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Auntie Bea’s
rings twinkled on her moveless hand as the candles flickered in a little
draught. Michael, her closest friend among the cousins, for Barbara’s benefit,
murmured an English rendering of the versicle liturgy to the accompaniment of
his grandfather’s deep patriarchal boom, and the young men’s gruff responses:
     
    If He had brought us out of
Egypt,
    and not sent judgement upon them,
    It would suffice us.
    If He had sent judgement upon
them, and
    not upon their gods,
    It would suffice us.
    If He had sent judgement on
their gods and
    not killed their first born,
    It would suffice us.
     
    The
German child was following the Hebrew in her book with her forefinger, smiling
with recognition. Barbara felt proud of the child in a Jewish way, and
exchanged a glance to this effect with her young Aunt Sadie, who also glowed as
Jewish women do, with approval of intelligent and happy children.
     
    If He had parted the waters for us, and
    not let us pass through it on dry ground.
    It would suffice us.
     
    The
previous Sunday, at Bells Sands, Barbara had gone with Uncle Eddy’s two
children after church to roll their bright dyed Easter eggs in a dell at the
end of their woods, where she and her cousin Arthur had always rolled their
eggs as children. Was it only last Sunday? The scene pictured itself without
warning in Barbara’s mind, light-years away, and rapidly disappeared. Only last
Sunday, the end of Lent 1939? She had a sense of temporal displacement. The
Passover Feast was coming to an end. She heard the familiar lilt of the riddle
song, ‘One Kid’, from the lips of her lolling cousins. They were supposed to
loll. It was part of the ritual. Now, that was a thing her Vaughan grandmother,
who complained of backache each Sunday after church, she being one who made a
point of sitting up well, would never understand.
    Afterwards
in the kitchen, the small child helped with the washing-up. Nobody would let
Barbara do a thing. All the women were anxious to spare her a job. It was
always the same here, at Golders Green. None of her aunts, or even the old
servant, would let her wash up. Now, seeing the pile of dishes, Barbara seized
a dean dishtowel from a rack where it was hanging.
    Her
young Aunt Sadie attempted to take the cloth from her in a good-humoured way
but very firmly, and vaguely Barbara was aware of a lip-silence among the women
working and clattering among the plates and cutlery at the sink.
    ‘Hee-ee,
you’re not kosher.’ This was her youngest Aaronson cousin, Michael, standing at
the doorway of the kitchen, with his owl-like face, horn-rimmed glasses, wide
smile, red cheeks and Jewish nose.
    His
young Aunt Sadie said, ‘Michael!’
    Michael
spread his hands and hunched his shoulders, pretending to be very foreign. ‘Vot
you vont in my keetchin …
    Young
Aunt Sadie said to Barbara, ‘We use different dishcloths for drying the plates.
Milk and meat are kept separate. We don’t eat both ‘together, that you know.
But we don’t wash them up together, either. We keep the towels separate.’
    ‘Vot
you expect?’ said Michael. ‘She is neither Yeed nor Goy ees mein cousin
Barbara.’ He put his arm round her shoulder. ‘She ees a bit milk and meat in
the same dish, vot you expect?’
    ‘Stop
it, Michael. He’s a clown, that boy,’ said young Aunt Sadie, busy with the
women. They kept pushing him tolerantly out of the way. Barbara, too, felt
cheerful about his presence in the kitchen. The younger generation in this
household were slightly more indulged than they were at Bells Sands, where all
affection was casual, unstated, understood more or less. Barbara, who at
Golders Green came in for a share of the unequivocal benevolence towards the
young and their capers, their demands, and their wild theories, was
automatically soothed by the tolerant atmosphere in the kitchen. But still, she
was not permitted to stack the dishes away, lest she stack them in the wrong places.
    ‘We’ve
got special