Raisins and almonds - Poisoned Pen Press (UK)

Raisins and Almonds 1 1
‘Two young men, maybe they work at the market. They wait
while the lady talks to me about the atlas—what a word, I’ll
never learn all the English words.’
‘Was there anyone there when you came in?’
‘Just a man with a box. The lady signs a paper and gives it to
him and he goes away. I never hear him speak, even.’
‘Can you describe him?’
‘A drayman or a carter,’ Mrs. Katz shrugged fluidly. ‘Strong,
in overalls, gloves, a cap pulled down over his eyes. But wait….’
She sipped more tea, thinking hard. ‘There was something about
him, maybe. No, nothing,’ she decided.
‘Tell me,’ urged Dot.
‘It’s nothing, just that I thought he walk wrong for a labourer.
Men like that, even when they’re not young, they walk like they
own the world, you know.’ Mrs. Katz got up and mimed the
shoulder-heavy walk of a muscular man, hands lightly clenched
by his sides. She looked strangely convincing and for a moment
Dot could see the standover man she was mimicking. ‘Like gorilla,
nu? Or gunfighter. This one, he was different. Like he was shy,
no, not shy….’ She shook her head, unable to find the right word
to convey what she meant. Dot reflected that it must be terribly
hard to come to another place when one was no longer a child
and try to learn a new language.
‘Never mind, I know what you mean,’ she said. ‘Now, I’d
better go. You’re sure you’re all right?’
‘Sure,’ agreed Mrs. Katz. ‘Max, he can talk to Mr. Abrahams
about this? He’ll want to know.’
‘Yes,’ said Dot.
She used the journey home on two trams to make careful
notes of everything Mrs. Katz had said. Because she was constitutionally
exact, she also included a description of the red, blue
and gold plate which the robbers had broken.
The plate made Dot very angry.
999
‘Well, that’s more like service,’ commented Bert.