Robert hart

Mrs. Green and the Ten Commandments – Excerpt from Rebecca’s Secrets

Tommy commits a dreadful sin and gets caught up in The Hamantaschen War.

One Thursday morning in March I caught the bus to school as usual. But this was not a usual day for two reasons.

First, it was Purim and that meant missing maths after play for a special festival lunch with turkey. Second, I had, in my pocket, a carefully forged note for Mrs. Green that would be the key, either to my freedom or to a prison of humiliation and dishonour.

I was full of mixed feelings when I leapt off the bus and walked along Stepney Green. I was happy to see Benny just ahead.

Benny Jacobs was my best friend at school. He was in my class, but you wouldn’t think so looking at us. He was much bigger than me and well built, with broad shoulders – he must have had a good start in life. He was square-faced and handsome like Clark Kent, with jet-black Brylcreemed hair. He was cleverer than me. He read a lot, listened to classical music and played the recorder. He got good marks for arithmetic and was good at Hebrew and he didn’t drop his aitches or tees. He could swim really well and even play proper football. In fact he was better than me at everything, but I could make him laugh.

His parents must have been well off. They had a nice flat on the Ocean Estate with modern furniture and bookshelves full of books. I liked his Mum and Dad and his little sister was good for a laugh. I often went to his house after school and stayed there as long as I could to avoid going home.

“Oi Cream Crackers!” I ran to catch him up.

“Hi, Tommy. Ready for the test?”

“What, Hebrew?”

“Yes. You have to do a translation Hebrew to English and then English to Hebrew. I’ve been practicing.”

“I know,” I said, “Louis Nyman told me yesterday. With luck I’m gonna get off.”

“How?” Benny asked.

“You’ll see. Come on.”

We skipped, ran and danced our way to school, ragging each other, fighting with our satchels.

“Oi! Jew Boys!”

Four kids from Ben Johnson Secondary barred our way.

I didn’t understand how they knew we were Jews – we looked much like them, except we had caps with the Stepney Jewish School crest. I whipped off my SJS cap and held it behind me, but I was too late. As one kid grabbed Benny’s satchel, another snatched my cap. After a bit of teasing and a game of piggy in the middle where we lunged helplessly as they threw our things between them, they ran off, throwing our stuff over the park fence. The chain link fence was ten feet high. We had to run back to the park gate and scrabble among the bushes until we found our things. Our leisurely meander to school had now become an anxious dash to get in before the bell.

Being late meant three whacks with a ruler across your knuckles from Miss Goldberg. If you were late more than once, you were sent to the headmaster, Mr. Rosen, who used to turn kids upside down and wallop them on the bum.

The ruler and the smacks didn’t worry me. They hurt like hell, but only for a few minutes. I was more worried about eternal damnation for the sin waiting like an evil genie to pop out of my pocket at Hebrew, second lesson.

Miss Green taught Hebrew and ran Cheder classes every Thursday after school. Benny talked me into going because he said you got a break halfway through and everyone went to the shop over the road, where you could buy a huge bag of broken crisps for tuppence ha’penny – food from heaven.

When you finished a normal bag of crisps, you always had a residue of broken bits at the bottom of the bag. These were a precious bonus. They were greasier and saltier – altogether a more intense if short-lived experience. Now imagine a bag stuffed full of only the broken bits. That was the great attraction of Mr. Newman’s shop. Benny shared a bag with me once and I was convinced I needed extra Hebrew.

Mrs. Green was fascinating. For one thing she had real blonde hair and blue eyes, like me, which was very unusual for a Jew. She wore a red dress, when other teachers wore black or grey and she smiled more than anyone I ever met. She was a bit like the little girl in the photo, but grown up.

I really didn’t believe in Hebrew. If God was all-powerful and knew everything, surely he could speak English, so what’s the point of talking to him in an ancient language from another country? So although Mrs. Green was very nice, I was neither motivated nor capable.

When I started classes, I hoped Gran’s Yiddish might come in handy but I was disappointed to find that none of the English-to-Hebrew translation exercises included the phrases I knew, like “boring old fart”, “loud mouthed gossip” or even “head in the clouds”. I did manage to learn a few short words I could recognize in any Hebrew text like “mah” means “what” – or was it “why”? But that wasn’t enough for translations. I learned a few prayers, which I recited without understanding.

When I got home after my first Cheder class, Gran asked what I’d learned. I was really embarrassed to recite a prayer in another language in front of her, and because I didn’t have a kappel, I put one hand on my head, closed my eyes and walked in a circle reciting my first prayer.

“Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Elohaynu Adonai Echad.”

I sounded the guttural “ch” in “Echad”, which further embarrassed me because it felt and sounded like I was going to cough up some phlegm.

“And what does it mean?” She asked.

“Hear, oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” I said.

She looked slightly impressed. “Do you know any more?”

I continued my gyrations. “Er… Borukh shem k’vod Malcolm Toe, Leo Lamb va-ed.”

“Mmm.” She sounded doubtful, “What does that mean?”

“Erm… Blessed be these names in His glorious kingdom for ever and ever.”

I was hoping she wouldn’t ask for any more because I’d only learned the first two lines.

“Well,” she said, “You’re good at the English. I don’t know about the Hebrew.”

She turned to go. With great effort I buried my embarrassment and suppressed my pride and called after her.

“Gran? Who’s Leo Lamb?”

She turned to me shook her head, then looked to heaven, shrugged her shoulders and sighed, “Oh God, what did I do so bad that you send me such a boy as this?”

I managed to fake it for six weeks, since Mrs. Green mostly got us to recite Hebrew phrases from the board or passages from our books. I just made sure I sat at the back of the class and mimed in time with the others. In fact Mrs. Green thought I was her best student, because whenever she tried to engage us in the meaning of a passage, she’d ask related questions, like, “In Israel long ago, people lived in houses made of stone, wood and mud. What are our houses made of?”

I always jumped up first with my hand up straining, aching to answer, “Please, Miss. Me Miss!”

“OK, Tommy?”

“Bricks Miss. Our houses are made of bricks.”

“Right, Tommy. I can always rely on you.” She said. Actually she cooed – like a pigeon. “I can aaaalways rely on yoooooo.”

She gave me the kind of soft smile you give to a puppy when you pick it up. I’d seen mothers in Burdett Road market do that smile when they lifted other people’s babies from their prams. I was addicted to her smile. It filled me with a warmth that flushed right through my body, heart and soul for a brief moment, and as the warmth faded, it left me with aching black emptiness, which had to be filled as soon as possible.

If her question was about the Hebrew, I just looked across at Benny with a big smile that intimated, “Oh yes I know this, but I’ll give one of the others a chance this time.” Benny always got it right.

I got away with being the brightest-dumbest kid in the class for a full six weeks. Until Louis Nyman told me we had a test coming up. I’d have known about this, had I been listening to Mrs. Green’s announcement during last Thursday’s class, but I was too anxious to get out and tuck into the crisps.

What could I do? I’d score nothing in any Hebrew test! I couldn’t let Mrs. Green down after I’d basked in all those lovely smiles. She might get upset, and possibly angry. She might even report me to Mr. Rosen and he’d do the Ten Commandments on me.

Once I spilt ink on Zennia Simon’s frock and her parents came up to school and got me into trouble. Mr Rosen said I did it on purpose and I was a born sinner and he dragged me out in front of all the kids at morning assembly and made me stand in front of him while he did the Ten Commandments.

“ONE!” He bellowed, his voice echoing round the hall. “I am the Lord thy God who brought you out of the Land of Egypt!”

He shouted really loud and pointed his finger at me.

“TWO! Thou shalt have no other God before me!”

When he said that, I thought Mr Rosen wanted me to bow down and worship him.

“THREE! Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain!”

I was beginning to feel guilty. I had asked God for help sometimes when I was in serious trouble with teachers, but it never made any difference, so perhaps I had been talking to Him in vain.

“FOUR! Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy!”

He was on to me. I disobeyed that one lots of times – riding on busses on Saturday when you shouldn’t, spending money going to the pictures and I hardly ever went to the Synagogue.

“FIVE! Honour thy father and thy mother!”

Now he’d got me. How could I honour my father or my mother when I didn’t have either?

“SIX! Thou shalt not kill!”

He shook his finger violently at me.

Did he know about Mrs. Levy? I felt so guilty standing there, I thought perhaps she’d poked her head out of her window again and it had been cut off. I opened my mouth to say “I didn’t mean it, Sir, honest, it was an accident!” but he went on.

“SEVEN! Thou shalt not commit adultery!”

I didn’t know what that meant, so I hoped I hadn’t done it yet.

“EIGHT! Thou shalt not steal!” He pointed the fingers of both hands at me.

Now I was for it – all that stuff we’d taken from people’s airees and hidden in our shelter. Was that stealing or just finders-keepers?

“NINE! Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour nor covet thy neighbour’s wife!”

Davy’s Granddad, Abe Yude, lived next door at number 92. His wife Dorrie was a very big lady and as old as my Gran and I know I didn’t covet her.

“TEN! Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours house nor his servants male or female or his ox or his donkey!

There were no servants, oxen or donkeys in Eric Street, so I was all right there.

“ELEVEN!”

This was Mr Rosen’s very own commandment.

“Thou shalt not dishonour the Holy Language of God!”

He used that one for kids who didn’t do well in their Hebrew lessons.

I’d broken most of the commandments, but I couldn’t work out which one said no spilling ink on Zennia’s frock. But anyway, I felt humiliated in front of everyone and the most overwhelming sense of guilt.

“Let that be a lesson to you boy!” Mr Rosen bellowed. He brushed me away and turned to the whole assembly. “And to any of you who break God’s holy commandments!”

I wasn’t keen on the wrath of Rosen. I had to get out of that Hebrew test. So I wrote a note on Basildon Bond from my Gran:

“Dear Mrs. Green, I’m afraid Thomas won’t be able to do Cheder classes any more. I am crippled with arfritus and he has to be at home in the evenings to help me. I know he has enjoyed the classes and learned a lot. Yours Truly, Rebecca Angel.”

It wasn’t a lie. Well not completely – Gran often said she was crippled with arthritis and I was her arms and legs, when she sent me for errands.

At the end of the morning Hebrew lesson, I hung back and gave Mrs. Green the note.

“It’s from my Gran.” I looked down to avoid her eyes.

“Thaaank yoooo, Tommy.” She cooed.

Time slowed to a crawl as she carefully opened the envelope. Fear welled up in my chest. First my ears and then the rest of my face started glowing. My mouth went dry but the rest of me broke into a sweat. I needed the lav.

What have I done? What would she think? What will she do?

I could hear Mr. Rosen’s lecture in assembly.

“ONE! This boy lied to his teacher!”

“TWO! He cheated in class.”

“THREE! He dishonoured God’s Holy Language. Just for a bag of crisps and FOUR! He exploited his poor crippled Grandmother and forged her handwriting to cover up his sins!”

In my stomach emptiness grew like hunger.

She unfolded the letter and read silently. Her eyebrows, first raised in a question, quickly lowered into a frown. She looked down at me with that grownup resignation that’s usually followed by a deep sigh of disappointment.

I heard her say, “Whaaat on eaaaaarth have yooooo done?”

But that was only inside my head. She looked me straight in the eye.

“I’m sooooo sorry about your Grandmother, Tommy.”

And then she filled my gaping, aching emptiness with that warm smile, and said, “You’re one of my best boooys, tooooo. Never mind. I dooooo hope you enjoy Puuuurim.”

Then she did the most terrible thing.

She held my shoulders, reached down and kissed my forehead. I was mortified. My crime was compounded a hundred-fold. What had I done! I stared at her, my mouth dangling stupid. I forced a weak smile, blushed again and looked back at my feet.

“Thank you, Miss… You too.”

I walked to the door a free man, but locked in a prison of shame.

“Oh, Tommy, just one thing”, she called after me, “That’s not how you spell arthritis.”

I turned to her. I wanted to confess everything, fall down on my knees and beg her forgiveness, but Benny and Louis rushed up and dragged me into the playground to kick a can.

I was useless and kept missing. I was thinking about that kiss. I had seen Benny’s mum kiss him and his sister like that. It was a parental kiss – from a mother to a son like I never had before. Gran never kissed me like that. In fact she never kissed me at all – in fact she never even touched me and it would be disgusting if she did. Larry’s mum kissed him every morning as she left for work. Viv’s mum kissed her when she came in for tea. That’s what mums did, but not for me.

“Come on Tommy. You’re in goal.” Benny yelled, kicking the can towards me. He knew something was wrong. “What’s up?” he asked.

I couldn’t tell him I was thinking about the amazing all-accepting unconditional love that’s in a mother’s kiss and I couldn’t tell him how I lied to Mrs. Green to escape the Hebrew test and how I wished she was my mother and that’s probably number TEN! – coveting thy neighbour’s wife, because although she doesn’t live next door, she is someone’s wife and she does live somewhere around here and I coveted her for a mum.

“Nothing.”

That lunchtime, instead of sitting at the top table, the teachers sat with us, to celebrate Purim. To my relief, Mrs. Green sat on the far side of the room and we got Mr. Baldwin, who I liked a lot because he let me make cardboard models of old temples instead of doing real work.

At the end of firsts, which included a slice of turkey each, the teachers left to do something important in the staffroom, and we all got Hamantaschen. These were flattish triangular lumps of dough filled with sweetened poppy seeds supposed to be shaped like Haman’s hat. He was the baddie in the bible story of Purim, and we were all supposed to hate him for trying to kill Queen Esther and the Jews. Well we did hate his buns, at least the school variety. They were big, tasteless, heavy and boring – but perfect for throwing.

David Benson, one of the older kids started it. He flicked his bun across the room at Harvey Kutner. That was it. Permission granted! Suddenly the air was filled with flying Hamantaschen – hundreds of them. It was war – all against all. Chairs went scraping and kids scuttled under tables collecting ammo, then popped up and threw them indiscriminately. Some of the younger kids hadn’t finished their firsts, and soon the buns were supplemented with over-boiled potatoes, limp cabbage leaves, carrots and turkey. It got messy – time for me Benny and Louis to retreat behind the notice board screens, where we could watch the fun, safe from leftovers. Well, not quite. A slice of turkey came spinning through the air from our left. Benny pulled me down in time, but it thwacked into Louie’s ear, dribbling gravy down his shirt.

It was wonderful and terrible, and becoming more serious by the minute, as some of the more reckless kids started skimming plates across the room. Something had to be done before someone was decapitated. Benny made a pathetic attempt to put on a big deep teacher voice and shouted above the din.

“Children, that’s ENOUGH! I said, E-NOUGH!”

No one was fooled, but the distraction injected a short pause, into which stepped, by a miracle of perfect timing the only teacher whose presence alone would, like Moses parting the Red Sea, still the barrage of missiles. Mr. Baldwin appeared in the doorway and asked quietly, “What’s going on?”

Shocked silence. The last few flying Hamantaschen floated to the floor and a plate smashed against the wall. A hundred faces flicked to the crash site and back to Mr. Baldwin. On every face an expression of surprised innocence, as if they had just been beamed down from the planet Mars and materialized in this strange room and had no idea what had happened.

It took some time to clean up the mess – all our dinnertime play, in fact, but luckily there was no inquisition. Probably a waste of time – no one would have seen anything – no one would have thrown anything and everyone would claim they tried to stop it.

It wasn’t even mentioned in assembly. It’s like it never happened. And we all knew it wouldn’t happen again. Not until next Purim.

And Benny, Louis and I wouldn’t be there – we’d be at the Grammar if we were lucky or the Secondary Modern if we were not.