laird, eh?” the pilot said. “How far is this castle?”
Megan pointed in the general direction. “Not two miles straight down the avenue there. I’ll take ye there, if ye want.” She turned to Avram. “Ye can leave me here,” she said. “Best ye get back for yer Sabbath.”
Avram watched her disappear across the field. The pilot ambling beside her, one hand shouldering his leather jacket, the other supporting Megan’s elbow as he guided her over a stile. He ran after them.
“Wait. Wait a moment.”
“What is it?” the pilot asked.
“My name is Avram,” he said, stretching out his hand. “Avram Escovitz.”
The pilot snapped into mock salute. “Sinclair, it is. Flight Lieutenant Charles Sinclair.”
Twenty-nine
UNCLE MENDEL WAS NAKED. Bathing in the burn, the folds of his flesh wobbling to the splashing, his shrivelled-up penis wriggling like a mouse in a hole. Avram just stood there, not sure how to approach.
“Willkommen, willkommen, boychik,” Uncle Mendel said, noticing him for the first time. “Welcome to my country estate.” Uncle Mendel bowed, then grabbed the metal bucket from off the bank, dragged it against the current, poured some water over himself. He let out a shivering yelp as he did so. Avram laughed.
“What is so funny, boychik? Next in line you are.”
“I’m not getting in there.”
“Like a bath in the front room it is.”
“It’s freezing.”
“If supper you want, get in.”
A few minutes later, Avram was soaping himself down in the icy water. Uncle Mendel, now dressed in a singlet and trousers held up with a length of string, watched on from the cottage door. His flesh shone pink in patches. Take away his yarmulke, Avram thought, and he could have been a blacksmith with nothing more to do than watch a horse being led in for the shodding.
“Scrub harder,” Uncle Mendel shouted. “As clean as a Shabbos angel I want you.”
It was only much later, dressed in all the clothes he had brought with him, that Avram managed to stop shivering in his huddle in front of the hearth.
“Why didn’t you come to meet me?”
“Bad weather up north,” Uncle Mendel said vaguely before handing him a steaming bowl of barley soup. “But with only an address from Russia to the Gorbals you came. To this cottage from Glasgow must be easy for you. Nu? Now everything you must tell me. All the gossip. I like to hear all this – how do you say? – tittle-tattle.”
Avram shakily scooped up the warming broth with his wooden spoon then spoke of Papa and Madame Kahn, Celia and Nathan. To each piece of information, Uncle Mendel rocked a rhythm in his chair, fingering and twisting one of his loose sidelocks as if to bind the details in his memory. His gaze became lost to distant visions. When his attention did finally return, Avram told him of his stay with the Kennedys.
“Young Megan Kennedy ran away from the castle,” Uncle Mendel said.
“How did you know that?”
“The villagers tell me all their tittle-tattle this morning.”
“She has gone back now.”
“And you know this how?”
“Because … because she came here.”
“And she did that why, I wonder?”
“I don’t know. She had nowhere else to go, I suppose.”
Uncle Mendel nodded his head in a slow surveillance of the room as if he might discover some tell-tale sign of Megan’s visit. “I see,” he said, poking his pipe into life. The smell of the sweet tobacco took Avram back to the flat in Glasgow where the aroma used to mingle with the fleshy fragrance of baked herring. “Now these parcels you bring. They are from Herr Stein? I must see what samples and brochures he sends me. And this vursht? A little circumcised it has become, don’t you think? But of such things later. Now let us prepare for the Shabbos. Then we can talk some more.”
Avram helped tidy away the parcels, set out the table. There were fresh supplies of eggs, cheese and bread, a jar of honey as a special treat. He took two chairs outside so they could sit and scan the early evening sky in search of the first star, the sign to mark the arrival of the Shabbos. Uncle Mendel came out too, sat down, prepared his final pipe before the
Day of Rest began.
“Herr Stein tells me some kind of football player you want to be,” Uncle Mendel said quietly.
“That was in the past.”
“I see.” Uncle Mendel nodded with that far-away look that made Avram think the man was indeed looking back into his past.
“What does Herr Stein know about my football anyway?” he asked.
“In these things, Herr Stein takes an interest.” Uncle Mendel lit a match. The tobacco hissed in the bowl as he puffed his pipe alight. “A very good player, he says you are.”
Avram shrugged. “It makes no difference. I have no opportunity to play now.”
“I see.” Uncle Mendel drifted off again on some reverie. “You know what beshert is?” he said eventually.
“Yes. It means fate.”
“Well, if for you to be a footballer is beshert, then a footballer you will be. Even if all kinds of obstacles life puts before you. Somehow and in some way, what is meant to be will be.”
“And if it is beshert to be a credit draper?”
“Then a credit draper you will become,” Uncle Mendel chuckled. “Just like me.” He paused then cupped a hand to his ear. “Now, listen, boychik.”
“I don’t hear anything.”
“Ssshhh.”
“What is it?”
“The sound of the Lord.”
“I still don’t hear anything.”
“Sshhh. Here it is easier to discover Him than in the city.”
A sense of a hush and a holiness drifted down from the hillside. A stillness settled on the loch. Even the sound of Uncle Mendel sucking on his pipe had ceased. All became silent. The Sabbath closed in. Stealthily. Like a mist.
“There it is,” Avram shouted, pointing at the merest pinpoint of light in the sky.
“Ah. So it is.” Uncle Mendel reluctantly put aside his pipe. “Come. It is time to welcome the Shabbos.”
Avram followed Uncle Mendel back into the cottage. As the older man passed through the doorway, he pressed his fingers to his lips, then to the mezuzah fixed to the lintel.
“Please say the bracha,” he told Avram.
“Do I have to?”
“Do I have to? Do I have to light the Shabbos candles? Do I have to say the blessing? What kind of questions are those from a Jewish boy?”
“I don’t feel like doing it.”
“Why? Because it is women’s work?”
“No. I just don’t want to.”
“Now, don’t make me angry. You are a guest in my home. It will please me greatly if this you do for me.”
Avram relented, went over to the table, lit the two Sabbath candles in their holders, an honour usually reserved for Madame Kahn or Celia. Once the wick had caught, he covered his eyes, made the blessing.
When he had finished, Uncle Mendel grasped his hand, shook it vigorously. “Good Shabbos, boychik. This is such a delight. Usually I am all alone for the Shabbos. We must make a kiddush. Wine I don’t have. But a biesele whisky I can give you.” He rattled open a drawer, brought out a bottle and a glass, poured out a large measure, quickly said the blessing for wine.
“Only one glass I have,” he said, offering it to Avram.
Avram took the whisky, tried a sip, felt the liquid harsh in his throat before it warmed him all the way to his stomach. He took another sip. His eyes began to water. Uncle Mendel snatched back the glass, downed its contents in one gulp. “L’chaim,” he said, pouring himself another glass. “I am going to sit outside.”
Avram stayed behind, pulled up a stool to the table, watched the candles flicker and drip. He could still taste the whisky in his mouth, feel his head slightly giddy from the alcohol, the overall sensation being one of pleasant contentment. He squinted at the candles, creating shards of light beaming back at him. He was sorry he had argued about the blessing. Perhaps Uncle Mendel was right. God was easier to find in the countryside than in the city. For this was the God he loved. The God who created the beauty of this place. The God who brought peace and comfort to his soul. The God who looked after his mother. Yet he knew also that out there in the approaching darkness was the other God. The Jewish God that punished Moses. The Jewish God that demanded rituals of Sabbath blessings and kosher food. The Jewish God he feared.
He went outside. The sky was now a black mass pricked with thousands of stars. An awesome spangled firmament in a night humming with the stirrings of small insects.
“It is the Shabbos, Avram.”
“Yes. It is the Shabbos.”
“About our work together I have much to tell. But until the Shabbos has passed that must wait. For now is a time for rest, not for work. Even the talk of it.” Uncle Mendel paused, distracted by a scurrying in the darkness, then returned to his topic. “Like a young bride the Shabbos comes. And bachelor though I am, I must stay with her until she has passed. This is my time for reflection. So if this time I do not spend with you, do not feel neglected.”
And with that last remark, Uncle Mendel stood up, walked off towards the loch, whisky bottle in hand. Hours later, Avram felt the man’s return when he heaved his large frame on to the bed, forcing him to scrunch up to the wall, to listen to the man’s heavy breathing quickly turn to snores. When Avram finally fell asleep, gone were the dreams of his mother and rafts drifting off to the horizon. Instead, he dreamed of soaring, circling airplanes with Megan Kennedy, in helmet and goggles, as the pilot.
After a cold breakfast, Uncle Mendel recited the morning prayers for the Sabbath, then left on a long walk. Avram went out for his own stroll around the loch, seeking out the flat rock he had used as a fishing perch where he lay down to catch up on his lost sleep.
Uncle Mendel returned just before dusk, sat with him outside the cottage until the first star arrived. Then, he retreated inside, lit the fire, re-heated the broth.
They ate in silence but when the meal was over, Uncle Mendel prepared a pipe, brought out two packs of cards and a box of matches.
“A game of kalooki?”
Avram nodded.
“Tinkers. That’s what they call us here, boychik. Tinkers.” Uncle Mendel dealt out two hands of thirteen cards each, divided up the matches between them. “So about us tinkers what do you know? About us travellers? About us credit drapers?”
Avram searched through his cards arranging a set here and there. It was quite a good hand. “A little.” He related what he remembered from his meeting with Jacob Stein. He then picked up a card. A joker. He tried to conceal his joy. He threw away a useless card in its place.
“Also, the code you will need to learn.”
“The code?”
“Yes, the code. The code is at the heart of everything.”
“Jacob Stein didn’t tell me about any code.”
“The mark-up is what the code tells you.”
Avram played and listened as Uncle Mendel explained how his profit margin depended on his discretion, his relationship with the customer, how much he thought the customer could afford.
“From me, this is what you need to learn. And how to sell the stock. Although in these parts, things sell themselves for lack of choice.” Uncle Mendel laid down three sets in a flurry.
Avram tried to remain calm. He needed just one card until he could lay out his whole hand. Double payment. That was the dilemma. To put down now and expose his cards. Or to hold back, risk being caught with everything, but receive double payment if he won.
“You’re very quiet, boychik.”
“You didn’t tell me what the code was.”
“A Polish Jew.” Uncle Mendel found a pencil stub in his pocket, wrote the words down on the reverse side of a scrap of paper, all the while keeping his four remaining cards in a fan close to his chest. A POLISH JEW. “Each warehouse has its own. Herr Stein’s uses A POLISH JEW. Goldberg’s uses CUMBERLAND. Always ten letters, no two letters the same. A mark-up of ten per cent each letter shows. If beside a customer’s name a letter A I write like this …” – and here Uncle Mendel circled the l
etter A on the paper – “Then the mark-up is ten per cent. The letter P twenty per cent, and so on and so on.” He continued circling each letter along the word until he came to the letter W. “One hundred per cent. So if with an L beside it I write a customer’s name, that is a mark-up of …?”
Avram picked up the scrap paper. As he twisted it around in his hands examining the code he noticed the front side was a cancelled betting slip. The word PAID had been written across the face of the bet underscored with a scrawl he immediately recognised. Solomon Green. It was Solly’s signature.
“Nu? With numbers I thought you were good.”
“L is forty per cent.”
“Excellent.” Uncle Mendel picked up another card, fussed over his hand. He squinted at Avram for a good few seconds before putting down another set of three cards. He shielded his remaining card in the hollow of his large palms. “One card left.”
Avram sucked in his breath, concentrated on the fan of thirteen cards in his hand. Should he wait for his one card, or lay down what he had? He needed an ace of hearts or a nine of spades. Or a joker. He decided to take a chance.
“Why do you need a code?” Avram asked as he picked up a card from the top of the deck. King of hearts. High in hearts. That was what Uncle Mendel always told him to be. Lucky in love. But it was only a king. Not high enough.
Uncle Mendel relaxed, continued talking. “Around here the code is not so important. Just a personal record of my transactions. Working in Glasgow it is more necessary. If the customer wants to go direct to Herr Stein’s warehouse to pick a size, a colour, a style, I give them a line – a line of credit – for a dress or a shirt and so on and so on. My customer can’t buy from the warehouse direct unless he has a line from me. And the warehouse knows what to charge my customer for the goods how?”
The Credit Draper Page 19