Solomon Gursky Was Here (31 page)

“They are dead, sir.”

“Or have been transported, more likely,” Mrs. Nicholson said.

“And where did they come from?”

“Minsk.”

Mrs. Nicholson snorted.

“I would like to study Latin and penmanship with you, sir, providing you set a fair price.”

Mr. Nicholson rocked on his heels. “Oh dear me,” he said, shaking with laughter, “a fair price, is it?”

Mrs. Nicholson managed to convey her disapprobation by the manner in which she swept up the tea things, and then retreated into the kitchen.

“I will take you on, boy,” Mr. Nicholson said, “but I cannot, in conscience, accept an emolument.”

“I will do chores for Mrs. Nicholson.”

“You will find,” Mrs. Nicholson said, her face hot, “that I am most particular.”

Mr. Nicholson proved kindly to a fault, irrepressibly jolly, and Ephraim's lessons with him went exceedingly well. He earned pats on the head, playful little jabs and tickles, and exclamations of joy. “Well done, my pretty one!” But when Mrs. Nicholson chose to join them, seated darkly behind their deal table doing needlework in her rocking chair, Mr. Nicholson would become abrupt, impatient, his back stiffening each time her rocking chair creaked. One evening Mr. Nicholson, having quite forgotten his wife's presence, covered Ephraim's hand with his own to guide him in a penmanship exercise. Ephraim, fully aware that she was there, contrived to draw his head closer to Mr. Nicholson, their cheeks brushing. Mrs. Nicholson spoke out: “‘The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are an abomination unto the Lord thy God.'”

Mr. Nicholson's eyes filled with tears. His lower lip trembled. “That will be sufficient for today, boy. Now you run along and see that you make yourself useful to Mrs. Nicholson.”

Following his first lesson, Mrs. Nicholson had set Ephraim to cleaning the living-room carpet. After he had beat it, sent back twice before it was done to her satisfaction, she had him lay it out on the flagstones in the little back yard, where hollyhocks thrived in spite of the soot. Then he sprinkled it with a thick layer of salt mixed with
used tea leaves, annoying her by singing the Hebrew songs he had learned at his father's table.

Who knows One? I know One: One is God in Heaven and Earth.

Who knows Two? I know Two: Two the Tablets, One is God in Heaven and Earth.

Who knows Three? I know Three: Three the Fathers, Two the Tablets, One is God in Heaven and Earth.

Next she had him clean the kitchen range with black-lead, burnish a copper pot inside and out, and clean and trim the oil lamps. Then he returned to the carpet, clearing it of every single tea leaf with a hard brush, and going over it with a wet cloth laced with vinegar to restore the fading colours. His efforts brought out damp patches under his armpits. He stank of sweat. Sniffing to show her displeasure, Mrs. Nicholson helped him hang the carpet on a line to dry. Then she brought him a slice of bread fried in dripping and two rashers of bacon and sat down to watch him eat it. “‘And the swine,'” she said, “‘because it divideth the hoof, yet cheweth not the cud, it is unclean unto you: ye shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch their dead carcase.'”

Ephraim looked her directly in the eye and smiled.

“In the first house where I worked,” Mrs. Nicholson said, lowering her eyes, “all I had for dinner every night was a herring with bread and dripping. I had to leave after the master's son, who had served with Gough in Bangalore, came home on leave. He tried to administer laudanum to me. Do you understand why, boy?”

“No, madam.”

“It was his vile intention to make me subservient to his passions.”

Following his lessons and increasingly onerous chores Ephraim was allowed to curl up on the stone floor next to the fireplace and sleep there in one of Mr. Nicholson's old nightshirts until he rose shortly before dawn to walk five miles to the pithead. The nightshirt had been Mrs. Nicholson's notion. Once she had been taken to a zoo and there she had seen a gazelle with its perpetually swishing tail. She had expected as much of him or at least cloven hoofs, but he had neither. The first night that he had been allowed to stay, Ephraim had barely fallen asleep when he felt a bare foot probing his face. An
indignant Mrs. Nicholson loomed over him, wearing a crocheted black shawl clutched tight over her long flannel nightgown. “Have you said your prayers yet, boy?”

“No, madam.”

“I thought not. I worked once for a certain Mrs. Hardy, who was related to the Duke of Connaught. I had to climb dark stairs to my little iron bed in the attic, but each night, heedless of the cold, I remembered to fall on my knees and say my evening prayers. So long as you are taking advantage of Mr. Nicholson's charity you will most certainly do the same in this house, boy.”

His smile, which cunningly mingled compliance and insolence, infuriated her.

“I will leave my chamberpot outside my bedroom door and you will empty it before you leave in the morning. Quietly as you go, mind you.”

She had him tend to the sterling silver, inherited from Mr. Nicholson's uncle, returning the candlesticks to him for a second and even a third polish before it gleamed to her satisfaction.

“Where is Minsk?”

“It is in Russia.”

“I'm glad you at least know that much. How did your parents get from there to here?”

“They walked.”

“Stuff and nonsense.”

She ordered him to dust the furniture and when he was done she inspected the chair legs and under the tables. “What possible need,” she asked, “has somebody of your dubious origins and modest expectations for Latin and penmanship?”

“It interests me.”

A pattern developed. Once Ephraim's lessons were done, an amused Mr. Nicholson fled the cottage, charged across the heath, blind to passersby, and retired to The Wagon and Horses for a pint. Ephraim would put himself at Mrs. Nicholson's disposal. She had him wash down the paintwork and do the ironing and then she served him a hardboiled egg and toast. “Once I had a post in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, which is in London. And there I enjoyed excellent
daily fare, augmented by occasional delicacies left over from grand dinner parties. I daresay that for all your cheek and singular lack of humility you have never tasted quail's eggs?”

“No, madam.”

“Or venison or partridge?”

“No, madam.”

“Or smoked salmon?”

“No.”

“I thought not. But I have partaken of all of them more than once and we were also allowed a quart of ale for its nutritional content. Alas, my mistress's brother kept trying to corner me in one bedroom or another. He thought me fair game, but he was sadly mistaken. Do you understand, boy?”

He smiled.

“I know very well why you have come here. Undoubtedly you intend to prey on Mr. Nicholson's weakness and expect to profit from it.”

Each time he slept over next to the fireplace, he no sooner drifted off than he was prodded awake by her bare foot and reminded to say his prayers. The seventh time she came to him, he reached out to snatch her slender ankle and took all her toes into the warmth of his mouth. Scorched, she fled from him. But some weeks later she was back. Covering her face with her hands, moaning, she let him do it again. When he let go, she promptly served him the other foot. He drew the toes apart, driving his tongue between them. Standing over him, her eyes rolled upward, she was seized by shuddering. Once it subsided, she pulled herself free and whacked him hard on the nose with the heel of her foot, stunning him. “Auntie's little sodomite,” she cried, fleeing.

She had learned what they called Mr. Nicholson after she had gone to buy a quart of ale in The Wagon and Horses and had overheard those mincing voices drifting through the shutters of the private bar.

“Where's Auntie tonight?”

“Cuddling with his little bit of stuff from the mines. The dark Israelite with the hot eyes.”

During the week she was afflicted with spells of dizziness, and the camisoles she had worn for years without complaint were suddenly
an irritation to her breasts. The next time Ephraim came to the cottage she sat in her rocking chair throughout his Latin lesson and then had him scrub the tiled floor in the kitchen with hot soda water three times before she was satisfied. “I am going to instruct Mr. Nicholson that you are not to come here any more. I know what the two of you are about.”

But she came to him later, offering her foot, and he obliged her once more, steadying her by pretending to make a game of it, panting, growling like a pet puppy with a bone. She presented the other foot. Emboldened, as her breath began to come short, he let his hand fly up her leg. She withdrew, gasping. But she didn't flee. Instead, after a pause, she drew close to him again. Rolling over on his back, he slipped a hand under her nightgown to fondle her. But he couldn't quite reach. Keening, she had to squat. Afterward, her eyes charged with rancour, she said, “You are not to come here next Sunday. Mr. Nicholson will be away. A poetry reading.”

“Leave the bolt off the door and I will come after dark.”

“Oh, no,” she pleaded, rocking her face in her hands, sniffling; and he had to move smartly to avoid a kick in the groin.

The following Sunday, a misery to her, she paced up and down the cottage, wringing her hands, bumping into things. She bolted the back door immediately before sunset and lay down to rest, fighting another dizzy spell, a pillow squeezed between her thighs, weeping. It was no good. She started each time she thought she heard him on the cinder path. She unbolted the door and made herself some tea. She couldn't keep it down. She tried needlework, but her hands wouldn't stop trembling. She shot the door bolt again, angrily this time, but still he didn't come. She set her rolling pin on the kitchen table and unbolted the door. It didn't matter any more. He wasn't coming. It was too late. Probably he was with Mr. Nicholson. Imagining postures that disgusted her, she filled a basin with water and washed, remembering to bolt the door first. When she heard him on the path, singing one of his mournful synagogue songs, she blew out her candle and didn't move. Her eyes filled with tears. Silence. Then cinders flew against the kitchen window. The neighbours, the neighbours. She relit her candle and quickly unbolted the door and let him in. “You must leave at once,” she said.

But he was already inside, smiling. She retreated to her rocking chair, her eyes rimmed red, the family Bible on her lap. “Do not comfort yourself, boy, thinking hell is an abstraction. It's a real place waiting on disgusting little sinners like you. If you have ever seen a swine roasting on a spit, its flesh crackling and sizzling, squirting fat, well that's how fierce are the eternal flames in hell's coolest regions.”

He sat down in Mr. Nicholson's chair and shook off his wooden shoes.

“There is laundry stacked and ready,” she said, “and it appears to me that these tiles have lost their sparkle.”

He did the laundry, seemingly more amused than angry, and then he got down on his hands and knees and tackled the kitchen floor. Coming close to her rocking chair, he startled her, nuzzling her legs, growling. She jumped free, tore chunks out of a loaf of bread and tossed them in the air, making him leap for them. When he missed, she reached for her rolling pin, threatening him. He sank to all fours, pawing at the stones with his head bowed, whimpering. She laughed, which he took as an invitation to nuzzle her between the legs again, somewhat higher this time. She stumbled backward, appalled, suddenly seeing him not as a playful pup but as a menacing goat. She reached for her rolling pin and struck him with it, the blow glancing off his shoulder. Incensed, he tore it from her, sending it bouncing off a wall. She retreated hastily behind a chair, panting, and once more asked him to leave.

“No,” he said.

Only then did she notice the parcel he had brought with him. It was wrapped in old newspapers and tied with a string. “What have you got there?” she asked.

“A surprise for you, Mrs. Nicholson.”

“That would be most improper. You will take it with you when you leave, boy.”

“After I have emptied the slops?”

“Yes.”

Subdued, apprehensive, she swept the remaining chunks of bread into a corner and then led him to the deal table and introduced him to the New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
“‘Again,'” she intoned, swaying her eyes shut, “ ‘the devil taketh him up into an exceedingly high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things I will give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.'”

Finally she showed him his usual place, reminding him of his prayers and the slops, and then she retired to her bedroom, leaving her door ajar. But he didn't follow. Instead he slipped into Mr. Nicholson's old nightshirt and waited on the stone floor, hands clasped behind his back, singing:

I should like to have a youth, who me

Would in his arms enfold,

Who would handle me and dandle me

When my belly it was cold;

So I will be a mot,

I shall be a mot,

I'm so fond of Roger,

That I will be a mot.

He heard her thrashing about. She called out to him, but as if possessed, his name plucked from a nightmare against her wishes. He didn't answer. He sang:

I love that magic member

That men have 'neath their clothes,

I love squeezing I love Roger,

And I love his ruby nose.

So I will be a mot,

I shall be a mot,

I'm so fond of Roger,

That I will be a mot.

Soon she called out again, peremptorily this time, demanding a fresh candle. He brought it to her, lit it, and retreated to his place. Within the hour she stood over him. “Are you diseased?” she asked.