In the middle of the room stood a very large table; some women were sitting around it, and with them, Harry. She recognised him at once. He was wearing a dressing gown of plum-coloured silk. Ada had never seen anything like this shimmering, heavy satin; she thought that Harry must have been ill to be so pampered and dressed like this. In front of him was a porcelain cup, as white and delicate as an egg shell, and a silver egg cup. On a plate sat two pieces of brown bread with butter and jam. One of the women was spreading the bread with butter she took from a small crystal dish with a lid decorated with a silver pine cone. Another woman was pouring Harry some coffee from a silver pot with a very long spout. A third woman added the milk; looking through her lorgnette, she carefully skimmed the cream off the top with a little silver spoon. The fourth woman was cutting up an egg she had just taken out of a bowl, also made of silver, full of boiling hot water. But she didn’t cut it up with her knife, as Ada had only ever seen done until now; she used a pair of gilded scissors, made specially to cut eggs, and, to Ada, this was more extraordinary than everything else.
Two of the four women were wearing lace dressing gowns and, despite the fact that it was morning, large diamond earrings. One was Harry’s mother, the other, one of his married aunts. They were plump, heavy women, with pale skin and shiny black hair, parted down the middle so it fell in two arcs at the sides of their foreheads. Sitting at the table like two enormous white peonies, they had the replete, lazy, slow-moving demeanour of contented matrons, and the scornful pout and hard, implacable eyes of women who are too rich, too happy. The two younger ones were unmarried aunts; they dressed in the English style – straight skirts in a coarse, masculine material, linen blouses with starched collars, as stiff as a yoke – and had the mannerisms of that younger generation of Jewish millionaires: more ‘lady-like’ than was natural, with an affectation of simplicity and austerity, as if they wished each of their gestures to say, ‘You see how I wish to go unnoticed, inconspicu-ous as they say in English. I wish to blend in with mere mortals so they may forget who I really am.’
At the sight of Ben and Ada, everyone stopped eating. Lorgnettes were raised and dropped again. Voices cried out: ‘What on earth is going on?’
As Ben started speaking, Harry grew pale and stopped eating. He looked at the messy little boy with his bleeding knees, and the pale little girl whose dishevelled hair was so matted with dust and sweat that it fell in a thick tangle over her eyebrows.
Ben noticed him looking at them and deliberately began to embellish his story; at first it had been more or less accurate, but now, with exquisite pleasure, he started to add gory details about blood, dead bodies, and at least a dozen disembowelled women. Harry pushed his plate away and stood, white and trembling, behind his seat.
Ben stopped to catch his breath.
‘Please,’ said Ada weakly, ‘can you give us something to eat?’
She started to walk towards the table, but the women all leapt up at once and stood in front of Harry to shield him with their bodies.
‘Stop her! She mustn’t come near us! They might be dirty. They might be diseased. Don’t come any closer, child! Stay where you are. We’ll give you something to eat. Dolly, take them into the kitchen.’
‘We’re not dirty,’ cried Ada. ‘If you’d spent the whole night hiding in a trunk, your faces would be all dusty and your beautiful dresses would get all torn, too.’
‘And I hope it does happen to you one day,’ she thought, but she didn’t say it.
The maid was ordered to take ‘these urchins’ into the kitchen, give them some bread and tea and wait for further instructions. Harry, meanwhile, had slipped off his chair and disappeared. The children were being led out when Harry came back, followed by an elderly gentleman who bore a strong resemblance to Ada’s grandfather; they could have been brothers. Everyone fell silent. He was the master of the house, Sinner senior, so rich that every Jew imagined only Rothschild surpassed him in status and wealth (Tzar Nicholas II came third).
He had a thin, rough, sallow face, a large, oddly-shaped nose, as if some fist had smashed it in two, a crease down his brow so darkly coloured it looked almost purple (the most definite sign, it was said, that he was being ravaged by cancer), greenish eyes streaked with fine, sinuous red lines, and a piercing, unpleasant expression. But his white beard, his shiny, bald, egg-like head, his supple back, his long, dry fingers with their curved, yellow nails, hard as horn, his sharp, drawling Yiddish accent – all these were familiar to Ben and Ada. This wealthy Sinner looked like the old men in the ghetto, the sellers of second-hand goods, the ironmongers, the shoemakers in their stalls. The children were overwhelmed by respect and admiration as they stood before him, but they weren’t afraid.
Once again, it was Ben who recounted their adventures. Ada stood a little to the side; she felt weak and ill and suddenly indifferent to her fate. Nevertheless, it occurred to her that she should probably faint. Whenever a child fainted in books, someone immediately came to her rescue; she was given food; she was put to bed – she quivered with desire at the very idea – a clean, warm bed. She closed her eyes so tightly that her head was suddenly filled with a soft, echoing sound, like the sea. She waited a few moments, but she didn’t faint; regretfully, she opened her eyes and found herself leaning against the wall once more, her hands crossed tightly in front of her waist, looking at the people around her. The women seemed terribly angry and upset; they were all talking at once, looking at the children with an expression full of terror, almost hate.
‘They’re mean,’ thought Ada. However, as sometimes happened, she was filled with two different feelings both at once: one was naïve, childlike, and the other more mature, understanding and wise. She felt that two Adas lived within her, and one of them understood why she was being sent away, why they spoke to her with such hostility: the famished children stood before these wealthy Jews as an eternal reminder, a shameful and atrocious memory of what they themselves had once been or might have been. No one dared to add: ‘what they could become again some day’.
Ada hid behind the curtain and immediately fell half-asleep. Every now and again she put her hand into her mouth and gently bit down on it in order to stay awake. Then the silk folds of the curtains would part, her pale, sleepy face would appear, and, thinking no one could see her, she would carefully lean forward and stick out her tongue at the women.
When she was pulled out of her hiding place, she was almost sleepwalking. She and Ben were pushed into an enormous room, which was the elderly Sinner’s office; a small table was set up, they were sat down at it and given something to eat. Ada was so exhausted that she couldn’t even answer the questions the old man asked her; she couldn’t even hear him. Later on, Ben would cruelly tease her about this. As for Ben, he spoke too quickly and too loudly, his little voice shrill and passionate.
‘So Israel Sinner is your uncle? I’ve heard of him. He’s an honest Jew.’
The old man had spoken these words slowly, sounding thoughtful and with a hint of pity. When anyone spoke of a Jew from the ghetto as honest, how could you not feel sorry; sorry for the poor man to whom God had forgotten to give sharp teeth and claws so he could defend himself?
‘Make sure to tell him to come and see me,’ he said. ‘He’ll make some money.’ (He had instructions to pass on to his agents in Kharkov; it wouldn’t be a bad idea to entrust them to a discreet, hard-working man who didn’t seem overly intelligent.)
He turned away so the children could eat in peace, and walked over to the window; from here, he could see the roofs of the ghetto. It would be interesting, Ada thought vaguely, to know what this old man was thinking as he looked down at that cursed part of town, so close yet so far from where he stood . . . But the thoughts of such a rich man were surely impenetrable to mere mortals, as lofty and strange as the spirits who lived in Heaven. And besides, she was so tired that everything, absolutely everything around her took on the feeling of a dream or feverish delirium. She was only truly aware o
f the world around her the next day, when she was at Lilla’s friend’s house. The Sinners had contacted her father and he had taken her and Ben there. She had slept for twenty-four hours.
9
The wealthy Sinner kept his promise and gave his relative the opportunity to be useful to him on a few occasions. The commission he agreed to pay him was minimal, but for a man like Israel Sinner, the very fact that he was being protected by a family from such glittering social circles was enough to raise his status. He was showered with respect: what qualities must he possess to be of service to the king of the upper town?
But then his patron died, and the accountants who were dealing with the enormous estate gave Israel the responsibility of concluding several transactions, which he happily did. Other matters were entrusted to him, more substantial ones. Within two years he had become, if not exactly wealthy, at least comfortably well off. With the Jews, everything happened in leaps and bounds. Happiness and misfortune, prosperity and poverty poured down upon them like rain from the heavens upon cattle. This was what filled them simultaneously with perpetual anxiety and invincible hope.
What was more, something else had happened that allowed Aunt Raissa to realise one of her dreams: grandfather had died. Since the night of the pogrom, he seemed to have been shocked into a sort of stupor. He could barely walk and hardly ate anything; he soon passed away, and with his death, so did the main reason that the Sinners were forced to live in the lower town.
The family moved higher up, halfway between the top of the hill and the ghetto.
Aunt Raissa was not the kind of woman who rested on her laurels. Now it was essential to take charge of Lilla’s education and, most importantly, to have her learn French. At this time, there lived in the city an elderly Parisian woman who gave French lessons to children of the well-to-do classes. She was called Madame Mimi. No one ever found out her surname. She was vivacious, elegantly slim, with bulging eyes and a small hooked nose like the beak of a bird, a bird that was losing its feathers but was still rather charming. She had thin, stiff legs, for she suffered from rheumatism, but that didn’t stop her from dancing at the Christmas parties, gracefully raising her taffeta petticoat, which was fashionably longer than her full skirt, or from drinking ‘one finger of champagne’ to toast the health of her pupils. As well as the French language, she taught them Sully Prudhomme’s ‘La Petite Tonkinoise’ and ‘Le Vase brisé’. She had an optimistic, kindly, sweet and joyful outlook on life that the bitter Jews could not manage themselves. She hinted that in St Petersburg, where she had spent her youth, she’d had a secret affair with one of the princes (she then sighed as she mentioned the name of someone who had once been famous). This fact was not at all harmful to her reputation. Quite the contrary: there was no one who did not feel flattered to have someone so well-placed in high society under their roof, a woman about whom one could say with absolute certainty that she knew the correct way to eat asparagus (with a fork or with the fingers) and that she would only teach her pupils the very best French – its terribly difficult pronunciation and its amusing slang.
She quickly became fond of Lilla and Ada.
‘Lilla is born to inspire love wherever she goes,’ she said.
Then, with a swift, delightful movement of her long, dry fingers, as if she were scattering flowers from a bouquet, she seemed to evoke the spirits of the suitors whom Lilla would encounter on life’s journey.
‘As for little Ada . . . Ah! She knows her own mind . . . When she gives away her heart, it will be for ever.’
Ada felt flattered: the Frenchwoman’s opinions where matters of the heart were concerned were indisputable; she was like a master chef stranded on some deserted island after a shipwreck, enthralling the silent and adoring natives with talk of recipes from his homeland. Madame Mimi was ignorant of and looked down upon anything to do with business, commissions, brokerage or even the hierarchy of quarrels in the town, that is to say, everything that had to do with the daily life of the Sinners and people like them. But when it came to the emotions, she was in her element. It was impossible not to believe her. And Aunt Raissa dreamed of Lilla at the Cannes Flower Festival, on a float decked with blooms, while Ada grew to love more and more a shadow, a ghost: the boy, Harry, whom she hadn’t seen again since the day of the pogrom and who lived constantly in her heart.
Ada had only one other passion that rivalled her feelings for Harry: painting. She had always done sketches. But when she was about ten years old, she was given her first set of paints, and began tirelessly to copy the street covered in snow beneath her window, the greyish shades of the March sky and people’s faces. Whether it was Nastasia with her frightening, dark little eyes set in her reddish face, or Aunt Raissa, hands on hips, her bodice the shape of a mandolin, or Lilla in a smooth cotton petticoat, or the disdainful, elegant Madame Mimi who looked like an aging wagtail, she found everyone interesting, everyone pleased her. But, mainly, it was Harry’s face that she drew, over and over again, just as it was etched in her memory.
She showed her drawings to Madame Mimi, who one day recognised Harry among them.
‘I can organise things so you get to play with that little boy,’ she said, giving Ada one of her bright, knowing looks.
Ada went pale.
‘Do you . . . do you know him then?’
‘I’ve given lessons to his family and have excellent relations with them. So, then, next February . . .’
‘February?’ Ada repeated, breathless.
‘If you come to the party at the Alliance Française with your aunt and cousin, I will introduce you to him.’
Every year, the Alliance Française organised an evening of amateur dramatics, followed by a party; the profits went to charitable causes. The people from the middle town always turned out in force, while those from the upper town sometimes made an appearance. Madame Mimi always took great care over the arrangements for the party.
‘Ah!’ she sighed. ‘Once upon a time, in my beloved Prince’s house, I used to give balls where champagne flowed like water, where you could hear polkas and mazurkas playing all through the night, and I would dance, as light as a butterfly . . .’
‘But you still dance so well,’ said Ada.
Then Madame Mimi delicately lifted the petticoat under her skirt and, standing in front of the wardrobe mirror, danced a step, just one, but with so much grace, so much liveliness, combined with a hint of nostalgic self-mockery, that Ada was enchanted.
‘Ah! If only I could paint you just like that! But do you think my aunt will take me as well as Lilla?’
‘Of course, of course, I’ll make sure of it!’
It was autumn, and the party was to be in February. In February, thought Ada, she would see Harry. He would dance with her, play with her! In his eyes, she would no longer be that beggar girl, that vagabond, that outcast, that little Jewish girl from the ghetto. She could speak French now, she knew how to curtsey; she was ‘like the others’. Though she barely knew him, he was more real to her than Ben or Aunt Raissa. As she hurried home from school along the dark, wintry streets, blowing on her fingers, feeling the icy wind and snow burning her eyelashes, she could almost sense the presence of the young boy beside her; she would talk to him and make up what he said in reply. Over and over in her mind, she played out a drama full of surprises and delights, encounters, quarrels, reconciliations.
The day of the party finally arrived. Since morning, certain smells had filled the Sinner household: irons heating in the kitchen, the aroma of little bottles of inexpensive perfume that Lilla had opened, sniffed and nervously compared. Lilla and Ada had laid out their black tights, starched petticoats and Lilla’s new grey twill bodice on the bed. Lilla was going to be dancing, singing and reciting in an entertainment called ‘The Rose and the Butterfly’, especially composed for the occasion by Madame Mimi: Madame had many talents.
‘I will appear on stage,’ said Lilla, ‘and everyone will applaud me.’
She began twirling round an
d round with joy. She was extremely light and graceful; she had tiny little feet and the kind of legs that were admired in those pre-war days, with a delicate ankle, firm calves and full thighs.
She was in the bedroom with Aunt Raissa and Ada. Ada had grown a lot: her wild hair was brushed back into a short, thick plait, but on her forehead she had kept the uneven fringe that came down over her eyebrows and sometimes fell into her eyes; when that happened, she had the wild, intense look of some little animal hiding in a thicket.
The day passed slowly. Finally, the lamps were lit and the house was filled with the smell of red cabbage cooking for the evening meal, which gave off an even stronger odour than the curling irons.
In the dining room, Ben was entertaining a friend, a little boy from school named Ivanov, with whom he had formed an unusual friendship. Ivanov was eleven years old, with blond hair, a rosy complexion and the ruddy, soft cheeks of a baby. His friends liked to pinch him; wherever they had touched him, there remained a mark as white as snow, while the rest of his face turned so red that his flesh seemed covered in cherries and milk. The two children were sitting in the dining room, beneath the lamp. Little Ivanov, sweet and smiling, with his big blue eyes and plump little red mouth, was listening to Ben’s endless talk. He spoke quietly for fear of being overheard by his mother, but the constant movement of his body, his expressive face and gesturing hands were more eloquent than his voice.
He was telling some wild story, a tissue of lies, the tale of a battle he claimed he’d fought, him alone against six boys who were older and stronger than him, who were throwing stones. He described the scene as if he were reliving it: he mimed every detail; he swore by everything that was holy that each and every word was true; he was carried away by his mad inventions; he believed everything he was saying; he could feel his body going hot and cold in turn; he wanted to hug little Ivanov and beat him up, both at the same time, while Ivanov, his head propped up in his hands, seemed to drink in his words, nevertheless asking from time to time:
The Dogs and the Wolves Page 6