Charles Lewinsky - Melnitz

‘Herr Meijer is a Protestant,’ said Landolt.

‘Of course,’ the boy answered and spat artfully just in front of the chauffeur’s feet. ‘And this is a horse-drawn carriage.’

With her lame leg it was hard for Mina to climb the stairs. None the less, she would have nothing of Alfred’s proffered arm. The rejection seemed to upset him, and she regretted her own inflexibility. ‘It’s not you,’ she said quickly. ‘I’ve just got used to doing things for myself.’

When at last they reached the third floor, François had already rung the bell and gone in. Mina took her son’s head between her hands — she practically had to stretch, because Alfred was already far taller than she was — drew him down to her and tried to smile encouragingly. ‘Things will go on somehow.’

‘Somehow,’ Alfred repeated. It didn’t sound convinced.

When he came into the room, Désirée gave a start as if she wanted to run towards him or away from him, but Pinchas hand still rested on her shoulder and wouldn’t let go.

They greeted one another formally and without warmth, delegates from enemy countries who are forced for diplomatic reasons to meet in a last bid for peace, even though both sides are already arming for war. Zalman was right: this was not a coffee party, it was a conference.

‘Let’s sit down,’ he said. Chair-legs scraped like gun carriages along the parquet floor.

The seating arrangement arose quite naturally: on one side the Meijers, on the other the Pomeranzes, Alfred and Désirée each flanked by their parents, just as miscreants are guarded by severe police officers in court. Désirée kept her head lowered the whole time and ran her fingernail repeatedly along a starched fold in the table-cloth. Alfred studied the mizrach panel on the opposite wall. Zalman, as master of the house and, as an experienced negotiator, moderator of the discussion, had taken his seat on the narrow side of the table by the window. Arthur was left with the seat at the opposite end of the table, with his back to the door, and unable to push his chair too far back in case anyone suddenly came in. Hinda sat down at a corner of the table, ready to get up at any moment and fetch something they’d forgotten from the kitchen.

‘Who will have a piece of cake?’ she asked.

François pushed his plate aside in a gesture of refusal, the others mutely shook their heads, and only Pinchas was polte enough to say, ‘Thank you very much, Hinda. It’s very kind of you, but… this really isn’t the moment.’

‘In that case…’ Zalman began.

‘I’d like a piece of cake,’ said Alfred.

It was a challenge, quite clearly. He wasn’t concerned about the cake — how could one be hungry in such a situation? — he just wanted to demonstrate that he was not prepared from the outset to accept any decisions that were made here.

‘Stop it!’ his father hissed at him.

Alfred didn’t seem to hear him. He held his plate out to Hinda and said, ‘I loved your cakes even as a child.’

François brought his fist down on the table.

Hinda, with the cake slice already in her hand, looked from one to the other and didn’t know what to do.

François slowly opened his fist again, one finger at a time. His face twisted into a smile, although one that didn’t reach his eyes. Hinda was familiar with his apparently friendly expression. Even as a child her brother had always put it on when he was genuinely furious. ‘Can we start now?’ he asked. His voice was flat, he was probably trying to hold his breath to keep from shouting.

‘In that case…’ Zalman tried to start again, but Alfred cut him off again.

‘One moment, please, Uncle Zalman,’ he said, and his smile was as ruthlessly polite as his father’s. ‘There are temptations that I cannot resist.’

Arthur was the only one who noticed Désirée blushing at these words.

‘So if you will be so kind, Aunt Hinda,’ said Alfred, and held his plate out to her again.

Hinda hesitated. Like everyone else at the table she sensed: there was an argument going on here, in which one didn’t want to take sides.

Désirée raised her head into the silence. Her voice quivered slightly. ‘I’d like a piece of cake too,’ she said quietly, looking only at Alfred.

To gloss over the tension of the moment, apart from François everyone suddenly said they actually did want some cake after all, and of course they would have to have coffee to go with it. Under the pretext of making themselves useful, Lea and Rachel used the opportunity to welcome their relatives, who had gathered together for such a sensational occasion, and at the same time to inspect them as inconspicuously as possible. Back in their room they then had a violent discussion about whether Désirée’s eyes had really been red with tears.

It was only when the plates and the pleasantries — ‘Your cake gets better all the time, my dear Hinda!’ — had been finally cleared away that they got to the subject. It quickly became apparent that apart from the couple involved, everyone shared the same opinion: what was happening between Désirée and Alfred was impossible. Absolutely impossible. Admittedly the pair were not so closely related that an association between them needed to be ruled out for that reason, but, well, all right, it simply didn’t fit.

But the reasons that the two fathers gave for this shared conviction were completely different.

François, the businessman, based his argument on the chances that Alfred would throw away his whole life through an ill-considered liaison. He listed all the advantages that his son enjoyed at present: freshman in an exclusive student fraternity, links with the best families in the city, endless business contacts, just because he no longer bore the stigma of…

‘Stigma?’ Pinchas spat the word out like a stone that’s found its way into the jam. ‘I must ask you not to use such treyfeneh expressions.’

‘Call it what you like. It won’t alter the facts. As a Christian Alfred has all the opportunities that I never did.’

‘You pauper! One can see that you’re on the brink of starvation!’ said Hinda, even though she had made a firm resolution to stay out of the debate.

‘This isn’t about me!’

‘Ah,’ said Mimi, ‘then that would be the first time!’

‘It’s about my son.’

‘You should have thought of him before you dragged him along to be geshmat.’

‘I’m not willing to talk to you about this matter. That I had myself baptised that time…’

‘Geshmat,’ Mimi insisted.

‘… is no one’s business. It was my quite personal decision!’

‘But not his.’

Alfred adopted such an studiedly indifferent expression that the argument at the table might have been about some insignificant namesake.

‘I did what was best for him,’ said François, and Mimi laughed the pinched laugh used to express contempt in social comedies at the Stadtheater. ‘ Chrétiens — cretins,’ she murmured, and nodded several times, as if the profound truth in this similarity between the two words had only just struck her.

‘We won’t get any further like this,’ Zalman tried as chairman to bring order to the debate. ‘We have to speak sensibly and in turn…’

‘That’s exactly what I’m trying to do,’ said François. ‘As a Christian — whether you like it or not, Pinchas — Alfred has the best prospects for a glittering career. And they would be destroyed at a stroke if he married Désirée.’

‘Married? Ha!’ said Mimi, her cheeks already combatively pink.

‘Which is of course out of the question,’ said Pinchas.

‘Then we agree.’

‘No, François, we don’t agree at all.’

‘Don’t call him François,’ Mimi barked. ‘His name is Shmul.’ And repeated, because she knew how much François hated his old name: ‘Shmul! Shmul! Shmul!’