Abraham

Alan said sister Agnes knew, but he always told lies. He heard her praying that God would see into Golden tooth’s heart and help him change. It didn’t seem to have worked.

Saturday was normally the day for the Americans to visit, laden with drums of golden syrup and porridge oats. It was a natural mistake of language. The Americans ordered syrup meaning corn syrup, and got Tate and Lyle golden syrup. They ordered grits, and got oats, nether they wanted, but during rationing the orphanage took anything going free. Although it was not free, someone had to pay, and the some one, was not a grown up. It was not Peter, or me, we found how to escape. If you managed to get to the back in assembly, the sisters stood at the side of the hall, and the American airmen stood at the back behind the children. Peter found that he could hobble away between the line of Airmen, and no one would stop him, why would they stop a cripple leaving the room. I also escaped by being his escort, a cripple could not make it on his own! Once outside all we had to do was avoid detection and stay warm and dry, normally in the boiler room. To get to the boiler room you had to skirt the garden, and pass in front of the main entrance. Usually you would be hidden from view by the parked American jeeps and lorries.

On that Saturday a man stood by the jeep, a black man. We were hiding in the bushes waiting for him to go inside, but he didn’t. He was leaning on the jeep smoking. Then golden tooth came out, shouting. He was red in the face and shouting at the black man. The black man smartened himself up, saluted and said many yes sirs, but it didn’t stop Gold tooth hitting him with a brass tipped cane. More yes sirs, more salutes, more beatings and more yes sirs before gold tooth had what he wanted and went back inside. Turning round the black man saw us, and greeted us in a friendly way. He asked if we were looking for the captain. We didn’t know who the captain was, but as it happened the captain was gold tooth, and we did not want to see him. The black man admitted, nor did he. We laughed, and so did he. He put out his hand and said Abraham. We shook our heads. Peter said he was Peter and I was his friend. The black man smiled and said he was Abraham, named after the president, not the current president he was Harry. We smiled stupidly. So he explained Britain has a king, king George, and America has a president, which they choose. We couldn’t see why you had to choose some one. It seemed more logical to have the king that god gave you. He thought that was funny. Peter shook his hand, but didn’t let the hand go. He was looking at the colour, and the difference between the colour of the palm and the back of the hand. Soon we were both stroking his skin and turning his hand over, back and forward, then examining his nails. He felt like a normal man, with normal skin. The black man was laughing. Said he didn’t suppose we knew many Negroes. We had never seen anything like him, and he wasn’t a bit scary. He was a big man so why didn’t he punch Gold tooth back. He explained that a black man couldn’t hit a white man. But it was obvious a white man could hit a Black man. It would be different if he had a King. The black man was laughing, and we liked him laughing, so we laughed. He put his hands in his pockets asking us if we wanted some gum. We didn’t know what it was, so said yes.

He pulled out an oblong wrapper and withdrew a thin piece of silver tipped paper, his last. He then ripped it in to three, and put the pieces in his open hand. He told me to choose a piece for Peter, and Peter was to choose a piece for me, that would make it fair. Some how he got the biggest piece. He was funny; he fooled around to make us laugh.

He asked why we were not inside on the chocolate bar hunt. We looked at each other and decided to risk it. We told him what happened if you ended up in a room with an American, especially Gold tooth. He was shocked, didn’t know what to say, and said that Americans were not like that. Only black ones we said. We heard noises from the hall so left quickly to get safely to the boiler room. Abraham even though a good man couldn’t protect us from Gold tooth we saw that.

We never saw Abraham again. We also never saw Gold tooth or the other strange men that hung around with him. We did see men in white helmets boots and gaiters standing guard over the Americans. Outside in the car park the black drivers all knew Peter, and made themselves known to us. We always had gum, and played with them.

Prevention is not quantifiable, so the men in white helmets visited less and less until they stopped coming altogether. Others like Gold tooth waited, and eventually were rewarded for their patience.

Sister Agnes remained unjustifiably smug that her prayers had been answered.