Charles Lewinsky - Melnitz

‘You’re not going to find out by getting drunk.’

They nearly had an argument, but as always in such situations Arthur relented. Afterwards, he knew already, he would be unhappy with himself for doing so. Luckily they had reached the window display that he wanted to show Pinchas. It belonged to a tiny shop on one of the alleys leading up to the Rennweg, and was hardly big enough for the magnificently embroidered flag displayed in it. It was white and blue, the shimmering matt silk run through with gold threads. ‘Take a look at that!’ said Arthur. ‘That’s exactly what we need!’

‘Herrliberg Rifle Guild,’ Pinchas read. ‘What do you have to do with them?’

‘Not this flag, of course. A flag like it. The same quality, I mean. I’ve looked into it. It has to be cotton velvet, with a particularly thick nap, and flag rep, pure silk. The thread is called Japanese gold. It’s the most expensive, but it will still be shiny in a hundred years.’

‘Why do you need…?’

‘For the Jewish Gymnastics Association. Without a proper flag we’ll look ridiculous at any gymnastic festival.’

‘I didn’t think you were still a member?’

‘No, in a way I am,’ Arthur said, looking surprisingly embarrassed. ‘That is: very involved, in fact.’

It had been three or four years ago that Arthur, who had always dreaded gym class at school, suddenly took a great interest in sport. He had joined the Gymnastics Association, newly founded and much derided, and become a very active member. His family had only shaken their heads, particularly when he chose wrestling as his personal sport, because Arthur had never shown any particular talent in physical matters. ‘He considers each step until he trips over his own feet,’ Uncle Salomon had once said of him. Surprisingly, he turned out not to be particularly clumsy, perhaps because his specialist anatomical knowledge proved useful in wrestling, and there was a special hold, the neck wrench, with which he had on more than one occasion felled an opponent stronger than himself. He even won the Association Championship in the Greco-Roman style, even though his opponent, a sturdily built apprentice called Joni Leibowitz, was generally held to be the favourite.

And then, just as suddenly as it had begun, Arthur’s enthusiasm for the sport had vanished again, and if you talked to him about it, he just replied with a shrug and an embarrassed smile.

‘I’m no longer active,’ he explained now, ‘haven’t been for ages, but an association like this needs a doctor, and I said I was willing…’

‘Is it one of the doctor’s duties to organise a flag for the association?’

‘I just thought…’ Arthur had blushed for no reason at all, a weakness from which he had suffered even as a child. ‘You could help me,’ he said. ‘You write for the Israelite Weekly News every now and again. If they published an appeal… To raise some money. A flag like that is expensive.’

‘How expensive?’

‘Very expensive,’ said Arthur and blushed again.

It was quite customary to save the money for an advertisement by placing a free classified, and there was no reason why Pinchas shouldn’t do him that small favour. ‘That can be done,’ he said. ‘But right now I’m hungry. Every year for days in advance I look forward to the first matzo breakfast. A thick layer of butter and then strawberry jam on top.’

Outside the house — Mimi and Pinchas now lived on Morgartenstrasse — a deliveryman stood squinting at the doorbells like someone who can’t read and is using his short-sightedness as an excuse.

‘Can I help you?’ asked Pinchas.

The deliveryman pushed his red and black cap, whose brass letters identified him as number forty-six, to the back of his head, and rubbed his forehead dry with a stained handkerchief, even though it wasn’t at all hot. ‘I’m supposed to drop off a letter,’ he said at last, ‘But he doesn’t seem to live here.’

‘What name?’

‘Meijer,’ said the deliveryman, and added, with the face of a scientist who has just made a great discovery, ‘You know, it’s funny. There are so many people called Meijer, but when you have to look for one, you can’t find him.’

‘Could I see the letter?’

The deliveryman pulled an envelope from the inside pocket of his uniform jacket, took a step back and, facing away from Pinchas, his torso bent shelteringly forward, studied the address, a schoolboy who doesn’t want his neighbour copying from him. ‘His name is Meijer,’ he said after a while and nodded several times. ‘With a very odd first name.’ He held the envelope so close in front of his eyes that his whole face disappeared behind it. ‘Pinchas Meijer.’

‘In that case the letter must be for me,’ said Pinchas.

‘Is your name Meijer?’ the deliveryman asked suspiciously.

‘My name is Pomeranz.’

‘The letter is for Meijer.’

‘ My name is Meijer,’ Arthur butted in.

‘And you live here?’

‘No,’ Arthur began. ‘I’m…’ The deliveryman started turning his head back and forth, very slowly from left to right and back again, as if to say, ‘I’m far too clever to fall for con-men!’ so Arthur decided a white lie was called for. ‘Yes, I live here.’

‘And your name is Meijer?’

‘Yes.’

‘Pinchas Meijer?’

‘To an extent,’ said Arthur.

As he left, the deliveryman was convinced that something not quite right had occurred. He hadn’t even been given a tip. He couldn’t have known that on feast days Jews aren’t allowed to carry money in their pockets.

They opened the letter at the dining room table, where Mimi and Désirée were still sitting over their late breakfast.

Dear Uncle Pinchas,

I remember so much, and I still can’t remember your surname. I’m just writing ‘Meijer’ on the envelope. You were always Uncle Pinchas to me, and I hope you won’t mind if I continue to call you that. I still remember the stories you told us when I visited you to play with Désirée. One of them was about a fish so big that sailors lit a fire on it and had a picnic. Back then I believed in that fish, and in a way I still do.

You once told me you had a tooth missing, and the doctor gave you an artificial one. I was to guess which one it was, and I couldn’t find out. They all looked the same, and yet one was false and the others were real. I couldn’t understand that at all.

I also remember that you promised me a very special present for my bar mitzvah. I never got it.

I’m no longer drunk, even though all this may read as if I am. We had to celebrate the opening of the new university building with German colleagues, and didn’t leave the pub for three days.

I’m writing this letter to apologise to you and Aunt Mimi and Désirée. I behaved incredibly badly, and it didn’t just have to do with the drinking. Sometimes there are moments

The sentence ended there, without a full stop or a comma, and what came next had plainly been added later: the same handwriting, but in a hand much more angular and controlled.

I beg you to forgive me, and promise that I will never again trouble you with such a ridiculous performance.

Respectfully yours

Alfred Meijer

Pinchas carefully folded the letter as one folds a document that one is going to need for a trial. Arthur had taken off his glasses and was rubbing his nose. Désirée seemed to be counting the matzo crumbs on the tablecloth.

‘ Scandaleux ,’ said Mimi.

François had only employed his chauffeur because his name was Landolt. He had previously been his coachman, and François had bought him a chauffeur’s cap and a pair of leather gloves and organised driving lessons for him.