The Singing Fire

by Lilian Nattel

  Emilia was sure that it was Miss Moffit’s hair that made her the senior shopgirl in the basement. Her red hair worn loose in the Aesthetic style, her protruding upper lip, and that squint under her square eyebrows were all the rage. In her medieval shift, she could have stepped straight out of a Pre-Raphaelite painting. Miss Moffit was in charge of Curios, separated from the Eastern Bazaar by an archway.

  Emilia sat on a stool, reading at the counter. It was a rainy day in September, and the wind rattled the basement window. The electric lights dimmed and brightened and dimmed to near darkness. Emilia glanced suspiciously at the ghost of the first wife, sitting on an unpacked case of clay horses from China.

  “I’ll light the candles,” she called to Miss Moffit, putting her book down on an ornamental stand as two gentlemen came in, shaking out their umbrellas and leaving them in the corner. The taller of the gentlemen, an artist, had been in the shop before. The customers were always playwrights or painters or composers of operettas. Miss Moffit led him to her department and directed the other to Emilia.

  “I believe that Mr. Zalkind would be best assisted by you, Miss Rosenberg,” she said. That was Miss Moffit all over, choosing the better-looking gentleman for herself, leaving Emilia with the one that wore spectacles and his hair long.

  The ghost of the first wife rose from her seat on the crate of clay horses and joined Emilia at the counter. “How may I help you?” Emilia asked.

  “I wish to buy a present for my mother,” he said. The ghost of the first Mrs. Rosenberg leaned her elbows on the counter beside the tall candle. She looked more solid in the candlelight, smiling fondly at the gentleman.

  “Certainly,” Emilia said with as much indifference as she could muster. “And what is the occasion?”

  “Nothing in particular.” He put a book on the counter. There were ink stains on his fingers. Emilia did not care for men that smelled of ink. She’d had enough of that in Minsk.

  “What about a vase? We just had a new shipment.”

  “My mother has too many. I’d like to surprise her.” He looked at Emilia with just a hint of appreciation. She deserved more, but after all, she was only a shopgirl.

  In the Curios department Miss Moffit was showing her tall gentleman a bamboo writing desk. “What sort of thing does your mother fancy?” Emilia asked.

  “A more pleasant son, I daresay. We had a disagreement.” He paused, waiting for her to ask him about what, but a shopgirl doesn’t have to pander to her betters’ desire for her interest.

  Emilia took a feather duster and busied herself with running it over the glass-fronted cabinets.

  “My mother sees everything, even from the ladies’ gallery in the synagogue, and she saw me go out rather earlier than I should.” He looked at Emilia with the blank face of someone guarding himself. “I promised I’d go back.”

  “Will you?” she asked despite herself.

  “I’d rather bring her a present later. What do you advise, Miss …?”

  “Miss Rosenberg. How about a fan?” She reached for an eighteenth-century fan, but the ghost of the first wife knocked another down. Emilia picked it up, turning the fan over and shrugging before she placed it on the counter. “This one would be most suitable,” she said.

  The silk fan was printed with a photograph of three solemn geisha girls. One had her hands over her ears, the second over her eyes, the third her mouth. Mr. Zalkind laughed. It was a pleasant laugh, and his face relaxed into an open smile.

  “Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil,” he said. “Well chosen.” He thumbed the pages of the book on the marble counter. It was a Hebrew prayer book for the High Holy Days. The book was so old, it absorbed all the light from the candle flame.

  “A person should not be dominated by ghosts,” Emilia said, returning the gaze of the first Mrs. Rosenberg, who saw so very clearly in the darkness.

  “How true.” Mr. Zalkind leaned over the counter. “Perhaps you’ve read my column in The Pall Mall Gazette or my book? The Longbow Mystery.”

  “No, I’m sorry. I prefer The Times.” The ghost threw up her hands. Well, what did she expect? Emilia was someone else now. A shopgirl. Did the first wife think that Emilia was so stupid as to have learned nothing from her trials? “Shall I wrap the fan for you?” she asked.

  “Please. What’s that over there?” He pointed to the ornamental stand.

  “It’s Emile Zola’s new book. I just finished it.”

  “Did you study in France?” he asked. Surely he was cruel to tease a shopgirl. But his face looked serious, his voice was polite. “I can hear your accent, Miss Rosenberg. One shouldn’t make any assumptions about what newcomers were in their home. I know that firsthand—my grandparents came from Russia.”

  “I’m from Minsk,” she said. “Though my father was German. I had a tutor.”

  “Then we are countrymen of a sort. May I take you out for tea? We could discuss Zola’s works.”

  The ghost of the first wife nudged her as if the dead are not bound by the conventions of the living. Emilia shook her off. “It wouldn’t be right, sir.”

  “Because I’m a Jew? But I find myself rather more interested in gentile women, who are not afraid to exercise their intelligence.”

  “Is that so?”

  “One must accept the truth, Miss Rosenberg, even when it’s unpleasant. Jewish girls are spoiled and overbearing.”

  “Really. I haven’t noticed.”

  “Why should you? It is from close experience that the truth is revealed. Then one can recognize it in a glance.”

  She ought to have told him right then that she was Jewish. The look on his face would have been priceless. But it was too amusing to finger the gold cross in the hollow of her throat, and watch uncertainty chase admiration across his face. Mr. Zalkind didn’t smell of ink at all, but of a pleasant pipe tobacco.

  “What did your family do in Minsk?” he asked.

  “My father owned a factory. We were always outsiders there because he was German. After the factory burned down, I chose to come here because I would have been a foreigner in my father’s homeland, too, and that would have been unbearable.” The story came easily. Emilia had told it many times. Mr. Zalkind looked quite pleased with it.

  “I’m terribly sorry, Miss Rosenberg. Are your parents with you?”

  “I lost everyone, I’m afraid.” She turned away as if overcome by grief. Miss Moffit’s gentleman went upstairs to pay for the writing desk.

  “It isn’t easy to be both what you are and what you’re not,” Mr. Zalkind said, his voice gentle. “An evening out would do you good.”

  Emilia wondered how a man could be at once so perceptive and so very stupid. “That might be,” she snapped, “but my mother would say that a girl who is too friendly with a man above her station may find herself in unpleasant circumstances.”

  “But this is surely not your natural element. Listen to me. I have another suggestion, one that is above reproach, I’m sure of it. My friends are having a soiree on Saturday. They are artists, and all their guests will be of interest to you. Aren’t you entitled to an evening’s release from your prison?” He pointed at the window with its iron bars and beyond it the gutter overflowing with drumming rain.

  “I don’t know …”

  “I’ll ask Mrs. Abraham to arrange a carriage. Do come, Miss Rosenberg,” he pressed.

  “Perhaps, sir. I’ll consider it. Here, take my book if you haven’t read it. You can return it to me later.”

  “I will indeed and lend you one of mine.” He bowed and took his leave, the book under his arm.

  Miss Moffit came through the archway, pale as a sheet in the candlelight. “Oh, Miss Rosenberg,” she whispered, “he is very handsome for a Jew.”

  Emilia watched him climb the stairs. “To each his own,” she said. He had a good walk, his back straight, his step brisk, his umbrella left behind so that, although he’d be drenched, he’d have an excuse to return tomorrow.

  The ghost of
the first wife stood by the barred basement window, staring at the rain whipping through the gutter as if she would swim away on the wind to the sea if only she hadn’t promised to look after a child that wasn’t hers.

  Berwick Street

  Emilia sniffed her hands suspiciously, huddling in bed to keep warm. The wind came from the sea with the purpose of visiting the market in Berwick Street, but it had somehow misplaced itself in her room. Emilia sniffed the inside of her elbow. It was a never-ending battle to keep herself from smelling like she was born in Soho, the odors of the street seeping into her skin, the glances of the prostitutes teaching her to be hard. Emilia picked up the board that leaned against the wall by her bed and put it across her lap.

  Dear Mother,

  A Jewish man of good family can be introduced to the daughters of many fine Jewish families in the West End. Why then would he ever pay his respects to a Jewish shopgirl? He would not. That is the simple answer, I’m sure. If he prefers gentile girls, however, it is another matter. He thinks them more beautiful, perhaps, more intelligent or refined. What shall he do? A wellborn gentile girl would need some additional incentive to lower herself to marry a Jew. If he were very rich or very famous, it would be a possibility. If he is neither, he may think of lowering himself. As a gentile, a shopgirl is one step above; as a Jew he is one step below; and there they can meet.

  The gentleman in question comes from a family of Russian Jews. Could anything amuse you more, Mother, than that he thinks I am a gentile? Perhaps it is all nothing, but it gives one pause to think of what life would be like as a gentile girl from dawn to dawn and not merely in a shop.

  A wife is made in her husband’s eyes, whether she intends it or not. Then why shouldn’t it be to her advantage? I could be a gentile as easily as a Jew. Didn’t Father always say that I was more of a shiksa?

  Oh, Mother. I miss you.

  Emilia blew her nose carefully, so as not to make it red. Then she crossed out the last line of the letter and just signed it as usual,

  Yours ever,

  Emilia.

  The ghost of the first wife stood by the bed, looking at Emilia with the compassion of someone who remembers what it is to be twenty-one years old. Emilia closed her eyes to any such pity. She was not dying but merely suffering the ordinary fortune of every woman from the day that Eve was pushed out of her garden and realized that she must find a good address.

  Fitzroy Square

  The soiree was in Bloomsbury at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Abraham. If you went straight up from Soho you’d find yourself there, a short walk from University College, where Mr. Zalkind’s brother studied medicine, in a neighborhood of plane trees with leaves of many fingers, shedding bark to get rid of the soot that suffocated other trees. The Abrahams lived a few doors from Mr. Shaw, the playwright, in one of the old houses that weren’t old enough to be venerable, merely rundown, attracting industries and art, both of which appreciated cheap tenancy. The square smelled of smoke and chemicals, the garden in the center was brown and matted, the houses losing pieces of stucco.

  Inside the house, there were paintings on every surface, wicker furniture, Oriental pottery, and bowers of ferns, the host and his guests carrying themselves as if this was the most fashionable address and anyone who didn’t know it was a Philistine. Mrs. Abraham was vastly pregnant but entirely without embarrassment as she waddled among the guests in her kimono. Emilia wore her hair loose, in the Aesthetic style, her gown more than a year out of date.

  The dining room walls had been done as a mural during Mr. Abraham’s Egyptian phase, and someone less cultured than Emilia might have felt entombed. But she was preoccupied only with the meat on her dinner plate as she sat between Miss Cohen the poetess and Mr. Moore the painter, a middle-aged gentleman with thin eyebrows that both slanted to the right as if blown that way by the wind while he stood on deck pondering the sea. He painted the animals of Borneo; his wife collected the sayings and customs of the people. Emilia poked at her dinner suspiciously. It looked rather pink, and she believed it had once belonged to a pig, though no one had actually used the word ham.

  “The English are an old people. Like the Jews,” Mr. Moore said. “Take our friend Mr. Zalkind. He has the best attributes of his race, but some of the less admirable characteristics are hardly to be seen in him. You might say that he’s been tempered by the bracing British air.”

  At the moment a choking yellow fog was falling across the streets. “Very bracing,” Emilia murmured, her shoulders sore with tension.

  “His taste is not at all gauche, and he knows his opera. He’ll make his mark in the world of letters, I daresay.” Mr. Moore tapped his glass, and the maid poured more wine.

  “I’m sure he’d be glad to know that his friends hold a high opinion of him.” Emilia glanced around the table. Everyone was absorbed in conversation, silverware clinking, serving spoons digging in and out of platters, the maid mopping up a spill of wine. On the wall Egyptian ladies kneeled at the foot of a mummy.

  “The ham is very nice,” Mr. Moore said. “Rembrandt made a thing of beauty out of hanging meat. Perhaps I shall do a ham. There’s nothing like a well-cured ham. You don’t seem overly fond of it, Miss Rosenberg.”

  She shook her head. What did gentiles eat? Was it always pig? It must be so, and now at the very beginning of her career as a gentile, she was about to be dismissed for incompetence. “Well, you see, Mr. Moore …” She stammered and looked down at her plate, sure that waves of Soho odors wafted from her skin while Miss Cohen looked at her sympathetically. She knew. She could sense a fellow Jew. She was dressed in the very gown on the cover of La Nouvelle Mode.

  “Are you a vegetarian, too?” Miss Cohen asked. “I don’t eat any sort of animal, myself.”

  Emilia could have given her a kiss on each of her sallow cheeks. “Perhaps Mr. Moore could paint potatoes. Would you, sir?”

  “Potatoes have a bad effect on the spirit,” he said, pushing his into a heap at the far edge of his plate. “Deadly for an artist. When I was in Paris last month, I lunched with Degas and a friend of his. The man paints potato eaters, they say, and you never met a more erratic fellow. Mark my words, he will do someone a violence one day. I am a student of heads, Miss Cohen. And that man’s head, well, I should not like a lady to see it. A criminal shape, I promise you.”

  Across from him Mrs. Moore was draped in flowing fabrics, everything she owned hanging loosely under it without benefit of a corset. She sat between Mr. Zalkind and his brother. “The men of Borneo have very nicely shaped heads,” she said. “They are quite sane despite the fact that, as young men, they pierce their members with a bone and wear it there for the rest of their lives. What do you do, Miss Rosenberg?”

  Emilia wiped her lips with the edge of her napkin. “Excuse me?”

  Mr. Zalkind was looking at her with a concern that made her flinch. A man must admire you or else you’re nothing in his eyes. “I don’t think …” he began.

  “I mean do you write or paint, dear?” Mrs. Moore interrupted. She wore kohl around her eyes like the ladies in the Egyptian mural.

  “Paper-cuts,” Emilia said, looking steadily at Mr. Zalkind as if she had not the smallest reason to be uncomfortable here, not a beetle of embarrassment crawled across her plate. He smiled and lifted his glass to her. “I make Oriental paper-cuts.”

  “How interesting. I do so enjoy these evenings with you young people,” Mrs. Moore said. “And what is your opinion of the Jewish question?”

  “We’re all British here, that’s my opinion,” Mr. Zalkind interjected. “Only look at what we’re eating.”

  “It may be the death of you,” his brother said. Half the Jewish guests shifted uncomfortably; the others smiled smugly. Albert Zalkind hadn’t eaten the ham. In fact there seemed to be a surprising number of vegetarians among the Jewish guests. “The ancient laws have a wisdom you underestimate. Pigs, for example, harbor many diseases.”

  Mr. Moore raised his eyebrows, glancing first at
his wife and then at the Butlers, the other gentile couple at the table. What did he mean, now turning his eyebrows on Emilia? In the tomb painting on the wall, the Egyptian gentlemen were performing the rite of opening the mummy’s mouth, though they looked as if they were attacking it with golden whips. It was too hard, being in society and not knowing what was polite. Not as a gentile and not even as a Jew.

  Always ask a gentleman a question, her mother used to say, and remember that nothing is as believable as a grain of truth.

  Emilia turned to Mr. Moore, her expression perplexed, her voice uncertain. “Would someone explain the Irish question? Being a foreigner at home, there were things I could never understand. And now I’m a foreigner twice removed. Are they not British, the Irishmen?”

  Mr. Moore’s face became grim. “Allow me to enlighten you, Miss Rosenberg,” he began, and the whole company joined in to enlighten her until the pudding, Mr. Zalkind most eagerly of all. There is nothing more intelligent to a gentleman than a woman’s interest in his thoughts.

  When they moved to the parlor, Mr. Zalkind took her arm and seated her in a corner under a hanging of greenery, beside stands of ferns and vases of flowers. For himself he chose an awkward oak chair carved with Gothic creatures, pulling it close. His eyes were green-brown, his beard the color of sand. It was a very short beard, as if he couldn’t make up his mind whether to please his grandfather and keep it or please his friends and take it away altogether. “I notice that you solicit the opinions of others but keep your own to yourself,” he said. Beyond the cascade of greenery, Mrs. Abraham was showing her collection of pottery to the other guests. “What do you think of the Jewish question?”

  Emilia smiled archly. A smile need not be affected by nausea. “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil,” she said with the light tone she used to amuse her father’s guests.