Moshe Read online

"Run home to your mama, Jew boy!" Peter Carlson yelled after him. "We'll get you tomorrow!"

  Panting and out of breath, Moshe pounded up the alleyway until he reached the Everton Arms. He fumbled for the key around his neck and once inside, raced upstairs to the Silverstein's third floor apartment.

  "Moshe?" Marthe Silverstein asked, a look of concern etched on her face. "What's the matter? Why are you running like there's a herd of elephants behind you?"

  "It's nothing, mamma," the boy replied, closing the door quietly behind him and letting his bag drop to the floor.

  "Are the boys at school bothering you again?"

  "No, mamma."

  "Are you sure? You don't look very happy."

  "I'm fine, mamma."

  "Okay, bärchen."

  "Jew boy! Jew boy!"

  Peter Carlson's fist slammed into Moshe's face and Moshe felt his nose shatter.

  "Jew boy! Jew boy!" the crowd continued to taunt.

  "Come on! Fight me, Jew boy! What? Too afraid?"

  Moshe picked himself slowly up off the ground.

  Wham.

  He hit the ground again.

  "Come on! Get up! Fight me!"

  Moshe figured it best to lie still as he watched the throng of students assembled in the courtyard point, laugh, and spit.

  "Friedrich - "

  "No, Marthe. That's it. I'm going down to that school first thing in the morning and demanding that no-good, WASP principal answer for this."

  "No, Friedrich. Have you forgotten what happened last time?"

  "When? What last time?"

  Friedrich Silverstein was still dressed in his janitor's uniform, his brown eyes angry and tired looking.

  "Last time I spoke to the school. When those boys sprayed our Moshe with ketchup."

  "You spoke to Herr Davidson?"

  "No. I spoke to the vice principal. Frau Andrews."

  "And?"

  Friedrich's face was crimson now and beads of sweat dotted his forehead.

  "Did she punish the boys that did it?"

  Moshe, listening to his parents' conversation from his bedroom, knew the answer. He'd been called into Mrs. Andrew's office. Made to admit to being "a liar". Told that if he became a "habitual tattle-tale", he'd be suspended, or worse, expelled. Moshe hadn't breathed a word about his tormentors to his teachers from that day on.

  "I understand that you're upset, Mister Silverstein, but we at Saint Mark’s pride ourselves on being a caring and generous - "

  "Oh, cut the nonsense, Mister Davidson."

  It was the following morning and Moshe sat uncomfortably between his mother and father in the principal's office.

  "Explain to me then why my son's face is all bruised and bloody?" Friedrich Silverstein said, clutching Moshe's face and pushing it forwards.

  The blonde, blue-eyed Mr. Davidson merely shrugged. "I honestly couldn't tell you, Mister Silverstein. Perhaps he had an accident on the way home from school?"

  Marthe Silverstein shook her head in exasperation. "No. He did not have any accident on the way home from school. The boys in his class did this."

  Her voice was shaking now, her face wild and fierce. "Now you put an end to this now or I'm going to the superintendent."

  The principal's eyes narrowed momentarily, but then his face softened. "Alright, Missus Silverstein. I'll deal with it personally."

  "And you will sit here and do your homework here in my office, until four o'clock, for the rest of the school year. Every day. Are we understood?"

  "Yes, Sir," Moshe answered quietly, looking up at his principal.

  "Good. Now start your homework. I'll let you know when it's time to leave."

  With that, Mr. Davidson turned and strode out of his office. A minute later Moshe could hear him chatting and laughing with one of the secretaries.

  Tears stinging his eyes, Moshe opened his math book and got to work.

  "Moshe? You're so late! More than an hour! I was worried sick about you! I nearly called your father at work! And you know how he hates that!"

  Marthe Silverstein studied her son's face as he stood in the entranceway to their small apartment.

  "Mister Davidson kept me after school. To do my homework."

  "Why? Did you misbehave?"

  "No, mamma."

  "Then what?"

  "Mister Davidson is keeping me after school everyday, for the rest of the year, so that I don't have to see Peter Carlson outside."

  Marthe Silverstein shook her head in disbelief.

  "This is his solution!? He's going to keep you after school? So that you won't run into the boys in the school yard?"

  Moshe shrugged and sat down at the table where his mother had evidently been writing Passover cards; paper cardboard, ribbon and calligraphy pens strewn all around.

  "Well, that's it. You are finished at that school. I'm taking you to enroll at Fourth Avenue Middle School in the morning."

  "No, mamma!"

  "Yes, Moshe."

  "What does father say?" the boy protested.

  "He agrees. We already discussed it last night. We decided that if Herr Davidson didn't fix the problem, that I will take you to enroll in a different school. The Braunfman girls go there. So you'll at least know someone. Frau Braunfman says it's a great school. More ethnicities. It's not so WASPish."

  "What's WASPish?"

  "It means Jews aren't wanted."

  As it turned out, it was too late in the school year for a transfer. So explained the receptionist to Mrs. Silverstein as she and Moshe sat in the office of Fourth Avenue Middle School the following morning.

  "It's nearly the end of April, Missus Silverstein. There's barely two months left. Come back in August and you can register your son for next year."

  The bus ride home was jittery and uncomfortable. Moshe watched his mother, her face set tight in anger. Finally, just before they arrived at Somerset Street, Marthe Silverstein sighed and her shoulders slumped.

  "You'll have to stay late after school for two more months, bärchen."

  The next eight weeks passed without incident and on the final day of school, Mrs. Silverstein herself came to pick up her son from Mr. Davidson's office.

  "And my Moshe won't be returning next year," she said defiantly as they were about to leave.

  Mr. Davidson glanced up from the papers on his desk. "And why is that?"

  "Because you and this school are incompetent. You know, my husband and I left Germany in thirty-six. What happened to our families and our people just a few years later is proof for me that you leave when there is injustice. As soon as possible. And so we are leaving. I am enrolling Moshe at Fourth Avenue next year."

  "Suit yourself," was all the principal said before slamming the door in her face.

  Fuming, Marthe Silverstein took her son by the hand. "Come on, bärchen, we're leaving."

  - 2 -

  Summer came early to Ottawa that year and by mid-July the thermometer in the Silverstein's small apartment had already hit ninety-six degrees. With little to do, Moshe divided his time between the balcony where he would play with his collection of army men and the living room where he would listen to his favourite radio programs.

  Needless to say, Marthe Silverstein worried about her son.

  "You spend too much time inside for an eleven year old boy," she complained one afternoon. "Go outside. Have fun."

  "But I don't have any friends, mamma."

  "Well, make some."

  "The kids don't like me."

  "Which kids don't like you?"

  "The kids in the neighbourhood."

  "What about Grigor down the hall?"

  "He's a child, mamma."

  Frustrated by her son’s retorts, Marthe Silverstein sighed. "Well, I'm scrubbing the floors this afternoon so I need you out of the house for a couple of hours."

  She went to her purse and rummaged through it until she found what she was looking for.

  "Here," she said, thrusting a piece of paper at him
. "Take this to the drycleaners - you know the one we always go to?"

  Moshe gave a nod. "Yes, mamma."

  "Take this to the drycleaners and pick up your father's pants. And here," she added, reaching once more into her purse and withdrawing two one-dollar notes, "stop by the store and get yourself some sweets."

  Moshe grinned and eagerly accepted the money.

  "AND DON'T COME BACK BEFORE THREE O'CLOCK!" she yelled as he dashed out the door.

  Hong's Drycleaning was ten blocks east on Somerset, in the heart of Centretown. Moshe enjoyed gazing in the windows of the sundry shops that lined the strip. There were fancy watches. Cured sausage. Umbrellas. Art supplies. A bit of everything. Still, as with all the other kids in the neighbourhood, there were only two stores that really interested him: Ianno's and Wing's. One Italian, the other Chinese. Both stores sold a wide variety of candies, sweets, and treats. However, while most of the kids in his building - the Braunfman sisters included - patronized Ianno's, Moshe liked the imported candies offered at Wing's. There were suckers that tasted like lemons. Buns made from almond and coconut. Gum with funny writing on the packaging (the comics never made sense but Moshe could blow fist-sized bubbles with it).

  As he neared the drycleaners - it's green and yellow pastel sign beckoning in the distance - Moshe decided that if his mother wanted him to stay away for two whole hours, then he had best get his sweets beforehand. After all, how could he enjoy a sweet and potentially messy treat like candied apples or strudels if he had his father's pants with him? His mother would give him a couple wallops with her soup ladle if he were to dirty his father’s clean pants.

  The bells tinkled as he stepped inside Wing's and, easing through the throng of people crowded around the register, Moshe eventually made it to the candy aisle. Faced with the impossible task of choosing which candy to buy, the boy spent more than a quarter