Read Online Hannah & Emil by Belinda Castles - Free Book Online Page A

away at war, who came home and spent his pay on taking me to tea at the Lyons Corner House or Selfridges.
    As we cleared the table there came a sharp rap at the door. It had to be Mrs Reznik from upstairs; she was the only one with the key to the side passage in the alley that adjoined our staircase behind the shop.
    â€˜Come!’ bellowed Father. She thrust her head around the door like a mouse, her long face twitching at the smell of food. ‘Mrs Reznik.’
    Father stood from the head of the table. ‘Will you eat? There is plenty left.’
    â€˜No, no. I have just had supper.’
    â€˜But Mrs Reznik! You insult my wife’s cooking.’
    â€˜Oh no. Well, just a little.’ She was already at the table next to me, pulling back the chair I had just vacated, easing her mantis frame into it and waiting for a clean dish. She had money, I had seen inside the biscuit tin of bright silver shillings and crowns that she kept at the top of a ladder in the loft. She wouldn’t spend it on food for herself, though, and was as thin a person as I ever knew, though quite vigorous and nimble in spite of being considerably older than Mother and Father. If I had as much money as that I would have spent most of it on chocolate and cake on the black market and rations be damned.
    I dragged over the extra chair from beside the bed, behind the curtain, and we sat, waiting for her to finish eating. She hunched over her bowl, a thin person who could never be warm or full, long mechanical arms scooping relentlessly. The borscht disappeared quickly and as she wiped the dish with her bread we were able to stare openly at her deep red moustache, so absorbed was she in the act of eating.
    â€˜Do you need Hannah tonight?’ Father asked eventually. They spoke in English. Father always spoke in English to Mrs Reznik. It seemed to me like acting, for the benefit of others, for two Russians to speak in English. I could not see why one would bother, but then my interest in manners has always been a little underdeveloped.
    â€˜Well . . .’ she belched a little behind her hand. Benjamin exploded with the giggles and I kicked him. Mother and Father wore their polite faces, smiles fixed, eyes a little wide, though Mother kept glancing at the window which trembled loosely in its frame with every passing cart and motorbus. ‘If it is not a trouble. A short letter only. I have tinned beef and peaches and my cousin’s family are very hungry.’
    â€˜It is no better?’ Father asked. ‘We have no letters for a little while. Your parcels are arriving?’
    â€˜Some I think, yes. But, you know, there is not even so much milk for the baby.’
    â€˜But we have some milk powder,’ Mother said quietly, the first thing she had said since we came home from school. Father gave me a look that was technically irreproachable but whose timing made it secret, risqué. I loved him fiercely for a moment.
    â€˜Yes, yes,’ he agreed, leaving me to stifle a grin. ‘Send our milk, while you are making a parcel. The children have milk at school.’
    â€˜Never. I cannot take children’s milk, Mr Jacob.’
    â€˜Of course, take. They are fat. Look at my sturdy little Hannah! The baby must have milk.’
    Mother was already in the cupboard, fishing for the box. She knocked a bag of porridge to the floor where it scattered wide. ‘Oh my!’ I watched her, wondering whether she would cry.
    â€˜Oh, Mrs Jacob, look what I make you.’
    â€˜It is nothing,’ Father said. ‘Hannah, you take the milk up for Mrs Reznik. We clean up here. Boys, come. Help Mother.’
    He stood and took the box from Mother, who kept her back to the room as she bent down to fetch the dustpan and brush from under the basin. His hand was on her shoulder. What was wrong with her? It was only porridge. None of us liked it anyway. There was never enough sugar to make it palatable. Father let us have