The Two Hearts of Eliza Bloom Read online

  Six weeks after the first meeting, we agreed to get engaged. This meant that we were going to get married. In the daytime this was fine. But at night, especially if I woke up in the small hours, I was scared. I asked myself what I had done, agonised over whether I should change my mind, despite the hurt to his feelings and the rage of my father, and worse, my mother’s quiet disappointment. But in the morning the night fears seemed foolish. ‘I’m engaged, finally,’ I told myself, and that felt like I was doing the right thing.

  My parents’ generation didn’t have engagement rings. To give a ring before the wedding would have meant, in their minds, that they were already married, but before all the proper formalities had taken place. Nathan wasn’t modern enough to give me a secular kind of engagement ring, but he was planning to follow the lead of many of our contemporaries, and give me a diamond ring, in addition to the gold wedding ring, straight after the wedding ceremony.

  ‘Modern kids,’ my father said when he heard about this, ‘always think their way is the right way.’

  Nathan wanted me to know all about the ring. ‘White gold, with a large diamond, and tiny chips of diamond down the sides.’

  ‘And your cousin knows someone in the trade, don’t tell me,’ I said.

  ‘No, actually.’

  ‘I don’t want you wasting your money on a ring, Nathan.’

  ‘My brother-in-law knows someone, not my cousin.’ He smiled. ‘And I don’t regard it as a waste of money.’

  So, six weeks after we first met, we were engaged.

  And four weeks later, I met Alex.

  I never saw the ring. I hoped Nathan was able to get a refund.

  Three

  September 1999

  I’d never understood the phrase ‘skipping a beat’ till I walked into the room and saw Alex. I honestly thought my heart had stopped, just for a moment. It seemed as if light was shimmering around him, giving a glittering quality to the whole room. Which was odd, considering that we were in a beige conference room at the Hackney Council building in Hillman Street.

  I’m tall – five foot nine – but when Alex stood to greet me, I saw that he was several inches taller than me. Not smaller, not the same, but taller; when you’re my height, that’s quite unusual. His dark hair was a similar colour to mine, but his eyes were a deep mid-blue. His olive skin made me wonder if he was from a Turkish background, or Italian, perhaps. And I realised that I was an engaged woman, wondering things about another man.

  The school where I taught was often approached with a request for someone to come and present accessible information about Orthodox Jewish life to groups of children, teachers, or youth workers. Or, as now, local councillors obliged to undergo training in equal opportunities. The head teacher often put me forward – apparently I was a ‘good communicator’.

  Well yes, usually. But the people in charge of these events didn’t usually have such blue, blue eyes.

  I could see myself through Alex’s blue eyes from the very first moment, and I liked what both of us were seeing. Unlike with Nathan, whose unreadability meant I only knew he liked me because he’d asked to marry me, I knew straight away that Alex thought I was beautiful. He stared into my eyes and then stretched out his hand to shake mine, and though I didn’t – couldn’t – take it, I found to my amazement that I was thinking how much I would like to take it, kiss it, and press it against my heart. He frowned slightly as I failed to take his hand, and the frown produced, between those blue eyes, two faint vertical lines like quotation marks that I could scarcely drag my gaze away from.

  To cover my confusion, I addressed the whole group.

  ‘Hello, everyone. The first thing I should tell you about traditional Jews, as your trainer no doubt wishes to demonstrate, is that we have a rule about touching.’

  Alex laughed, and sat down. The group turned their attention to me.

  I carried on: ‘This rule states that people of the opposite gender do not touch each other, including not shaking hands, unless they are brother and sister, or children with their parents and grandparents, or,’ and I almost tripped over this last phrase, ‘husband and wife.’

  After this untypical start it was a relief to go through my talk, and it was lucky that it was a familiar spiel, as I was utterly distracted by those steady eyes on me. It wasn’t that I was unused to being watched. There’s no merit in false modesty, is there? I knew I was easy on the eye, that in my high-necked top and ankle-length skirt, my long black hair caught in a net at the base of my neck, I looked different from other London women. I’d always been rather proud of that difference. But this was a different kind of being watched, and I was supremely, deliciously conscious of it. I stumbled over my words a couple of times, and when I was listing the three most important roles of a Jewish woman, I caught Alex’s eye and completely lost my train of thought, couldn’t remember the last one until a few awkward seconds had ticked by.

  I managed to finish the talk, and answered the questions as best I could, though I was aware that I’d somewhat lost my focus. Alex turned to thank me, and his smile was the most dazzling I’d ever seen. It lit up his entire face.

  By unspoken agreement, we waited in the room till everyone had left, and it was only me and him. I found I couldn’t quite reach the end of my breath.

  ‘Miss Bloom. Er.’ He coughed. ‘Thank you, that was an excellent talk. It would be great to get you to come and speak again. Could we, um, meet soon, to discuss some dates? Tomorrow, perhaps?’

  I had the sense of standing on the edge of a cliff, looking down. ‘Yes, that would be fine.’

  ‘There’s a café near here, Artello’s, in Preston Street. Do you know it?’

  ‘I know the street. I can find it.’

  ‘What time could you get there, from school?’

  ‘Probably a little after five. Quarter past?’

  ‘Perfect. I don’t suppose you have a mobile phone number, do you? In case you need to change the arrangement?’

  ‘No, we only have a normal telephone, at home.’

  ‘Can I have that number?’ Those blue eyes.

  ‘I… don’t know.’

  ‘Just so we can arrange, er, other training sessions in future?’

  I wrote down my number in his diary, my hand shaking so much that the 3 looked like a 5 and I had to write it out again. Agreeing to meet was one thing; I could easily not go. Giving my phone number was something different. It was making a decision. Stepping off the cliff. Asking to be rescued.

  Four

  September 1999

  I was unable to eat that evening, or sit still. Mum kept asking if I was all right, and Becca told me I looked ‘jittery’. When the phone rang I nearly had a heart attack. I raced to it, but as usual my father got there first. He glared at me as I arrived breathlessly at his side, seconds after he’d picked up the receiver.

  ‘Yes?’ he barked into the phone.

  There was a pause, then, looking furious, he thrust the receiver at me. ‘It’s for you.’

  I took it from him, scarcely knowing whether I felt more horror or excitement. He didn’t move away, so all I could do was turn my back on him and whisper into the phone, ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi, Aliza, how are you?’

  I couldn’t place the voice. I was sure I remembered Alex’s this morning as being deeper, and it was a couple of long, confused seconds before I realised who it was.

  ‘Hi, Nathan.’

  ‘Come on, Kap,’ my mother hissed at my father, ‘give them some privacy!’

  My father reluctantly slunk out of the hall, muttering about young people who always know everything. Nathan talked about his day, and our wedding plans, and the latest news on the flat we would be living in after we married. He’d phoned a couple of times before, for a chat, so it wasn’t completely out of the blue, but it took several minutes for my heart to stop racing. He was really sweet, which made me feel bad. I decided that I wouldn’t go and meet Alex the next day after all. What had I been thinking?
I gave Nathan my full attention, and felt resolved in my mind. I was sure that I had just gone momentarily mad this morning.

  But once again, I woke with a start in the night, sweat on my forehead and a dread gripping my stomach like a clenched fist. I could hear Becca and Gila’s quiet breathing, sleeping their blameless sleeps, dreaming their innocent dreams. I’ve agreed to marry Nathan. Oh god. What have I done?

  In the morning, heavy from lack of sleep and in need of distraction, I told Mum I’d make Zaida’s morning tea. I knocked lightly on the door to the annex and went in. Seeing Zaida sitting in his chair always lifted my spirits. This morning it also helped settle my racing heart.

  ‘Aliza! My angel.’ His delight at seeing me never wavered. Even though we’d seen each other last night at dinner, as always, he reacted as if we’d been apart for months. I hugged him, and then started to make the tea. He’d boiled the kettle in readiness but he was forbidden by my mother to lift it; he wasn’t so strong any more and last time he’d tried, he’d splashed boiling water on his hand.

  ‘I’ve got to go to work in a minute, Zaida,’ I said.

  ‘Ah yes, my granddaughter, the teacher,’ he said, with as much pride as if I was chief rabbi or prime minister. ‘Have a quick cuppa with me?’

  I filled the teapot and sat down opposite him. He was, as usual, smartly dressed in a suit, but his tie had a dark stain on it. ‘He isn’t getting any younger,’ my mother had taken to saying, with a sigh, at regular intervals.

  ‘How’s your lovely young man?’ he asked me.

  ‘Nathan? He’s fine, I think. We’re going to go for a walk in Hampstead on Sunday.’

  ‘Ah, lucky young people, at the start of their lives.’

  ‘Zaida?’ I handed him a mug of tea, and poured myself one I didn’t really want. ‘Do you think Nathan is a good match for me?’

  ‘I was great friends with his grandfather, you know, may he rest in peace.’

  ‘I know you were. But do you think…?’

  ‘Aliza, my choochie-face.’ He reached out and took my hand. ‘You’re so smart, so sensible. So bright! I know you’ll always make the right decision.’

  I looked down at his old, dear hand, warm on mine, and wondered if I would be able to live up to his rose-tinted vision of me.

  That afternoon, I finished up at school, got everything ready for the next morning, and walked to Preston Street. The café was easy to find, and I was early. I stood outside for ten minutes, wondering what I was doing, and then trying not to think about what I was doing. When Alex arrived he looked simultaneously as familiar as if I had known him my whole life, and like a complete stranger. I scarcely greeted him, just hurried him to the back of the café in case someone I knew might come in. This was extremely unlikely, but I nonetheless spent several moments looking round anxiously whenever the café door opened.

  ‘Are you all right, Miss Bloom?’

  ‘Aliza. Yes. I’m. I don’t want. I don’t know.’

  The waitress came over and Alex asked what I’d like. I knew there wouldn’t be anything kosher here so I said water. He ordered a coffee, and when the waitress had gone, he said, ‘Shall we talk about some training sessions you could speak at?’

  His face was all lines – those quotation marks between his eyes, lines radiating out from an anxious smile. I could see he was worried that he had misread things between us. The urgency of our situation hit me with a thud; this was no time for coyness.

  ‘Mr Symons, do you really want to talk about training?’

  His smile grew wider. ‘No.’

  ‘Nor do I.’

  There was a pause. And he said, ‘That makes me very happy.’

  I stopped monitoring the door, and I stopped thinking about anyone else. I let myself become lost in the heat of Alex’s gaze. It was fate that we had met. We both felt it.

  We met again the following afternoon, same place, same time. In between gazing at each other, he told me a little about his life: his brother, his mum, his dad who’d died, his work as a trainer in equal opportunities and diversity for the local council, his flat in Brixton, his single status. He made particularly sure I knew about his single status.

  The third time we met, the afternoon after that, I told him about my life: work, synagogue, duties at home, and helping my mother take care of Zaida.

  ‘Is it true what you said in the talk,’ Alex asked, ‘about not having a telly?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve never seen television. Telly.’ I repeated the word in my head. Telly.

  He listed some of the other things I’d mentioned. ‘No internet, no cinema, no sex before marriage?’

  I blushed, and nodded.

  ‘Talking of marriage, you spoke about your own. It sounded like it was happening quite soon.’ This was the first time either of us had mentioned it.

  ‘Yes, I’m getting married in December.’ As I said it, it felt unconnected to me, as if I was talking about someone else. ‘He’s the son of a family friend.’

  ‘Did you have any say in that?’

  ‘Of course I did!’ I felt protective, all at once, of my life and my family. ‘It’s an arranged marriage, not a forced one. I didn’t have to say yes. I already turned down several others.’

  ‘You look like a magnificent exotic queen of the Stamford Hill desert when you get cross,’ Alex said.

  ‘Don’t.’

  He was silent for a while. I studied his long fingers which were curled round his coffee mug, the lines on the knuckles, the neat square-cut nails. They were headily unfamiliar hands. Then he said, ‘Do you ever long for a normal life?’

  ‘I have a normal life.’

  ‘To me, it sounds unbelievably strict. I can see why a child would fall in line, but not someone of twenty-three.’

  ‘I was pretty challenging of the rules when I was a child. Anyway, there are many families much stricter than ours.’

  ‘Really?’ Alex poured me some more water. ‘On a scale of one to ten, where ten is the strictest possible, what score would you give your family?’

  I thought about it. ‘We’d be a seven, I guess.’

  ‘My god, what would a ten be like?’

  ‘It’s a normal life,’ I said, firmly. ‘I work. I’m a teacher, I love that. I hang out with my brothers and sisters. I go for coffee with my best friend Deborah.’

  ‘Will you work after you marry?’

  ‘Yes, of course. That’s one of the reasons I agreed to it. If I don’t marry before I’m twenty-five, my father will take away some of my freedoms. Things like being able to go out to work.’

  ‘That’s awful, Eliza.’

  ‘I don’t see it like that.’ I laughed. ‘How else will he get me to hurry up?’

  I didn’t tell him he’d said my name slightly wrong, as if it was spelled with an ‘E’ rather than an ‘A’. He must have heard it as the secular version when I’d first told him my name. It was pretty close though, and I rather liked the thought of being slightly different, slightly wrong, in Alex’s company. It was a pseudonym. I was a spy, with a secret undercover life.

  When we met again the next afternoon, I told Alex something I had never told anyone, not even Deb. I told him about the things I was afraid I’d miss out on, if I stayed in my world. Films, music, food – they were only the surface things. ‘It’s not the specifics,’ I tried to explain, ‘so much as a general feeling of wanting to see what it’s like outside.’

  ‘Outside of your bubble?’

  ‘Exactly! I’m in a tiny bubble and…’

  ‘You’d like to pop it?’

  ‘Yes…’

  ‘Would you like me to help you?’

  I didn’t say anything.

  ‘Just give me the word,’ Alex said. ‘I’ll be there with a big pin.’

  That night, the phone rang, and when Dad thrust it at me with a grumpy, ‘It’s for you,’ I naturally assumed it was Nathan.

  ‘Hi,’ I said, breezily.

  ‘Eliza,’ Alex said, ‘can you talk?�
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  My heart started pounding so hard I could scarcely think. Eliza with an E. I managed to whisper, ‘Not really.’

  My dad was, as usual, loitering nearby, and shot me a suspicious glance.

  Alex said, ‘Are you able to say “yes” or “no”?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK. Listen, I wanted to let you know that I can’t make it tomorrow to the café.’

  ‘All right.’ I had not even known him a week, so why did I feel so heavy at the thought of not seeing him?

  ‘It’s not all right, I’m really sorry. My mum’s asked me to take her to a doctor’s appointment. I wouldn’t miss it for anything, otherwise.’

  I wanted to ask if we would meet as usual the following afternoon, but Dad still hung around in the hall. Where was Mum, to tell him to give me some space?

  ‘Eliza? You still there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I will miss you tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll be thinking about you. I can’t wait to see you. Day after tomorrow, as usual?’

  Thank Ha-Shem. ‘Yes!’

  Dov came down the stairs and took in the scene: me huddled round the phone, my hand cupped secretively round the receiver; Dad a couple of feet away, pretending to go through a pile of post.