The Liberation of Celia Kahn

by J David Simons

  She looked down now at all these men below her in the congregation, standing up to face the Ark for the Amidah prayer. Her own father, frail and forgetful, clinging to his community. Dear Uncle Mendel beside him, no longer a gambler but still fond of his glass of schnapps, dreaming of the revolution that will never come, looking more and more towards religion than politics for his answers. In the row behind, Solly and his father Lucky Mo who preyed on the vices of men but were full of weaknesses of their own. And there was Avram making his way along the rows, causing quite a commotion. No-one was allowed to leave during the Amidah prayer, especially on Kol Nidre night, except if it were a matter of life or death. He glanced up at her, she caught his gaze. She closed her prayer book, touched her mother’s gloved hand.

  “I have to go,” she whispered.

  “Go? You cannot go. It is Kol Nidre. It is a sin to go. It is verboten. Come back, Celia. Come back. You can’t do this to me.”

  They took a hansom to Trongate. 16 Saracen’s Lane the address was, the alley running dark and narrow behind the back end of pubs, even the cab driver anxious about drawing up close. With only the occasional gas lamp, she found it hard to grope her way in the dark. No air from above, the stone walls dank and dripping, rats scurrying in the shadows, the cobbles slippery from slops carelessly thrown. This was the hell women had to visit to rid themselves of the indulgences of men. She took out her handkerchief, held it to her mouth. If this was where Megan had ended up, she was fearful for the fate of the girl.

  “How can people live here?” Avram asked.

  She didn’t answer, instead slipping by him, lighting up a match, holding it to a doorway, the number 16 chalked on the stone. Avram beside her, knocking on the damp wood.

  “Whit?” a voice said sharply from behind the door. “Whit, whit, whit?”

  “Is Megan Kennedy there?” Avram shouted.

  No response.

  Avram asked again.

  “Who?” came the voice.

  Celia indicated for him to be quiet. “Megan Kennedy,” she said. “We’re looking for Megan Kennedy.”

  The clunking of a key in the lock. The door opened slightly, the light of a candle washed out into the lane along with the stink of ether. The woman was tiny, the candle glow showing a square face, the top of a head sparsely covered with clumps of reddish hair.

  “Is that her?” the woman asked.

  “Who?” Avram asked.

  “The Oban lass.”

  “No, no. That’s who we’re looking for.”

  The woman peered at them both. “She’s no been,” she croaked, quickly withdrawing the candle. “She was due a half-hour ago. But she’s no been.” The door closed in their faces.

  She ran with Avram back to the hotel, only a few streets away. Megan wasn’t in her room. He tried the communal bathroom but it was locked. He banged away at the door, not rousing anyone until Celia managed to find the concierge, handy enough to open it up quickly with a skeleton key. Megan lay unconscious in the bath, still in her slip, skin blue-wrinkled, a bottle of gin empty on the floor. She laid her head against the poor girl’s cold breast, could just make out a faint heartbeat. Avram picked the body out of the water, the cotton fabric clinging, nipples visible through the material, water dripping all over the place. She covered her with a towel, the concierge leering, trying to get a better look, Avram giving him a ten-shilling note, telling him to go back down to his desk.

  Back in the bedroom, she rubbed Megan’s cold body hard with the towel. The girl’s fair hair was fanned out wet against the pillow, and she could see why Avram could be taken with such a lass. “Old wives tales,” she said. “Soak in a boiling hot tub. Flush it out with gin. Women can be so stupid. So desperate.”

  “Will she be all right?”

  “I don’t know. How am I supposed to know? Why should I know such things?” Avram stepped back from her, a helpless look on his face. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We just need to get her warm first. Go see if there are any more blankets in the wardrobe.”

  “What about the baby?”

  “We’ll have to wait until the morning to find out. You stay with her. I’ll ask the concierge for a hot-water bottle.”

  She stayed up all night in the hotel, wrapped in a blanket in a chair in the vestibule, Avram upstairs in a vigil by Megan’s bedside. She had tried to call home to lie to her parents about where they were, but the operator was unable to put her through. By the morning, Megan had woken, temperature normal, no signs of any discomfort beyond a terrible headache. The baby would probably survive. She walked home through the park, still in her synagogue finery, the avenues dressed in their yellow and golden leaves. She picked up a chestnut fallen on the pathway, its prickly shell burst open to reveal the shiny nut within. There was such a beauty at this time of year, she thought. And such a sadness too.

  Nathan brought in the card-table, set it up close to the fire, patted the green baize top, indicated that she and Avram should take their places. It was a good thing to do, play cards while the rest of the house sulked in such a terrible silence, Nathan was sensitive to situations like that.

  Avram had done what he was supposed to do on Yom Kippur. Asked for forgiveness. He told Papa and Madame Kahn about Megan, about her attempted abortion, about how he would now take care of both mother and child back in Oban. Her own mother had then proceeded to bang out some patriotic British tunes on the piano while her father went off to take another nap.

  “The shame of it,” her mother said before following her father into the bedroom. “The shame of it.” It was that shame that was shrouding the flat in such a tension.

  “It’s so damn hot in here,” Avram said as he drew open a window. “It feels like thunder in the air.”

  Nathan dealt out the cards. “Come on, sit,” he said.

  In her first hand, the only hearts she held were the two and three. “Never be low in hearts,” Uncle Mendel used to tell her. “Never be low in hearts.”

  “I shall leave tomorrow,” Avram announced, as he laid out a flush of diamonds, ten to ace, on the table. “I’ve caused enough trouble.”

  “A flying visit,” she said.

  “Yes, a flying visit.”

  “Flies in, stirs up the dust, flies out again,” Nathan added before laying out four kings on the beige. “I’ll have to pick up the pieces as usual.”

  She leaned over, ruffled his white hair. “You’re so good at that, little brother. A right little fixer.”

  Nathan shook her off, turned to Avram. “Do you know why this pretty young lady never went off to Palestine with Jonny Levy?”

  “Do tell me.” Avram placed another set of cards on the table. “I’ve got three left.”

  “Three left,” she said, trying to find some kind of redeeming feature in the cards she held. “Three bloody cards. I’ve got nothing.”

  “I think you’re bluffing.” Nathan grabbed her free hand by the wrist, held it up to Avram. “You see, this urban miss was terrified she’d break these red-painted nails digging up the soil.”

  She flicked her fingers at Avram. “What do you think? Red. It’s the modern style.”

  “I’d just like to know why you didn’t go.”

  “It was so long ago, I cannot remember.”

  “Come on, Celia. I’m sure that’s not true.”

  “All right then. I was asked for all the wrong reasons.”

  “You see, Avram. That’s my sister. As enigmatic as ever. As I said, she didn’t want to break these nails.”

  “Enough with the nails, Nathan. Jonny Levy just didn’t know how to deal with a woman like me.”

  “I don’t think any kibbutz would know how to deal with a woman like you.”

  “Going to a kibbutz would not be such a bad idea,” she said as she discarded one card, picked up another. A joker. That changed everything. “At least, they treat men and women equally.”

  “You mean the men wear red nail varnish as well,” Avram said.

  She la
ughed at that. They all did. And she remembered how they used to sit together like this, just the three of them, in a far more innocent time.

  Twenty-two

  CHARLOTTE SAT ON THE ARMCHAIR facing her, slouched down so far her bottom was nearly off the seat, her long-trousered legs stretched out in front of her. As usual, she smoked a cigarette, drawing nervously from it in short inhalations, then breathing out the smoke through her nostrils. Like a dragon. Charlotte the Dragon. Celia thought the appellation appropriate. Suck, suck, suck. It was the only sound in the room. They both stared at the pile of boxes in the centre.

  On the day before Yom Kippur, they had driven down in a hansom to the Clydeside docks to collect them, steeled themselves with brandy from Charlotte’s flask on the way. But they needn’t have bothered preparing any explanations for the customs officer. The cheery young clerk had just handed over the cartons no questions asked, tried to be friendly to the two tipsy young women in front of him. The delivery note read “French caps – six gross.” “You’ll never sell berets to Glasgow folk,” he had told them. “It’s bowlers or flat caps for the men around here.” They had just giggled at that, Charlotte blowing him a scarlet lipstick kiss, just to make sure he remembered them for next time.

  “Eight hundred and sixty four bloody caps,” Charlotte said. “Is that right? Six gross? I was never very good at my times tables.”

  “Exactly right. Three sizes. Small, medium and large. Two hundred and eighty eight in each size. How many women can we equip?”

  “Depends how active they are, doesn’t it? Stopes suggests having a spare. But she’s not someone who needs to worry about the price of things.”

  “Look after them right, wash them carefully, keep checking them, and they can last up to two years.”

  “But every woman has a different effect on the rubber. So let’s recommend one per woman per year.”

  “Listen to us. It’s like ration coupons all over again. Eight ounces of sugar, fifteen ounces of beef, four ounces of butter and one rubber cap from France, please.”

  Charlotte did her dragon nostril exhalation as she coughed out a laugh. “You can be quite funny sometimes, Celia. When you’re not being so bloody serious. I thought you had just repented for your sins. That should lighten you up a bit.”

  “There’s been a lot going on at home.”

  “You should tell me about it. I am your best friend after all.”

  “Just give me a cigarette, will you?”

  Charlotte tossed the silver case at her. She took one of the ready-rolled, lit up. For some reason, she was feeling quite confident in herself. As if this was exactly what she was supposed to be doing, at precisely this time in her life, with the very person sitting in front of her. She exhaled through her nose like Charlotte. “What do you think? We’ll hand out two hundred in each size. Keep the rest in reserve.”

  “Just for you and me?”

  Celia threw back the cigarette case, harder than she needed to. “No. Not for you and me. For some poor wifie who might need a spare.”

  “That seems fair.” Charlotte fished out a fob watch from her waist-coat, gave it a quick glance. She was looking more mannish than ever these days, now that she had her hair cut short in the latest style. Celia touched her own longish locks, wondered whether she had the courage to have these tresses shorn. It was something religious women did before they married, making themselves unattractive to other men.

  “Do you think we can get away with this?” she asked.

  Charlotte sniffed. “It’s not against the law is it?”

  “I don’t know. It’s against some people’s religious law. You saw how angry Christine got with me. She thinks the Pope will excommunicate her for just thinking about birth control.”

  “It’s also against some people’s morality. This offer of pregnancy-free sex.”

  “They’ll think we’re promoting promiscuity.”

  “Turning Scotland’s lasses into prostitutes.”

  “Jezebels from Jedburgh.”

  “Whores of the Highlands.”

  They both laughed at that, but Celia felt it was more nervous laughter than anything else. This offer of free contraceptives was a serious business.

  “We need to have a strict policy about what we’re doing here,” she said. “We’re not qualified to give out any medical advice. What we really need is a midwife to help us. Or even a sympathetic doctor.”

  “Well, I don’t know anyone.”

  “Me neither. Which means we need to adopt a very practical approach. We need to tell people we have these devices available. Either through women’s groups or just plain old word-of-mouth. Then we need to print up a copy of Stopes’ instructions on how to fit them. And that’s it. We don’t give advice. We just provide availability and instruction. As with any retail product.”

  “Caveat emptor.”

  “Yes, caveat emptor.”

  “And I know someone who can do the printing for us.”

  “Settled then.”

  “Settled.” Charlotte sat up in her chair, dipped her hand into one of the boxes. “Now I’m going to take two for myself if you don’t mind. Size? Medium, I think. I trust Miss Social Purist won’t be needing any?”

  “Abstinence is the best form of contraception.”

  “I just don’t understand you, Celia Kahn. A pretty lass like you. Is it a Jewish commandment? Thou shalt not have relations with a person of the opposite sex. Ever.”

  She laughed. “The Old Testament is full of immoral sexual activity. There’s King David and Bathsheba. Lot and his two daughters and…”

  A loud rap from the front door interrupted her.

  “That’ll be Brian now,” Charlotte said. “Got to practise what I preach. You answer for me, will you darling? While I go and fit this thing.”

  Brian was a big, breezy, blond man. Some kind of ex-navy type, Celia guessed. What with his weather-roughed skin, peaked cap, coarse blue turtle-neck sweater tucked into the belt of his pants. All he needed was a kit-bag over his shoulder and he’d be off up some Clydebank gangplank, sailing off into the horizon. He wasn’t at all what she expected. But then again what did she expect from Charlotte? Ivor Novello singing Keep the Home Fires Burning.

  “She ’ere?” Brian asked in some kind of English accent. She would have put it down as Cockney if she had a mind to, just like these street urchins she had seen recently in a musical at The Alhambra. She immediately felt like imitating his dialect back at him. “Yeah, all roit, she’s ’ere”. Instead, her voice came out all prim, as if she were Charlotte’s stuck-up maid. “She’s just getting ready. Please come through.”

  Brian went into the living room, paced about restless, while she sat herself in an armchair, wished she had another one of Charlotte’s cigarettes to keep her busy. He ignored the boxes in the centre of the room, instead picked up an ornament from the sideboard – a swirly glass ash-tray Agnes had used for guests – examined it, put it down again.

  “Didn’t expect someone else, see,” he said.

  She wasn’t sure how to answer, didn’t know what Charlotte had told him about this place. “I’ll be off soon,” she said noncommittally.

  Brian grunted, went over to stand by the window, peered out as if the view out on to the back-green midden was of great interest to him.

  “Brian,” Charlotte called. “Are you there?”

  Brian turned round, smiled sheepishly, then went into the bedroom. A few seconds later, Charlotte’s head was at the door.

  “You are going out, aren’t you?”

  “I’m on my way.”

  “I don’t know why you don’t just leave me a key.”

  “Agnes left this place to me. I feel responsible.”

  “I’m not going to set the building on fire.”

  “I said I feel responsible.”

  “You just like being in control.”

  “Let’s not argue about this.”

  “Give me two hours then.”

 
; “I’ll go for a walk in Kelvingrove. I like the autumn.”

  Charlotte gave her a quick smile, then disappeared back behind the door.

  She went out into the hallway, made a noise and a fuss about opening and closing the front door, but then crept back into the living room, sat down in a chair close to the bedroom. She kept herself rigidly tight, her breath shallow and quiet. The wall clock ticked away. She noticed a layer of dust on the sideboard where the sunlight came in through a rear window. She remembered Brian standing there only a few minutes previously, his broad back to her, his neck red and scarred, smelling fresh and scrubbed-up, probably just been to the bath-house before coming here. She imagined Charlotte even making that a condition of his visit. She heard the springs of the mattress, Charlotte’s murmur, then nothing. What was she doing here, head bowed, hands jammed between her knees, eavesdropping on her friend? She heard his voice this time, Brian’s cocky Cockney, Charlotte giggling. She wanted it to be good between them, she wanted to know that his touch could be gentle and loving. The bed-springs again, she heard Charlotte gasp. A strange sound, caught between pleasure and pain, like too-cold ice cream on a hot summer’s day. She remembered the vendor and his ice-cart that Sunday outside the Botanic Gardens on her own fateful day of sexual invasion. “Mr Luigi And His Famous Italian Ices” – that was the name. Penny-licks. She wanted to forget, to obliterate that memory. The bed-springs, Charlotte again. Short, sharp yelps like a trodden-on puppy. A loud groan from Brian. She rose quietly from her chair, tiptoed into the hallway, closed the front door gently behind her. When she returned later, she would strip down the bed, take the sheets to the steamie.