The Credit Draper Page 10

  “No-one.”

  “Then Nathan will not be either. But perhaps he has some lamed vav blood in him. And therefore he is more sensitive to suffering. When this war is over as soon it must be and your family is reunited, let us hope, God willing, the boy will be returned to good health. Wait until then, Herschel. Wait until then and see what happens.”

  The two men disappeared from the room leaving Avram to contemplate the righteousness of his companion. He picked up Nathan’s skinny arm, feeling the lightness, almost a nothingness, before he let it drop back down on to the bedclothes.

  “So, my little one of the lamed vav,” he whispered. “I am giving you all my suffering. The suffering of a nothing. What do you say about that? Is it too much to bear?”

  He shook Nathan’s arm which only caused the boy’s head to slump further sideways on the pillow.

  “Well, tomorrow the suffering will stop.”

  Nathan let out a groan. Avram realised he had been squeezing the boy’s fingers too tightly.

  The grandfather clock in the sitting room was still striking eight when the doorbell rang. Mary was working in the kitchen, Celia was out, and Avram was half-hoping Papa Kahn might go to the door himself. The doorbell rang again.

  “Avram!” Mary called.

  He ran into the hallway, wiped his palms along the sides of his short trousers, took a deep breath, then opened the front door. There stood Roy Begg in a brown three-piece suit, bow-tie and homburg. Roy Begg without his whistle, without his tawse, without his punch bag. Yet his jutting, strutting physical power seemed hardly constrained by the confines of his suit. The man loomed over him, now as a one-eyed civilian possessing a life outside of the school that allowed him to stride through the streets of the Gorbals in his brown and white co-respondent shoes, to ring doorbells and to hand over his hat and gloves.

  “Sir.”

  Begg grunted a greeting, twisted his neck in his collar, then sniffed the air. Avram sniffed too, taking in the thick aroma of boiling chicken drifting into the hall from the kitchen.

  “Where is your … Mr Kahn?”

  “I will tell him you are here, sir. Sometimes he doesn’t hear the bell.”

  But Papa Kahn was already at the door of his study.

  “Ah, Mr Begg. Welcome to my home.”

  The two men shook hands. Side by side, they drew up to the same height yet Papa Kahn appeared dwarfed by the gym teacher. Avram turned to leave.

  “No,” Papa Kahn said. “Tell Mary to bring us tea in the study. Then you will sit with us. After all, this business concerns you most of all. Is that not correct, Mr Begg?”

  Avram sipped at his glass of lemonade, stared at Roy Begg over the rim. The curtains to the normally darkened study had been opened and a shaft of light shone through the dust to light up a sheen on the gym teacher’s slicked back hair. He noticed that the usual black leather eye-patch had been swapped for a brown one which matched the colour of the man’s suit and shoes. Begg sat stiff with a saucer palmed in one hand while his large fingers awkwardly hinged around the handle of a delicate cup. Papa Kahn drank his tea in his customary way, sucked through a cube of sugar wedged between his teeth. The gentle noise Papa Kahn made when he performed this action was the only sound in the room. Avram squirmed to each slurp.

  “These are Jew things, aren’t they?” Begg nodded towards a small table on which sat a filigree spice container, an etrog box and a pair of silver candlesticks.

  “Yes, they are Jewish artifacts for specific festivals,” Papa Kahn replied. “Would you like me to explain them to you?”

  “No. It’s all right.”

  Silence again. Avram took another mouthful of lemonade, letting the liquid slip bitterly over his tongue into the dryness of his throat. Begg shifted in his seat and spoke again.

  “Avram has a natural gift. Are you aware of that, Mr Kahn?”

  “A natural gift is something given by God.”

  “I am a religious man myself. And I do believe Avram’s talent is God-given.”

  “This talent with a ball. You think this is something God cares about when there is so much suffering in the world?”

  Begg put down his cup and saucer, braced his hands on his thighs. “The war will soon be over and I am convinced Avram will have a fine career in football.”

  “And what kind of career would that be, Mr Begg?”

  “When he leaves school, he can play for a Boys’ Brigade club. I am associated with one myself. From there, he can get picked up by one of the big clubs. Glasgow Celtic perhaps. Third Lanark. I know some of their scouts.”

  “You think this is a career? This Glasgow Celtic?”

  “What are the alternatives? The mines or the shipyards? The factories? The mills?” Begg spread out his hands to indicate the bolts of cloth scattered around the room. “No disrespect to yourself, sir, a tradesman?”

  “I will ignore that comment, Mr Begg, and tell you this. As a non-academic member of the school staff you may not be aware that Avram is an intelligent boy. He is particularly good with figures and mathematical concepts. In this respect, he is like me. But unlike me, he will not give up his studies. He will continue with his secondary education. Even a tradesman can hope for better things for his family. Isn’t that so, Avram?”

  Avram tensed to the question. And then finding a courage he didn’t believe he possessed, he heard himself say quietly but firmly: “No, sir.”

  “No? What do you mean, ‘no’?”

  “Tell him, Mr Begg. Please tell him, sir.”

  “Mr Kahn. If Avram is to stay on to study, can we at least let him continue playing football as well? There is an important final coming up.”

  “Mr Begg. Football as a hobby. I have no objection to that. But it seems you have great hopes for Avram. That is your business and I appreciate your concern, although I don’t want you filling the boy’s head with ambitions he cannot fulfil. But my business is that I have great demands on my time and energy to supply military uniforms for our Forces, my wife has been unjustly interned and I have another son who is bed-ridden. I have doctor’s bills and possibly school fees to pay. I need Avram to help in the home. Football is not a priority in the life of this family right now. Surely you must see that?”

  Roy Begg poked a finger into his collar and wriggled his neck. “Forgive me for saying, but if I came here and told you Avram was a genius at mathematics, I am sure you would allow him the extra time to study. Football has its qualities too. It is good for discipline and team spirit. It builds character. And Avram’s ability should not be under-estimated. It can earn him a decent wage. There’s young players pulling down three pounds a week. And it can earn him respect. It could make him well-known in this city. That surely can only be a blessing for an immigrant Jew. You should not mock it.”

  Papa Kahn leaned forward on his desk. “Tell me, Mr Begg. Are you familiar with our ways?”

  “You mean the ways of the Jew?”

  “Yes, that is what I mean.”

  “A little. Yes.”

  “Then you should know that Avram can never be a footballer.”

  “Why? Is it against your laws?”

  Papa Kahn smiled. “Not exactly. But this Glasgow Celtic and these other teams. They play on a Saturday, do they not?”

  Begg nodded.

  “Well, that is our Sabbath. Avram cannot play on the Sabbath. I forbid it. It is our day of rest. As long as he is a member of this household, he will never be a footballer. That is final.”

  Begg rose to his feet. His face had purpled around the thong of his eye patch. “Let me tell you something about you Jews. You should know your place. Coming from Germany with all your strange customs and special foods.” He grasped the top of Papa Kahn’s desk. “Look at your wife. Locked up as an enemy alien. You should be more contrite. You should be adopting our ways. You are our guests. You say you want to be part of this culture, but everything you do keeps you apart. Your food, your language, your holidays. In this country, you s
hould learn it is the Sunday that is the Holy Day, not the Saturday.”

  Papa Kahn had remained calm throughout the whole tirade. When he spoke now, his voice came out slow and even. “Mr Begg. I think you should leave. And you should know that even if I could spare Avram his football, I would never again allow him to practise under your tuition.”

  “You should be more contrite,” Begg spluttered. “You Jews should be more contrite.” He turned and strode out of the room. The front door slammed shut leaving Avram trembling in his chair. His lungs had tightened and he could only make his breathing come in short gasps. Papa Kahn came out from behind his desk and stood over him.

  “I never want to hear you contradict me like that again. Do you hear me?”

  Avram pulled his arms around himself.

  “Do you hear me? Football isn’t everything.”

  “Yes, it is.

  “I told you. Don’t contradict me.”

  “Please, Papa Kahn. Just let me play in the final. That’s all I want. Please let me play. Without football, I am nothing.”

  Papa Kahn placed a hand on his shoulder. “This I will tell you, Avram. It is my final word on the subject. There will be no more football. Celia will come out of school. She is a very clever girl but I need her at home. It is a great pity, but this I must do. Nathan? I don’t know what will happen to him. God willing, he will live through all of his troubles. But you, Avram. I want better things for you. I want you to stay on at school. To keep on with your studies. This is your chance to be a something, Avram. Not this … football.”

  Seventeen

  THE WEATHER HAD TURNED from a bleary drizzle to solid rain by the late afternoon, making a dark day even darker. Avram stamped his soles against the brick wall. Solly stood beside him, hands thrust deep in his pockets, glancing up and down the length of the back lane behind the tenement building a few hopscotch jumps from where they lived. Solly snorted out a foggy breath. Just like a horse in a dawn mist, Avram thought, recalling for a moment a fractured memory from a childhood visit to the Rumbula Forest outside Riga. His mother had lifted him up, settled him on the back of the horse. Or was it just a pony? He could feel the coarse hair, the powerful muscle and the warm life of the beast on the bare skin of his thighs. He remembered the texture of the mane in his hands – tough and matted, not fine as expected.

  “Just like a little Napoleon,” his mother had said before swinging him back to the ground. His mother had laughed. She wore the same pale blue dress she always seemed to wear in his memories. Her teeth shone white in her laughter, not yellow and rotten like so many of the teeth he saw in this city’s population.

  Across the back green and up at a second floor tenement window, Avram could see Solly’s father, Lucky Mo, his bald head round like a football, hunched over a desk in his shirt-sleeves, sorting out the betting slips in the cosy glow of a table-lamp. There was a cigarette fixed to the corner of the man’s mouth. Sometimes when business was good, there would be a cigar. But not with the war on. “Trains only for soldiers to front. Not for punters to tracks,” was how Lucky Mo summed up the wartime restrictions wiping out most of the season’s racing card.

  The room in the tenement was Lucky Mo’s office. A single room in a single-end that at night housed a whole family glad to receive the day-time rent. Solly was his father’s runner. That was his job now he’d left school. Learning the business, picking up the bets, writing down the odds on the back of a garden shovel, keeping guard in case the polis came noseying around. Which, according to Solly, was often.

  “I’d love to have seen Begg’s face,” Solly said.

  “It wasn’t funny.”

  “I know. But ye were Begg’s big hope. He thought he’d discovered a new Patsy Gallacher. Imagine Patsy no being allowed to play ’cos it was Shabbos.”

  “I got a note. I’m out of Begg’s class for good.”

  “Yer having me on?”

  “Scout’s honour.”

  “Kids’d kill their mams for that. Yer one lucky bastard.”

  Avram thought about this. He wouldn’t kill his mother for anything. Not even to play football. He didn’t think he would kill Madame Kahn either, even if she was an enemy alien. Papa Kahn had sent her another parcel of soap this morning. Avram had taken it to the post office for him. His hands still smelled of lavender.

  “I’m not a lucky bastard. I missed out on the final.”

  “Yer team lost six-nil. Ye wouldnae have made that much of a difference.”

  “Scouts from Celtic were there.”

  “Just as well, then. Ye wouldnae have wanted them to see ye on the back-end of such a bloody hammering.”

  “It was my only chance to …”

  “Haud yer whisht,” Solly said suddenly. “Somebody’s coming.”

  A figure had appeared at the far end of the lane in the half-light. Head bowed, cap fixed tight, hands in pockets. Solly let out a coded whistle and the lamp went out in the room on the second floor. Avram could still see the glow from Lucky Mo’s cigarette.

  “Get ready to run when I tell ye,” Solly said, checking out the other end of the lane.

  The figure looked up, glanced from side to side, then proceeded up the alleyway. Head bowed again, feet avoiding the puddles that had quickly formed.

  “Maybe it’s the lampie,” Avram whispered. There was an open-flame gas lamp halfway between them and the approaching figure.

  “Wheesht,” Solly hissed but then he relaxed. “It’s all right. It’s just a punter.”

  The man came closer. As he reached Solly, he handed something over quick, then he was past. Avram looked after the man’s back retreating into the rainy darkness. He had never even got to see his face, just a whiff of beer breath. Solly whistled again. His father’s light came on.

  “The Mad Hatter,” Solly said as he unwrapped the piece of paper.

  There were some silver and copper coins inside. He squinted up close at the writing of the bet.

  “Who’s The Mad Hatter?”

  “Bernie Ross. Works at Mathieson’s. Ye ken where I mean. Up at Gorbals Cross. Mathieson’s Hatter, Hosier and Outfitters. The Mad Hatter. That’s his nom de plume.”

  “His what?”

  Solly smugly repeated the word.

  Avram managed a laugh. “Sounds like you’ve got a bunch of marbles stuck in your gob.”

  “I thought ye were the smart one learning yer fancy French and Latin.”

  “Maybe if you pronounced it better.”

  “Well, anyway. It means ‘alias’, like the criminals have. Nobody uses their real names with their bets.” Solly reeled off a list of names and their aliases. Avram was surprised how many of Lucky Mo’s punters he knew. A lot of local shopkeepers and tradesmen. A lot of Jews. A lot of Irish.

  “Then there’s Baked Fish,” Solly said.

  “Who’s Baked Fish?”

  “Come on. Ye ken who I mean.”

  “Howie the Fishmonger?”

  “Try again.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Come on.”

  “I give up.”

  “Yer Uncle Mendel.”

  “Uncle Mendel bets on horses?”

  “Why not? It’s no a sin last time I looked.”

  “It’s illegal.”

  “Like I said, it’s no a commandment. It disnae say anywhere – ‘Thou shalt not bet on the two-thirty at Ayr.’”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “Well, there’s a lot more ye wouldnae believe. We’ve got punters that cannae speak a word of English but can scan a racing card as fast as the Mourner’s Kaddish. Where’s yer Uncle Mendel anyway? He’s no been around.”

  “He’s staying out of Glasgow until all this enemy alien stuff’s sorted out.”

  Solly checked out both ends of the lane again, then glanced up at his father’s window. He snatched a cigarette from behind his ear, scraped a match against the dry underside of a lifted brick and lit up.

  “It was my only chance to get
spotted by Celtic,” Avram said, taking up his thoughts where he had left them before the arrival of the Mad Hatter. “My only chance.”

  “What are ye moaning about now?”

  “Not playing the final.”

  “There’s nothing ye can dae about it.”

  “I could run away. Play for a boys’ club.”

  “Dinnae be daft. Where would ye go? And anyway ye’d still need permission from Mr Kahn to sign for a club. Ye’ll have to wait till yer an adult. Adults do what they want. Want a drag?”

  Avram took the cigarette, inhaled. The end was wet, almost soaked shut. He inhaled again, this time sharp, drawing strands of tobacco into his mouth. The smoke scratched hard in his throat and his lungs but he managed not to cough. He handed the cigarette back. “I don’t want to wait that long.”

  “Lots of players dinnae play till they’re in their twenties.”

  “Not Patsy.” He knew Gallacher had signed for Celtic when he was eighteen. He would have been contracted earlier but the teenager had wanted to finish his apprenticeship down the shipyards. “I want to play now.”

  “Look at all the players breaking up their careers by enlisting,” Solly wheezed, managing to hold the smoke deep in his lungs and speak at the same time. “God knows when they’ll come back to the game. If they come back at all.”

  “That’s different. I told you – I want to play now.”

  “Ye can play with the Jews. They’ve got a team. They play on Sunday.”

  “The Jews? They always lose. Anyway, it’s not the same. There’s no future with the Jews. With a proper boys’ club, I might get picked up by the scouts.”

  “Yer a nutter, d’ye know that? A bleedin’ spoiled nutter at that.” Solly stamped out the cigarette, laid his back flat against the wall, pulled his cap down over his face.

  The rain was coming down heavy now. Avram turned up the collar of his jacket, watched the sheets of water strafe the muddy pool at his feet. He wanted another drag on a cigarette.