The Running Years

by Claire Rayner

  ‘Tisza Eszlar’

  ‘Tis – where’s that? I never heard of it.’

  ‘Hungary,’ she said, and spat again on the wooden landing stage and then reddened a little as she caught the expression of distaste on Nathan’s face. ‘I shouldn’t do that, I know, but the stink – it’s made my mouth so bad I can’t swallow. It’s horrible, the taste in my mouth. My mother, God rest her soul in peace, would be shocked to see me spit like some street drunk but what can you do? When you’re in bad places you do bad things.’

  It was as though a tap had been turned on. She chattered on in a great tide of oddly accented Yiddish and he blinked and listened to her, trying to understand. She was not as old as he had thought at first. The shawl that had been over her head had slipped back and he could see that her hair was black and glossy, young hair above a face that was now animated and had recaptured some of its youth. She was hardly much older than he was himself.

  ‘… so when Mama died, three year ago in the bad times, I said to my uncle, I’ll go. You won’t have to worry. I’ll work, I’ll learn to keep myself, I’ll go and God rot you for your wickedness, thank God my mother didn’t live to see how you treated her poor child.’

  The crowd on the wharf thickened and Nathan stepped back automatically, still listening to her jabber. Gradually, he pieced the story together. Tisza Eszlar was a town I the middle of Hungary, and there had been bad times there, sporadic outbreaks of house and shop burning in the Jewish quarter. Her father had been killed in one such episode and her mother had died soon afterwards and left the girl to the unwilling care of an uncle.

  It was a pathetic little story, and he shook his head over it and tried to stop the flow of talk, for it was the beginning to bore him and also worry him. He had troubles of his own enough, surely. She had nowhere to go now that she had arrived here in London? No relations, no contacts? Was he any better off, not knowing where his family was, where he might meet any single person he knew? He contemplated his own situation mournfully as the girl beside him chattered on and on, and though bleakly, ‘A hero – some life for a hero –’

  On his other wide an old man in a ragged coat and a hat so rusty with age that it seemed incredible it held together at all leaned against the wall and sighed deeply, and Nathan tried not to look at him, wanting to get involved. I’ve got troubles enough of my on, he thought, troubles enough.

  A shape came out of the darkness and materialized into a man with a worried expression on his face and a notebook in hand. He peered at the knot of people of which Nathan was now the centre and said something in English. They all stared back at him, uncomprehending. The man spoke again, this time in awkward Yiddish.

  ‘You are alone? No one to meet you?’

  The old man beside Nathan rocked a little as though he were praying. ‘Ay, ay, ay,’ he keened. ‘Alone! My son, my boy Itzik took ill in Hamburg – couldn’t come further, he said go on alone, he’d come after me, someone will meet you, he said to me, landsleit . Someone will be sure to find you, take care of you till I come –’

  ‘Alone.’ The man nodded and took a notebook from his pocket, and Nathan felt his spirits rise. A man asking questions and writing things down. This was more like the way things should be!

  ‘Name?’ the man said to the old man, and then repeated it in his halting Yiddish.

  ‘Yossel,’ the old man said, eagerly. ‘Yossel son of Chaim.’

  ‘Family name?

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Family name? Do you have a family name? Mine is John Walker, My first name is John, my family name is Walker. What is your family name?’

  The man shrugged. ‘Family name? From where should I get a family name? Me. I’m Yossel son of Chaim! Everyone knows me.

  ‘No family name,’ the man repeated. ‘Then you’ll accept the name I give you for identification purposes? Again he spoke in English and Yossel’s eyes once more glazed with confusion.

  ‘Ich bin ein altemann,’ he said helplessly. ‘What do I know of such things? I’m an old man.’

  ‘Altman,’ said the man with the notebook, glad to have something to write in it. ‘Altman, Yossell, Age? Don’t bother, somewhere between sixty and seventy by the look of you. Call it sixty-five.’

  He scribbled busily and then tore the page from the notebook and gave it to Yossel. ‘Listen Mr Altman, he said earnestly. ‘Over there, by the alleyway, you see?’ He pointed. ‘There are six other people waiting there – go there, wait, and soon I come to take you to a shelter, a good place where we’ll look after you.’

  ‘What sort of place?’ Nathan pushed forward, very interested in all that was happening. The girl beside him pushed closer too, staring over his shoulder at the man with the notebook, as Yossel went obediently away.

  ‘It’s a mission,’ Walker said after a moment and poised his pencil over his notebook again. ‘Your name?’

  ‘What sort of mission? What’s mission, anyway?’

  ‘A Christian mission,’ he said and smiled up at Nathan, half a head taller than he was, and bobbed his head. ‘We come from the evangelical mission to the Jews, and we can give you a bed for the night, and a meal, and tomorrow we help you find a job and … ’

  Nathan backed away, staring at him. ‘Christians? But we’re Jews! What do you want with us? What do you want with the old man there? What does he know of evangelists? You can’t take him away with you, not as old man who doesn’t understand.’

  Walker peered up at him for a second and then the earnest smile faded. He turned and went weaving his way through the mob on the landing stage towards the alleyway, and Nathan tried to follow him, to catch his arm and to prevent him from taking the old man away, but he was hampered by his bundle, which he could not possible let go, and by the fact that he did not know his way about in the dimness as well as Walker did.

  By the time he reached the alleyway on the far side the man had gone, and so was Yossel Ben Chaim, now labelled Yossel Altman.

  Nathan stood there for a moment, and then shrugged. It was none of his affair, after all. He couldn’t imagine anyone would get far trying to convert the old man, anyway. He had troubles enough, he reminded himself.

  He turned back into the crows, still unsure how to resolve these troubles and looked about him again. It was thinning out a little now as those who had come to meet the boats bore off the lucky ones they had come to find, and the last boat made its way back to the parent ship out in the river, but there were still people standing about, seeming as aimless and confused as he was himself.

  The men who had been throwing stones were still there, still throwing their stones and shouting their jeers, but he ignored them, for they were a familiar type; they might have been the sort of Russian peasants who had tormented the boys of the shtetl in Lublin except they there were wearing rough cloth trousers tied at the knee with string and broken boots and flat caps, instead of the long tunics and fur hats and high boots of the men he remembered.

  But there were the others who were bustling about who interested him. There was a little man wearing some sort of official badge who seemed to be trying to talk to some of the immigrants and a couple of men in heavy overcoats who were moving purposefully from group to group, collecting luggage, harrying people into little knots, sending them on their way with boys to guide them. Nathan watched as the little groups went shuffling away down the dark alleyway, following the boy at their head.

  After a while one of the men in overcoats came across to him and said in cheerful Yiddish, in an accent that was so familiar it could have been a Lublin one, ‘So? Good to have arrived, hey? Out of the troubles at home, hmm? But it won’t be easy here unless you’ve got people to meet you. You got people to meet you? Family? Landsleit?’

  The little man with the badge appeared suddenly behind the man in the overcoat. ‘Young man,’ he said shrilly. ‘You come with me! I’m an official of the Hebrew Protection Society, and I’ll see to it you come to no harm. This man is no more than a crim – he’ll ge
t you into trouble – be advised, come with me – ’

  His voice was thick and grated on Nathan’s ears, for though he spoke good Yiddish his accent was a heavy German one and Nathan disliked it. It had none of the friendly overtones of the overcoated man, and Nathan looked at the badge uncertainly. He needed help, obviously, but who was it safe to take it from? Apart from the risks of being converted, there were other risks; he’d heard stories enough in Brody of newcomers who’d been rooked and robbed by strangers and left penniless and in deep trouble.

  The man in the overcoat laughed, then shrugged. ‘Listen,’ he said easily. ‘It’s no skin off my nose. You want to go with this farbissener? This miserable twisted grizzler? So go.’ He laughed again as the little man turned on him and started shouting at him in confused German.

  Nathan grinned at the man in the overcoat. There could be no doubt who would be the best guide, of that he was now sure, and he said easily, ‘So, tell me. If I say I’ve no one to meet me, and I don’t know where my family are, what’ll you do?’

  ‘Get you a bed for the night,’ said the man in the overcoat promptly. ‘Not a palace, you understand, but a bed, and a meal. Believe me, in this city it ain’t easy. You need a maven, someone who knows the ins and outs. Me, I’m a maven.’

  ‘What’s in it for you?’ Nathan said, he’d not been a soldier for nothing, he told himself, preening in his awareness of his own good sense. No one was going to put anything over on Nathan the hero. ‘Why should you bother for me?’

  ‘For a few pence, is all,’ the man said, and shrugged. ‘Listen, I find you a place to sleep, maybe point you at a job, all right? So you give me a couple of kopeks for my trouble. And I’m showing a bit of rachmones, a little compassion to my brothers in trouble. Is that so terrible?’

  ‘It’s not terrible,’ Nathan said judiciously, and thought for a moment. The old man with the badge on his shabby coat said urgently, ‘He’s a gonif, a thief. I tell you! He’ll rob you blind! Me, I’m employed by the proper authorities to help greeners! I’ll take you to a safe place where they’ll look after you. You’ll say Mincha, evening prayers, you’ll eat.’

  ‘Say Mincha?’ Nathan said. He might not want to go with a convert-hunting Christian but he was unwilling to get deeply involved with a rabbi. It had been a long time since his religious practices had mattered much to Nathan. ‘Listen, Zadah, I’m more interested in finding my family than getting praying done, God should forgive me. If you think I’ve got nothing better to do that say prayers, you’ve got another think coming. I’m a soldier! Got a medal – see it? You can’t make a fool of me, you know!’

  The old man threw his hands up in the air and turned away. ‘I should worry! You want to be a fool, you be a fool – ’ and he hurried across to another little know of people to show them his badge and offer his services.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Nathan asked his new friend, as he followed him across the cobbled yard back towards the dark alleyway.

  ‘Ah, call me Sam. Everyone knows me. Just Sam.’

  ‘Glad to know you, Sam,’ said Nathan. ‘Me, I’m Nathan Lazar. My father’s name is Lazar, you understand, but in the army – you know how it is. Now, listen, I need to find my family. He’s a miller by trade.’ He looked over his shoulder for a moment as they reached the alleyway, wanting, oddly, to take one last look at the waterside, almost as though it were a last look at the old life in the old country. The water lapped as thick and oily as ever against the landing stage, and he stared at it for a long moment. Then, resolute once more, he began to speak to Sam again.

  ‘My father, I was saying. He’s a miller.’ He stopped yet again. He had caught sight off the girl who had talked to him so eagerly. She was still standing there uncertainly against the wall, her small straw suitcase in one hand and her shawl held under her chin with the other. She looked even younger now than she had before and very lonely, and Nathan said impulsively, ‘Listen, Sam, that girl there, she was talking to me – a kid on her own. Could you help her?’

  Sam looked back, then made a little face. ‘Not me,’ he said. ‘Don’t deal with girls. Someone’ll soon pick her up. Believe me. A girl on her own, she’ll be all right. See? There’s someone talking to her already. You don’t need to worry.’

  Indeed, there was a woman standing beside the girl now, a neatly dressed woman in a shabby hat and a tightly fitting rusty black coat over a full bustled skirt. She was talking earnestly to her, and after a moment the girl nodded and fell into step beside the woman.

  Sam was pulling on his arm but Nathan held back, waiting for her.

  ‘Hello,’ he said as she caught up. Someone to meet you after all?’

  The girl looked at him in alarm for a moment, and then, recognizing him, smiled in relief.

  ‘Oh, it’s you. No, no one to meet me. But his lady says she can help me, says there’s a special hostel for girls alone in London and she can get me a job.’

  Nathan nodded and looked at the woman and them on an impulse, looked over his shoulder at Sam just in time to see one eyelid flicker at the woman in the rust black coat. He shook his head, puzzled for a moment and looked back at the woman. She too had an expression on her face that aroused his doubts and then sharply, his anger.

  ‘Listen,’ he said suddenly. ‘You’re coming with me.’ The girls stepped back a little, her face tight with anxiety. ‘No, don’t look like that. There’s something here I don’t like. I’ve been around you know, I was in the army – got a meal – no one puts one over on me that easily, and there’s something wrong here.’

  It was all over in a matter of moments. He felt Sam’s grip hard on his arms as his shoulders were pulled back and his bundle fell from his suddenly his paralysed hands. Then there was a knee in his back and a pair of hands squeezing his throat and he really couldn’t see anything any more. His eyes were bedazzled with black spots and the noise in his ears was deafening. He was really quite glad when he felt himself land on the cobbles with a jarring impact; it hurt less than those fingers round this throat.

  When he opened his eyes he was alone. Sam had gone, the girl with the shawl over her head had gone, the woman had gone, his bundle had gone. And when he put his hands in his pockets he found his money had gone, too.

  15

  He was found by the little man with the official badge sitting against the wall of the alleyway in a state of total bewilderment. The little man crouched beside him mopping his sweating face with a handkerchief and pouring out a stream of condolences and I-told-you-sos, not that Nathan listened. He needed all his strength to collect his scattering wits and come to terms with the fact that now he really was penniless. His bundle had contained little enough, a change of underwear, a pair of clean stocks, a fresh shirt, some soap, a razor, but now he had only what he stood up in. Thank God he’d put his precious astrakhan hat in his sleeve, otherwise they’d have stolen that, too.

  Worst of all he had no money. He had been scornful of the elaborately concealed money belts some of his fellow travellers had provided for themselves, and had felt safe enough with his money in tucked tightly into the breast pocket of his shirt, inside his coat. No one could have picked that pocket without his immediate awareness, of that he had been sure, not Nathan the wily solder. But they had, and taken not only his leather wallet, a Barmitszvah present, but even the small change that he had had in his trouser pockets.

  The little man helped him to his feet as other immigrants stood about exclaiming and shaking their heads over him in sympathy and led him to the end of the alley and into a small noisy eating house that stood tucked against the wall as though it were trying to hide from neighbouring shops. He settled Nathan at one of the oilcloth covered tables and bustled away, returning with a mug full of steaming tea, very strong and sweet and laced with milk. Nathan took it gratefully and sipped slowly.

  By the time he was finished he felt less shattered. The old man looked at him and shook his head and said, ‘Better? Good. Next time maybe you'll listen when
you're warned - these people, they're evil villians, gunovin, everyone of them, I warned you. I stood there and … ’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nathan. ‘Please, mister. You were right, I was wrong, you don’t have to go on and on about it, like a yachner in the market place - believe me, I know I was wrong. I’ve got a sore throat to remind me.’ He touched the bruises on his neck gingerly and shook hid head at his own stupidity.

  ‘So now, will you come to the Shelter with me, hey? I’ve already seen the others on their way now, but there’s room for one more. They'll take you, and you can pay towards your keep when you’ve got it - ’

  ‘Pay? How do I get with to pay?’ Nathan said. ‘Isn’t it bad enough I’ve been robbed? Do I have to run up a debt as well?’ But we say to people, as charity had done for you, so you do for charity when you can. When you get a job, get yourself together, you'll remember the Protection Society, give us a little something maybe. Come on.’

  The walk helped revive Nathan. It was dark now, and they had to move through ill lit allays and narrow high walled streets which smelled fetid and were slippery underfoot. The old man seemed very sure of his way, and they moved swiftly, passing from street to street, plunging ever deeper into the warren. Nathan couldn’t see the city beyond those high walls but somehow he could feel the weight of it. There was a distant roar that puzzled him and he asked the little man what it was and was taken aback when he said succinctly, ‘Traffic.’ Traffic to be so voluminous that it could sound like that? Cart wheels and the horses' hooves to be rattling together in such numbers that the total effect was a constant din? It seemed incredible.

  Some boys ran after them down one street jeering, and the little man turned on them and shouted. One of them threw a stone, but they made off, and when Nathan asked why they behaved so, the little man said shortly, ‘Because we're Jews.’ Nathan needed to be told no more. London was just like everywhere else, he told himself. Jews were for hating here as much as anywhere else. He felt more depressed than ever.