The Credit Draper

Episode 28

Papa Kahn smiled. “You know my speeches too well, daughter. Hanukkah. The festival of miracles and heroes.” Papa Kahn looked at the wasted figure of his son while Celia made the blessing and lit the first candle. “The festival of miracles and heroes.”

Avram stared at the solitary burning taper adorning the menorah like a lone sentry.

He remembered the same ceremony being conducted back in his home in Russia when it was he that was given the privilege of lighting the first candle.

Then, together with his mother he would sing the same Hanukkah songs as he sang now with Celia and Papa Kahn, melodies that seemed to possess no geographical boundaries, melodies that somehow had wandered intact through the diaspora locked in the hearts of his people.

Was it like this in other homes in countries to which Jews had fled throughout the world? Singing the same melodies, like some universal code?

He even recalled, in some vaguer memory, his mother giving him a few coins, the Hanukkah gelt, to celebrate the festival, and he remembered the joy he felt at being entrusted with such a wonderful gift of adult currency.

Fractured

He half-shut his eyes so that the flame before him fractured into shards of light that beamed back at him.

Perhaps the light would bestow on him another miracle. Or turn him into a hero.

“Now let us go into my study,” Papa Kahn said.

Avram had not been in Papa Kahn’s study since the eve of his bar mitzvah. The room not only appeared smaller but it had become neglected.

The shelves of books around the walls seemed to sag both from their extra layers of dust and from the weariness of their owner.

Bolts of military cloth and boxes of military insignia now took precedence over everything else.

It was here that Papa Kahn instigated the orders for the clothes that would turn ordinary men into soldiers.

By the side of the desk, there lay a large opened box. He could see bars of soap stacked up neatly inside. The smell of lavender pervaded the room.

Papa Kahn slumped down into his leather chair behind the large desk. He flicked a hand back and forth across the top row of his abacus, following the rhythm of the beads until he was ready to speak.

“I put Mary in charge of the household,” he said eventually. “You must do as she says.”

“But, Papa, she hit me,” Celia protested. “She said you swore at her. Is that true?” “She said she was my mother.”

“Did you swear at her?”

Celia said nothing.

“Avram?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Very noble of you, Avram. Very noble. But your loyalty should be to me.”

Papa Kahn turned his attention back to Celia. “I don’t know where you get this language from.

“Not from me or your mother. From the schoolyard, no doubt. From now on, you are to behave like a young lady, not some girl from the gutter.”

“But she provoked me.”

Isolated

Papa Kahn sighed. “Until Mother comes back, I need Mary’s help. And I need you to co-operate. She has been with us many years.”

“Even if she strikes your daughter?” “I will speak to her about that. It is an isolated incident and it will not happen again.”

Papa Kahn looked at Avram. “Is there something you want to say about the matter?”

Avram tried to keep his voice steady as he spoke. “What... what about my football, sir?”

“What about your football?”

“Mary says I have to come home straight after school.”

“If she needs you for errands or housework, she is within her authority to make such reasonable requests.”

“But they are not...”

“Enough!” Papa Kahn slammed his fist on the desk. “Enough! Enough of your nonsense, both of you. Enough of this behaviour.”

“But Papa...” Celia interjected.

“I said it was enough. You must learn to get on with Mary. Much worse is going on in this world than your petty domestic squabbles.”

Celia turned away but Avram didn’t move. The Glasgow schoolboys final was only a fortnight away.

“Please, let me play football,” he pleaded. “Just two more weeks. Please.”

Papa Kahn looked up from his desk. “You will not question my decision. You will do as I say. No more football.”

“But...”

“Fertig! Enough of this selfish behaviour.” Avram felt Celia pulling at his arm and he let her lead him away.

At the doorway, he turned back to see Papa Kahn stoop to reach into the cardboard box by the side of his desk and pull out a bar of soap.

Ripped free

Papa Kahn flicked a hand back and forth across the abacus, following the rhythm of the beads until he was ready to speak

That night, he had a dream he had not dreamt for a long time.

His mother was watching him from the quayside as he clung on to the mast of a raft that was lurching in the suck and heave of a wild ocean swell.

But this time the raft was no longer roped to the harbour. It had been ripped free of its moorings and was being rocked out to sea.

He looked around where he expected to see the figures of men who looked like the Prophets, men wrestling with ropes and winches, their feet slipping around on the bodies of silvery fish that had been washed up on to the deck.

But there was no one. The craft was empty.

He shouted back to the shore. “What will happen to me, Mother? What will happen to me?”

But his words were blasted back at him in the wind.

He wiped the salt spray from his eyes and searched the horizon.

His mother was nowhere to be seen.

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