The Tiger in the Well (3 page)

Scenes like that were still new in the Port of London, which was why the workman didn't know where the passengers had come from. The immigrants had been driven abroad by the first pogroms, the vicious attacks on the Jews in Russia which had begun that winter after the assassination of the czar.

The first family in the line had come from Kiev. The husband was a tobacco merchant whose shop had been smashed and whose goods stolen and thrown out to a screaming mob while Russian soldiers looked on. The old man with the swollen leg was a tailor, also from Kiev; he'd been forced to hobble through the streets in front of a jeering mob while his house was looted and his wife knocked into the gutter. The old man with the ringlets was a scholar from Berdichev. All his books had been torn up and burned in front of him, and when he tried to save them, a Cossack with a drawn sword had forced him back.

One by one, family by family, they drifted westward with their bundles of possessions, and the letter from a cousin in London, or a brother in America, or a sister in Hull, as a guarantee that there would be shelter for them when they arrived; or with nothing more than hope. Many of them were driven on by the knowledge that someone else—^a friend or a neighbor, a friend of a friend—had had such a letter, perhaps enclosing a bit of money, and they refused to be put off by the warning of the British consulate that England was full of unemployed men already, and they'd be better off hungry in Russia than starving in London.

So they came to the railway stations in Moscow or St.

Petersburg and boarded the trains that led through Poland or through Austria-Hungary, and reached Hamburg or Rotterdam or Libau, where they spent their last bit of money on a steamer ticket. Some parties had made arrangements for the sea journey back in St. Petersburg, and paid for a courier to see them to the port and through customs, and to escort them to the Jewish Shelter at the end of their journey. For some, London was not the end of it, and the courier would take them on by train to Liverpool, where they would board another ship to New York.

And when they arrived, with no English and no money, there was nothing to look forward to but poverty and sweated labor.

Thousands upon thousands would come in the years that followed, and each of them had a story to tell; but we're concerned with the story of Sally Lockhart, so the individual we'll follow now is the red-bearded young man with consumption.

He was not Russian but German, and his name was Jacob Liebermann. He was a journalist by profession, a socialist by conviction, and he had left Berlin one step ahead of the police—as he thought. In fact, they were well aware of it and glad to see him go. In Bismarck's Berlin, Jews were tolerated as long as they kept to themselves and made money which the state could tax. Socialists were not tolerated at all. Liebermann had written a score of articles in the socialist papers of the other German cities and had begun to try his hand at public speaking, though he was badly troubled by nervousness. He'd gone too far when he'd written an article revealing the part played by Bismarck's private banker in various antiliberal measures taken by the German parliament, and he'd been given a hint that it would be better for him to leave the country.

So he did, and in the course of his travels he'd been given a task to do by the man he was going to see now; which was why he slung a rucksack over his shoulder, turned up his collar and pulled down his cap, and, with frequent stops un-

der streetlights to consult a ragged map, began to make his way toward Soho.

A BASEMENT ROOM; warm and dry and well lit, furnished with a collection of rough benches and chairs, and lined with bookshelves. At one end, a rudimentary platform with a table and two chairs. A row of windows high along one wall, which would have shown the feet of passers-by if there'd been any light in the street to see them by, and if the glass hadn't been filthy on the outside and streaming with condensation within.

At the moment, the room was resounding with an argument in four languages—English, Polish, German, and Yiddish. The speaker on the platform, an excitable man in a frock coat, was hammering his fist on the table and bellowing in Yiddish; the other languages came from the floor, where thirty or so other men were listening, heckling, shouting, arguing, smoking, nodding, or even (in the case of two of them) playing chess.

From the level of passion involved, anyone might have thought it was a meeting of anarchists, differing only over the amount of dynamite to put in their latest bomb. In fact, they were of quite another persuasion, and they abominated anarchists. This was a meeting of the League of Democratic Socialist Associations, and they were discussing the question of whether the new journal they were about to launch should be published in Yiddish, or in German, or in Polish, or in Russian. There were enough exiles, it was reckoned, to support a journal in any one of those languages, not to mention the new floods that were coming in every week. There were arguments in favor of each language, and they were all put forward several times, both well and badly; but none was prevailing. Would it end in stalemate.?

Finally a whisper could be heard: "Ask Goldberg. See what he says. Why don't we ask Goldberg.? Goldberg's always worth listening to. We should have asked him before. See what Goldberg says. ..."

And before long that notion had seized the whole gathering, and they turned to the back of the room, where the man called Goldberg was sitting.

He was a striking-looking man in his late twenties: thick black hair, a powerful nose, fierce black eyes. He was thickset, with a stevedore's shoulders and the fists of a prize fighter, and he was sitting at a table with a scatter of papers in front of him, writing furiously, jabbing his pen into the inkwell with a savage energy, disregarding the splashes that resulted on the table, the paper, his hands. A cigar of terrifying pungency was clamped between his teeth.

He looked up, aware that the debate had halted, and one of the men at the back of the room said in Yiddish, "Comrade Goldberg, we can't decide. The arguments for Polish sound irrefutable until I hear the arguments for German, and then the arguments for Russian knock them into a cocked hat, while I know all the time that the journal ought to be in Yiddish. But—"

Five voices rose at once to denounce him, but he simply raised his over the hubbub, and went on: "But we haven't heard from you! Give us the benefit of your judgment: which language should our journal be published in.^"

Goldberg took the cigar out of his mouth, eased off the ash, and said simply, "English."

The hubbub redoubled. Goldberg seemed to have expected that, because he continued scribbling from where he'd stopped with hardly a second's pause. A man sitting nearby leaned over and jabbed vigorously with his forefinger, making a point so passionately that he nearly upset the ink. Goldberg inclined his head to listen, moving the ink out of range with his left hand while continuing to scribble with the right. Then he said a word or two in response; his hand never ceased to scrawl until he reached the bottom of a page, when he flung the paper aside and began his assault on the next.

The argument continued until finally the chairman had had enough. He banged on the table with a cobbler's hammer, calling for silence.

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The Journalist 23

"Comrades! Comrades! Argument and debate are the very lifeblood of democratic socialism, but we should allow each other to listen as well as speak! Comrade Goldberg, could you explain your preference for English?"

He had been speaking in Yiddish, and Goldberg answered in the same language. His voice, when he raised it to speak, was harsh and powerful.

**There are three reasons," he said. Everyone had turned to hear, and sat twisted in their chairs, arms thrown over the back. "First, we are in England. There are some of us who want to go back to where we came from, others who want to live in Palestine, others who want to go to America, but shall I tell you where most of you will die and be buried.'' In England, comrades. Your children will have children who were bom here and will consider themselves English, and will know no Polish, no German, no Russian. A joumal in Polish, for example, would have a declining circulation by its very nature. As for Yiddish, the same argument applies, with the added disadvantage that it will limit the circulation to Jews. Is this a Jewish movement exclusively.'* Was socialism invented to benefit Jews and to exclude Gentiles.? That's not my understanding, comrades. But I look around the room tonight, and if I looked at a score of similar meetings I'd find the same—and what do I see.? Every one of us is Jewish. Why do you exclude Gentiles.? Oh, you don't have a policy of exclusion, no, no—^you just happen to print your notices in Yiddish. Comrades, if this is socialism, I don't like it. You should welcome men of talent and good will from the community you live in, and the way to do that is to publish in English. You should welcome men of talent and good will even if they're women. In fact—"

The rest of that sentence was lost in an uproar of protest and counterprotest, but Goldberg had been expecting it and grinned, waiting for the noise to subside. He carried on: "Yes, we should make no distinctions. That's the first reason. The second is simpler; I can see that whatever it's called, this journal, I shall be writing most of it, and I'm going to write

in English, and you haven't got enough money to pay for a translator. Besides, writing in English is the only way to improve it."

"But your English is very good. Comrade Goldberg," said a timid voice.

"Oh, my English is impeccable," said Goldberg cheerfully. "It's my English readers' English I want to improve."

Laughter.

"And what about the third reason.'*" called someone.

"Oh, the third reason is the most convincing of all. In fact, it's so powerful that once you've heard it you won't entertain any other consideration for a moment. It convinced me, I can tell you that. Unfortunately, I've forgotten what it was."

Grins, more laughter; Goldberg knew exactly how to control an audience, and he had them on his side now. They'd grumble and argue, but he knew he'd won.

"I move," said an elderly man in a battered cap, "that Comrade Goldberg's suggestion be adopted, bitterly though it pains me, who will have to spell out every word letter by letter."

"But we haven't debated the proposition!" came another voice. "If Comrade Goldberg wants to pitch all our traditions out the window and make us all into Englishmen, it seems to me that we need to discuss it more fully. To begin with ..."

As the Democratic Socialists settled back to enjoy the business of debating what they all knew would be the result, Goldberg struck a match and relit his cigar before stabbing the pen at the ink and taking up his sentence from where he'd left off.

The room was so crowded and noisy that no one noticed the door open and a slender figure edge through. The red-bearded young man from the ship, rucksack in his arms, gazed around, blinking with smarting eyes through the reek of smoke. He asked a question of the man nearest to him and looked where he pointed, and then made his way through

I

the crowded chairs to the table where Goldberg was sitting. Goldberg, still furiously scribbling, took no notice.

Finally the young man coughed and said, "Comrade Goldberg.?"

"Yes.'"' said Goldberg, without looking up.

"My name is Jacob Liebermann, comrade. I arrived in London only today. I—"

"Liebermann! Ah, man, it's good to meet you! That article in the Arbeiter Freind ... a delightful piece of writing! Come and sit down."

He shook hands and pulled out a chair. Liebermann sat down, trying to conceal the emotion in his face. To have been read and praised by the great Daniel Goldberg! But Goldberg was looking at him more closely now, and he put the cigar aside.

"You're not well," he said quietly. "What is \x?. Consumption?"

Liebermann nodded. He was nearly at the end of his strength.

"All right, let's get out of this smoky place. These people will be arguing till midnight," said Goldberg. "Come with me. I've got a room upstairs. Give me your rucksack."

He gathered up all his papers, slung the rucksack over his shoulder, capped the ink and put it in his pocket, and shoved his way briskly through the crowd. Liebermann followed, sagging with weariness.

"That job I was doing ..." Liebermann said as they made their way upstairs. "Larousse gave me your message. . . . After I left Berlin, I went to Latvia. . . . I've got some news. ..."

"I remember. Good. Tell me, then."

"Comrade Goldberg, there's a conspiracy against the Jews. There are hundreds of Jews, maybe thousands, gathered at the frontiers, with no money, no papers. . . . Those who do have tickets crowd into the railway station and the seaports—"

"Yes. I know all that. What's the news.?"

"I was coming to that."

"Well, come to it sooner. That was the one trouble with your banking piece, if you'll let me say so; you didn't begin it quickly enough. Give the whole story in the first sentence. Argument is different, essays are different, travel sketches and that kind of thing are different, but to tell a news story you give it in the first sentence. The rest is enlargement, background, explanation, development—^you can throw it away if you want. I know all that stuff about frontiers and passports and no money. Give me the story now in one sentence."

"The man behind it is known as the Tzaddik, and he is on his way to London."

"That's better. We'll make a journalist of you yet."

They had arrived outside a door on a tiny second-floor landing. Goldberg opened it and let Liebermann through, and then struck a match to light an oil lamp. Liebermann sank into the nearest chair and coughed. Goldberg looked at him; the feverish cheeks, the bright eyes were alarming. He put down the rucksack, cleared a space among the reference books and government reports for the papers he was carrying, and poured Liebermann a glass of brandy.

"So, what do you know of this man, the Tzaddik.f*"

Liebermann took the glass with two hands and sipped, closing his eyes as the liquid warmed his mouth and throat. Goldberg sat at the table.