Читать книгу Mr. Emmanuel - Louis Golding - Страница 4

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Mr. Emmanuel turned the angle of Blenheim Road at Mrs. Poyser’s shop and walked down Magnolia Street to his house at number thirteen. It had been a hot day. His feet dragged a little. The point of his small white beard was a little blurred. His head swung uncertainly on his neck, like a toy balloon tugging at its string.

He had had a big day at his desk; and though there were times when he still looked quite young, he looked all his years this evening: sixty and more, he preferred not to remember exactly how many more. A woman making a belated purchase at Mrs. Poyser’s called out good-evening to him, and he called back again, but he was not aware who it was. He was very tired.

Arrived at the door of his house, he fumbled in his back-pocket for his key. As he stood there swaying a moment or two on the bottom doorstep, a chalk-mark on one of the panels of the door caught his eye. It had not been there when he left the house that morning, so far as he remembered, and he straightened his pince-nez to get a clearer sight of it. It was a swastika.

A lump rose in Mr. Emmanuel’s throat, and he had some difficulty in swallowing it. It must be those new people, he said to himself, who had come to live opposite at number ten. It was said of them they were blackshirts. What harm have I done them they should make a swastika on my front door? There was a funny taste in the back of his mouth, like he had eaten something bitter.

He had the key in his hand by now, but it took some time before he could fit it into the keyhole. His hand was unsteady, and he had to blink hard to get a tear out of his eye.

It is because I’m so tired, he thought. It is going to be hard work the next few days. What I need is a nice glass of strong tea with lemon.

He had by now closed the front door behind him. He was in the lobby. As he shuffled forward over the door-mat, his foot kicked a letter a few inches before him. He stooped and lifted it, and stuffed it away in his breast-pocket. He had had enough letters over at the Board of Guardians all day long.

A glass of strong tea with lemon, he said to himself again. Then what after that? He was not a particular one for food, but she always saw to it there was something tasty after these big days in the office. Perhaps there would be bean-soup and a nice brown leg of chicken, and then after that a baked lockshen pudding with raisins.

He was at the kitchen door by now, at the end of the lobby. He turned the handle, and the silence and emptiness came up towards him like a white sheet flapping. The room was empty. She was dead. He woke up to it as if he were waking from a night’s dreaming, not a day’s work. Slatta was dead. She had been buried a month ago. They had been married a long time, more than forty years. It is not easy to get it into your head that your wife or husband is really dead when you’ve been married such a long time. He walked across the kitchen to the table under the window. It was spread with a cloth, and there was a loaf of bread under a napkin with a knife beside it. There was also some cold something-or-other on a plate, with another plate over it. At the corner of the table was a glass with three lumps of sugar already in it, and a thick slice of lemon. It had a spoon, too, so that the glass should not crack when you poured the hot water into it. All you had to do was go into the scullery and boil the kettle on the gas-stove.

She was a nice little woman, that Ada Hummel from number three. She had a key, and came in every day and tidied things up, and left him something to eat. It had to be cold, of course, for she had her own house to look after and her boy, Leo, and her little parlour-shop. Yes, she was a nice little woman, like all those Bermans—she had been Ada Berman once. But it was not like Slatta.

He went and sat down at his place under the cupboard, at the head of the table. But he did not feel like eating now. It was too much trouble even to go over into the scullery and boil the kettle for the tea. He just sat and closed his eyes and thought. They were sad thoughts. He was lonely and tired. A swastika on my front door. But they do not look like low-lives, those people who have come to live at number ten opposite. Why should they hate me? Why should they hate Ada Hummel? How can it be such a world with so much hatred in it?

Once I saw such pretty pictures, like on a postcard. It should be Love everywhere. Love on both sides of the street. Love on both sides of the sea. All races and peoples going hand in hand together along the road of Universal Love and the crowds on both sides of the road throwing flowers at them. Throwing flowers. Like it was at the Magnolia Street Party. Five years ago. It is like five hundred. It is not Love now in Magnolia Street. It is a swastika on my front door. It is not flowers now for throwing ...

No, it is not flowers. His mind swivelled violently and toppled over into sleep. It could not bear to conjure up a picture of the things the crowds were throwing now, from the gun-emplacements, from the bombers roaring across the sky.

He had not been asleep for long, perhaps half an hour, for it was hardly any darker when he was awakened by the sound of a stick knocking at the back-yard door. Once—twice, the stick went, then once—twice again. Yes, yes. That was his friend, Mr. Silver, from Oleander Street. His back door faced Mr. Emmanuel’s back door across a narrow entry. Funny he should still knock like that, once—twice, then again once—twice. Like it was when he was an anarchist, and all the anarchists came to his house, a long time ago, before the Magnolia Street Party. Before the War. A long time ago.

Mr. Emmanuel got up from his chair and stretched out his long legs. He descended the one step into the scullery and unbolted the scullery door. Then he went out into the yard to let Mr. Silver in.

Mr. Silver used to be an anarchist, but he wasn’t an anarchist any more. He had made big profits out of rainproofs in the War, and had become a very rich man. But he was not a rich man any more, either. He was just a working-man from Oleander Street. He had been coming in like this to join Mr. Emmanuel in a glass of tea, and a cigarette ... nearly every evening since ... since ...

Well, it is not the worst thing to be dead, Mr. Emmanuel thought, shaking his head. To be dead—is that a disgrace? But to be like that woman ... Mr. Emmanuel put his hand up to his heart. It was a sharp pain there, like a nail.

She was not only Mr. Silver’s disgrace. She was Mr. Emmanuel’s, too. She was everybody’s disgrace. For all Doomington. The whole Jewish people.

If she had been dead when she had been born, it would have been a better thing. He hated himself for thinking a thought like that. But is it my fault? he asked himself miserably.

He pulled back the bar along its rusty socket, and opened the door. Yes, it was Mr. Silver. Who else could it be knocking once—twice, then once—twice again? He was not looking a young man any more, either, even though he still wouldn’t grow a beard. It was a lot of grey hair now among the black, in his big, bushy moustache, in his eyebrows also.

“Good evening, Mr. Silver!” Mr. Emmanuel exclaimed, swaying towards his friend from the height where his pince-nez were. “You come again? I am so glad. Come in, please. I was just making myself a glass of tea. You will join me, yes?”

“Well, Mr. Emmanuel, if the tea is there, shall I say no?”

Mr. Emmanuel thrust the bar back along its socket again. Then he turned. The small old man followed the tall old man into the scullery.

“One moment, please!” said Mr. Emmanuel. “I shall boil the kettle!”

“I will get another glass. I know where they are kept,” said Mr. Silver. He took a glass down from a shelf fringed with scalloped paper. The paper was getting a bit frayed and dingy. Mrs. Emmanuel would have put different paper by now, mused Mr. Silver. Such a wife she was, everything clean like snow.

“Go in and sit down, please,” urged Mr. Emmanuel. “I will look after it.”

But he was not displeased when Mr. Silver, making a sound like tscha-tscha, showed he insisted on giving a hand. It was a friendly noise, the fingers making the cutlery rattle in the box, the spoon tinkling into the glass.

“Like two boys making a camp,” murmured Mr. Emmanuel, with a wan smile.

“Lemon, please. Where is some lemon?” requested Mr. Silver, very busy and practical.

The lemon was produced. The tea was measured into the pot. The boiling water was poured out.

“Come, now! Let us go in!”

Mr. Emmanuel led the way into the kitchen, and set the pot down on the table.

“Sit down, please!” he requested. “You know your chair, Mr. Silver.” Mr. Silver knew his chair. Both men sat down.

“What?” cried Mr. Silver. “You have not eaten yet?” He noticed the untouched meal, the loaf under a napkin, the dish of food under a plate.

Mr. Emmanuel shrugged his shoulders.

“Please! You should not worry! I am not hungry tonight!”

“It is very wrong of you!” said Mr. Silver quite hotly. “You must eat! Did you ever hear from such a thing!” He lifted the reversed plate. “Such beautiful fried fish!” He brought his nose closer to it. “A halibut steak, yes? You must eat at once!”

“Perhaps later. I cannot eat now,” begged Mr. Emmanuel. “It has been so hot in the office, like an oven. And then when I came in—” He stopped suddenly. No. Not to Mr. Silver, of all people. It was not to Mr. Silver he could talk about a swastika chalked up on a door. It is worse for him, a thousand times over than for me, he said to himself.

“Yes?” inquired Mr. Silver. “When you came in?” Mr. Emmanuel thought he detected the faintest note of apprehension in Mr. Silver’s voice.

“When I came in I was so tired, I fell asleep in that chair. You can see how hungry I was.”

“You look tired. It is a shame. You need a holiday.”

“Am I not going to get a holiday?” Mr. Emmanuel reminded him. “A long one!”

“Tscha-tscha!” muttered Mr. Silver. He felt rather foolish. Of course. Mr. Emmanuel’s days as clerk to the Jewish Board of Guardians were numbered.

“How much longer?” he asked softly. “It is only ten more days, isn’t it?”

“What day is it today? Wednesday? Yes, ten more days,” said Mr. Emmanuel. “I have been there a long time, no? It is time now for a younger man. There is more work than there used to be.”

“Yes,” Mr. Silver sighed. “These German refugees coming into Doomington.” His head bowed swiftly towards his glass. A tear formed in his eye, sudden and smart. There was one who had stayed behind in Germany. Better for her——

“You think I will be lazy when I am no more with the Board of Guardians?” the voice of Mr. Emmanuel broke briskly into his thoughts. (Now he is comforting me I should not think, mused Mr. Emmanuel. Now I am comforting him he should not think. Oi! Oi! It is funny! It is like a game!)

Mr. Silver raised his head.

“If you should be lazy for a change, it will do you no harm.”

“I will have meetings,” continued Mr. Emmanuel, disregarding the remark. “I will have committees. Some more tea, yes? What am I thinking of? I have some of your own wife’s cake that she baked for me. Perhaps you did not know,” he said, wagging his finger with a pale effort at mischief.

“No cake, thank you, I am full,” said Mr. Silver. He was silent for a moment or two, then, resting his weight on the palms of his hands, he leaned forward across the table. “Listen now, Mr. Emmanuel. I want you should listen. It is enough now with all these meetings and committees. You are going to Palestine, yes? You have made up your mind? What is there you should stay for here in Magnolia Street?”

“You’re right,” said Mr. Emmanuel quietly. “What is there I should stay for here in Magnolia Street? I got a letter from my son Moisheh, this morning. By aeroplane it came!” He paused. Even in this moment of sad reflection it seemed to him a little odd his son Moisheh should be sending him letters by aeroplane. By horse and cart, yes, but by aeroplane? “Such a nice letter it was, God bless him! It must have taken him a whole day he should write it. My son Moisheh was never a professor.”

“No,” agreed Mr. Silver shortly.

“He says now ... now he will not take it no shall be an answer. It breaks his heart his mother will not come, too. But that is all the more, he says, for why his father must go quick.”

“And is he not right perhaps? A son you have there, and a daughter-in-law, and four grandchildren, God bless them! It will be like a new life for you!”

“A new life!” protested Mr. Emmanuel, a shade of bitterness in his voice. “An old man sitting on a bench against a wall! A new life, he calls it!”

“What do you mean talking like that!” Mr. Silver protested. “You will not be able to tell them to love each other, over there in Palestine? Believe me, those Arabs and those Jews, they have more need of love than the two sides of Magnolia Street. You will have plenty of work over there, everybody should love each other.”

“I know,” said Mr. Emmanuel quietly. “I know. And even in the colony itself, my Moisheh tells me, it is not all like honey and butter. Now it is a Left Wing, now it is a Right Wing—there is plenty of explosions in the colony as well. I know all that. But I am not so young like I once was. I am a bit old to begin again. You see, Mr. Silver ... for me this Magnolia Street, though it was so little, yet it was at the same time so big. I always felt—if Love should win here, it should win in the whole world. But what has happened?” He got up from his chair, and strode up and down the room a few times, his pince-nez trembling in his hand. He saw the thing outlined in the air before him more clearly than he had seen it chalked up on the front door, the malevolent and melancholy swastika.

He sat down again on his chair under the cupboard. His shoulders drooped. His head came forward three or four inches.

“Yes,” he said heavily. “I will go to my son in Ain Charod, in Palestine.”

Mr. Silver remained silent for a minute or two. Then he spoke again, almost in a whisper.

“You should not think I am wanting to get rid of you. Such old friends like we are. How many years is it? Thirty? More even. Oi, better not think of it. Listen, Mr. Emmanuel. When do you think you will go?”

“Three months, four months,” said Mr. Emmanuel, without raising his eyes.

“For why so long?” pleaded Mr. Silver. “Each day it will be to you like a week.”

“I have a policy. It is for payment in October. There will be money for tickets, there will be money for presents here, money for presents there. That is why I wait. For the policy.”

“Please, Mr. Emmanuel, you should not be offended. I am not a rich man any more, thank God, but if you will let me, I think I can fix it. That you should have the money in advance, I mean. What? What do you say?”

But Mr. Emmanuel was not saying anything. He sat with his chin on his chest, his beard ruffled up on his shirt-front.

“Are you asleep, Mr. Emmanuel?” asked Mr. Silver, a little fearfully. “Are you offended?”

Mr. Emmanuel lifted his head from his chest. There was a smile of great sweetness on his face. He rose.

“You are like a brother to me, Mr. Silver,” he said. “So you should know me by now. For somebody else I will borrow from a strange man in the street, he will not know what day it is. For myself, I will not borrow from my own brother. I will stay in Magnolia Street till they pay the policy. Then I go. Have a cigarette, Mr. Silver.”

Mr. Silver had a cigarette. He knew when it was any use talking to Mr. Emmanuel and when it wasn’t. The two old friends sat talking of this or that for half an hour or so. Then at last Mr. Silver rose.

“I must go,” he said. “You are tired. You should go to sleep. And before you go to sleep, you should eat. It is a shame your son Moisheh should have an invalid to look after when you go to Palestine. If I should have a son, I should not give him such aggravation,” he added, a little sorrowfully. Mr. Silver had had five daughters, one after another. He had never managed to bring off a son.

“Perhaps I will eat,” Mr. Emmanuel conceded. He too rose to his feet. “What, you must go so early? Well, good night, Mr. Silver. It was nice you should come in.”

“Good night, Mr. Emmanuel. Not to trouble, please.”

“I will just come and wriggle the door after you.”

They shook hands on the steps that led down into the entry between the two rows of houses. There was something sorrowful and ceremonial in that handshake. It was almost as if Mr. Emmanuel had one foot already on the gangplank of the steamer that was to take him a long way from the street he loved well.

Mr. Emmanuel bolted his back door. Five seconds later he heard Mr. Silver bolt his back door. Then he turned back into his dark kitchen.