Charles Lewinsky - Melnitz

She had just sat down — ‘but really just a moment’ — when to her surprise she caught sight of Esther, who was on her way to the store-room with a stack of cardboard boxes.

‘Oh, so you’re both back already?’

‘Yes, we’re. That is: we didn’t… we hadn’t arranged to see each other.’

Herr Weill shooed his stammering daughter into the store-room. As proud of his educational principles as he was of his talents as a salesman, he was about to launch into a lengthy sermon on the text, ‘First work, then pleasure,’ but Frau Pomeranz was suddenly in a great hurry, had forgotten an important appointment and would have to try on the elegant clasp shoe, narrow foot or no narrow foot, some other time.

‘Never interrupt another sales conversation of mine!’ Herr Weill told his daughter, and couldn’t understand why Esther kept bursting into uncontrollable tears over even such a mild reproach.

When Désirée came home, Mimi was lying on the chaise-longue, with a damp cloth on her forehead.

‘Headache, Mama?’

‘Ah, if only it were a migraine… Did you have a nice day, ma petite?’

‘It’s getting a bit cool, up in the forest.’

‘I can imagine,’ said Mimi in a pained voice, ‘and it will soon get much colder.’

‘Shall I bring you a cup of tea?’

‘Not necessary, ma petite.’ Mimi took the cloth from her forehead and put it back in the bowl of cooling lemon water. ‘Sit and join me for a moment, there, on the cushion, and tell your mother all the things you’ve done today.

And so Désirée told the story of how Esther and her nameless admirer had met at the deer park, and how happy they had been to see one another again. It had been another nine days since the last time, ‘and nine days is a terribly long time if you’re in love, I think.’

‘So you think they love each other?’

There could be no doubt whatsoever as far as Désirée was concerned. She herself had not yet experienced anything of the kind herself, she wasn’t the one who was in love, it was Esther, but if you saw the way the two of them held hands and wouldn’t let go, the way they kissed…

‘Ah,’ Mimi cut in, ‘So they kiss?’

Désirée had promised her friend never to betray that to anyone, ‘but you can keep a secret, can’t you, Mama?’

‘ Certainement ,’ said Mimi, no one could be more discreet than she. She had sat up, and only her hand, which kept clenching on a handkerchief, showed that there was anything wrong.

Désirée described how shy the two of them had been the very first time they kissed, how clumsy they had been for a long time. ‘Once he almost knocked the hat off her head, just imagine!’ — and how they then gradually, and more and more…

‘Practice makes perfect, you mean.’

Yes, you could put it that way.

‘And you watch them?’

No, of course not. Désirée was discreet, and left the two of them alone. She preferred to go back around the corner and warn the lovers if a walker was approaching. She had developed a special whistle, like the one used on Shabbos when you’re not allowed to use the doorbell. No, she didn’t watch them kissing, she certainly didn’t, what was Mama thinking of, but Esther was her best friend, and had told her exactly what it was like when one…

‘And? What is it like?’

Wonderful, Esther had said, it wonderful. You came so close to one another, and at that moment you knew that you belonged together, ‘I don’t think you can kiss a man if you don’t love him.’ Because you also tasted and smelled, and there’s that expression, ‘someone not being to your taste’, and if someone wasn’t to your taste, Désirée assumed, then you couldn’t kiss him either. Yes, and then there was a funny story to tell: the young man, Esther’s friend, always sucked peppermint pastilles before they met, ‘isn’t that very funny, Mama?’

Mimi didn’t laugh.

‘So the two of them know that they belong together?’

Désirée was quite sure of that. She had seen the two of them often enough, and they complimented each other as well as… as… ‘As well as you and Papa. I’m sure you knew from the beginning as well…’

Not quite from the beginning, thought Mimi.

And they would overcome all obstacles, Esther had said. Even if their families were firmly opposed to the idea, nothing could ever tear them apart.

‘Why should their families be opposed?’

‘Beause he…’

‘Yes?’

But Désirée had promised her friend not to tell, or else she might as well tell Mimi the name straight away. And she had already told her far too much.

‘ Non, ma petite ,’ said Mimi, and her voice had suddenly shed all its migraine and weakness. ‘You’ve talked quite enough already.’

And then she talked about a delivery of English gentlemen’s boots — she said ‘gentlemen’s boots’ in the same frighteningly friendly tone in which she had said ‘whale jawbone’ not so long ago — a surprise delivery that had had to be cleared away immediately, first work, then pleasure, which was why Esther Weill had stayed at home for the whole afternoon, without a rendezvous, and without a walk and hand-holding and kissing. And now Mimi wanted to know, she wanted to know right now, who had met whom by the deer enclosure, who had kissed whom, and who the man was, this strange man whose name she was not allowed to know because the families would be opposed. ‘No more lies!’

Désirée’s resistance held out for only a few minutes.

She had always been an obedient daughter; even as a baby, if you believed the stories, she had cried less than others. Mimi had waited for a child for two decades, and had — she had so much to catch up on — been resolved from the first day to be a perfect mother. She shielded and protected Désirée so zealously that Pinchas had said to her more than once that even falling over was something that such a child needed to learn. Even later, when Hinda’s children, who were of a quite different temperament, turned the whole flat upside down, Désirée showed so little interest in pranks and adventures that Lea and Rachel derisorily called her ‘Mammatitti’. She had never learned to stand up to her mother, and if she tried to, a reference to the tortures that Mimi had suffered during her labour was quite enough to make her give up again straight away. All the lies of the past few months had only been possible because she had been telling the truth the whole time, she hadn’t invented anything, she had just given her experiences a different name, had said ‘Esther’ when she meant ‘I’, and had been happy somehow to be able to confide her secret in her mother in this way.

She tried silence, pressed her eyes firmly shut the way little children do when they want to make something threatening disappear, and couldn’t keep the tears from flowing down her face.

‘Don’t ask me, Mama, please don’t ask me,’ she said again and again, but Mimi was more furious than Désirée had ever seen her, not so much with her daughter, even though she had told her monstrous lies, but much more with herself for allowing herself to be lied to, for having been blind and stupid, for having played along like an idiot, for giving good advice, for being led around by the nose. There could never be forgiveness for it, not for her and not for Désirée either.

At last she gave in.

Yes, it had been her, she herself, Désirée sobbed, it had been her the whole time, but she hadn’t been able to say so, because it would have been forbidden her, and she wouldn’t have survived that, no, she would rather have jumped from a bridge than give this man up. ‘You don’t know what it’s like when you love someone, Mama, you can’t know, or you wouldn’t look at me like that. But it’s my life and not yours, and I’m not going to let anybody break it.’