A Woman of Substance (51 page)

Emma’s eyes scanned the kitchen. It was large and pleasant and more than adequately furnished with a sofa and several comfortable chairs, a sideboard, and a large table surrounded by six chairs. The table was covered with a fresh white cloth that gleamed brightly in the fading afternoon light and was set for four people. The wallpaper was attractive and conservative and the rug on the floor was of good quality, as were the other appointments. Emma now observed Janessa as she made the tea and filled the glasses. She was taller than her husband and slender, with an attractive figure. Her fresh-complexioned face was handsome rather than pretty, wide and Slavic in its features, and her mouth was full and soft. Her glossy straight black hair was pulled back and coiled on her neck and she had large pale blue eyes under well-defined black brows. She wore a black cotton dress and a crisp white apron that added to the rather stately and even regal impression she gave. Emma guessed she must be in her late thirties.

Within minutes Mr Kallinski returned. He had removed the dust from his trousers, changed his jacket, brushed his hair, and attended to his bruised cheek. He washed his hands at the sink and then he spoke to his wife quietly before joining Emma.
Janessa followed with the tea on a small tray. She handed a glass to Emma. ‘I know this will revive you more than the water did, Mrs Harte,’ she murmured and sat down opposite Emma.

Emma thanked her and sipped the tea. It was delicious. Lemon-flavoured with a piece of lemon floating in it, and it was sweet and hot. Emma had never had lemon tea before, but she refrained from mentioning this, as always wanting to appear both experienced and a young lady of Quality.

Mrs Kallinski gave her undivided attention to her husband. ‘Are you sure you feel all right, Abraham? No twinges? No pains in your chest again?’ She was unable to conceal her worry.

Mr Kallinski threw Emma a warning glance and said quickly, ‘No! No! Nothing like that, Janessa. Please do not worry. I am completely recovered from the fall.’

Janessa looked doubtful, a frown scoring her brow, but she appeared to accept his statement in good faith. Abraham took a sip of tea and then regarded Emma. ‘Do you live far from the Leylands, Mrs Harte?’

‘Quite a little way. Do you know where the Mucky Duck is in York Road?’ asked Emma. Mr Kallinski nodded. ‘Well, I live about half an hour’s walk from there, at the other end of York Road, in the opposite direction from the Leylands.’

‘Ah, I see,’ responded Mr Kallinski. He peered at the clock. ‘It is getting later than I realized. When my sons return, which should be very soon, I will have them escort you home. It is not safe, this area, for a young lady alone.’

Emma was about to decline this offer, but immediately saw the common sense of it. She did not want to be exposed to danger in the ghetto and the adjoining districts, and so she said, ‘Thank you. I think that
would
be a good idea.’

‘It is the least we can do,’ interjected Mrs Kallinski. ‘We don’t want your husband worrying about you, now do we?’ Then she continued in her goodhearted way, ‘And no doubt you are anxious to be getting home, to prepare your evening meal.’

Emma cleared her throat, not responding, forever cautious about confiding in strangers, but under Mrs Kallinski’s affable gaze, she found herself saying, ‘No, I don’t have to prepare
supper for my husband. He is in the Royal Navy. When he is at sea, as he is at present, I live alone.’

‘Alone!’ cried Mrs Kallinski, her dismay dousing the lambent light in her eyes. ‘Do you not have any family?’ The thought of this young girl being on her own in Leeds appalled Janessa, who came from a large, close-knit, and loving clan who were always there to protect and help each other.

Emma shook her head. ‘No, my husband’s grandmother died recently. We have no one else between us.’ She saw the grieved expression on Mrs Kallinski’s face and remarked hurriedly, ‘Except each other, of course. But I am all right. Really. I live in a nice boarding-house in a decent area, with a good woman, who rents me a room.’

The Kallinskis exchanged swift and percipient glances. Abraham nodded his head in answer to his wife’s unspoken question, which in her usual way she had communicated to him with her expressive eyes. Mrs Kallinski now leaned forward, clasping her hands together, her wide face shining with benevolence. ‘If you do not have to go home immediately, if you have no other pressing reason to leave, will you not stay and partake of our Sabbath dinner with us? It would be our very great pleasure to welcome you.’

‘Oh, no, I couldn’t. Really, I couldn’t,’ Emma protested. ‘It’s very kind of you. But I just couldn’t.’ She flushed, wondering if the Kallinskis thought she had been trying to wangle an invitation to stay. ‘Thank you. It’s very kind of you. But I couldn’t intrude.’

‘Nonsense!’ exclaimed Abraham. ‘You would not be intruding. Good gracious, after what you did for me today!’ He lifted his hands in the air, palms outward, and made several small upward gestures and went on, ‘How can we ever thank you enough? Now, please, stay for the Sabbath dinner. It will be an honour to have you.’ Seeing the baffled look on Emma’s face, he explained, ‘
Our
Sabbath day is on Saturday. It commences at sundown on Friday, when we always celebrate the beginning of the holy day with the Friday dinner.’

‘I see,’ Emma said. A worried glint crept into her eyes and they wandered to the clock on the mantelpiece. Abraham followed her glance and nodded, understanding at once what
was in her mind. ‘Don’t worry! Don’t worry! Our sons will escort you home after supper.’ His voice was reassuring. ‘You will be safe with them, even if it is dark.’

‘But I—’ Emma began.

‘It is settled, Mrs Harte,’ Janessa interrupted graciously yet with an air of decision. ‘You look tired, undoubtedly because of the trouble with those hooligans. The food will nourish you. Give you strength. You will enjoy it.’ She reached over and patted Emma’s arm. ‘We have plenty. More than enough for an extra person, an honoured guest. Please, relax, and when David and Victor arrive they, too, will welcome you. And thank you for assisting their father today. Yes, they will be delighted to have you share our Sabbath dinner.’

Emma gave in under Mrs Kallinski’s persuasive and good-natured pressure. Also, she was feeling hungry again and she had nothing very appetizing to eat at Mrs Daniel’s, and pots bubbling on the stove were emitting deliciously tempting odours. ‘Thank you. I will be happy to join you, as long as it is no trouble.’

The Kallinskis beamed and Janessa leapt up, gliding to the stove to attend to the boiling pans. She spoke to Emma as she peeped at their contents. ‘You have not eaten Jewish food before, I think, but you will like it.’ She turned, the pan lid in her hand, and nodded positively. ‘Yes, I know you will enjoy it. First we will have the chicken soup with matzo balls—those are similar to Yorkshire dumplings but smaller—and then a crisply roasted chicken all golden brown and moist, with carrots and other vegetables from the soup. We will finish with honey cakes and lemon tea. Yes, it is good, you will see—’ Janessa stopped midsentence and swung around. The door had opened, and her face lit up with pleasure and pride as her two sons entered the house. Seeing Emma seated near the fireplace, they both paused and looked at her with interest and considerable surprise.

‘David! Victor! Come, meet our guest. An honoured guest, for she helped your father out of trouble in the most admirable way today. A fine girl,’ said Janessa, plopping the lid back on to the pan. She wiped her hands on a tea towel and hurried over to her two sons, drawing them into the room. ‘Come
along, boys, this is Emma Harte. Mrs Harte.’ She led them to Emma, her face radiant. ‘This is David,’ she said, introducing the taller boy, ‘and this is Victor.’ The Kallinski boys shook hands with Emma, extended their greetings, and thanked her for coming to their father’s aid. They crossed the room to the sofa and sat down together.

It was David who addressed Abraham, his eyes narrowing as he noticed the ugly black-and-blue bruise now most obvious on his father’s cheek, which was puffy and swollen. ‘What happened, Father?’ he asked quietly and with deference, but there was a fierce glint in his eyes and he was striving to control his flaring anger. He knew it was the work of the Jewbaiters again.

Slowly Abraham explained about the incident, not leaving out the minutest detail and extolling Emma’s brave participation in the matter in the most glowing terms. As he spoke, Emma looked at the boys with growing interest, endeavouring to evaluate them.

David and Victor Kallinski were as different in every way as two brothers could be. David, who was the elder at nineteen, was tall like his mother and well built. He had been blessed with her lovely blue eyes, although his were much deeper in tone and his face, handsome and open, had a suggestion of her Slavic bone structure in its width and overall shape. He had the same head of black wavy hair his father’s had once been and he had also inherited the older man’s outward-going manner, yet essentially David Kallinski was even more gregarious, vital, and energetic than Abraham. David was a mover, a doer, ambitious, clever and driven. If there was a faint hint of cynicism in his alert blue eyes it was somewhat counteracted by the generosity of his wide mouth and his friendly demeanour. David was intelligent, intuitive, and excessively motivated towards one goal: success. And, as he knew only too well the true nature of man, he therefore lived by one rule and one rule alone—the survival of the fittest. He not only intended to survive, but to survive in style and with wealth.

Victor, who was sixteen, was small, almost birdlike, and in this he resembled his father to some extent. He had his mother’s straight shiny black hair, but otherwise he did not appear to
physically favour either of them. His large eyes were soft and hazel in colour and his face was smooth and bland without any emphatic features, but he was pleasant-looking. His sober face mirrored his character, for Victor Kallinski was a gentle and reflective boy; and in one way his temperament was similar to his father’s, in that Victor had, as did Abraham, a great forbearance and a deep understanding of human frailties, an understanding that was mature and remarkable in one so young. He was a thinker and a dreamer, and he had the soul of a poet. Victor was happiest when he was alone reading, or gazing at great paintings in the museum, or listening to the music of Mahler and Beethoven. He was reserved of nature to a point of shyness and not given to conversing easily with anyone, especially strangers. Victor was looking at Emma surreptitiously from under his long dark lashes, a quiet smile playing around his mouth, thinking what a compassionate girl she must be, and how her actions today only reinforced his inherent belief that essentially mankind was good. Like his father, Victor was utterly without bitterness.

David, the bolder and more self-assured of the two brothers, spoke to Emma first. ‘That was very spunky of you, to stand up to those boys and help my father. And you’re not even Jewish, are you?’ he commented with his usual forthrightness. His piercing blue eyes swept over her in a quick, all-encompassing inspection and he was impressed with the image she made, sitting there in the chair, her hands calmly folded in her lap.

‘No, I am not Jewish,’ said Emma. ‘But I fail to see what difference that makes. I would help anyone in distress, and certainly somebody being assaulted the way your father was.’

David nodded. ‘Not many people would, though,’ he remarked succinctly, wondering what a refined girl was doing in the neighbourhood anyway. He opened his mouth to ask, when Janessa said, ‘Mrs Harte, come and wash your hands, before the boys clean up, and then we will eat. It is almost sundown.’ Janessa swept across the floor and set another place for Emma at the table, hovering near it until Emma and then the boys had completed their toilets.

They all stood around the large table, which was beautifully arranged, the four Kallinskis and Emma. ‘Mother will bless
the candles first,’ David whispered. Emma stood perfectly still and watched and listened carefully, taking everything in. Janessa lit the two white candles and murmured a prayer over them in a strange language Emma did not understand, then they all sat down, David courteously pulling the chair out for Emma, Victor for his mother. Noting that all of the Kallinskis were bowing their heads, Emma followed suit. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Abraham bless the red wine in a small cup, again in that curious foreign tongue which she did not know was Hebrew. He took a sip of the wine and said another prayer over the twisted loaf of bread she herself had rescued from the street.

‘Father just recited the kiddush and now we can eat, after the breaking of the bread,’ David further informed her. The bread was broken by Abraham Kallinski and passed around, and Janessa brought steaming bowls of soup to the table that smelled delicious, and so the meal commenced. As she ate, Emma became aware of the harmony and immeasurable love that existed in this family. She began to relax, for the atmosphere was warm and congenial and she was made to feel so at ease and so welcome she was overwhelmed with gratitude at one moment, and her throat thickened with unexpected emotion. And she kept thinking:
Why are the Jews hated? They are loving and gentle people and kind and considerate. It is despicable the way they are treated.
And this was the way Emma Harte was to feel all of her life, staunchly defending her Jewish friends, constantly shocked and grieved by the excesses of naked racism that infected Leeds like the blight for many years.

The roasted chicken, like the soup before it, was cooked to perfection and was delectable, and for the first time since she had left Fairley, Emma felt both nourished and replete. She realized she had eaten very little in the week she had been in Leeds. She decided to correct that, for she was wise enough to understand that she must keep up her strength.

There was much conversation at the table, about many diverse subjects which fascinated Emma, most of it conducted by the garrulous David and his slightly less garrulous father. Janessa would make a quiet comment occasionally and nod in
agreement or shake her head at Emma, all the time smiling benignly, content to be in her home with those she loved, basking in the palpable love that flowed around her, and the festive mood of the Friday-evening dinner. Victor hardly volunteered a word, but he smiled sometimes at Emma, his hazel eyes soft and shyly friendly. A short while later, when she served the honey cakes and tea, Janessa looked down at Emma, her blue eyes twinkling. ‘I think you enjoyed our Jewish food, didn’t you, Mrs Harte?’