The Liberation of Celia Kahn

by J David Simons

  “Papa, you are tired. Please go to bed.”

  There was a time when she would have gone to stand beside him, let him stroke her hair until he settled. “My love,” he would have said. “My little love.” But instead, she rose wearily from her chair, pulled back the curtains to her cot in the kitchen, slipped into bed. She turned towards the wall as she heard the shot-glass being re-filled.

  Two

  MADAME KAHN WAS KNITTING like there was no tomorrow. It was something she had become expert at since her stay in the camps. After all, it had been the only distraction available to her. To manufacture mounds of useless garments while complaining in German to the rhythm of her task. Eins, zwei, drei. Klick, klick, klick. Celia watched her mother now as the needles flashed with such alacrity she wouldn’t have been surprised to see them glow white with friction and the wool burst into flames. ‘Like no tomorrow.’ That phrase was something else her mother had learned in the camp. Everything was ‘like no tomorrow’ now. She cooked like there was no tomorrow, she ate like there was no tomorrow, she knitted like there was no tomorrow, she prayed like there was no tomorrow. Compared to her mother, Celia knitted like there were whole lifetimes of tomorrows. Which was what she was doing now in front of the kitchen fireplace, her mother sitting in the rocker while she crouched on a stool, with just the clicking of the needles for company, the occasional thought voiced as conversation.

  “Soon it will be time to search the house,” her mother said. “I have put out the pieces of bread for you to find.”

  “Yes, Mama. I will do it.”

  “I remember when you were children. When your father was in good health. How he hid the bread for you and Nathan in all the different corners of the rooms. And you two kinder went looking with a candle. It was like a treasure hunt.”

  “My favourite part of Passover.”

  “Ach, how times change.” Eins, zwei, drei. Klick, klick, klick. “And that floral dress I made at the shop for that customer who did not pay. That should fit you.”

  “Yes, I suppose it would. It will be nice for when the summer comes.”

  “And you need to find yourself some friends. Also for when the summer comes.”

  “I have friends.”

  “Boys of your own age?”

  “I know boys of my own age.”

  “Who do you know?”

  “I know Solly Green.”

  “Solly is Avram’s friend. Anyway he is a bookmaker’s son.”

  “What is wrong with that?”

  Madame Kahn shrugged. Klick, klick, klick.

  “What is wrong with being a bookmaker’s son, mother?”

  “Nothing is wrong. I just think it may soon be time.”

  “Time for what?”

  “To speak to Mrs Solomon.”

  “Mrs Solomon? The matchmaker?”

  “Yes. The shadchen.”

  “Mother, I am only sixteen.”

  “You are nearly seventeen. And time passes quickly. You are very beautiful, my child. A good catch for some rich man. Not some bookmaker. But we must act quickly. Beauty fades. Like there is no tomorrow.”

  “I don’t want a rich man.” Celia noticed her mother’s knitting speed had increased to a frantic blur.

  “Want is not what we talk about here. Need is what we talk about. Your father is still not better. Nathan is… I don’t know what has happened to that boy. Avram will send us a little gelt from the Highlands. Me, I work my fingers into bones here and at the shop. But it is not enough. Times are hard for us. We are poor.”

  “Have you been to the backlands, Mama? Have you seen the children living under sacks in the coalsheds? Whole families squashed into one room and kitchen? Dead bodies rotting in beds because there is no money to pay for a funeral. We are not poor. You do not know what it means to be poor.”

  “I know what it means to be locked up,” Madame Kahn said, rocking more calmly in her chair. “Anyway. Better you find a husband than talking all this Kommunist nonsense.”

  “I am going to look for the bread.”

  “First you should go see your father. What kind of daughter never puts her head round a door?”

  “He doesn’t ask for me.”

  “Listen to me, Celia. Life is hard for your father. He has lost his faith in many things. In God, in this country, in his health. About all these things, he is angry. And perhaps he takes this anger out on someone he loves. A relationship between father and daughter can be very complicated.”

  “Is that what happened to you, Mama?”

  “Just go see him.”

  Uncle Mendel came home for Passover. “Where is my favourite niece?” he asked, bursting into the kitchen, red-faced, open-armed.

  Celia rushed into his grasp, felt the roughness of his beard against her cheeks, his body hot as always, like a perpetual furnace feeding off its fuel of chicken fat, black bread and schnapps. His large hands, fingers as thick as German vursht, patted her shoulders while she inhaled the smell of grass or hay or some other rustic aroma from his dusty jacket. She knew he would be looking over her head at her mother, busy creating the apple, walnut and cinnamon paste for the Seder plate.

  “Ah, Martha,” Uncle Mendel sighed. “Your famous charoses. The most bitter herbs it makes taste sweet.”

  “Don’t try to sweeten me with your schmaltz,” Madame Kahn said, without looking up from her task.

  “Come, Martha. Your brother a welcome you can give. Then all about this terrible camp you can tell me.” He almost danced over to her, held her by the shoulders. “And so slim you look. Like a young bride.”

  Madame Kahn wiped her hands on her apron, adjusted her headscarf, allowed her brother to kiss her on both cheeks. “You stink,” she proclaimed. “You cannot sit down at the Seder like this. Away upstairs and have a bath. Gey, gey, gey. Celia will heat some water for you.”

  A couple of hours later, Uncle Mendel sat down beside her at the Seder gathering, groomed, sweating and gleaming in his bright white shirt. Her father slouched on cushions at the head of the table while her mother manned her customary position at the opposite end with easy access to the range. On the other side of the table sat Avram and the one invited guest – Mrs Carnovsky – the wizened, chain-smoking, tea-leaf reading, old widow from across the close. Nathan remained in bed, oblivious to this re-enactment of his forefathers’ bondage and escape from Egypt taking place around the kitchen table.

  Against her mother’s wishes, Papa Kahn insisted on leading the service as was the custom for the man of the house. Male hands were washed, the ancient story re-told, questions asked, matzoh broken, eaten or hidden, plagues recounted, the four glasses of wine drunk. Meaning pervaded everything. This was what she had learned since she was old enough to remember. The bitter herbs served to evoke life under the Egyptian lash, the salt water brought back the tears, the charoses sweetened the blows, the shank bone of the lamb reminded everyone of the sacrifice. And the boiled egg?

  “The boiled egg is a symbol of the harsh suffering,” Papa Kahn explained.

  “Yes, yes,” said his compatriot Mrs Carnovsky. “In Russia, the boiled egg means to suffer.”

  “Nein, nein, nein,” Uncle Mendel countered with a Germanic finger raised to the heavens. “The importance is in the roundness of the egg. The circle of life it represents.”

  “Mendel is right,” her mother added. “The egg is the circle of life.”

  “Feh, feh, feh, to such a thing,” Mrs Carnovsky said, dry-spitting into some imaginary spittoon by her side. “What kind of meshugge idea is this.”

  “Now, now,” Papa Kahn said kindly to his guest. “We are just having a little fun here.”

  “Fun?” Mrs Carnovsky spoke as if the concept were totally alien to her. “How can we make fun of suffering?”

  “Of suffering we do not make fun,” said Uncle Mendel. “But in the face of the circle of life and death, we are laughing.” He picked up the egg. “Ha, ha, ha.”

  “Feh, feh, feh,” was Mrs Carnovs
ky’s reply.

  And with the debate over the egg concluded, dinner was eaten in such large quantities as to confirm Madame Kahn’s assertion that there was no tomorrow. Then more glasses of wine were drunk followed by the boisterous singing of the many time-worn melodies. Celia felt herself giddy from the sweet alcohol, regretted wearing one of these new-fangled girdles that was surely impeding the path of the chicken, potatoes, kneidlech and matzoh through her digestive tract. If she could only unfetter herself in the same way her uncle had done in the loosening of his collar and belt, the release of his belly.

  “So, so, so, Mendel,” Papa Kahn muttered. “Soon Avram will join you. Do you think he will make a good credit draper?”

  “Just fine the lad will do,” Uncle Mendel replied, patting his stomach as if it were an old friend. “A good head for figures you have, boychik?”

  “I love numbers,” Avram said. “I was nearly top for arithmetic.”

  “Then a good businessman you will make. And a bicycle you can ride?”

  “I never had a bicycle.”

  “And how will you go from village to village, croft to croft with your samples? I will see what I can do. But tell me, brother-in-law, of Russia what news do you have?”

  “The war goes badly for them,” Papa Kahn said. “Armies in retreat. No weapons, no supplies.”

  “Ah, this will make the Tsar very nervous. With this stupid war, his people he wanted to unite. Now against him they will turn. A revolution there will be. Mark my words. A revolution.”

  “I agree,” Mrs Carnovsky added in a rare moment of concordance with anyone. “That is what my brother writes from Saint Petersburg. Or Petrograd. Whatever they call it these days. Revolution. It is in the air, it is on the lips. He says all is one big mess. The peasants come to the city to work in the factories for the war effort. But there are no places for them to stay, no food. People line up for days just for a crumb of bread. And there are no weapons for the soldiers. They are sent to the Front without guns. And everyone blames the Tsar. For the war, for the famine, for the lack of weapons, for the weather that destroys the crops. They hate him. Feh! Feh!” And again she sought out her invisible spittoon.

  Celia regarded Mrs Carnovsky’s outburst with admiration. As did everyone else for an unusual quiet settled over the table. Until Uncle Mendel leaned across to her father and asked: “Tell me, my friend. If there is a socialist revolution, you will return to Russia?”

  “Hah!” Papa Kahn exclaimed. “Hah! Return to Russia? You must be sick in the head, Mendel. A screw loose. You think a socialist revolution will be good for the Jews? You think a country can stop being anti-Semitic overnight?”

  “I think it will be good for the Jewish socialists.”

  “Why do you say that, uncle?” Celia asked.

  “See, my young niece has an interest in revolution.” His eyes shone at her as he answered: “If you are a socialist first and a Jew second, a new Russia could be a good place.”

  “Stop it, Mendel.” Papa Kahn banged his fist on the table. A knife fell to the floor. “Stop filling her head with such ideas.”

  “Papa,” Madame Kahn said firmly. “Calm yourself. It is not good to shout like this. Not good for your heart.”

  He ignored the admonition. “I will tell you something, daughter. I will tell you about this talk of socialist revolution in Russia. Some people here say it is we Jews in Europe who fuel it, who fund the unrest. That it is part of some Jewish master plan to dominate the world. Keep your head down. You know what I always say. The Jews should always stay low. Especially when…?”

  “…when the Cossacks ride into town.”

  “Exactly, daughter. Now stay away from this Russia and its revolutions. I forbid such talk in this household.”

  “Papa,” Madame Kahn snapped. “Listen to what I say. Genug. Finish.”

  “Yes, yes, yes, my friends,” he said weakly, his skin pale like parchment, neither the wine nor his anger succeeding in making bloody inroads into his cheeks. “I am sorry. Let us sing the evening’s final verses.”

  So together they sang the song of how God killed the Angel of Death who slew the slaughterer who slit the throat of an ox that drank the water that put out the fire that burned the stick that beat the dog that bit the cat that ate the little goat that someone’s father bought for two coins of silver. For two coins of silver. For two coins of silver.

  Celia helped her mother clear the table, bundle up the many pots and dishes into an old tablecloth to avoid tempting the rats. It could all be washed in the morning. Then she laid down in her cot weary in her bones but her mind tipsy with the thoughts of plagues, Elijah’s return, slaughtered goats, the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. She felt happy. In a rare, wrapped-up warm under the blankets kind of way. The presence of her family, the rituals, the songs, the traditional food, the wine, all providing her with a few moments of structure and comfort in a world growing increasingly hostile and confusing to her. Out in the hall, Mrs Carnovsky sharing her gold-tipped cigarettes of Balkan tobacco with her mother and Uncle Mendel. It was the only time she ever knew her mother to smoke, on these rare occasions after a few glasses of sweet wine. She heard the front door open and close, the exchange of wishes for a ‘Happy Festival’, and Mrs Carnovsky would be back in her flat to dry-spit a few more curses at her enemies, perhaps to read the leaves on the cup of a late night beverage. That left her mother with Uncle Mendel still talking in the hallway, the lingering dark-chocolate aroma of the tobacco, their mumbled conversation soothing her into sleep through the half-open door. Until she heard her mother’s raised voice:

  “…don’t understand you. Always with the betting. And always with the losing, losing, losing. And always with me paying off your debts.”

  “I won’t let it happen again. This is the last time. I swear it.”

  “How many times have you made that promise? Well, it’s too late to make promises. Because I don’t have the gelt, Mendel. I don’t have it. I don’t have enough even to pay next month’s rent.”

  “Don’t worry. It will be fine.”

  “Fine? All I know is that these two thugs, these two betsemer, will be back here for their money. And we have nothing to give them. They will harm you, Mendel. They will harm you for this. You have gone too far this time.”

  “Go to bed now, sister. You are tired. I will take care of this. Don’t worry. I will take care of this. Of these things, I always take care.”

  “I am frightened, Mendel. They will kill you. Like the slaughterer killed that poor little goat.”

  “It was the cat that killed the goat.”

  “Well, this time it will be those dogs.”

  Three

  HER MOTHER LOVED SOOR PLOOMS. Those sticky, lime-coloured balls with their tangy, fruity flavour. Even when Madame Kahn was in the camp, Celia would send her a care package every week stocked with her favourite confectionery. Now that Passover was finished, Celia was back at Glickman’s sweet shop in London Road to pick up her mother’s supply. She pushed at the front door but it would not open. It was only when she looked through the glass did she realise that her entrance had been impeded by the bent-down rump of a rather large woman.

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ Celia said, once she had managed to squeeze into the shop. Despite her apology, she expected a rebuke from this, now straightened, stern-looking customer. But instead the woman declared:

  “I just don’t know what to have. I absolutely love them all. So many choices. Dolly Mixtures, Ginger Creams, Macaroon Cake, Lucky Tatties.” The dour features on her square face dissolved into a smile that displayed her sugar-besieged dentistry. “What do you think? You look like a young lass of taste and integrity.”

  Celia wasn’t used to this kind of directness. For Glasgow Jews didn’t behave in such a manner. They were certainly amicable enough within their own tribe. But when it came to dealing with the Christian world around them, they suffered a lack of confidence, an aversion to standing out from the crowd. Yet she
found herself flattered by the openness of this Gentile attention, gave the question serious deliberation.

  “I prefer the boiled sweets,” she said eventually. “The Soor Plooms.”

  “And why is that?”

  “They last longer.”

  “Och, that’s a very practical answer. But it’s not practical I’m after. I was merely thinking of indulging my sweet tooth.”

  “I just like the feeling in my mouth as the sweet gets smaller and smaller,” she found herself insisting, wondering which of this woman’s rotten teeth was the sweet one. “And that tangy taste. Until it disappears altogether.”

  “So you are not only practical. But willing to offer your opinions too. An interesting combination. Well then, I’ll add some Soor Plooms to today’s mix.” She held out her hand. “Miss Agnes Calder. You may call me Agnes.”

  The woman’s grip was firm, squashing up all her fingers as she gave her own name.

  “Well, Celia Kahn. How is it that we have never met before? I teach at that primary school across the road there. I am here almost every day. It’s either these sweets or the tobacco that will get me in the end.” But given the woman’s hacking cough, Celia reckoned it would be a bit of both. “Now tell me, where are you from?”

  “The Gorbals.”

  “Where exactly?

  “Thistle Street.”

  “I see. So you and your family are not affected by these awful rent increases.”

  “We don’t live near the shipyards.”

  “I was not asking a question. Merely making a statement.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Well, you may not be directly affected. But these increases involve us all. Greedy landlords exploiting the demand for property around the shipyards by hiking up the rents. Trying to evict poor working-class families for non-payment while the husband is away fighting. It’s up to the women to protest this… this tyranny. Is that not right, Celia?”