Watch Over My Child: Book Three in the Michal's Destiny Series

by Roberta Kagan

  After work, he couldn’t go right home. He walked for an hour, watching his shoes as they hit the pavement. The family who’d taken him in was kind enough. He hadn’t expected more. But he felt restless living under their roof, learning, and following their rules. In his mind at fourteen the relationship with Mary and the pain of his broken heart had made him a man. A man should be on his own, supporting himself and carving out his own future.

  The next day, Elias didn’t go to school at all. Instead, he went into the West End of London to look for work. Real work, work that paid him real money, not the few pounds he earned as a part-time school caretaker. It didn’t take long for him to find a bookie willing to hire him to run numbers. Elias never returned to school or to the family that sponsored him. He moved into a flat in Soho with two other boys who were working for the same bookie. And so began a year of illegal activity, gambling, loan sharking, selling drugs, and dabbling in pimping prostitutes.

  On a bright day in mid-February of 1939, Elias stopped into the local pub to pick up payment from a client who owed his boss. Elias had been instructed to do whatever was necessary, even use violence to get the money. This was not an unusual situation. Elias had proven to his boss that he could be effective at strong-arming a customer who was holding out on making his payments.

  He walked into the pub and ordered a beer. It was there that he saw Glenda. She was only a few years older than he, but she was glamorous and worldly, not used up and hard like the rest of the hookers he’d met since he had become a part of the underworld. He watched her sitting at the bar. When she noticed him watching her, she smiled. Elias returned the smile. Glenda walked over and introduced herself to him.

  “Would you like to buy me a drink?” she asked.

  “Sure,” he said.

  Damn, she was sexy, not pretty, but crazy sexy. She had a thick layer of fire-red lipstick on her full, sensuous mouth that made him think of all the things he could do with those amazing lips. He wanted to grab her and take her to bed.

  “I’m expensive. Can you afford five pounds?”

  “Yeah, why not?” he said. His heart was racing with desire. He’d had sex with some of the other prostitutes that worked for his boss. He’d never paid for it before, but it had been a long time since he met a girl who excited him the way Glenda did. It was worth five pounds just to have the experience.

  “Good, then.” She smiled and those lips drove him nuts. “Get ready, little boy, because you’re in for the ride of your life.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Shaul

  Shaul was living in London in a poverty-stricken area with an old woman. It was hard to say how far past 80 years she was, but what Shaul did know for sure about her was that she had a big heart. He had a small room of his own, which had once been a pantry right off the kitchen. The old woman’s name was Martha Barlow, and age had caused her memory as well as her eyesight to fade. Sometimes she would look blindly at Shaul, and ask him who he was and why he was in her flat. He would have to calmly explain and answer her questions. Sometimes she would lash out in anger and throw something at him. He’d leave the house, but when he returned she would be back to normal and have completely forgotten the incident.

  As Martha Barlow got used to Shaul, she began to tell him bits and pieces of her life. She had never married or had children of her own, but when she was younger she had been a teacher. That was when she’d studied German. Shaul was glad she spoke enough German to communicate with him. There was very little heat in the flat and Shaul was always cold. Martha would warm his bed at night by putting a hot water bottle under the covers before he went to sleep. It was all she had to give. However the bottle only heated a small section of the bed, and although he wore his coat and socks to sleep, he shivered all night. Within two weeks of his arrival he’d developed red patches and blisters that covered his hands and feet. The rash itched mercilessly. Martha called the condition chilblains. She tried to explain that he must refrain from scratching due to the threat of infection, but the urge to scratch was overwhelming and sometimes he broke the skin until it bled. Shaul was also rapidly losing weight due to the lack of food, and he was always hungry. Still he tried not to complain even during Miss Barlow’s fits of anger. He could always tell when a bout of insanity was coming on. Her eyes slanted until they were merely slits, and her face contorted until she no longer looked like the same person. When this strange condition came over her, she would begin calling him Charles and screaming accusations at him. He wasn’t sure what exactly she was saying because she was speaking in English. Ranting far too fast for him to comprehend very much of what was being said. But what he did know was that she pointed directly at his face, referring to him as Charles. During one of these episodes, she attacked him with a wooden spoon. She began chasing him and hurling herself at him, but she was slow and he escaped into his room. Several hours later, she’d forgotten the incident entirely. He could endure the lack of food and warmth, but these bouts of madness frightened Shaul. It was not that he didn’t appreciate her kindness, he did, but he was unnerved by the unpredictability of her behavior. What if she attacked him with a knife in his sleep? He might never see it coming. During a period of sanity, Martha Barlow insisted that Shaul register for school, but when he attended on the first day, he was bullied. The other students teased him about his broken English, his accent, and his rash. By the end of the week he’d been subjected to so many cruel jokes and ridicule that he stopped attending. Miss Barlow tried to encourage him to return but he refused. When she was feeling up to it she tried to teach him herself. But most of the time Shaul hid in his small room and read some of the dusty old books that Miss Barlow kept on the shelf in her living room. He assumed the books were remnants of her teaching days. Occasionally the old woman, feeling nostalgic, told him grandiose stories of her youth. They were stories of love, and of the many suitors that had once adored her. However, he was never sure if she was telling the truth or if she was delusional. But unless one of her fits came on, when she told the tales, she never mentioned Charles.

  Shaul was convinced that something life altering must have happened to the old woman with a man named Charles, but he had no idea what it might have been. He only knew that whatever had happened, the memory of the incident acted as a catalyst that sparked a terrible personality change in her. And he dreaded the times when her eyes turned to slits and her lips drew thin and she began to curse and call him Charles.

  CHAPTER 5

  Shaul 1939

  “Don’t you really think you ought to be in school, son?” Martha Barlow wore a heavy cotton robe. It had once been white but was now stained and yellowed with age. Her bones cracked as she sat down at the kitchen table beside Shaul and poured herself a cup of hot water. Most of the time Martha drank hot water because she hardly had any tea and she tried to save what she had for special occasions.

  “I hate school.”

  “Do you then?” she said, handing him a cracker spread with a dark, thick, foul-smelling substance. “Eat now, you have to eat.”

  “I hate this too,” he said. “I don’t mean to be an ingrate but it’s terrible. What is it?”

  She laughed. “It’s called marmite. It’s good for you.”

  “Do you like the taste? he asked, his eyebrows raised and his head cocked.

  “I’m used to it, Shaul. I’ve been eating it all my life. To me it tastes just fine. Now, eat. You have to eat and it’s all we have.”

  “I suppose if you’re used to it, it’s probably not that bad….”

  “You seem to be rather unhappy here. I suppose it must be hard,” she muttered, shaking her head. “Well, it’s true our food is different than what you grew up on. Here, give me that cracker with the marmite and I’ll give you a plain slice of black bread.”

  “Thank you. It’s not that I’m not grateful. I’m just having some trouble getting adjusted.”

  “It’s understandable.”

  Shaul looked at the old woman. It was cle
ar to him that she had two sides, sort of like the man in the book The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde that he’d read. When she was kind, she was the sweetest old lady he’d ever met. But that other side frightened the hell out of him.

  The plain bread was much better. “I wanted to tell you some good news. I got a job. I hope it’s alright with you that I am going to go to work instead of back to school. I’ve also decided that I am going to pay you some money for rent and food and for everything you do for me,” Shaul said.

  “Now you surely don’t have to do that, Shaul. You would be best off getting yourself an education, so you could land a good job in the future.”

  “I wanted to help with expenses. I know it must be difficult for you. You certainly didn’t have to take someone in to live with you. The least I can do is lend a hand. And besides, I am not going back to school.”

  “That’s a shame. You should. You really should finish your education while you have a chance. But if this is what you’ve decided there is nothing I can do to change your mind. What kind of a job did you get?”

  “Helping the milkman make his deliveries. I will take the bottles to the customers and collect the payments. It sounds fairly easy. The milkman said he could pay me a few pounds a week and give me some milk to bring home. I thought the extra would be helpful to both of us.”

  She nodded. “I am a teacher. I could teach you at home if that’s what you prefer….”

  “I do…” he said. “That would be much better for me. I don’t fit in here and the other students are constantly giving me a hard time.”

  “I understand how challenging it must be to be in a new country, trying to learn a new language at the same time as you’re attending classes and trying to make new friends.”

  “Mrs. Barlow?”

  “Yes, Shaul.”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure I suppose you can.”

  “Why did you take me in?”

  “Oh, now that’s a long story.”

  “I would like to know. I mean, if you don’t mind telling me.”

  “Would you now?”

  He nodded. She watched him, her old eyes studying him.

  “I don’t normally tell anyone this story…” she said.

  “You can trust me. I don’t know anybody here and I wouldn’t tell anyone even if I did…. I promise to keep your secret,” he said.

  “Yes, I suppose you would now.”

  He nodded.

  “All right then. It just might be good for me to get this off my chest. You see I haven’t ever talked about any of this before. But let me put on a pot of tea, and since this is a special occasion, I’ll use a little of the tea and the sugar. You just sit back, Shaul, and I am going to tell you a tale from my past.”

  She reached up and took down the well-worn teakettle that hung from a hook on the low ceiling. After filling it with water, she added a spoonful of the precious tea leaves she kept in a glass container. Then she turned on the flame on the stovetop and sat back down in a chair at the table across from Shaul.

  “Well … this story is certainly one sad memory that I have buried very deep in my heart. But I am an old lady and probably don’t have many more years on this earth, so give a listen. Old Maid Barlow, as the ladies all call me in town, was not always an ugly old woman. No, Shaul, I was not always this way.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Martha Barlow

  Martha Barlow sipped the tea. “I love a good cup of tea,” she said. “I put a drop of sugar in. It’s good, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, very good.” Shaul nodded.

  The old woman smiled at him. “So, back to my story. I’ll bet you think I was always old and ugly. That’s what the young always think of the old. But I wasn’t. No, Shaul, I wasn’t. In fact, I was once very beautiful. Here…” She got up and opened the drawer to her china hutch. “Look at this picture.”

  He took the old yellowing wrinkled photograph that she handed him and gazed at the image of a young, laughing blond. Her eyes twinkled as she held up a toddler.

  “This was you?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s your child?”

  “Oh no. That’s Charles’s son.”

  “Who was Charles?”

  “My employer, my savior, my lover, but most of all my downfall.”

  Shaul bit his lower lip.

  “I was a young governess, a teacher. I worked for Charles and his wife. My job was to teach their children academics as well as manners. Charles and his wife came from old money. They hired me mostly to alleviate them of any responsibilities for their children. Charles’s wife was busy with her friends and parties. Charles was not as busy. He was home a lot of the time and always trying to talk to me. At first I didn’t pay him much attention. After all, the missus was the one who hired me. I was instructed to talk to her if I needed anything. But as time went by, I found that she was a busy socialite and he was at home most of the time reading or working on something in the office he had set up in the back of the house. Because he was readily available it was easier to go to him with questions or requests for the children. I shouldn’t have ever talked to him. It wasn’t proper. I know it now.

  “It’s not your fault. You were only trying to do your job” Shaul said

  “Yes, I suppose. But it’s always easier to see one’s mistakes after the fact.” She shook her head. Then she went on talking “The strange thing was that he loved to play with the children. That’s rather rare for a man. At first he and I became friends. He would come outside when I had taken the children out for exercise, and he played with them. It was attractive to me to see how much he loved them, and how willing he was to act like a child himself. Before I knew it, things between Charles and I escalated, then one night, we became lovers. Of course, it wasn’t long before I became pregnant, and although I tried to hide my condition, his wife spotted it and confronted me. Both Charles and I tried to lie, but she had a sharp eye and knew the truth. I was fired and sent on my own. Fortunately, I’d saved a little money. So, I moved to the East End of London and rented a flat. I heard nothing from Charles. I was quite sure he was done with me. And, the pain I felt from his abandonment was greater than anything I’d ever experienced. But, I had to stay strong, my child was coming.

  “That had to be very hard for you.” Shaul said

  “Yes, it was. James was born in the early spring. The neighbor lady, Meg, who lived in a small flat in the same building I did, helped me with the birth. You see, I had no money for a doctor or a midwife. But we managed. I was alright at first. But on the third day after James’s birth I began to feel terrible pain in my belly. My head ached so bad I couldn’t lift it from the pillow. Then I began to burn up with fever. And to be quite honest with you, I wasn’t sure I’d survive.

  “You must have been terrified. Plenty of women have died from childbirth.”

  “I was too sick to be scared. I was worried about my son. So, I sent my lady friend to see Charles to tell him of my predicament. I asked her to beg him for money to take care of his son. She went to see him and took little James with her, because I was too ill to care for him. I was in a bad way. The worst part of all of it was that my milk was not coming in. Not that I would have been confident in feeding it to him after all, my fever was high. If he caught the illness from me, he would surely die. Meg returned looking many years older than when she’d left. Her face was drawn and I knew that her meeting with Charles had not gone well. She told me that he denied Jamey was his. I knew that my son was his spawn; I’d never lain with any other man. It was hard to believe that Charles had turned his back on me so easily. However, now anger had replaced hurt in my heart and I was determined to live. Over several perilous weeks, I struggled with bouts of sweating followed by bouts of shivering cold. Meg, bless her soul, she’s dead now, found a wet nurse for James. For me it was touch and go for a while. That was until Meg went to the home of the local doctor and begged him to see me. She offered to clean
his house for six months in exchange for one visit. He agreed. When he came he shook his head. ‘She has the childbed fever,’ he said, ‘there is nothing I can do. Either she’ll live or die. But the odds are she won’t make it. I’m sorry.’

  “All of that effort and then he left. It was a long recovery period. I probably should have died. But, I didn’t. God had other plans for me I suppose. In fact, I believe that you, Shaul, are part of those plans. You see, God saved my life so that I could be alive to do something good. When I heard about the Jewish children who needed homes to escape from Hitler, I knew that I was meant to take one of them in.” She smiled at him.

  “Where is James?” Shaul asked.

  “Oh, well, the story doesn’t end there. You see, Charles had a fire in his home a year later. He and his wife were at a gala of some sort when it happened. Both of his children and their new nanny were killed. A few months after the fire, Charles came to see me. I was surprised that he still had the address Meg had given him. But he came. When I saw him standing in my humble room my heart skipped a beat. I couldn’t believe that he was here. For so many months, I had dreamed of this moment. You see, I thought he’d come for me. I had prayed that one day he would realize that he loved me and come back to me. I could hardly speak to ask him if he wanted a cup of tea. Fool that I was, I wanted to fall into his arms and forget any hurt or pain he’d caused me. I was ready to forgive him, no matter what he did. I loved him that much. But he didn’t say he loved me. Instead, he asked me to give James to him. I had not been aware of it, but he told me that his wife was no longer able to bear children. The pain of having my hope thwarted was like a thunderbolt right through my heart. I sunk down into the sofa and worked hard not to cry. He didn’t seem to notice. Instead he told me that James was the only bloodline he had left. I couldn’t look at him. He had taken so much from me already, but now … now I could give James a life he would never have with me. With me, he would spend long hours working in a factory or worse, a coalmine, and probably die young. I was a certified teacher, but I couldn’t work in a school because I had no one to watch James. I would educate him to the best of my ability, but then he would be on his own to find work. Believe me; I gave it a lot of thought. This was my son, my heart, my only child. I had raised him since his birth on my own, given him all I had, all I could give. Many nights I went to bed without eating so that I could be sure he had enough food. But now, even though it would take everything away from me, I was being given the opportunity to give him a better life. He would be an heir to a fortune. I steadied my voice so that James could not hear the emotion in it and I asked him what his wife felt about taking James to live with them. She wanted him, Charles told me. She would love him as if he were her own. I shuddered. James was sitting on the floor on an old worn blanket that had holes in it. When the winter came again, there would be the struggle to assure that there was enough heat. Living with me, James had much slimmer chances of surviving to adulthood. ‘Can I have the night to think it over?’ I asked. Although I already knew I was going to send James with him, I just wanted one more night with my son before I said goodbye forever. Charles nodded and left.