Tender Earth

On Monday Kez texts me just as I’m passing the Unfriendship Bench on my way into school.

I’ve done myself in. I’m so tired I’m having a few days off to recover. Teachers have given me leave to work from home this week. Will you come for a sleepover next Sunday to chill? My parents are away. Just me, you and Bubbe!

‘That works out well. We’ve got builders in, sorting out the wall, and I think Dad and I might go away for the night to Suffolk. Get a bit of sea air!’

We sprawl out over Kez’s comfy sofas in front of a new version of Peter Pan. We’ve watched this film together tons of times since we were tiny, but I like the way they’ve updated it so the children are teenagers – it’s like they could be us . . . Kez, me, Pari, Stella and Rebecca. We know whole sections of the words off by heart, and when they come up we shout them at the top of our voices. Pari would love this.

‘So come with me, where dreams are born, and time is never planned. Just think of happy things, and your heart will fly on wings, forever, in Never Never Land!’

Bubbe laughs at us as we reel off the words. ‘Glad to see you two aren’t too old for this yet!’

‘I didn’t know you were friends with Stella in our tutor group,’ I say to Kez.

‘Yeah, she’s really nice. She comes with me and Selina sometimes for PE and to physio too. I’ve seen her in the hydropool a few times. She has a twin brother; he’s got a brain injury. She helps him swim. His face lights up when he knows she’s there. She’s got such a way with him. She told me she gets really stressed being apart from him.’

As we watch the rest of the film I can’t help winding back through everything I thought I knew about Stella. It turns out I knew nothing at all.

Bubbe makes us some doughnuts and lets us eat on the sofa, and the time just slips by like it used to, with neither of us saying or doing anything much – just hanging out.

‘Do you want to hear a real-life love story about Janu and Mira and Jidé?’ I ask Kez.

We lie in bed in the dark, top to tail, and I tell her the whole thing as I twiddle her feet like I always used to when we were little and had sleepovers.

‘That story’s so . . . romantic!’ Kez says when I finish. ‘And Mira never told you any of it?’

I shake my head. ‘I suppose everyone has secrets. What about Adam? I saw the way he was looking at you all through your bat mitzvah!’

‘If I tell you something, promise you won’t tell anyone else? Because I’m not sure yet whether it’ll turn into anything.’

For a moment I think about telling Kez about Tomek. But what can I say? It’s not like there’s anything between us, and even though I keep thinking I might call him, every time I go to do it I change my mind. He must think I’m so weird, pretending not to speak English when I first met him. There’s nothing to tell.

‘At camp we were doing abseiling. You know me, Laila, I’ll try everything, but there was this one moment when I got really scared and Adam talked me through it. We sort of got to know each after that and we sang together at this silly show thing we did.’

‘And when we were leaving he kissed me! But I wasn’t sure if it was just like an end-of-summer-camp thing.’

‘I don’t know! I can’t believe he came all the way from Manchester for my bat mitzvah.’

‘I think he really likes you. The way he was leaning forward and hanging on every word you said . . .’

‘You think? He only texted me once to say thanks after my bat mitzvah . . . then nothing.’

Kez’s phone beeps. She switches on her bedside light and I catch the time on her clock radio. It’s gone midnight already but it feels like we’ve only just come to bed!

Can’t sleep! Got Kez on my mind! When can I see you again? We need to practise for our duet! Love Adam X

I wake up first. There’s a picture poking out from Kez’s pillowcase. I pick it up and take a closer look. It’s the sweetest painting of Kez with her bright red hair floating behind her all entwined with a little girl’s jet-black hair as they’re flying through the sky in a sort of spaceship palace. I look at it for ages, until I feel Kez stir beside me. I hand it to her. ‘Who did this?’

‘That’s one of Reena’s,’ she tells me, yawning. ‘It’s me and her flying around in our Vimana chariot!’ Kez points to her chair. ‘Remember in primary I used to ask you to run for me?’

‘You understand, don’t you, Laila, why I had to break away a bit?’ Kez hugs me close.

It’s taken me a while, but I do understand. I think I needed to break away too; I just didn’t know it. The old Laila would never have gone on a march on her own.

On Monday morning we do a bit of homework and go out to the park. I love Inset days; they make the week seem so much shorter. We sit on the Unfriendship Bench that’s lost its ‘Un’. Pari calls and I talk to her for a while and it feels fine chatting to her with Kez by my side, not awkward at all.

When we get back Adam calls and Kez blushes red. I keep making her giggle so she goes through to the bathroom and chats to him for ages behind the closed door. I lie on Kez’s bed and Mum and Dad text me to say that they’re having a peaceful time ‘walking by the wintery sea’.

‘I’m going to the cemetery. Thought I’d go and tidy up Stan’s headstone; I’ve been meaning to do it for a while,’ she says. ‘I know it’s not exactly an outing, but do you girls want to keep me company?’

As I watch Bubbe get into the car and lower the ramp for Kez, I wonder how this family would actually manage without Bubbe’s help. Maybe Kez is as confident as she is partly because of Bubbe. As we drive past the end of our road, I look towards our house and there’s a big yellow skip parked outside and some builders working on the wall.

‘Back in the day, Stan and I started out at the West London Reform Synagogue. I always feel quite lucky that he’s buried here, so close . . . I’m happy we’ve organized it so I’ll be by his side too when my time comes.’

‘That won’t be for ages,’ Kez says. The muscles in her cheeks tense up like she can’t stand the thought of Bubbe not being here.

‘It’ll be when it will be.’ Bubbe smiles to herself. ‘Anyway, nice and convenient for maintenance!’ she jokes, waving to a security man on the gate as we enter.

The cemetery is so peaceful. You can hardly hear the road from here. Bubbe walks ahead, putting more space between us. It’s like she wants to be alone for a bit, so we hang back. Suddenly she stops and sinks to her knees. I think she must have found the grave, but the way Kez speeds up makes me think something’s wrong. I have to run to catch up with her.

When she reaches Bubbe, I see Kez put her hand over her mouth and look up at me in panic.

At first I think maybe Bubbe’s fallen and hurt herself. But she’s pointing at the graves, sobbing, and then I see what they’re both looking at. On Stan’s headstone, underneath his name, someone has spray-painted a red swastika. The headstone alongside and all the others as far back as the cemetery wall have all been defaced too. Bubbe stares and stares, tears running down her cheeks, as if she can’t believe what she’s seeing. She takes a handful of earth and scatters it across the gravestone to try to cover up the ugly red stain, but the soil slides off.

‘Don’t bother anyone.’ Bubbe straightens up and begins to walk very slowly out of the cemetery without saying a word.

Kez looks like she’s in shock too; she’s shaking, and when I take her hand, she clasps it so tightly that it hurts.

‘No! Just wait by the van,’ Bubbe orders, and walks over to the lodge to ring the bell. The security man comes out and Bubbe points to the graves in the far corner of the cemetery. The guard shakes his head, takes her arm and walks her back to the car.

‘Appalling! It must have happened last night. I’ll make sure it’s dealt with straight away. I think we need to build the wall higher in that corner.’

‘They must have got in over the footpath. Are you sure you’re all right to drive?’ the security guard asks. Bubbe ignores the question and climbs into the front seat. She doesn’t say a word as she drives away. We keep checking on her through the mirror, expecting her to say something, but she has her eyes fixed on the road ahead. I’ve never seen that look on Bubbe’s face before. It’s like all the softness has gone out of her, as if she’s turned to stone.

When we get in she goes straight to her room. We make her tea and knock on her door but she doesn’t answer.

‘It’s Bubbe . . . Mum, you’ve got to come back home now.’ Kez tries to say what’s happened but her voice slurs and even I can’t really understand her because she’s getting so upset.

‘It’s all right, Kez. We’re approaching home now anyway,’ I hear Hannah say.

Five minutes later Hannah and Maurice are opening the door. They come into the kitchen and sit at the table while we tell them exactly what we saw.

‘Why?’ Maurice bashes the table hard and makes us jump. Tears spring into my eyes. Kez looks frightened.

Hannah puts a hand on Maurice’s shoulder. ‘Don’t, Maurice. What good will that do?’

But I think I understand how he feels. Janu was wrong to tell me to keep quiet about what those racists did to him, and I can’t get that vile message that Pari has to look at every day out of my head. If people are afraid to say or do anything about it, how are things ever going to change?

‘They’ve got to call this what it is . . . anti-Semitism . . . If they don’t call it—’

Kez’s dad walks to the other end of the room and rests his forehead against the wall for a while, till his shoulders start to relax a bit. He turns around.

It doesn’t feel right for me to follow them, so I stay outside her room. I can hear them talking to her, but she doesn’t respond. I go through into the kitchen, walk over to the dresser and pick up the photos of the little girl and boy who grew up into Stan and Bubbe. All these conversations start flowing through my mind: Bubbe talking about Stan and why she came here; Grandad Kit’s voice on the tape describing marching down Cable Street; Simon handing me the Banner Bag; the girl with her tissues on the tube; Simon and Nana Josie chanting and marching for the things they believed needed changing. Me . . . keeping quiet about what happened to Janu on the tube and so many other things that I can see are plain wrong. I feel sick thinking about Bubbe lying in bed believing that nothing’s changed in this world . . . that everything’s just getting worse.

‘Why won’t she speak to us, Mum – why won’t she talk?’ The muscles in Kez’s face and neck are spasming. She shouldn’t get into this much of a state. Maurice is encouraging her to take some medicine to calm her down.

It’s so wrong. This is the same Kez who just one week ago was flying, she could have done anything, and now she’s having to take medication to calm her because of hateful racists. I have to think of something I can DO about this . . . like Nana Josie and Simon did when they saw things that were so unfair. After everything Bubbe’s done, bringing us all together at the bat mitzvah. All she and her husband went through to survive as children on the Kindertransport. Janu’s wrong. This is not a time to stay quiet. Nothing’s healed. I’m not going to let Bubbe think that it’s all happening again and we’re just going to sit by and watch.

‘Laila, I think your parents are home now; we bumped into them on the way back,’ Maurice says. He’s turned an ash-grey colour.

‘Oh yes . . .’ I say, placing the photos gently back on the shelf. ‘Of course, sorry, I’ll go and pack my things.’

When I’m ready to leave, Kez, Maurice and Hannah are all still in with Bubbe, sitting around her bed. I don’t want to disturb them, so I let myself out, quietly closing the door behind me.

‘You’re family too, Laila!’ Bubbe’s words run through my mind as I walk home.

Dad meets me halfway up the street. He wraps his arm around my shoulders and walks me home.

Only . . . it doesn’t look like home, more like a building site. The whole of the front wall has gone but it’s nowhere near finished yet. Instead of steps there’s a muddy ramp up to the front door. Everything looks different now, even our house.

I run upstairs to Mira’s room, slam the door, crawl under the bed and take out Nana’s Protest Book. I turn the pages that I’m starting to know off by heart. When I look closer at the photographs, I see that the same banner is in a few of the different marches that they went on. It just says: ‘Not In My Name’. I think I saw that slogan on the march we saw on TV at Pari’s flat too.

They do for a bit, but then they come back. First Mum, then Dad . . . I ignore them and call Pari and tell her about Bubbe. She hardly says anything. I keep asking her if she’s still there.

‘I’m still here!’ she says. ‘Sorry, my mum’s talking at the same time. Hang on, Mum.’ I can hear Leyla speaking in Arabic. She sounds upset. ‘Mum’s saying she saw it on the news . . . it’s happened in other areas too. She’s worried there will be a backlash against us.’

‘OK, Mum, OK. I’ll tell them. I will make sure they understand . . . Mum says she wants you to tell Kezia’s family that she’s going to say her prayers for them. There was enough trouble back home. She wants us all to have peace. Anything she can do to help she will do.’

After I put the phone down, I sit there for a while. What Pari’s mum said has made me think. Maybe there is something we can all do together?

‘Listen to this.’ Dad reads from the news on his phone over breakfast. ‘A council spokesman said that “our sincere condolences go to the Jewish Community and we will endeavour to remove the hateful graffiti as quickly as possible. Anti-Semitism will not be tolerated in this country or any borough of this city.”’

I have never felt like this before. Everything people are saying is feeding my plan . . .

Kez is not at school. I text and call her, but she doesn’t answer. I walk past hers on the way home, but the shutter blinds are closed like someone has died. I drop a note through her door asking after Bubbe and telling her to call me when she gets a chance.

When I get back home there’s the beginning of a concrete-shaped path, and a man with a mini-digger is pouring soil on to both sides of the pathway. The grinding of the digger drills into my head and I get a sharp pain behind my eyes.

I head upstairs and pull the Banner Bag out from under the bed. I press open the catches. They feel a bit looser now. I take the Protest Book out, lay it on the floor and open the bag up as wide as it will go. On the inside, in the faded leather, I spot something I haven’t noticed before, someone’s handwriting . . . it looks like Simon’s. I turn the bag on its side. The words are a bit faded but I can just about make them out:

‘Days are scrolls – write on them what you want to be remembered’.

I unroll a clean scroll and lay it out across the carpet. I think for a long time about the message. I pick up a paintbrush and choose the same blue paint Nana Josie used for the banner on her last march.

Everything kaleidoscopes through my mind. Those men’s faces on the tube, mocking Janu with their chanting, the hateful words in Pari’s lift, what her parents had to go through, Bubbe and Stan arriving as children, Grandad Kit marching on Cable Street against the fascism growing in the city, Bubbe’s tears at the refugee children on the news, at Stan’s grave . . . what if . . . what if no one can tell when they’re actually living in a time that’s losing its heart? What if that’s why evil things happen? No one says and does anything until it’s too late; they just change carriage and pretend they haven’t seen what’s going on.

I want Bubbe to remember us all standing together like we did at Kez’s bat mitzvah – and I want Janu to know that I haven’t stayed silent, that this is for him too. I think of the sign above Mrs Latif’s whiteboard. I want all religions, no religions, don’t even know about religion – just people from here, there and everywhere – to come together. I can’t stop thinking about the look on Bubbe’s face when she drove us back from the cemetery, like she’d given up hope. What if . . . what if Bubbe dies and all this hate is the last thing she remembers?

ANTI-SEMITISM

ANY RACISM

NOT IN OUR NAMES

I unroll all the blank banner scrolls and write the same message over and over. Painting in Nana’s colours, with the brush she held in her hands, and all these feelings whirring through my head, I feel like she’s guiding me through this. Maybe everything from the day I found her chime has been leading to this. Each letter I paint makes me feel closer to her, and I know that this is the right thing to do.

Anti-Racism Vigil

Sunday December 10th – 3 p.m.

Crosslands Cemetery

Bring warm clothes, a jam jar and nightlights

I don’t want to email or text anyone in case Dad checks my account and tries to stop me. I copy the invite over and over and over, then cut them into thin strips and put them in my school bag. By the time Mum peeps her head around the door to say goodnight, I’m all tidied up.

‘They’ve cleaned up the graves but she’s still devastated. Very depressed. Kez too, I think. Just dreadful, isn’t it?’

I wake up determined to speak to Tomek, but when it comes to it, I text him instead. I write ‘Dear Tomek . . .’ then delete it. ‘Hi Tomek . . .’ and even that looks strange, so I delete that too and just text him the details. At least it makes sense me inviting him to this, and if he’s not interested, it’s not embarrassing for me to have got in contact. Remembering what he did for Janu that day on the train makes me even more sure about doing this.

I tell Pari everything. I talk through my plan and she says she wants to be part of it.

‘Don’t tell your mum, Pari. This has to be our thing, to show Bubbe that she’s right to have hope in us.’

‘I won’t say anything. But if anyone would understand, my mum would. I’ll tell her I’m coming over to yours,’ Pari says.

I pass a wodge of information strips to Rebecca and she promises to spread the word to the people I don’t know who came to Kez’s bat mitzvah.

‘What are you all whispering about?’ Stella asks at break-time. I take out a slip from my bag and hand it to her. She looks at it and puts it in her pocket. ‘Thanks!’

Mrs Latif is off sick and it’s the longest, most boring week in school ever. We don’t hear anything from Kez or Maurice or Hannah. It’s like they’ve closed the rest of the world out.

The weather’s turned cold. Really, really cold – so your breath turnes to mist. I decide to wear a vest and one of Mira’s old school jumpers like Mum’s been nagging me to do for ages. There’s a frost on the ground that doesn’t thaw all day. Even after school the leaves are crispy white with ice like those sugared leaves you can buy to decorate cakes with. I think of Pari. I hope her mum can keep the electricity on tonight.

On Saturday I don’t sleep all night, thinking about Kez and Bubbe. I go into Mira’s room and sit on the bed. I open the curtains at about 3 a.m. It seems very light. The moon is almost full. As I look out the snow begins to fall. It’s just a bit of sleet at first but then it falls heavier, in great soft flakes that fill the sky. I kneel by the window and watch it cover everything with a soft white coat. All the hard edges in the garden are gone . . . I wonder if the snow will stop anyone from coming.

In the morning I run downstairs and look at the road. Nothing’s moving. I open the front door. I can’t hear anything. It’s so quiet, like the whole city’s been wrapped in a soft white blanket.

‘No!’ I say. ‘It’s not that far. It’s not till the afternoon. Transport might be working by then. If people come, it’ll show that they care even more. Anyway, we’ve all got time to walk there.’

‘Sorry, Laila. I had to tell my mum or she wouldn’t let me come. The tubes are off, you see. She says she’s proud of us and she’s going to let me walk.’

I give her directions to the cemetery from our street, but she and her mum have already looked it up.

‘One hour twenty-three minutes by foot according to Journey Planner,’ I tell her. ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’

I usually hate wearing hats, but the one Pari’s mum knitted is so soft. I pull it down over my ears. Mum and Dad are out when I set off. The Banner Bag doesn’t seem so heavy without the paints and Nana’s big banner in it, but still the further I go the heavier it feels. When it’s too much for one arm I switch it to the other. Even though the streets are eerily empty I have the strangest feeling that I’m not on my own. Every time I put a new footprint in the snow I think of all the people this is for: Bubbe, Kez, Stan, Maurice, Hannah, Janu, Pari, Leyla, Nuri, Nana Josie, Grandad Kit, Grandad Bimal, Nana Kath, Mira, Krish, Mum, Dad, Anjali, Priya . . .

Those are the names that come into my head first – then other names drift through my mind . . . Stella, Rebecca, Selina, Adam, Tomek . . .

I’m the first to arrive. I go over to the lodge where the security guard was when we came last time so I can talk to him about what we’re planning, but it’s all locked up. Maybe he can’t get here because of the snow.

I keep looking at my watch and worrying. What if no one turns up except me, Pari and Stella? That would still be something, I tell myself. They should be here soon. I think about phoning Pari again . . . and just as I’m about to, I see someone waving. It’s Pari, wearing her red pom-pom hat – and I suppose that must be Stella. They’re wearing identical bright blue snowsuits.

‘I met Stella on the way!’ Pari says. ‘She lent me all this warm gear. I’m not cold at all!’

I’m not sure if she’s talking about me and Pari and our matching red hats, or about her and Pari in their snowsuits.

‘Not us!’ Stella laughs. ‘Me and my brother. That’s his kit!’ She points to Pari’s snowsuit.

We wait, the three of us, for more people to turn up. After about ten minutes a whole colourful crowd of bright coats and hats walk towards us.

Other people arrive with their night lights and their jam jars, and one by one Pari, Stella and me light the candles. All Kez’s friends from the bat mitzvah are here, and some people from her tutor group too. There are loads more than I thought would come. I count over fifty of us. There aren’t even enough banners to go round.

Even though I’m nervous and I’ve never done anything like this before, somehow it’s not so difficult to tell them my idea, because I’m doing it for Bubbe. I ask everyone to turn their phones off and they do. I thought people would argue or think the barefoot idea is too weird, but when I tell them that our footprints in the snow will show how much we care about this, nobody laughs at me.

‘I get that!’ Stella says. ‘And when people see these footprints they won’t know who they belong to.’

I feel like hugging Stella . . . but she’s not the sort of person who looks like she would let you hug her.

I hand my iPad to Becks. ‘Can you film it all from the start? I’m going to send it to Kez and Bubbe.’

We are standing outside the cemetery, and the graves inside look like little even hills of snow. I can just about make out the path still.

When you first take your shoes off, the softness and coldness of the snow takes your breath away. I feel like this is the first time I have really felt what snow is.

The shoes, snow boots and wellies line back and back along the path. There’s something so strange about that line of shoes in the snow that I get a bit hypnotized by it and by the people speaking their names, so I don’t see him arrive.

I turn and he smiles and nods at me like he doesn’t want to make a big deal of being here.

I can feel Pari and Stella staring at us. Pari pulls a face at me as if to say, Aren’t you the secretive one?

I ignore their grins and hand out the banners to people who want to carry them. People collect their jam jars and lit candles. We line up in little groups and start to walk barefoot down the path to Stan Braverman’s grave.

Tomek doesn’t say anything to me. He just walks by my side and occasionally his hand grazes mine. Is he doing it on purpose? Every time our hands touch I feel like an electric shock runs through my body. Even though we’ve only met twice, and he doesn’t know any of my friends, he understands as much as anyone here why we’re walking together, so the next time his hand touches mine I reach for his fingers and our hands fold together, palm against palm.

Everything is still except for the song of a robin that hops ahead of us, as if it’s leading the way.

‘Such a tiny little bird . . . with a strong voice.’ Simon’s words float into my head.

We reach the end of the cemetery where Bubbe fell and lay down the banners. One by one we place the candles around all the graves that were spoilt. I smooth away the snow to reveal Stan’s headstone. The stone is bleached where they have cleaned away the swastika, but you can still see the washed-out shadow of the shape. It makes me think of Pari’s picture of her dad, and I think of Janu and what he said after he was attacked . . . about the memory of hatred taking longer to heal. I place my candle on Stan Braverman’s grave and Tomek places his beside mine. This corner of the cemetery looks so pretty now, all lit up with candles. Nobody speaks, even the robin has stopped singing. The peace is as soft and deep as the snow. Becks spends a long time filming it, trying to capture the atmosphere.

When all the candles are arranged in the snow, we pick up our banners and walk in our own footprints back to the entrance of the cemetery, leaving the candles burning. Tomek keeps looking sideways at me and smiling as we hold the banner together, and even though this is such a small vigil, nothing like the Women’s March or big marches that Nana and Simon went on, or the one Pari, Leyla and me watched on the news, this still feels like something.

We try out a few ideas and finally agree on: ‘Our vigil for Bubbe and your family, love from all your friends.’

After we’ve done the walk back through the cemetery, people turn their phones back on and there’s a chorus of pinging and speaking to parents who want to know where they are.

We stand around talking for a while, but even with their shoes back on people are starting to shiver. I think it’s probably all over now. Quite a few people start to say their goodbyes. There’s lots of hugging and arm holding. I understand what Nana Josie was saying now in her Protest Book, about how standing together makes you feel stronger, even if you can’t see how it changes things straight away.

We take it in turns to walk back to the graves to make sure the candles are still alight. I have plenty of spare nightlights in my Banner Bag, enough to keep it all lit up to the entrance and by the gravesides.

By the time it’s dark, the road has opened up and a few cars drive slowly past, but no buses. I suppose people must be wondering what we’re doing here.

The cold is biting through my clothes now and I start to shiver. I suppose it would have been really hard for Kez to come and see this vigil for Bubbe.

We’re just about to pack up the banners when I hear the engine. I know the sound of that van.

I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Bubbe steps carefully out of the driver’s seat, walks around and opens the back of the van for Kez.

‘I couldn’t stop her coming! Mum and Dad are going to kill me. I’m supposed to be at home looking after Bubbe! But . . . thank you,’ Kez calls out from the van as she waits for the ramp to lower.

‘Don’t want to go flying!’ She smiles at me but she looks sad. Her eyes are full of tears. She reaches out to me and we hold each other for a long time. It’s a hug that says so many things. It seems such a long time ago that we used to play those flying games.

Bubbe looks so fragile, like the winter twigs all around, but her face is soft again, and smiling.

‘My dear, sweet Laila! I’m wearing them!’ she whispers to me, pointing to the little black leather shoes she wore the day she had to leave her home forever.

‘Now, where is that camera you used?’ Bubbe asks, and shudders with the cold.

I light a candle for Bubbe and one for Kez. Bubbe walks carefully towards Stan’s grave with Kez by her side.

I follow the path of Bubbe’s little-girl shoe prints treading through the snow.

I can just make out the branches of the trees above. As they walk further down the path, the snow-light and mist merge into one so you can’t tell what’s earth, air or sky any more. Bubbe and Kez disappear and all that you can see of them is the faint glow of their candles.