GLASGOW 1911

     Once off the boat, he seated himself on top of a capstan, his small case grasped tight to his lap. All around him was dockside chaos as drivers forced their wagons through the melee of porters and passengers. Nearby, a blinkered horse whinnied then reared up to the lash of a whip. Those closest pulled back from the clawing hooves until a porter grabbed the reins and calmed the beast. He recognised some of the crew working on regardless of the incident, retrieving crates from inside the tangle of rope nets.
     'Where is Dmitry?' he shouted, failing to disguise the desperate shrill in his voice.
     The men ignored him except for one who swore and lifted his eyes to the upper decks. Then a hansom drew up and the fair-haired girl scrambled inside. She dropped her doll and only a scream caused the cab to halt so she could step back out to pick it up. He thought about following her to America.
     Eventually, he forced himself to move away from the ship towards leering spectators who appeared out of the fog with faces like hideous puppets. His hand trembled as he held out the letter his mother had given him. Curious fingers plucked the envelope from his grasp and smoothed out the paper while heads drew closer to peer at the lettering. The address was passed around and he tried to grab back the envelope, anxious that the precious lifeline of ink-strokes be smudged or torn. The strangers smiled back at him over broken teeth, breathed alcohol on to his cheeks, patted his curls and pointed the way along dark tenement-lined streets. He picked up his case containing his few clothes and the bottle of schnapps for his hosts, and started to walk into the thick mist.
     'There's a tram to take you where you want to go,' a voice trailed after him. 'If you've got a farthing.'
     He shrugged at the uncomprehended words and ploughed on.
     Gas street-lamps struggled to light his way. Towering cranes hovered over him like skeletons signposting his route. An empty milk-bottle rolled and broke at his feet. Bare-foot children taunted him as their threadbare dog snapped at his ankles. A woman tried to give him food, but he shook his head, frightened that what was offered was not kosher. He heard a scream. Another time piano music. Then the desolate echo from a foghorn on the river.
     But it was the lack of colour that haunted him most. Everything was grey. The buildings, the people's faces, the mangy dogs. Even the air he breathed. It was a greyness he felt as a terrifying pallor clinging to his face and hands like the faint touch of cobwebs on his skin. He kept his attention on his feet, letting them walk him faster, pounding out the terror from his wildly beating heart on to the cobbled roads. The air drew thick and cold in his lungs, tightening his chest, causing his breath to shorten. He began to sweat despite the chill. With every few steps, he switched his case from hand to hand. His arms ached and his palms began to blister. He observed his feet moving him on, as if they had a consciousness of their own.
     But the fog lifted and the streets grew wider, the buildings taller and the facades grander. A smear of sunlight crept into the morning. His head lifted too. He saw streetlights that were not lit by gas, but by some other miracle. He paused to wonder at the horseless trams and carriages. He passed shop windows crammed with merchandise. He lingered outside a bakery until the warm smell of freshly baked loaves was too much to bear. As he moved deeper into the city, the pavements began to fill up with pale, stern-faced people not unlike those from his homeland. He had no choice but to approach them, and with his cap in hand, he offered the envelope. Some guided him with elaborate hand signals, others walked him ahead to street corners before showing him the way.
     It took him nearly six hours to reach the Gorbals. There, the first sight of a Hebrew shop sign immediately soothed his fears. An old woman who spoke Yiddish accompanied him to his destination. He entered the close at number 32, and grasping the heavy brass knocker on the door of the ground floor flat, tapped out his message of arrival. Still holding on to the envelope, he collapsed starving and exhausted into the arms of the woman who answered the door.

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     'Mary,’ Madame Kahn shouted.
     He could hear footsteps. The servant girl scurried into the hallway.
     'Make a bath for the boy. He is filthy.'
     The girl glared at him. 'But Madame. It's my evening off. I'm on my way out.'
     'Be a little late.’
     Madame Kahn pulled him into a large curtained room lit only by the glow from a coal fire in the grate, pushed him down into a chair and swished out of the door.
     From somewhere behind him, the loud grind of a clock measured out the heartbeat of the room. He sat still, staring at the dancing flames until he heard the door open behind him. Mary came into view, dragging a tin bath half-filled with water across the carpet to the centre of the hearth. When the tub was in place, she clamped her hands firmly to her hips and turned towards him. Her young face was flushed and her rolled-up sleeves revealed thin freckled arms, their skin raw and reddened from housework. She swung one foot towards him, then the other, until she could grab the arms of his chair. He stiffened. She drew her face close up to his until her red hair and white face filled his vision. Green eyes peered into his own. He had never seen green eyes so close before. They seemed to reflect his image, not absorb like the brown eyes he was used to. He could feel the heat of her cheeks, hear the excited rasp of her breath in her chest. As she scrutinised his face, all the while muttering in sing-song under her breath, he fixed his attention on a large mole sprouting two red hairs just above her upper lip. Suddenly she snatched his cheek between the knuckles of two of her fingers and twisted the flesh hard. His eyes teared, but he didn't let out a sound. She ruffled his hair and left the room.
     He waited. His cheek burned but he dared not touch it. The clock beat louder. A coal shifted and crunched in the grate causing a minor avalanche of sparks and cinder. Voices chattered past the curtained window, followed by a woman's laugh, and then silence. He heard the door open again. Mary had returned with a large pitcher of boiling water which she poured into the tub. Again on her way out, she stopped and drew herself close to him. Again she grabbed the same stinging cheek with her knuckles and twisted the flesh. This time the pain was worse and he struggled not to cry out. She stepped back, humming to herself, rocking her head from side to side. She moved closer and he felt her hands on his abdomen, her fingers crawling under his jumper to lift the shirt from inside his waistband. He flinched from the coarse cold touch of her fingers on the flesh of his belly as they struggled with his buttons.
     'Mary,' Madame Kahn shouted.
     He kicked out, sending the girl tumbling to the floor. But quick, she was on her feet again, smoothing down the front of her apron, curtsying before her mistress. Madame Kahn snapped a few words at her servant before sending her out of the room. She then told him to get undressed and take a bath.
     He was still shaking when Madame Kahn left, but he somehow managed the unwieldy buttons of his shirt. He stripped off the rest of his clothes and eased himself down into the almost-scalding relief of the water in the tub. A gritty soap had been left for him and he rubbed hard at the grime of the last few days wishing that his mother was there to wash his back.
     As the water cooled, he laid back to soak sleepily, surprised to recall that it was only early this same morning his steamship had docked in this foreign land. He remembered clinging to the deck railings, peering into the fog as the ship had stumbled up-river with thin-bellied seagulls squawking at the stern. He realised had no idea what kind of country this Scotland was. Only that he had emerged here into this room out of a river of mist and a tunnel of tenements. He nipped his nose closed and let himself sink down slowly into the tub, feeling the water test his lips for entrance, massage his eyelids, block his ears. In the black silence, he saw his weeping mother disentangle herself from his arms then push him away. His fingers had tried to claw at her jacket but Dmitry's strong arm had swept him on board. When he had been released on deck, he ran back to the gangplank but his mother had already disappeared into the darkness. This darkness.

     He pushed himself up from under the water and kneaded his eyes open to witness a young girl about his age tapping a finger on the side of the tub. She wore a blue cotton smock and her hair was tucked up in a headscarf except for a few dark curls which had escaped around her temples. With a tilt of her head to her shoulder, she stared unabashed at his nakedness.
     'Celia,' she said, pointing at her chest. She then swivelled her finger menacingly at him.
     He told her his name.
     She placed the finger into the gap of her open mouth. 'Avram. English?'
     When he shook his head, she folded her arms in annoyance. Then, as if contemplating all the wonderful possibilities his lack of understanding could present, she giggled.
     He ducked under the water and when he re-emerged, he pointed at her.
     'Celia. Russki?'
     She shook her head and it was now his turn to mock her. She strutted around the tub, trailing a finger along its rim, causing him to twist his head in pursuit. She began to go faster, dragging her hand in the tub, then dipping in deeper to scoop water into his face. He splashed back. Shrieking, she ran faster, slipping and sliding around the bath. He ducked under the water again, but when he brought his head back to the surface she had gone.

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