She turned onto a side street, walking south for a block before turning west, the sidewalks growing steadily emptier. Ahead, a group of people were emerging from a narrow lane, the men all dressed in dark suits. Some of the men wore hats. A few, she noticed, wore a kippa.
The sight almost stopped her in her tracks. Did they not realize it was dangerous to be seen so in public? But no. They were in England. And this was the East End. Thousands of Jews, she had heard, lived and worked here. Had been here for hundreds of years.
Her feet carried her across the street and down the lane. It was narrow, curving, bare of shop fronts. If not for the people emerging, she would have missed the place. There was little to signify the building’s purpose, and its brick fa?ade was the same as the rest of the buildings on the lane. Except for the small, unobtrusive noticeboard to the side of the entrance.
SANDYS ROW SYNAGOGUE, it read, and below it were some words in Hebrew, as well as the days and times of services.
She slowed her pace, hoping to catch a glimpse of the interior as she passed by, but she couldn’t make out anything beyond some steps and a shadowy corridor. She faltered, her limbs made clumsy by longing and regret.
How she yearned to hear, after so long, the beloved prayers and invocations. To repeat the words her grandfather had taken such pains to teach her. To belong, once again.
But she had nothing to cover her hair, and the services had finished, besides, and Mr. Kaczmarek was waiting for her, and she wasn’t sure that she could bear it. To hear and see and sing would be to remember. To let the wounds be opened once more, and the bitter pain of loss consume her.
Not today. Not yet.
She walked on, blind to everything but the pavement before her, until she looked up and realized she was at the restaurant. Mr. Kaczmarek was there, waiting outside as he’d promised. Such a big man, though like most tall people he stooped a little, and his hair was so bright and fair under the midday sun. It didn’t surprise her that he didn’t bother with a hat.
He had a battered old canvas satchel slung over one shoulder, and his head was bent over a newspaper, which he’d folded back on itself so it didn’t flap in the wind. He looked up just as she crossed the street, and the expression of delight on his face made her heart skip a beat.
It pleased her, his interest, yet it was a puzzle as well. What did this cultured, well-connected, and presumably successful man want to do with her? She had no education, no connections that would interest him, and she knew almost nothing of English life beyond the confines of an embroidery workroom and a council house in Essex. She was in her early twenties, while he had to be something close to forty. For all she knew, he might even be married.
It would be wise to remain on her guard. Perhaps he was the sort to befriend young women and turn their heads with compliments and gifts and the luxury of his attention. Perhaps he had only one aim in mind.
Even as the suspicion arose, she knew it to be false. If he were such a man, to begin with, would he not be better dressed? He was no lothario, not with his ink-blotched cuffs and shaggy hair and shoes that cried out for polish. He was the sort of man, she decided, who might easily forget to put on his coat when he left for work in the morning. Her father had been like that, too.
They shook hands and said hello and he ushered her inside the restaurant. To their right was a marble counter laden with platters of gleaming fish, so fresh she could smell only the sea, and then only faintly. Waiters in long aprons were moving purposefully about the space, which looked to encompass a series of rooms, none of them especially grand. Most of the restaurant’s patrons were seated shoulder to shoulder at a series of high counters, though there were a few small tables scattered about.
One of the waiters hurried over to shake Mr. Kaczmarek’s hand and welcome him to the restaurant.
“Lovely to see you, Kaz.”
“Any tables free?”
“There’s one in the far room. Do you need a menu?” the waiter asked.
“Just the one for my guest. We’ll seat ourselves?”
“If you don’t mind. I’ll be along in a minute.”
Their table was nicely secluded, at the far end of the second room, and by the time they had settled into their chairs the waiter was back with a menu for Miriam.
“Pint of the usual?” he asked Mr. Kaczmarek.
“Yes, please. What would you like, Miss Dassin? A glass of wine, perhaps? They have a very nice Sancerre.”
She nodded her head, relieved he hadn’t asked for her opinions on the wine, since she hadn’t any worth sharing. Inspecting her menu, which was almost poetic in its simplicity, she halted when she came to the names of the fish being served. Brill? Newlyn hake? John Dory?