You know how it is with out-of-body experiences; not so much as a déjà vu for decades and then two come in quick succession. How time slows in these heightened moments, although in the first not slow enough to avoid the fist that crashed into my face.
I had stopped my bike while cycling down Cable Street to read a text message. My assailant had taken the trouble to clamber over roadside bushes that separated the pavement and the cycle lane; me and him. His knuckles landed on my jaw and the corner of my mouth. As my disorientated head spun, the thought occurred that this was not the first Jewish face to be punched at this location.
Then the fear arrived. Fear of the violence, yes, but also that I would not acquit myself with the bravery of Jews who had fought on this spot in 1936. Theirs is a high bar. You can limbo under mine.
Time slowed again a few days later while I was giving a speech at the mother’s 90th birthday party, for which we had invited family and friends and booked a room overlooking the Thames at Greenwich.
A little earlier the brother, who would give the toast, had told me not to dwell on our father’s death of more than 20 years ago in the bit where I mention absent loved ones. Sure, I said. More disorientation. Then a crashing moment of realisation. He was referring to the last time I had given a speech at the mother’s birthday, her 80th. For ten years I had occasionally flash-backed to it. How moved everyone had been by my eloquent tribute to the mother’s fortitude in grief. But no. I had depressed the hell out of everybody. I had been the DJ at the bar mitzvah who plays The Last Post instead of Hava Nagila. To the chimes of the 11-year-old daughter testing the tolerance of a glass by knifing it like a serial killer, I rise to give my tribute. The daughter’s 15-month-old sister emits the banshee shriek that heralds a poo, and I begin. The screams trail off as my wife whisks her away.
No one who meets Mum for the first time can believe she is 90, I say. Nods and smiles all round. We are here to celebrate the birthday of a wonderful woman, I continue. But first we must remember those who are not here. The brother stiffens. The mother is staring straight ahead. I realise a consensus must have formed between them about last time.
I consider exhuming the joke about the 90-year-old couple who are getting a divorce. Why now? their solicitor asks. We’ve been waiting for the children to die, they say. My tongue prods the inside of my swollen lip and I’m back in Cable Street.
I had always felt I belonged here partly for its place in Jewish history but more so since I moved to east London 20 years ago. More still after I was married in St George’s Town Hall on the street, the building that bears the famous mural of the battle.
Random violence has a way of asserting a certain perspective. The thug and I stood and looked at each other. I like to think he was surprised I had not fallen. Whatever his motive it seemed clear that the message was that this was his street, not mine. Yet it was he who ran.
By the time I returned to my mother’s party I have apparently said something both appropriate and true about the benefit to the children of having their Nana live with them since she moved in with us. The brother is raising his glass and we all say happy birthday.
