The Lion Seeker (52 page)

Mr. Vance has a full red face with a snub nose and chestnut hair that sits like moss above the wispy eyebrows. He came from a party, he tells Isaac, not sounding happy. He has small eyes and they keep flicking at something over Isaac's head. —I didn't realize, Vance says, that you are of the Islamic faith.

Isaac taps his own brow, the white fabric there. —Jay man, he says, sliding on his best Indian accent, we coming straight from de Bombay, long time, we Helgers.

Mr. Vance doesn't laugh.

Isaac cackles enough for two, his voice sounding even to his own ears more than a little hysterical. Calm yourself. —Nu nu, he says. Only kidding. This is a yarmulke hey. Jewish as all get-all.

Mr. Vance frowns.

—Ja, I'm religious, me, says Isaac. He looks sideways and sees his own reflection in the window with a view of the city outside, other dark buildings with pasted-on rectangles of yellow. What he sees on his reflected self makes him almost jerk in his seat. He's got on a woven white skullcap that cups the whole top of his head, protecting his abused scalp from public view, yes, but now in the reflection he can see—what is that, bladey Arab writing?—alien symbols woven into its fabric, Christ, shapes he hadn't noticed in the Fourteenth Street shop when he was in such a hurry and this was the only cap on sale.

—Religious, he mumbles again.

Mr. Vance creaks back in his chair, made of lacquered red leather in buttoned squares with wings at the top that frame his head like some manner of pagan Anglo-Saxon throne. He says, —I was given to understand that Mrs. Helger—

—Ja that's my mother. It's there, it's there. A hunned percent.

—Yes.

But Mr. Vance does not look down at the papers before him, the typed letter authorizing release of funds, the two homemade letters in ink.

—And she is ill, you say.

—There's it. Sick as a dog, poor woman.

—Mr. Helger.

—Isaac, please. Mr. Helger's my father.

Mr. Vance pokes at the two ink letters; they've been slightly dampened by the journey.

—The one is the original she wrote. In Jewish, like, which is the language of her birth. The other one, I made a proper translation.

—I'm afraid before I can release any funds I'm going to need her signature.

—It's there. Look at it.

—I'm going to need to see her sign. My instructions were specific. She needs to sign for the imbursement.

—But she can't, she's sick.

—Well then, he says. Another time. And please make sure of her presence. Office hours might be more appropriate too, I have to say.

—Well, I was told anytime.

Mr. Vance taps the desk. —That is true. However.

—You know, says Isaac, you taking this very casual.

—Beg your pardon?

Isaac leans forward. —You know what this is for?

Vance says it's not his concern; it's a blind trust and he has his instructions.

Isaac says, —It's for saving people's lives, you understand?

Vance shakes his head, his eyelids dipping. —Please don't tell me what it's not my concern to know.

Isaac leans over the desk. —Listen, you gotta get me organized here. You better. I'm telling you for your own good.

Mr. Vance favours Isaac with a toothless smile. —In my considerable experience, threats are never wise.

—Who's threatening?

Mr. Vance goes on smiling.

Isaac says,—Listen, you know who gave this money.

—No, says Vance.

—Bull fucken shit, says Isaac. You know bladey well. And I'm telling you—do you want to make this man unhappy? This money is for close relatives, ukay. I don't care you say you know it or not, you got the blood of his family right there on your fancy desk. And I do reckon you understand very well what I am saying. There's a war now. Think on that. Now I don't know what your story here is, stuck up with some rule or whatever, but you can pick up the telephone right now and call my mother Mrs. Helger—na na wait, lemme finish—ring her and I promise if she can talk she'll talk, from her bladey sickbed and all.

Mr. Vance has stopped smiling. He fits his fingertips together under his bottom lip.

Isaac taps an imaginary watch. —You ask me why I'm coming middle a the night. Office hours you say. Office hours! Look at me, I only got
an hour
. I got
no time
. There's a
very important
gentleman waiting and Ma is sick in bed. You couldn't understand her anyway, I have to translate. There's the letter. You can phone. You can also phone you-know-exactly-who, and maybe you better if you ganna tell me no, cos guess who'll be ringing
you
very soon after he gets the word of what happened. That you would not help us, his blood. When it's war and emergency. Cos a signature and telephone call is not good enough for you. I don't know who you are but I wouldn't want to be you if that happens.

Mr. Vance puts his fingers on the desktop where they ripple gently. His mouth works as if he's rolling a bit of mouthwash around in it. Then he puffs out air. —I thought, he says, that religious Jews won't do business on a Friday night, the Sabbath. And today is a Jewish holiday isn't it?

—We do it if it's emergency, says Isaac. Are you listening one word what I'm saying?
Emergency
.

Mr. Vance nods slowly.

—Life and death, says Isaac.

Mr. Vance goes on nodding. He shifts around some more invisible mouthwash and puffs out some more air. Then he picks up the letter with the Hebrew characters and looks at it and then lifts the other. His left hand extends to the telephone.

Isaac watches him lift it, heart knocking, face neutral.

Vance says,—Rubin, can you bring the lift back up please? I need to go down to the vault.

He hangs up and looks at Isaac. —Emergency eh? he says.

—There it is, says Isaac.

THAT MENTAL SWOON
that he had before in the sewing room comes back to him on the road. He finds that he has left town long behind and the rain has stopped yet he cannot remember the drive to this point. The clouds break and a pregnant moon hovers through, silvering the washed land. Presently he runs out of petrol. He's been so much in his own head that he hadn't even looked at the gauge. He starts pushing the scooter and grows tired. He sees a couple palm trees off the road ahead and pushes the scooter around the back of them. Somewhere close a dog starts yapping. He puts the scooter on the stand and lays down the oilcloth and falls on it. Tired not just in the body but also in a deepbruised deepinside way. Soul tired. The burn on his arm bites at him like a snake.

After a time he pulls the envelopes from his satchel. The darker one is from the sewing room, the other is from Vance and has a rubber band around it and is bulked with the brickettes inside. To hold it gives a feeling like an electric current through his belly. He puts it down. His hands turn back the flap of the other one. Don't. He pulls out the forms. Don't. Bright African moon is strong enough to read his own hand. Don't. Trudel-Sora Melkin. Dvora Kirtzbacher. Rochel-Dor Kreb.

Orli.

Friedke.

Who is this one, who is that. Say the names, Isaac. Tell me.

Yes Mame.

These are your real aunties, Isaac, your only aunties. Never forget it.

Family, Isaac. The most important thing.

A pang, very old and long forgotten, spikes through him. A clear memory rides with this feeling, of the graveyard in Dusat on that last day. He and Mame and Rively stopped on the way out of the village to stand by the graves and say goodbye. Raining then too. The lindens and the white birch trees gave shelter from the wet but they were creaking and sighing from the wind off the lake and he felt warm and safe leaning against Mame's strong thigh while his face was cooled by the fresh wind. The old gravestones were scary but he was safe with Mame from the old dark stones with their chalky crumbled edges, with the little glasses around them in which candle flames fluttered like things trying to escape, making small dancing shadows on the stones. He wasn't able to understand why everyone was crying if no one had gone to heaven. Mame was happy, though. The cart was waiting for them with their suitcases with the goose-feather pillows tied on. They were going on a holiday boat, an adventure, to see Tutte. It gave him prickling chills up and down thinking about it, like the feeling of getting sick but different. The fresh wind was cold in the face and he was warm in his new coat and the birches hissed like snakes under the rain and all the bags in the cart belonged to them and they were going on a boat to see Tutte. Every boy has a tutte and they were going to see his. He was lifted up and passed to his aunties and his uncles and everyone kissed him. He didn't like it, they kept kissing and kissing, and he kept wiping his face with his arms and every time he did that they laughed. Some of them were crying and laughing at the same time, wiping their eyes. Goodbye little monarch, they said. Their big faces were too close and smelled funny. Goodbye you handsome clever monarch, goodbye. They squeezed him too hard and he didn't understand the crying because no one had gone to heaven, they were only going on holiday to the train station where he'd never been, going to a steam train and then a boat to meet his tutte. That was all.

Now Isaac can't find his breath. He keeps trying but no air will come in. He finds that he is standing up and the pages are at his feet, it's as if his windpipe has locked on him. Like trying to suck air through a stone. His legs kick and twitch and he jigs around in a panic, then finally it releases and he draws in a long gargling breath that is like the snore of an old man. He pants hard, bending over. The papers have spread on the oilcloth. Every one of them is like a giant white eye, unblinking, staring at him alone. These are the Days of Awe when sin is tallied and fates are sealed. He feels his windpipe starting to lock again. He stamps on the papers, trying to blot them, twisting them into the cloth, shutting the white eyes. It's not enough. He bends and grabs them up with both hands as if to throttle them, grinds them into a ball, crushing. Feeling his own spit on the backs of his hands, hearing his own racking gasps. He digs out his cigarette matches and strikes one and holds the shaking ball of paper to it. Flame catches and spreads. He drops the ball on the earth. Watches the yellow knives of the flames working. There. It's done. Now forget it. It warms his shins. He feels sick, but he can breathe.

 

He wakes curled up in the oilcloth and shivering, his body stiff and aching, wet with dew. He pushes the scooter and the sun dries him as it rises. He finds a petrol station and fills up and rides on. He reaches the Reformatory and is relieved to see it still has a gate intact at all; but he can't find a mattress or a blanket to put over the barbed wire and the razor glass. In the end he keeps banging on the gate with a rock, hoping for someone to come. It's possible no one is here. Anything being possible in this falling falling life of his.

It is Silas who comes. Silas as thin and hard as braided wire so that the collar of his overalls hangs loose around his shrunken neck.

I see you, Isaac says in Zulu.

Silas unlocks.

Is the fat one still here?

Silas nods.

When he turns after letting Isaac in, Isaac cups his shoulder. —Don't worry hey. Everything ganna change now. Promise you.

Silas blinks, his unfocused eyes drifting.

—No really, look at me, says Isaac. Look at me, Silas. I promise you.

Silas nods and goes on.

 

Hugo is cooking a fry-up for breakfast in his underpants with his socks held up by clips, wrinkled scrotum adangle as he squats before a fire. This is on the second floor where Isaac sees he's erected a tarpaulin like a Bedouin tent over his bed made of flattened car seats, the tarpaulin spattered on top with bird dung and the girders full of avian burbling. Without looking up, he bids Isaac a hale good morning. Says that the bird racket gets him up with the sun, bladey flying rats, he wishes he had that shotgun the albino ran off with.

—When I's a kid I used to shoot em with my catty, says Isaac. Dead eye. Never missed.

Hugo farts gently. Isaac peers over the pan that appears to be made of a hubcap with a handle welded on. Inside, grumbling and bubbling in grease, are half a dozen shiny egg yolks, some chops and fat sausages. —You joining us, boyki? Pass me that bottle of Worcester.

—Us?

—Me and Silas the noble, who else. What's that on your head? You look worse'n hell.

—No blowout parts sale today?

—Ach, the poor shit. He put so much into it but last night he hit a twist of his own.

Isaac waits, the smell of the fatty eggs queasing at his guts.

—Ja, he had those few good parts he just about died to take out, had em out all nice and covered from the rain. Too bad this was the night he finally couldn't keep himself awake.

—The jackals hey.

—Everyone's twist has a different flavour, says Hugo Bleznik. They come over last night and they stole those parts right from under his nose. It's a wonder he didn't off himself when he got up. Poor bastard. There is one helluva big heart in that little negro, I tell you, one helluva heart. Sling me the salt also there hey Tiger. There's a boy.

Isaac watches him tipping in a dark shower of Worcestershire sauce then snowing a layer of sodium onto the selfsame feast. —Speaking of Silas the noble, you wanna go give him a shout? Tell him grub's up.

—I don't think so.

Hugo looks up. —Hey?

—Got something important I wanna discuss.

—Look at you. What's this now?

—Wanna talk business, says Isaac. Serious business.

 

Hugo, pants on now, is digging in the desk for the agreement that'd first been adumbrated in ink on the back of a Miracle Glow circular, when Isaac had insisted on the name Lion Motors. He straightens, saying here it is, asking, what, did Isaac reckon there was something in the fine print might save their Yiddisher arses? Cos if he did, boy was he wrong. He starts reading from it, a typed and stapled document from his lawyer, three pages long.