The Journey Home: A Novel (8 page)

Naturally the audience was startled by his yell. Some gripped their neighbors, then began to laugh and whisper together to ease the tension.

“You laugh. You think it’s amusing. Let’s see whether you are still as carefree when you yourselves have looked into the eyes of deformity.”

He walked with slow, deliberate steps toward the back of the stage where a cage could be dimly discerned in the dark shadows. At first I wasn’t aware of any movement inside, but when Dr. Kivan raised his whip and cracked the lash, a little creature barely three feet high sprang up and gave a hair-raising shriek. The doctor stumbled back, as if he hadn’t expected this reception; the audience gasped.

“You threaten me!” he cried. “Will you restrain yourself if I let you out?”

The only answer he received was a pitiful wail like a dog that has been kicked.

“Very well, since you promise to be good. But don’t think I’m going to undo the chain.”

He strutted over to the cage, brandishing the key which had been hanging from his belt, leaned forward and half-opened the door. Then he walked cautiously to the front of the stage.

“Come here!” he ordered.

Dead silence.

“Come here!”

There was a rattle of chains and a dwarfish creature staggered out of the cage and came to a halt in the middle of the stage, a couple of yards from the showman.

Dwarfish
creature,
I say, but should of course have said straightaway that it was just an ordinary dwarf. Admittedly, he was dressed in an outlandish costume, a skirt made from bones—thigh bones, I guessed—and a green cloak, which hung down from his shoulders. On his head perched a colorful crown of feathers. His face was also painted, red, yellow and black; it was large with an oddly high forehead, round bulging eyes and ears so tiny they could hardly be seen, like shriveled prunes.

The doctor looked out solemnly over the audience and made a long speech about how he had captured “the monster” in the African jungle and brought it back to England. Then he told of his attempts to train the creature (I remember quite clearly that he used the word “train” and not “teach”) and finally offered to show the audience what progress he had made. The whip whined and the dwarf was made to stand on one foot, jump up in the air, poke out his tongue, grimace and stick his backside out at the audience. They laughed, their children wide awake now, kept going by the excitement. The whiplash sang ever higher and Dr. Kivan’s orders grew louder and louder until without warning he folded his arms and said contemptuously:

“Well, it’s clear that the beast has at least the intelligence of a dog.”

Most people roared with laughter at his scorn but I noticed that some were uneasy, as if they felt the fun was turning sour.

“You’ve behaved well enough this evening,” said the showman. “I think you deserve to be let loose.”

The audience gasped, stuck their heads together and giggled—behaving, in short, just as they were supposed to. The dwarf shook himself, but didn’t move from his place.

“Do you suppose it can speak?” asked Dr. Kivan. “Would you believe I have managed to teach it to speak? Wouldn’t that be a miracle?”

He glared at the dwarf.

“Thirteen!”

No doubt he chose this number deliberately.

“Repeat after me,” he ordered: “Thirteen!”

The dwarf screeched.

Dr. Kivan stepped menacingly toward him, raised his whip in the air and repeated: “Thirteen!”

It was then that the little creature suddenly began to screech in Icelandic.

“Argara thargara!” he wailed. “Kettir, kettir . . .”

The audience gasped, but I was stunned. I suddenly felt as if I were part of someone else’s nightmare.

“You can hear it’s a wild beast,” said Dr. Kivan. “Thirteen! I said, thirteen!”

“Fir . . . Fir . . .”

“Good, good. Thirteen!”

“Firt . . .”

“Thirteen!”

The whip cracked over the dwarf’s head, touching the feathers, which fluttered in the draft.

“Thirteen! I said, thirteen!”

“Firteen . . .”

“Firteen,” he imitated the wretched creature mockingly. “Firteen . . .”

Then he bellowed as if his life depended on it: “I said thirteen! Thirteen, I said!”

At the same moment he hurled the lash at the dwarf, who wailed with pain and with a great bound ran at the doctor, who fell flat on his face. The dwarf rushed to the front of the stage, scowling and hissing and finally spitting out a streak of flame at the audience.

When he braced himself to leap down among them with the fire streaming from his mouth, many people were terrified, jumping out of their seats and stampeding in panic, frantic parents grabbing their children, everyone barging past one another with no thought of consideration. I allowed myself to be borne out into the street with the throng, as otherwise I would have been trampled. Some people did lose their footing in the pandemonium and when I tried to help a middle-aged woman to her feet I was knocked down too. I landed heavily as I had barely room to put out a protective hand, and couldn’t immediately get up. It was then that he reached out his hand to me. He had been pushed over as well. I looked up into his face. It was calm amidst all the madness and there was a smile in his eyes. I had seen him somewhere before but couldn’t place him.

“Jakob Himmelfarb,” he introduced himself when we had regained our feet. His accent was German.

I was slow to reply.

“I sometimes eat at the Restaurant Boulestin,” he said with a humorous glint in his eye. “Could it be that I’ve seen you there?”

I don’t remember how I answered, but suspected he might have noticed me when Boulestin had asked me to help out with the waitressing. Though I didn’t mention that I regarded this job as beneath me.

He had taken my arm and I made no objection, even though I was perfectly capable of walking without help.

“Would some refreshment help?”

“He was Icelandic,” I stammered.

“I’m sorry?”

“The dwarf. He spoke Icelandic. Cats, he wailed. Cats in Icelandic.”

He laughed.

“So that was what it was. Icelandic.”

There was a clap of thunder above our heads.

Then it began to rain.

“Would you like to come to a concert with me on Saturday?” he had asked just before we parted.

I was over eager to answer.

“Yes,” I blurted out, without asking any questions. Neither of us could help smiling. I blushed.

He said he thought the concert began at one o’clock.

“I don’t have to work until the evening,” I added awkwardly.

“I’ll ring you tomorrow to confirm.”

I didn’t walk home from the station, I floated. Mrs. Brown was still awake. She couldn’t help noticing the metamorphosis.

“What on earth has happened? Is there something you want to tell me?”

The following day was wet and dreary but I didn’t notice. Not until Mrs. Brown announced that she had decided to sell her old Vactrix vacuum cleaner and had paid for an advertisement in the Saturday paper.

“I’d completely forgotten that I’ve got to go to a funeral on Saturday. Would you be a dear and answer the phone for me while I’m out? I’ll be back by three.”

I was overcome and all at once the weather seemed even drearier. Who would give that piece of old junk a second glance, even if it was useful once, before the Great War? But I didn’t like to say this to her after all she had done for me.

When I told Jakob I wouldn’t be able to come, he could hear my disappointment at once. So it shouldn’t have been necessary for me to repeat myself so often.

“We’ll just have to go another time,” he said. “Good luck with the sale.”

I thanked him.

“By the way, what did you say she was trying to sell?”

“An ancient Vactrix vacuum cleaner.”

“A Vactrix? I say!”

We both laughed.

Mrs. Brown went out at midday on Saturday. She had hardly moved from the phone all morning but of course it had remained silent.

“Perhaps there’s something wrong with it,” she kept saying, picking up the receiver to make sure she could hear the tone.

“I don’t understand this at all.”

She had just left when the phone rang. I nearly jumped out of my skin, as I had been preoccupied with thoughts of the concert I was missing, but had recovered my composure by the time I answered.

“Good afternoon,” said a squeaky male voice. “Am I right in thinking that you are advertising an electric Vactrix vacuum cleaner?”

I said he was.

“What luck. I’ve been looking out for a Vactrix in a good condition for months. It’s as good as new, is it?”

“Yes,” I replied. “There’s hardly a scratch on it.”

“What luck,” he repeated. “And what do you want for it?”

I mentioned the price that Mrs. Brown had said, but was quick to add that I was prepared to be accommodating if necessary.

“Only four pounds and three shillings!” he exclaimed. “I hardly like to pay so little. Wouldn’t five pounds be more like it?”

“That would be even better,” I said. “If you would prefer . . .”

“We’re agreed, then. Five pounds. I much prefer that. Five pounds. When can I fetch it?”

“Whenever you like.”

“Now?”

“That would be fine.”

“Good. I’ll be along shortly. I don’t live far away.”

Shortly afterward there was a knock at the door.

“He didn’t take long to arrive,” I thought to myself. “Mrs. Brown will be pleased when she comes home.” I had formed a mental picture of the buyer, a small man in his sixties, bald apart from a few straggling white hairs at the sides perhaps, with kind eyes. And this was what I was expecting when I opened the front door.

“Jakob!”

“I was just passing.”

I didn’t want to show how pleased I was to see him but knew he couldn’t help noticing.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at the concert now?”

“I would rather see you. I bought us lunch on the way. I hope you haven’t eaten already ?”

He was carrying a paper bag and I automatically leaned over the threshold to peep inside. Fruit, cheese, bread, paté and red wine.

“Have you eaten?”

“No,” I answered, finally coming to my senses sufficiently to invite him in.

Sitting at the little round table in the room which overlooked the square, we cut slices of pear and cheese to put on the bread and poured ourselves glasses of wine. Naturally, I forgot all about the vacuum cleaner and the little old man I had been waiting for, forgot him completely until Jakob said, “How are you getting on with selling the Vactrix vacuum cleaner?”

I was startled.

“He should have been here by now,” I said, as if to myself.

“Who?”

I told him about the funny old man and the five pounds he had insisted on paying for the thing.

“Really? What was his name?”

I realized I had never asked his name.

“Young?”

“No, getting on. At least, from what I could hear.”

“Rather a squeaky voice?”

I nodded.

“Like this?”

He altered his voice, sounding just like the old man on the phone. “In good condition? What luck. But four pounds and three shillings is nothing. Five, at least five pounds. I couldn’t pay any less . . . ’ ”

“Jakob!” I cried, leaping up. “Shame on you!”

He dodged, shaking with laughter, and I chased him: “You tricked me . . . shame on you!” I shook him in high spirits and he put his arms round me playfully to restrain me. I struggled in his embrace and he crushed me against him until our lips met.

I couldn’t tear myself away from him, unwilling to let this indescribable sense of well-being slip from my grasp.

I should have sensed that I was being warned. It should have been obvious to me, as I don’t believe in coincidences and Dr. Kivan’s farce must have been a bad omen. It would have been enough to have thanked him for his help, said good-bye and hurried home instead of sitting down with him in a café and losing myself in a treacherous happiness.

Perhaps it would have been better for me if I had listened when Mrs. Brown said: “I know it’s none of my business but he’s Jewish, isn’t he?”

The end seemed inevitable, obvious even on the evening he proposed to me. If only I had remembered Dr. Kivan at that moment and the Icelandic dwarf which he persuaded people to believe was a monster, I would have understood that this was what the world had come to and everything would have been different. Everything.

Boulestin said little at first when I plucked up the courage to tell him that I was going to move to the country and stay there for the next few months.

“Where?” he asked.

“A summer cottage not far from Bath,” I answered, without mentioning the fact that I intended to live there with Jakob.

He looked at me in silence for a while; I could see he was putting two and two together. However, he was too discreet to mention Jakob. Instead he said: “Maybe the work is too difficult for you.”

I was so hurt and angry that I couldn’t utter a word.

“If it is,” he continued, “there’s no hope of your ever being able to run a restaurant. It’s not enough to show promise.”

I was on the verge of answering him back but fortunately had the sense to bite back the words.

“When are you going?”

“In three weeks.”

“Try to use them well,” he said. “You won’t learn anything about cooking once you’ve left town.”

That he should dare to insinuate that I couldn’t handle the work! I decided to show him what I was made of and refused to take a single day off during my last few weeks.

“Isn’t this going a bit far?” asked Mrs. Brown, who knew what was going on.

“No one tells me that I can’t cope with hard work,” I answered.

Boulestin pretended hardly to notice me during those last days but now I suspect he was amused by my obstinacy. In fact, I’m sure he was.

Jakob tried to make me change my mind but I lost my temper with him. He was light-hearted in those days as he had just finished his doctoral thesis and was at last free to enjoy himself. He had taken on some proofreading for the University Press and was looking forward to getting out into the country. At first his happiness made me even grumpier but before I knew it I had started to laugh at his teasing.