“They treated you well in the camps, Madame?” Avram asked.
“My treatment was fair. But it is the humiliation. It is the not knowing what will happen. It is to be punished for what? For being a spy? That’s what it is. They think we are all spies. They think we will steal their secrets. Poison their water. Suffocate their children in their sleep. Gas their homes. Do I look like the kind of person who would do such a thing? Me? A spy? Martha Kahn. Who worked my fingers to the bone to make uniforms for our soldiers. But to put people in camps. God forbid it should ever happen again.”
“Of course it won’t happen again …” Celia said.
“… And what was my punishment?” Madame Kahn continued, accompanied by a more spirited attack on her task. “What was my punishment for being an enemy alien? This is my punishment. This knitting and darning. Knitting and darning. Knitting and darning. What else was there to do? Some daily chores to keep the camp clean. Play cards if we were lucky. But we were civilians. Not prisoners-of-war. Not enemy soldiers. Just civilians unlucky to be born in a foreign country. Alles beshert.”
Avram had remained silent throughout Madame Kahn’s tirade, staring into the fire, letting his thoughts wander in and out of the tunnels, passageways and crevices created by the burning coal. But he could feel his anger simmering away like the embers in the grate.
“Everything isn’t fate,” he said quietly.
Madame Kahn stopped her knitting. “What did you say, boy?”
“It’s because you are a Jew,” he muttered. “Not a civilian born in a foreign country. But a Jew.”
“What are you talking about?”
He was shaking now, shaking with a rage he never knew he possessed. “That was why they took you,” he said, rising to his feet, then wishing he hadn’t, for he could feel his legs trembling under him. “They say it was because you were an enemy alien. But I know the real reason. I know the truth. They took my father because he was a Jew. And now they took you. It is because we are Jews. Being Jewish is the source of all our troubles.”
Celia sat staring at him with her mouth open, although somehow she still managed to continue with her knitting. Madame Kahn pointed one of her needles directly at him.
“How dare you talk back to me,” she said. “And shame on you for your words. Shame on you, shame on you, shame on you. How can you say such a thing? Of course it is not because I am a Jew. Who cares about such a thing in this country? Now, get out of my sight. How dare you speak like this? After all I have suffered. How dare you? Gie, gie, gie. Get out of my sight.”
But Avram was already on his way out of the door.
Twenty-two
AVRAM KICKED THE SMALL RUBBER BALL ahead of him, then it was Solly’s turn. That was the game. No double hits allowed. Even if the ball rolled out on to the road or into the tram grooves or under the hooves of horses – only one touch. Not one touch to stop it, another to pass it on. Just one pass. Even if it rolled into the slow plodding path of mourners, which it did now. Avram stopped and Solly did too as they watched the ball get shuffled around among the newly shined-up shoes. Not one of the procession glanced at the ground. Only straight ahead at the tiny coffin being borne aloft. A single wreath of white flowers jiggled on top with the lightness of it all.
“Billy McKechnie’s little sister,” Solly said flatly, as if it were a sack of coal he was watching being carried along the street.
Avram saw Billy among the mourners. His former classmate was wearing his school cap, a too-tight jacket, a black band around his upper arm.
“Do Jews wear black armbands?” Avram asked.
“Naw,” Solly said, yawning his reply. “Dinnae think so. But they get to rip their clothes. Or at least the rabbi does it for them. Cuts their jumpers and jackets with the nick of a knife. That’s the Jewish sign of mourning.”
The ball came to rest at Billy’s feet. He stooped to pick it up, then looked around, his mouth screwed up in puzzlement like a small question mark. He saw Avram and Solly, smiled, tossed the ball back. A woman in a black coat and a black veil walloped Billy across the back of his head. Billy paid no attention to the slap, and waved.
Avram wanted to wave back but when Mrs McKechnie lifted her veil and scowled over, he bowed his head instead. And so did Solly.
“Daft bampot,” Solly said under his breath. “That’s about the fourth one to die since I’ve kent Billy. He was always getting off school to go to a funeral. If he was a bloody Jew, all his clothes would be ripped to shreds by now.”
“There must be about seven of them left. Which one died?”
“The youngest. She wasn’t even two.”
“Shame for Billy.”
“Aye. Billy’s all right, tho’,” Solly said thoughtfully. “He was brilliant at woodwork.”
“You better make sure you don’t die. You’ve got no-one to take your place.”
Avram wished he hadn’t said the words the moment they’d left his lips. Solly wasn’t sensitive about much, but he cared about being an only child when everyone around him had a football team of siblings. Or even just Celia and Nathan.
“Ye’d better start running, orphan, or I’ll beat yer bloody heid in.”
Avram took off, dodging around the tailend of the funeral, with Solly chasing after. But Solly’s threat was an idle one because Avram knew he was always too fast for the heavier boy. Nevertheless, the hurt in the words needed to be run out, and when they were, Avram found himself in the public playground beneath the high stone embankment that led up to the railway track. The place was deserted apart from two girls playing peever and the parkie who blew his whistle and shouted when Avram started kicking the ball off the wall of his shed. Through the dirty window, he could see a hung-up rake and spade. In the summer, the man would sit in the doorway in his shirtsleeves reading the paper, puffing on his pipe, with a vase of cut flowers by his chair. Avram thought the shed must be a cosy place to live, bedded down on a mattress in the light of a paraffin lamp among the loose bulbs and the smell of dried mud and fresh grass on well-oiled cutting blades.
“Can ye no read signs?” the parkie shouted.
Before Avram could shout back, Solly turned up out of breath, grabbed the ball and sat down on one of the leather cradles that swung around the maypole in the centre of the playground. Avram followed and did the same. He liked the feel of the worn smoothness of the leather and the brass studs against his bare thighs. The parkie relaxed and retreated to his shed. Solly pulled out a scrunched up cigarette from his pocket and lit up.
“So,” Solly said. “Yer finally joining the working classes.”
Avram kicked off lightly on his cradle, let it swing. He felt proud in front of Solly that he had a working wage to come. “Give me a couple of years and I’ll be a millionaire,” he said. “Like Jacob Stein.”
“Naw. Like the Rothschilds. They’re the richest Jews in the world.” Solly laughed then spat some loose tobacco at his feet. “Well, I’m thinking of enlisting.”
“That’d be a daft thing to do.”
“Serious. Cross my heart.”
“Come on, Solly. You’re too young.”
“I’ll lie. They’re desperate now. They’re none too careful.”
“You don’t look like eighteen.”
“I do so.” Solly stood up off the swing, pulled himself up full. He was a big lad with a look of knowing life in his eyes far older than the rest of his almost seventeen-year-old features.
“You can stretch as much as you want, you still don’t look eighteen.”
“That’s only yer opinion.”
“What do you want to enlist for?”
“I was born here. I’ve a feeling to defend my country.”
“Don’t be a mug. You’ll get yourself killed.”
Solly scratched his head, and with thumb and forefinger drew something out from among the roots of his hair. He scrutinised the louse, then flicked it away. “Aye, maybe.”
“Maybe? Maybe you’ll lose a leg or an
arm. Or an eye.”
“Or everything. I’ll just be a stump with a heid.”
“A big potato.”
“A neep.”
“Not much difference from now, then.”
Solly feigned a punch. “Ha bloody ha.”
“Got another?” Avram jerked his head at Solly’s cigarette.
“Finish this.”
He took what was left and sucked, swinging back and forward on the leather cradle, scuffing his boots aimlessly along the ground in line with his thoughts. It was all happening too fast. Leaving Glasgow to work with Uncle Mendel. Solly now wanting to leave too. Papa Kahn’s illness. No chance to play football. Celia. Celia? His world was shifting and sinking under his feet. He was back on the boat again, floating on the dark belly of a beast to an unknown destination. He felt small, hollow and scared.
“Lassies go for men in uniform,” Solly said.
“Like you said. Men. Not boys.”
“Maybe Molly’ll let me go all the way. Give me a fuck for going off to the Front.”
“That’s just like you. Getting yourself killed just for a … fuck.” Avram still wasn’t used to the word. It didn’t come out comfortable like it did when Solly said it, like he had earned his right to employ it. But it felt good to say it anyway. It was a word for a working boy.
“Maybe it’s ye that needs a fuck before ye go away? Maybe Celia will let ye have it?”
“Celia’s family.” He tried to feign indifference, though he knew the sudden flush to his cheeks showed otherwise.
“No, she isn’t. She’s just yer … I don’t know what she is. What is she to ye? Nothing really.”
“She feels like family.”
Solly laughed. “How do ye know what she feels like? Ye been touching her up?”
“She’s family.” He took a last drag on the cigarette, snatched a look at the parkie, and tossed it.
“Give me a chance and I’d fuck Celia,” Solly said. “Family or not.” He thrust his hips back and forward. “Oh Solly, please fuck me. Please.”
“Stop it.”
But Solly didn’t let up.
“I said ‘stop it’.”
“Make me.”
Avram pushed Solly hard. Harder than he thought he really meant to. Solly fell to the ground, but he was up on his feet quick, fists clenched, drawn back, ready to punch. Avram stiffened, drew up his own fists. A train steamed along the embankment and they both stood locked in a silent, motionless glower until it had passed. Then the parkie’s whistle shrilled, but Solly had relaxed anyway, the violence gone from his eyes as fast as it had come.
“Never thought ye had the guts to hit me, orphan.”
Neither did Avram. He was surprised at the feelings that had led him to strike his friend.
Solly brushed off the caked dirt, some twigs caught in the wool of his jumper, then sat back down on the leather cradle. The two of them swung around for a while until Solly spoke:
“Why don’t ye come out with me and Molly tomorrow?”
“No thanks.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t want to play raspberry.”
“Gooseberry, ye daft bampot. Come on. I’ll get her to bring Fiona. Time ye started winching.”
“Fiona Cameron?”
“Aye. Fiona Cameron.”
Avram knew Fiona from school. Small, pretty girl, with a pale, milky skin – the kind of complexion Madame Kahn described as a milcheke face. She had eyes that were kind, but a mouth that was thin and cruel – a curious combination that meant he could never tell what she was thinking. Despite her petiteness, she had a lofty confidence with the boys, always teasing them and flicking their hair. She had done that with him once. “Lots of girls would die for curls like these,” she told him with that expression on her face he didn’t know was cruel or kind. “Go on, let me touch some more.” But he wouldn’t let her, even though he wanted her to.
“She won’t go out with me.”
“Aye, she will. She’s Molly’s best friend. They go everywhere together. We can go to the pictures.”
“I don’t know. What’s on?”
“Chaplin. At the Eglinton.”
“I’ve got no money.”
“Have ye no jelly jars?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we have. But Mary usually takes them.”
“Well, find out. If ye don’t, I’ll lend ye. Ye can pay me back when yer working. I’m flush.”
“I thought you said there was hardly any betting.”
“The war’s thinned out the racing but the punters still want a bet.”
“A bet on what?”
“Anything with a result at the end of it. Especially the football. Seniors, juniors. The boys’ clubs. Even the school games.”
“What? On teams like ours?”
“Aye. Even that. Come on. What d’ye say about Fiona?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come on.”
“I wouldn’t know what to do.”
“Ye don’t have to do anything. Just talk to her nice. Tell her how pretty she looks. Hold her hand in the pictures. She might even let ye have a feel if ye tell her yer enlisting. She doesn’t need to know it’s the Western Highlands you’re off to, not the Western Front.”
Twenty-three
AVRAM WATCHED SOLLY SWAGGER along the pavement towards him. Molly on one arm, Fiona Cameron on the other. Fiona Cameron with her milcheke face, her tartan skirt, her fair hair tied back in a red ribbon, her breasts jutting out beneath her faded pink cardigan. Molly, the taller of the two girls, with her auburn hair and full-bodied features that even Avram realised gave her a sexual allure now that would probably collapse into plumpness later on.
What Avram knew of sex, he had learnt in the schoolyard. And that was not much. He had seen Mary naked and for a while that had given him a lot of credibility among his peers, for actual knowledge was rare. He knew he had to ‘stick it up her’ but he wasn’t sure exactly how or where. None of the girls he knew went all the way anyway. Even Molly – and Solly would have been the first to have told him if she did. But he didn’t want that anyway. He would be happy just to hold hands. To fix a kiss on Fiona Cameron’s pale cheeks would be an absolute triumph.
“Couples should be made up of people with rhyming names,” Solly announced. The girls were giggling.
“What do you mean?” Avram asked.
“Like us. Solly and Molly. Molly and Solly. We’re already in harmony.” Solly squeezed Molly’s arm. “We were thinking of someone for you but we couldn’t think of a girl’s name that rhymed. With Fiona neither.”
“What about Jonah?” he suggested, pleased at his contribution to the conversation.
Molly clapped her hands together. “Fiona and Jonah. Jonah and Fiona. I like it.”
“Well, I don’t,” Fiona said, screwing up her mouth in distaste. Avram noticed she was wearing lipstick. “Makes me think of a whale.”
“Let’s go in,” Solly said, guiding Molly to the tailend of the queue. Avram shuffled along beside Fiona, desperately trying to think of something to say.
“Do you like Charlie Chaplin?” he ventured.
“Course I do. Or I wouldn’t have come, would I? Are you paying for me?”
“Yes.”
“Good. But that doesn’t mean you can try anything.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“That’s all right then,” she said, but then her tone softened. “Solly says you’ve joined up.”
“What?”
“Solly says you enlisted.”
He looked to his friend but Solly was busy buying the tickets. “I suppose so,” he said.
“Well, either you have or you haven’t?” She tilted her head to one side. “You’re not trying to be modest, are you?”
He shrugged. “I have, then.”
“I was wondering why you’d left school. You used to be really clever.”
“I still am.”
“Course you are.” Fiona laughed. �
��But you’re not even seventeen.”
“They need everyone they can get.”
“But what about your folks? What do they say?”
“I don’t have family.”
“I thought Celia was your sister.”
“He’s an orphan,” Solly turned round to say.
“Stop interrupting,” Fiona said. “Is that true?”
“I don’t know the truth. I never knew my father and I haven’t heard from my mother in over three years.”
“Oh.” She stared off into the distance and when she spoke again it was more to herself than to him. “I lost two brothers in this war.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. He felt as if he had betrayed their deaths with his lie.
“It’s all right. It was a while ago now. Right at the beginning.” She looked at him. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to start greetin’ on you. When do you go?”
“The day after tomorrow.”
“That doesn’t leave much time.”
“Time for what?”
“To get to know each other.”
He was glad of the darkness inside the picture house until Solly insisted they took seats along the back row. Solly immediately wrapped himself around Molly, despite her protests that she wanted to watch the film. Avram sat next to the cavorting couple with Fiona on his other side, leaning slightly towards him so that their shoulders almost touched. Her fingers tapped a rhythm on her knee to the music of the piano. He watched the cigarette smoke billow out elaborate sworls on the projector’s beam as the film crackled and flickered to a start.
Avram sat still, feeling awkward for not being able to share in the rest of the audience’s hilarity over the antics of the little tramp. He just could not understand why the butt of this slapstick should cause such amusement. Even Solly was forced away from his amorous manoeuvrings so that Molly could see what all the fun was about. Fiona’s shoulder rubbed against his own as she wriggled with laughter.
“Are you thinking of the army?” she asked him.
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