The Russian Jerusalem by Elaine Feinstein Page A

he asks me. ‘Hannah, give her some soup.’
    The woman beckons me in.
    â€˜Where do you come from?’
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    I shake my head. How can I answer that? She takes me through anyway into the kitchen that lies behind the workshop. It is a cramped space, with another large woman at the other side of the table, rolling pastry. When she has finished, she wipes her hands on her apron and begins to cut the flat pastry into little squares. For mandels , I remember suddenly, those delicious fried squares of dough which my own mother put into soup. The first woman, seeing my interest, takes down a jar from the only shelf and offers me a handful to taste. Hannah puts a bowl of chicken soup in front of me. As if hypnotised by my arrival, both the old man and Hannah’s husband follow into the already crowded room.
    â€˜We keep hens,’ Hannah tells me. She is proud of it. Her cheeks are red with the excitement of it, and she laughs boldly. ‘Sometimes they are stolen.’
    â€˜The Goyim ,’ the old man says.
    I am beginning to realise that the room I had thought of as a kitchen is the only room on the ground floor. Stairslead out of it into the next storey and a back door leads to the yard.
    â€˜Russian peasants steal anything that moves. Eat anything that moves.’
    â€˜Not only the Goyim ,’ the woman reproaches him. ‘But of course we don’t usually eat our hens. We keep them for the eggs. I collect them early in the morning, before the lazy buggers wake up. But this is an old fowl. And tonight is the Sabbath.’ She smiles. ‘Old fowls make the best soup.’
    Then the white-haired old man fits tin glasses to his nose, the better to survey me, and then gives that Eastern European shrug which can mean whatever you want it to mean. In this case it seems to mean: it doesn’t matter who she is, she is hungry, let her eat.
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    Because it is almost summer, I have not noticed the light going but the sun is now behind a house across the street. Although it looks impossible for a single extra human body to push itself into the room, several children rush in, many of them with black hair and faces as narrow as my own. They stare at me.
    Then the woman who had been rolling the pastry comes in, apologising without fuss for her lateness. She has changed her blouse, and looks unflustered; the only one among them with long yellow hair. I saw she was the beauty of the family and that even the old man regarded her indulgently.
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    The room is becoming unbearably hot. Hannah lights candles in two stubby candlesticks. The old man says prayers from memory. He cuts a piece of the plaited loaf, which is covered with a white cloth. We all share it, and then a glass of sweet red wine is passed round the table. Itis too sweet for me, and I am becoming faint and a little nauseous.
    The chicken soup is much too hot, with burning fat glistening on the surface. I blow on my spoon. The last time I remember scalding my lips on such soup, it was at the house of my Aunt Eva in Neasden, a cultured woman who loved music. As I remember her, she had a handsome, dimpled face and reddened her lips even in her nineties. All her children played a musical instrument.
    Emboldened by that memory, I tell them:
    â€˜I am a grandchild of Menachem Mendl. Do you remember him? He was one of Hatskell’s children.’
    â€˜Hatskell?’ The young man smiles. ‘My father’s uncle? I am named for him. In my passport, my name is Yevgeny Azimov. But in this house I am known as Hatskell ben Efraim. I never knew him, of course. They say he followed his sons abroad.’
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    And then there is a knock on the door. For a moment the family scene freezes. Is their enterprise legal, I wonder? Are people allowed to trade on their own, or is everything under the control of some invisible Soviet? But when Hannah rises to let in the visitor, they welcome the newcomer with shrieks of delight. Is he a cousin, or