Raisins and almonds - Poisoned Pen Press (UK)

4 Kerry Greenwood
embroider, but also paint and gild and carve; he taught me, what
my father would have said I didn’t like to think, but he said,
Yossel said, we must leave Russia, the new laws are killing us,
and when the war comes the revolution will follow and maybe
then they will be glad to see the back of us, they hate Jews, but
they hate Christians too, and unless you want to see our Philo a
soldier and our little Helen a whore, we must leave…ai, ai, what
a time, we worked all the hours God gave, but he was right, my
Yossel alav ha-sholom, the revolution did come and they did let
us leave, and they let us take some goods, too, only the one big
box, and the children’s clothes, but we made the frame of the
trunk out of gold, and stitched heavy cowhide over it, and then
we sat with our hearts in our mouths, oy! in case the customs
men dropped it and it split and showed the gold….’ She rocked
herself as she spoke, and her son Phillip took her hand. ‘We came
down into Germany where they did not want us either but let
us pass, and they stole my mother’s silver spoons as we passed
the border and took a ship for Australia. It was so funny, we had
only what we stood up in and our papers and the children, and
I was pregnant with Fanny, and in the hold we had a treasure
which we couldn’t get at.’
‘I remember the ship,’ said Phillip quietly. ‘I was seasick for
days and we met bad weather and Papa prayed. I remember his
voice and thought that as long as he kept praying we wouldn’t
sink.’ He gave a half-apologetic smile and his mother cried,
‘Well, did the ship sink? So, we heard at some places that they
were killing the Jews in Russia, that we had escaped in time
because they had closed the borders, that our old village was
burned and gone. My dear Yossel alav ha-sholom, he told me
that the revolution would treat us no better than the Czar had.
Then we came here—I remember, we saw this Australia first
from Fremantle, a terrible dry dead flat place, and my little
Philo said, “This is the Goldene Medina, Mama?” and I was so
disappointed I could have cried, but when we got to Melbourne
there were people waiting—it was so strange, we were standing
on the deck looking at the quay and I took Yossel’s hand, I was