A Storm in the Blood

by Jon Stephen Fink

  “I don’t know,” she said truthfully. “It’s some place I don’t know.”

  “Can you find it all right? Tell me where you have to go.”

  She gave him the first name that came into her head, “Aldgate Pump.” Owled Gade Poomp.

  Perelman corrected her pronunciation. “I’m free for”—he tilted his head toward the clock—“two hours and twenty minutes. I can take you there.”

  “No, please. My friend’s brother, he’s waiting for me at two o’clock. He’ll walk with me over there.”

  The sincerity in Perelman’s eyes spread into his soft words. “I don’t want you to get lost, sweetheart. Where would I get another lodger who sings so beautifully?”

  “I know I owe you two weeks’ rent—”

  “Ssh, ssh.”

  “—I keep a record. I’ll pay it soon, Mr. Perelman.”

  “We know each other long enough you can call me Charles.”

  “In a few weeks,” she promised him. “I’ll have money before the new year.”

  “Ssh, ssh. If you’re working again, if you’re well enough, that’s what counts.” Then he wondered out loud, “I thought Nina was going to help you. Don’t they have money these days?”

  “They did help. They are.”

  “You’re a respectful child,” Perelman said. “Do you know Peter very well?”

  “Karl’s friend?”

  “Piatkow. Your Peter.”

  “Not mine.” She smiled.

  Perelman mirrored back the smile, raked his fingers through his thick brown hair, a mild flirtation. “He doesn’t like to talk, does he? Not to me. Maybe not to men very much.”

  “He likes to talk about paintings. He took me to see some.”

  “Talked about them. Lectured you. Showed off how much he knows about painting—because he was in Paris, am I right? This man’s got geography in his heart where romance should be!”

  Through their laughter, Rivka said, “Did Peter have a woman the last time he was here?”

  Perelman showed her his empty hands, ignorant or discreet. “So he doesn’t have a word to say to you on that subject. He didn’t treat you bad, did he?”

  “You think he’s a cold fish.”

  “No—Peter? Definitely no. But men act different with other men. I should ask you how he acts with a woman—with you.”

  “Not cold.”

  This smile Perelman didn’t return, his voice suddenly intimate and serious. “You and Fanny, you two are good friends.” Rivka heard this as a question and she answered with a nod. “She gossips,” Perelman said. “So you probably know from her that my wife goes with other men.”

  “No,” Rivka fibbed.

  “She does. It’s all right with me. A younger woman needs excitement, doesn’t she? Also comfort, which she doesn’t want from me—one thing I can give her, give a woman. Nothing to do with how old a man is.” The roomy silence he left for some encouraging reply from Rivka was broken soon enough by an accidental knock on the wall. Perelman put a stiff finger to his lips, then jabbed it toward a child’s stockinged foot jutting from its hiding place behind the armchair in the corner near the door. Theatrically obvious, Perelman stood up, saying, “Rivka, did you see Carlusha upstairs? Poor boy’s bedridden.”

  “Oh, no. Is he very ill?” Dripping worry, “You want me to look in on him?”

  “Terrible congestion in the chest, so I kept him home from school today…” Perelman dropped heavily into the armchair, swooped his hand downward, grabbed his son’s ankle, and hauled him out. “Little piglet! What are you doing?”

  A giggling squeal, then one of pain, when Perelman gave Carlusha’s foot a twist. “Spying on you,” the boy confessed.

  “You’re a terrible spy,” his father said.

  “I found out things.”

  “And I found you. If I was the okhrana I could drag you back to Russia.” Without letting go of Carlusha’s flailing leg, Perelman said to Rivka, “I’ll have to teach him.”

  Whether he meant a lesson in morality or in the basics of espionage, Rivka wasn’t sure. Carlusha in tow, still squealing, Perelman escorted Rivka out the front door. He remained there with the purpose, apparently, of punishing the boy with public humiliation, but he kept an eye on Rivka long enough to see her meet a man at the turning of Stepney Way, somebody whose identity Perelman couldn’t completely make out.

  If he’d disguised himself as a tree, Perelman would have heard Max Smoller identify himself to Rivka by saying, “Yoska told me how you looked. The freckles.” True, persistent flecks across her forehead and the bridge of her nose, undefeated by the English winter.

  “You’re Max?” Rivka said as they walked away. “My husband for today.” Who wouldn’t be her husband for a thousand years? This man, who—among other things—looked twice her age.

  “I didn’t give my real name where we’re going. Never do that. The one we’re going to see, Millard, I told him my name is Levi. I’m Joe Levi. So, remember, don’t call me Max. And you should pick a different name too.”

  “Gerte, then.”

  “Why Gerte?” Max asked.

  “Gerte worked in the bakery where I worked.”

  “Here?”

  “At home. Sasmacken.”

  “That’s all right, then. In front of Millard I’ll call you Gertie. But don’t feel you have to open your mouth. Are you good at acting? Yoska says you’re a singer.”

  Rivka saw a flash of rigidity in Max’s brush-cut hair, a crudity in his thick nose and heavy lips, and a hair-trigger tension in his eyes that wasn’t calming. The undeniable scent coming off him was that of a man born without the subtlety to see her in her true light. So he’d overpower her instead.

  Yes, she could act. To play Mrs. Joe Levi she needed a story to explain the circumstances to herself. As they walked to Hounds ditch, Rivka invented their history: Joe is my distant cousin, his family took me in when I was a child, after the Russians murdered my parents in a pogrom, I looked up to Joe as a protector, he was going to be married but the girl changed her mind, “I love you, Gerte,” he gave his love to me, three years ago, I was sixteen…

  “Don’t make him suspicious. He thinks Jews are worse than gypsies,” Max advised her. “You speak any English?”

  “Not as much as I think I do,” Rivka admitted.

  “Well, don’t say anything. If he asks you something, look at me and I’ll answer for you.”

  When it comes to foreigners, Rivka thought, what kind of behavior don’t Englishmen find suspicious? For the next hour or two, she figured, she’d act as if she knew They were watching her, and gave herself that one guiding advantage—something They didn’t credit her with the brains to know.

  EXCEPT FOR A BRISK NOD of welcome, Mr. Millard, the landlord, ignored Rivka’s presence in his office. As she stood invisibly in front of him, he made a demonstration of general respect for Max, or Joe, as head of the Levi household. Rivka trailed a step behind them and was left out of the small talk on the short walk down Cutler Street to No. 11 Exchange Buildings.

  She heard Mr. Millard ask Max if his wife spoke English. “Not much,” Max said. “Not much of anything else, either,” he joked, reminding Rivka to keep quiet.

  “Your present home must be a blessedly quiet place,” Mr. Millard joked back. “It’s quiet here, you’re a good distance away from the street.”

  Deaf and dumb Mrs. Levi’s first view of Exchange Build ings wasn’t of a place but of a secret event, an approaching event that her own visit to No. 11 brought closer. From the foot of the narrow staircase that led to the bedroom above, she looked outside at the two storeys of soot-shadowed brick walls, the green wooden shutters sealed against the street-level windows, the cul-de-sac off Cutler Street, and found herself mulling tactical thoughts: Where could we run if the policemen raid us? Will it be suspicious to leave the shutters closed? Dangerous to leave them open?

  Max called to her, “Gertie, come up.” Rivka answered him in weary Yiddish on her way u
p the stairs and overheard Joe Levi say to their new landlord, “No children, no. Somewhere for me and my wife. The same price as the other one?”

  “Ten a week. Shillings, not pounds, don’t worry,” his land-lordly joke. “The good thing here, Mr. Levi, is we can have this ready for you by the end of the week. You don’t have to wait for No. 9.” Deal done, he half-turned toward Rivka. “And it’s so handy for the West End.”

  The rooms were bare, poky, and dim, dull light through the grimy windows graying the place even more. Rivka tried to look like a wife eyeing up the living space: A bed here, a chiffonier in the corner, a chair over there, unsuspicious appraisals she hoped showed on her face. Believing the fiction, her defense against being unmasked. “Joe, wu is der kloset?”

  Max translated the question. Mr. Millard pointed to the yard below, then slid aside so Max and Rivka could see the narrow alleyway where the lavatory stood—a small brick hut in a row of others between Exchange Buildings and the backs of the shops in Houndsditch. Rivka frowned her satisfaction and unasked-for approval. Max and Mr. Millard shook hands, money emptied out of one pocket and folded into another, and the curtain came down on Rivka’s first and last turn as Gerte Levi.

  Out in the street again, their new landlord left them with a signed-and-sealed wave, as they window-shopped in front of H. S. Harris Jewelers.

  Twenty

  THAT SCHVANTZ CHANGED HIS MIND, said meet him here, thought Perelman. To get under my skin. Make me wait. Show me who’s on top of whom. Ten more minutes and that’s all, that’s me, the end.

  He angled the brim of his wide hat against the drizzle that began to fall as he stood alone in the lee of Bevis Marks. Inconspicuous as a parade, he tucked himself into his cape, stamped his feet on cold, rusty flagstones, then paced away from the synagogue entrance. A reluctant Jew exposed to the weather. From inside, the hum of Friday night services reached Charles Perelman through the bright arched windows. Socialist-Revolutionary or no, he struggled not to feel affected by the Erev Shabbat gathering-in. Hebrew prayers and hymns ringed this orderly convention of Jews, and with his dark Ashkenazi looks, Perelman was one of them by implication. Nobody asked him about it. He knew how Jews operated with Jews: claim you as a brother, then they have the right—the duty—to tell you how to be a good Jew! Protest, object, and you’re a turncoat, worse than the goyim, than the Egyptians even!

  A Good Jew can’t be a socialist, a rabbi once lectured him, let alone a Social-Revolutionary. And revolutionaries of his acquaintance never stopped telling him, and each other, how to be a Good Socialist. In Perelman, they were up against somebody who fought without the burden of their meshuga claims—the Jews, revolutionists, police. Among them all, Charles Perelman was the only free man in London. He stood in the middle of a bridge, socialists ahead and Jews behind him. Or was that Russia behind him and England ahead? Or the okhrana behind him and Special Branch ahead? Or Liesma ahead, maybe behind him too? What did that make the turbulent waters underneath his bridge? He stopped pacing, slightly confused now, the metaphor crumbling into nonsense. However, Perelman assured himself, he was free—free to be a Good Man as he reckoned it. For what other reason was he standing outside Bevis Marks on a wet Friday night freezing his kishkas?

  The answer echoed back to him: Performing a Charitable Act. Protecting Rivka with his loyalty and conscience and strength of spirit. Without her knowing she had a guardian angel at her shoulder. For Rivka’s sake, he’d lower himself to wait in the rain, in the shadow of the old synagogue, hang on to meet his contact, by now a quarter of an hour late. This was not disrespect, strictly speaking. Ten more minutes, then it would be disrespect. The putznasher might arrive with hot soup and a mouthful of apology to find Perelman gone.

  “Charles?”

  Perelman half-turned his head. “Who else?”

  Henry Wagner always looked overworked to Perelman. Worn thin even for a young man serving two masters: the Jewish community and the City of London Police. Beyond what he could see, Perelman knew next to nothing about his handler, an unfairness that rankled tonight more than usual.

  “Not a comfortable place to meet,” Wagner offered, no soup in hand. “Sorry.”

  “This is cold? Try walking through a Russian field in January, my friend.”

  Wagner strolled away from the lamp above the synagogue door, an invitation for Perelman to do the same. “I saw the big Rothschild here. High Holy Days. Top hats—very grand.”

  The congregation’s voices answered the rabbi’s in a sea swell of Omain. Perelman smiled back at the building. “Jewish parliament. Baa-baa. I’m still a socialist.”

  “What noise does a socialist make, then?”

  “We talk like human beings.”

  “Are we going to have a political discussion or is there something going on?”

  The chivvying from him! Perelman thought. Let him whistle for it. “Wagner. That’s your real name? You only go by Wagner?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why ‘of course’? ‘Of course’ you wouldn’t lie to me.”

  “I’m no liar.”

  “How would I know?”

  “Because in six months you haven’t had any surprises,” Wagner said narrowly. “No visits from the okhrana.”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “They come to visit you, it isn’t something you’d mistake for the milkman.”

  “Russians or not, okhrana are secret police, Mr. Wagner.”

  “They like to think so. Big boots. Nothing like us.”

  “Who?”

  The two men stood close enough for Wagner to flap his fingers between his chest and Perelman’s. “You and me.”

  “Your inspector, he treats you equal? I mean,” Perelman cleared his throat professorially. “In the police do they treat you the same as an Englishman?”

  “Twice as good. I’m the Englishman who speaks Yiddish.”

  “That’s what they tell you. My friend, you think you’re standing on solid ground”—he stamped the pavement under his boot—“but take it from me, you’re in the middle of a bridge.”

  Drizzle fattened into a steady rain, and underneath it, without an umbrella, Wagner lost whatever interest he’d had in Charles Perelman’s philosophic ideas. “Is something going on?”

  “Definitely. Yes. Something.”

  “What do you know about it? Where, when?”

  Perelman raised his finger, advising patience. “I’ve got somebody in place. With Liesma.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Somebody close to Peter the Painter.”

  “So do we,” Wagner said. “We haven’t heard anything.”

  “Who’s your man in there?” Perelman bartered.

  “Who’s yours?” Keen silence from Wagner.

  The same from Perelman. “Then you should have the same information I do.”

  “I don’t pay for stale rumors. Something for something and he knows it. You know it too.”

  “It’s money,” Perelman ventured. “A money job, a robbery. Soon.”

  “Nothing more definite?”

  “Aldgate Pump. In around three weeks. My contact owes me money and promised to get it before January.”

  “What’s in Aldgate?” Wagner thought out loud. “No factories. Banks? A bank? Is the Painter here for another Tottenham? That’s no good for anybody.”

  “You never met Salnish,” Perelman guessed. “The wild-crazy Lett who ran Liesma before Karl.”

  “No.”

  “Here’s something for nothing: Peter the Painter, he’s worse. He’ll shoot you if he doesn’t like your shoes.”

  “Get me good information, Charles, better than this. Where and when, who’s involved.”

  “As long as I can protect my informant.”

  “Then you’d better tell me who he is. Otherwise, if we lift the lot of them, I can’t help.”

  “I’m her protector—you follow me?”

  “If I’m not discreet, what am I? Her name. Her alias,” Wagner u
rged him. “Who is she?”

  “No. She’s my responsibility.” Then he casually recalled, “Nina Vasilyeva came to my house a week ago.”

  Wagner said, “She’s no leaky bucket. When did she ever spill anything?”

  “Not her. My girl’s close to Piatkow, the Painter.” Perelman wouldn’t say any more and turned to listen to the singing in the temple. The cantor’s clear tenor floated the Adon Olam above the clattering rain, a benediction.

  Wagner heard it too and it made him eager to leave. He pock eted his pencil, closed his small black notebook. “They’re coming out any minute. Get her to give you real information, Charles, something that will help us stop them. The place, the date, accomplices.”

  But Perelman’s thoughts were in midair with the trailing notes of sacred song. “An island,” he said to the synagogue’s tall, bright windows. “An island on an island.”

  A waste of fifteen minutes, Wagner almost said out loud before he dissolved into the foot traffic churning homeward. “A meshugener zol men oyshraybn, un im araynshraybn.” They should free a madman, and lock him up. Henry Wagner left there favoring a possibility lately tossed around H Division—that the okhrana were chasing a different C. Perelman altogether.

  Twenty-one

  FRITZ RIPPED THE DOOR BACK with such a burst of force that the hinges rattled. Big feet planted, thick body braced, eyes exploding with the emergency, clowning around. “Help me! I can’t tune my mandolin!”

  Nicholas Tomacoff grinned back at him. “How did you know it was me?” Mild as a schoolboy, almost as young.

  “You’re the last one here! Everybody’s waiting for music, come on.” Fritz corralled him inside, arm swung around Nicholas’s shoulders.

  “Who’s waiting?”

  Peeking through the front bedroom doorway, Nicholas saw Peter hunched in a chair, concentrating on a game of chess with the one they called the Barber, whose other name was John Rosen. The Painter and the Barber. George Gardstein, Fritz’s cousin Jacob, four women, and three more men, quietly talking together, drinking, smoking cigarettes, a music-hall crowd waiting for the show to begin. Fritz pulled Nicholas into the back bedroom where the mandolin he’d been playing for all of three weeks lay on the bed beside his prop wooden sword.