The room in which they worked was lit by a single gas jet in the centre of the low ceiling. There was a small window, but it had been nailed up. The walls were of naked plaster through which could be seen patches of damp brick. Although it was winter, there was no fire in the room and the only heat came from the bodies of the workers. There was a fireplace in the room, but this was used to store the scraps of discarded material which could be re-used for padding. The smell of the people was very strong, but now few of them really noticed it, unless they left the room and came back in again, which was rarely. Some people would stay there for days at a time, sleeping in a corner and eating a bowl of soup someone would bring them, before starting work again.
A week ago, Karl had been there when they had discovered that the man whose coughing they had all complained about had not woken up for seven hours. Another man had knelt down and listened at the sleeping man's chest. He had nodded to the sleeping man's wife and sister-in-law and together they had carried him from the room. Neither the wife nor the sister-in-law came back for the rest of the day and it seemed to Karl that when they did return the wife's whole soul had not been in her work and her eyes were redder than usual, but the sister-in-law seemed much the same. The coughing man had not returned at all and, of course, Karl reasoned, it was because he was dead.
Karl's father laid down the coat. It was time to eat. He left the room and returned shortly with a small bundle wrapped in newspaper, a single large jug of hot tea. Karl's mother left her sewing machine and signed to Karl. The three of them sat in the corner of the room near the window while Karl's father unwrapped the newspaper and produced three cooked herrings. He handed one to each of them. They took turns to sip from the tea-jug. The meal lasted ten minutes and was eaten in silence. Then they went back to their place at the table, having carefully cleaned their fingers on the newspaper, for Mr. Armfelt would fine them if he discovered any grease spots on the clothes they were making.
Karl looked at his mother's thin, red fingers, at his father's lined face. They were no worse off than the rest.
That was the phrase his father always used when he and his mother crawled into their end of the bed. Once he had prayed every night. Now that phrase was the nearest he came to a prayer.
The door opened and the room became a little more chill. The door closed. A short young man wearing a black bowler hat and a long overcoat stood there, blowing on his fingers. He spoke in Russian, his eyes wandering from face to face. Few looked up. Only Karl stared at him.
"Any lad like to do a job for me?" said the young man. "Urgent. Good money."
Several of the workers had his attention now, but Karl had already raised his hand. His father looked concerned, but said nothing.
"You'll do fine," said the young man. "Five shillings, And it won't take you long, probably. A message."
"A message where?" Like Karl, Karl's father spoke Russian as well as he spoke Polish.
"Just down to the docks. Not far. I'm busy, or I'd go myself. But I need someone who knows a bit of English, as well as Russian."
"I speak English," said Karl in English.
"Then you're definitely the lad I need. Is that all right?" glancing at Karl's father. "You've no objection? "
"I suppose not. Come back as soon as you can, Karl. And don't let anybody take your money from you." Karl's father began to sew again. His mother turned the handle of the sewing-machine a trifle faster, but that was all.
"Come on, then," said the young man.
Karl got up.
"It's pelting down out there," said the young man.
"Take the blanket, Karl," said his father.
Karl went to the corner and picked up the thin scrap of blanket. He draped it round his shoulders. The young man was already clumping down the stairs. Karl followed.
Outside in the alley it was almost as dark as night. Heavy rain swished down and filled the broken street with black pools in which it seemed you could fall and drown. A dog leaned in a doorway, shivering. At the far end of the alley were the lights of the pub. Blinds were drawn in half the windows of the buildings lining both sides of the street. In some of the remaining windows could be seen faint, ghostly lights. A voice was shouting, but whether it was in this alley or the next one, Karl couldn't tell. The shouting stopped. He huddled deeper into the blanket.
"You know Irongate Stairs?" The young man looked rapidly up and down the alley.
"Where the boats come ashore?" said Karl.
"That's right. Well, I want you to take this envelope to someone who's landing from the Solchester in an hour or so. Tell no one you have the envelope, save this man. And mention the man's name as little as you can. He may want your help. Do whatever he asks."
"And when will you pay me?"
"When you have done the work."
"How will I find you?"
"I'll come back here. Don't worry, I'm not like your damned masters! I won't go back on my word." The young man lifted his head almost proudly. "This day's work could see an end to what you people have to suffer."
He handed Karl the envelope. On it, in Russian, was written a single word, a name: KOVRIN.
"Kovrin," said Karl, rolling his r. "This is the man?"
"He's very tall and thin," said his new employer. "Probably wearing a Russian cap. You know the sort of thing people wear when they first come over. A very striking face, I'm told."
"You've not met him?"
"A relative, come to look for work," said the young man somewhat hastily. "That's enough. Go, before you're too late. And tell no one save him that you have met me, or there'll be no money for you. Get it?"
Karl nodded. The rain was already soaking through his blanket. He tucked the envelope into his shirt and began to trot along the alley, avoiding the worst of the puddles. As he passed the pub, a piano began to play and he heard a cracked voice singing: Don't stop me 'arf a pint o' beer, It's the only fing what's keepin' me alive. I don't mind yer stoppin' of me corfee and me tea, But 'arf a pint o' beer a day is medicine to me.
I don't want no bloomin' milk or eggs, And to buy them I'll find it very dear. If you want to see me 'appy and contented all me life, Don't stop me 'arf a pint o' beer!
Now I'm a chap what's moderate in all I 'ave to drink, And if that's wrong, then tell me what is right...
Karl did not hear all the words properly. Besides, such songs all sounded the same to him, with virtually the same tunes and the same sentiments. He found the English rather crude and stupid, particularly in their musical tastes. He wished he were somewhere else. Whenever he wasn't working, when he could daydream quite cheerfully as he sewed pads into jackets, this feeling overwhelmed him. He longed for the little town in Poland he could barely remember, for the sun and the cornfields, the snows and the pines. He had never been clear about why they had had to leave so hastily.
Water filled his ruined shoes and made the cloth of his trousers stick to his thin legs. He crossed another alley. There were two or three English boys there. They were scuffling about on the wet cobbles. He hoped they wouldn't see him. There was nothing that cheered bored English boys up so much as the prospect of baiting Karl Glogauer. And it was important that he shouldn't lose the letter, or fail to deliver it. Five shillings was worth nearly two days work. In an hour he would make as much as he would normally make in thirty-six. They hadn't seen him. He reached the broader streets and entered Commercial Street which was crowded with slow-moving traffic. Everything, even the cabs, seemed beaten down by the grey rain. The world was a place of blacks and dirty whites, spattered with the yellow of gas-lamps in the windows of the pie-and-mash shops, the second-hand clothes shops, the pubs and the pawnshops. Plodding drey horses threatened to smash their heads against the curved green fronts of the trams or the omnibuses; carters swore at their beasts, their rivals and themselves. Swathed in rubber, or canvas, or gabardine, crouching beneath umbrellas, men and women stumbled into each other or stepped aside just in time. Through all these dodged Karl with his message in his shirt, crossing Aldgate and running down the dismal length of Leman Street, past more pubs, a few dismal shops, crumbling houses, brick walls which seemed to have no function but to block light from the street, a police station with a blue lamp gleaming over its door, another wall plastered with advertisements for meat-drinks, soaps, bicycles, nerve tonics, beers, money-lenders, political parties, newspapers, music-halls, jobs (No Irish or Aliens Need Apply), furniture on easy terms, the Army. The rain washed them down and made some of them look fresh again. Across Cable Street, down Dock Street, through another maze of alleys, even darker than the others, to Wapping Lane.