‘That’ll do for a candlestick,’ she said. ‘The poppy loaf will do for the challa, and I’ve managed to make some chicken soup, but you’ll have to say the blessings because I don’t know them.’
Having absorbed her parents’ secular way of thinking, she found it ironic that the believers had perished along with the apostates, and she wondered why the God they had worshipped hadn’t saved them. But her argument didn’t sway Szymon.
‘I don’t know what God thinks or wants,’ he said. ‘All I know is that it’s my sacred duty to continue what my parents taught me. I promised myself in Buchenwald that if I survived I’d carry on the traditions I saw at home.’
He threw his arms around her and hugged her so tightly that she could hardly breathe. ‘You don’t know how much it means to me that you’re doing this,’ he whispered.
As he thanked God for the gift of the Sabbath, his eyes were moist with emotion. ‘The last time I said these prayers was in 1939, when all eleven of us sat around the table at home and my father passed around the Kiddush cup and blessed us all.’
He turned to Sala and, taking her hand, looked straight into her eyes and recited the tribute a Jewish husband pays his wife on Friday nights, concluding with the words, ‘All women have done worthily, but you’ve excelled them all.’
Disengaging her hand, Sala rose hastily and began ladling the soup.
Chapter 16
It was the usual morning chaos at Kath’s place, with four boys to get off to school. She was running backwards and forwards, stirring the porridge, which was sticking to the bottom of the pan, darting into their bedroom to hurry them up and threatening them with the wooden spoon if they didn’t get a move on. The smell of burnt porridge had her rushing back into the kitchen. After pouring some water into the pan and giving it another stir, she was spreading Velveeta on their sandwiches when she heard giggling and scuffling in the bathroom. Exasperated, she banged down the knife and marched down the corridor.
‘Stop acting the goat and get ready or you’ll get the wooden spoon on the back of your legs!’ she shouted.
The door slammed, there was a clatter of shoes along the corridor, and she’d just got back to the kitchen in time to save the porridge when she heard Meggsie calling out, ‘Mum!’ And then a second time, more urgently, ‘Mum!’
Something in his voice made her drop the knife and run into the room he shared with Alan and Ray. He lay sprawled out on the floor.
‘What on earth are you doing, mucking around like that?’ she asked. ‘You’re supposed to be getting ready for school.’
In an unsteady voice, he said, ‘I fell over when I tried to get out of bed. My legs have gone funny, and when I tried to push myself up, my arms went weak. I can’t get up. And my neck hurts.’
If it had been Alan or Ray, she would have thought they were putting on an act to get out of school, but Meggsie wasn’t like that. And he’d never missed a paper round, rain or shine.
She saw the glassy look in his eyes and felt his forehead. It was hot.
‘Got funny legs, have you?’ she said lightly. ‘Let’s have a look.’
Her mind was racing with wild thoughts. Surely it couldn’t be anything serious, not Meggsie, he was such a strong boy. Kids were always hurting themselves. He’d probably fallen over and been bruised. Or maybe he’d got into another fight at school.
Keep calm, she told herself. There was always a simple explanation. Perhaps he’d cramped up during the night or caught the flu.
She tried to pull him to his feet and get him back into bed but he was a dead weight. She called out to Alan and Ray. ‘Quick, come and help.’
With the boys holding his legs and Kath lifting him under the arms, the three of them managed to haul him onto the bed.
‘What’s the matter with Meggsie, Mum?’ Ray asked as he was putting the brown paper bag with his lunch into his school case.
‘He’s probably strained something. He’ll be right as rain by tomorrow,’ she said with a certainty she didn’t feel.
As soon as she’d seen the boys off to school, she rushed to the shelf in the dresser where she kept her books. Wedged between David Copperfield, which she’d won for coming top in sixth class, and Black Beauty, which Gran had given her for her tenth birthday, was the Pears Cyclopaedia, its jacket frayed from decades of use. Her mother had always referred to it whenever one of them was ill, and she’d usually found a remedy in there. With trembling fingers Kath flicked through the pages that dealt with childhood ailments, but she couldn’t find Meggsie’s symptoms.
She ran to the red phone box on the corner to tell Mr Aldred she wouldn’t be coming in to work today, and held her tongue while he complained about unreliable staff taking time off when they were most needed. Since the last time she had repulsed his advances, he hadn’t missed an opportunity to have a go at her, and it took all her self-control to suppress the urge to say that her son hadn’t got sick just to nark him.
She checked on Meggsie every few minutes, hoping for some sign of improvement, but by the afternoon he still couldn’t move his legs and was complaining that his neck hurt even more.
He’d been complaining of headaches for a while, but she’d just put it down to growing pains and dosed him up with Bex powders.
By the afternoon she was at her wits’ end. His legs were still like blocks of wood, and the Bex hadn’t stopped the pain. In desperation she raced back to the phone box. In her haste to call Dr McCallum, she kept dropping the pennies she was trying to insert into the slot.
She hadn’t called him since Alan had had appendicitis nearly two years before. She’d been trying her own remedies for a couple of days, and had finally called him because Alan was writhing in pain and screaming. After the operation, Dr McCallum had fixed her with his penetrating look and said, ‘You called me in the nick of time. Another hour and it would have ruptured.’ He said he knew it was hard for her, bringing up four kids on her own, but she shouldn’t wait so long next time because he wouldn’t charge her.
Although she had been grateful for his kindness, his words had needled her. They made her feel like a charity case.
‘It’s Meggsie,’ she blurted as soon as she heard the doctor’s voice. ‘I’m sorry to bother you, but he’s burning up and he can’t walk. Do you think you could drop in and see him?’ Before hanging up, she added, ‘And I can pay you.’
As soon as Meggsie saw Dr McCallum he knew he was really crook. As far as he could remember, the doctor had only ever come to their place twice: when Ray fell out of a tree and broke his arm, and when Alan had to have his appendix out.
Dr Mac, as everyone called him, drove an old Austin that was so dusty the kids in the street used to write their names with their fingers on the sides. One cheeky kid even wrote, Wash me! Dr Mac always wore a grey hat and a suit that looked as if he’d slept in it, and when he opened his scuffed leather bag, it was full of weird-looking instruments.
Sitting on the edge of Meggsie’s bed, he said in his jovial way, ‘Now what’s all this about, young man? I hope you’re not trying to get out of going to school!’
Meggsie swallowed and tried to smile because he didn’t want Dr Mac to think he was a sissy. The doctor asked him to move his limbs. Although his arms felt weak, he could move them a little, but when he tried to move his legs, the pain made him cry out, and they flopped down as if they didn’t belong to him. Dr Mac made that ‘mmm’ sound he made when he didn’t want his patient to know what he was thinking. He listened to Meggsie’s chest with that funny metal disk attached to a rubber tube, tapped his back, held his wrist for a minute and stared into space. Then he stuck a thermometer under Meggsie’s tongue and told him to keep still. When he looked at the thermometer, he made that ‘mmm’ sound again and told Kath he’d like to talk to her.
When they went out of the bedroom, Meggsie strained to hear what they were saying but all he heard was a low murmur of voices. He hated those hushed voices, just loud enough for him to know they were talki
ng about him, but too quiet to catch what they said. He heard the front door open and close, and a moment later he heard the Austin’s motor starting up and the car driving away.
When his mum came back to the room, she said in a voice as bright as a new penny that there was no need to worry but Dr Mac was going to call an ambulance. Meggsie could tell she was just pretending to be cheerful because of the look in her eyes.
‘What’s the matter with me, Mum?’ he asked. ‘Why can’t I move my legs?’
But all she said was, ‘You’ll be right, love, we’ll take you to the kids’ hospital and they’ll fix you up in no time.’
Fifteen minutes later he heard the high-pitched wail of a siren and saw red lights flashing as the ambulance pulled up outside their place. He heard his mother opening the front door, and then two ambulance officers, important-looking men in navy trousers and high-collared navy shirts, came into his bedroom.
As soon as they heard the siren, most of the residents of Wattle Street hurried to their windows or out into the street to see who the ambulance had come for. The children were already home from school, and a curious crowd gathered on the pavement, whispering and pointing.
‘I hope it’s not Kath,’ Verna said to Maude McNulty. ‘What’ll happen to her boys if she goes into hospital?’
‘They’ll run riot, that’s what,’ her neighbour said tartly. She clucked her tongue. ‘It’s no wonder she got ill with that job of hers.’
While Maude McNulty listed all the diseases Kath might have contracted at the pub, Verna was trying to figure out who’d be able to help out. Kath couldn’t count on her sister, who had moved to the country with her large brood of kids, or her two brothers, both of whom had joined the navy. Kath’s grandmother used to visit from time to time, but she hadn’t been around since they’d had an argument about sending the boys to a Catholic school. Kath had told her they weren’t on speaking terms, so it wasn’t likely that the old woman would come around unasked, and Kath was too proud to ask for help. Verna decided she’d keep an eye on the boys and cook their tea.
As soon as Hania heard the siren, she ran to the front window to see what was going on, When she saw it pull up outside Meggsie’s place, she rushed to the front door but her mother was already standing there, hands on hips.
‘You’re not going out,’ she snapped. ‘It’s common to stand around in the street gawking at people’s misfortunes. Anyway, I’ve told you to keep away from that boy. He’s a bad influence.’
When Hania had come home late from Nosey’s cottage the previous week, her mother had been hysterical.
‘Where have you been?’ she’d shouted. ‘I was about to call the police. I can’t trust you for a minute. And don’t think I don’t know what you got up to that Sunday you told me you were going to Tina’s place. Mrs Browning mentioned this afternoon that you were at the Sunday school picnic. You lied to me! And today you told me you were going to play in the paddock, but you ran off somewhere with that larrikin. You’re not going out of the house for two weeks, except to go to school. I’ll teach you to tell lies, you deceitful girl.’
‘I hate you!’ Hania shouted back. ‘I hate you!’
Her mother stared at her without speaking. After a long pause, she said softly to herself, ‘For this I survived Auschwitz?’
‘You spoil everything! I wish you were dead!’ Hania shouted.
She fled to her room and, slamming the door behind her, flung herself on the bed, but a moment later her mother threw open the door, dragged her to her feet and slapped her face so hard that she staggered and fell back onto the bed.
‘You wait and see, God will punish you for talking to your mother like that!’ she shouted, and stormed out, banging the door so hard that the walls shook and Alice in Wonderland with the gold cross hidden inside the cover crashed to the floor.
As Hania rushed to pick it up, she heard a sound she had never heard before. Her mother was sobbing. Hania told herself she didn’t care. She was sick of her mother’s hysteria, sick of competing with phantoms who played a bigger part in her mother’s life than she did. Talking to her mother was like trying to find a comfortable spot between the broken springs of their lumpy couch. Wherever you sat, part of you landed on something sharp.
Now, anxious to find out what was going on at Meggsie’s place, Hania waited until she could hear her mother clattering pots and pans at the back of the house. Then, creeping back into the front room, she pressed her face against the window to see what was happening.
Sala came out onto the verandah of the boarding house to see what all the commotion was about. She saw the crowd standing around the ambulance and wondered who was ill. She hoped it wasn’t the young woman with all the boys.
At the far end of the street, she saw Pop Wilson putting down his shears and resting his elbows on the gate. Verna had told her that Pop had once been a lifesaver and had rescued people at Bondi Beach, but looking at him now, with his protruding belly and red face, she found that hard to believe.
Verna was talking to the old woman next door, and as soon as she spotted Sala she waved for her to come over.
‘How’s your job going, Sally?’ she asked.
Sala pulled a face. The work was easy, and Franka Feldman always had a friendly smile for her, but the nasty woman she worked with never missed an opportunity to make a crack about foreigners or to tell her she’d used the wrong cleaning fluid, or the wrong mop, or that the French polish had left streaks on the sideboard. That morning Beryl had railed at her for not moving everything on the director’s desk before dusting it. ‘But you said I not move things on director’s desk,’ Sala had protested. In reply Beryl had made a derisive comment about hopeless bloody wogs.
‘You don’t want to let her get you down, pet,’ Verna said. ‘She’s probably got a husband who beats her up.’
‘He wouldn’t dare,’ Sala said, and they both laughed.
While they were chatting, Maude McNulty was scrutinising Sala with narrowed eyes. She didn’t take part in their conversation but as soon as they stopped talking, she turned to Verna.
‘Did you see that lovely photograph of Princess Elizabeth’s baby in the paper yesterday? Charles, they’ve called him. They make a lovely couple, don’t they, the Princess and the Duke of Edinburgh. His uncle is Earl Mountbatten, you know.’
Verna sometimes wondered if Maude McNulty’s obsession with the royal family stemmed from her having no family of her own. In all the years Verna had lived in Wattle Street, she’d never heard her neighbour mention any relative, not even her parents. No friends ever visited her either, but the old woman’s personality didn’t encourage any close relationships, and probably that was how she wanted it.
Kath’s door opened and they all fell silent. Striding to the back of the ambulance, the officers asked the bystanders to move away and give them room, as they unhooked a stretcher and carried it into the house.
‘She must be real bad,’ Maude McNulty said. ‘Last time an ambulance took someone away was when they came for Violet Wilson.’
The door opened again and everyone craned forward. Someone was being carried out on the stretcher and it wasn’t Kath. It was Meggsie, and he looked so pale that even his freckles seemed to have faded. Kath was walking beside him, holding his hand; her face was strained and white.
Verna stepped forward and squeezed her arm. ‘I’ll see to the boys until you come back.’
Kath gave her a grateful nod, and Verna watched as Meggsie was loaded into the back of the ambulance. Poor lad, she thought, and poor Kath.
Inside the ambulance, Kath took Meggsie’s hand and tried to reassure him, although her heart was pounding so hard she was sure he could hear it.
‘You’ll be right when you get to the hospital, love,’ she said. Something was stuck in her throat and her voice was a hoarse whisper. ‘The doctors there’ll fix you up in no time.’
Her eyes strayed down to his legs. They were covered by a grey blanket, but his left foot was stick
ing out and it was curled inwards at a peculiar angle.
They sped along Oxford Street, past shabby shopfronts half hidden under corrugated-iron overhangs: Attwaters, Woolies, Taylor’s Shoes and Lopes fruit shop. Cars pulled over to let them pass and shoppers stopped to watch the ambulance, no doubt wondering about the unfortunate souls inside, and relieved it wasn’t them, as Kath usually was. But now she was inside, looking out, and it was her son whose life might be in the balance. She swallowed hard and blinked away the tears.
Meggsie was mumbling something and she leaned forward to catch what he was saying.
‘Mum, I won’t miss Morris the Magnificent, will I?’
He’d been fascinated by magic ever since he’d read his first Mandrake the Magician comic, and she knew he’d been saving his pennies for a ticket from the moment he’d seen the poster advertising the show.
‘No fear. You’ll be running around in no time, you’ll see,’ she said.
But the words sounded hollow, even to her.
Chapter 17
As soon as Emil heard the banging on the front door, his heart stopped beating for a moment, and then began thumping wildly against his ribs. Strange how after all this time the reaction never changed, even though he knew his life was no longer in danger. Ever since he’d caught the boy next door snooping around the week before, he’d felt uneasy. He didn’t think there was any malice in the lad, but there was no knowing what he’d seen, or what he’d make of it.
Throughout his childhood Emil had hated the buttoned-up suits and polished shoes he had to wear, and the hushed apartment with its Biedermeier sideboards and Persian rugs, and the Rosenthal porcelain he wasn’t allowed to touch. He addressed his emotionally distant parents in the third person and ate his meals with his warm-hearted nanny. ‘You have to behave like a decent German boy, not like an uncivilised lout,’ his father would scold whenever he let out a joyous yell or slid across the polished floors pretending to be a cowboy. ‘If you don’t study hard, you’ll never amount to anything,’ his father warned. No matter how Emil racked his brains in later years, he couldn’t recall anything else his father had ever said to him.
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