Eight Weeks in the Summer of Victoria's Jubilee

by Bob Biderman

  So, instead, Z took out his wallet and gave the young man ten shillings. Then, tearing out a piece of paper from his notebook, he wrote out the address of a boarding house and also a note to the woman who ran it – a sometimes writer with whom Z was acquainted – asking her to put the young man up for a week or so.

  The young man, still dreadfully confused, could hardly express his gratitude but to Z that wasn’t important. He simply wanted to see him safe for reasons of his own – reasons he had no inclination to explore at this particular moment. For Z was a man possessed and now incapable of understanding the forces within him.

  But when the young man left, following Z’s explicit directions (the boarding house, in fact, wasn’t very far), Z saw the quayside had filled with masses of immigrants who were still disembarking, still trudging up the Irongate stairs, still being ferried in boat after boat from the offshore steamer. And as he looked around he saw them – one and another and another and another. All with boyish faces that looked exactly like Lipski – or as Z imagined Lipski had looked not so many months before when he had come ashore at this very harbour.

  Z made his way home through the warren of narrow streets and back alleys which he navigated blindly. He rarely took a carriage or tram if he could at all avoid it. Walking helped him think, allowing him that sense of fluency wherein his mind could soar. Jerome called him a ‘peripatetic writer’ as if that were, itself, a genre – and perhaps it was. Partly it helped release the edgy nervousness, a product of his high speed metabolism that kept him buzzing half the night and needing to discharge that surfeit of energy crackling in his head, one way or another, lest he explode or go completely mad.

  Certainly, he knew that the potential of madness lurked within, though he had learned to channel and redirect these primal forces. But what if an outlet had been denied him? What then?

  We all tread a very thin line, he thought; at any moment we could slip, plunging into the darkest nowhere. Such is the danger of disconnection from the herd, of daring to live in isolation. A man alone can so easily lose his bearings. Indeed, where was he now? He hardly recognised the street he was walking on, though he had faith in his internal compass of physical direction. But what of his moral compass? Could that still be trusted?

  And what of his people? Who were they, in fact? The endless waves of penniless immigrants swarming onto St Katherine Docks? His fellow writers like Jerome? The community of free men and women who marched behind the tricolour?

  Then he thought, the young immigrant at the quayside, the one he gave ten shillings – what would have become of him? Did Z’s imposition help? Or had he only delayed the inevitable?

  CHAPTER 52

  HE WASN’T EXPECTING to see her sitting on his stairs when he came home, but he wasn’t surprised by it either. Though at other times he might have been disconcerted, today he found it right and, oddly, natural.

  Unlocking the door to his room, he ushered her inside and offered her his easy chair as he went to pour some brandy. She glanced around his spacious quarters (spacious only compared to her own dank room) and noted the random piles of books and papers, the sharpened pencils instead of plants protruding from a flowerpot.

  Gratefully accepting the glass of amber fluid he handed her, she took a sip and immediately felt the intoxicating flow of radiant warmth course through her body. That rawness from moments before, the prickly sensation on her skin, the aching hollowness inside her, the throbbing of her forehead gave way to a hesitant calm like the brief respite on open seas when a small glimmer of sun peaks through the eye of a raging tempest.

  He sat across from her on the divan that doubled as his bed. Looking at this peculiar woman nestled in his easy chair, he found himself curiously thankful for her presence. Strangely, he could think of no one else with whom he would have rather shared this terrible moment. No one but her; a woman he scarcely knew and hardly understood.

  She gazed back at him with moist, enquiring eyes, as if beseeching him to explain the unexplainable and he realised that she was already aware of the disquieting news he had recently been given.

  When he finally found voice enough to speak, all he could do was simply ask if she had seen the actual statement. And all she could do was shake her head, confirming that she hadn’t.

  Reaching into his pocket, he pulled from there a crumpled piece of paper and then, smoothing it out, he handed it to her.

  As he does, Z finds himself back in Hayward’s office after the little messenger boy had tracked him down. Myers meets him at the door. By now Z realises something is desperately wrong. He can see it in Myers’ face and thinks never in his life would he want to see a face like that again. And that image of utter despair lingers over him.

  Maggie read the statement that Z had copied onto a scrap of vellum just a few hours before. She read it once and then a second time even though each word was like a knife that cut deep inside her. But she needed to read it twice in order to comprehend.

  This is what she read:

  I, Israel Lipski, before I appear before God in judgement, desire to speak the whole truth concerning the crime of which I am accused. I will not die with a lie on my lips, I will not let others suffer, even in suspicion, for my sin. I alone was guilty of the murder of Miriam Angel. I thought the woman had money in her room. So I entered, the door being unlocked and the woman asleep. I had no thought of violating her, and I swear I never approached her with that object, nor did I wrong her in this way. Miriam Angel awoke before I could search about for money and cried out, but very softly. Thereupon I struck her on the head, and seized her by the neck and closed her mouth with my hand, so that she should not arouse the attention of those who were about the house. I had long been tired of my life, and had bought a pennyworth of aqua fortis that morning for the purpose of putting an end to myself. Suddenly I thought of the bottle I had in my pocket, and drew it out, and poured some of the contents down her throat. She fainted, and recognising my desperate condition, I took the rest. The bottle was an old one which I had formerly used, and was the same as that which I had taken with me to the oil-shop. The quantity of aqua fortis I took had no effect on me. Hearing the voices of people coming up stairs, I crawled under the bed. The woman seemed already dead. There was only a very short time from the moment of my entering the room until I was taken away. In the agitation I also fainted. I do not know how it was that my arms became abraded. I did not feel it and was not aware of it. As to the door being locked from the inside, I myself did this immediately after I entered the room, wishing not to be interrupted. I solemnly declare that Rosenbloom and Schmuss knew nothing whatever of the crime of which I have been guilty, and I alone. I implore them to pardon me for having in my despair tried to cast the blame upon them. I also beseech the forgiveness of the bereaved husband.

  I admit that I have had a fair trial and acknowledge the justice of the sentence that has been passed upon me. I desire to thank Mr Hayward for his efforts on my behalf, as well as all those who have interested themselves in me during this unhappy time.

  This confession is made of my own free will and is written down by Mr Singer at my request.

  May God comfort my loving father and mother, and may He accept my repentance and my death as an atonement for all my sins!

  Sunday 21st August 1887

  Israel Lipski

  When she finished, Maggie neatly refolded the paper. He could see her hand was trembling as she passed it back.

  Neither of them spoke. Perhaps they couldn’t find the words – or, more likely, it hurt too much to say them.

  Maggie finally broke the silence, telling him that she had been with William Morris working on the latest issue of Commonweal when she had first heard about Lipski’s confession.

  Despite his sudden unconcern with the ways of the world and those who were given the privilege to define it, Z was intrigued. William Morris was someone he greatly admi
red, both as an artist and thinker, combining the elements of imagination, sagacity and reason that Z would cherish for his own. And he wondered aloud what the learned man had made of that lightning bolt which thundered from the sky that day, shocking them to their core and making them reconsider, consciously or not, the very essence of their being.

  Morris hadn’t been at all surprised, she said – though, at first, she had found his equanimity quite baffling. Those who had never believed in his guilt have no need to do so now, he told her. That the poor lad confessed, and admitted the justice of his sentence, was to be expected for it was absolutely essential to the stability of the government and to the system of capital punishment. So, according to Morris, why should anyone be surprised at the last minute appearance of such a neatly packaged document, written in perfect English, that ticked off each point of contention and exonerated everyone involved – the judge, the jury and the government?

  Z let those thoughts, tendentious as they were, drift though his head. And then he asked whether she felt that way as well.

  Did she? Well, perhaps, but mostly she felt confused. As the quiet certainty of yesterday had been savagely ripped from her breast by that odious statement, she needed to know whether Lipski was actually guilty of such a terrible crime, not in her mind but in her heart. And then she turned the question around. How about him? What did he feel?

  What did he feel? Anger? Remorse? Bitterness? Betrayal? No, he felt none of those emotions. Perhaps it no longer mattered, he said.

  It was clear from her expression that she didn’t understand. It mattered to her, she told him. It mattered a great deal.

  Of course, he said. And so it should, but it was Lipski, he meant – it no longer matters to him. And saying that, he went over to his desk and shuffled through some papers till he found what he was looking for.

  Rabbi Singer, he told her, the reverend who was ministering to Lipski had written an article that Krantz suggested he consult. It was entitled ‘The Glory of Martyrdom.’ He had copied a brief passage. And, clearing his throat, he read it aloud to her:

  ‘The spirit that gave an almost superhuman strength to our fathers ought not to have perished. There is abundant need for it still. It is the spirit of rectitude which knows the right and wills it. It is the spirit of the Fear of God, which banishes from the heart all other fear. It is the spirit of sacrifice, that purifies and hallows every life, as naught else can do…’

  As he finished reciting the short passage, he re-directed his eyes from the article to her, wondering what she made of this very Orthodox notion that attempted to link the present crisis in the East to the mythic resistance of the ancient tribal heroes.

  Of course she was familiar with martyrdom, she told him, as she had read the lives of the saints when she was a young girl. But how did this relate to Lipski? If he were a martyr, what was he a martyr for, and even more, what was he a martyr to?

  How could he make her understand when he barely understood himself? He reminded her what Hayward said when he last saw Lipski in prison – that he would rather die than spend his life in gaol.

  And she replied that anyone could say such things in the heat of the moment – that the idea of a lifetime of enforced misery is horrible but life, itself, is precious even if the conditions of life are vile. Besides, there are those on the outside who would have continued to struggle for his freedom.

  There are also those on the outside who may have died for his continued existence – at least that’s what Lipski came to feel, he said.

  She looked at him questioningly and he wondered if any Christian could understand the idea of Jewish martyrdom. The ‘spirit of sacrifice that purifies and hallows every life’ was a far cry from salvation through mortification of the flesh the saints so gloried in. The historic Jew was bound to the sanctity of life and the avoidance of pain (that would be inflicted on them without mercy by others so why inflict it on themselves?) Self-harm to expiate one’s sins made no sense at all in the metaphysics of Jewish existence, he told her. But there could be no greater good than to sacrifice oneself for one’s people.

  Perhaps Maggie couldn’t understand the history of suffering and survival that was, Z sometimes thought, coded in the psyche of all Jews. But could he understand how important it was to her to honour justice, simple justice that established basic truth and right from wrong?

  They were, at that moment, worlds apart and yet they desperately needed to be together.

  Maggie looked over at the picture of Lipski that Z had cut from one of the journals and had pasted to the wall by his desk. It was the drawing of a handsome young man in stylish jacket and cravat with hair neatly trimmed and combed in a foppish swirl that fell in a charming manner gently over his forehead. The artist had captured something dreamy in his eyes, she thought – something dreamy and sentimental. She glanced down at the floor, at the tattered rug beneath her feet that appeared to be a thousand years old and had come on camel from the furthest regions of Mesopotamia. Then, looking back up at Z, she gazed deeply into his eyes. ‘I don’t think I can be alone tonight,’ she whispered.

  CHAPTER 53

  ON MONDAY THE 22nd of August, 1887, at a quarter to eight in the morning, the bells of St. Sepulchre’s Church opposite Newgate prison began to peal. Shortly before eight the hangman, the prison governor, and the Sheriff (Sir Henry Aaron Isaacs – a Jewish fruit merchant, recently knighted and recipient of a special Jubilee Medal for services to the Queen), went to the convict’s cell all resplendent in their grand, official robes. Lipski awaited them dressed in the same suit he wore at his trial just eight weeks prior – with the simple addition of a dark blue yarmulka fixed atop his youthful skull. In a professional, business-like manner, his arms were bound by the executioner and then, as if this had been rehearsed a thousand times, with great pomp and ceremony, a precisely choreographed procession slowly marched from the convict’s cell to the scaffold – a warder on either side, the executioner behind and Rabbi Singer in front, chanting with Lipski the ancient Hebrew prayer Adon Olom, which, since Babylonian times, was intoned by penitent Jews.

  At the hour of his death, Z and Maggie were sitting side by side, hand in hand, on a bench in Victoria Park – the very bench where they had sat some days before – staring quietly across the pebble path at the flower garden that was still bathed in morning’s dew. They huddled together – both they and the flowers – in anticipation of the moment: the flowers for the dawning of the sun; they for its extinguishment. And when that curiously synchronized moment came (which they knew by the chiming of the bell at Bow Street Church), at that precise instant, the mist lifted, the sun came out, the trap door of the hangman’s platform sprung open, Lipski’s body plunged into Eternal Darkness, and Z squeezed Maggie’s hand with such dramatic force that the awful crunching of bones was heard to echo through the emptiness.

  Looking over at Maggie, he saw the tears stream down her cheeks. Not from pain, he soon realised, but from something else.

  ‘Do you see?’ There was a sense of wonder in her voice, a sense of awe.

  He followed her line of sight and saw it too. A bird – a magnificent bird had spread its wings and taken flight. Together they watched it soar high above their heads, circle once, then twice, then fly away to parts unknown.

  EPILOGUE

  IN THE YEARS that followed, Z became a writer so famous that he was feted throughout the English-speaking world. But the events of those eight weeks in the summer of 1887 stayed with him like the London fog, sometimes appearing frilly and light (as in the springtime of his youth), sometimes dark and foreboding, partially occluding the successes that came from the nib of his ceaseless, ink-stained pen. For a long time he was plagued with lingering doubts: was that boy, Lipski, with his sweet face and limpid eyes, actually guilty – as his last-minute confession professed? Or had he been willingly sacrificed so that others, who swarmed then and swarmed still fro
m their ancient homelands, might seek refuge in this island kingdom which had offered Z, and those he called ‘his people’, the promise of a future. But like all promises, this one came with a caveat.

  Back then, he had told Maggie that guilt or innocence exists on many levels and, perhaps, there was a greater meaning to those events played out in the summer of Victoria’s Jubilee which thrust the life and death of a simple man into a wider perspective. Maggie, of course, was having none of that. Justice to her was visceral and had everything to do with the sanctity and inalienable rights of the individual. Whatever that man-child did or didn’t, his trial and conviction in a court of law was nothing less than a travesty. And, to her, it represented a terrible object lesson in the unbridled power of the state and the hypocrisy of British justice.

  For her own part, Maggie had become progressively embittered through countless struggles that started as bright sparks and ended as damp, deflated squibs. Being a woman who demanded absolute integrity both from herself and others, she began to question (and thus lose favour with) those she formerly looked upon as leaders in the struggle for a more equitable society. She was outraged at the erosion of rights (or historic myths which claimed those rights) in the land of her birth that had been populated by her ancestors for countless generations. Seeing the social democratic cause she espoused in her youth more and more exploited by vainglorious men who spouted popular slogans and then used their new-found power for personal gain, she began shifting her focus to the far-off lands where people had begun to rise up in resistance to what she saw as the brutality of overseas colonialism (which she compared to the internal colonialist policies she had witnessed in London’s East End).

  Before Maggie left England forever she met Z one last time. It was at the same outdoor café on the fringe of Covent Garden where they had met years before when both were young and the future was still whatever they could imagine.