Michael Russell - The City of Shadows

‘Can you freshen this pot up, darling? It’s stewed to buggery.’

The tram to Adelaide Road was another part of Tom’s day in Dublin; sitting upstairs, looking at the streets and the people, was its own entertainment. As they walked past the terraced houses to the synagogue it started to rain. Hannah was waiting on the steps of the big red and white brick building.

‘This is Tom. Tom, this is Hannah.’

‘Hello.’ Tom looked slightly sheepish; he wasn’t used to new people.

Hannah smiled, sensing his awkwardness.

‘It’s lovely to meet you, Tom. Are you having a good day?’

‘Yes. We’ve been to Clery’s.’

‘Looking at toys? Well, you would be just now, wouldn’t you?’

Tom’s expression was very serious. ‘Were you at Clery’s at all?’

‘Yes, lots. I can’t remember the last time though.’

‘Did you ever see the bike?’

‘I don’t think I did, no.’

‘It’s in the window, right by the clock. It’s a tricycle.’

‘Will I have a look next time I’m up there?’

Tom thought she should. She glanced at Stefan and winked. She already knew about the tricycle. Her eyes seemed very bright as Stefan looked at her. Tom’s nervousness had suddenly gone and he was smiling. He liked her. The rain was falling harder now. Hannah took Tom’s hand.

‘Come on, you’ll both be soaked,’ she laughed. ‘We all will!’

She hurried up the steps with Tom. Stefan followed, running. The rain was beating down. As they entered, he instinctively reached to take his hat off. Hannah touched his arm, smiling, pushing it back on his head.

‘It’s the other way round. Just leave it on!’

Tom looked at the dark interior. It was full of unfamiliar things, but it was enough like a church to feel familiar all the same. It smelt like one too.

‘Is it a church, Daddy?’

‘Yes, a Jewish church.’

Tom watched as several children walked past, wet from the rain.

‘I’m sorry, I forgot you were having the day off.’ Hannah spoke more quietly. ‘I hope I didn’t mess it up. You should have ignored me!’

‘It’s fine.’ He felt she seemed slightly more awkward now. Perhaps it was just being in the synagogue, perhaps it was the sense that they were still somehow standing on the bridge between what was personal and what was professional in their relationship. More children hurried past them. Tom was looking at the dark interior more closely now, the rows of pews and the high gallery above, but his eyes kept coming back to the children, his own age and older, now closely packed in front of the Torah Ark, by a branched candelabrum, laughing as the elderly rabbi told then the Hanukkah story.

‘You can go and listen,’ said Hannah gently.

Tom looked up at Stefan doubtfully.

‘Come on.’ She took his hand again and walked him towards the other children. Stefan followed. He could see Tom’s doubts had already gone.

‘This is Hanukkah,’ she continued. ‘It’s about a bad, bad king and the people who kicked him out and sent him packing. We light candles to remember that.’ She caught the rabbi’s eye, and pushed Tom gently forward.

‘And what’s your name?’ asked the rabbi.

Tom looked back at his father for reassurance. Stefan nodded.

‘It’s Tom, Father.’

The other children giggled. Tom didn’t understand why, but it felt welcoming and good-humoured enough, so he just smiled back at them.

‘All right, Tom. First the battle, then the miracle. Well, if God’s going to take the trouble to give us a miracle he expects us to put some work in too. That’s the battle. I think it’s fair, don’t you? Now, we have a wicked king, a very wicked king, more wicked than you could ever imagine. Antiochus was his name.’ The others hissed and booed. ‘And we have a hero, Judah the Maccabee, fighting the evil king, to save Jerusalem. He was a brave man and his soldiers were brave, but there were only a few of them, and at first Antiochus chased them all into the hills with his great army.’

‘Like Michael Dwyer and Sam MacAllister,’ said Tom. ‘They hid in the mountains behind our farm, when they were fighting the redcoats.’

‘Yes, it was just like that, Tom. And like Michael Dwyer, Judah and his men had no weapons, no food, no shelter. In Jerusalem the wicked king’s soldiers were eating the people out of house and home and putting up statues of the Greek gods in the Temple of the Lord.’ More hisses and boos; Tom joined in. ‘Everyone thought the war was over and Antiochus had won!’

Hannah and Stefan had walked a little way back towards the doors.

‘He’s like you,’ she said quietly.

‘Is that a good thing?’

‘I wouldn’t say it’s so bad.’

They were silent for several seconds. She seemed reluctant to speak.

‘You wanted to talk to me, Hannah?’

‘I wanted to know if there was any more news?’

‘There’s nothing new.’ The question had been surprisingly vague. It was the same question she asked every day. After three phone calls he had assumed she had something to tell him. And he wasn’t really sure she had forgotten about his day off. He knew there was something else going on.

‘I know you’re still not telling me everything, Stefan. I’m trying to understand that, but I’m also waiting for more. I think you owe me more.’

He was surprised, almost hurt. It sounded like she was using the fact that they had slept together as a lever. But as he looked into her deep eyes, the honesty and the openness told him instantly that she wasn’t. It was simply that she believed he owed her the truth, whatever that meant. And the part of him that wasn’t a policeman said she was right. But there was still something else, something different about her unfamiliar awkwardness.

‘Is something wrong?’ he asked, trying to read her face.

‘The thing is, I have to go. That’s why I needed to talk to you.’

She tried to throw the words away, as if they weren’t that important, but her face told a different story. She didn’t like what she was saying.

‘Go where?’

‘I have to leave Ireland.’

It was the last thing he expected to hear. There was no reason why Hannah shouldn’t leave Ireland, but it was out of step with everything that had happened since they met. All her attention had been on Susan Field.

‘You mean you’re going back to Palestine?’

‘Eventually, yes. I need to go to England. I have some work to do.’

It felt like a brush-off. She was only telling him part of it. He realised he hadn’t ever asked what she did. And she hadn’t told him. He realised how little he knew about her again. He knew about the death of her friend. He knew something about her childhood, from Susan’s letters and an hour in a pub. He knew there was a man in Palestine, Benny; a farm where they grew oranges. It wasn’t much. Perhaps she’d never intended him to know much.

‘Back to the oranges?’ he smiled, trying to make a joke of it.

‘What?’

‘Doesn’t your fiance grow oranges?’

She moved closer to him. This wasn’t easy for her. She wanted to tell him that he mattered to her. She wanted him to understand that there were reasons she had to go. But she couldn’t explain the reasons. Not now.

‘I’m sorry. I was never going to be home very long.’

‘I wish I’d known that.’

The sound of laughing children filled the synagogue.

He knew she had more to say. And he knew she wouldn’t say it.

‘I want to know what happens, Stefan.’

‘Yes, naturally. If you tell me where you are — ’

‘If you find anything, my father will be able to contact me.’

Now she wouldn’t even give him an address.

‘I’m not going because I want to, Stefan.’