Melnitz

by Charles Lewinsky

  Dissembling would have been pointless in any case. It was so noisy in the Crown, and Herr Rauhut already so intoxicated that she practically had to bellow the sensational news in his ear. ‘A salesgirl, a young thing, and the father is . . . No, not the girl’s father, the child’s father! – the father is . . .’

  When he had finally understood her, there was a fat grin on his face, ‘a really fat great grin,’ Mathilde said to Chanele the following day, and she would have liked to take it all back again.

  Yes, so far the plan had worked. The rumour was in the world, and had done its duty. Now the important thing was to make sure it was forgotten again.

  Herr Ziltener now came with the money, and Chanele took the envelope as if he had brought her nothing more than a pair of gloves that she had forgotten somewhere. The receipt that he laid next to it she left untouched on the desk, and Ziltener didn’t dare remind her.

  She thought for a moment about going home again and changing her dress, but that would have felt like disguising herself, and that was something Chanele had firmly resolved never again to do. So she stayed in her black shop uniform, put a coat on over it and fastened her hat to her sheitel. That was the least she could do; what she planned was an official visit.

  She had already sent a messenger that morning. If Herr Councillor was in his office at about three o’clock, she had something that she wanted to discuss with him, and the reply had come that of course he was available to the esteemed Monsieur Meijer at any time. She had not mentioned Janki in her letter, but Herr Bugmann had – as Chanele expected – assumed as a matter of course that where business matters were involved it would naturally be the husband who came to see him.

  On the way to the Weite Gasse, she met the wife of Cantor Würzenburger, who inquired after Arthur’s health, ‘the poor boy looked very ill on Thursday.’

  ‘I must make more time for Arthur,’ thought Chanele, murmured something along the lines of ‘everything’s fine,’ and apologised, saying she was in a hurry.

  ‘Are you going shopping?’

  ‘Yes,’ Chanele said, ‘you could call it that.’

  Anyone who stepped into Councillor Bugmann’s law office found themselves at first confronted by a wooden barrier that made a petitioner of every visitor. Behind it a scrawny office boy sat by his desk on a high stool, in a distorted, boneless posture. He had wedged his pen behind his ear, something which, to judge by the ink stains on his face, was probably a regular habit.

  ‘Please tell Herr Councillor that I’m here.’

  The young man twisted his head to look at her, visibly indignant at her presumption. ‘Herr Bugmann is busy right now,’ he said in a nasal voice and hunched once more over his open ledger.

  The old Chanele would have patiently explained to the upstart that his boss was expecting her or, if she had been kept waiting for too long, she would have shouted at him, as she sometimes had to do with her employees. The new Madame Meijer simply opened the little door in the barrier and walked towards the door with the metal sign saying ‘bureau’.

  In his excitement the gawky youth almost fell from his stool. He was one of those people who like to exert authority but don’t know how to defend it when it’s called into question. ‘You can’t do that,’ he said, sounding just like Herr Ziltener. He walked over to Chanele with a strangely elegant gait, and blocked her path with spread, waving arms. ‘Herr Bugmann said quite emphatically . . .’

  ‘What did I say?’ The councillor had heard the commotion in his antechamber, and was now standing in the doorway.

  ‘Your young man was about to announce my presence. And by the way, a very committed employee you have there.’

  Bugmann looked back and forth between the two of them and then tapped his clerk sharply on the head. The youth, probably used to such treatment, took the punishment with a kind of bow and slouched back to his stool.

  ‘The nephew of a fellow party member,’ the councillor said apologetically as he took off Chanele’s coat. ‘I was urgently requested . . . You may know how that is. Sometimes you have no option.’

  Bugmann’s office, with its big bow window looking out on the Weite Gasse, was furnished like a living-room, with heavy doors and landscape paintings on the walls. Of course there was also a desk, but the place of honour, where the light was best, was occupied by two chairs and a three-seat sofa, all upholstered in red velvet, with white crocheted antimacassars, a fashion that had spread from England. On small tables, of which there were at least half a dozen, photographs were crammed together, jostling with other souvenirs and knick-knacks. A massive bookshelf took up almost one whole wall. The leather backs behind the glass doors emphasised the twofold character of the room: apart from collections of legal writings and the thick volumes of a dictionary there were also the collected works of Goethe, Schiller, Hebbel and Pestalozzi.

  Bugmann offered Chanele a seat on the sofa – ‘There you won’t be dazzled by the sun!’ – propped another cushion behind her back and displayed the over-eager bustling activity often used to cover over awkward situations. He fetched a tray of bottles and glasses from the credenza, and tried to offer her a little glass of advocaat. Chanele declined politely, whereupon he apologised at length for having nothing else to offer her, after all, he couldn’t really expect a lady to drink cognac or even a proper schnapps. ‘Of course I would have made tea if I’d known you . . . I had been expecting your husband. He isn’t ill or anything, is he?’

  ‘Don’t worry, he’s fine. I’m sure he would pass on his kindest regards if he knew I was here.’

  The councillor tried not to show his surprise, which only made it all the more apparent.

  ‘My husband has asked me to sort out a delicate problem for him, and would prefer not to be personally involved in the details. Perhaps you know how that is. Sometimes you have no option.’

  She hadn’t planned to use Bugmann’s own phrase; the words had simply been hanging in the air. But he nodded as if she had said something extremely significant, sat down in an armchair opposite her, propped his chin in his hand and drew one eyelid slightly down with his index finger.

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘You are, amongst your many obligations, also an official guardian, is that not so, Herr Councillor?’

  ‘I am guardian to an orphan. That is correct.’

  ‘And you told us, when you recently did us the honour of being our guest, that you must sometimes reveal a certain severity in this capacity, which actually contradicts your well-known philanthropic character.’

  Bugmann did not dismiss the clumsy flattery, and proudly inflated his red cheeks. ‘Like a fish that has just swallowed a lure,’ thought Chanele.

  ‘I think I remember,’ she went on. ‘You also spoke in this connection of a young man whose desire to marry you could not grant consent to because he didn’t have the necessary means to establish his own household.’

  ‘There are many such cases,’ said Bugmann and made a solemn face, as if he were about to deliver a public address. ‘Sad for those involved, of course, but I must bear in mind my responsibility.’

  ‘That cannot always be easy.’ Chanele had almost laughed out loud, it was all going so easily. ‘I have now found myself thinking that it could not be wrong – not least in the interest of a certain popularity, upon which one depends, after all, as a politician – if you would nonetheless make a marriage possible in one or other of these cases.’

  Bugmann tried to appear quite nonchalant, but his torso leaned far forward in curiosity. Salomon had taught his foster daughter to read such signs.

  ‘It would certainly create a very positive impression in public,’ Chanele said, delivering her prepared speech. ‘The guardian to an orphan paying his charges the dowry they need out of his own pocket . . .’

  ‘His own . . .?’ There was something breathless about Bugmann’s voice.

  ‘So, my husband and I place great value on discretion when it comes to good works. One does not wish to boast.
So we would insist that the foundation set up by us should remain anonymous or, even better, that it should not be mentioned in this connection at all.’

  ‘Foundation?’ Councillor Bugmann’s face had turned even redder than it already was naturally.

  ‘We thought a sum of three thousand francs. To begin with. And you alone, of course, would decide the amount to be paid in the individual case.’

  ‘And to whom,’ Bugmann said quickly.

  ‘And to whom, of course. With a man such as yourself no checks would be necessary.’

  Bugmann breathed out slowly. It was a sigh of relief.

  ‘Although if I might be permitted,’ Chanele said, ‘to say a small word on the selection of the recipients. It concerns a salesgirl in the Modern Emporium. A very respectable girl, fundamentally, who has unfortunately – how can I put this – strayed once from the path of virtue. With certain . . . certain consequences, if you understand my meaning.’

  ‘Of course,’ Bugmann said, and thought he understood much more than Chanele had said.

  ‘She is one of my best workers, and a man who asked for her hand would certainly not regret the proposal. Above all if she had an appropriate dowry.’

  ‘Which you would not wish to put personally at her disposal.’ One could not say that Bugmann grinned, but his facial expression could certainly have been called complacent. ‘You would prefer a neutral foundation . . .’

  ‘As I said: we place great value on discretion. We would be only too happy if you yourself would appear in public as the noble donor.’

  Councillor Bugmann poured himself a big glass of cognac and drank it down in one gulp. Then he stood up, walked to his desk and opened his ink bottle.

  ‘The name of the young lady?’

  ‘Marie-Theres Furrer.’

  Bugmann wrote and waved the paper in the air to dry the ink.

  ‘So the whole thing will go through as quickly as possible?’

  ‘As quickly as possible.’

  ‘And the money . . .?’

  ‘I have brought it.’

  Bugmann carefully folded up the sheet of paper, halved and quartered it and then put it in the bottom of a briefcase. Chanele opened her handbag and took out the sealed envelope that Herr Ziltener had brought her.

  When the transaction was complete and they sat facing each other again on the red velvet, Chanele said, as if it the idea had only just occurred to her, ‘Ah yes, Herr Councillor, there is one other small thing . . .’

  ‘What?’ Bugmann had now set aside all politeness, a farmer who doesn’t quite trust a cattle-trade that is far too cheap, but who is willing defend his advantage with tooth and claw.

  ‘You are one of the directors of the Tagblatt, are you not?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Herr Rauhut, the editor, you know him, the man who was so unpleasantly drunk at our little supper, seems to have been taken in by certain rumours. As I have learned by chance, he is linking my husband in a certain way with the unfortunate girl I just mentioned to you.’

  ‘This Marie-Theres Furrer?’

  ‘Entirely without foundation, of course. But such a story could have unpleasant consequences for the poor young thing. Particularly when she will soon be marrying.’

  ‘And even more unpleasant consequences for Monsieur Meijer.’ Bugmann was now quite relaxed. He had got to the nub of the matter, and discovered that it referred to someone else.

  ‘But the article will never appear.’ Chanele assumed François’s smile again. ‘Will it, Herr Councillor?’

  ‘You can rely on me,’ said Bugmann.

  ‘I know I can rely on you,’ said Chanele.

  Everything that needed to be said had been said, but they went on chatting for a few minutes, scattered harmless commonplaces around about their secret as one throws sand over one’s traces if one doesn’t want to be reminded where one has been.

  ‘I’m already looking forward,’ said Councillor Bugmann, when he held out her coat, ‘to being able to enjoy another of those delicious meals in your lovely home.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ said Chanele, walking through the door that he held open for her. ‘My husband and I have decided not to continue with the tradition of our evening invitations.’

  The office boy from the antechamber still hung on his stool like a crooked question mark. Chanele stopped beside him for a moment and said benignly, ‘By the way – you have ink on your face.’

  30

  ‘No article is going to be published,’ was all she said, and Janki asked no questions.

  They were sitting around the oversized dining room table – tropical wood! – as if to depict a living picture entitled Family at Dinner for some invisible spectator, without the slightest notion of how such a thing would be done. Janki had rested his walking stick against the table, and was still clutching the freshly glued-on lion’s head. He sat where he always sat, no one had secretly moved the table or switched the chairs, and still, although he couldn’t have explained his feeling of unease to himself, he didn’t really feel as if he was sitting at the top of the table any more.

  François had made a show of not being hungry, and had only sat down at the table on an order from his father. He had pushed his plate listlessly aside and instead put the tantalus with the yellowish fluid in front of him, the one that was normally on the sideboard. With one of the ivory toothpicks that were only put on the table for big meals – a soapstone knave held a dozen ready, like spears before the battle – he ran his finger, as if there nothing more important in the world, around the tiny silver lock whose key had been missing for ever. ‘If I am going to be kept prisoner here,’ said every one of his movements, ‘then at least I can do something useful and try to get this thing open at last.’

  Hinda, who normally chatted merrily away over any ill humour, had for once been infected be the general gloom, and stirred her soup with a face as stony as if the soup had been prescribed her by her doctor against her will.

  No one noticed that Arthur said not a word and did not once look up from his plate. They were used to him being like that. He was often so preoccupied with his own thoughts that you had to ask him questions three times before he finally heard you. When he was in a good mood, Janki would laugh, calling him, ‘Our little philosopher!’ On other days he struck his glass with his spoon, and when everyone looked at him, he would say with cutting friendliness, ‘If the professor would like to give us the honour of his attention . . .?’

  Louisli’s eyes were red from weeping when she set the soup tureen down on the table. In her case at least one didn’t have to look for an explanation.

  After a long silence Chanele finally cleared her throat. ‘Janki, I think you should give Herr Ziltener a small raise. He hasn’t been having a very easy time lately.’

  Janki didn’t contradict her, as he would automatically have done on any other day, but said only, ‘If you think so . . .’ and reached again for the handle of his walking stick to check it with his fingers.

  And then they had a visitor. At a time of day when no one paid visits in Baden.

  Louisli announced the visitor as if announcing a death. ‘Someone would like to speak to the lady and gentleman of the house. A Herr Kamionker.’

  In the books that Arthur devoured in his every free minute, people were often said to be gasping for air. He had always thought it was just a figure of speech, like ‘He got cold feet’ or ‘His hair stood straight up on end.’ But when Hinda heard the visitor’s name, she did exactly that: she gasped for air.

  Even in Zurich, at Pinchas and Mimi’s, Zalman Kamionker had been out of place. In Janki’s dining room, which was furnished not to be comfortable but to impress, with his clumsy shoes and patched trousers he looked as out of place as Herr Bischoff, the goyish caretaker, at Yom Kippur, when all the men were wearing their white sargenes, and he crept through the prayer room in his worn dark suit to open or close the windows. Except that Herr Bischoff always drew his head in to make himself invisible wit
h his hunched posture, while Zalman Kamionker stood in splay-legged confidence on the green carpet as if he were the man in charge and the others the incomers. He had pushed his greasy leather cap a little back from his forehead, a craftsman who is about to perform a difficult task.

  ‘I have come here,’ he said in his strange accent, half Swabian, half Yiddish, ‘I have come here because Fräulein Hinda has already left Zurich.’

  Hinda stared into her plate as if there could be nothing more interesting in the world that a lump of potato and a fibre of meat.

  ‘By the way: Frau Pomeranz isn’t very well. At lunchtime today she was as white as a sheet. But you are not to worry on her account, she said to tell you.’

  Who was this strange person, thought Chanele, bringing her news of Mimi?

  ‘I have something I would like to tell Fräulein Hinda, if you will permit me,’ Kamionker continued.

  ‘If you will permit me,’ he said but his whole posture made it clear that he would still have said what he had to say whether anyone minded or not.

  Janki sat up very straight, as Monsieur Delormes had done in the event of unwelcome disturbances. This was still his dining room, and he had not invited this strange man. ‘Whatever it is – couldn’t it wait until tomorrow?’

  The question was clearly meant rhetorically, but Zalman seemed to be deaf to undertones. He thought for a moment, with the serious face of a man who has a serious decision to make, and then shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It can’t wait till tomorrow.’

  And without anyone asking him to, he took a chair and joined them at the table.

  ‘He’s not one to stand on ceremony,’ thought Chanele.

  ‘Would you perhaps like a plate as well?’ Janki asked sarcastically.