Solomon Gursky Was Here (28 page)

“He's a bore.” She fetched herself a drink and sat down on the floor. “What if we got married and had children together?”

“I'm an unredeemed drunk. I also think you ought to complete your own childhood before thinking of taking on kids of your own.”

“Who was Ambrose Silk?”

“A character in one of E.M. Forster's novels.”

“Which one?”

“Captain Hornblower.”

In the week that followed, Moses found himself a satisfactory flat in Fulham, but it wouldn't be available until the first of the month. Lucy was absent a good deal, usually coming home late and slipping into her tub. Later she clung to her side of the bed, careful that their bodies didn't touch anywhere, her thumb rooted in her mouth. Then one evening, even as she was applying her makeup in the bedroom, the bell rang. It was Jeremy, tall and handsome in his deerstalker hat and Harris tweed coat; Jeremy bearing roses.

“I'm afraid she's still getting ready. Shall I put these in a vase, do you think?”

“Bloody awkward, isn't it?”

“How goes the scriptee?”

“She's a marvel. Her notes are always bang on.”

Lucy came home earlier than usual. “I have something to say to you,” she said.

“You needn't bother. I'm moving out tomorrow morning.”

She wanted him to join her production company as script editor for an annual retainer of ten thousand pounds. “We would have lunch together every day.”

“Lucy, you continue to amaze me.”

“I hope that means yes.”

“Certainly not.”

“Oh Moses, Moses, I'll always sort of love you. But I need him. It's the physical thing.”

“I understand.”

“I have something else to tell you.” As no director, she said, would give her a chance, she had decided to mount a showcase production of her own and invite a selected group of directors and producers and agents to see her. She had acquired the rights to revive
The Diary of Anne Frank
for three performances only and had rented the Arts Theatre for that purpose. Jeremy was going to direct, play Mr. Frank himself, and put together the rest of the cast. “What do you think?”

“I think you should hire an audience as well and pay them to applaud.”

“I want you to come to rehearsals and make notes and tell me what I'm doing wrong.”

“The answer is no.”

“Will you at least come to the opening performance?”

“I wouldn't miss it for the world.”

“We're always going to be friends.” She snuggled into his lap, cuddling. But he could tell that something was still troubling her.

“Moses, who wrote
Mr. Norris Changes Trains?
”

“P.G. Wodehouse.”

“Should I read it?”

“Why not?”

S
IR HYMAN KAPLANSKY
came to the opening night. So did some producers, directors, and a surprising number of performers at liberty. Some had come out of curiosity, others because they were pursuing Lucy's production company for outlandish deals; there was also a Bushmill claque, but still more were there in a perverse spirit of fun, anticipating the worst. Bushmill played the mushy Dutch condiments dealer, Otto Frank, as if he had wandered into the doomed attic out of a Tory garden fête. The other performers were competent at best. But Lucy was intolerable. A natural mimic, but clearly no actress, she played her scenes like an overwrought
Shirley Temple with a disconcertingly gay Peter Van Daan. When that didn't work, she switched to the Elizabeth Taylor of
National Velvet
.

Moses wandered into the theatre dangerously drunk, but determined to behave himself. Unfortunately the excruciatingly banal play outlasted his resolution. Nodding off briefly in the first act he was confronted by Shloime Bishinsky in his mind's eye. “What I'm trying to say, forgive me, is that such princes in America are entitled to their mansions, a Rolls-Royce, chinchilla coats, yachts, young cuties out of burlesque shows. But a poet they should never be able to afford.”
Or a theatre. Or an audience
. “It has to do with what? Human dignity. The dead. The sanctity of the word.”

They were being noisy up there on stage, which wakened him to the troubling sight of an attic and its denizens trebling themselves. Poor Bushmill, emoting about something or other, now had six weak chins stacked one on top of another and maybe twenty-two eyes. Moses shook his head, he pinched himself, and the stage swam into focus again. Damn. It was that maudlin Hanukkah scene, overripe with obvious irony, wherein the pathetic Mr. Frank Bushmill seated with the others at the attic table—all of them hiding from the Gestapo—praises the Lord, Ruler of the Universe, who has wrought wonderful deliverances for our fathers in days of old. There were no
latkes,
but insufferably adorable Anne (the bottom of her bra stuffed with Kleenex) came to the table armed with touchingly conceived pressies. A crossword-puzzle book for her sister. “It isn't new. It's one that you've done. But I rubbed it all out and if you wait a little and forget, you can do it all over again.” There was some hair shampoo for the horny Mrs. Van Daan. “I took all the odds and ends of soap and mixed them with the last of my toilet water.” Two fags for Van Daan's oafish husband. “Pim found some old pipe tobacco in the pocket lining of his coat … and we made them … or rather Pim did.”

Once more the images on stage throbbed, trebling themselves. Moses squinted. He made fists, driving his fingernails into the palms of his hands. And there were four Anne/Lucys, each one of them out of tune, rising to sing:

Oh, Hanukkah, Oh, Hanukkah.

The sweet celebration.

Suddenly there was a crash from below the attic. The Green Police? The Gestapo? Everybody on stage froze. Straining to hear. For a few seconds there was a total silence and then something in Moses short-circuited. Not rising, but propelled out of his seat, he hollered, “Look in the attic! She's hiding in the attic!”

The next morning the telegram came from Moses's mother and he immediately booked the first available flight to Montreal.

Four

“Not that I have anything to hide, but does my brother know that you're here?”

“When I asked if I could see you I had no idea that it was necessary to clear my visit with Mr. Bernard.”

“Nonsense necessary. I'm not Bernard's keeper and he's not mine. I was curious, that's all. Are you parked outside?”

“I walked.”

“From which direction?”

“Downtown.”

“Good for you. It's such a lovely day it makes a man grateful to be alive,” he said, drawing the blinds. “Oh, forgive me. What a thing to say to a young man in mourning. My brother was in tears. Such a loss to the community and of course to you and your mother it goes without saying. How long will you be in Montreal?”

“I'm flying back to London the day after tomorrow.”

“You think I don't remember what a nice boy you are? Something to drink maybe?”

“Coffee, if it's not too much trouble?”

“You're not living up to your reputation. But I'm relieved to see that. Moderation in all things, that's the ticket. Hey, if I'm smiling like an idiot it's because I look at you and what do I see? L.B. as a young man.”

“Maybe I'll have a Scotch after all.”

“My pleasure. You know, before you were born even I attended one of his readings.”

“Not many people did.”

“Let me tell you something, as if you didn't know. You were blessed with a great man for a father. And you think we weren't
aware how much he suffered in private, never able to take your poor mother anywhere.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“
Oy vey,
have I let the cat out of the bag? Please, it's not something he talked about, a man of his natural dignity, but it slipped out, you know, when my brother asked how come L.B. never brought his wife to dinner. You're upset. I can see that. Listen here, it's nothing to be ashamed of. Look at Solomon's widow. What's the mind? A muscle. Doctors will tell you it's an illness like any other. But who will take care of your mother now that L.B.'s gone? Don't tell me. I know. You are as devoted to her as he ever was.”

“Would you mind if I topped up my glass?”

“Isn't there more where that came from?”

“Thank you.”

“I want to tell you that when your father came here to dinner with us and sat in this very room it was a real honour for Ida and me. Such a
goldener yid
. A true idealist. But, please, don't get me wrong. A great artist dies and suddenly everyone who shook hands with him once is his best friend. Unfortunately I wasn't close to him like Bernard. I'm not the reader in the family with the big library.”

“I'm told it was Solomon who was the prodigious reader.”

“You know what I wish? I wish I had your education. But your father, may he rest in peace, my, my, was there a book he hadn't read? In his presence I was tongue-tied. Once, you know, he came to tea with one of his admirers. What was her name, that sweet young girl?”

Moses reached for the bottle again.

“Peterson. Marion Peterson. He wanted her to see my brother's paintings, but he wasn't home. So they came here, he was kind enough to inscribe his books for me, every one of them, and to this day they rest in that glass bookcase over there.”

There was also a concert piano that had once belonged to Solomon in the living room. The surface was covered end to end with photographs of Barney and Charna mounted in sterling silver frames. Barney and Charna, still toddlers, romping on the grass in Ste.-Adèle. Barney on horseback, a beaming Mr. Morrie holding the reins. Charna
in her white Sweet Sixteen gown. Barney raking the barley floor in the Loch Edmond's Mist distillery in Skye.

“Now tell me what it is I can do for you,” Mr. Morrie said.

“Actually I'm here because of Lucy. She was only two years old when Solomon died and she'd like to know more about him.”

“A little birdy told me that you and Lucy are living together in London.”

“Lucy is convinced that you've got her father's journals and she would be grateful if she could have them.”

“How did you meet? Come on. Spill the beans. You're looking at a real sucker for a love story.”

“We knew each other as children, as you know, and Henry and I have been friends for years.”

“Does he still stutter so bad that poor boy?”

“No.”

“I'm glad. Now tell me how you met Lucy after so many years.”

“At a dinner party at Sir Hyman Kaplansky's.”

“I'll bet if Canadians were still allowed to accept titles my brother would be number one on the list.”

“Solomon's journals would mean a good deal to Lucy.”

“Poor Lucy. Poor Henry. Poor Barney. It's a shame that their generation had to be caught up in family fights over what? Money. Position. Power. I'm not surprised that Lucy became an actress. She'll be a star. I'd bet money on it.”

“Why are you not surprised she wants to act?”

“Because it's in her blood, it's got to be. That's what Solomon really should have been. A stage actor. When we were kids he was always dressing up, writing little plays for us to perform. He could do accents. It was amazing. Later, you know, we had our first hotel already, the bar is filled with girls of a certain type; what were we supposed to do? Throw them out into the snow? Bernard was never a pimp, and if anybody ever says that, I'm just a little fella, I'll still punch him in the nose. Anyway Solomon comes back from the war, a flier yet, and he phones Bernard at the hotel and pretends to be the RCMP. He was letter perfect, let me tell you. Cruel too, of course, but we're talking Solomon here. He did a Chinaman, he
even walked like one. The German butcher. The blacksmith, a Polack. He could do anybody. He also had a gift for languages, but I suppose he inherited that from my grandfather.” Mr. Morrie leaped up. “I think I heard a car. Bernard must be home. You walked here you say?”

“From downtown.”

“Was my sister-in-law in the garden?”

“No.”

“Libby's a wonderful wonderful woman. You know when Bernard married her,
she
was considered the catch. Her father was president of the
shul
and the Beneficial Loan Society. Nobody suspected him.”

“Of what?”

“Listen here, I'm not one to carry tales. He was unlucky in the market, but he meant to return every penny and it's no reflection on Libby. She presides over so many charities because she has a heart bigger than the St. Lawrence River and you could open the books on any one of them and I'll bet they would balance perfectly. Libby isn't trying to prove anything.”

“Did you know that your grandfather is mentioned several times in Lady Jane Franklin's letters?”

“You don't say? Hey, I'm sitting with a scholar from the scholars. Why I'll bet even Bernard doesn't know that.”

“Twice in letters to Elizabeth Fry and once in a letter to Dr. Arnold of Rugby.”

“To think that rascal couldn't have been more than sixteen years old at the time and still he caught that good lady's eye.”

“It started with the snakes, you know. Van Diemen's Land was infested with snakes, which appalled her. So she offered convicts a shilling a head for them and he came up with so many the first day she just couldn't stop laughing.”

“Some kid he must have been. But, if you don't mind my asking, what is your interest in our family history?”

“Lucy.”

“Ah. I was worried maybe you were thinking of writing something. Bernard wouldn't like that. And digging up the past would be painful to Lionel, God bless him, who is striving so hard to make his
way in society. So just between you, me, and the lamp-post, what are you up to, Moses?”

Moses reached for the bottle.