Lubji stood in awe as he stared at row upon row of covered stalls, stretching as far as the eye could see. Some only sold vegetables, others just fruit, while a few dealt in furniture, and one simply in pictures, some of which even had frames.
But despite the fact that he spoke their language fluently, when he offered his services to the traders their only question was, ‘Do you have anything to sell?’ For the second time in his life, Lubji faced the problem of having nothing to barter with. He stood and watched as refugees traded priceless family heirlooms, sometimes for no more than a loaf of bread or a sack of potatoes. It quickly became clear to him that war allowed some people to amass a great fortune.
Day after day Lubji searched for work. At night he would collapse onto the pavement, hungry and exhausted, but still determined. After every trader in the market had turned him down, he was reduced to begging on street corners.
Late one afternoon, on the verge of despair, he passed an old woman in a newspaper kiosk on the corner of a quiet street, and noticed that she wore the Star of David on a thin gold chain around her neck. He gave her a smile, hoping she might take pity on him, but she ignored the filthy young immigrant and carried on with her work.
Lubji was just about to move on when a young man, only a few years older than him, strolled up to the kiosk, selected a packet of cigarettes and a box of matches, and then walked off without paying the old lady. She jumped out of the kiosk, waving her arms and shouting, ‘Thief! Thief!’ But the young man simply shrugged his shoulders and lit one of the cigarettes. Lubji ran down the road after him and placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. When he turned round, Lubji said, ‘You haven’t paid for the cigarettes.’
‘Get lost, you bloody Slovak,’ the man said, pushing him away before continuing down the street. Lubji ran after him again and this time grabbed his arm. The man turned a second time, and without warning threw a punch at his pursuer. Lubji ducked, and the clenched fist flew over his shoulder. As the man rocked forward, Lubji landed an uppercut in his solar plexus with such force that the man staggered backward and collapsed in a heap on the ground, dropping the cigarettes and matches. Lubji had discovered something else he must have inherited from his father.
Lubji had been so surprised by his own strength that he hesitated for a moment before bending down to pick up the cigarettes and matches. He left the man clutching his stomach and ran back to the kiosk.
‘Thank you,’ the old woman said when he handed back her goods.
‘My name is Lubji Hoch,’ he told her, and bowed low.
‘And mine is Mrs. Cerani,’ she said.
When the old lady went home that night, Lubji slept on the pavement behind the kiosk. The following morning she was surprised to find him still there, sitting on a stack of unopened newspapers.
The moment he saw her coming down the street, he began to untie the bundles. He watched as she sorted out the papers and placed them in racks to attract the early-morning workers. During the day Mrs. Cerani started to tell Lubji about the different papers, and was amazed to find how many languages he could read. It wasn’t long before she discovered that he could also converse with any refugee who came in search of news from his own country.
The next day Lubji had all the papers set out in their racks long before Mrs. Cerani arrived. He had even sold a couple of them to early customers. By the end of the week she could often be found snoozing happily in the corner of her kiosk, needing only to offer the occasional piece of advice if Lubji was unable to answer a customer’s query.
After Mrs. Cerani locked up the kiosk on the Friday evening, she beckoned Lubji to follow her. They walked in silence for some time, before stopping at a little house about a mile from the kiosk. The old lady invited him to come inside, and ushered him through to the front room to meet her husband. Mr. Cerani was shocked when he first saw the filthy young giant, but softened a little when he learned that Lubji was a Jewish refugee from Ostrava. He invited him to join them for supper. It was the first time Lubji had sat at a table since he had left the academy.
Over the meal Lubji learned that Mr. Cerani ran a paper shop that supplied the kiosk where his wife worked. He began to ask his host a series of questions about returned copies, loss leaders, margins and alternative stock. It was not long before the newsagent realized why the profits at the kiosk had shot up that week. While Lubji did the washing up, Mr. and Mrs. Cerani conferred in the corner of the kitchen. When they had finished speaking, Mrs. Cerani beckoned to Lubji, who assumed the time had come for him to leave. But instead of showing him to the door, she began to climb the stairs. She turned and beckoned again, and he followed in her wake. At the top of the stairs she opened a door that led into a tiny room. There was no carpet on the floor, and the only furniture was a single bed, a battered chest of drawers and a small table. The old lady stared at the empty bed with a sad look on her face, gestured toward it and quickly left without another word.
So many immigrants from so many lands came to converse with the young man — who seemed to have read every paper — about what was taking place in their own countries, that by the end of the first month Lubji had almost doubled the takings of the little kiosk. On the last day of the month Mr. Cerani presented Lubji with his first wage packet. Over supper that night he told the young man that on Monday he was to join him at the shop, in order to learn more about the trade. Mrs. Cerani looked disappointed, despite her husband’s assurance that it would only be for a week.
At the shop, the boy quickly learned the names of the regular customers, their choice of daily paper and their favorite brand of cigarettes. During the second week he became aware of a Mr. Farkas, who ran the rival shop on the other side of the road, but as neither Mr. nor Mrs. Cerani ever mentioned him by name, he didn’t raise the subject. On the Sunday evening, Mr. Cerani told his wife that Lubji would be joining him at the shop permanently. She didn’t seem surprised.
Every morning Lubji would rise at four and leave the house to go and open the shop. It was not long before he was delivering the papers to the kiosk and serving the first customers before Mr. or Mrs. Cerani had finished their breakfast. As the weeks passed, Mr. Cerani began coming into the shop later and later each day, and after he had counted up the cash in the evening, he would often slip a coin or two into Lubji’s hand.
Lubji stacked the coins on the table by the side of his bed, converting them into a little green note every time he had acquired ten. At night he would lie awake, dreaming of taking over the paper shop and kiosk when Mr. and Mrs. Cerani eventually retired. Lately they had begun treating him as if he were their own son, giving him small presents, and Mrs. Cerani even hugged him before he went to bed. It made him think of his mother.
Lubji began to believe his ambition might be realized when Mr. Cerani took a day off from the shop, and later a weekend, to find on his return that the takings had risen slightly.
One Saturday morning on his way back from synagogue, Lubji had the feeling he was being followed. He stopped and turned to see Mr. Farkas, the rival newsagent from across the road, hovering only a few paces behind him.
‘Good morning, Mr. Farkas,’ said Lubji, raising his wide-rimmed black hat.
‘Good morning, Mr. Hoch,’ he replied. Until that moment Lubji had never thought of himself as Mr. Hoch. After all, he had only recently celebrated his seventeenth birthday.