The young men blushed. They avoided each other's eyes. There were some mutterings among the Kaplan brothers and after comparing notes, David Kaplan said, 'We are all five of us circumcised. That's because we're Jews,' he added, with elephantine irony.
'Are you sure?' asked Phryne.
'You had three questions,' commented Benjamin Abrahams. 'What is the third?'
'That I have to ask in private. I am going into the other room, and each of the five should come in one at a time. Make sure that they do not communicate the question to each other when they come out, Jack. Yossi, we start with you,' and she took him out of the drawing room and into the parlour. The door closed with a quiet slap.
After a couple of minutes, a very puzzled Yossi emerged and David Kaplan took his place. He was followed by an equally bewildered Solly, his brother Abe, and Isaac Cohen. He came out after two minutes, and Phryne Fisher had him in a polite armlock.
'You were infiltrated, Yossi,' she told the young man. 'You thought that he was an undercover Zionist, willing to give the money to the cause. But there are undercover men and undercover men, and this one meant you no good. You were intending to kill Yossi after you got the formula, weren't you?' she asked, relinquishing her hold to Jack Robinson, who swung Isaac round to face the company. 'Who are you working for, I wonder? I'd say you were political rather than greedy, so you're more likely to be Russian than American. Going to the lengths of having you circumcised sounds like Russian lunatic thoroughness. That must have stung. You nearly got away with it,' she told him. 'You cleaned your shoes before I could find any of Mrs Katz's china in your soles. You had a getaway car arranged when you failed to snatch my handbag. I wonder if, when we search you, we'll find your other passport? You can't have come here just because of Yossi. You must have been here all along.'
'Yes, yes,' snarled Isaac Cohen. 'My name is Ivan Vassiliov. Of course I was here. Four years I have been here. I was sent to infiltrate the Jews in Melbourne, the young counterrevolutionaries, the Zionist conspiracy to overthrow the revolution. I learned the language, I learned the customs, I read Torah. I was a very good Jew. When I found out about the compound, I received my instructions. I had orders to kill the inventor when I had his invention. The revolution needs it.'
'You were going to kill me?' asked Yossi, bewildered. 'You were going to kill me?'
'Of course. With you dead and the formula in my hands, who was to say where it came from?' asked Isaac reasonably. 'I tell you, the New Russia requires it.'
'But, Isaac,' he protested, and Ivan Vassiliov turned in the policeman's grasp and spat in his face.
'Filthy Jew,' he snarled.
'That's quite enough of that,' said Robinson. 'Come along. Immigration'll want you after you get out of jail,' he said to the young man. 'They'll deport you smartish and I hope the Russians have joy of you. Nasty piece of work,' said Robinson, and shoved the struggling ex-Cohen from the room.
Yossi was led away to wash his face. Julia Abrahams said helplessly, 'But he seemed so nice.'
'Zeeser Gottenyu!' Mrs Grossman fanned herself. 'Sweet God, a Russian! In my house, yet!'
Mr Abrahams went to the cupboard, poured busily, and passed around small glasses of strong sherry. Everyone sipped and gradually started to recover from the shock. The voices rose to fever pitch then began to die down.
That's the last revelation I have for today,' said Phryne. 'Not a nice one but it is the last. Everyone else in this room is definitely who they say they are.'
She looked around. The students were clumped together. The three Kaplans had the advantage of knowing each other from birth. Yossi was well known. Everyone was now known, except this strange woman who had seduced Simon and solved the mysteries.
There was something that everyone was dying to know but no one liked to ask.
Mrs Katz took another biscuit and nudged her husband, who shrugged. Julia Abrahams looked at her husband, but he was staring into his glass. The students shifted and muttered but did not speak. Then Simon rose from his chair and came to sit next to Phryne.
'I have to know,' he said. His parents looked fondly at him. Simon could be relied on to ask the question on everyone's lips. Such a good boy.
'Phryne darling,' said Simon, forgetting that his mother was listening. Tell us. Please. We have to know.' 'What?'
Simon took Phryne's hand in both his own. 'How did you know that the spy was Isaac Cohen, I mean, Ivan Vassiliov?'
'A spy can learn a language,' said Phryne. 'A spy can study Torah, be circumcised, and can acquire a protective veneer of shared history or shared study. But one thing cannot be faked. You can authenticate an Englishman by asking him to sing Humpy Dumpty or Old King Cole or asking him about the Old Woman Tossed Up in a Blanket. You can verily a Pole by asking him to say a little prayer, which every Polish child learns at its mother's knee. Orphaned, lost, brought up by wolves, every child born in Poland knows his Our Father.' 'So?' asked Julia Abrahams.
'So I just took them into the next room, and asked them to sing me Raisins and Almonds,' said Phryne.
Bibliography
If anyone would like to duplicate my research, here are my sources. I have made one deliberate anachronism: I moved the Society restaurant to Bourke Street four years early.
u/r = unknown reference–I had given the book back before I noted the reference.
Album of Melbourne Views 1925 (author's collection)
Amirah: An Un-Australian Childhood Amirah Inglis, Heinemann, Melbourne 1983
The Australian Jewish Herald 20 September 1928
A Book of Household Management Mrs Beeton Ward Lock, London 1901
The Book of Werewolves Sabine Baring-Gould, Causeway Books, New York 1973
Bridging Two Worlds: The Jews and Italians in Carlton Arnold Zable et al., catalogue, Museum of Victoria undated
The Castle of Otranto H. Walpole, Penguin Classics, London 1989
Celebrate Jewish Festivals Angela Wood, u/r
Dawn of Magic L. Pauwels and J. Bergier, Panther, London 1964
Dictionary of Alchemy M. Haeffner, Aquarian Press, London 1991
Education of Hyman Kaplan L. Rosten, Penguin, New York 1968
Eliphas Levi and the French Occult Revival C. Mcintosh, Rider, London 1972
Experimental Magic J. Brennan, Samuel Weiser, New York 1981
Fortune Telling B. Rakoczi, Man Myth and Magic, London 1970
From Moses to Qumran H.H. Rowley, Lutterworth Press, London 1963
The Heir of Udolpho Mrs Radcliff, Penguin Classics, London 1981
The Holy Bible, King James edition
The Holy Kabbalah A.E. Waite, Oracle, London 1996
Jewels and Ashes Arnold Zable, u/r
The Jewish Problem Louis Golding, Penguin, London 1938
The Jews in Victoria Hilary L. Rubenstein, Allen & Unwin, Sydney 1986
The Joys of Yiddish Leo Rosten, Penguin, New York 1959
Living Traditions I. Becher, Mallard Press, New York 1993
Man, Myth and Magic, an encyclopedia ed. R. Cavendish, Purnell, London 1972
Melbourne Markets 1841-1879 u/r, State Library
Melmoth the Wanderer Sebastian Maturin, Penguin Classics, London 1989
Murder Australian Style Jim Main, Unicorn Books, Melbourne 1980
The Murdered Magicians Peter Partner, Crucible Press, London 1987
The Mystical Quabbalah Dion Fortune, Aquarian Press, London 1987
Natural Rubber and the Synthetics T. Tryon, u/r Bailleu Library, Melbourne University
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia ed. I. Wigoder, W. H. Allen, London 1977
Paracelsus: Magic into Science H. Pachter, Collier, New York 1961
The Religions of Man H. Smith, Perennial Library, New York 1958
The Return of Hyman Kaplan L. Rosten, Penguin, New York 1970
Teyve's Daughters Sholom Aleichem, trans. Frances Butwin, Crown, New York 1969
Trial and Error: an autobiography Chaim Weizman, Hamish hamilton, L
ondon 1949
The Torah D. Charing, Mallard, New York 1994
The World's Great Religions Time Life, New York 1986
Maps and journeys—the City of Melbourne, Carlton
film: Bitter Almonds: The Jews in Melbourne
Yiddish words
alav ha-sholom (m) or aleha ha-sholem (f): may he/she rest in peace
bubelah: baby
dreck: rubbish, dirt
feh!: an exclamation of disgust
gevalt: (equivalent to) enough!
Goldene Medina: the Golden Land, Australia
gonif: a thief
Gottenyu: God or Lord
Kaddish: prayer for the dead
kasha: cooked cereal
kasheh: questions
mazik: a clever little devil
megillah: the whole long tale
meshuggener: an idiot, a fool
meshumed: an apostate
mezuzah: a charm placed on a doorway to sanctify a house
miesse meshina: an ugly fate or death
mitzvah: a blessing, a good deed
mispocheh: family
nu: a multitude of meanings (sim to eh? in Greek or Ar in Australian)
nudzing: nagging
schlemiel: an idiot
schlimazl: an unlucky idiot
shah: silence
Shabbes: the Sabbath
shalom aleichem: Peace be unto you—a greeting
shemozzl: a mixed-up mess
shiksa: a non-Jewish girl
shivah: a period of mourning
Torah: the Book of Laws, the bible
zayde: grandfather
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Raisins and Almonds pf-9 Page 21