The Running Years

by Claire Rayner

  ‘So, listen,’ Curly’s voice came from behind him, haranguing a customer who was standing in front of his high counter. What do you want already? I'm a seller of bagels and coffee and a bit of strudel! What do I know of letters? Go ask a rabbi, go ask a scholar, don’t ask me!’

  Nathan looked back over his shoulder as he reached the door then stopped. A woman was standing at the counter, the steam from the big kettles on the stove at the back wreathing her head under the popping gaslight. She wore an old grey shawl which she had let slip to her shoulders to reveal the starling artificiality of her wig and in her hands was a sheet of paper at which she was peering with an anxious face.

  ‘I can’t go the rabbi, Curly! How can I? I don’t know what he’s written here! It might be something the rabbi shouldn’t know of. That’s why came to you. You I can expect to understand if he writes what he shouldn’t. My brother, he always was one for doing what he shouldn’t, saying bad words and all. Curly, please, I'll pay you - ’

  As Curly shrugged and turned away to fiddle with his kettles, Nathan realized that he was not unwilling to help, just unable. He had see that look of baffled embarrassment too often before not to recognize it. He came back towards the counter.

  ‘Can I help, boobah? Me, I read Russian and Polish and write it too. I was in the army, you see. Got a medal.’ He smoothed his jacket lapel where the medal was pinned, casually, easily. ‘Can I help?’

  ‘Oy, can you help! If you can read Russian, you can help! Three days I’ve had this letter and no one to read it to me. I'm crippled with my joints, can’t go more than a few yards down the road, and who else do I come to but my landlord Curly here? And will he read it for me?’ She shot a look of pure venom at Curly. ‘Like he'll get cholera for me he'll read it! Some friend, some landlord!’

  ‘Too busy,’ he muttered Curly began to slice and butter bagels with great energy. ‘So let the scholar read for you. He’s the clever one - go let him read.’

  Nathan read, declaiming the sentences in fine rolling phrases, and with a great deal of expression. It was poor material on which to use his talents, a humdrum account of the troubles of a middle aged man living in Bialystock and struggling against considerable odds to save enough money to bring himself, his wife and five daughters to London, but it fascinated the old woman, who sat at the table beside the counter her mouth half open as she listened with great concentration to every word.

  When he had finished, she demanded that he read it again, louder, which he did, enjoying the audience of half a dozen other customers. When he’d done that, she asked him if he’d write an answer for her, and sent a small boy to the shop next door to buy her a sheet of paper, an envelope, a bottle of ink and a pen.

  Nathan wrote her letter, covering the page with his flowing script, and then read it back to her and the enthralled bagel chewing audience and finally sealed it with a drip of candle wax a now willing Curly provided, and addressed it.

  ‘There,’ he said. ‘Your letter. I hope he gets it soon, and all should be well.’

  ‘Sixpence,’ the old woman said and held out her hand with the small silver coin in it. ’sixpence, hey? Thruppence for reading, twice, thruppence for writing, once. That’s that what I used to pay Solly next door when he did it for me, before he moved away. Sixpence is all I pay.’

  Nathan took it, turning it slowly in his hand as he stared down at it, and then blinked as one of the other customers said offhandedly, ‘Tonight, you come to my place, hey? I got a letter from my sister in Vilna I should like to hear. And maybe you write me a fancy answer like that one, hey? Sixpence, she said.’

  Nathan had found himself a job.

  18

  The room buzzed with voices and the susurration of silk, the sound rising and falling on the warm pot-pourri scented air in such a hypnotic way that Mary felt her lids slide heavily over her eyes and had to sit up to keep herself alert.

  Across the room Davida was ensconces on a broad yellow satin upholstered sofa. She was wearing a spreading gown of blonde georgette trimmed with lace which she had arranged carefully so that the bulge of her belly could clearly be seen, and so that her high, now very plump, breasts were equally apparent. Mary stared at her, and remembered how she had been about her own pregnancy, how carefully she had chosen clothes that would disguise rather than accentuate her condition, how prudently she had sat so that no one would notice she was increasing. She had done so out of an innate shyness, and though she knew that Davida was anything but shy, she would have expected her to be equally as circumspect out of simple vanity. Surely, she had thought, Davida cares too much for her appearance to want to look bloated and ugly?

  But of course she didn’t look bloated and ugly the way some other pregnant women did. She looked, as ever, enchanting, like a peach at the peak of its ripeness, all roundness and bloom; and also Mary realized, looking away for a moment, very sexual. She sat there displaying the fact that she was loved, that she had been the object of a man’s passion, in a way that seemed to Mary positively blatant. Since very woman in the room with her was married, and many of them had children, they too were as sexually experienced as young Mrs Albert Lammeck, but somehow Davida was the one who exuded an air of sensuality while they looked merely married.

  Mary stared at them, the score or so women who had been called here to ‘talk seriously about the problem and tried to feel at one with them. They were her people, after all; some of them actually her family. Not only Davida Lammeck but Susan Lammeck, Ezra’s wife, and Margaret, who was married to Alfred, had come, though Margaret hardly ever went anywhere apart from visits to her own mother and sisters, a particularly clannish section of the Goldsmith family. Probably Margaret had come because she had brought two of her sisters with her. There were a couple of Montefiores and several Damonts and a sprinkling of Cohens and Rothschilds. The cream of London Jewish society was in the drawing room of the Mount Street house of the Albert Lammecks, and Mary, for all she was as well connected as any of them, felt like an outsider. But then, since last December when her baby had died, she had felt an outsider to every aspect of living. It was nothing new.

  The footman removed the tea things, wheeling away Davida’s trolley with its massive silver tea pots and creamers and sugar basins, and as the door closed behind the last of the servants Davida clapped her hands for silence.

  ‘My dears,’ she said. ‘We really must start business, mustn’t we? We haven’t too much time and if we don’t get this organized properly the men will be most scathing - and we don’t want that!’ She laughed a silvery little laugh and one or two of them joined in those with husbands who needed to be on good terms with Albert Lammeck - and settled themselves into a listening posture.

  There was no doubt who was in control. Davida’s voice went on and on, telling this one that she would make a superb secretary, and that one that she would be so grateful if she would take on the onerous task of treasurer, though of course it need not be too difficult for dear Albert had promised the loan of one of the clerks from Lammeck Alley for the tiresome bits, and perhaps darling Ann would be responsible for the selection of suitable stationary, while Davida herself would take on the heavy burden of the chairmanship, for she wanted above all to do her duty.

  Mary let her mind wander, thinking about Fay, She usually did think about Fay wherever she had the chance, imagining her in her house in Croydon, seeing her sitting over her dinner table with Richard, visualizing her busy about her daily chores, and that comforted her.

  Fay had written her three letters in the early weeks of her marriage, each one more lyrical that the last. Reading them had given Mary enormous pleasure and satisfaction. To know that she had, by her own action, created that happiness for someone she loved was balm to a painful wound. They could be as overwhelming as they liked, as impatient and successful and capable as they wanted, these Lammeck relations of hers; she, Mary, ordinary quiet Mary who couldn’t give her husband a child, was able to give happiness to someone.


  But sadly, there could be no more letters to receive. She had seen Emmanuel’s face one morning when one of Fay’s letters had arrived, and she had read suspicion on it. If they discovered she was in correspondence with Fay, now officially dead in her family’s eyes, the uproar would be immense. Too much for Mary to tolerate, she knew; so, unhappily she had sent a letter to Fay begging her to write no more.

  ‘For', she had written in her neat childlike script, ‘I am not as strong as I would wish to be, my dear one, and if they discover that I know your whereabouts and choose to torment me and forbid me to care for you I fear I will not be able to prevent myself from giving into them. I was strong enough to manage when you first went away, but that was because it was for a short time. But if they were to persist at me, I truly don’t know what would happen, for you know and I am a useless creature. So, it would be better if you do not write again, though I will miss your letters sadly.’

  But never mind, she thought now, staring dreamily at the yellow satin curtains that swathed the drawing room windows and kept out the humid July air; never mind, Fay is happy, and I know that I am part of it. That is what matters. Secretly, Mary carried those letters with her. They gave her security and comfort.

  ‘… and Mary I am sure will also make it her business to check the applications most carefully, won’t you, Mary?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Davida was looking at her, her face pinched with irritation as Mary stared at her in puzzlement.

  ‘My dear, have you not been listening?’ Davida said. Her silvery laugh had a sharper note in it now. ‘We have decided that the Daughters of Sarah shall have a settlement house, and that you shall go and find the best place for it - in the East End you know.’

  ‘I? Go to the East End?’ Mary said alarmed. ‘And what do you mean, the Daughters of Sarah?’

  ‘Really, Mary, you`re being tiresome!’ Davida snapped and then went a little pink as she caught Margaret’s rather fishlike stare. ‘I know it’s a warm day, but dear one, you really must concentrate, I'm finding is difficult too, I do assure you.’ She fanned herself gently, and dropped her shoulders, this displaying her own condition, her own patience, and her own immense efforts or others in one comprehensive gesture.

  ‘The ladies' branch of the Society for the Relief of Indigent Jews is to be called the Daughters of Sarah, Mary, and it has been decided that you shall have the task of searching for the right house for us to use as a Settlement,’ Susan said and smiled at Davida a little maliciously. ‘Like Davida, I'm not able to perform the task - it’s early days for me, of course, but still, one cannot be too careful, can one?’

  ‘Oh, my dear, when?’ one of the goldsmith girls cooed at her. Susan, with a sharp little look at Davida who was clearly put out at having the limelight taken from her, said smoothly, "December, please God. In time for Chanucah - ’

  ‘So, Mary will you go? if you start at Aldgate, Albert said, you'll find plenty of possible places. He says he'll send someone from the office to help you. Indeed, he said the clerk could do it all, but was most insistent that one of the committee should be in charge. It wouldn’t do to leave it all to servants. One wishes to perform one’s task properly, don’t you agree?’

  ‘What sort of building?’ Mary said wretchedly. ‘I mean - what will it be used for?’

  'Off, offices, you know, and so forth,’ Davida said airily. ‘Somewhere we can see the applicants and make sure they're entitled to benefits, you know, and perhaps some rooms where those who are about to leave can stay the night. Albert was very definite about that. He said the main purpose of any organization we girls ran was to encourage them to go back, and that those we agree to give money to for that purpose should be properly supervised. So I said, I thought if we have lodgings they could stay in the night before they left, they’d have to come to them to get their tickets, you see, and then we could be sure they went on the ships, and didn’t just sell the tickets. Albert said that’s the sort of thing these people do.’

  Mary was all attention now, sitting up straight. ‘I thought this meeting was about a relief committee? I mean, you said, when you told me of it, that the men’s Society wanted us to run the relief side.’

  ‘Well, so we shall, my dear! That is precisely what all this is about!’

  ‘But tickets to go back. That isn’t relief, is it?’

  Davida shook her head impatiently. ‘You really don’t understand, do you? Albert explained it all to me, and I am sure Emmanuel would tell you the same, if you were to just listen to him. These are aliens who are coming in.’

  ‘Jews,’ Mary said. ‘Jews. Like us.’

  ‘Of course, dear. Why else are we concerned. Alien Jews. They can’t find proper work here, and they live in dreadful hovels and work in the most awful sweatshops. Albert went with the men’s Society, they said they must see for themselves. And he told me it really is dreadful. They work for such terrible masters who pay them to little and make them work all day and half the night and in such disgusting places they can’t be thought of, and it is all quite dreadful. So, you see, they must be helped.’

  ‘But how is it helping them to give them lodgings in a Settlement and tickets' Mary said stubbornly. Wouldn’t it be better to help them get better houses to live in and to make the masters change the way they work?’

  ‘Really, Mary, you're being very foolish? I’ve told you - the men have talked about it all and they’ve decided that what they need is a relief organization. They're doing all the other things - about houses and workshops and so on.’ She waved her hand in a vaguely comprehensive gesture. ‘And they want us to apply direct relief. Now, we’ve been through all this, haven’t we ladies?’

  There was a soft murmur of assent from the other women.

  ‘And we’ve decided that we must have a settlement House and that someone has to go and seek it out. I can’t go - and of course Susan can’t.’ She managed to a thin smile at her other sister-in-law. ‘Everyone else has been given a task, and that leaves just you. Of course, if you don’t want to, we must make other arrangements.’

  ‘Oh, of course, it isn’t that I don’t want to.’ Mary was losing her grasp of it all, and was becoming anxious to escape as anyone else. ‘It’s just that I'm not quite sure I understand. But still … ’

  ‘Then you' do it. Good.’ Davida leaned back on her sofa and fanned herself again. ‘I'm sure Emmanuel will explain any more you need to know. So girls! That’s the end, then? We’ve settled everything the men will be so pleased with us! I'm sure I am. I think the Daughters of Sarah will be a great success.’ She yawned delicately and contrived to look weary and they surged to their feet in a greater than ever rustle of silk and kissed her and chattered at her and each other as they made their way down the stairs and on to home, or dressmakers' appointment or visits to the milliner. The Daughters of Sarah had been convened and had made decisions, and they felt the satisfaction of a job attempted and a job performed.

  Mary felt no satisfaction at all. She had spent three days rattling around the streets of Whitechapel in the carriage her husband and brothers-in-law had sent fro Lammeck Alley for her use. (’don’t use ours, for heaven’s sake!’ Emmanuel had said when she had told him what she planned to do. ‘Those people'll wreck it! I'll send a hired one, with young Levy. He'll look after you. You need somewhere that is well into the quarter, but not too cut off. We don’t want you girls having to deal with any problems - look around near the police stations. I'll tell Levy, anyway. He'll know what to do.’) Now she was exhausted.

  At first she had been horrified. That there should be streets and alleys like these in the same city as the one in which she had lived all her life was amazing. Her childhood had been spent in far from the rich surroundings she now enjoyed, for her family, though respectable (like the Damonts the Deyongs had come to England from Holland, a very long time ago) had been of limited means, but she had never seen such poverty as this.

  The streets were narrow and dirty, the gutters laden with g
arbage and the pavements slippery and greasy underfoot. The houses that were huddled so close together seemed to be filled to overflowing, for in street after street she saw hordes of children - ill dressed though tolerably well fed from their appearance - who obviously all managed to cram into these tiny dwellings. Outside the doors groups of women in black stuff dresses, their heads often covered in shawls despite the warmth of the weather, gossiped and squabbled and stared at her carriage as it went by, making her want to shrink back out of sight. There was in their boot-black eyes in their pinched faces a despair that filled her with shame for her own comfort, for her neatly shod feed in their kid shoes, of her fine gown in cool silk, of her beringed fingers. In her own circle Mary was thought to dress quietly, even dowdily. But here she felt insulting overdressed.

  They found their building at last. She had given up searching for a place near a police station, for there was none suitable, and young Levy, a taciturn youth who clearly regarded this expedition with distaste and impatience, suggested she choose somewhere busy.

  ‘There won’t be any trouble with these people, anyway,’ he said, looking out of the carriage window. ‘They're too cowed to do anything but b a burden to everyone - no spirit in ‘em at all.’

  Mary said noting, uneasy though she was about his scorn. Wasn’t he a Jew too, like herself, like these very people he found so unpleasant? Did he not feel the shocked pity that filled her? Probably not; Mary had long since discovered that no one else seemed to behave or feel as she would expect them to. Her opinion of herself continued to sink.

  In the end she settled on a tall brown fronted house in Hanbury Street, in Spitalfields, near the junction with Brick Lane. It wasn’t ideal, but it was available for rent on a long lease, and she was wearying rapidly. There was just so much misery that could be observed, just so much pity to be felt, and she had reached the end of her store of both when she told Levy with more authority than she usually displayed that this was to be the Settlement.