Читать книгу Mr. Emmanuel - Louis Golding - Страница 11

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Mr. Emmanuel had never been to Salisbury before, and it was impossible not to take him to see the Cathedral before they left the city. He was so moved and overawed that he seemed to think it an irreverence even to breathe. It was only when he got out into the Close again that he dared trust himself to speak.

“It is not like men built it,” he murmured. “It is like angels.”

Bruno was by his side. Bruno had not left his side since the party had descended from the car.

“I am not thinking there are any angels,” said Bruno.

Mr. Emmanuel looked swiftly at the boy, then away again.

“I have lived a long time now,” he said. He seemed to be addressing no one in particular. “I, too, have thought often there are no angels. I think now they are a long way away, very far. I think they have never been further away from the world than they are now. But I think they are there still.”

Dick was ahead between his mother and aunt, chattering away volubly. The two others kept a few yards behind them, as they moved back to the car. Mr. Emmanuel did not remember the moment at which Bruno’s hand had sought his, but by the time they reached the car they were walking hand in hand. Rose held the door open for Mr. Emmanuel to get in front beside her.

“I have one or two things to talk over with you, Rose,” said Mary. “Do you mind if I go in front? Do you mind, Mr. Emmanuel?”

“Perhaps Bruno and I have a lot to say to each other. Why should I mind?”

“Come, Dick,” bade Mary. Dick went in front. Tessa remained behind, scarfed up in her ears. They soon left the old city behind them. On the west the yellow humps of the Wiltshire downland heaved like a shoal of great whales. On the east the Avon coursed through bright meadows fringed by pollard willows. The water slid in the weirs like moving floes.

For some time, fifteen minutes or more, the boy behind remained quite silent, as his habit was. Mr. Emmanuel remained silent too, though his habit was the reverse.

Be quiet, you, Isaac! he bade himself. The boy wants he should talk to you. It will make him feel better in the heart when he talks. It is beautiful all this country, is it? Well, let it be beautiful! Don’t get so excited!

They passed the village of Downton. Breamore lay ahead of them. Rose turned her head.

“That’s Breamore,” she pointed out. “Are you all right, Mr. Emmanuel? All right, Bruno?”

The boy’s thoughts were far off. He made no sign of hearing. Mr. Emmanuel raised his head and made a gesture. Hush, dear Rose. It’s all right. Not to worry.

A herd of cows held them up at Fordingbridge, where the river widens and the ranked loosestrife withdraws as before an attack. Some distance further, a great field of barley, bleached flaxen-yellow for harvest, came up and blew, as it were, against the car windows, on the left hand where Bruno sat.

“It is like that. Yes, it is like that.” The boy was talking, as if he spoke out of a dream. Mr. Emmanuel said nothing.

“She is very beautiful,” murmured Bruno.

“Your mother?” whispered Mr. Emmanuel. But he knew the boy meant his mother.

“She is so beautiful,” the boy insisted, as if someone were arguing with him. “Her hair is silver and yellow, like that ... barley. It is barley, yes?” He turned to Mr. Emmanuel. Mr. Emmanuel nodded, though he was not sure. “Her voice is so quiet, like very early in the morning, when birds are sleepy and they are singing. Is that foolish, please?” Mr. Emmanuel shook his head, to show he did not think it foolish.

“We have a box, when you open it, it is making music,” the boy continued. He seemed suddenly to have found his tongue. “It is rose-wood, I think. It is painted on it, with ladies and gentlemen dancing. She sings very low, like that box.”

Rose nudged Mary significantly.

“You see?” she said. She was not more specific than that, lest she frighten the boy’s shy spirit back into its lair. She had not heard him utter so many consecutive sentences since his arrival. What she meant was: “You see, Mary? Didn’t I say Mr. Emmanuel would work wonders if we got him down here? Wasn’t it clever of me?”

“I see,” Mary admitted dryly.

“It was in Haus Anna, that box,” Bruno was saying. “Haus Anna, that was our bungalow, you know. It was in the Spreewald, near Lübbenau. It is not any more,” the boy added sadly. “It is not any more.”

The boy relapsed into silence again. The wheels hissed on the road like water sprayed on leaves. The road, following the pattern laid down for it by the gait of those prehistoric caravans of pack-horses whose track it was, swung in steady regular curves.

“Do you see?” cried Rose, lifting her head from the wheel and pointing to the high land on the east, fringed by a ribbon of darkness. “That’s the Forest, of course! We’re more than half-way.”

They continued in silence for another five or ten minutes, then the boy turned suddenly to Mr. Emmanuel.

“Please, will you tell me?” he begged. His mouth was constricted with pain. “Why is she not writing? It is a long time. It is a very long time. Since March. It was eleventh March, Monday.” He counted the months on his fingers. “March, April, May, June, July. That is too long. Why does she not write?”

Mr. Emmanuel put his arm round the boy’s shoulder and brought him close to his chest.

“How much longer, Rose?” he called out.

“Not much. Ten minutes.”

“Only ten minutes and we shall be in,” he murmured in the boy’s ear. “Let be now. I want later we shall talk and talk. For hours we shall talk, up in the Forest there. And then we shall write to this one and to that one.”

The boy nodded. Mr. Emmanuel cast about energetically in his mind for a new subject.

“You are at school here in England, Bruno, yes? Where is it? Do you like English puddings?”

“Haslemere,” answered Bruno. “Greystones.” He said nothing after that for some seconds. Then, “No,” he added, “I do not like English puddings.”

“No,” Mr. Emmanuel temporized. “Some English puddings are not nice.”

There was silence for several more minutes. Then the car turned left-handed and proceeded for some half-mile over the belt of farm-land that separates the road from the high ground of the Forest. Farm-land petered out into heath-land, with gorse and clumps of oaks. Then the car lurched suddenly from the by-road into a lane. There was a swish and scratch of leaves and twigs against the near-side windows.

Rose turned and smiled.

“Yes,” she said, “it gets quite thick here. We’ll be home in a few minutes.”

A few minutes later they drew up within a few yards of a gate standing obliquely from the road on the left hand. A wooden plaque nailed over the top bar stated this was Shipscar. Ahead and behind the car, on each side of the lane, the trees marched. Above the gate on the left the trees climbed on rising ground.

“We’re here!” Rose exclaimed. “Welcome!”

“It is like in a magic lantern!” gasped Mr. Emmanuel, some painted square of green and pink prettiness swimming up inconsequently from the dim Edwardian past.

“Hello! Here they are!” cried Rose. “They heard us coming!”

There was the sound of feet crunching along gravel, scampering through trees. In a moment the place was full of young people hallooing and saluting. “My daughters!” said Rose vaguely. “The boys!” One of the boys unlatched the gate. “Hello, Mary! Hello, Ailsa! Hello, Klaus!” There was a quick patter of greetings. “Come on now, out of the way, everybody!” Rose backed the car a few yards, then swung round into the drive.

It was all too quick for Mr. Emmanuel, there were so many faces. His head bobbed to and fro.

“Like a magic lantern!” he repeated helplessly.

The car continued for about fifty yards, with the wood still about them, then the drive turned the base of the hill and the ground opened out. The house was on a sort of levelled platform, close up against the hill-slope. On one side extended a space of lawn with gay borders round two edges. Below was an irregular terracing of rock-garden, built up over the drive. On the right of the drive was a meadow of coarse grass. Further away were kitchen-gardens and chicken-runs. At odd places, slap up under the hill, in the centre of the meadow, in a clearing beyond the rim of the wood, were certain supplementary constructions, a caravan, a tent, a hut or two. It was all a little bewildering, and gay, and hot, and dry, poppies in the rough grass, sweet peas, carnations, canterbury bells in the borders, swallows over the chimneys, bicycles against walls, magazines, chickens, ragwort, butterflies.

Rose heeled round towards the garage and turned the bonnet of the car towards the gate again. Then she got out, followed at once by Bruno, who held the door open for Mr. Emmanuel.

“Polite little boy, isn’t he?” smiled Rose. “What about you, Mary? Won’t you come in?”

“He’s asleep,” breathed Mary. “I won’t disturb him. I’ll take him back at once, if you don’t mind.”

“Very well, Mary.” Rose turned to her guest. “I’ll see you to your room, Mr. Emmanuel, then I’ll run Mary back. You see, she’s looking after Dick for me while the house is a bit full. Get one of the boys to help you with Mr. Emmanuel’s bag, please, Bruno. This way.” She was very brisk and efficient.

Mary Cooper held out her hand.

“Till tomorrow, Mr. Emmanuel. We have a lot to say to each other. I’m so glad to see you in these parts. Good-bye.”

“Yes, please,” said Mr. Emmanuel, shaking her hand vigorously. “Thank you. Good-bye. Pleased to meet you.” He was rather flustered, and more staccato than was usual with him. He followed Rose round to the front of the house, where she stood framed in the arched brick doorway, trellised over with tea-roses.

“Welcome to Shipscar,” she smiled at him. “I want you to have a rest before supper.” She went before him across a small hall and up a polished oak staircase. “Up here, please. The bathroom is straight opposite.” She led him along the landing and threw open the door of his room. “The boys will be here with your bag in a moment. They’ll help you unpack. Do you think it’ll be all right?”

“All right?” he repeated. “Like the Lord Mayor’s parlour in the Town Hall and she asks if it’s all right! Good-bye, Rose. Till later on.” He entered the room as she turned and left him. It was perhaps not so imposing as the Lord Mayor’s parlour, but it was pleasant enough, with a flowered blue carpet, a blue glazed chintz curtain, a blue-grey eiderdown on the bed, an easy chair in the bay window, a bookcase. There were flowers on the bookcase, on the mantelpiece, on the bedside table. Mr. Emmanuel closed the door behind him, then stationed himself in the centre of the carpet. He looked round, and sighed deeply.

“She’s just like her old mother, peace be upon her, everything neat and tidy and beautiful.” The thought of another Magnolia Street matron, dead more recently than Rose’s mother, presented itself to him. He felt guilty and ashamed she had been out of his mind so long. “How she would have loved this room, my Slatta! What sort of a curtains are these?” The sheen on the glazed chintz had caught his eye. “You should be able to wash them with a sponge, yes? How nice it would have been for our parlour window! What a lot of trouble it would have saved her!”

He blew his nose hard. It did not matter to her any more now, trouble or no trouble.

There was the sound of a heavy load being bumped up the stairs and along the landing. Then a knock at the door.

“Yes, come in, please!”

It was Bruno and another youth, with the bag between them. The door opened.

“Klaus Bieber!” exclaimed the other youth, and dropped the bag, nearly bringing his companion to the ground with the smartness of the movement. He stood to attention with both arms outstretched along the seams of his green plus-fours.

“Come in, please!” begged Mr. Emmanuel, a little embarrassed. He was not used to being treated like a sergeant-major.

“We shall help to unpack,” specified Klaus. “Mrs. Cooper asks it.” The boys brought the bag in and began to unstrap it.

“Please, that will be all right,” implored Mr. Emmanuel, his hands fluttering before him. “I will unpack.” He did not want to take the edge off his surprises, his darling secrets. He wanted to bring them out in his own time and at his own pace, to a succession of incredulous and joyous exclamations from a pack of shining-eyed boys.

“Mrs. Cooper asks,” repeated Klaus heavily. The lad had the shoulders of a young bullock. There was no dislodging shoulders like those.

The suitcase was open now. On top was a layer of clothes. “In the dressing-table, Bruno!” ordered Klaus, lifting out the shirts, the underclothes, with Teutonic care. Bruno as carefully bestowed them in the drawers. Then, beneath a layer of thick brown paper, came the secrets, the gadgets, the treasury of boys’ delights. Out they came, one and all, the games with counters, with dice, with balls, with pegs. Out came the tricks, the rings you have to put together, the rings you have to put apart, the handcuffs you have to get into and out of, the magic string. Out came the jokes, the side-splitting jokes, the glass of brown ale that doesn’t pour, the mouse ready to jump, the rubber roll of bread, the fly on the lump of sugar. Out came the musical instruments, the jews’ harp, the tin flute, the three mouth-organs, the cylinders that, when you reverse them, moo like cows or bleat like lambs. Out came the two bulky objects to which the weightiness of the bag was chiefly due—one, the board with a narrow wooden cylinder attached to it; you try to drop rope quoits over the cylinder from some distance away; two, the unfolding wooden contraption attached to a tennis-ball by a long piece of elastic; if you cannot play tennis, that is how you can teach yourself; if you can, you play anyway.

There was also a solitaire board.

Out they came, one and all, with, from Klaus, not a single observation, not a change of expression. They might have been lumps of firewood or telephone books. Bruno was visibly interested, perhaps even excited, but he uttered no word, either; the sobriety of the older lad checked his tongue. Methodically, carefully, the two boys packed the stuff away at the base of a deep cupboard let into the wall.

“Thank you, thank you,” sighed Mr. Emmanuel. He had a sudden helpless feeling that he stood more in need of sympathy than the bullock-shouldered boy. “Such very kind boys—” he began.

“Please,” requested Klaus. There was to be no nonsense of excessive thanking for the mere efficient doing of a thing enjoined by one’s hospitality-giver. “Come, Bruno.” He went off towards the door, followed by the younger boy.

“No, please. You shall stay, Bruno.” Mr. Emmanuel insisted tremulously. “I have something I had promised him,” he explained. Klaus shrugged his shoulders, disclaiming responsibility. At the door he turned, clicked his heels and bowed, turned again, and went out. The door clicked like an echo.

“You shall have your mouth-organ,” said Mr. Emmanuel. “Your Mundharmonika.” He went over to the cupboard and brought it out. “Here it is, Bruno.” Bruno removed it from its case.

“So beautiful,” Bruno murmured. “I have never seen more beautiful.” He was a polite little boy.

Mr. Emmanuel sat down in the chair near the window. “Come,” he said, patting the side of the bed. “Will you play me a little tune, yes?”

Bruno sat down.

“What shall I play?” he asked. “I cannot play American.”

“Play from your own country,” murmured Mr. Emmanuel, “when it was happy.”

The boy held the instrument to his mouth and blew out a few notes.

“ ‘Drei Lilien,’ ” he breathed. “I shall play ‘Drei Lilien.’ ” He played the little air, so gay, so unbearably sad. Then he played another melody and another, the boys’ songs, the soldiers’ songs, of his lost country.

“That was ‘Die geliebte Pimpanulla,’ ” said Bruno. “Did you like?”

“I liked it very much,” Mr. Emmanuel answered, and turned his head slowly away. “Play again!” he bade. The boy played a more poignant tune, “Morgenrot.”

Enough, it is enough! Mr. Emmanuel’s tormented heart insisted. It is like my little boy David playing, all alone in Sefton Park, when it was a holiday. Or in the trenches, on the evening before the day he died.

“It is a nice mouth-organ, yes?” he said aloud. “It has a nice tone, I think.”

“Very nice.”

“Bruno!”

“Yes, Mr. Emmanuel?”

“I want you should talk to me.”

“I want also.”

“About your mother, Bruno.”

“Yes, Mr. Emmanuel.”

“I want it should not be in your inside all the time. Are you comfortable, Bruno?”

“Yes, Mr. Emmanuel.”

“Talk to me.”

So the boy talked to him, in the summer dusk of the New Forest, in the blue-grey room at Shipscar, with the moony flowers of clematis poking round the window, and the bats faintly twittering. This is what he said.

“She is Aryan, you see,” murmured Bruno. “My father was not Aryan. I did not know. I think my father did not know. I think perhaps he has forgotten. I was baptize, because my mother said it is nice for little German boys and girls should be baptize, but we had not religion in our family. I think my father’s father and mother were non-Aryan peoples, but they were baptize. We did not think of Aryan or non-Aryan or baptize or anything.”

Aryan, non-Aryan, Aryan ... the words dinned lamentably in Mr. Emmanuel’s ears. It was as if the child, marooned in some outpost of civilization, had picked up a few syllables of the gibberish of a jungle tribe, insensately repeated on tom-toms, as the dance contracted in narrowing circles upon the doomed garrison.

“My father was a painter,” Bruno went on, “and my mother sings, and it was, oh, it was so happy. And we had many friends, and they come to our flat, and also come to Haus Anna, in Lübbenau. And one day my father is coming home and is telling something to my mother and she cries. And days and nights she cries and Father is not working, and I find out at last he cannot sell paintings or show in exhibitions, and that is because he is non-Aryan. It is becoming not nice for me also in my school. For it is written a letter I am of non-Aryan father, and one or two teachers and one or two boys are always nice but many are bad, very bad. And I must sit on other form with non-Aryan boys and I am unhappy. And some people come to our house, not the same people, for many friends are not longer friends now. I think Socialist and Catholic people, because they are very unhappy, and some non-Aryans. And my mother is frightened, but she is so nice, so kind, and we sell our motor car and our big radio-gramophone and we have food for friends. Then there is not much food and some friends are not coming because there is not much food, and some because of concentration camp. And my mother is much frightened because of concentration camp and also am I.

“But really my father is not saying anything bad, he is only unhappy. But one day come the S.A. men and he is not there and they stay many hours and he is not coming, for some friends have seen the S.A. men and are telling him and he does not come again and I never see him. But I think he has written to the Committee in London, and also friends have written to the Committee, so last summer I come to London and I go to school in the country near Haslemere. And I am not wanting I shall leave my mother, and my mother is not wanting I shall go, and we are crying. But they are not giving permit she shall come, and she is staying in Berlin, and is writing me many letters. Oh, such beautiful letters.

“Then also I am receiving letters from my father in Switzerland; in September and October I am receiving letters. He tells me I shall not write to my mother I am receiving letters from him, and where from he is sending them, only I shall say Busi is well. For his name is Norbert, but she sometimes is calling him Busi, and she shall know. And he writes he shall go quietly to Berlin and he shall take my mother to Switzerland, and then I can go in holidays and see them in Switzerland, and perhaps next year he will get permit and come to England with my mother, and he shall be painting and she shall be singing and it will be again happy. And November there is no letter from my father and the Committee is writing me and saying he has died of pneumonia. And I do not believe it shall be pneumonia. I think they are shooting him when he tries to go quietly to Berlin, and I am frightened I should ask my mother, and perhaps she does not know and she will be so unhappy. And she writes me beautiful, beautiful letters, not always every day like sometimes. Sometimes a whole week she is not writing. And then again she is writing each day. Perhaps S.A. men are watching her; do you think so?”

The boy looked up. Mr. Emmanuel inclined his head. The tale continued.

“And then I am becoming ill after going in a stream in a cross-country run. And I have rheumatic fever. And I think I shall die if my mother is not sending me letters each day, though myself I am not writing, for I cannot hold the pencil. But the matron, she is writing for me, and sometimes I am putting a cross on the letter and then I have a relapse and am not putting a cross. And they read letters to me from my mother and I am not hearing them, but I am like seeing her and smelling her near my bed. So I am getting better and they are always reading me letters.

“And one day I understand all of a sudden it is not a new letter, but an old letter they are reading. Why shall they read an old letter and pretend it is arriving today? Why? I am not saying anything. But the day after tomorrow is another letter and they are reading it, because it is for medicine. And then I say—where is the envelope? What is the date? And nurse is going red and goes to matron and matron is so kind and at last she is telling me my mother is away perhaps on holiday, or perhaps she is hurting her hand. Soon she will write, certainly she will soon write. But she tells me no letter has been coming from my mother for two weeks. On eleventh March was the last letter from my mother. But I must be good, and not unhappy, matron says, and also Mr. Forsyte, the headmaster. I must get strong again. A letter will soon certainly come. Perhaps the next letter from my mother will say she is coming to England, to Greystones, to see me.

“So I am good and take all my food and medicine. Because I know my mother shall be writing soon. It must be. But March and April is going by, and June also. The London Committee is also writing to our apartment in Berlin, in the Motzstrasse, but it is no reply. And it is July, end of July. It is not one word from my mother. Oh, please, please, why is she not writing?”

Mr. Emmanuel was quite silent for half a minute. Then he took his handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the tears from the boy’s eyes.

“Hush, hush, Bruno,” he said at length. “We shall find out. We shall write, to this one and to that one, and we shall find out. But you must not be so unhappy now. We shall play games and we shall have music and we shall walk in the Forest. And then there will be news.” He got up from his chair and went and opened the cupboard where the gadgets had been stored. “Let me see now,” he murmured, tugging at his beard. “Let me see.” He surveyed in his mind, for it was too indistinct to see them, the chasers away of grief, the joy-bringers. The puzzles, it seemed to him, were a little finicky. The glass of ale, the mouse, were perhaps too hilarious. He remembered the solitaire board. “Do you play solitaire?” he asked hopefully.

“With cards?” asked Bruno.

“No, no!” He rummaged down in the cupboard and brought up the solitaire board in its case. “Look!” he said delightedly, and set it down on the bed. “You see? With alleys, like we call them. You put them out in these holes. But this one is empty, in the middle. You see? You jump over this way, you jump over that way, you take away what you jump over. You see? Then you jump, and you jump, and you jump, and take away, and take away, and take away. And you must leave it only one left, in the middle here. You see?”

“I see,” said Bruno.

“Well, I try and you try. And the one who leaves fewest, he wins. It is not easy to leave only one—oh, no! We will put them out again, yes? That’s right, Bruno. You start!”

Bruno started. He did not do badly. He left four. Mr. Emmanuel went after him. He left, to his chagrin, seven. He insisted on having another try, and did not do much better—six. He was quite convinced he would get the knack of it again if he tried a third time. He was engaged on his third effort when Rose knocked at the door. Getting no reply, she opened it. She saw the two heads bent close over the solitaire board, the grey-haired old man’s, the chestnut-haired boy’s. She stood for some moments and gazed down on them, without saying a word.

“Come along, you boys, now!” at last she called to them. “It’s time for supper!” She turned away and mopped her eye.