She's Leaving Home (25 page)

All eyes were on Helen. She picked up the wineglass and tilted it to examine the candle flame. Through its facets her parents’ faces were distorted as if in a peculiar dream. She looked up. ‘Are there any rules about what I can have?’

‘What do you mean?’ Daniel was impatient.

‘I mean, can I have
anything
? If I choose what I’d like, you won’t say I can’t?’

Two of the three adults shrugged. Mario grinned at her. ‘The kitchen is at your disposal, signorina.’

Helen hesitated, but only briefly. She took a deep breath and spoke quickly. ‘Right! Then I’ll have avocado with Dublin Bay prawns, and a steak. A big one.’

In the background she could hear her mother’s sharp intake of breath and Barry’s disbelieving ‘Wow – prawns! And meat! That’s
treife
. Disgusting.’

‘How would you like your steak, signorina?’

Helen was stumped. She glanced in supplication at her aunt.

‘First time you’ve had a steak, is it?’ Gertie asked softly. Helen nodded. ‘Then I should try it well done to medium. Later you might develop a taste for rare, but I guess it’d be too bloody for you right now.’ Mario collected menus with a flourish and vanished.

‘Helen! How could you? Everything you’ve picked is forbidden!’

Helen stared coolly at her mother. ‘You said I could have anything, and I’d like to try steak. It’s not as if we’d ever eat it at home, is it?’

‘Absolutely not. It’d have to be soaked in cold water for half an hour then salted for an hour to get the blood out. We don’t have blood, Helen. And we’re permitted only forequarter meat. You know that. And you top of the class at the
cheder
.’

The wine came and the girl drank half a glass quickly, her nose wrinkled against the fizz.

‘You don’t care, you little madam,’ Annie muttered furiously. Helen bowed her head and studied the sketch of Rembrandt on the plate. He gazed back inscrutably.

Afterwards Helen would admit that prawns would never be a favourite, not with that fiddly de-shelling. It was a struggle not to mark her dress and she had to be shown how to use the fingerbowl; then, after all the effort, their fishy blandness was a disappointment. But as the entrees were served with scrupulous ceremony she knew her temerity was worthwhile.

The steak was magnificent. Surrounded by onion rings, mushrooms and fried potatoes the sirloin sat richly inviting in the centre of the warmed dish in chargrilled glory. When cut, a slight purple ooze came from the soft flesh.

Under veiled lashes and with not a whisker of contrition she watched her mother avert her eyes. Her brother stared in horrified fascination as Helen raised morsel after morsel to her mouth, chewed happily and swallowed, as if he expected her to be struck dead on the spot. The waiter brought various mustards to try; as Helen savoured the milder French version mixed with the ravishing taste of the moist beef, it would, she decided, forever remind her of this magic moment:
freedom.

The meat took a while to eat. To shield herself from her mother’s grimness Helen did not protest when the waiter refilled her glass. By the time her plate was empty the girl was feeling distinctly tiddly. Her companions’ attention had been diverted from her inexplicable wildness to their own meals, though Annie had merely toyed with the delicate omelette and declared it underdone. At that point the girl knew for certain what she had but dimly suspected in the past – that her mother, trammelled by both
kashrut
and stunted ambition, was a terrible cook.

‘What would you like for dessert?’ Mario hovered once more, but Gertie was alert.

‘Sweet trolley please. I may try a bit of everything.’

Barry gurgled in delight at the gateaux and charlottes, the trifles and fruits marinated in brandy, the syllabubs, zabagliones and smooth mousses in stemmed glasses with angelica leaves on top. He chose an enormous slice of chocolate cake laced with black cherries and liqueur. Annie and Daniel refused any more; Gertie settled for mixed fruit salad and custardy trifle. Again Helen was left to last.

‘No cream, Helen, you’ve had flesh.’ Annie’s voice was curt. ‘You can’t mix milk and meat.’

‘Oh, yes, I can,’ the girl muttered. She felt as if she could take on the world and beat it. The wine made her head expand, made her feel enlarged and more powerful: and gave her courage. If this were the effect of alcohol, she would not resist it in future.

She pointed. ‘I’ll have – what did you call it? Strawberry charlotte. And
loads
of extra cream, please.’

Her aunt had to show her how to use the fork and spoon, a combination unheard of at home. Her mother looked away with a groan. Even as she lifted delicious forkfuls, Helen wondered hazily what streak in herself could make her so cruel to her mother. Annie’s anguished face was not far from tears; a bitter tinge had crept on to her mother’s features. Yet the other adults were not so affected. Both her father and aunt, after clucking a little at her cheek, ignored her amiably and were engrossed in their own conversation. Surely what she ate did not matter
that
much?

What was going on, Helen wondered, between herself and her mother? She had long chafed at the proscriptions. More than once she had begged Reverend Siegel to justify the dietary laws in themselves, but his explanations had run lamely to the wisdom of avoiding rotten meat and the lack of refrigeration in hot countries. That would not do. Nor was it the whole truth. The deeper purpose of such arbitrary codes, she realised, was the differentiation of a culture. Identity, in other words – hers, her mother’s, everyone with Jewish blood. But surely there must be more to being an orthodox Jew than that? A culture which depended so heavily on silly food taboos must offer more, or be exposed as hollow at heart. A religion which clung so tenaciously to such unsustainable maxims – to such trivia – raised issues about its most basic credibility and values.

Far more significant ought to be the guidance for life which the faith could offer. That must include the way people should relate to other people. And here, Helen feared, once she started to investigate she might uncover the biggest vacuum. That code of ethics which Reverend Siegel had so lauded ought to have tolerance and compassion as its very soul, but apparently – self-evidently – it did not. The tendency of Jews to practise against others the racial discrimination they had themselves suffered through the centuries was too often present. It was there in Israel, it existed in her own home. It disturbed her and was profoundly wrong. It was not her way – she, Helen Majinsky, could not behave like that. She could
not
see other races as different, as inferior. It was not a question of trying to believe: she refused point-blank to try.

Yet that was how she had been brought up. And the conundrum was that her parents, these decent souls seated opposite whom she loved, respected and had longed to please, held such views and expected Helen to hold them also. Against non-Jews they would freely express (even, sometimes, in the subject’s hearing) such prejudices as would have made liberal critics scream ‘anti-Semitism’
had they been uttered against Jews. Intermarriage was absolutely forbidden – by Jewish law. Racial intermixing was not allowed – every subterfuge would be employed to prevent it and to deter anyone tempted. Because it was Jews who said and did such things, a deaf ear was turned. But she, Helen, could not do it.

She wondered what Michael might think. Michael R. Levison: the name suggested an Ashkenazi background not dissimilar to her own. He did not behave much like Jerry or her brother, a fact which in itself made him more, not less attractive. But then his
Americanness
– that exotic combination of accent, dress, courtesy, dignity, as well as his age and uniform – these were the dominant factors about him. His attitudes, however unfamiliar, might form the tentative basis of a fresh philosophy for herself. And her reading – and Miss Plumb: with a rush of relief Helen knew she was not alone. If a journey of discovery, however painful, stretched ahead of her there would be no lack of guides to help.

As to this food. Helen tugged her reflections back to more mundane levels. Was this cuisine better? Her reactions could have gone either way. Did she prefer the taste, the mixture of flavours, the liberty of action accorded to the chef? She ran her tongue slowly over her lips as her aunt, who had been observing her, chuckled indulgently. The answer was yes, this food was superb; and with it came the realisation with an undercurrent of sadness that never again would she be able to enjoy kosher cooking and Jewish living as she had done before.

The strange battlefield had claimed its victims. Barry was defeated halfway through his cake, which was solemnly wrapped in a paper napkin to take home. Daniel and Gertie lit cigarettes and gossiped quietly over coffee. Annie sat rigid, pale and upset. And Helen finished the last crumbs with a dazed smile and her eyes bright. With regret she folded her napkin the way her aunt had. ‘Gosh, that was fabulous,’ she announced to the room in general. ‘Thank you. Marvellous meal, great evening.’

‘Why, hello.’

The family twisted around. Before them stood four new arrivals, young men with shorn
crew-cuts
and multi-coloured jackets. Both style and accents were unmistakable: American airmen from the Burtonwood base. Gertie sat up smartly and stubbed out her cigarette. She glanced quickly at her niece with new-found interest.

A little wobbly, Helen arose. ‘Oh, hi.’ She tried to focus, her heart hammering. ‘Mum, Dad, I’d better introduce you. These are the boys who come to Harold House. This is CC Cohen, and his brother Buzz. And this is –’ She could not continue.

He stood there in the candle-light, so tall, grave and polite, and her spirit churned inside her. She had hurt her parents enough that evening. She was brutally aware that, at least as far as her mother was concerned, the defiance had gone much too far. Some devil had got into her. But now – to bring Michael into it, and thus to advertise her growing independence and youth – that might be to rub salt into an open wound. This was not the time, surely.

As she hesitated CC stepped forward and shook hands. ‘Hi! Pleased to meet you, sir, ma’am. This here’s our friend Sergeant Newman, and Michael Levison. Is the fish OK? There’s no Jewish restaurant in this town so we’ve been recommended to eat here.’

Gertie checked over the newcomers with undisguised approval. Pity they hadn’t shown up earlier – it’d have been a much merrier evening. At her side Daniel motioned for the bill. ‘It’s grand. Great food. Say, how d’you know Helen here? My name’s Gertie Ahrens. I’m her aunt. From New York.’

‘They come to the youth club. We wrote to the base to invite them and they came,’ Helen began hastily to explain. She waved a hand. ‘Oh, tell you another time, Auntie. But we like to make
all
Americans welcome.’

Michael was at the back of the group. He made as if to speak, but Helen shook her head slightly, a warning that all the boys caught in an instant. Michael shifted his gaze elsewhere as if
seeking an empty table.

‘Time to move, I think,’ Annie remarked crisply. Her expression suggested that one American companion at dinner had been too much for her, let alone a whole troupe. ‘Where’s my coat?’

‘Yeah, that’s right. We must go,’ Gertie concurred. ‘School in the morning for the babies.’

Barry’s howl of protest made everyone laugh and gave the opportunity to slide past the GIs and away. As they paused at the door Helen glanced back. Michael was watching her; he winked and put a forefinger to his lips, then fluttered his fingers, just once, in a tiny wave.

In the car Helen sat as still as possible and ignored her mother’s reproachful sighs. In the mirror she caught Gertie’s eye: the aunt had been intrigued and would interrogate her further, of that she was sure. Her father had noticed, or chosen to notice, nothing. Her mother had been terribly hurt and would not forget it. And Barry would be confirmed in his view that his sister was a raving lunatic.

As the Vauxhall drew up to the darkened house Helen shivered. A profound metamorphosis had begun as if she were shedding a skin which had grown too small. It had started in the cemetery, as the cold stone pressed her shoulder blades through Michael’s sheepskin jacket. It had continued with the meat, the cream, the wine, while Rembrandt smiled enigmatically from the food-smeared plate. She turned her face towards the stars. Their pinpricks of light had not altered in millions of years. But something had changed in her that day, for ever.

The barmitzvah dominated everything. Before the day dawned Helen was heartily sick of the entire business. It seemed that nothing in the faith could be commemorated in a simple fashion – the more elaborate and showy, the better. As with her father, the excessive display went against the grain. Her irritation was best suppressed. She tried to be as helpful as possible, which included collecting her brother’s new suit from the workshop. At the Rembrandt it had been stained and had proven a bit big in the sleeves. Before Daniel arrived home her mother would have ensured it was tried on, twitched and adjusted, then pressed and put on a hanger.

There was no sign of her father. The entrance to Williamson Square was unlatched at usual, but a note was pinned to the door of his office: ‘Back soon. Upstairs (Mannheim’s) for inquiries’.

Helen trudged up the next four flights. However unprepossessing her father’s premises might be, higher up in the gloomy murk from a dirt-encrusted skylight she was transported to another world. This terrace was old – it had been constructed in the late eighteenth century by a speculative builder for the lesser merchants and captains of the burgeoning port. Their wealth had soon led them further up the hill with its clear air, cleaner water and views over the river. The salons were too pokey, the bedrooms too few for their broods of children and servants. By the Great War the houses were mainly workshops and storage. The far end had been destroyed in the Blitz.

Helen gingerly held on to the banister. Fragments of grubby rococo plasterwork and rickety iron balustrades recalled former grace. Above the first storey the floors were bare planks; no paint had been applied for decades. It smelled musty. A patch of slimy mould revealed a leaking pipe. If the roof were intact it would be a miracle.

At the top she hesitated. Only one door was open. A light was on inside. From within filtered the soaring notes of a violin concerto on an old gramophone.

She peeped in. The place was a replica of her father’s with its elongated workbench and shaded lamp above, but was much smaller and very untidy. It was dominated, as Daniel’s was not, by a heavy deal table in the centre with heaps of cuttings in disorderly piles. A crescendo signalled the end of a movement. Helen knocked and entered.

‘Hello, Mr Mannheim. You have good taste in music.’

‘Ah yes, but then Yehudi Menuhin could make a cat’s wail sound wonderful, my dear. Come in, come in.’
Fonderful
.

Mannheim bustled about. ‘You have come for your brother’s suit? I have it here. He will look a
mensch
.’

Three pieces were laid out on the bench – full-length navy trousers, Barry’s first; the tailored single-breasted jacket; and a waistcoat, its front in figured blue velvet, the back in navy silk, with four bright brass buttons.

‘I made the waistcoat by hand myself. Will he like it, do you think?’ Mannheim showed her.

Helen fingered the silk wistfully. ‘He’d be mad not to.’

The old man watched her shrewdly. ‘So, pretty Helen, a cup of tea, yes? Your father will be back in forty minutes or so.’

The bent figure scurried into an enclave, evidently a tiny kitchen. Through another opening Helen could see an unmade bed. There came a clatter and the noise of water as a kettle was filled and placed on a stove, a whoosh as the gas caught, more clatter as crockery was located. Soon Mannheim reappeared looking quite pleased with himself, with two cups of hot sweet tea.

‘Sit, sit.’ He indicated a battered chair. ‘You will not mind if I take my usual spot?’ With that he perched his bottom on the table and in a surprisingly spry action lifted his thin shanks and tucked them under.

Helen giggled. ‘You’re exactly like the Tailor of Gloucester – I mean, a traditional tailor, sitting there cross-legged. Isn’t it uncomfortable?’

‘Not at all. You get used to it. You can get used to anything.’ But it was obvious her remark had pleased him.

She sipped the tea willingly. The old man was quite clean despite frayed shirt-cuffs and a day’s growth of beard. When he came to play bridge his dress, though shabby, was immaculate. She itched to ask how he managed in such limited surrounds. But he might be offended – or anxious, since to sleep here was probably against the law or fire regulations. Instead she remembered a comment made by her mother.

‘Were you always in this trade, Mr Mannheim? I heard that you were an educated man.’

Mannheim screwed up his eyes. ‘Ach – a long time ago, in another world. I was a scientist. I believe your father said you want to study sciences at university?’

Helen was startled; the tone implied that her father had spoken with pride of her ambition. ‘Yes, if I can – chemistry.’

‘You should think twice. The sciences can be a force for good – or evil.’

She had heard that canard before. ‘So can any knowledge, Mr Mannheim. It’s what we do with it that counts. I’d like to do something useful – research in medicines or whatever.’

Mannheim drank his tea, head bowed. Then he put down the cup and picked up a semi-finished jacket in which a buttonhole was half done. ‘I felt the same as you, once, though in my day it was sulphonamides and internal combustion,’ he murmured. ‘I was a physicist, of a sort. I studied at the great institutions of pre-war Germany. My doctorate was on the early development of the turbine engine. They said I had a brilliant future.’

She waited. He sewed, in, out, until he had a steady rhythm. His voice took on a sing-song quality.

‘But then Hitler was elected to power – you did not know he was elected? Of course – the people admired the National Socialists whatever they may claim today. So much poverty and unemployment. The Germans were starving. Inflation was so high we had to take a wheelbarrow of paper money to buy a loaf.’

He shrugged defensively and appeared about to break off his narrative. Helen gazed at him gravely. ‘Please go on. This is my history too. Nobody talks about it much and I want to know.’

‘It is in the reference books. I was no different to thousands – millions of others.’ He sewed a little faster, then stopped and spoke as if to himself. ‘No, you are right,
schöne mädchen
. I have a duty to tell. But you are not to feel sorry for me – only angry that such things can happen.’

The sewing resumed. ‘I got out. I saw what was coming. I heard it in the lecture halls – you had to be blind and deaf not to realise what was going on. In Berlin the books were burned. When my professor was sacked from his job and deprived of his ration card I knew there was no choice. I tried to get my fiancée Sonia to come too – she was my assistant – but she wouldn’t listen.’

He looked up with a wintry smile. ‘It was not difficult to emigrate then – the authorities were glad to see the back of us. But she argued, like many others, that she was German, that her grandfather had been a Lutheran minister, she would not be affected. She told me the days of the wandering Jew were over. I could not persuade her that even to live in a land which could make such distinctions was no longer acceptable.’

‘You left without her?’

‘Yes, may God forgive me.’ He finished his buttonhole, bit off the end of the black thread and for a moment stared unseeingly at his work. ‘But I went back for her.’ He selected another length of twist and started the next.

‘You see, she pushed me away. She gave me a poem to make her point about the wandering Jew. It was by Rainer Maria Rilke – well, he never settled anywhere. Born in Budapest, lived in Paris and Munich, died in Switzerland, wrote his finest work in Italy. I carried it with me many years. Later I lost it, but I remember every word.’

Eyes half-closed he began to recite, beating time with one hand:

He opened his eyes at the mystified Helen. Then, like a teacher, he translated.

‘Who’s turned us around like this, so that we always, do what we may, retain the attitude of someone who’s departing? Just as he, on the last hill, that shows him all his valley for the last time, will turn and stop and linger, we live our lives, for ever taking leave
. It’s from the Duino Elegies. You get Sonia’s argument? She wished to remain in the place called home, to which she felt great loyalty. She virtually accused me of cowardice by running away, did she not? We quarrelled furiously but she took no notice. I – I could not stay in such a country.’

Helen wanted to ask a dozen questions but feared the narrative would stop. Mannheim sighed.

‘I am ahead of myself. I was here in England, that is right. I went to Derby for Sir Henry Royce. They were happy to have me, with my background. Not so many qualified engineers and physicists in Britain then. I helped design the engine which went later into the Merlin and Spitfire. So in the worst times, when I looked up and saw a British plane, I felt proud.’

He paused. ‘Have you heard of
Kristallnacht
? You have heard of it but you don’t know what it is.’

‘It was mentioned by my father once in a family discussion over the fate of distant relatives. All in hushed whispers. When I asked they refused to continue. It’s as if everyone wants to forget, but I need to know. Please go on.’

‘It was November 1938. In one night Jewish businesses throughout Germany and the occupied territories were destroyed – set on fire, looted. Respectable families were dragged from cellars and beaten up, women violated, little ones held by the feet and their heads dashed against the wall. The name is from the broken glass which littered the streets. It was the signal. I went to get her out – my papers gave me the right to return to Britain. We got married: I thought that might give her some protection. The
chuppah
had to be in a field as the
schul
was a heap of rubble. But I was wrong. We were arrested a week later.’

She listened, barely taking it in. The old man faltered. ‘You will understand if I do not describe the camps. We were sent to Buchenwald because we were intellectuals and so of value. You should read
The Scourge of the Swastika
by your own Lord Russell of Liverpool – he was at the Nuremberg trials. It is all there.’

‘And afterwards?’ Helen prompted gently.

‘When we were liberated? She was ashes and I was alone.’
She voss ashess unt I voss alone
. ‘We stayed in the camps under military guard. It took weeks to sort out the dead from the survivors. In some ways it was worse, not knowing what was to happen. Short of food, clothes, still sleeping in the same lice-ridden huts. I wore my striped prisoner’s pyjamas – you know? – I had nothing else.’ His voice rose in bitterness. ‘The alternative was the uniforms abandoned by the SS when they fled. Some wore those – not me. Three months later we were visited by a lawyer, a Mr Earl Harrison from Pennsylvania sent by the American President Truman. He was appalled. He wrote that the sole change from before was that we were not being exterminated. Then things began to move. And I came back to England.’

‘To Liverpool?’ She was puzzled.

He chuckled softly. ‘No, my dear. Back to Derby. Most DPs – displaced persons – were refused entry by the UK but again I was “useful”, as you put it. I threw myself into my research at Rolls-Royce and forced myself not to think or remember. My brain was a blank except for my calculations; my best friend was my slide rule. Then –’

The needle slipped from his fingers and was still.

‘Then one day it hit me. In 1950. I was transferred to the new company set up to receive the latest atomic science from the Pentagon. Top secret. We were to make nuclear submarines – not the warhead, that was never my job, but the power generator. Such was my assignment: to ensure that the new nuclear turbines would function properly. If my team succeeded, submarines would be able to travel for months, perhaps years, under the sea with no need to surface.’ His face became animated; his hands described arcs as if to bring alive the miles of tubing and mysterious control boxes before her eyes. ‘Every drop of water would be redistilled, the air refreshed with liquid oxygen. Enough fuel for a year you could hold in your hand. We had the technology: it was merely a practical matter. Then such carriers of terror could become invulnerable – if attacked they could dive to the bottom of the oceans to hide.
Mein
Gott
, what a weapon!’

He leaned forward. A savage edge had come into his tone.

‘I saw I was creating the most lethal armaments which man could devise. They can start the next war and wipe out humankind altogether. My system could not take it. I had what you would call a nervous breakdown. I was found on the dockside here in Liverpool – I don’t know what I was doing there.’

He shrugged and returned to his sewing. ‘So: I was in Clatterbridge hospital a year. Completely mad, raving. On discharge I did not want anything to do with my former life. Your father took me in and now I earn my keep as you observe.’

The mottled hand shook. Helen gazed pensively at him. He must be – what? Maybe sixty, though he looked much more. Those terrible experiences would have aged him. Perhaps he was not much older than her father, yet he seemed left over from another age.

One question nagged at her. She took a deep breath and blurted it out. ‘The Israelis were recruiting in the camps. Did you never think of going there?’

‘It was called Palestine then. And yes, the offer was put to make
aliyah
– to go up to the Holy Land. In fact only the Zionists wanted us. Everyone else preferred to forget about the DPs. We were an uncomfortable remnant, and nothing special in the fleeing masses of refugees.’

‘Britain took in lots of people,’ she defended stoutly, content to allow him to digress for a moment.

He snorted. ‘The British? The British were hostile because of their links with the Arabs and their need for Middle East oil – even then. One MP, a Mr Austin Hopkinson, demanded in Parliament that Jews who had found sanctuary pre-war in the UK should be repatriated. To
Germany
. Churchill gave him a raspberry. The Attlee government was no wiser. The British gave passports and entry papers to an entire company of SS – Ukrainians who presented themselves in civilian rags as stateless persons. Gullible lot, British immigration officers. Or fools. Or maybe not so gullible.’