Russell Hoban - Linger Awhile

It’s a long ride to Golders Green and I had to change at Camden Town to the Edgware train. Up the steps and across through a crush of faces and footsteps and down again to the other platform. There was an Edgware train with its doors open and in I went. Not very many people this time. Chalk Farm, Belsize Park, Hampstead. Hampstead Heath was where I once walked with Luise von Himmelbett. We sat on a bench high up on the Heath with a view of London down below us. There are ghosts of me all over this town.

When next I looked out of the window we were above ground, in a long grey stretch of railroad-yard looking things and wintry afternoon daylight. Then here came Golders Green station. The last time I’d been there was years ago when I needed some Jewish records from Jerusalem the Golden.

I went down the stairs and out into the winter sky (very high and open, with gold-tinted clouds) and the last part of the day. Brightly lit newsagents and snack shops led me out of the station into lights and traffic and crossings and railings and the Finchley Road. After the cramped closeness of Soho it all seemed very wide and spread out and strange to me. Elijah’s Lucky Dragon was only a short walk from the station, between Leverton and Sons Ltd, Independent Funeral Directors since 1789, and The Gate Lodge pub. I wouldn’t have minded dropping in for a quick one but The Gate Lodge sounded like designer beers and careful drinkers and the pub front was red with hanging plants and yellow outlines on the panels and windows, all very charming. I don’t like charming and I don’t like careful drinkers. I like pubs plain and dark and old-fashioned with names like The Hand of Glory, The Spade and Coffin and The Jolly Sandboys. With serious drinkers. There was a bus stop nearby with dark huddles of people and buses coming and going. In this cold northern twilight the buses looked larger and redder than the ones in my part of town.

The sign on Rosalie Chun’s restaurant was a green neon dragon wearing a yarmulke. The red neon lettering was that Chu-Chin-Chow cuneiform they used in movie titles back in the 1930s and it was still being used as recently as The World of Suzie Wong in the 1950s.

I looked through the glass door and saw the chairs up on the tables and a black man mopping the floor. I tapped on the glass and he came to the door shaking his head. ‘ Shabbas ,’ he said. ‘We’re closed.’

‘ You’re working,’ I said.

‘I’m the schwartzer ,’ he said.

‘Can you tell me where the Chuns live?’ I asked him.

‘Why?’

‘I’m a friend of Chauncey Lim’s, he’s staying with them. Justine Trimble too.’

‘Who are you?’

‘Istvan Fallok.’

‘Wait here,’ he said, and disappeared. I turned around and watched the traffic. There wasn’t much. After about five minutes he came back. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Go to the side entrance and ring the bell.’

‘You’re very careful,’ I said. ‘Been having any trouble here?’

He shook his head and went back to his mopping.

I went round and found two bells, one above the other. No names. It was a three-storey building. I rang the bottom bell. ‘Yes?’ said a man’s voice.

I told him who I was and said I’d come to see Justine.

‘Ring the other bell,’ he said.

This time Chauncey Lim answered. ‘What?’ he said.

‘It’s me,’ I said, ‘Istvan.’

He buzzed me in and I went up the stairs to the second floor. There was a mezuzah on the doorpost so I touched my fingers first to my lips, then to the little metal cylinder. When Chauncey opened the door he didn’t seem very glad to see me. ‘Did you kiss the mezuzah?’ he said.

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘I’m a multicultural kind of goy. Why? Have you converted to Judaism?’

‘No, but you needn’t be flippant. When the Lord smote all the firstborns in the land of Egypt, he passed over the houses of the children of Israel where they’d smeared the blood of the Paschal lamb on the doorposts as instructed by Moses. The mezuzah is a reminder of that.’

‘Wow,’ I said. ‘Did you read that in a fortune cookie?’

‘All right,’ said Chauncey, ‘you can make jokes all you like but blood is a serious thing.’

‘Tell me about it,’ I said.

‘Hear, O Israel!’ said a strange voice. There was a parrot in a large cage in a corner of the room.

‘That’s Elijah,’ said Chauncey. ‘He’s a member of the Chun family.’

‘Handsome bird,’ I said. ‘African grey?’

‘Tishbite,’ said Elijah. ‘First Kings, not dew nor rain.’

‘Rosalie does Bible readings with him,’ said Chauncey.

‘My word,’ said Elijah.

‘OK already,’ said Chauncey.

‘Some of my best friends are goyim ,’ said Elijah.

‘Great,’ I said, ‘but I still wouldn’t want my sister to marry a parrot.’

‘Why didn’t you phone before coming?’ said Chauncey. ‘Is everything all right?’

‘Everything’s fine,’ I said. ‘I just didn’t want you to make any preparations.’ I gave him the whisky.

‘Thanks,’ he said. He turned his back on Elijah and lowered his voice. ‘Has H-U-N-T-E-R been around again?’

‘Not yet. Where’s Justine?’

‘Napping. She sleeps a lot.’ He looked as if he might say more but didn’t. He got two glasses and poured the Glenfiddich.

‘ L’haim ,’ said Elijah.

‘Cheers,’ said Chauncey without much enthusiasm.

‘Here’s to romance,’ I said.

He laughed in a small way. ‘That’s right: all you need is love.’

‘How is she?’ I said. ‘Are you topping her up or is she hunting?’

‘Neither. Rosalie’s been feeding her kosher Chinese plus Golem broth and gosky patties Ba’al Shem Tov and she seems to be thriving on it — she’s even put on a pound or two.’

‘Wonderful! And she’s not losing colour?’

‘No, she’s looking great.’

‘Phwoarr,’ said Elijah.

‘When do I get to see her?’ I said to Chauncey.

‘She’ll be out in a minute or two. Have you been around to my place at all?’

‘Yes. Couple of messages on your door.’ I gave them to him.

‘Customers wanting to know about their orders,’ he said. ‘I’ll get back to work soon.’

‘And Justine? What’s our next move with her?’

‘Rosalie says she can stop here indefinitely. She and Justine have become great chums.’

‘What about Rosalie’s husband? Does he mind Justine’s being here indefinitely?’

‘Lester Chun isn’t at home very much,’ said Chauncey. ‘He travels a lot.’

We sat there with our drinks not making much eye contact while I looked around the room.

‘You looking at me?’ said Elijah.

‘No,’ I said, ‘just the room.’ White walls and only one picture, a Chagall lithograph with an elongated female nude slanting to the right while being admired by a standing-on-air black cock with an inner man. Perhaps a full moon up above, perhaps an Eiffel tower down below, a man’s face at the base? Looking at the picture I began to hear klezmer music in my mind. I thought of Luise von Himmelbett whom I loved a long time ago. And was unfaithful to. And lost. Maybe loss is the main action of the universe and we’re here because the universe wants us to experience it. So why did I bring Justine Trimble out of my primordial soup? And why was I a little jealous of Chauncey Lim? I looked at the kelim under my feet and the pattern didn’t do anything, didn’t move forward and back like the optical-illusion bathroom tiles of my childhood.

‘Yo, Uncle Ish,’ said Justine as she came into the room. She looked great and gave me a hug and a kiss. Her breath stank and when she stepped back she looked a little wild, the way she did when she came home on the night she killed Rose Harland and had sex with two different men afterward. ‘Anything I can do for you?’ she said. ‘Chauncey won’t mind, will you, Chaunce?’