After the Mourning (30 page)

‘And that makes what you’re doing all right?’

‘Anything that means you and yours survive is all right in a war, Mr Hancock,’ Berger said, as I pulled myself slowly out of his car. ‘You were in the first lot, you should know that.’

‘The first lot went far beyond survival, Inspector Berger. Don’t talk to me about it.’

I began to walk towards my battered, boarded-up shop, glad that Beauty Lee wasn’t going to prison but aware of how different things might have been under ‘normal’ circumstances. Outside this war, Beauty Lee, the Gypsy, would have hanged for what she did and no ‘excuses’ about avenging her parents or recovering any holy relic would have saved her. Not even Berger, the Jew, would have put in a good word. But, then, there are people who are not Christian, there are foreigners and then there are Gypsies . . . They are always at the bottom of everyone’s pile.

‘I’ll tell Miss Jacobs you want to see her, shall I?’ Berger called to me.

I didn’t glance back at him, but I did say, ‘Yes.’

‘They don’t call this a wake, it’s a
pomana,
’ Sergeant Hill said, as he tucked into a large wedge of rabbit pie. ‘It’s a meal they hold just after a person’s death, and then at so many weeks and months until a year has passed. Only then, after that final meal, can the mourning stop.’

It was funny seeing him sitting on the ground in his copper’s uniform. He didn’t seem comfortable, in spite of his Gypsy blood.

‘That’s the very old way that is,’
drabalo
Mary said, with a big measure of admiration in her voice. But Sergeant Hill was going to be looking after the Gypsies’ most prized possession for the foreseeable future so it was encouraging that Mary and Beauty liked him. Not that they’d had much choice in the matter. Berger had told Beauty to hand over the Nail to Sergeant Hill and, once he’d spoken to her and she’d been told the Romany-speaking copper was himself a
diddikai,
part-Gypsy, she had done so. Compared to the alternative of her dragging it around the countryside with her, always afraid that it might be stolen, it made sense. If and when this war ends, Sergeant Hill will give the Nail back to Beauty whose ambition is to journey to Germany and find whatever might remain of the Stojka family. As the girl says, any Gypsy can have the Nail but it only belongs to someone with the name of Stojka.

We’d had to borrow three vehicles from other local firms to get all of the dead Lee family members to the cemetery. I’d been in charge for the first time since I’d been shot, and although I’d felt tired, I’d managed, with the help of my lads, Albert Cox and his boys from Canning Town and a couple of men from a firm in Bow, to get the Gypsies where they needed to be. Now, sitting on the ground beside my mother and Doris Rosen, both of whom had come to pay their respects to the Lees, I smoked in silence as others filled their faces from the Gypsies’ meagre larder. Still weak, I hardly noticed when Beauty Lee came to sit next to me.

‘We’re leaving tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Once we’ve dealt with Bruno.’

I looked at her questioningly.

‘Mary give him summat to send him off gently this morning,’ Beauty said. ‘Old Eli was with him when he went.’

I wondered if I’d heard her right. ‘You killed Bruno?’

She pointed to where her little sisters were smashing plates against a tree. ‘We have to get rid of all the dead people’s things,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘Bruno was my dad’s bear.’

‘Yes, but when you told me that Bruno had,’ I lowered my voice to a whisper, ‘killed that sergeant, you were frightened I’d tell the coppers and get the bear destroyed.’

‘Couldn’t have the coppers kill him, no,’ Beauty said. ‘That’s wrong. They wouldn’t bury him right. Creatures have
mulós
too, you know. We’ll do him proper tonight with money and stones and a few old spells from
drabalo
Mary. Then we’m be off.’

‘Where to?’

‘Travelling. Go up by old ’Zekiel’s first.’

‘Is that the—’

‘Now, Mr Hancock,’ the girl said, smiling now in spite of her sorrow, ‘if there was one thing you wanted what would that be?’

‘Why?’

Beauty shrugged again. ‘Just askin’.’

The Duchess, who had been listening to the last part of our conversation, said, ‘Well, for me it would have to be an end to this war.’

I took one of her hands in mine. ‘Well, that’s about the best thing anyone can hope for. So I suppose . . .’

‘Yes, but what else is there?’ Beauty asked. ‘There must be something.’

I heard some noises behind my back, but I didn’t take any more notice of them than I did of the chatter and clatter around the Gypsies’ food and drink. Sergeant Hill was still chewing rabbit pie (probably not alone in wondering where the poor beast had come from), Doris was listening quietly to one of the Gypsy girls telling her about her life, and people were pouring beer, smoking and talking of anything other than the dead, as is the Gypsy way.

‘I’d like to see my friend Hannah – Miss Jacobs,’ I said, after a while, ‘but I expect she’s still answering questions from the police. I’ll see her in a bit, I’m sure.’

I had asked Berger to tell Hannah to come and see me and I was sure that at some point she would. In the meantime there was nothing more I could do.

‘I’m sure you will too,’ Beauty replied. Then she looked behind me and said, ‘’Zekiel?’

Following her gaze I found myself staring into the face of a tiny, wrinkled old man. He wore a red tailcoat and top hat like a circus ringmaster and he was standing in front of a booth like the one I’d seen in Lily’s tent, with the Head, Martin Stojka. For a moment I gazed at Beauty, horrified. But strangely, to me, the girl smiled.

‘Mr Ezekiel Gaskin of Matching Green, in Essex, is a magician and a maker of illusions,’ she said. ‘But this, Mr Hancock, is real.’

The little man stood in front of the booth and waved his arms. When he moved away I saw Hannah’s head floating on the table. I heard my mother say, ‘Oh, my goodness, how very clever!’ But I was speechless.

Hannah saw me, smiled and said, ‘You know, H, that Mr Gaskin can walk in front of this table just like that Arab bloke Davy Green once saw.’

And to prove that this was so, Ezekiel Gaskin walked in front of the table. Try as I might I couldn’t see a reflection of anything underneath Hannah’s floating head.

‘Bloody . . .’

‘So, do you think we should tell David Green about this or not?’ Hannah said.

Epilogue

S
ergeant Hill doesn’t talk about the Fourth Nail to anyone except me, and then not often.

‘I do take it out and look at it occasionally,’ he said, a little while ago. But he didn’t say whether he did it at the station or at his home. And I didn’t ask. I have Hannah back; my mother, sisters and even Stella are managing. Doris copes. Ernie Sutton has now learned his lesson and has become genuinely fond of my Jewish girl. I don’t need to know much more.

The sergeant, I’ve known for years, lives with his mother on Tredegar Road, Bow. I’m not often up that way, but last night, after the bombing, I found myself there, among tall old houses all blacked out and silent. I couldn’t’ve told which one was Sergeant Hill’s had my life depended on it. I wasn’t even thinking of him as I began to recover from my latest terrified run. I was going home until something caught my attention. It was a light and it was in a ground-floor window of one of the houses. I looked around for a warden, as you do. But then I saw what the light was and I just watched it until the blackout curtain was pulled to shut me out, and presumably the rest of the world.

Sergeant Hill and his mother, Irene, were sitting in a darkened room. On the table between them lay something light and bright that I had last seen in the hands of Martin Stojka. Once more, the Fourth Nail was glowing brightly.

Author’s Notes

Romanies (Gypsies)

A
bout a thousand years ago, those people commonly known as
Gypsies
began their long wandering journey from their place of origin in northern India to the Middle East, Europe and beyond. Their proper name of Romany was unknown in the lands through which they travelled and, due to the different way they looked and behaved, people in Europe called them
Egyptians
or
Gypsies.
They were not always welcomed or understood and many of the legends that surrounded them were sinister in character. Gypsies, it was said, had forged the nails that had been used to crucify Jesus. Over the centuries they were classed as sorcerers, witches, criminals and agents of the Ottoman Empire. They were frequently persecuted and sometimes put to death. However it wasn’t until Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933 that a nation took systematic action against the Romany travellers.

Romanies do not call what happened to their people in places like Dachau a holocaust, it is called the
Porrajmos
– the devouring. Designated
asocials
by Hitler, the Romanies were worked to death, experimented upon by Josef Mengele, beaten, shot, gassed and, in some cases, even buried alive. Because of the shifting nature of their existence, no one really knows how many Romanies died in Hitler’s death camps. Estimates range from between a quarter of a million people to one and a half million souls. The memory of the
Porrajmos
haunts the Romany people still and in this book I have turned an old legend about them around in order to explore their courage and resilience as well as the suffering they endured during the Second World War.

The language used by Romanies across the world is an Indo-Aryan tongue that has its roots in Punjabi and Hindi. There are many spoken dialects, three of which are to be found in Europe:
Dom,
spoken by the Domari in central and eastern Europe;
Lom,
by the Lomarvren of central Europe; and
Rom
spoken by the Romani of Western Europe. However these dialects do share many similarities and so my Romany characters, who come from western and eastern Europe, understand each other’s dialects and customs. This may not always be so, but I have used this device in order to facilitate the reader’s understanding and, I hope, enjoyment of the book.

East End Anti-Fascism and The Battle of Cable Street

Sunday 4 October 1934

I
n the 1930s a British politician and aristocrat called Baronet Oswald Mosley (1896–1980) rose to prominence as the leader of a party called the British Union of Fascists. Otherwise known as the Blackshirts, these people modelled themselves on Hitler’s followers and were violent anti-Semites who took great delight in terrorising the poor Jewish population of the East End. And although when caught the perpetrators of these acts were punished, when Mosley wanted to march his Blackshirts through the East End in what he assured the authorities would be a peaceful way, he was given permission to do so. Local Jewish and Communist organisations had other ideas and when the marchers reached the mainly Jewish road called Cable Street in Stepney, they fought to keep the Fascists out. So violent was the struggle that the Commissioner of Police was eventually forced to curtail Mosley’s march and that night a great victory over Fascism was celebrated in pubs all over the East End. But many, many people did march with Mosley on that day and I have often wondered where they went after the defeat of Cable Street. This book, though fictional, addresses that question.

The Disembodied Head Illusion

W
hat is referred to in the novel as the ‘Head’ or ‘Egyptian Head’ illusion is based upon a trick that was first performed by the English magician Colonel Stodare in London in 1865. This trick, which was called the ‘Sphinx’, involved the apparently sentient disembodied head of an ancient Egyptian man appearing on the top of a table. It could move its eyes and speak and at the end of the act, when Stodare covered it up with a box, the Sphinx disappeared leaving behind it only a small pile of ashes. How was it done?

First take one four-legged, round-topped table and remove one leg. Position the table so that one of the remaining legs points straight out towards the audience, with the other legs at equal distances to either side. Then fix two mirrors from the front leg to those at either side at 90-degree angles. The mirrors must be clean and must be constructed to cover the whole distance between the bottom of the table and the floor. Behind the mirrors, cut a hole in the table top through which the head may appear and then surround the table on three sides with a booth and/or curtains which are reflected into the mirrors. Then place the performer under the table until the audience is distracted from the set by a puff of smoke or other misdirectional device, whereupon his or her head pushes through the hole in the top of the table. The mirrors reflecting the curtains at the side of the set create the illusion that the audience is looking underneath the table and the head to the curtains at the rear. However, the magician performing this trick must be careful where he or she stands in relation to the set lest his legs or other body parts reflect in the mirrors and give the trick away. Simple!

On the other hand, how this trick may be done where the magician, and sometimes the audience too, walks around the head, I do not know. My mother saw such an illusion back in the 1950s and is still baffled by it to this day. But then maybe that particular trick was not an illusion at all. Maybe that really was magic.

Barbara Nadel

Glossary