The Liberation of Celia Kahn

by J David Simons

  “Are you all right, uncle?”

  “I lost my hat,” he said, forcing a smile. “My good hat too.”

  “But are you hurt?”

  “I will live.” He leaned against the parapet, dabbed the cut on his forehead.

  “Here, let me.” She took a handkerchief from her bag, spat on it, wiped the blood from his brow. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

  “It is you I worry about.”

  He took her back to his flat, sat her down, stirred up the fire, gave her a whisky to calm her nerves, bring the colour back to her cheeks. He then went off to clean up his own wounds while she sat there staring into the flames, the coals spurting and spitting out their sparks, one hitting her shin, she hardly noticed. She felt like a stranger to herself, this other woman capable of such a violent act. Or perhaps this was who she was all along.

  Uncle Mendel returned, lit up his pipe, drew up a chair. The two of them sipping their Highland malts, discussing politics in the firelight, no mention made of her striking the policeman.

  “It is not good, this police charge,” he told her, his right eye closed up, swollen like a piece of liver. “The government must be behind it. They are frightened. They think Glasgow is the new Petrograd. And perhaps they are right. At the edge of revolution we are. Revolt is in the air. Like gunpowder, it is. You can almost smell it. One little flame and … whoosh. Like Russia it could be.” He sucked on his pipe, drawing out a line of spittle as he removed the whitened stem from his mouth. “But strong leaders we do not have. A Lenin we do not have. A Trotsky we do not have. Our leaders are locked up. Or sick. A week of forty hours is all the unions want. But with the right leaders, we could have everything.”

  The next day’s papers wrote up the police baton charge as ‘Bloody Friday’. She searched for mention of a serious injury to a constable but the news was all about the ten thousand English troops marching into the city, the government too frightened to deploy Scottish soldiers for fear they might defect to the strikers. She came face to face with one of these young conscripts from down south when he held her off as she and her uncle tried to get back into George Square. His uniform hung off him like he’d picked up the wrong one in a hurry, he was just a lad really, looking terrified even though he was the one carrying the gun.

  “Ye can’t come in, miss,” he said. “The area’s sealed off.” She looked beyond his outstretched arm, saw the guards posted outside the City Chambers, a howitzer on the roof of the post office.

  “I heard they’re sending tanks,” she said. “Is that true?”

  He gave her an apologetic grin. “Yes, miss. Parking them in the cattle market. Wherever that is.”

  “Ich glaube es nicht,” her uncle said. “I don’t believe it. Against the people of Glasgow, you bring tanks. Be ashamed of yourself, boy. Be ashamed of yourself.”

  She tried to lead her uncle away.

  “Fire one shot and … boom,” he shouted back at the young soldier. “We have socialists against capitalists, unions against employers. Now the English army against the Scottish workers. One shot, Celia… and in smoke it all goes up.”

  Twelve

  THE OFFICIAL REPORT SHE GAVE to her family on her uncle’s injuries was as follows: “He tripped over the edge of the carpet and fell badly against the door handle. He apologises but he is in no condition to attend the ball at The Marlborough Hotel.”

  “Shikker,” her mother muttered, still angered by her brother’s absence. She sat beside her husband, downstairs at the front of the tram specially commissioned to take the southside Jews of the Gorbals to the hotel. There was a second tram coming from across the river bringing its load of Semites from the West End. “He travels all the way from the Highlands for this dance, drinks too much, then falls over. Shikker. A drunkard. I lose patience with my own kin.”

  Her mother was wrapped up in a mink coat she’d brought from Germany decades ago, her father wore a dinner suit even though ‘black tie’ was not the requested attire. “I wear a lounge suit every day,” he told her. “Tonight I must wear something special.”

  She sat across the aisle from them, next to Solly. She had never seen him so scrubbed up and smart before. Such a striking-looking young gentleman, she thought. With his double-breasted suit, bow-tie, two-tone shoes, hair slicked back. Already becoming a little thick in the jowls just like his father, Lucky Mo, but this slight heaviness giving him a grown-up, prosperous look. His hair starting to thin the way of his father’s too. She had noticed that when he had bowed to her in the doorway, full of confidence and swagger, presented her with a posy of flowers, took her arm as they walked out to the tram, a gentle touch to her elbow as she embarked. There must have been other young women, she thought.

  All the talk on the tram was about Manny Shinwell. Not that anyone actually knew him. The fact the union leader shared the same forefathers in Abraham, Isaac and Jacob appeared enough of a connection. Even if his claim to fame was being arrested for incitement to riot. She wanted to say that he was not the only one to be arrested. Two of the other leaders of the Clyde Workers’ Committee, Davie Kirkwood and Willie Gallacher, were also in jail. But that someone who was Jewish should make the headlines was all that mattered.

  “Politics don’t interest me,” Solly told her as he tapped the end of his cigarette on a silver case. “No interest at all.”

  “Oh, Solly. How can you avoid what is going on all around you? After what happened on Friday.”

  “It’s all the same to me. Capitalism or socialism, people will still want a punt on a horse or a dog or a football match. Hope and greed are a matter of human nature. Not a matter of politics. And Solly Green will be there to cater for those needs.” He blew two smoke rings into the air to emphasise his point.

  “What about all the poverty in this city? The overcrowding, the poor sanitation, the lack of jobs. Don’t you care about anything?”

  “I told you, Celia. Rich or poor, people still want to bet. Now the war is over, we’re back to horseracing. We’re busier than ever. My father’s just ordered another telephone. That’s four we’ve got in the office now. Telephone betting is the way of the future. No more standing in the lanes with the odds written on the back of a shovel.”

  “What about the constables?”

  “They turn a blind eye. And they’re not shy about having a flutter or two themselves. Anyway, they’ve got better things to do with their time. Like keeping you socialists in order.”

  “Oh I despair of you, Solly Green.”

  “I don’t see why. Don’t you think Karl Marx liked a wee bet on the horses? I can see him now, getting up from writing that famous book of his, going down a back alley, slipping a few coins into the hands of a bookie’s runner. Sixpence please on Bolshevik, running in the three-thirty at Ayr. Then back home to sit on his boils and start writing again. Half a mind on Communist revolution, the other half on the result of a race that could put food on the table. What do you think?”

  She laughed. “I think you have a good imagination.”

  “Not imagination, Celia. Reality.”

  She let Solly go on to charm her parents while the tram lurched and screeched through the dark of the winter evening. She half-listened to the chatter in a mixture of Yiddish, German, Russian and English, marvelling at this little oasis of Jews safe within the tram’s walls. It was like a Zionist’s dream. Or at least the dream of the Territorialists who believed in a Jewish homeland whether it was situated in Palestine, Ethiopia or in a Glasgow tramcar. A spark from the pantograph overhead lit up the window, flashing her reflection back at her. There she was, just twenty-fours after troops had marched into the city, dressed up to the nines, travelling to a ball like some Jewish Cinderella. The shot Uncle Mendel predicted would set off a revolution had not been fired.

  She had only been to The Marlborough Hotel once before. As one of many bridesmaids at the wedding of a distant cousin who had come to Glasgow from Germany before the turn of the century. She could only have bee
n about five or six, but she recalled this German cousin boasting the largest moustaches she’d ever seen. She could have tied a swing to them, wondered whether they tickled, giggled when he raised the veil, kissed his bride. She remembered broad staircases, crystal chandeliers, one cavernous room leading to another. Red carpets, gilded cornices, gold patterns on the wallpaper. And so much food. Tables for meat dishes, tables for milk dishes. Tables for adults, tables for children. This cousin was dead now. He’d gone off to fight the Germans to prove he wasn’t one.

  The chandeliers were still there, many of the bulbs blown and blackened, the carpets footworn and faded, the wallpaper scuffed and torn in places. She had no idea what had happened to this place during the war. Did it just close down? Or had it served some military purpose? A recruiting station? A billet for the recovering wounded? Off in another room, she could hear a band churning out the old wartime tunes. Guests moved around the corridors, humming the melodies, stiff and awkward, looking like they had forgotten what it was like to have a good time. As she and Solly moved towards the music, she saw couples take to the dance floor, unsure of the steps and of each other. For one woman, it was a matter of how to be led by a man with only one arm. She noticed her own parents step up to the parquet flooring, tentatively at first, then finally taking the plunge as Papa Kahn swept up her mother into his embrace and they waltzed across the room. She sat down at an empty table, watched them while Solly went for refreshments. Strange to see them holding each other, looking into each other’s eyes, their posture still rigid and formal, a man and wife, not just her parents. They seemed to be dancing in a different era, a time before women went to work, men went to war. Then the band perked up with some recent melody, her parents and other older couples drifting from the floor. She opened up her purse, took out her tobacco tin, lit up one of the pastel-pink Balkan Sobranies Mrs Carnovsky had given her to add a little ‘Russian sophistication’ to her evening. They tasted of toasted chocolate. Sublime. What was it Agnes used to say? Come the revolution and… we’ll all be smoking Balkan Sobranies. She smiled to herself, realised she actually felt quite happy.

  She teased Solly when he came back with a glass of lemonade and a bottle of beer, gently pressing him to take the soft drink, knowing he would.

  “I didn’t know you were a drinking lass,” he said.

  She took a swig direct from the bottle, raising a ‘tut tut, tut’ from Judith Finkelstein’s mother as she swanned by. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me. Why don’t you ask me to dance?”

  Solly executed a bow, held out his arm, escorted her to the parquet floor.

  “How do you dance to this new-fangled stuff?” he said.

  “Let’s make it a slow waltz. That’s what everyone else is doing.”

  She felt his one hand against the small of her back, with the other he gripped her fingers. Such big hands, noticing hers tiny in his clasp. He had played goalkeeper after all, she remembered him alongside Avram in his bright yellow jersey, as bright as the sun, watching, protecting, ready to defend. He tightened his hold on her, forcing her head slightly more towards his chest, she felt the heat from under his jacket, saw the drops of moisture on his upper lip, the smell of hair oil, all too close for her to be comfortable, pressed like this against him, stifling her, suffocating her.

  “I’m sorry, Solly,” she said, pushing away. “I have to stop.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Just a little dizzy. It must be the beer, the heat. I want to sit down.”

  She felt her legs heavy, leaned on Solly as he led her back to her seat.

  “I’ll fetch you a glass of water,” he said.

  She picked up a programme card from the table, fanned herself. Perhaps it was the beer rather than having a man close causing her head to spin. But she felt better now she was alone, searched for another cigarette in her purse. A lit match appeared in the cup of a male hand. She looked up. A shiny, handsome face grinned back at her.

  “Thought I might save you the trouble.”

  She bent her head, sucked in the flame, noticed the dark hairs on the back of the steady hand. When she drew away, the man leapt around beside her, nimble as a cat, pulled up a chair, sat down closer than she would have liked. He rubbed his smooth chin with his thumb.

  “You’re the Kahn girl, aren’t you?”

  “Could be.”

  “Are you or aren’t you?”

  “I suppose I am.”

  “And your name is?”

  “Celia.”

  “That’s right. Celia. I remember your family from Thistle Street. There was that brother of yours too. The footballer.”

  “Avram.”

  “Yes, yes, Avram. Everyone thought he’d play for the great Glasgow Celtic, he was that brilliant.”

  She sucked on her cigarette, puffed out purses of smoke with what she hoped was an air of Russian sophistication. “He wasn’t my real brother though,” she said, not sure what to make of this young man, leaning into her so familiar. “He came to us as a refugee from Russia. We ended up adopting him.”

  “Did he go to war?”

  “He was too young. He’s a credit draper now with my uncle in the Highlands. Who are you?”

  “Jonathan Levy. Jonny.”

  “I don’t remember you.”

  “My family lives in the West End. But we’ve lots of relatives in the Gorbals. We visit often.”

  “To see how the poorer half live?”

  “It isn’t like that.”

  “I still don’t remember you.”

  “You were probably in pigtails when I was off to the war.”

  “You’re not that old.”

  “The war makes you old. I’m just twenty-four though.”

  He did look older than his years, she thought, something in the smudged blackness under his eyes. As if they had seen too much in too short a time.

  “Here’s your beau,” he said slapping his knee. And there was Solly back with a glass of water, a brandy for himself this time, looking like he might have downed another one on the way.

  “My, my, my,” Solly slurred. “If it isn’t Lieutenant Levy of the Cameron Highlanders. The hero back from the Front.”

  Jonny shrugged, gave her an embarrassed look, then shook Solly’s outstretched hand. “Lance-Corporal actually. Still playing goalie?”

  “Gave it up for more lucrative endeavours.”

  “Are you really a hero?” Celia asked.

  “Don’t be shy,” Solly said, a hand on Jonny’s shoulder. “This man got a VC for knocking out a gun position at Loos. Captured thirty Huns in the process.”

  Jonny coughed out a laugh. “You’ve got me mixed up with someone else. No VC for me. Just glad to be back alive. And all in one piece.”

  Solly threw back his brandy. “Now you wait here, Captain Levy. I insist on fetching a drink for this hero.”

  “Bring one for Celia too.” Jonny glanced at her, grinned as if he were doing her a favour.

  “Don’t bother, Solly,” she said.

  “Oh, come on,” Jonny insisted. “It’s party time.”

  “Thank you. But no.”

  Solly looked back at them, confused.

  “A gin for the lady,” Jonny said, waving him away.

  She cooled herself with her programme, flicked off the ash from her cigarette far more than was necessary. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  “I was just being a gentleman.”

  She noticed his foot tapping the floor, but not in time to the music. “I don’t need a man to tell me my mind, that’s all.”

  He made a mock salute. “Apologies offered, madam.”

  She smiled, blew smoke in his direction. “Accepted, soldier.”

  “Start again?”

  “I think you need to.”

  He didn’t seem to know what to say after that. She watched him fidget, look over his shoulder for Solly. “What will you do now you’re back?” she asked.

  “I’ll take up my studi
es again. I was nearly finished a medical degree at Glasgow University when I was called up.”

  “A doctor? That’ll make your parents proud.”

  “Up to a point.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t intend to practise. Not right away at least. I want to get my studies under my belt. But after that I want to go to Palestine.”

  “With the army?”

  “No, no. There are all these Jewish socialists going out there. Pioneers stoked up by the revolution in Russia. They’re starting these agriculture communities called ‘kibbutzim’. I want to go out there to work on the land.”

  “You could work the land here if you’re so stoked up. Milk cows in Ayrshire. Rear sheep in the Highlands. Or would you rather be a Zionist?”

  “I’m an idealist, Miss Kahn. The idea of building an agricultural community around socialist principles excites me. Creating a homeland for Jews in Palestine… that’s merely a secondary issue for me.”

  “So why not start a kibbutz in Scotland?”

  Jonny laughed. “The Jews here are not idealists. Or revolutionaries. They are pragmatists. Look at them.” He swept his hand across the dance floor. “They just want to get by in life the best they can.”

  “You can’t blame them for that.”

  “I certainly can’t.” He sprang up from his chair, stood at attention. She thought he was going to salute her again. “Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he said, with the slightest of bows. “I shall leave before Solly returns.”

  “But he’s fetching you a drink.”

  “I’m sure he won’t mind.”

  Thirteen

  IT WAS LATE WHEN SHE AWOKE. Even with her eyes closed, she could sense the morning light playing on her lids through the thin curtain of her cot. How could this be? Where was her mother? She should have been in the kitchen by now, stoking up the grate, boiling up water for tea, sorting out Papa’s breakfast before he went off to work. Her mouth was dry, so dry. And she had a headache. It was as if her brain were a bag of wet flour lodged inside her skull. She opened her eyes. She was still in her undergarments. Oh my, she thought. What has become of you, Celia Kahn? She folded her arms across her chest. How had she returned home? By tram, of course. The specially commissioned conveyance for the celebrating Semites of the Gorbals. Even her mother had been slightly tipsy. Singing. It’s a long way to Tipperary. She remembered Jonny Levy. Lance-Corporal Levy. He took the other tram back home with those uppity West End Jews. She stretched out her hand, pulled back the curtain slightly. Her gown in a heap on the floor. What has become of you, Celia Kahn?