Before Sarah left New York, Sammy took her to see the Cloisters ’in Fort Tryon Park, so she could describe those ancient monuments to her Christian neighbours when she went home.
Who would have believed it? she cogitated whilst they strolled along a carpet of rain-soaked leaves. She had been dreading David’s discharge from hospital, afraid that Miriam would revert to the sharp-tongued manner with which she had treated him before his collapse. But during his convalescence, the opposite had been the case, as though David’s illness had caused Miriam to suddenly value him as the rest of the family had always done. Miriam could not do enough for him and, Sarah reflected, in many respects seemed as light-hearted as she had been as a girl. Sarah and Sammy had left her and David chatting companionably together – a sight Sarah had never expected to see.
It was now the end of November. An abortive campaign had been fought about the Suez Canal, on the other side of the world, and a rumpus raised about it at the UN, here in New York, under Sarah’s nose. But the whole affair which, had she been at home, would have worried her, had washed over her as if it had not happened. Instead, she had existed in a kind of trance, which she attributed to her unfamiliar surroundings.
A pang of homesickness assailed her as she took Sammy’s arm, so she would not slip on the soggy mound they were traversing. “My front garden path will be even worse than this, with nobody there the whole autumn, to sweep up the leaves,” she said. “And I hope Mrs. Evans has taken good care of my cat.”
Sammy smiled and surveyed her frail figure, huddled in a heavy black coat. Her shoulders had a slight hunch to them that hadn’t been there when she arrived, as if the weight of anxiety about David had left its mark. “Now it’s almost time for you to leave, you’ve begun worrying about what’s going on at home!” he teased her. “You’re a born worrier, Mother.”
“Lately, I haven’t been able to think of anyone or anything but David,” Sarah answered. “Like your father once said to me, even I am not capable of worrying about my children more than one at a time!”
“And which of us will you give your sole attention to next?” Sammy chuckled.
Sarah turned to look at him. He still walked with a limp, as he had since the age of two; even the built-up shoe he wore could not prevent that. And the lines beside his mouth had deepened since he left England. But they were from physical pain, not the evidence of discontentment which marred Nathan’s handsome features, or the fruits of business anxiety that had prematurely aged David. Life had dealt Sammy some cruel blows, Sarah reflected with sadness, but despite this he was and always had been the happiest of her four children.
“Your leg I hope will never get any worse, Sammy,” she said. “And in other respects, you I don’t need to worry about.” She paused by a bench, brushed some leaves off it and sat down. “Let’s take a rest.”
“But not for long. There’s a damp mist in the air and I don’t want you to catch cold, Mother.”
“The mist I prefer to the hurricane, that day I went to Fifth Avenue with Miriam,” Sarah exaggerated.
Sammy laughed. Miriam’s description of his mother battling to hold down her skirts had amused everyone but Sarah. “With the Hudson on one side and the East River on the other, New Yorkers are used to being blown about. Manhattan is an island, Mother.”
“So is England. But in Manchester, the River Irwell doesn’t do that to you,” Sarah declaimed. “Nor did the Dvina, in Dvinsk,” she recalled.
A bulbous-nosed senior citizen eavesdropping from the other end of the bench lowered his Herald Tribune. “Did I hear you mention Dvinsk – excuse me for interrupting?”
Sarah nodded. “I came from there. But I’m English, now.”
“No kidding. American I can tell you’re not. Me, I’m from Bialystok,” he said, folding his arms and resting them on his sizeable paunch. “But a friend of mine – he’s moved to the Bronx to live with his married daughter – comes from Dvinsk.”
“For Jews, it’s a small world,” Sarah smiled.
Sammy was studying the old gentleman’s face. “Haven’t I seen you at shul?”’
“Which shul is that?”
“The Beth Hamidrash Hagodol, on West 175th.”
“My own synagogue he’s telling me the address of! But I thought I knew all my fellow-congregants.”
“I guess I don’t put in an appearance too often,” Sammy said, sounding ashamed. “Only on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I’m afraid.”
The old man shook his head sorrowfully and exchange a glance with Sarah.
“Our children are not like us,” she shrugged.
“That you can say again! And with their children, it’s even worse. Already three of my seven grandchildren, they’ve married-out.”
Sarah was about to admit that two of hers had done likewise but was not given time to open her mouth.
“But so long as they don’t marry schwartzers, today we gotta be thankful.”
“A fine thing for a Jew to say!” Sarah exclaimed rebukingly.
“In your country, you don’t get no colour problem,” the old man retorted. “Only a sprinkling, who came since the war, I heard you got there.”
“It’s people like you who make such problems.” Sarah rose from the bench and bade him the customary farewell she had heard on all sides during her stay in New York. “Have a good day.” But she did not sound as if she meant it.
“I guess you put that guy in his place, Mother,” Sammy smiled when he caught up with her. She had turned on her heel and marched away before he had time to get to his feet.
Sarah was seething, but her anger was tinged with distress. “A racist Jew I never expected to meet.”
“Jews can be as prejudiced as anyone else, Mother.”
“But it’s wrong that they should be, when we’ve suffered so much from prejudice ourselves. I can remember you and David and Esther getting jeered at by Christian children every day, on your way home from school.”
“If I had a dollar for all the times I got spat at and called a dirty Yid, I’d be a wealthy guy,” Sammy reminisced.
“By the time our Nat was old enough to start school, it wasn’t that bad,” Sarah recalled. “Jews are still looked on as different – even in England – but sooner or later people begin to accept you.”
“I doubt if that’s ever gonna happen with the blacks.”
“Why shouldn’t it?” Sarah demanded.
“Because the Jews have never been a social problem. Like the blacks, unfortunately, are here.”
“What is a social problem?” Sarah inquired as Sammy had known she would. With his mother, one explanation always led to another.
“Don’t expect me to explain in detail, Mother. You know I don’t have the head for it,” Sammy smiled. “All I can say is if you lived here, you’d understand.”
“Nothing would make me understand how a Jew could think like that man does,” Sarah declared adamantly.
“Look – the Cloisters,” Sammy said, thankful for an excuse to change the subject. When something lodged in his mother’s mind, there was no getting it out! Long before most people had even heard of Hitler, she had warned the family about the creeping danger of Fascism. When the persecution of Jews began in Europe, she’d been incensed that Oswald Mosley was still allowed to preach the evil in England – and had taken her grandchildren to hear him speak, to drive home the danger to them, Sammy recalled. If she lived in New York, he would not put it past her to march down Park Avenue waving a banner supporting the Black cause.
Sarah had halted to survey the Cloisters. “Wait until I tell Mrs. Evans and Mrs. Watson what you have in your local park, Sammy,” she said, studying the imposing edifice. It was difficult to believe that parts of medieval monasteries and chapels had been brought from Europe and rebuilt here, stone by stone. “You have to hand it to the Yanks, the things they do,” she said with admiration.
“You haven’t stopped saying that since you got here,” Sammy smiled.
“It’s true.” Each time Sarah saw the New York skyline and the feat of engineering that was the George Washington Bridge, linking the city with the State of New Jersey, she marvelled anew.
“It’s a pity you won’t be able to tell people back home that you rode to the top of the Empire State Building,” Sammy teased her.
“My life he would like me to risk!”
During the bus ride back to 179th Street, Sarah was unusually quiet.
“You’re looking very thoughtful,” Sammy said.
“Who wouldn’t? In two days’ time, I’ll be back in England. But America I’ll never forget.”