Ishmael's Oranges (15 page)

Well, I did go at last, but I tell you that Etka haunted me anyway. I made her promise to keep the second ticket and come on the next boat. Of course we both knew that Etka would die in that room, but what could we say? When we made our goodbyes she was just as impatient as ever. The last thing she said to me was ‘Hurry up and go, girl.' I walked down to the docks to find my ship with Papa's menorah, one rouble and some clothes. That's all I had left, after so many long miles.

The boat operator was called Det Forenede Dampskibs-Selskab. I looked at the ticket so many times I will remember the words forever. It was big as a monster and it stank of sick cows. I walked onto it like a sleepwalker, without any feeling at all in my heart. Today they say it's the way we keep away the things we can't bear to feel. If so, I'm grateful for that gift.

The person who sold Etka the tickets must have been a rich man when he finished, because every Jew in Europe was on that boat. If we'd been cows, we'd have kicked each other to death before we were halfway across. As it launched I felt everything was slipping away from me – my family, my home, my care for the future.

That was my darkest time, Judit. But then something happened that saved my life. Standing right next to me on that deck was a boy the same age as me, and his brother with him. They saw I was alone and they reached out their hands to me. We spent four days on the water together, listening to the vomiting and the prayers. If you ever talk to someone – really talk to them – for only one hour you will find out most of the truth of them. So just imagine, we talked and listened for four whole days and nights. I started that journey as alone as it was possible for a human being to be. But by the time it ended I had met the man who would be your grandpa.

Had there been just one body between us on that journey, we would not have met, and all the things that flowed from that meeting would not have been. God did that for me, so I can almost forgive Him the rest.

When we docked I had to be told where we were. The port was Hull – of course I had never heard of it. Your grandpa had family in Newcastle and said we could go together there, and marry. He would set up a shop selling buttons, and I had learned enough about sewing from Papa to help us get by. Standing on that dock I had something like a waking dream, of the roses and pine trees in Kishinev under a blue sky. I could smell the flowers, as if they were right there on my filthy skin.

Your grandpa had family on the Jewish Board of Guardians, and when we arrived in Newcastle they came to meet us at the station. They were so happy to see him and ready to welcome me too as his betrothed. It was my last day of being sixteen, but I could not bring myself to tell anyone. It still felt sinful to celebrate life, when Etka, Mama, Papa and Moshe were all dead.

What to say next, my Judit? I married your grandpa and we were happy together, as much as two people can be. We opened our little shop in Sunderland and this place became my home. We changed our names and spoke English not Yiddish, and taught our children only the ways of the country of their birth, not the countries of their history. We shed those old lives like a caterpillar's skin, because they were no use to us any more.

Your Uncle Max came, named after Moshe. Then your papa and Uncle Alex. For some years I dreamed that a girl would come, so I could remember Etka and Mama. But it seemed they were truly at rest, and God did not want their spirits disturbed. Some lost things can never be found – at least I thought so, until you were born to us.

What a long letter I've written you, darling Judit. I hope you can forgive me. But I wanted you to understand why it is such a joy to me to see you come of age. You take this step in a new world. Here, the Jews don't need to hide or be afraid of the knock on the door. You can celebrate your life in a synagogue with family around you, not on a dirty old cart followed by ghosts. The Jews even have a homeland of their own, and a flag among all the goyim. Perhaps your generation will be the one to make it safe, to finally end the suffering for all of us.

The only sadness I feel is from knowing that I may not be with you to see you fulfil your promise. But you should not be sad, darling girl. Your journey is just beginning, but I am ready for mine to be done. You are walking ahead of me on the road – wherever it leads, it will shape the woman you become. You must think of me holding your hand as you set out. I only pray you find the courage to make your own way. And that your journey brings you joy in the end, as mine has done.

Always your loving grandmother.

Rebecca

Virgil

The first time he saw her it was just a glimpse of gold, yellow hair and a long, bright chain ending in a star. The star had six points, and for one confused moment it reminded him of
home.

Then the crowd in the room closed in, and Margaret took his arm, steering him into the corner for a kiss. Her mouth tasted of cigarettes and sour lemons from the pink cocktail in her
fist.

They leaned by the window, the rain battering the glass like tiny hands trying to claw their way inside. His mind felt light as a balloon. Nadia's telegram was still curled up on his desk where it had been lying for three weeks. Hassan had sent another just that morning. Salim had dropped it in the
bin.

Margaret stirred against his chest, and pushed herself away. Her eyes were circled with thick kohl and her mass of black hair was tied in a purple scarf. One long leg twined around his, her skirt riding up her thigh. Everyone wanted Margaret; she worked hard at it, chain smoking like a movie starlet, learning the guitar and casting off her farmyard accent for something more sullenly Soho. That first time in bed, her mouth had torn into his like a desperate animal. But now it was tight and petulant.
Here it comes
, he thought.

‘What the hell is up with you, Sal?' Her foot tickled his, but the eyes were not friendly. ‘Smoked the wrong shit? I'd have more fun with a fish tonight.'

‘I'm sorry,' he said, supremely indifferent. Why did he even like Margaret, apart from the obvious things? Margaret only liked him because he was tall, exotic and
–
above all
–
older. At twenty-five, he was a man to her pretty teenage doll. ‘I'm still thinking about my father.' That put a stop to Margaret nine times out of ten these days. It's hard to argue with a man whose father died less than two months ago, right in the middle of end of term exams.

‘Oh, for Christ's sake. Then you should have gone to his funeral.'

‘I couldn't,' he said, irritated by the effort of having to lie. ‘I told
you.'

‘Yeah, well, you haven't got exams now. So you could still go, if you don't want to stay around here and be a full-time drag.' Margaret disengaged her legs and looked around the sweaty room. She had the most amazing eyes. They could pierce the back of a man's head and see through to the more interesting thing beyond him.
Something out there is more promising than me
, he thought.
Go find it, why don't you
. As if in answer, Margaret pinched Salim's arm with brittle fingers.

‘I'm getting a proper drink,' she said pointedly, setting her pink punch down on the windowsill. ‘This sweet shit is giving me a headache.'

Salim watched the crowd swallow her like a tiger disappearing into the tall grass. This was Margaret's kind of room
–
the dense smoke, the long-legged crowd, the music he'd never heard of sliding out of the turntable in the corner.
This is the end, my only friend
, the man sang.
Of our elaborate plans, of everything that stands.

It had been the end of Abu Hassan, two weeks before Christmas. A stroke had taken him right in the chair where he used to sit and crack nuts all day. One minute the hand was at his mouth, and the next it lay by his side, flaccid and empty.

Abu Hassan's death had been many years in coming. But any tears he'd cried had been for an imaginary dream of a father, not the man himself. The far more powerful feeling had been a deep reluctance to return for the funeral.

He had a good excuse. It was his final year of an economics degree at University College, London. Exams were upon him. He was the only Al-Ishmaeli ever to go to university, and Nadia and Tareq assured him repeatedly that his father was very proud. Although Salim doubted it, he was happy to let Hassan take the burden of going back to Nazareth. Tradition decreed that a burial must take place within twenty-four hours. In any event, neither son could get there in time to attend to their father's body. It was left to Nadia, the oldest child, to usher her father out of the world with all the consideration he'd denied her while he was in
it.

Salim stayed behind while Hassan performed the other family duties
–
and saw to the will. When Hassan mentioned this to Salim, he'd actually laughed out loud. ‘They teach you how to count at university, you know,' he said. ‘The last time I checked, nothing divided by two is still nothing.'

Margaret had not come back. But Salim was happy to stand on his own, and watch the dance of strangers. He never looked out of place in London. He was made to be here, with his attractive, pale darkness, his long, slim body and his smile that people called
easy
, as if they knew anything about him. It was a revelation to Salim how ready English women were to throw themselves at a penniless Arab who could make them laugh, and make them cry too. They imagined he would be passionate, unknowable, charming and cruel, like Omar Sharif in
Lawrence of Arabia
. And he obliged on all counts. But all those arms around him never seemed able to creep inside him
–
and in the end he was left preferring his own company.

After a few minutes, he decided to go and look for the blonde girl. He walked through the crowd to the drinks table, but couldn't see her. Margaret was there, though, deep in conversation with someone else. Salim walked once around the room and ended up back by the windowsill.
This is ridiculous. I should just go home.

He saw the party host rushing by, a tall green hat falling over his eyes. Salim reached out to grab his wrist. ‘Hey, Mike.'

‘Sal, man! What's
up?'

‘I was looking for a girl.'

‘Aren't we all? Where's Margaret?'

‘Clawing someone else,' Salim said. ‘This one was kind of small, long blonde hair, dressed like a
nun.'

‘Jude? You flake, she's right behind you.' Salim blushed for the first time in years as he realized his mistake and the unnoticed girl at his elbow began to turn at the sound of her
name.

‘Sorry, man,' Mike said. ‘I'll leave you cats to get to know each other. Bathroom calls,' he said, tapping his
nose.

She was small, he saw, and perhaps that's why he had missed her. Her head would barely have grazed his chin. Her blonde hair was long but somehow boyish, cut in a fringe framing a serious face. She was white as a bird, and her slightly worried blue eyes called up a fleeting memory of Lili Yashuv with a scarf over her
hair.

‘Am I really dressed like a nun?' she asked. She sounded curious. Salim looked again at her gawky dress, and she put up her hands unconsciously, smoothing the front of it as if to protect herself from his judgement. The gesture stirred something unexpected inside him
–
a kind of mirrored sympathy.

‘A cute nun,' he replied with a smile. ‘The kind about to break her vows.' She grinned and shook her
head.

‘This isn't really my kind of party,' she said, looking around the room and then at her feet. ‘I only came with my roommate. And I know Mike from class
–
he's studying literature too. What about
you?'

‘This isn't my kind of party either,' he said. She looked up, sceptical.

‘Oh come on,' she said. ‘You came here with Margaret.'

‘Everyone came here with Margaret, I think.' Salim grinned, trying to catch her eye. But she just looked at the ground again. Irritation bubbled up inside him.
What do I have to do to make this girl look at me?
‘I went all over the place looking for you, you know. And you were hiding here all the time.'

‘I wasn't hiding,' the girl said, her blue eyes finally fixing on his, with a touch of defiance. ‘Maybe you didn't really know who you were looking
for.'

‘Maybe I didn't,' Salim agreed, seeing for the second time the gold chain with its six-pointed Star of David lying on her chest. He pointed to it. ‘So what's the story with that?' Her hand went up to it and he saw her fingers trace the edges as if it was something done many times. Years later he would wonder if it was that moment that caught him, if he had really been so jealous of a piece of jewellery and longed to be cherished in the same
way.

‘It was my grandmother's,' she answered, before hesitating. ‘A Star of David. It's…'

‘I know what it is,' he said quickly, thinking not of Abu Hassan and the flight from Jaffa but of Elia and that afternoon they said they could never be friends. There was a pause and she looked startled. He sensed he'd made her anxious. But he couldn't find the words to turn it into a
joke.

‘So, where are you from?' she asked him, finally. It was his turn to hesitate
now.

‘London.'

‘Really?' She smiled, and shook her head again.

‘What is it?' he said, worried she had caught him in the
lie.

‘It's just… well, you look like one of my uncles.'

‘Oh God,' he said, laughing. ‘I hope he's a handsome uncle.'

‘No, not like that.' Now she was laughing too. ‘You just remind me of him. You're both very… very dark and intense.'

‘And where is this most excellent uncle?'

‘He lives abroad.'

‘Well, thank God for that.' Salim held out his hand. ‘I'm Sal.' She took it, and shook it earnestly up and down, like a child after receiving a medal.

‘I'm Jude,' she replied. ‘I'm glad you finally tracked me down.'

‘Me too,' he said, with a complete sincerity that matched her
own.

It was only two days until they met again. Jude had agreed to a coffee in Bloomsbury, near to her classes. She was only in her first year of university, and London still felt terrifying. It operated on a different speed to Sunderland
–
a jerky, racing world full of noise and hurry. People thought the north was grey, but Jude used to sit under London's endless winter sleet and dream of the sharp blues of Sunderland's breeze-blown skies, the clouds chasing across the docks like seagulls.

When the man called Sal suggested that they see each other for coffee, Jude had not been sure what to think. At nearly nineteen, she'd never had a boyfriend. There'd been Stuart, a boy nearly as shy as she was, who used to talk to her at swimming practice and once went so far as to walk her home holding her hand. He did it again a week later, and she'd wondered if he might kiss her, but he was the perfect gentleman. In the end she became so irritated by that limp, moist palm in hers that she'd run home early to avoid him, feeling a wicked relief every step of the
way.

She knew about love from the news; from stories about the war in Vietnam and the kissing protests in America. But it was no more real to her than a trip to the pictures. Even now, after five months in London, love seemed fake, painted-on
–
like the flowers she saw everywhere on people's clothes and in their hair, floating through Chelsea and Soho in swirling patterns. There were no flowers around Jude's student lodgings on Camden Lock. Only concrete and steel, bare cracks in the pavement and row upon row of windows dirtied by the smoky
rain.

In Jude's world, it was polite to be early. She sat in the corner of Virginia's and pulled out a book. Outside, the silent drizzle of late February drifted down. The faint music in the café was nearly drowned by the keening of a harmonica outside. Buses surged past, dimly red through the cigarette smoke and fogged glass.

Sal
. It was a name that told no story. Who was he, with those fierce eyes so like Uncle Max and that odd, gentle way of speaking? He had seemed even more a stranger at the party than
her.

That, more than anything else, made Jude want to say yes to him, to see a real smile come to his face and wipe away the practised one.
How does he smile for Margaret?
She shook the thought away, and clutched Rebecca's chain for courage. The gold felt like warm water in her
hand.

When she looked up, he was standing in front of her. His awkward smile sent a thought flashing across her mind
–
he made a mistake, he doesn't want to be here
. Before she could speak, he'd pulled up a chair and sat
down.

The daylight showed him paler than her memory, his hair seemed blacker and his eyes more serious. His face was soaked with rain and his thick overcoat and green scarf dripped onto the floor. Her instinct was to ask why he came without an umbrella, but she stopped herself.
Just because, that's why
, as Dora used to say.
Why
was a habit Jude had trained herself out of, along with all the other Jews of the world.

There was a moment of silence and then he asked, ‘What are you reading?'

She held up the book for him and he squinted at the title. ‘
The Brothers Karamazov
. Dostoevsky.' His expression was a polite blank, and she stumbled on. ‘One of my course options is foreign literature. I'm doing Russian and French.'

‘Sounds good,' he said, although she heard a note of uncertainty. ‘Why did you go for those
two?'

She had to think for a moment, to find the true answer under the rationalizations she'd given her parents.

‘I had a holiday in France once,' she said. ‘It was the first time I'd been abroad.' She remembered the rich grey of the Seine as it glided along the Left Bank, the rough song of Parisian laughter, the smell of paint and the exhilarating emptiness of the sky. ‘I never saw anywhere like it before. I felt so alive there. They think in a different way to us, a freer way. I wanted to…' She ran out of words to describe the longing she'd felt, and bit her lip in embarrassment. But then, to her amazement, he found the words for
her.