The Rose Stone

by The Rose Stone (retail) (epub)

  Amsterdam was not a big city, and it had not taken long to discover the more prosperous centre. It was on the evening of the second day of combing the streets, scanning brass nameplates and letterboxes, that he had, to his delight, found the Anatov offices on the Rokin. The building in which they were situated was magnificent, the nameplate discreet and well polished. Only too aware of his beggarly appearance Josef had hesitated, ineffectually smoothed his hair and then, somewhat apprehensively, had rung the bell.

  It was a very long time before the door opened to reveal an obviously astonished young man in high collar and frock coat, his black hair oiled to the sheen of metal, whose supercilious gaze summed Josef up and dismissed him out of hand before he had even opened his mouth. Disparaging eyebrows lifted.

  “Wat blieft u?”

  “I’m – I’m looking for – for Mr Anatov. Mr Sergei Anatov,” Josef stammered in his native tongue. At university he had been considered an outstanding student of languages – his English and French were, though rusty, near perfect. However, under present conditions – not too surprisingly – he had discovered that of the Dutch language he could not yet make head or tail.

  The superior young man shook his head dismissively, spoke again, briefly, in Dutch and made to close the door.

  In an almost involuntary action Josef jammed a desperate foot in the closing gap. “Please. Please! I must see Mr Anatov! I have – a little girl—” In his anxiety to have himself understood he found himself, ridiculously, raising his voice as if sheer volume might bring comprehension.

  The man spoke again, quietly and icily, and with an undisguised threat in his voice that needed no translation. Neither did the expression on the face of the uniformed flunky who answered the young man’s call. Josef stepped back. “Mr Anatov,” he repeated urgently. “Sergei Anatov. Please.” He spoke slowly, willing them to understand.

  The door closed sharply in his face. In angry frustration he stared at it.

  “You’re looking for Anatov?”

  The voice was young and hard, the words spoken in Russian. The speaker, who had apparently appeared from nowhere, was as unkempt as Josef himself, younger, the face sharp-eyed and bitter.

  “Yes.”

  The young man considered. “What’s it worth?”

  Josef shook his head. “I have nothing. Wait—” This as the youth lifted a nonchalant shoulder and turned away. Josef hunted in his pockets. The day before Tanya had given him a few coins that Pieter van Heuten, the sailor who spent so much time with the child, had given her. “Here. I have this. That’s all.”

  “Pah!” A dirty finger flicked in disgust.

  “It’s all I have.”

  The youth watched him for a moment, speculatively. He put his head on one side, eyes cunning. “You got trouble for Anatov?” A voracious eagerness threaded the tone and gave Josef, gutter wise now, his cue. Here was a grudge.

  “Could be,” he shrugged.

  “Then I tell you. That bastard deserves trouble. You going to try to get something out of him?”

  Josef almost found himself shrugging again, that involuntary, very Jewish gesture that he had intended to shed with his shaved off beard and ingrained way of speech. He had had a lot of time to think of such things. “Perhaps.”

  A short sharp sound that could have been laughter. “I wish you luck. It’s the tall red brick house on the east side of the Herrengracht. The one with the black door and the eagle gablestones. Anyone will tell you. Everyone knows the Anatov house. Hey—” This as Josef turned away with muttered thanks. A dirty hand extended, the fingers clicking. Josef deposited the coins in the grubby palm. “There’s no one there just now,” the boy said, in grinning afterthought as he pocketed his profit. “They’ve all gone off on some stinking trip. Paid for with other people’s money, of course.” The words were vicious.

  “When will they be back?”

  “God knows. Or the Devil. Ask him.”

  Josef sighed now, shivered as the wind gusted across the water, sending ripples of yellow light dancing beneath the bridge. Perhaps he should have taken note of the young man’s bitterness. He had found the Anatov house, but as the youth had said it had been locked up and deserted, the shutters firmly closed, not even a servant left to answer the empty ringing of the doorbell. The only thing to do was to wait, watch the house until the family returned and, meanwhile, to find work.

  He had reckoned without the trembling hands of deprivation, the disability of his wrecked appearance and his lack of the Dutch language. Time and time again he was turned away, sometimes sympathetically, mostly less so. Not even the influx of gemstones from the new and exciting discoveries in South Africa had made jobs easily come by. No one was going to employ a worker, however skilled he claimed to be, whose hands shook like a drunk’s. No one could be bothered to listen to his pleas and promises in mangled Dutch – they had no need. Skilled men flocked to Amsterdam, men with steady hands and eyes, and with proof of their prowess in handling the precious adamantine stone. The last months had made of Josef a physical wreck, his tall frame weakened and stooping, his brown hair peppered with grey, his eyes red-rimmed and often painful. There was no work for such as he. At last he had to accept the bleak truth and had taken to haunting the docks, begging, accepting any work he could find, eking a living of sorts for himself and the child and praying that when the Anatovs returned to Amsterdam help would be forthcoming, at least for her.

  Then at last, yesterday, on one of his regular visits to the Herrengracht, the miracle had happened; there were lights in every window of the house with the eagle gablestones, a bustle of servants, a stream of tradesmen and visitors to the handsome doors. The family were back. Happily he had hurried home to tell Tanya, who for the past few days had been poorly – now, at last, everything would be all right. When the Anatovs saw Tanya, living image of her dead father, surely they could not deny their aid?

  Arriving home, he had known the minute he put foot on the doorstep that the child’s cough was worse. He heard it, a racking, painful sound as he hurried down the dank passage to their door. His heart sank – Tanya had had a niggling cough for days, but this was more than a mere childish illness. He opened the door. The slatternly woman known as Bea who lived in the room above with a tribe of children – no two of whom looked alike – was there with Tanya, one of her snivelling, fatherless offspring as always clinging to her dirty skirts. She beckoned to Josef impatiently, speaking rapidly in ill-accented Dutch of which he could understand only one or two words. Tanya huddled on her mattress in the corner, bright flags of fever flying in her cheeks, the racking cough shaking her slight frame every few minutes. The woman fussed around her. Josef sat, helpless, and watched, cursing again the goddess of fortune who baulked him at every turn. His plan had been to take Tanya to the Anatov house, where the sight of her, regardless of relationship, must be certain to melt the hardest heart. Now, looking into the bright, fever-lit eyes, he knew that to be impossible.

  And so, this afternoon, he had gone alone.

  It had begun better than he had dared to expect; the imposing black door at the top of the steep flight of steps had been opened by a slight, pretty girl in neat dark dress and apron. To his relief, for he had not ventured to hope that the Anatovs would employ Russian staff, she spoke Russian with a strong Ukranian accent, and after only a moment’s hesitation shyly invited him into the house while she went off to find a servant of some higher degree and experience to deal with this confusing visitor. He realized later, and to his cost, that only the still-disorganized state of the newly-arrived household had allowed him so far. He stood in awe, despite himself, at the flamboyant splendour around him; not for the Anatovs the steep, narrow stairs that characterized most of the houses of Amsterdam, but a sweeping, graceful staircase in gilt and white, its banisters and rails wreathed with swathes of golden leaves and flowers, intricately wrought. There were echoes of St Petersburg in the glittering chandeliers, the tall mirrors, the soft, jewel-coloured rug
s and carpets: the house had all the hallmarks of taste and of immense fortune. Across a wide landing at the top of the sweep of stairs a pair of tall white and gilt doors stood half-open, through which from his viewpoint below he could see enough to guess at the size and magnificence of the room beyond. As he stood, a drably incongruous figure in the midst of splendour, servants hurried by, most eyeing him in open curiosity, some with a glint of not quite smothered amusement. As he watched a woman in elegant afternoon dress – a gracefully bustled affair of brown velvet and cream silk which set off to perfection a stately figure and haughty carriage – swept across the landing and disappeared into the magnificent drawing room. The small, scurrying maid in neat black and white who followed her shut the door behind her mistress with a click.

  “You!”

  Josef turned to find himself confronting a uniformed manservant whose demeanour suggested anything but welcome.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Like the little serving girl, this was a Russian. Josef allowed himself a lift of relief – at least he could make himself understood. “My name is Josef Rosenberg,” he began politely, and with as much dignity as he could muster. “I’ve come to see—”

  “Out.”

  Josef stared.

  The man stepped forward. “Out,” he said again, simply and with great emphasis.

  “But – wait – you don’t understand—” The serving man had grasped Josef’s arm, painfully firmly. On an unexpected spurt of temper Josef wrenched himself free. “I insist that you listen to me.”

  Something in the sharp, well-educated voice gave the servant pause. He hesitated and Josef took advantage of his uncertainty.

  “I must see Sergei Anatov. It is of the utmost importance. My name is Josef Rosenberg—” He saw again a flare of dislike in the man’s eyes. How many times had he suffered that reaction at the mention of his name in this anti-Semitic world? Grimly he ploughed on, “I have in my care Mr Anatov’s young cousin, Tanya Georgievna, daughter of Alexei Anatov of Kiev—”

  He got no further. From the stairs above him came a voice, sharp and irritated. “What’s going on here?”

  A few steps from the top of the lovely staircase a man stood, immaculate and well-groomed in black morning coat, dark trousers and snow-white linen shirt.

  Josef’s heart stopped.

  “Well?” The voice was not the same – Alexei’s had been light and pleasant, this was harsh, a voice with nothing in it of laughter at all. “Well?” the man asked again, and his fingers drummed upon the patterned handrail.

  The face and figure was Alexei, from the fair hair and darkly violet eyes to the slim build and long, impatiently tapping fingers.

  “Sir, please—” Regaining his voice Josef moved eagerly forward, ignoring the threatening movement of the man beside him. “I am Josef Rosenberg, come from Kiev. I have in my charge a young relative of yours. Tatiana Georgievna Anatov, daughter to Alexei, my friend, your cousin—” He faltered a little as the harsh expression on the familiar face above him neither softened nor changed, then rushed on, “You must have had news of the tragedy that overtook the family? Tanya and I escaped and fled. We’ve been on the road ever since – I brought her to Amsterdam in the hope that—” Thunderstruck he stopped as, with a dismissive flick of his fingers, Sergei Anatov turned away.

  “Throw him out.”

  “No – please – you must listen.”

  “This way, Jew.” The manservant’s hands were like steel. He was quite evidently enjoying himself. “Like I said the first time. Out.” He forcibly propelled Josef towards the door.

  Josef dragged himself away. “No. Mr Anatov – listen! The child is ill—”

  The double doors of the drawing room shut decisively. The front door opened. “Out, beggar.”

  From top to bottom of the steep steps Josef tumbled, painfully, and lay sprawled in the road. A pair of urchin children, huddled for warmth by the house wall where the vent from the kitchen was situated, giggled and pointed.

  The shining black door had slammed shut.

  Josef hardly remembered the rest of the day: dazed with fury and with a disappointment that had been like a sickness, he had wandered the streets of the city unwilling – unable – to face the eager questions of the child whose implicit faith in him had led her to believe what he had believed himself – that Sergei Anatov would be their salvation if they could once reach him. With the blind stubbornness that he knew to be one of his biggest faults he had, over the past months, resolutely ignored the mental voice that had reminded him time and again that the two branches of the family had never seen eye to eye – on the contrary that Alexei had openly detested the man he had described as his ‘money-grubbing cousin’. That on one occasion, brought nearly to ruin by two bad harvests in succession, old Boris had, against his better judgement, applied to these, his only living relatives, for help – only to be told that he must, like any other borrower, put up his property as security for the loan and pay exorbitant interest. In fact, it had been the Jews of Kiev who had saved him on that occasion, and Boris had cursed his kin as soulless usurers. But somehow none of this had seemed of any great significance when weighed against the tragedy that had overtaken the Kiev Anatovs, and the perils of the past months. The Amsterdam Anatovs had seemed to Josef to be the only hope. He had been unable to believe – still, in truth could not really believe – that any man, no matter what the circumstances, would deny a child of his own blood, condemn her to poverty and to likely death, leave unchampioned the man who had spent himself to save her.

  Thought of Tanya jogged his memory. He felt in his pocket to check that he still carried the small bottle of medicine that he had at the last minute remembered to purchase at the Sign of the Yawning Man – the sign of all apothecaries in the city – for the sick child. He took it out and surveyed it moodily. He was not fit to care for the child. Even this, the medicine she needed so badly, he had not been able to supply. It had been purchased, as so many of their necessities were purchased, through Pieter van Heuten’s doubtful charity. A man in whose debt Josef would rather not be. The brutish seaman’s attentions to Tanya were, despite the welcome generosity that attended them, a source of worry to Josef. There was something disturbingly unnatural in the way the man’s eyes followed the child, in the way that his hands reached greedily for her when ever she came close to him. He sighed defeatedly. In this, as in everything else, there was nothing he could do until he could free them from the rathole that had been their home for the past awful months. And how, now, was he going to do that? With shoulders hunched to his ears he walked from the bridge into the narrow, wind-scoured street.

  The first thing he noticed as he came to the tenement door was that the child’s cough, unexpectedly, sounded a little better. The terrible rattle had eased and it no longer sounded so rackingly painful. A small mercy, but one for which to be more than grateful; he pushed open the door of their room with a forced smile.

  Two pairs of eyes met his – Tanya’s, enormous, trusting, disturbing as always and Pieter van Heuten’s, pale and avaricious. Josef tried to suppress the surge of dislike that the sight of the man brought. Van Heuten had helped him when he was ill, had spent hours entertaining the sick child, had paid for her medicines and most of the food she ate. Yet dislike and distaste persisted. Pieter van Heuten was a man of medium height and enormous bulk, as strong as an ox and strangely ugly – strangely because the ugliness lay not so much in his features, which were unremarkable, as in an indefinable brutality of expression, a twist of the heavy lips, a rapacious light in the pale eyes. He was of middle age and boasted of having been to sea since he was ten years old. His other boast was that he had travelled to every country in the world and could curse recognizably in every language in existence – a patently exaggerated claim that Josef was in no position to challenge. Certainly the man’s Russian – swearwords and all – was understandable, and he had also managed to teach Josef some small smattering of Dutch so that their c
onversations, if polyglot, were at least comprehensible to each other. Van Heuten had sailed in on a ship home from Cape Town at just about the same time that Tanya and Josef had arrived in Amsterdam and had taken up residence in what was apparently his permanent home on the top floor of the tenement, where he lived, if in equal squalor, certainly in a great deal more comfort than most of the other occupants of the building. Josef assumed him to be living off the proceeds of his last voyage – presumably when they were squandered he would be off to sea again. Despite the man’s apparent generosity, the day could not come too soon for Josef. Pieter van Heuten was not the friend or companion he would freely have chosen for himself, let alone for Tanya. From the moment the seaman had seen the strange, lovely child, the unnaturally light eyes had devoured her, following her every movement, watching her for hours. Even whilst holding a conversation with Josef, van Heuten’s eyes would invariably be on Tanya. He took every opportunity to touch her, pulling her roughly on to his lap, fondling her as he might a small animal, while Tanya, sweetly docile as ever, suffered silently the man’s advances for the sake of friendship. Young and hurt as she was, a kindly voice, presents of food, sweetmeats and even occasionally playthings were too precious to sacrifice simply because she disliked being handled so. Always sweet-tempered and anxious to please, it was not in her nature to protest at an action that she believed in her innocence to be kindly meant. But Josef saw sometimes the effect that the child’s soft body had on the man and despised himself for allowing it, for accepting still the man’s company and help. Yet he, too, found it hard to turn away support and friendship, however suspect its source. Pieter van Heuten’s generosity to them was no part of a naturally giving nature – van Heuten had confided, spitting, that to the other tenants of the building he would not give the clippings of a dog’s hair. Nor was it, Josef was certain, altruistic – sooner or later the man was going to expect some reward for his help. But for now and for the immediate future Josef could see no way that they could survive without him, so in this, as in so many other things, he lived necessarily for the day and left tomorrow’s troubles for tomorrow. But the man disturbed him unpleasantly. Like or trust him he could not, and his heart sank at the sight of him.