A Band of Steel

by Rosie Goodwin

  Removing the stew now, Freyde pushed the sooty black kettle into the heart of the fire and hurried away to prepare the teapot, keeping an expectant eye on her husband all the time.

  Once the tea was brewed she perched on the arm of the chair he was sitting in and asking excitedly, ‘So what have you found then?’

  ‘Well . . .’ Ezra took a warming gulp of his drink, ‘I went to Birmingham as planned, but I was not impressed. The city is being bombed and I wished to find somewhere a little safer for us. So, I then took the train to Coventry, but once again, the factories there are being targeted, so I went a little further afield. I ended up in a town called Nuneaton, and after walking about for a time I spotted a small empty shop. On making a few enquiries, I managed to find out that it was up for rent with living accommodation included, so I went along to the landlord who took me back to have a look at it. Very reluctantly, may I add, when he realised that I was a Jew. Until I actually showed him that I had money to pay the rent he looked at me as if I was a bad smell under his nose.’ Ezra sighed and took another sip of tea. ‘But anyway, I believe it would serve us well. It is a little run down, but at the back of the shop is a large living room-cum-kitchen. There is an outside privy in the yard and upstairs are three good-sized bedrooms. The previous owners were elderly and let the premises get into an awful state, but there is still some stock in the shop that is salvageable. It’s just shoelaces, cleaning products, stationery and so on, but after a good tidy-up we could have the business up and running again in a fairly short time.’

  Freyde clapped her hands with delight. ‘It sounds perfect,’ she told him. ‘But what about a bathroom?’

  Ezra grinned ruefully. ‘I’m afraid our bathing will have to be done in a tin bath in front of the fire for the foreseeable future, but at least we shall have our own space.’

  ‘So be it. When can we go there?’

  ‘As soon as you like. I have already paid the first month’s rent, and because we don’t have much to take with us, I’m sure that we could carry our belongings with us on the train. Unless you wanted to take the mattresses, that is.’

  Freyde eyed them with disdain. ‘No, I would prefer to get new ones when we arrive there,’ she told him decisively. ‘These were here when we came and I think we should leave them for the next family that inhabits the room.’

  Ezra looked at his wife from tired eyes. She had lost a lot of weight and seemed to have aged over the last few months. Not that this was surprising when he thought of how she had been forced to adapt. Back in Cologne, Freyde had led a charmed life. The wife of an eminent banker, she had been used to being waited on by servants. He could barely ever remember seeing her back then without her pearls and her lipstick on, but now they were surviving any way they could, and the old days seemed a lifetime away.

  He knew that she had brought the jewels he had once indulgently showered upon her, but she never wore them any more. They would have looked out of place in their present surroundings. But still, he consoled himself, the war could not last for ever, and perhaps one day things would once more be as they had been. He could only live in hope as his thoughts travelled back to his parents. He worried about them constantly and prayed daily that they might still be safe. He also worried about the new challenge ahead of him as a shopkeeper. But how hard could it be?

  Ariel had wormed her way onto his lap and he kissed her affectionately as his wife took some dishes from the small cupboard in a corner of the room and began to ladle stew into them.

  ‘Is there any furniture in the living quarters?’ she asked, excitement clear in her voice.

  ‘A little,’ her husband told her warily. ‘But I am not sure how much of it we will be able to use. The place has stood empty for some time.’

  She shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter. There will be more in the secondhand shops. We shall only need the basic things to begin with and then we can add to them as we go along.’

  Ariel scrambled down from her father’s lap as her mother placed a dish of stew on the floor for her and now it was Adina who asked, ‘What will you be selling in the shop, Papa?’

  Ezra smiled. ‘I suppose it was a sort of a general shop, from what I could make of it. You know, a bit of everything from food to shoelaces? I shall continue to trade in the same goods. It would make sense as the business is already established.’

  Adina nodded in agreement, looking forward to it already. Back in Cologne, she had had her own bedroom with a beautiful four-poster bed and rosewood furniture. No doubt once they arrived in Nuneaton she would share a room with Ariel, but it would be better than having to live, sleep and eat all in one room as they were forced to do at present.

  ‘I think we should aim to leave by the end of the week,’ Freyde piped up and Ezra smiled indulgently. It was nice to see his family looking happy again.

  They left the tenement building the next Thursday morning bright and early, and as they walked away from it, none of them looked back once.

  Freyde had bundled up their possessions into the blankets she had bought, and each of them carried one, even Ariel. The only family member who didn’t seem to be completely happy about moving was Dovid. He had quite enjoyed working on the market and had recently met an East End girl called Pearlie who had stolen his heart – not that he dare tell his father that. Although they were now in another country, his father was still trying to hold firm to his Jewish faith and customs, apart from insisting that they all speak in English at all times, whereas Dovid was more open-minded. Ezra’s main concern at present was that they would no longer be living in a Jewish community. There could be no more Hebrew lessons or visits to a synagogue on Friday evenings or Saturdays, so how were his children to meet suitable partners? But overriding this was the need to keep them safe.

  As they trooped down the stairs that morning, people had stuck their heads around doors and wished them well, and they were all in a light-hearted mood as they climbed on a bus and headed for Euston station.

  They changed trains twice on the way, stopping first at New Street in Birmingham, where they all gazed in awe at the great glass dome that covered the station. Steam and smoke from the trains floated upwards before being licked away by the wind that funnelled along the platforms. Coventry was the next change, and by then they were all tired and hungry, despite the smoked salmon and cream cheese beigels they had bought in Brick Lane that morning. They were greatly looking forward to seeing their new home for the first time. Due to bomb damage on the tracks, they had been constantly diverted, and the journey seemed to take for ever, so when the train finally pulled into Trent Valley railway station it was already dark and bitterly cold, although it was only late afternoon.

  The children followed their parents along the platform, clutching their bundles to them, and when they emerged onto the street, Freyde gasped at her first glance of Nuneaton. After the hustle and bustle of London it appeared to be like a ghost town. There were no lights visible, all the houses had blackout curtains hanging at the windows, and the streets were almost deserted. The few people who were out and about had gas masks slung across their shoulders and passed the family as if they were invisible.

  ‘It’s so quiet here,’ Freyde whispered as she hitched the blanket she was carrying to a more comfortable position on her hip.

  ‘You must remember this is only a town and not a city,’ her husband pointed out as he looked along the frosted pavements.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ Ariel complained, and her father ruffled her hair. ‘Never fear, little one. It won’t be long now and we shall be at our new home.’ He patted his pocket where the key was safely tucked away. ‘Come along. The sooner we get moving, the sooner we shall be there.’

  They set off, the children trailing behind, taking in their new surroundings. Not far from the train station was a bus station, but that too was in darkness, so Ezra encouraged them on.

  Once they had passed through the town centre they began to walk along Coton Road.

  ‘The house
and shop is in Edmund Street,’ Ezra informed them, and then almost as an afterthought he looked at Freyde sheepishly and added, ‘I did warn you that it would need a little tidying up, didn’t I?’

  She grinned ruefully. ‘After where we’ve been living I have no doubt this place will appear like a palace,’ she assured him.

  ‘What’s that place there?’ Ariel asked, pointing across the road to two huge metal gates.

  ‘That is the entrance to Riversley Park,’ her father told her, ‘and if you are good, you will get to go there to play sometimes. I believe there is a museum in there too.’

  The little girl’s face lit up at the thought of being able to play outside again. Back home in Cologne she had had a huge garden to run about in, but since living in London she had barely set foot outside the squalid building in which they had been forced to live.

  As they approached the end of Coton Road, Ezra pointed ahead to three enormous brick arches that spanned the road. ‘That is what they call the Coton Arches and the trains run across it,’ he informed them. Normally, his family loved to hear about things of interest, but by now they were all weary and put their efforts into lugging their bundles along rather than listening to him. A few minutes later, he led them off down a street to their right and stopped in front of a shabby-looking shop.

  ‘This is it,’ he told them, dropping his blanket to the ground and flexing his aching fingers.

  As he delved into his pocket for the key, Freyde eyed the building with alarm. Ezra had warned her that it needed some work doing to it, but this place looked almost derelict. The windows were so grimy that it was impossible to see through them, and paint was peeling from the sills and the door.

  Still, it’s probably better inside, she thought to herself as Ezra inserted the key in the lock. Once the door was open he ushered them all inside and they stood there, their eyes adjusting to the inky darkness.

  ‘The kitchen is through this way,’ Ezra told them, as excited as a child. ‘And once we’re in there we should be able to put the light on. The landlord assured me that he would have the electricity and the water connected by today.’

  They groped their way along the wall until they came to a door at the back of the shop – and sure enough, they found themselves in a fair-sized room.

  ‘Don’t turn the light on just yet,’ Freyde warned him as she looked towards the window. ‘There are no curtains up so we shall have to dangle one of the blankets over the curtain pole for tonight to stop the light being seen from outside.’

  Ezra instantly untied the blanket containing some of their belongings and tipped them out unceremoniously onto the floor before standing on a chair and draping the blanket across the window as Freyde had requested.

  ‘Now we can put the light on,’ he said with a measure of satisfaction as his hand fumbled along the wall for the light switch.

  When the bare bulb dangling from the centre of the room came on, Freyde looked about her with dismay. The inside was even worse than the outside. The floor was littered with rubbish and the smell . . . she sniffed, trying to distinguish what it was. It was certainly damp but there was another smell that she did not wish to think too much about.

  ‘Well,’ she said, trying to keep her voice light. She knew how hard Ezra had worked to find this place and had no wish to upset him. ‘Just as you explained, there is work to be done but it’s nothing that a little elbow grease can’t put right.’

  Seeing the look of relief that washed across her husband’s face she turned to her son and took control as she told him. ‘Dovi, go out into the yard and see if there is any coal in the coal house. If we can get a fire going, I can make a broth from some of the food I brought with us. And you, Adina, would you check that there is water at the sink? I think we could all do with a wash and a nice warm drink.’

  As her son and daughter scuttled away to do as she asked, Freyde looked around the room. In one corner was a table, leaning drunkenly to one side with three mismatched chairs placed around it, and next to the sink was a cooker that was so thick with grease that she almost retched at the sight of it. That would certainly need a good scrub before it was used, she decided, and there was no time like the present. As she took off her coat and rolled up her sleeves, the back door opened, letting in an icy blast of air, and Dovi appeared with a bucket almost full of coal.

  ‘This is all I could find,’ he told her.

  She clucked with satisfaction. ‘That will be more than enough to keep us going until morning and then we can get some more. Will you light the fire, Ezra? There are some old newspapers you could use over in that corner – look.’

  Ezra obligingly did as he was told and within an hour there was an enormous fire roaring in the grate and the room didn’t look quite so bleak.

  Soon the broth was simmering in one of the cooking pots that Freyde had brought with them.

  ‘Now,’ she said, looking around thoughtfully, ‘if the rest of the house is anything to go by I think we shall have to sleep in here tonight. At least we shall be warm. We can sleep on the blankets we have brought and tomorrow I shall scrub the bedrooms while you and Dovid go and find us some mattresses.’

  Pride shone from Ezra as he looked at his wife. Sometimes she amazed him. His Freyde was taking all this in her stride. She really was a remarkable woman!

  Ariel’s head was drooping now, and seeing this, Freyde broke off a chunk of bread from the loaf she had brought with her and pressed it into hand, fearing that the child would fall asleep before the broth was ready.

  ‘Come, little one,’ she said softly. ‘Eat this up and then Mama will make you comfortable.’

  While Ariel did as she was told, Freyde spread a blanket at the side of the fire and settled the child onto it before rushing away to fill a bowl with soapy water. She then set about scrubbing the table.

  ‘Do you know, I think with a little work this could be a good solid piece of furniture,’ she commented to her husband as she scrubbed it within an inch of its life.

  He grinned. It seemed that he was going to be very busy tomorrow, as the list of jobs that Freyde had lined up for him was growing by the minute. Not that he was complaining. They were here in their new home and, Gott sei Dank, they would all now be safe for the duration of this terrifying conflict.

  Chapter Two

  It was mid-morning the following day when Freyde met her neighbour for the first time. Freyde was outside sweeping up the rubbish in the small paved yard when a head clad in metal curlers with a headscarf wrapped turban-style around them appeared over the fence.

  ‘’Ello, love. Settlin’ in, are you?’ The woman flashed her a cheery smile, then before Freyde could answer her she rambled on, ‘I were wonderin’ how long it would be afore this place got taken on again. The Harpers used to run the shop an’ a right thrivin’ little business it were an’ all, but their lad were killed in an accident a year ago an’ it sent the old woman a bit doolally, if you know what I mean. The poor old sod’s in a mental ’ome now an’ the old man’s gone to live wi’ their daughter in Attleborough. Eeh, it were a rum do, an’ no mistake.’ She wrapped her arms about her gaily flowered apron. ‘Lovely young man, Geoffrey were. Engaged to be married to a lass from Coton an’ all. He had his whole life ahead o’ him. But there you go. It’s no use cryin’ over spilt milk, is it? What’s done is done.’ Cocking her head to one side, she studied Freyde solemnly. The woman was a looker, there was no doubt about it, even if she was a bit on the skinny side.

  Freyde straightened and smiled at the woman before saying, ‘It is very nice to meet you. How do you do?’

  The woman’s eyes almost popped out of her head as she heard Freyde’s accent and she said cautiously, ‘You ain’t from around these parts, are you?’

  ‘No. My family and I have travelled here from Cologne.’ Freyde saw no reason to lie as she waited for the woman’s reaction.

  ‘I see.’ There was a frown on her new neighbour’s face and her voice was stiff. ‘So you’re German
then?’

  ‘No, we are Jewish,’ Freyde informed her. ‘But it was no longer safe to stay in Germany so my husband arranged for us to come here for the duration of the war.’

  ‘Oh.’ The woman visibly relaxed. She couldn’t blame her neighbour for coming here, although Jews were somewhat of a rarity in this area. As far as she knew, there was only one other Jewish family in the whole of the town, although she had heard that some of the Jewish evacuee children had filtered into the town from the Kindertransport trains that had enabled them to escape from their homelands. They were having a hard time of it, by all accounts, as the majority of them could only speak German.

  ‘Well, I’m Mrs Haynes,’ she now informed her, holding her hand out, and Freyde leaned across the fence and politely shook it. Mrs Haynes wasn’t too sure how she felt about living next door to Jews, but then she had always been a great believer in ‘live and let live’ so she supposed she should give them a chance at least.

  ‘I am Freyde Schwartz.’

  The two women surveyed each other solemnly until Ariel skipped into the yard. Seeing the stranger she hastily snuggled into her mother’s skirts.

  ‘This is my youngest daughter, Ariel,’ Freyde introduced her as the child smiled shyly.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, I’m sure.’ Her neighbour smiled back, but then a piercing cry came from behind her and she hastily turned away. ‘That’ll be our Freddie,’ she apologised. ‘He’s twelve an’ still don’t know his arse from his elbow ’alf the time.’ She grinned as Freyde’s eyebrows disappeared into her hairline. ‘See you later, love.’ With that she was gone, leaving Freyde and Ariel to stare at the place where she had been standing.

  ‘Why does that lady talk so strangely, Mama?’ Ariel asked innocently.