The Singing Fire (23 page)

“Very well. But you won’t like it.” Her voice was angry, she couldn’t hide it. This person brought out the worst in her. He was her only chance, and he wouldn’t allow her to take it. “My opinion is that anyone born on this island is British. Otherwise why come to it? The cold and the damp and the fog are not so very endearing as people here seem to think.”

“But can a Jew be a citizen in a Christian country?” he asked insistently.

“Just give anyone a chance,” she said. “Half a chance. That is all that anyone wants and deserves.” She leaned toward a vase of flowers as if to smell them, her face hot. If only he would go away and leave her alone, no one would notice her crying.

“You see how pleasant it is to exchange opinions?” He signaled to the maid, who was pouring sherry. “Now I shall tell you that I disagree. When a nation is so generous as to allow foreigners freely onto its shores, then they ought to repay it by embracing its ways until they are indistinguishable from anyone else.”

“Is that so?” she asked, abandoning the flowers. “Then why are so many of your friends Jews who are fascinated by the Jewish question?”

Mr. Zalkind tamped the tobacco in his pipe like gunpowder in a
rifle. “Do you live near the shop in Regent Street?” he changed the subject.

“I live in Berwick Street,” she said, too tired to think of a decent lie. Her feet still hurt from yesterday’s shift. “Among the Frenchmen.”

“And others,” Mr. Zalkind said dryly, again the concern in his eyes.

“I can’t say otherwise. It’s a matter of principle.” Her father’s failings were always a matter of principle. “You live near here, I understand. And Bloomsbury is so dominated by the museum and the university that there is no room for an original idea. In Soho, a person is free to think, and beauty can truly be seen surrounded by ugliness.” How much she wanted to be in her bed, the organ-grinder’s music fading as she told the ghost of the first wife everything.

“An interesting point. I’ll give it some thought and tell you my opinion of it, later.” He smiled ruefully. “No doubt you will have a sharp answer, and that is the best kind.”

She stifled a yawn. Her mother hadn’t told her that one ought to work up to deception gradually, like walking after an illness. “I’m afraid that it’s rather late for me, Mr. Zalkind.”

Inside the carriage Mrs. Abraham had hired for her, she rested with her eyes closed, listening to the click-clack of the wheels over cobblestone, a sound that endured through candlelight and gas lamps and arc light and electric light, none of which could banish the fog.

Regent Street

Mr. Zalkind haunted the basement of Chesham House, examining fans, dolls, antimony metalware, and brass trays as if he wished to become a connoisseur of something. In October, he invited Emilia to the Adelphi Theatre and the Avenue. On Guy Fawkes Day, he invited her to a revival of
H.M.S. Pinafore
. In December they went to the Exeter Theatre, which had been rebuilt after the fire.

Every newspaper carried warnings about the danger of fires in the theater. The Lord Mayor of London sponsored a relief fund for theater fires. The Royal Adelphi advertised that it had numerous exits for efficient evacuation, quoting the vice president of the Fire Brigade Association that the time taken to empty the Adelphi was six minutes, less than any other theater with the exception of the Avenue.

Emilia couldn’t escape conversations about fire; at work she flirted and argued with Mr. Zalkind; in her room in Berwick Street she thought of the fire in the Yiddish theater on the day her water broke. It was an imaginary fire, she said to the ghost of the first wife, it had nothing to do with the news of the day. Why did she have to think of it at all?

1888

Berwick Street

On January 19, the first anniversary of her daughter’s birth, Emilia lay on her bed and stared at the ceiling, wondering if she was dead while the ghost of the first wife held her hand. But the day ended with the sun setting in its customary way, and the next morning Emilia got up from her bed as though nothing had happened.

Frying Pan Alley

So now you’re chopped liver, too, Mrs. Rosenberg? Of course. One minute they hold on to you for dear life, the next you’re nobody. Only the dead can understand what suffering is. So tell me something. If my grandchildren don’t listen to a word I’m saying, then what am I doing here? I must be crazy. The room is colder than the grave. And there’s nowhere to go. The taverns are for gentiles, the coffee houses only for men. On the street it’s too cold to stand and talk. A year ago the women waited in line in Prince’s Street, they laughed with their friends, no one thought of the snow falling on her shawl. Did she care if it was a cold winter? Not inside the theater. They were together, the women. She listens and she watches and her voice isn’t choking her. But if there’s no play? Then the women sit alone in their cold rooms. They sing old songs. Between you and me, I’m tired of it
.

Nehama was holding the baby inside her shawl to keep her warm while she made herself a cup of tea. First she put the tea leaves in a strainer. Just one teaspoon, nothing more. Then she wet the leaves with hot water. In a cup, she put some milk and some sugar. Now she could pour water through the strainer. When the color was dark enough, she removed the strainer and topped up the cup.

On the mantelpiece there were four books. Two were from Mrs. Levy in payment for the maternity dress, one Mrs. Levy had read in the workshop, and Nehama had added
Oliver Twist
, too. She should have
got something else. Melodrama it had plenty, but the orphan in the story wasn’t at peace until he was returned to his real family. When she came to the end, Nehama wanted to throw the book at the wall. But a book you have to respect. It had cost her good money. And what else can you do when there’s no theater? On Saturday nights, Nehama read aloud to her friends. In every word she heard Mrs. Levy’s educated voice.

She took a sip of tea, thinking about a trunk that was sent to the post office in Soho. What was there in Soho? Brothels and French cookshops. She couldn’t picture Mrs. Levy in either place. So who was real? Herself drinking a sweet cup of tea or a woman whose name no one could be certain of, running away to who knew what? If only she could stop thinking about it. This wasn’t her business at all. No one had come back for the baby. That was what mattered. A year had gone by, surely she could stop being afraid. Gittel was sleeping, her head on Nehama’s shoulder, her small hands on a breast.

Gittel-Sarah was named first for Nathan’s mother, she should rest in peace, then for Nehama’s old friend Sally. It was a break from custom; Russian and Polish Jews named their babies after deceased relatives, and Nehama didn’t know if Sally was dead or alive.

She had another book open in front of her, but she couldn’t read it. In the slack season there wasn’t enough to do, and she found herself crying over her tea. God forbid anyone should see her like this. Now the baby was crying. “Sha, sha,” Nehama said. She stifled her own tears and sang an old song to calm her child.

The Strand

When February came, Emilia was a new person. The wind had changed, her room was not so cold, spring was something a person could imagine now, even though the wind could turn again and spring could reveal itself in a cold fog. Emilia was alone with Jacob in box seats at the Adelphi Theatre. It was time; she couldn’t wait any longer.

After the fourth act of
The Bells of Haslemere
, he was jubilant. “Did you notice the third villain?” he asked.

“Is it important?” She was wearing her second-best dress and new gloves to give her courage.

“It used to be that one unscrupulous villain was thrilling enough.
But now that there is revolving scenery and the audience expects fast-paced action, there has to be more villainy per square inch. This is the first melodrama with three villains.” He was scribbling furiously in a notebook with a green cover. He used a pencil. Pen and ink were too cumbersome to carry about. “Acquisition of property is what drives the crime nowadays. No more love or revenge. Forgery and blackmail, there’s your new villainy.”

Emilia put her hand on his arm, and he stopped writing. “Mr. Zalkind,” she said, “I don’t think I can accompany you to the theater again. Please don’t ask me.”

“Miss Rosenberg! What’s wrong—have I done something?” He shoved his notebook in his pocket. He always dressed meticulously, then bulged his pockets with pipe, tobacco, notebook, pencil, theater programs, a book, and string. God in heaven knew that a crisis of string might arrive any moment.

“No, really. I’m sorry. It’s … It’s the danger of a fire.” She crumpled the program.

Her hand was trembling. He took it in his. “Of course. The fire in your father’s factory. How could I forget? If it weren’t for that, you’d be at home now. And what would my life be then?”

“Exactly what it ought to be in the normal course of events,” she said shakily. The smell of beer and oranges drifted down from the gallery. In the box seats, gentlemen smoked cigars. Ladies fanned themselves with programs and stood up to see if anyone they knew was there.

“I disagree. My grandfather would say that God is the master of every event. I doubt it myself, but I do think that I’ve forgotten my duty. You must be introduced properly to my parents.”

“It won’t do, I’m afraid.”

“It’s exactly what will do, Miss Rosenberg.”

She’d been preparing for this, lying awake at night with no one but ghosts to advise her. At last the moment had come, and the shaking in her hands and voice wasn’t a sham. “You see, there was a gentleman a little older than yourself. He was in my father’s employ,” she said.

Mr. Zalkind’s face was troubled. “And you were fond of him. Was he in the factory when it burned down?”

She nodded. “You’re the first that I’ve told this…. It’s been too painful to mention. I don’t know if I can.”

He pressed her hand. “There should be nothing hidden between us.”

“It isn’t enough that I’m …” She touched the gold cross on its light chain. “What would your parents say if they knew that this gentleman had been my husband? We had so little time together. Sometimes I wonder if it was a dream. But now you understand why it’s been wrong of me to let myself enjoy your company.”

He was silent; the noise from the gallery was horribly loud. She’d made a mistake, a terrible mistake. But what else could she do? It was her intention to have a wedding ring, which was generally accompanied by a wedding bed, and there had to be an explanation for what her husband would find.

So that was that. She took her hand from his, but he pulled it back, gently tugging at the glove, finger by finger, until it was off and in his pocket next to the pipe and string. He brought her bare hand to his lips. “It’s not my parents’ affair or anyone else’s but ours.” He kissed her fingers, he kissed her palm. “You ought to be my wife because I wish it, and if you like the idea, then we’re in agreement, as husband and wife ought to be.”

Anyone standing in a box seat would have seen her looking up at Mr. Zalkind, her hair hanging loose under a hat that matched her gown, and if the opera glasses were very good, someone might even have seen a hint of light on the cameo pinned to her gown. It was carved from lava stone, the goddess of youth feeding meat to an eagle. “It’s a good idea,” she said. “The best.”

“All right, then.” He put his arm around her waist, her head resting on his shoulder, one hand gloved and one bare as the lights above dimmed and torches were lit at the foot of the stage. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, the English would say.

Wigmore Street

Jacob introduced Emilia to his parents at the usual sort of awkward dinner, his face pale and his freckles standing out as if he were twelve and not twenty-five, grateful that Emilia had left her cross at home,
wearing just her mother’s cameo brooch. She was quizzed about her family, played the piano, recited in German, and correctly used three kinds of forks. She was not, however, wearing her best dress. That was reserved for tea with Mrs. Zalkind. The invitation came the very next week, and on Sunday afternoon, Emilia wore her new hat.

This season ladies’ hats had a masculine line, softened only by a swash of ribbon, and dresses also had a hint of the masculine in high shoulders and lapels. Emilia’s gowns from home were now two years out of date, and she’d had one made over. There was only a glimpse of the underskirt in front, but at the side her dark overskirt was pulled away to reveal a line of yellow brocade from waist to hip, giving the gown a slender shape despite the sizable bustle. Ladies still wore an abundance of cloth because they could afford to, and in Emilia’s cracked mirror in Berwick Street, the gown was perfect.

The Zalkinds lived at the end of Wigmore Street, past the manufacturers of furniture sold to castles, in the corner near Harley Street and Cavendish Square, where Lord Nelson lived and Lord Byron was born a hundred years before. The Georgian house was square and sturdy, every room of equal size regardless of its function, the bedrooms too small, the dressing rooms cavernous, but it was a good address, chock-full of Pre-Raphaelite paintings. Bathrooms and gaslight had been added, and though the upper classes might consider such items marks of the nouveaux riches, Mrs. Zalkind could hold her head up in the lady’s gallery of the synagogue. She looked to be in her mid-forties, statuesque, hair still dark with only a stray gray hair to be plucked, neck firm, a determined chin, a waterfall of speech that drowned out opposition. They were sitting in the parlor, crowded with piano and card table, armchairs, cabinets, doilies and vases, three different Persian carpets, one sort of wallpaper from floor to rail and another sort that went to the ceiling, but it hardly mattered as the wall was covered with paintings in gilt frames.

While Mrs. Zalkind poured tea, she explained that she kept a kosher home, not from religious belief but because it was more hygienic. She hoped that Miss Rosenberg would keep a kosher home, too, as Jacob had inherited her sensitive stomach. Mrs. Zalkind attended the synagogue because it was pleasant to sit among the ladies in the gallery and listen to the choir, as uplifting as the opera. Perhaps
Miss Rosenberg might come and see for herself. Would she like one lump of sugar or two? Miss Rosenberg ought to have more clotted cream with her scone. There was nothing like this in Russia.