Charles Lewinsky - Melnitz

‘Omeyn,’ said Uncle Melnitz.

When Widmer poured water over his head for the third time, some of it dripped onto his silk tie. François would have liked to wipe it off, but didn’t know if that would have been correct or not.

All of a sudden it was so strangely quiet. Or had it been as quiet as that for a long time?

‘Why are you stopping, Landolt?’

‘We’re there, Herr Meijer.’

The flat smelled of chremsels, the sweet pastry without which Pesach can never be quite complete — ‘Ah, yes, Pesach,’ thought François — and from the kitchen, where fat Christine had not reigned for some time, there came the distant clatter of a frying pan.

Time and again the room in the Baden flat had assumed new functions, like a person without any particular gifts whom life drives from job to job. It had been a sewing room and the dying room of Uncle Salomon. When Chanele had had her kidney complaint and needed round-the-clock care, the nurse had lived in it, a severe woman who, it turned out later, had the curious habit of marking her presence with a pencilled line on the wallpaper beside the bed, a prisoner waiting to be released.

Now it was Janki’s office; by the window there stood a desk covered with papers, and hanging on the wall was the picture of François Delormes that had hung for all those years in the back room of the French Fabric Warehouse, the portrait of a saint. It wasn’t a painting, just a cutting from an illustrated magazine, but Janki had still had it very lavishly framed.

‘Where is Mama?’ asked François.

‘She’s bringing Arthur to the station.’

‘Arthur?’

‘He paid us a surprise visit. Because it’s Chol HaMoed. You remember?’

Of course François remembered. Chol HaMoed is the time between the ‘front’ and the ‘back’ feast days, where the yontev takes a break but everyday life isn’t yet quite in control again.

‘And what did he want?’

‘To convince me that the French Fabric Warehouse should donate a flag to his gymnastic association. That would be a good advertisement, he said.’

‘Did you tell him you don’t need any more advertisements?’

Janki shook his head. ‘It’s not signed yet.’

‘But you’re going to sign?’

‘I want you to take another look at the contracts. You know these things better than I do.’ Janki took a narrow bundle of papers from the desk and walked to the dining room ahead of his eldest son.

‘He’s getting old,’ thought François.

The walking stick with lion’s-head handle was still the same, but when Janki Meijer used it to support himself, it was no longer an elegant gesture, but instead an unpleasant necessity. His right leg, which had always dragged a little, had been really painful for some time, and had simply bent several times for no discernible reason. The stick, once an ornament and now a tool, proved less than suited to its new task. When Janki, fighting to keep his balance, gripped the handle too tightly, the carved mane of the lion’s head left painful marks in the palm of his hand. None the less, Janki would never have swapped his stick for another; it would have been like giving up a part of his character.

‘Pain?’ asked François.

‘Everything’s fine.’

‘Even your leg?’

‘Couldn’t be better.’

‘I had the impression…’

‘That’s the old war wound. It’s only natural that I should feel it from time to time.’

Janki had never been in a battle in the war of 1870–71, and had certainly never been wounded. But François didn’t contradict his father. Everyone has the right to turn himself into whatever he wants.

The dining room, he was always surprised to notice, was much smaller than he remembered. Even the table — tropical wood! — was a perfectly ordinary table. The tantalus still stood on the sideboard, the half-full crystal jug in its silver prison. Since his childhood the level of the golden liquid locked in it hadn’t changed. ‘What’s actually in there?’ asked François.

‘I don’t know. I’ve never had a key for it.’

The contracts were sound. The French Warehouse and the Modern Emporium were bought by Paul Schnegg, a son of the rich Schneggs who also owned the House of the Red Shield, and whose parents François had once met at an unfortunate soirée. Schnegg took over the shops as they were, and wanted to go on running at least the Modern Emporium. There wouldn’t even be a closing-down sale. The price was good, and Janki would invest the money in François’s firm.

‘What does Mama have to say about that?’

‘I’ve been working for forty years,’ said Janki. ‘Haven’t I earned a bit of peace?’

‘So she didn’t agree.’

‘It’s a purely business decision.’ Janki carefully arranged the papers that François hadn’t even discomposed. ‘And it will do her good too. We will travel. A spa treatment by a lake, and later perhaps Italy.’

‘So everything’s all right?’

‘Everything’s all right.’

There must have been violent arguments between his parents, François was quite sure of that. The store had been the content of Chanele’s life. What was she supposed to do without her shop?

But the decision was sensible, and good sense has to govern decisions in business matters. Just good sense, no emotions.

Clear conditions. Clear rules. Clear decisions.

Anything else was unfair.

Damn it, it was unfair.

He had turned up at Landolt’s the following day. With his baptismal certificate in his pocket.

Landolt smiled, offered him a chair and pushed the cigarette case with the family crest over the table.

The family crest that made him something better just because it also hung in some guildhall or other.

How he hated this man.

‘What brings me this unexpected pleasure, Herr Meijer?’ asked Landolt and coughed into his handkerchief.

Cleaned his glasses awkwardly before putting them on again.

Then studied the baptismal certificate as thoroughly as a scholar studies a document in a foreign language.

Even held it up to the light.

Folded the paper up again and set it precisely in the middle of the table. A poker player putting down his bet.

But games have rules, and Landolt wasn’t sticking to them.

He took his glasses off again and said:

He said it in a very friendly voice.

As if it were really a question.

Said: ‘May I ask why you’re showing me this?’

‘The property. You couldn’t sell it to a Jew.’

‘Ah,’ said Landolt and shook his head regretfully. ‘It’s really almost a shame. But you see, my dear Herr Meijer: even a baptised Jew is still a Jew.’

‘Damn it, Landolt! Drive!’

Mimi ate liqueur chocolates for medical reasons. Dr Wertheim had actually prescribed port for her frail constitution, but Mimi couldn’t stomach alcohol — ‘I will never understand how anyone can enjoy getting tiddly!’ — and actually had to force herself at least to take the recommended stimulant in this form. If she now put the fourth of these balls of sweetness into her mouth, it was entirely Désirée’s fault.

You trust your children, you make sacrifices for them, and then something like this happens!

She had become quite dizzy with excitement, and her migraine was announcing its presence again. She drew little circles on her temples with her fingertips, leaving fine traces of chocolate.

‘Good that you’re back, Désirée,’ she said and smiled tragically. ‘So you’ve been out with Esther Weill?’

‘Yes, Mama,’ said Désirée, looking rather surprised. Esther Weill, of the shoe-shop Weill’s, was her best friend, and Mimi had never before objected to the two of them going walking or visiting exhibitions together.