F The Scribe

The Scribe

At eight o clock sharp except on Saturday he would unfold his baize
covered card

table and his two folding chairs on the pavement outside Cohen's
delicatessen at

the top of Umberston Street. A writing pad, envelopes and stamps would
be laid

out and he would sit and wait for his clients. The rusty black suit,
the stiff wing

collar and the black Homburg hat balanced on the back of his head
together

with the rimless glasses and the neat goatee beard proclaimed his
professional

status. The row of fountain pens in his top pocket proclaimed his
profession. He

was the schreiber, the scribe, the professional writer. For a small fee
he would

write letters, fill in official forms, answer summonses, correspond
with the Home

Office immigration department and read documents for the illiterate
immigrants

of the East End. This was 1938 and the letters were often in Polish or
Russian.

He had a special fine nibbed pen for the crabbed right to left Hebrew
lettering of

longhand Yiddish. Lately an influx of refugees from Germany escaping
from

Hitler (may he catch a cholera) had forced him to buy a broad nibbed
pen

appropriate for the brutalities of German. He sat outside Cohen's
because the

shopkeeper kept the awning down in all weathers so that he could
conduct his

business in comfort even in the rain. The only time he was not at his
post when

he was called to the magistrates' court to act as an interpreter. This
was rare now.

Twenty years before he had had a thriving practice. There was often
a

queue at his table awaiting his expertise. On a reasonable day he could
earn a

pound; on a good day thirty shillings. His daughter had had a notable
wedding

reception. She was married to a prosperous dentist in Finchley. His son
had

qualified as an accountant and had offices near his home in Temple
Fortune.

They visited him occasionally and sent him money occasionally. His wife
had

died many years before and he could hardly remember what she looked
like or

what she felt like. But things had changed. The illiterate immigrants
had

produced children. The children had been educated at English schools.
Many of

them had won scholarships to academies where they had learned
foreign

languages, French, German, even the heathen Latin. The children spoke
Yiddish

and Russian or Polish at home, English at school. They could write the
letters,

fill in the forms, deal with the bureaucracies. The expected boom from
the

German influx did not come. Even under Hitler (may his viscera catch
fire) they

had been educated and they had their own self help organisations,
mostly

secular. It was only the more religious who sought him out. But he
insisted that

he was still providing an essential service to the community and he
took up his

post every morning as he had for thirty years or more.

He chatted with the passers by who were making their way to
Hessel

Street market. There was Arela, the punch drunk ex heavyweight, who
made a

living lugging heavy stock about for the stall holders, Solly Bananas
who sold the

best fruit in the East End off his stall, Yes Lady - No Lady who had
the sweet

shop at the corner of the market and Sammy Kippers who you could
smell

coming from the Commercial Road end of the street.

It was an hour before his first client appeared. Shmull Berkoff was
a

butcher in Burslem Street who had been widowed two years before. He
wanted

a new wife but none of the available East End women were considered
suitable.

"All they want is a big ring from Max's the jewellers and to go to the
pictures

and go dancing. I want a woman who'll look after me. I'm not a
youngster any

more." Shmull didn't realise that the only reason a young woman would
put up

with a fat fifty year old like him would be for the material things
a

business man could provide.

He had been corresponding with a matrimonial agency in Warsaw in
the

hope that he could find a young woman who would be content to help him
in the

shop, to cook and clean and wash for him and would stop him feeling
lonely in

bed. So far none of the candidates suggested by the agency had measured
up to

his expectations. The latest had been pronounced too fat and "If she's
twenty

three I'm a barmitzvah boy." A letter in Polish was written stating
once again

Shmull's preferences and a shilling for the letter and twopence
ha'penny for the

stamp paid over. Then things went quiet. Cohen came out of his shop and
they

chatted about the news of the day especially the latest from Germany
and what

Hitler (may his testicles develop a painful disease) was doing to the
Jews.

At twelve thirty he went over to the dairy restaurant and had a
meagre

lunch, a bowl of vegetable soup, a chunk of black rye bread with butter
and a

glass of milkless tea with lemon and plenty of sugar. He was smoking
his tenth

Capstan Full Strength cigarette of the day when Moishe Samuels came
over.

"Have you seen what's happening in the market?" "No. What's happening
in

the market?" "You'd better go and look. By the gates next to fat
Shaindel's

fruit shop." Moishe wandered off satisfied at having been the bearer of
bad

tidings.

Behind the market in Hessel Street there was an access road to the
back

of the shops. It was reached by a pair of iron gates at one end and
another

similar pair half way down. It was here that Moishe's bad news was
sitting. A

young man in Chassidic dress, a black gabardine, a round black hat and
the

payot, the corkscrew side curls of the ultra orthodox was seated at a
table. On

the table was not one but two typewriters. One had the normal
Roman

characters, the other Hebrew characters. The young schreiber had all
the latest

in technology. There was a small queue by the table, several of them
had been

his clients in the past. He asked Marshala Klein why she was
patronising this

newcomer when he had always given her good service and her daughter
had

been doing her correspondence since she left school. "Look." she said
"Be

honest, you're getting old. Everybody who can read says your writing's
getting

unreadable. Your eyes are going and your hands shake. This feller uses
a

typewriter. It looks much better, more professional. Anyway he's a
refugee

from Hitler (may he take a fit and die) and we've got to help our own
haven't

we? Nobody else cares about us."

He went back to Umberston Street, folded up his table and chairs
and

threw them on the market rubbish tip. He walked to Aldgate East
underground

station and booked a ticket to Temple Fortune to his son. "After all"
he thought

"Perhaps I can persuade him that we've got to help our own."