by Bob Biderman
Z was thinking about all this for the umpteenth time when he was approached by a young man with bright eyes, intensified and made larger by the potent lenses of his wire-rimmed spectacles perched comfortably on a calm, unthreatening face that must have charmed both men and women. This young man, whose name was Rabinovitch, sat down at Z’s table and began to chat with him – something that would never have happened in an English café without the necessary preliminaries of introductions and queries as to whether intruding on one’s personal space was warranted. But, as mentioned, there was no personal space here anyway. And, therefore, there was no question as to whether this young man had a right to sit down at Z’s table and start a conversation. Nor would it have seemed strange if several other people sat down as well, entered into whatever dialogue was established, and then, just as things were getting interesting, left to engage in another debate somewhere else. For, if Sonnenschein’s was like a pond, each table there was like a lily pad for the customers to hop upon, croak a bit, eat a few flies and then move on.
Rabinovitch, as it turned out, was a sometime journalist for the Yiddish press, a poet, a playwright, a novelist, who earned his meagre living as a scribe or letter writer for the multitude of Jews who wanted to correspond with some official agency but hadn’t the language skills to accomplish it. Rabinovitch, of course, knew Z by sight and reputation and had read his stories and columns avidly over the several years he had been in London. So, even though they had never actually met, Rabinovitch felt he knew Z well enough to consider him a comrade because as well as having read his writings, he knew people who knew him, which was enough to establish a connection. And even if that weren’t the case, this was Sonnenschein’s and, therefore, Rabinovitch knew it was quite all right to sit down and talk because the people who came here were without much affectation. Poverty was a great equaliser. Paper hierarchies are quickly dispensed with when people are poor, for basic needs quickly overcome pretence.
Besides, there was something Rabinovitch wanted to say. He knew that Z was involved in the Lipski case and, in his own manner, he was as well. But he had been picking up on some curious stories and he wanted to pass them on because he felt that they were being lost or ignored in the tempest of the moment. It had to do with the events at Batty Street right after the bodies were found and the crowds had begun to gather. The prosecution had selected certain witnesses, he said, who supported their case and they had ignored others. These others, who were ignored, had a different story to tell. Perhaps Z would be interested in hearing about them?
CHAPTER 37
OFF STAGE, OUT of the range of the footlights, there was another performance that had been enacted and another audience that had witnessed it. This was the shadow world of an audience without the price of admission and performers who would never be allowed on stage. For the trial of Israel Lipski was choreographed around a sequence of incidents that were deemed to be true and therefore, in re-enacting them before invited guests, the eyewitness accounts were carefully vetted to conform to a pre-constructed vision. Anything that detracted from this scenario was deemed simply incorrect or even mischievous.
In the hubbub and confusion after the body of Miriam Angel was discovered, there was an ebb and flow of people on the stairs of the Batty Street house, pushing upwards and then down again, passing information, like vital crumbs of nourishment, to the hungry crowd below which was quickly accumulating outside on the road. This was before the police had been able to set up a cordon to limit the number of people on the scene. But even afterwards, there were some who had got through the ragged and poorly contained police line – friends of the family, friends of friends, or those who just appeared to be members of the household.
These people, like phantoms, soon disappeared into the night. No one was bothered about them. They had an invisible presence because they were held to have no substance or value. But they were the face of the ghetto, a monster with a thousand eyes that saw things back and forth and sideways, filtered through several millennia of history and processed by a neurological network that contained infinite notions of the past, the future and the present.
But now, some many weeks afterward, stimulated by the verdict of the trial and Lipski’s imminent demise, stories had started drifting out, emerging slowly, oozing like sap from wounded trees in a dense and tangled forest. At first they seeped into the rumour mill like thinned molasses with hardly enough substance to butter a pancake. However boiled in a heated cauldron of innuendo and gossip, these threadbare anecdotes grew more viscous and heavier.
What, for instance, was one to make of the man who had stood by the doorway of Angel’s room at the Batty Street house when the search was being enacted and saw someone remove a vial, similar in appearance to the one exhibited at the trial and said to have contained the murderous nitric acid, quietly from his pocket? What was one to make of that? Or the whispers heard by another, which, translated from the Yiddish, meant ‘Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.’ Hushed remarks that indicated nothing at the time but later seemed quite ominous. Or the man who had come to the house earlier, unreported in the trial events, who claimed to have seen two strange men rushing out of the door just as he arrived.
In the confusion, in the emotional tempest which swept over them, in the excitement generated by the crowd, the heightened drama and the horrible nature of the crime, who actually had the presence to piece anything together then? It was only afterward, after many days had passed, and the visions of the day were re-run again and again in not-so-addled minds that they suddenly became aware of things that had been eating at them which made no sense in the crisp and clean version of events that Lipski’s prosecutors so blithely conjured.
CHAPTER 38
IT IS LATE in the afternoon. Z is back in his room, sitting at his desk with his pen, freshly dipped in its brass ink well, poised above a virgin sheet of paper. A tiny drop of ink rolls off the nib and splatters onto the emptiness. No matter, it is only a tiny blotch and Z is not such a slave to neatness. Take a look at his room – clothes scattered on the floor, dirty dishes piled precariously on a counter, masses of books and papers stacked helter-skelter everywhere. So what of a tiny blotch of ink falling on the cleanness of a brand new page? It saves him the trouble of decrying the first mark – that initial foray into transcribing the subconscious that cannot but sully the sublime nothingness that contains the potential of perfection in its yet-to-be state before the author tampers with it.
But what Z sets out to write is not what he wants, for he is too obsessed with Lipski and the events that have rushed past like a tempest inundating everything in a wind-swept gust. So instead of writing what he wants – which is still unknown to him and will not be known until he writes it – he makes an entry in his journal: ‘Saturday, the 13th of August, 1887.’
Then he puts down his pen. Where to start? So much has happened in such a short time. The emotional rollercoaster went unabated reaching new highs and lows which if charted on a graph would have looked like the madness of the stock exchange or the beating of a frantic heart.
So he closes his eyes. And what he sees is himself walking down Aldgate and then along Leadenhall till it becomes Cornhill; then past Bank and down Cheapside, finally reaching King Street where Hayward’s office is located. He sees himself walking swiftly, taking long strides, his angular body driven forward, his head thrust out in a determined manner pushing forth against the Easterly breeze that carries the stench of industrial waste back toward the ghetto that had nurtured him. From his jacket pocket, a copy of yesterday’s Pall Mall Gazette protrudes noticeably and he clenches it firmly in place with the long, tapered fingers of his writing hand.
Entering Hayward’s office he sees Greenberg and Myers seated at the meeting table. They look up as he comes in. Z takes the Gazette from his pocket and waves it above his head. Greenberg grabs his own issue from the table and waves it as well. Myers grins. Z had never seen
Myers grin before. Not a true grin of unabashed pleasure. But his smile soon faded.
Opening his eyes again, he notices the very same paper sitting on his desk. He reaches out and brings it closer to him. Then, unfolding it, he smoothes the creases and looks it over once more.
It was Stead and the Pall Mall Gazette that had taken up the case for reprieve with a crusading spirit that went far beyond the plight of the beleaguered young man. Z had known that more than saving an innocent life from the gallows, Stead wanted a story that would launch another frontal assault on ‘Modern Babylon’. For even though Stead despised injustice, he hated the Tory Home Secretary, Matthews (the ‘Papist anti-Christ’) even more; he hated Poland, the prosecutor who had banged him up in prison for his ill-fated Maiden Tribute exposé; but most of all he hated Justice Stephen who epitomised to him everything wicked about class-ridden England where blithering, bumbling, sexually obsessed hypocrites wielded power with brick bats given to them by Her Majesty, the Queen, and thus, in proxy, by God.
Not that Stead had much time for Jews, especially the waves of hapless immigrants littering up the shining shores of New Britannia, taking jobs from real English workers and dishonouring Mother Russia, as the Tsarina’s friend, Mme Novikov, had convinced him. But even a Jew, in Stead’s zealous mind, deserved the promise of True British Justice.
Z knows this about Stead and yet the Pall Mall Gazette, the newspaper Stead captained and wielded like a mighty sword of truth and vengeance, was feared, loathed and admired in equal parts. What Z understands, and what could not be denied, is that the Pall Mall Gazette was read by the high and the mighty as well as those who wished to bring the high and mighty down. The Gazette was capable of moving mountains whereas sometimes Z feels (in his darker moments) that Hayward’s motley crew could hardly shift a grain of sand.
After all, where were they now? Three short days remained before Lipski’s execution. Certainly Hayward’s meeting with the judge had led him to feel there was a shred of hope – if only they could find the trick of loosening the Gordian knot that bound the hesitant Justice Stephen from asking Matthews to declare a reprieve. And if what they needed was a clarion call to wake the native urge for righteousness in the liberal middle-classes (or, at least, give it a nudge), Z had to admit that the Gazette could be the trumpet with which to do it.
Even then Z had a lingering and abiding premonition, like a visitation from future’s ghost. There was a certain bravado about the Gazette that smacked of the foolhardy. As the canons from Stead’s galleon blazed, it often set fire to the fringes rather than the target, itself. But, Z thought, at least the canons blazed. And perhaps that’s really what was needed. For the newspaper that had been flapping in his jacket pocket as he walked swiftly toward Hayward’s office the other day, was indeed a clarion call. And this issue of the Pall Mall Gazette of August 11, 1887, as a forceful summation of the case, the lingering doubts and the unanswered questions, would lead anyone with head or heart to conclude that, at the very least, the charge against Israel Lipski remained unproven.
Z pages through the issue once again, casting a writer’s eye over the length and breadth of this scorching discourse that often seemed to hover perilously close to tirade and invective. Yet it captured the mind as well as the emotions. It was, Z thought, a work of journalistic daring-do. And simply from a sense of professional curiosity, he tried to analyse how Stead had done it.
Thunder was first hurled at the readers, themselves – something Z felt was strategically both brilliant and dangerous. He remembered reading it with a reaction of shock and then admiration for such a mad and ingenious bit of bravado: ‘As the Home Office has been allowed to drift into a blunder,’ it began, ‘the public, which might have prevented such blundering, must share the responsibility.’ That was enough to make them prick up their ears, Z thought. And it continued: ‘What we now ask the public to do is to hear the prisoner’s case restated before they become, in however slight a degree, parties to what, if that case be worth anything, would be a judicial murder …’
What followed was a very reasoned and painstakingly thorough discussion of the case against Israel Lipski, the admitted facts, the theory of the prosecution to account for them and Lipski’s explanation in his defence. Then, one by one, the questions that lingered: What happened to the fatal vial of acid? Was the door to Angel’s room really locked? What was the motive? What happened to the sovereign Lipski had in his possession the night before the murder? How did the skin get to be rubbed off both Lipski’s elbows? How did Lipski become insensible? Why did no one hear a single scream or sound of scuffle? And, most importantly Z felt, if Lipski did murder the poor woman, how did he succeed in doing it? In the words of the Gazette, ‘First there came the struggle with the murdered woman, in the course of which this slightly built young man with a feeble fist must have dealt her four or five blows, enough to stun her. Then he must have given her the acid, and himself the acid; have sprinkled his coat therewith in the peculiar manner above described; have taken his coat off; have covered it up with the other coat which was found above it. Having done that he must have crawled under the bed, insensible… All this surely makes a large demand on one’s credulity. If there were other conclusively damning pieces of evidence, one might be content to accept such things, hard to believe though they be. But remembering what had been adduced above, can one honestly say that those difficulties now pointed out should be lightly put aside – especially as every one of such difficulties at once disappears if the prisoner’s own story be accepted?’
And finally, the inevitable conclusion – the coup de grace: ‘What we have thus adduced is what Mr Hayward put before Mr Justice Stephen, and what caused the most acute and most unbending of judges to have the gravest possible doubts as to the propriety of carrying out his own sentence. The responsibility now rests on the Home Secretary. But it is for the public, to whom the Home Secretary is in the long run responsible, to insist on it that he shall not make them parties to the terrible risk of committing under form of law a crime hardly less heinous than that which did Miriam Angel to death.’
So when Z had walked into Hayward’s office waving that magnificent copy over his head, how could he have known, how could anyone have known, that the very next day their hopes would be dashed.
Hayward wasn’t there, he remembers. Myers told him he was having his second meeting with the judge and then … And then? Then he was meeting Stead. Why Stead? Because that was the agreement.
Myers, it seems, had told Hayward to be careful. Hayward, he said, was honest, honourable and trusting – marvellous qualities for a saint but dangerous for a lawyer. He was a good man, Myers said, and thus he feared for him. (As one does for all good men, Z thinks to himself, recalling the conversation.)
But the second meeting had gone splendidly. Indeed, Hayward was quite euphoric when he had returned later that afternoon of August 11th. Poland was there as well, Hayward had told them, to provide the prosecution’s response to his questions. But Justice Stephen was disquieted and not at all pleased with Poland’s replies. And afterwards, when Hayward was chatting with the judge’s clerk on his way out, he was left with the distinct impression that Stephen was troubled by this case – more troubled than the clerk had ever known and he had been with the judge for over fifteen years!
Myers had asked Hayward: So your conversation with Stead, when you went to the offices of the Pall Mall Gazette – how did that go?
Oh, very well! Very well! Stead is definitely with us!
And what did you say to Stead? Myers asked him, his eyes slightly narrowed. Did you tell him everything? Including the little chat with the judge’s clerk?
Hayward shrugs. That was significant, wasn’t it? It provides us with evidence of the state of Stephen’s mind.
And you told Stead that? Myers asked him.
Of course I insisted that everything the judge told me must remain confidential, Hayward ha
d said. He won’t attribute anything to me. Of that he promised.
And Z recalls the look that Myers gave him – a painful expression of sadness and of sorrow.
CHAPTER 39
Z’S PEN IS now flying. He is writing about events as he witnessed them – though, as a writer, he is bound to embellish what he experienced – for his pen quite often has a mind of its own.
He is thinking about Lipski, pleased that the drums were being banged for his release – or, at the very least, a delay of execution – but concerned that it might now be out of control and that a political game was being played behind the scenes to which he was not a party. Mulling all this over, he realises the pressures of last week had been extraordinarily strenuous taking up an enormous tranche of his time – though, certainly, he feels his own work could hardly come before the life of that unfortunate young man. (‘I do not complain,’ he writes. ‘There is much to be learned from this trial!’)
Suddenly he hears a rapping at his door. He has been so deep in thought there is a moment’s delay before he answers it – and is surprised to find no one there when finally he does. Later, he discovers a note had been slipped underneath. The message was marked: ‘Urgent!’ And it requested that he return to Hayward’s office at once.
‘It was not a joyous scene when I arrived,’ Z writes. ‘Myers was alone in the office, looking as glum as I have every seen him. He’s not the most ebullient of men at the best of times, but this, I thought, was different. His eyes contained the misery of nations and his shoulders, usually solid and erect, slumped under the weight of something ponderous.
‘”Have you seen it?”he asked, looking at me as if certainly I knew what he meant – which, of course, I didn’t.
‘He pointed to the table whereon there was a pile of journals and newspapers. “Today’s Gazette,” he said. “Have you seen it?”