The Lemon Tree

by Helen Forrester

  Since her mother was in no state to do it, Helena sat down at their rickety table in their tiny apartment and wrote to her only surviving blood relative, Uncle James in Liverpool, to tell him of his brother’s death and the penury of his widow. Tears blotted her shaky unformed Arabic script

  By the time they received a reply six weeks later, the landlord, a kindly man, had grown tired of a tenant who was not paying him rent, even though she was a pretty widow, and told them they had another week in which to start paying again, plus something towards the arrears.

  If it had not been for a large bag of rice, which her father had obtained shortly before his death, and the kindness of their neighbours, Helena and her mother would have starved.

  In his reply, Uncle James wrote that, if they could manage to pay their fares to England, he would be happy to give both mother and daughter a home. Unfortunately, he was not yet earning enough to send them their fares; he had just leased a small factory building and installed his first soap boiler, and this had drained his reserve and his credit.

  He did not know how to express his own grief at the loss of a well-loved brother, so contented himself with the usual polite phrases. Leila’s troubles were great enough without his adding to them.

  He did not mention that the home he offered would actually be in a house owned by his English mistress, Eleanor. As he wrote, she was sitting on a chair opposite him, nursing their year-old son, Benjamin.

  It had taken a great deal of coaxing on his part to persuade this downright little Liverpudlian that he owed shelter to his sister-in-law, Leila, and her daughter, Helena. It was a duty he could not evade, he assured her, and he would have to find another place to live if Eleanor could not help him.

  ‘She’s foreign,’ Eleanor had protested.

  James had looked up from his letter and responded dryly, though with a twinkle in his eye, ‘So am I.’

  ‘You’re different, luv,’ she told him, and smiled at him.

  James’s eyes were bloodshot from private weeping on top of long hours of work. He looked so drained that she impulsively got up from her chair and leaned over the baby to kiss his cheek. ‘Well, never mind. Don’t you fret,’ she said kindly. ‘I suppose I could give ’em the second-floor back room to theirselves. I’d have to give Mr Tomlinson notice, though, so as he can find somewhere else.’ Mr Tomlinson was one of her three gentlemen lodgers, other than James Al-Khoury himself. She sighed heavily, as she sat down and rearranged Benjamin on her lap. ‘I’d have to ask you for a bit more housekeeping to help out, like, ’cos I’ll have two more mouths to feed – and I won’t have Mr T’s rent.’

  ‘Of course I’ll give you more,’ he assured her, without any idea of where he was going to get the extra money from. He put down his pen and got up to embrace both mother and child; Eleanor was a wonderful comfort to a lonely man, a real help – and she had given him a son. He prayed to God that his new venture with George Tasker, the Soap Master, would prosper.

  Eleanor told herself she would do anything she could for him; she’d never again meet a man like him. Mr T must go; she could not imagine her despair if James left her. She wasn’t getting any younger; and now there was little Benji to think about.

  In Chicago, a surprised Leila read his kind letter. Puzzled, she looked up from her meagre lunch of boiled rice and weak coffee, and asked Helena, ‘Did you write to Uncle James?’

  Having seen the English stamp on the letter, Helena was tense with anxiety, as she said eagerly, ‘Yes.’

  Leila sighed. ‘I should have done it.’

  ‘I did ask you, Mama. But you didn’t listen.’

  In the seven weeks since her husband had died, Leila had grown quieter. Though she did not cry so much, she was very listless. Nothing that Helena could do or say seemed to rouse her to the realization that, unless they did something quickly, they would die of starvation.

  Now, seeing the letter, a wild hope surged in Helena. ‘May I read Uncle’s letter, Mama?’ she asked eagerly.

  Leila handed it to her without comment.

  As the girl read, a tremendous relief made her want to shout with joy, the first sense of wellbeing since her father had died. ‘Isn’t he good, Mama? And his wife, too. We’ll have to sell your jewellery – or some of it, Mama?’ A hint of doubt had crept into her voice. Despite their desperate position, Leila had sullenly refused to part with the last of her chains and brooches. Her husband’s declaration that he would only sell them in extremis had meant, to her, only in the case of death. A Lebanese, longer established than the Al-Khourys, had accepted a gold chain from her and had arranged Charles’s funeral. That to her had constituted a time to sell.

  Leila did not immediately reply to her daughter; she sat fretfully toying with her coffee cup.

  ‘To get the fares to go to England, Mama – we have to get the fares from somewhere.’

  Leila felt morosely that fate had dealt her an unbearable blow in the loss of her husband. In these last seven weeks of prostration, she had been waiting for that same fate to compensate her in some way. Her brother-in-law’s kindly letter did not appear to do that, and she said capriciously, ‘I don’t want to go.’

  ‘But, Mama, what else can we do? Uncle James is a dear – you know that.’

  ‘He’s kind,’ Leila admitted reluctantly. She was quiet for a moment, and then, as if to justify her refusal she added, ‘I simply can’t change countries again. It would be too much; I couldn’t bear it.’ She buried her face in her hands.

  Helena swallowed, and replied carefully, ‘It wouldn’t be much different from America, would it, Mama? I liked Liverpool when we passed through it’

  ‘It would be quite different,’ her mother replied shortly. She rose from the table and, dragging her bare feet on the planks of the floor, she went to Helena’s small bed at the back of the room. She lay down on it, her face towards the wall, as if to shut out a life which was a burden to her.

  Helena went to sit at the foot of the bed and continue the argument.

  Without looking at her, Leila protested, ‘Helena, you can’t imagine what it would be like to be penniless in Uncle James’s house. No matter how kind he is, we would be dependent upon the whims of his – er – wife. She’s bound to resent us – or she’d make use of us as servants. It would be insupportable.’

  Helena took another tack. ‘I always imagined that Uncle James wasn’t married?’ she queried.

  Leila bit her lower lip. She was not sure how to explain Uncle James’s domestic affairs. She said cautiously, ‘Some men have a woman friend who lives with them. Uncle James’s situation could make it harder for us.’ She turned slightly, to look at the frightened girl. ‘In the West, it’s not quite honourable, though I’m sure your uncle has his reasons for not marrying her …’

  ‘If she’s not his wife, couldn’t he send her away? Then we could look after him.’

  ‘I doubt he wants to be rid of her. They’ve been together a long time.’

  ‘I see,’ Helena muttered. But all she really understood was that her mother seemed totally incapable of doing anything. It was to be a number of years before she became aware of the profound effect her uncle’s lack of a marriage certificate was to have on her own life.

  Chapter Seven

  Helena continued to sit by her mother on her bed and to beg her to reconsider her uncle’s offer. She got no response, except for peevish monosyllables. Hope died in the girl and was replaced by dread.

  Finally, in search of comfort, she went out into the street and made her way, through crowds on their way home from work, to Mrs Ghanem’s tiny home. Perhaps another widow would be able to help her rouse her mother.

  Mrs Ghanem was still at work, her five-year-old told her solemnly. He was helping Mama by looking after his little brother. He pointed to a crawling child behind him.

  The children were filthy and the house stank. Poor Mrs Ghanem, thought Helena compassionately; her children and her home had always been immaculate before Mr Ghanem�
�s death.

  She promised the child that she would come again another day, and, feeling suddenly very weak, she walked towards home.

  As she turned into the familiar narrow street, she caught a glimpse of Sally coming towards her, and her depression lifted a little. She ran towards her.

  Sally caught her in a bear hug. ‘Where’ve you been?’ she inquired. ‘I was just dropping by to see how your ma is.’

  ‘I went to see Mrs Ghanem – but she’s still at work.’ She turned back towards her home, arm-in-arm with the cleaning lady.

  ‘Uh-ha. So what’s new with you, hon?’

  Helena hastily told her about her uncle’s letter. Then she added uneasily, ‘I’m scared, Sally. Mama won’t do anything. And we haven’t paid the rent for weeks – and in a few days there won’t be even rice to eat. At least Uncle James would feed us, and perhaps I could find some work in Liverpool; it’s a very busy city.’

  Sally paused on the ragged doormat at the foot of the stairs leading up to Leila’s living quarters. ‘Want me to talk to her?’ she asked.

  ‘She’d never forgive me for telling you.’

  ‘I guess you’re right.’

  As they came up the last step, they were both surprised to see that Leila was up. Her hair had been combed and pinned up; she had put on a clean white blouse and her black stockings and boots. She had lifted the nearly empty sack of rice onto the table and had spread some of the grains on a tray in order to pick out any small stones in it.

  Helena was astonished. It looked as if Uncle James’s letter had had an effect, she decided thankfully.

  Sally said to Leila, ‘My, you do look pretty! How’re you doing?’

  The pale, delicate mouth quivered and the eyes were full of pain, but she answered Sally quite firmly, ‘I’m better, thank you. Sit down.’ She pulled out a chair for her visitor. ‘Coffee?’

  Sally accepted the proffered chair. Knowing how short they were of everything, she said she did not need coffee. Leila, however, was suddenly aware of neglected social obligations, and she insisted on using the last of their coffee to make a decent cup for her friend.

  Helena went quietly to the table and took over the cleaning of the rice. She was afraid that if she said anything she would upset Leila again. Let Sally do the talking.

  Sally did talk. She brought in all the polite gambits of the state of the weather, the price of vegetables and the latest news of the war raging further south, while she gravely sipped her coffee and Leila sat with her hands clasped in her lap, barely attending to the rich musical voice.

  Finally, Sally told her, with real excitement in her voice, that she had managed to get a full-time job as a waitress in a new coffee shop being opened by Italian immigrants. It was close to the Al-Khourys’ old shop.

  Leila was genuinely pleased, and congratulated her. Then she sat looking at her hands for a moment, before she went on to say determinedly, ‘Tomorrow, Helena and I, we go to tailor to ask for sewing work. Helena sew as good as me.’

  ‘Well, that would keep you going for a bit.’ Sally smiled at her, and then said very gently, ‘With your looks you could get a healthier job, a clerk in a store, say.’

  Leila smiled wanly back. ‘Later. Tailor give job now.’ She shrugged. ‘Nobody give me good job now. English so bad.’

  ‘You’re doing just fine,’ Sally assured her robustly.

  Helena looked up from the rice. She was dumbfounded at her mother’s decisiveness. A quick warning glance from Sally told her to be careful what she said.

  She deftly picked out a piece of chaff from the rice. ‘I’d love to work with you, Mama,’ she said softly.

  Her mother turned and smiled at her. ‘Would you? That’s good. We’ll manage, darling, won’t we?’

  Thankfully, Helena got up and went to her. Leila took her warmly in her arms, and Helena wanted to burst into tears with relief.

  The Civil War had caused an insatiable demand for uniforms. The tailor was very glad to have two skilled sewers for finishing work, though he bargained the wages down to near-starvation levels, on the grounds that Leila’s English was poor and that, at nearly fourteen, Helena was not yet entitled to a woman’s wage.

  The two clung to each other and managed to continue to exist, two tiny boats bobbing along in a sea of other immigrants, all competing for jobs, cheap rooms and cheap food, in a country where war had caused prices to skyrocket. Their Greek landlord was appeased, and the shop beneath their small nest was re-rented, to a locksmith and his family, who both worked and slept there. Because they had a side entrance, the two women were not disturbed by them.

  Helena had never in her life felt so exhausted. Underfed, she also lacked sunlight, diversions, and exercise. One day, on their return from work, she fainted.

  Leila bathed her daughter’s pinched, white face, and decided desperately that she would sell her best gold chain. In that way, she could pay the landlord his arrears instead of having to give him extra money each week. They could then spend more on food. She herself felt apathetic and intensely weary, and she thought, with real horror, of what might happen to her daughter if she herself should die.

  She took the necklace to a jeweller in a better area of the city, and it was in the jeweller’s shop that she met Tom Harding.

  Tom was a widowed settler from Fort Edmonton, a Hudson’s Bay Company Fort on the banks of the North Saskatchewan River in western Canada, an area as yet barely explored. Though Tom claimed to be a settler, he was, in fact, a squatter on land owned by the great fur-trading Company which had established the Fort. To the Company’s annoyance, he also trapped, and, having once been a miner, was apt to dig Company coal out of the banks of the river and to pan small amounts of gold out of the river itself.

  His younger brother owned a prosperous grocery shop in Chicago, and their acerbic old mother lived with him. Tom had received an urgent letter from his brother, via the Hudson’s Bay Company, saying that the old lady was in very frail health. She had several times expressed a strong desire to see him before she died, and he should hurry.

  When he received the letter, Tom thought wryly that his brother had obviously no idea of the distances involved or the difficulties of the journey. He was, however, extremely depressed himself. He had recently lost his Cree Indian wife and his infant son in childbirth. An Indian wife was an enormous asset, besides which he had been quite fond of her and had been looking forward to the child. He wondered if he should return to Chicago and settle there.

  After discussing the matter with his friend, Joe Black, who worked with him on his illegally held piece of land, it was decided that Joe could manage to look after the farm, while Tom made the journey. ‘And mind you come back!’ Joe shouted after him, as he prepared to leave. ‘We haven’t built this place out of nothing, just to see it go back to forest again. You’ll feel a lot better when you’ve had a change – and I know lots of Cree women who wouldn’t mind being Mrs Harding Number Two.’

  Tom grinned and saluted him, as he turned his horse onto the trail which led to the Fort, where he expected to join the Company’s boats going down the river to Lake Winnipeg. Then another boat down to Fort Garry – about a thousand miles, he believed, and he’d still be in Canada.

  As he rode, he chewed one end of his moustache and considered the fragile hold he had on the precious piece of land for which he had struggled so hard. It was certainly Company land, but he reckoned that Joe was far too useful to the Company for them to try to dislodge him from it while he himself was away.

  Joe was half Cree, half negro, and he knew the languages of the area. Slow to anger and trusted by both sides, he was frequently used by the Chief Factor at the Fort as a negotiator between the Company and the recalcitrant Blackfoot and Cree Indians. Though he had been known to get involved in fights which occasionally broke out amongst the Company’s employees, when all concerned had drunk more than usual, and was consequently sometimes out of favour with Company men ruefully rubbing bruises he had inflicted,
he was a godsend to a company which was not always able to keep control in the land over which it was supposed to rule.

  In his heart, Tom felt that he himself was tolerated on the Company’s land solely because Joe worked for him, that Chief Factor Christie did not have him removed because, if he did, Joe would probably drift back south to rejoin his Indian grand-father, of whom it was said he was very fond; and the Company would lose its best defence against the resentment of the displaced Indians.

  Tom did not consider that he, as well as Joe, had built up a friendship with a number of Blackfoot families, because he owed his life to one of them, and that Factor Christie was aware of this useful relationship between a white man and a very proud and angry group of native people.

  Tom certainly did not enjoy the hardships of the long voyage in a York boat down the North Saskatchewan to Lake Winnipeg and through the lake to Fort Garry. He was expected to make himself useful on the voyage; and he decided that his own life might be hard, but, being a voyager faced with portages and little but pemmican to eat, he preferred the hardships of a squatter’s life.

  From Fort Garry, he sailed in a small American trading boat down the Red River, then went by stagecoach to La Crosse and, thankfully, the rest of the journey by train.

  Now, he wanted to return home before the winter set in, though his frail ghost of a mother begged him to remain in Chicago. Despite her invalidism, her tongue was as malicious as ever; and she had made him feel a sense of guilt at his decision to desert her once again. To soften the blow of his departure, he had decided to buy her a present.

  His finances were limited and, as he pushed open the door of the local jewellery store, he had scant hope of finding what he wanted at a reasonable price.

  Instead of a present, he found Leila Al-Khoury bargaining with the jeweller over the sale of a fine gold chain which had originally belonged to her mother-in-law; it had been given to Leila on the birth of her first son, who had died of a fever when he was six. Leila firmly tried to remember the old lady’s delight at the child and to forget the gentle woman’s terrible death at the hands of the Beirut Muslims. She spoke to the jeweller in the firmest tone she could muster.