“O gawd!” she wailed before her white breath was clamped over by her shaking hand.
She was staring not at the door but at its frame. Hector closed in behind her and saw what she was looking at.
“The mezuzah,” she said from behind her white-and-blue fingertips.
A small rectangular patch, smaller than her little finger, was showing on the doorframe. It was not painted or drawn on. It was an absence. A new gap in the years of the over-painted surface. A wound. This impression was heightened by a deep ragged cut that inflicted itself across the tilted rectangle of the bare, exposed wood. As if what had been there had been removed by one heavy and ferocious blow from an axe or a hatchet.
“The mezuzah!” she said again and suddenly ran at the stairs, taking some of them two at a time in her determined hurry. Hector ran after her. In grave doubt of her well-being he told himself later, but it was fear. Sudden fear of being alone in a place from which she had most violently fled.
It had been a long time since he had heard that word and was unaware of his everyday association with it. Even when Solli and Mrs. Fishburn had entered his or their dwellings—noticing them always touch the frame of the door and she automatically kissing her touching fingers—Hector’s orthodoxy had slipped so far away that he did not see such actions as purposeful. In fact he did not see them at all. But now he had to. The little pewter container that held the scroll, the tiny handwritten parchment that reminded every soul of the presence of God, had been viciously removed from its blessed position on the doorframe of the mysterious apartment below. He had witnessed the devastating effect that the desecration had on the trembling Mrs. Fishburn, whom he now held shaking in his arms. She was praying between her sobs and sniffles, and he was awkwardly aware of the embarrassing dampness of their intimacy. It had been a long time since he had held a woman so. His own Rachel had been delicate and modest and very different from this woman, who was so large that he could barely get his arms around her. It had been a long time since he had touched anybody other than the partially buried body of Nicholas. He felt clumsy, stiff, and unfeeling, and knew that no real warmth was passing from his wooden embrace into the shocked and pitiful mass of the once indomitable Betty Fishburn.
Eventually she pulled herself away, wiping her nose on a soggy handkerchief that she had fished out from her puffed and fragrant sleeve. She started to make tea and Hector knew he was doomed to at least another hour of her snivelling company. For such is the cost of mock compassion, the less felt, the longer the time must be spent acting out hours of morbid duty.
“Are the local police sensitive to anti-Semitic incidents?” he asked, trying to use his pompousness to offer her a sensible way back to normality.
She stopped between the table and the oven, her mouth gaping so much that he feared she might lose the cigarette that hung there.
“Anti-Semites don’t come into it,” she eventually said, her eyes hardening in her blurred, flushed face. “This terrible thing ain’t the workings of some fucking meshuggener.”
Hector was shocked. It was the first time he had heard Mrs. Fishburn swear. And he did not understand the other word she used, but imagined it to be worse. But what really shocked him were the vehemence and the direction of her language. It seemed to be aimed at him. As if he had become the target of her outrage and anger. In some way that he did not understand, his placating question had become a red rag to her snorting bovine fury. Perhaps it was the feebleness of the comforting embrace. He must try again quickly to offer a soothing solution to her growing distress.
“Perhaps it might only be a non-Jewish family moving in.”
The cigarette fell and was followed by a string of fast Yiddish words that sounded more like swearing of a magnitude that was beyond his meagre comprehension. He thought it better to now remain silent. She slowed her spiel and tried to explain, as if to an idiot.
“No one ever takes a mezuzah away, not even goys. It’s schlimazel, taboo, bad luck. Goys just paint over them.” She paused to retrieve the cigarette from the floor, wiping it lovingly on her sleeve. “And did you see it, not just taken off but desecrated, hurt.” She started praying again and daubing her eyes. “It’s shlekht. Beyz. Shlekht. Evil.”
* * *
—
Two hours later Hector was allowed to retreat upstairs on the strict understanding that should she scream, shout, or bang on her ceiling, he was to come and rescue her. Exactly from whom or what was never discussed. She even said that for both their protection he could retrieve the poker from wherever it had fallen. At one point during their one-sided conversation it was subtly suggested that maybe they should spend the night sleeping in the same apartment. Hector had seen it coming and dodged it, skating deftly on his supposed ill health and her duty to protect his well-being. He also told her that he was expecting Solli and some of his gang later, and he was sure that they would provide much more security than he could ever offer. That had been the only thing he said that had given her any solace since the appalling incident. She opened the door with a bread knife in her hand and quickly pushed Hector through the sliver of a gap, pulling the door to and fastening many bolts and latches.
It was dark and very cold outside. Frost was beginning to gleam in the early moonlight that picked out some of the edges of the flights. For a moment he thought about going back down to retrieve her poker and gain some confidence against his previous actions. He took one step down and stopped. Only half the stairwell could be seen where the moon shone in through the railed verandas. The other half was pitch black, making a distorted and discordant zebra pattern of the stairwell. He would have to pass through one of these impenetrable areas to turn the corner and see the door directly below him. The poker lay farther down in another realm of shadow. He changed his mind. It was more sensible to seek it in daylight or to ask Solli’s boys to use one of their lamps. He moved rapidly upwards without ever noticing that he passed through an equal area of darkness without any qualms at all. Once inside, he locked his door and found that there were several bolts he had never noticed before.
* * *
—
Solli’s mob arrived noisily on the stairs. Their boisterous clatter let both of the upper occupants breathe again, and by the time they were rapping on Hector’s door, Betty Fishburn was standing right behind them.
“I’ll tell ya that it’s true, it’s shlekht down there.”
“Yes, Ma, we heard ya.”
Hector opened the door and the posse shivered in with much theatrical shaking of coats and hats. Mrs. Fishburn had embedded herself at the centre of the cold flapping scrum.
“It’s monkeys out there,” said one of the men, making for the fire.
“There are monkeys?” said Hector, looking over their shoulders. Some of the men laughed.
The one called Albi said, “Yeah, brass monkeys, Prof.”
“Yeh, taters,” said another.
Hector had been caught in one of these meaningless spirals of nonsensical and apparently comic words before, and decided to leave this one well alone. The last time he had been left in the company of these three grinning boys there had been some confusion about names, which had caused great and mystifying hilarity in them. He had now caught the tail end of one of their whispered conversations.
“That makes us the three bears.”
Then they saw that the old man had heard them.
“Just a story, Prof,” said Albi.
“Yeah. Just a joke, Professor Barnet,” said the one called Jerry, and the others sniggered foolishly.
“My name is not Barnet, it’s Schumann,” said Hector, very seriously.
This instantly produced uncontrollable giggles in the rough men.
“Is it Irish?” asked one.
“No, no, it’s German, but I thought you knew that.”
This produced even greater laughter.
“What is so funny about that?” Hector demanded.
He never got his answer that time because Solli arrived and the gang quickly sobered up. So it had been about bears and now monkeys and taters, which he knew was a kind of potato. He had no idea what these insolent young men were talking about, but took a wild guess anyway.
“You must mean it’s cold,” he said.
They were just about to cream the debate when Mrs. Fishburn launched in, pushing them aside.
“Tell Solli about the noises and the smashed mezuzah.”
Solli gave Hector a quick hidden look of total disinterest.
“There were some very unusual noises coming from downstairs. I wondered, could it be a family moving in?” said Hector carefully.
“A family?” screeched the suddenly deranged Mrs. Fishburn. “What kind of fucking family sounds like that and desecrates a home before they move in?”
Albi and Jerry clamped their hands over their ears in mock horror of her foul language.
“Whoo, that’s a bit strong, Ma.”
“I’ll give you fucking strong and I ain’t your ma,” she squawked back.
Hector retreated closer to the fire and His Nibs.
“They were very strange noises,” he said, darting glances at the furious woman. “And the scroll was cut or hammered off the door.”
A glimmer of interest flickered over Solli’s face.
“Malki, Jerry, go take a look.” He fished in his pocket and took out a ring of keys, selected one, pointed to it until they nodded, then threw them the ring. At the door Jerry put his coat over his head and made moaning noises in a music hall travesty of a haunting lost soul. Their laughing could be heard again in the echoing stairwell.
“You have keys to doors downstairs?” said Hector.
“Those are my keys to all doors.”
And before any more questions were sported, he said, “And whose is this little beauty?,” whipping the lost poker out from under his coat.
“Mine,” declared Mrs. Fishburn, rushing forward to retrieve her valuable weapon. “He was s’pose to get it for me,” she snapped, sending dagger looks at Hector, who was stroking his beard.
“It was dark and slippery out there, and it seemed the wrong time to go searching for it,” he said.
“Very wise,” said Solli, much to Mrs. Fishburn’s irritation. “We can’t have you falling arse over tit out there, specially with all the ghosts and all. Uncle Hymie would never forgive me if you got hurt.” He shot a glance at the fuming harridan, which quenched her anger like a bucket of stale water.
“Now, Ma, what about a drink to warm me and the boys up?” He poked his thumb towards Hector, indicating that he too was one of the boys. It was clear that it was not a question, not a request, but an order.
She looked anxiously at the door.
“Albi, go with her.”
When they were alone Solli asked Hector what he really thought was going on. Hector shrugged.
“Somebody living secretly down there? I have no idea.”
“With strange noises,” added Solli.
“Yes and…well…a sense of foreboding.”
“Foreboding,” said Solli, repeating and tasting a word that he had never said before.
A few minutes later Malki and Jerry appeared at the door.
“Well?” said Solli from his place by the fire.
“Nothing, nothing, boss,” said the subdued Malki, blowing on his fingers and coming into the room.
“What kind of nothing?” insisted Solli.
“Just nothing, not a trace of anything. Nobody’s been down there in years.”
Jerry was averting his eyes, showing great interest in the floor, and everybody saw it.
“Key,” said Solli, holding out his hand.
Jerry crossed the room with the keys and handed them to His Nibs. Solli seized his wrist and looked up into the younger man’s face.
“If there’s nothing down there, what’s got you so rattled?”
“Nothing,” said Jerry.
Solli twisted his wrist back against the joint and in that fraction of a second his entire personality switched into the razor ice of his potency. The hair trigger automatically cocked.
“Don’t fucking lie to me, what’s down there?”
“Nothing, boss, it’s just fucking creepy, that’s all.”
Solli let go of his wrist so that Jerry was propelled back, away from the strain. Solli had the jingling keys in his irritated fist and turned to look at Hector, who was shocked by the speed and savageness of his guardian’s reaction.
“Foreboding,” he said, and was up and striding across the room and down the stairs before anybody could catch their breath. There was a nasty silence in Hector’s room for the next ten minutes. He looked at the fire. Jerry rubbed his wrist.
The metal tips of Solli’s heels could be heard striking the cold steps as he ran back up the flights to Hector’s door. He made a darting beeline for the fire.
“Monkeys out there,” he said, warming his hands.
All eyes were on him and after a while he turned to confront them.
“Nothing, fucking nothing,” he said, and the matter was closed.
* * *
—
Two days later Hector’s reading was disturbed by a thumping coming through his floor.
“Oh, not again,” he said to himself, and with great reticence heaved himself out of his comfortable armchair. He huffed loudly as he dragged his coat on and made his way down to the origin of the banging. Again he was pulled through the crevice-like gap in the door. At least she was fully dressed this time. She brought him to the centre of the room, where all the worn but spotlessly clean rugs had been pulled away to expose the bare floorboards. She nodded at the floor and he turned his head to listen.
“No,” she whispered. “It ain’t no noise.”
Hector hung limp and annoyed. “What then?” he said.
“Can’t ya smell it?”
“Smell?” he said.
She nodded at the boards again and he cocked his nose to keep her happy. Then he smelt it. He quickly looked around her apartment, especially at the kitchen, where nothing was happening. He then bowed closer to the floor and knew she was right; it was coming from below.
“Cooking,” he said, and she nodded violently in agreement.
It was ten thirty in the morning and the winter sun was bright and clear outside, and the “foreboding” cooking smelt like chicken.
“This is ridiculous,” said Hector. He marched out of her apartment and down the stairs to the desecrated door. It was slightly open and he entered without a thought to confront this continual nuisance, whatever it was. The smell of roasting chicken filled the rooms, which he quickly observed were unremarkable and almost an exact copy of his own, even to a north-facing window, which seems out of place on the second floor. Then he heard a noise coming from the kitchen and for the first time felt a chill of unease. He gathered himself, gritting his teeth as he turned the corner. Jerry was sitting on a low stool next to the oven, his arms wrapped around his skinny knees. He jumped when he saw Hector.
“Oh, fuck, don’t do that, Prof, nearly scared the drek outta me.”
“Sorry, my boy, I did not know it was you. What are you doing here?”
Jerry shifted uncomfortably on the stool. “I’m cooking you a chicken.”
“A what?”
“A chicken.”
“But why, why here?”
“Because the boss said I had to. Said you would like it and the oven here was better than yours upstairs.”
Hector knew this was nothing to do with ovens or chickens. And that Jerry’s freezing vigil next to the warm oven in the bare room was no more than a ritual punishment or a test of his fibre and commitment.
He knew that Rabbi Solli was enjoying the idea of his young henchman shivering in this horrible place while the roasting bird spat and hissed in the barely adequate warm iron box.
“Leave it, for God’s sake, leave it,” said Hector, genuinely annoyed at Solli’s bullying.
“But I’ve got to do it.”
“Consider it done. Give it to me as it is and we won’t say another word about. Tell His Nibs that you achieved your objective and I will tell him it was delicious.”
Jerry’s confusion gradually turned into relief as he watched the professor walk towards the door.
“Let’s get out of here,” said Hector, turning and ready to go.
Jerry was out of his seat and turning the gas off and grabbing at the hot door in a second. He found his scarf and used it to retrieve the black dented metal tray with the half-cooked bird spitting and murmuring inside it. Together they left, locked the door, and climbed up to Hector’s room, passing the nose and one eye of Mrs. Fishburn at the crack of her door.
“Luncheon,” said Hector without stopping.
Jerry put the metal tray in Hector’s kitchen and then said, “Thanks, Prof. This is just between us, right?”
“Yes, Jerry, let’s not hear any more about it.”
On their farewell the young man gave Hector a key.
“What’s this for?”
“The boss said you were to ’ave it, just in case, like.”
And then he was gone, tearing down the stairwell, leaving the old man with the smell of chicken and Solli’s challenge in his hand.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
He was flushed and jittery and unaware of his lateness. Cyrena had been waiting outside, thinking that perhaps it had been her mistake. When she saw him, she knew it wasn’t.
He was wearing exactly the same clothes as yesterday only now more rumpled, as if he had been sleeping in them. Also he had not shaved and smelt strongly of the Abdulla cigarettes that he continually smoked.
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