Russell Hoban - My Tango With Barbara Strozzi

But as I was putting the zaddikim back on the shelf Rabbi Moshe Leib slipped out and said,

To know the needs of another and to bear the burden of their

sorrow, that is the true love .

‘We weren’t talking about love, Moshe,’ I said. ‘And besides, Troy Wallis is a big sorrow for Barbara and I’m bearing the burden like a true lover.’

‘So you’ll bash in his brains with your baseball bat, yes?’

‘Strictly in self-defence.’

‘Which means he’ll have to attack you.’

‘Or Barbara — the way it was in The Rainmaker .’

‘And what, he’ll also have a baseball bat?’

‘He doesn’t need one, he’s very big and very strong — he’s a professional bouncer. I’ll have to play it by ear and see how the situation develops.’

‘It sounds to me like a disaster waiting to happen.’

‘So tell me, Rabbi Moshe, from the depths of your wisdom, what should I do?’

‘Who knows? Sometimes a disaster is just something you have to get out of your system.’

‘With this kind of advice you became famous?’

‘I came off the shelf to talk to you about true love and sorrow, not baseball bats, OK? Your first priority is Barbara’s sorrow.’ And with that he was gone.

I was going to phone Phil before I left for work but then I didn’t; it was one of those times when I wasn’t exactly depressed but I was anxious and scared and sad: I didn’t know where I was with Phil and I didn’t know where I was in myself. Is the world real? I wondered. What is this that’s looking out of my eyes? ‘Never mind,’ I heard myself say. ‘Time to go to work.’

As always, I took the District Line to Notting Hill Gate where I changed to the Central Line. When I came out at Oxford Circus the ordinary rhythm of a July Thursday seemed to have been disrupted. Some people were walking quickly and looking anxious; others stood in little knots and talked with many gestures. Listening to them I learned that there had been bombs in the Underground. I tried to ring Phil on my mobile but the network had been shut down.

When I got to the Lichtheim brothers they had the radio on with all the details: three bombs in the Underground and one in a bus; many dead and injured and the Underground system was now shut down. I phoned Phil on the landline and got his answering machine. ‘Are you all right?’ I said. ‘Call me at work!’ then I thought that he might be out doing one of his workshops and not near a phone. Maybe in a tube train.

I was enraged by the bombings. I flung my arm out as if to push away this intrusion; how dared they do this to my London! Then as details kept pouring in my mind filled with the screams of the wounded and the panic of those climbing over bodies to walk the tracks in darkness. And more dead and injured in the double-decker bus that stood in the sunlight by Russell Square with its top blown off. My hands were shaking so badly that I couldn’t do anything with artificial eyes so Karl told me to go home. The sunny day was a mockery and the ordinariness of a London Thursday was gone. It was as if London was an anthill that had been kicked by a giant foot; there was nothing gigantic about the bombers, they were just creeps with evil minds. It was Terror that was the giant: Here I am, it said. I have always been here but now you will pay attention.

It was too early in the day for drinking but I badly wanted a drink. I headed for The Blue Posts knowing they’d be closed but hoping for sanctuary from the weirdness of the day. When I got there I found Grace Kowalski looking at the closed doors and shaking her head. ‘I know it’s too early,’ she said, ‘but I feel like drinking and I don’t want to do it alone.’

‘Bombers evidently can’t disturb the British licensing laws,’ I said.

‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘Come up to my place and we’ll do early drinking not alone.’

The baseball bat in its velvet sheath was slung from her shoulder as before. ‘I see that Irv is with you,’ I said.

‘Always.’

‘I hope some day to hear Irv’s history.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Grace. ‘It’s a matter of how much disbelief you can suspend. Do you work out?’

‘No. Why?’

‘Suspending enough disbelief to believe Irv’s history would be roughly equivalent to pressing four hundred pounds.’

‘Maybe I could suspend a little each day and gradually work my way up to the full whack.’

‘We’ll see,’ said Grace. The shop was closed; we went up the stairs to the studio. The place smelled of soldering and unknown chemicals. On the workbench were coils of brass and silver wire, various small pliers and cutters, and boxes filled with bits of coloured glass. In the vice was an unfinished angel brooch, brilliantly bejewelled. On the workbench lay a goat done in yellow, orange and brown glass. It was a longhaired goat like the one in the William Holman Hunt painting.

‘Scapegoat?’ I said.

‘Right,’ said Grace.

‘Odd thing for someone to wear.’

‘I have odd customers.’

‘There’s a verse in Leviticus that tells how Aaron put all the iniquities and sins of the children of Israel on the head of the goat and drove it out into the wilderness.’

‘To Azazel,’ said Grace, ‘the demon of the desert.’

‘So who’s ordered this goat?’

‘I’m not at liberty to say. But there are a lot of deserts about, and where there’s a desert you’ll find Azazel. Drink is next on the programme: all I have is vodka.’

‘Didn’t you say that the ravages of time had forced you to switch to beer?’

‘I lied,’ she said. She went to the fridge and took a bottle of Stolichnaya from the freezer. She poured two glasses and we clinked. ‘Here’s looking at you,’ said Grace.

‘Here’s looking right back.’ The cold vodka went down my neck beautifully, and after the third glass it seemed the icy blast of pure reason. ‘Your bat’s named after one some,’ I said. ‘Someone.’

Grace nodded. ‘Irv Goodman. Fell in love too late.’

‘With you?’

‘With me. He was eighty-three.’

‘Ah.’

‘We were both in the nick and he got pneumonia and died a week after they let us go.’

‘I’m sorry. Why were you in the nick?’

‘DI Hunter didn’t believe what we told him and he was pissed off so he locked us up.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘You wouldn’t believe it either.’

‘Anything to do with vumpires, ampires?’

‘Maybe, but not the usual kind — there’s a batrachian elephant, element.’

‘What’s a batrachian elephant?’

‘Frogs and toads. Am I making myself queer?’

‘Transparently but can leave it for another time. Now think I’ll go home and have little lie-down.’

Getting home wasn’t easy — the Underground was shut down and taxis were not to be had. I walked for a long time and then stood by the curb looking hopeful and was finally picked up by a man on a red Yamaha who lived in Hammersmith and chivalrously dropped me at my door.

I got there just in time for a throw-up before the lie-down. Up came breakfast and vodka, the bombs in the Underground and bus, the dead and the injured, my morning sadness and everything else.

I slept until almost five, realised I didn’t know if Phil was all right, and rang him up. I got his answering machine and left a message for him to phone me. Then I made a coffee and waited for the phone to ring. After the third cup it rang. ‘Barbara,’ said Phil, ‘are you all right?’

‘I’m OK. I was nowhere near any explosions. What about you?’

‘I’m OK. It’s a surreal kind of day and I haven’t really taken it in yet. I’m at Euston, about to leave for Scotland.’