The Credit Draper Episode 15

Nobody wanted to end up at a dead child’s desk and Avram felt uneasy if he did, fearful of inheriting the lingering germs of the deceased’s disease. But very quickly, the spirit of the dead pupil vacated both the desk and the memory of the classmates, and he relaxed.

On his academic ascent, he had passed Solly now but was yet to reach Celia, who hid in the back row. She was the cleverest girl in the class.

“Escovitz!” screamed Roy Begg. “Over here!”

Avram trotted off the pitch to face the school sports master for the first time. Roy Begg stood tall with thinning greased-back hair, long cheeks that gave his face an equine shape, and a mouth frozen into a constant scowl.

Over one eye, Roy Begg wore a black patch on a thong etching a deep ridge across his forehead, while the other good eye seemed to weep in perpetual mourning over the loss of its partner.

“Sir.” Avram was surprised to hear his voice come out steady, for his legs were shaking.

Roy Begg looked up from the list of players he had scribbled together for Sunday’s game. “You’re in the team. Left wing.”

He watched Begg chew out other words, his jaw snapping like a seagull’s empty beak. He noticed the cropped shadow of the man’s shaving glistening with the sheen from some pungent lotion and he felt the glare of his classmates as they looked on.

He wanted to turn round to them and shout “I’m in the team” but he stood still with his fists clenched tight around his joy. For that was what Solly had told him.

“Don’t show any emotion or he’ll pick on you, like Wee Jimmie picks his spots.” They both had laughed at the joke but he knew the seriousness of the advice.

Yet as he stood there petrified by Begg’s one-eyed stare, his fingers stayed wrapped around his elation not just because of Solly’s warning but because he never wanted to let it go.

Wallop. The slap across the top of his head stung him back to attention.

“Are you listening, boy?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I might even play you later in the senior team,” Roy Begg continued. “But you’re still a runt. You’ll need to put on a bit of beef before I can do that.”

Avram remained tight-lipped. He would ask Solly later what a ‘runt’ was.

“And don’t get any fancy ideas, Escovitz.” Begg stabbed a pencil in his direction. “You’ve got talent, that’s for sure. But it will need nurturing. And discipline.

“You’re mine now. Do you understand? From now on, you’re mine.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What are you?”

“I’m mine.”

He flinched to another slap across his head.

“What are you?”

“I’m yours.”

“That’s better. And don’t forget that.” He turned to run on to the pitch but Roy Begg called him back. “And one more thing you should know, Escovitz.”

Roy Begg stared at him with one watery blue eye until he was forced to ask: “What is that, sir?”

“I don’t like Jews, Escovitz. I don’t like Jews.”

Attention

The sounds of the brass knocker on the front door echoed in the cold, unlit hallway, intruding on the quiet of the Sabbath afternoon, rousing Avram’s attention from the football cards spread out on the floor.

Madame Kahn looked up from her book, clucked disapprovingly.

Her husband had gone to lie down while she sat reading before the light of a fire of her own making, her bare legs blotched red from the licking closeness of the flames.

Avram was surprised she allowed herself this transgression of fire-lighting on the Sabbath, but Madame Kahn always had the same answer to any comments about her sin.

“If our forefathers lived in the Gallowgate and not the Galilee, believe me they would light fires on Shabbos.”

Celia leapt to her feet, darted out of the room. She returned with a contrite-looking Solly. “He wants to know if Avram can go out for a walk,” Celia announced.

Madame Kahn glowered at Avram, then at Solly, as if trying to detect some sinful conspiracy. She nodded. “Go. But be back in time to collect my cholent.”

He wanted to turn round to them and shout ‘I’m in the team’ but he stood still with his fists clenched tight around his joy

Solly bowed politely to Madame Kahn, then gestured with a flick of his head for Avram to come.

“Where do we go?” Avram whispered in the hallway.

“Ye’ll see.” Solly grabbed a tammy from the hat-stand, threw it at his friend. “Dress up warm. It’s right nippy outside.”

He followed Solly out into the cold where the fresh air felt good on his cheeks, drawn deep into his stifled lungs.

He let Solly race off, glad to run after him, to move his limbs, to use up the energy lodged stodgily in his stomach.

His legs were stiff at first, almost reluctant to exercise on this Day of Rest, but soon he was racing along the Gorbals streets in pursuit.

“Where do we go?” he called out again, but Solly had turned a corner into another street.

He followed but again Solly twisted away from him, raced ahead into an alley between the back of the tenements.

Avram ran on steady, confident he could catch up with his heavier friend.

But after a few more yards, he drew up sharp at the end of the pavement, as if it were the edge of a precipice he’d reached.

“Come on, Patsy,” Solly shouted. “What’s keepin’ ye?”

Where Solly stood waiting on the other side of the road, shops were open for business, pedestrians crowded the streets, tramcars and buses plied their daily routes, horse-drawn wagons ferried goods through the city.

Solly crossed back for him, grabbed his arm. “Get a move on. We have’nae much time.”

Avram stood his ground. “I’m not coming.”

“What? Don’t be daft. Come on.” “No.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not …” He struggled to find the words. “I don’t know. It’s not kosher.”

More tomorrow.

The Credit Draper is the first in a trilogy by J. David Simons. He has written five novels and is published by Saraband. His work can be purchased at saraband.net