After the Mourning

by Barbara Nadel

  I took one of her hands in mine. ‘Well, that’s about the best thing anyone can hope for. So I suppose . . .’

  ‘Yes, but what else is there?’ Beauty asked. ‘There must be something.’

  I heard some noises behind my back, but I didn’t take any more notice of them than I did of the chatter and clatter around the Gypsies’ food and drink. Sergeant Hill was still chewing rabbit pie (probably not alone in wondering where the poor beast had come from), Doris was listening quietly to one of the Gypsy girls telling her about her life, and people were pouring beer, smoking and talking of anything other than the dead, as is the Gypsy way.

  ‘I’d like to see my friend Hannah – Miss Jacobs,’ I said, after a while, ‘but I expect she’s still answering questions from the police. I’ll see her in a bit, I’m sure.’

  I had asked Berger to tell Hannah to come and see me and I was sure that at some point she would. In the meantime there was nothing more I could do.

  ‘I’m sure you will too,’ Beauty replied. Then she looked behind me and said, ‘’Zekiel?’

  Following her gaze I found myself staring into the face of a tiny, wrinkled old man. He wore a red tailcoat and top hat like a circus ringmaster and he was standing in front of a booth like the one I’d seen in Lily’s tent, with the Head, Martin Stojka. For a moment I gazed at Beauty, horrified. But strangely, to me, the girl smiled.

  ‘Mr Ezekiel Gaskin of Matching Green, in Essex, is a magician and a maker of illusions,’ she said. ‘But this, Mr Hancock, is real.’

  The little man stood in front of the booth and waved his arms. When he moved away I saw Hannah’s head floating on the table. I heard my mother say, ‘Oh, my goodness, how very clever!’ But I was speechless.

  Hannah saw me, smiled and said, ‘You know, H, that Mr Gaskin can walk in front of this table just like that Arab bloke Davy Green once saw.’

  And to prove that this was so, Ezekiel Gaskin walked in front of the table. Try as I might I couldn’t see a reflection of anything underneath Hannah’s floating head.

  ‘Bloody . . .’

  ‘So, do you think we should tell David Green about this or not?’ Hannah said.

  Epilogue

  Sergeant Hill doesn’t talk about the Fourth Nail to anyone except me, and then not often.

  ‘I do take it out and look at it occasionally,’ he said, a little while ago. But he didn’t say whether he did it at the station or at his home. And I didn’t ask. I have Hannah back; my mother, sisters and even Stella are managing. Doris copes. Ernie Sutton has now learned his lesson and has become genuinely fond of my Jewish girl. I don’t need to know much more.

  The sergeant, I’ve known for years, lives with his mother on Tredegar Road, Bow. I’m not often up that way, but last night, after the bombing, I found myself there, among tall old houses all blacked out and silent. I couldn’t’ve told which one was Sergeant Hill’s had my life depended on it. I wasn’t even thinking of him as I began to recover from my latest terrified run. I was going home until something caught my attention. It was a light and it was in a ground-floor window of one of the houses. I looked around for a warden, as you do. But then I saw what the light was and I just watched it until the blackout curtain was pulled to shut me out, and presumably the rest of the world.

  Sergeant Hill and his mother, Irene, were sitting in a darkened room. On the table between them lay something light and bright that I had last seen in the hands of Martin Stojka. Once more, the Fourth Nail was glowing brightly.

  Author’s Notes

  Romanies (Gypsies)

  About a thousand years ago, those people commonly known as Gypsies began their long wandering journey from their place of origin in northern India to the Middle East, Europe and beyond. Their proper name of Romany was unknown in the lands through which they travelled and, due to the different way they looked and behaved, people in Europe called them Egyptians or Gypsies. They were not always welcomed or understood and many of the legends that surrounded them were sinister in character. Gypsies, it was said, had forged the nails that had been used to crucify Jesus. Over the centuries they were classed as sorcerers, witches, criminals and agents of the Ottoman Empire. They were frequently persecuted and sometimes put to death. However it wasn’t until Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933 that a nation took systematic action against the Romany travellers.

  Romanies do not call what happened to their people in places like Dachau a holocaust, it is called the Porrajmos – the devouring. Designated asocials by Hitler, the Romanies were worked to death, experimented upon by Josef Mengele, beaten, shot, gassed and, in some cases, even buried alive. Because of the shifting nature of their existence, no one really knows how many Romanies died in Hitler’s death camps. Estimates range from between a quarter of a million people to one and a half million souls. The memory of the Porrajmos haunts the Romany people still and in this book I have turned an old legend about them around in order to explore their courage and resilience as well as the suffering they endured during the Second World War.

  The language used by Romanies across the world is an Indo-Aryan tongue that has its roots in Punjabi and Hindi. There are many spoken dialects, three of which are to be found in Europe: Dom, spoken by the Domari in central and eastern Europe; Lom, by the Lomarvren of central Europe; and Rom spoken by the Romani of Western Europe. However these dialects do share many similarities and so my Romany characters, who come from western and eastern Europe, understand each other’s dialects and customs. This may not always be so, but I have used this device in order to facilitate the reader’s understanding and, I hope, enjoyment of the book.

  East End Anti-Fascism and The Battle of Cable Street

  Sunday 4 October 1934

  In the 1930s a British politician and aristocrat called Baronet Oswald Mosley (1896–1980) rose to prominence as the leader of a party called the British Union of Fascists. Otherwise known as the Blackshirts, these people modelled themselves on Hitler’s followers and were violent anti-Semites who took great delight in terrorising the poor Jewish population of the East End. And although when caught the perpetrators of these acts were punished, when Mosley wanted to march his Blackshirts through the East End in what he assured the authorities would be a peaceful way, he was given permission to do so. Local Jewish and Communist organisations had other ideas and when the marchers reached the mainly Jewish road called Cable Street in Stepney, they fought to keep the Fascists out. So violent was the struggle that the Commissioner of Police was eventually forced to curtail Mosley’s march and that night a great victory over Fascism was celebrated in pubs all over the East End. But many, many people did march with Mosley on that day and I have often wondered where they went after the defeat of Cable Street. This book, though fictional, addresses that question.

  The Disembodied Head Illusion

  What is referred to in the novel as the ‘Head’ or ‘Egyptian Head’ illusion is based upon a trick that was first performed by the English magician Colonel Stodare in London in 1865. This trick, which was called the ‘Sphinx’, involved the apparently sentient disembodied head of an ancient Egyptian man appearing on the top of a table. It could move its eyes and speak and at the end of the act, when Stodare covered it up with a box, the Sphinx disappeared leaving behind it only a small pile of ashes. How was it done?

  First take one four-legged, round-topped table and remove one leg. Position the table so that one of the remaining legs points straight out towards the audience, with the other legs at equal distances to either side. Then fix two mirrors from the front leg to those at either side at 90-degree angles. The mirrors must be clean and must be constructed to cover the whole distance between the bottom of the table and the floor. Behind the mirrors, cut a hole in the table top through which the head may appear and then surround the table on three sides with a booth and/or curtains which are reflected into the mirrors. Then place the performer under the table until the audience is distracted from the set by a puff of smoke or other
misdirectional device, whereupon his or her head pushes through the hole in the top of the table. The mirrors reflecting the curtains at the side of the set create the illusion that the audience is looking underneath the table and the head to the curtains at the rear. However, the magician performing this trick must be careful where he or she stands in relation to the set lest his legs or other body parts reflect in the mirrors and give the trick away. Simple!

  On the other hand, how this trick may be done where the magician, and sometimes the audience too, walks around the head, I do not know. My mother saw such an illusion back in the 1950s and is still baffled by it to this day. But then maybe that particular trick was not an illusion at all. Maybe that really was magic.

  Barbara Nadel

  Glossary

  Ackers slang for money, from the Egyptian akka (money)

  ’Atchin ’tan Romani – stopping-place

  Av Romani – come

  Ball of chalk rhyming slang for walk

  Bonkers slang – mad, crazy

  Butchers rhyming slang, ‘butchers hook’ – look

  Chavies Romani – children

  Crackers slang – mad, crazy

  Diddikai Romani – someone with half Romany, half gaujo blood

  Dinilo Romani – stupid, foolish

  Dordi Romani – dear (Oh, dordi! = Oh dear!)

  Drabalo Romani – doctor

  Drom Romani – road

  Friar’s balsam an aromatic inhalation to relieve respiratory diseases and infections

  Gaff slang – home

  Gas mantle replaceable element of a gas lamp

  Gaujo Romani – a non-Romany (plural gauje)

  Ha’porth slang – silly person; also meaning a ‘halfpenny’s worth’

  Jock slang – Scotsman

  Kate rhyming slang, Kate Karney – army. Kate Karney was a nineteenth-century music-hall star from Canning Town

  Lelled Romani – arrested

  Lingo slang – language

  Marimè Romani – contamination by the dead

  Meshuggeneh Yiddish – a crazy person

  Muló Romani – spirit of the dead

  Mullo Romani – death

  Muskero Romani – police

  Mutt and Jeff Rhyming slang – deaf

  Pinny apron (pinafore)

  Pomana Romani – meal to mark the passing of the dead

  Rais Romani – gentleman

  Romanipe Romani – the Romany way (of life)

  Schtum Yiddish – quiet

  Sit shiva Yiddish – Orthodox Jewish seven-day mourning period

  Tan Romani – tent

  Tom slang – prostitute

  Tosh slang – rubbish

  Two and eight rhyming slang – state

  Va Romani – yes