The Liberation of Celia Kahn

by J David Simons

  “I think so.”

  “You think so? Well, lass, if the women don’t, who will?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You may have an opinion on boiled sweets but I can see in other important areas you are sadly lacking.” This lament continued the following week when again she bumped into Agnes at Glickman’s. This time the war itself was the subject.

  “Do you think this conflict is a just one?” Agnes asked.

  “All I know is that thousands of our young men are dying every day.”

  “That is true. Very true. And what are they dying for?” This time thankfully Agnes did not wait for her answer. “So the war profiteers can make their fortunes, that’s why. Blood money is what I call it.” She picked a piece of macaroon from her paper bag, popped it into her mouth. “We should become more acquainted, you and I, Celia Kahn. How does this Saturday suit?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Don’t stand there with your mouth open. This Saturday?”

  “I’m sorry but I can’t…”

  “A young woman has a mind of her own, hasn’t she?”

  “It’s just that…”

  “No excuses. Three o’clock outside St. Enoch’s subway station. Please be on time.”

  At two o’clock on the day of her appointment, she sat in her mother’s rocker swaying to and fro to the rhythm of the clock thumping away in the hallway, this plodding time-keeping always seeming louder, more insistent, on the Sabbath than on any other day. She felt her limbs heavy, resistant, pinning her to her seat with sixteen years of religious upbringing, each swing of the chair marking out her indecision. “I will go, I won’t go, I will go, I won’t go.” Avram was busy at the kitchen table, sorting out for the umpteenth time his collection of cigarette cards. She had no idea what he saw in those expressionless faces of football players distinguished only by the colour of their strip. She watched as he flicked up one set of cards, placed them elsewhere on the table according to some secret logic.

  “Billy Reid is not here,” he sniffed. “Billy Reid. Do you see him?”

  “Have you looked on the floor?”

  Avram bent under the table. On returning upright, he scratched his head vigorously as if this scalp-scraping might assist his memory. “For the set, I need Billy Reid. Twenty-one goals he scored for Rangers.”

  “I have a terrible headache,” she said.

  “This morning he was here. Before we went to shul. Billy Reid.”

  “My head is splitting in two.”

  He ran a sleeve across his nose. “Twenty-one goals,” he said. “The best player. Billy Reid. Where is he?”

  “I’m going for a walk,” she said, hauling herself up from the rocker. If God had really wanted her to stay, surely He could have pushed her body back to the chair there and then? “If Mama or Papa wakes, tell them I’ve gone out for some fresh air.”

  Avram glanced up and for a dreaded moment she thought he was going to ask to join her. Instead he said: “Billy Reid? You stole him. Give him back to me.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, relieved that it was Avram’s accusation rather than the Lord’s wrath she was escaping.

  She loved walking across Glasgow Bridge, passing over the tea-stained slurry of a river that divided the city. It was as if the Clyde formed the boundary to some fantasy land. Those broad thoroughfares, the tall buildings with their fancy façades, the gaudy emporiums with their stretched-out awnings, all beckoning her to enter from the dark, sootclad confines of the Gorbals on the opposite bank. “Come in, lass,” the Second City of the great British Empire whispered to her. “Don’t be afraid. Come in and see the wonders of the Commonwealth. Tobacco and coffee, exotic fruits, fine teas and fabrics. Taste our bananas from the Indies, see our frozen meat from the Americas. Come in and sample and buy. Even on your Sabbath.” And there was Agnes waiting for her under the subway clock, tapping her umbrella against the pavement in time to some invisible beat of impatience. She suddenly felt concern about the afternoon ahead of her. Perhaps she should turn back, but Agnes had already raised her umbrella in welcoming salute.

  “I’m glad to see you are punctual. Wasting another person’s time is tantamount to theft.”

  “I decided to walk,” she said, as if a hansom might be her normal conveyance of a weekend.

  “Let us go for tea. Come.”

  The tea-room stood on Sauchiehall Street. A tall, white-stucco façade with elegant lines, a curved bay window on the first floor, clusters of small-paned portals on the levels above. A hanging sign declared the place to be: ‘Miss Cranston’s Willow Tea Rooms.’ She wondered who this Miss Cranston might be and where she had found both the funds and the imagination to construct a building of such bright and light feminine charm, stuck as it was between the dark soot-stained buildings on either side like a bride attended by miners.

  “I can’t go in,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “I just can’t.”

  “Of course, you can. What’s the matter, lass?”

  “I’m not dressed properly.”

  “Och. Don’t be silly. There’s nothing wrong with your clothes.”

  “My coat is shabby. And my shoes…”

  “As long as you are clean and you don’t smell you’ll be fine enough for these grand ladies. It’s not as though I’m dressed to the nines myself.”

  Celia had to agree as she considered Agnes’ small, black, unadorned bonnet with its narrow brim, the plain dark coat. “But I’m just a poor tailor’s daughter from the Gorbals. You’re … you’re a teacher.”

  Agnes leaned in close to her. She could smell the tobacco on her breath mixed in with the tangy scent of Soor Plooms. “Let me tell you something,” the older woman whispered. “The people in there are no better than you. Just remember that. No better. Put your nose in the air. Stick out your bosom. And make as if you don’t have a bloody care in the world.” Agnes pushed open the door, held it wide. “Come on, lass. Pull in your corsets and enter.”

  “I don’t think I can.”

  “Nonsense. Come on. Come on. Quick, quick, quick.”

  She felt as if something momentous awaited her. The child inside her wanted to twist and turn and run all the way back to the Gorbals while another part of her desperately wanted to rise to this challenge. For this was not the Jewish world that faced her, full of its dybbuks, dark mysteries and unfathomable rituals. But ahead lay the white light of Christianity blinding her on a busy Saturday afternoon. She straightened her back, sucked in the tearoom air, put out her foot, crossed the threshold. A prim miss was already addressing Agnes.

  “Can I help you, madam?”

  “A reservation for a quarter past three. Calder. Two persons. The Room de Luxe.”

  “I will show you to your table.”

  Agnes beckoned, and Celia followed her companion and the waitress through the downstairs salon, stepping lightly on the thick carpet between the high-backed chairs, past the ladies in their broad-brimmed hats sipping their tea. Then up the twisting stairway, across the mezzanine, through the double-doors with their leaded glass panels and into a light, so-white room with its curved bay window and silver-painted chairs. Or perhaps they actually were silver. Silver to match the lampshades, the tea-trays, the cake-stands, the napkin rings, the cutlery on the stiff linen in this room where all the furniture and the windows ranged so tall and slender. Like willows. A chair was drawn out for her, she sat down at this table by the window, let out the breath she believed she had been holding ever since she walked through the door.

  “Would you like the afternoon tea set for two?” the waitress asked.

  “No, no, no,” Agnes replied. “No scones, shortbread and sandwiches for us, thank you. Only cakes – delicious, sugary cakes. Tea and cakes will be fine.”

  “I’m afraid the cake selection is not to our usual standard. What with the war and everything.”

  “Munitions we are able to manufacture with ease,” Agnes grumbled. “But choco
late éclairs appear to be far too complex for the industrial mind. So what is on offer?”

  “Marmalade cake, madam.”

  “Is that all?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Then that is what we shall have.”

  With the waitress gone, Celia followed Agnes’ lead in slipping her napkin from its holder, spreading it on her lap. She noticed the dark tips of her own fingernails against the starched cloth, not unclean for lack of washing but ingrained with dirt from too many floors scrubbed, coal fires made and grates swept. She tried to hide these offending digits in the clasp of each hand as she stared out of the window at the display of moving millinery below – the bunnets, the bonnets, the occasional dark blue Glengarry of the passing soldier.

  “Listen to that noise,” Agnes said.

  “What noise?”

  Agnes pointed to the ceiling. “Upstairs.”

  She listened carefully. The low murmur of male voices. Footsteps across a floor. The occasional clicking sound. Then a cheer. “What’s going on?”

  “Billiards, my lass. That’s what you hear. Men playing billiards up above, smoking their cigars, talking their man-talk, their war-talk, their merchant-talk. Men on top of us. While we sit daintily below, chattering over our tea. About what?” Agnes angled her head towards the three ladies at the table next to them. “The sale at Pettigrew and Stephens.”

  Conversation ceased as the waitress arrived with their order, set down the teapot along with the cakes. Then Agnes started up again.

  “Tell me what you know about socialism.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You’ll get no polite chit-chat from me, lass. Socialism. What do you know about it?”

  Celia picked up a sugar cube with a pair of silver tongs, watched as the granules dissolved in the brown murkiness of her tea. “I know what it means.”

  “Oh, do you now? Continue.”

  “It is the political philosophy of putting people before profit. Rather than profit before people.”

  Agnes wriggled herself upright in her chair. “My, my, my. Who taught you that?”

  “My uncle.”

  “And is this uncle of yours some kind of a Marxist?”

  “No, he is a credit draper.”

  Agnes smiled. “I see. A credit draper.”

  “He works for one of the warehouses in the city. Selling goods in the Highlands.”

  “I see. Well, do you have your own opinion of how we can put the poverty of the masses before the profit of the few?”

  She didn’t know if she had opinions on such lofty subjects. After all, she had never been asked about them before. “I believe there is injustice in the world,” she ventured. “I just don’t understand why.”

  “Now that is what I would call a sensible answer. It is important to admit what we don’t understand. That is the first step towards wisdom.”

  Celia was relieved her admission had elicited such a positive response. She was also relieved when Agnes went quiet as she directed the attention of her fork towards her slab of cake. A silence that did not last long.

  “I thought you might be interested in our socialist Sunday schools.”

  “I’ve never been to a Sunday school. I am not … I am not religious.”

  Agnes leaned forward. “Sip your tea, lass, and for goodness sake, relax. You’re as wound up as a clockwork doll. I’m not talking about religious Sunday schools. I realise you are not of the Christian faith. You boast a certain complexion that would grace the great warrior and prophetess Deborah herself. I know today is your Sabbath, Celia Kahn. And by coming here on this day shows me you might have an interest in what I tell you. For socialist Sunday schools are run in opposition to the influence of religion. We believe in love and fairness and that the good things on earth are produced by one’s labour, not by one’s prayer. And if it makes you feel any better, we have our very own ten commandments. Not one of which you are breaking by having tea here today with me.” Agnes broke off to cough so loudly that all other noise in the tearoom stopped.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Agnes wheezed, patting herself several times on the chest. “Just fine. But I feel I’m rushing things too much with you. Forgive me. Let’s enjoy this tea.”

  Celia nibbled on her cake, listened to the roar from the invisible men above as one of their number succeeded in doing whatever a billiard player was meant to do. She liked what Agnes was telling her. But there was this one certain matter really bothering her.

  “Agnes?”

  “Yes, lass.”

  “There’s something I want to ask.”

  “It is a person’s duty to be curious.”

  “You won’t think I am being ungrateful or impolite?”

  “It takes a lot to offend Agnes Calder.”

  “Well then, if you believe in socialism, what are we doing here in this luxury tearoom?”

  Her companion laughed loudly at this, a laugh that inevitably turned into a coughing fit. When she had calmed down, she was still chuckling when she flipped open her box of Woodbines with her yellowed fingers, extracted a cigarette.

  “Now, that’s a very good question,” she said, lighting up. “It shows you’re thinking. And my answer to you is this. Come the revolution, Celia Kahn, come the revolution and we’ll all be having tea at Miss Cranston’s.”

  “Is that the revolution that is going to happen in Russia?”

  “Perhaps.” Agnes blew out a smoke ring. “Something is in the air. Something is definitely in the air. But in the meantime, I might just have a little job for you.”

  Four

  IT WAS ONE OF THOSE BEAUTIFUL DAYS for the wifies with a warming sun and a drying breeze that set all the back-courts a-flutter with the whites of whipping sheets. Celia was out there with the rest of them, a bundle of clothes-pegs stuffed in her pinny, a couple in her mouth, as she forked the washing onto the line. It was only when the wind lifted one of her father’s shirts could she see the back window of her own kitchen, her mother standing there flapping her arms.

  “Thank goodness, thank goodness,” her mother wailed as soon as she walked through the back door. Madame Kahn was marching across the kitchen, rubbing her hands up and down her skirt and against the front of her thighs as if she were trying to prevent the very action her own legs were carrying out.

  “What’s wrong, mother?”

  “They are here.”

  “Who is here? Where?”

  “These men. These dogs. These betsemer. I hear them upstairs in Mendel’s flat. A few moments ago. Thud, thud, thud. Listen. Thud, thud, thud.”

  “I don’t hear anything. Did you see them?”

  “No, I did not see them. But I hear them.”

  “I thought they were coming tomorrow.”

  “They said they come in a month. A month it will be tomorrow. But what is a month? Thirty days? Thirty-one days? Four weeks? How do I know such things? How do I know what a month is in the minds of these dogs.”

  “I still don’t hear anything.”

  “They killed him, that’s why. They killed your uncle. How could they do such a thing?”

  “I didn’t know Uncle Mendel was back.”

  “Yes, yes. He came home yesterday. And now he is dead. Murdered in his own home.”

  Then Celia did hear a noise. The fall of something heavy on the floor above, causing the central light fitting in the hallway to judder. And then voices. Male voices. She rushed back out the doorway, up the stairway of the close to the first floor landing. The door to Uncle Mendel’s flat was slightly open, she pushed her way through into the dark vestibule, waited momentarily for her eyes to adjust. The voices came from the kitchen. There was a leak of light from under the doorway. She looked around for some kind of weapon, seized a stout walking stick from the umbrella stand. Then quickly, she opened the kitchen door, marched in, stick raised, ready to lash out at the tall one, the one with the pulled-down hat who had been trying to prise the cover o
ff the mezuzah.

  Uncle Mendel, still in his hat, sat lopsided on the floor, an arm draped over a chair which most likely he had just fallen from. Solly was bent over him, holding the other arm, trying to haul her uncle to his feet.

  “What is going on here?” she screamed, although why she was shouting she did not know. She was only about a yard away from the two of them, the walking stick raised half-way to the ceiling.

  Uncle Mendel managed a sort of sloppy, embarrassed smirk while Solly was the first to speak.

  “Christ, Celia. You scared me to death.”

  “Well?” she said. “Well? Well? What did you think you did to me? And my poor mother? She thinks you’re killing my uncle.”

  “Damn,” Solly muttered. “Madame bloody Kahn.”

  Amidst all her anger, she found herself smiling. A reaction to a childhood memory, knowing how Solly and all the other neighbourhood kids had been so frightened of her mother. That stout German woman who scolded them for the least noise, the simplest misdemeanour. Snatching Solly by the ear for doing God knows what and dragging him across the street to his father, Lucky Mo the bookmaker, so they could harangue each other in Yiddish and German, Solly stuck in the middle, his ear held to ransom. Not having the heart now to tell Solly that her mother was shrunk to half her size, shrivelled up inside too. But the memory had calmed her so she could say evenly:

  “Just tell me what is going on here.”

  “I pulled him out the pub,” Solly said. “He was in The Rabbie Burns, drunk as a lord, mouthing off about his winnings.”

  “His winnings?”

  “Yes, he won a packet today.”

  “You see,” Uncle Mendel slurred from his position on the floor. “All fine I said it would be. All fine. Uncle Mendel you have to trust.”

  “Won on what?” Celia asked. “Horses?”

  “Well, not exactly,” Solly said. “There isn’t a lot of horse-racing these days. What with all the trains being commandeered for the soldiers, it’s hard to get the punters out to the racetracks. So we have to be more imaginative in the type of action we can provide for those who still fancy a bet.”