In Babylon. Marcel Moring
stuck the knife in the cake and sliced it in two, so resolutely that he really did seem to be finishing off a sacrificial beast.
Later, when the sun had gone down, we sat in the library, Uncle Herman, Sophie and I. The rest, Zoe and Alexander, Zeno, and Mrs Sanders, were in the kitchen, where my sisters and brother drank wine and the housekeeper plied Zeno with bread and cheese. Even though it had been a hot day, Uncle Herman had asked me to make a fire and move the large chesterfield over by the hearth. ‘Fire is good for books,’ he said, ‘as long as it doesn’t get too close.’ The glow of the flames enclosed us in a swaying red globe of light and shadow.
‘It’s been a fine day,’ said Sophie.
‘After a day like today, a person could die happy,’ said Uncle Herman.
‘Actually, I was thinking of trying to get some work done,’ I said. ‘One last glass of wine, cup of coffee …’
‘That’s exactly why I’m leaving you the house,’ said Uncle Herman. ‘You’re such a Calvinistic bastard.’
‘Leaving him in charge of the house,’ said Sophie.
‘Leaving him in charge. But when I die, the house is his. He’s the only one of you who has any use for it. Besides, where else would he put all these books?’
My eyes travelled from the fire to my uncle. I was aware that my mouth had dropped open.
‘You get the house, N.’
I wanted to say something, but got no further than a vague sort of stammering.
‘Herman, how can he keep up a house like this? The boy can hardly even support himself.’
Uncle Herman raised his glass and peered at the red spark floating in the wine. ‘It has always been my conviction that you should give a man bread when he’s hungry, but let him provide his own butter. Stimulates the initiative.’
My mother looked at me with a worried expression.
‘Sophie,’ said Uncle Herman, ‘if it’s the others you’re concerned about … I’m sure they’ll see reason, and if they don’t, they obviously don’t have the sense of family loyalty they should. And besides …’ He straightened up in his chair and took a gulp of wine. ‘Nathan will have to do something for me in return.’
I looked at him without saying a word. In the reflection of the flames the white wreath of hair had taken on a faint red glow. The gently hooked nose stuck out like a beak and the wilful mouth was crinkled into a benevolent smile. He wasn’t very tall, my Uncle Herman, five foot eight at most, but sometimes, like now, he gave the impression of being twice his size. Perhaps it was the coarse tweed jacket with the suede elbow patches, or his rather slow-emphatic way of moving, or his penetrating gaze. Or perhaps it was the way he spoke. The way Uncle Herman talked always sounded as if he were pronouncing judgement on the validity of the logical-positivistic viewpoint in this day and age or something similar, even if he was only asking you to put the cork down next to the bottle after you’d opened it. On the few occasions that I had accompanied him on one of his lecture tours, I’d been impressed by his talents as a demagogue. For the first time I had understood why the great minds of our time spoke with and listened to him as if he were their equal.
‘This house,’ said Herman, ‘is no ordinary beautiful house in the woods. And this library …’ He made a sweeping gesture with his arm to indicate the walls of books that surrounded us. ‘… is no ordinary library. This is a line in the sand. A boundary. The black hole through which we can navigate that other dimension.’
‘Herman …’ I said.
‘And nothing less than that.’
‘Okay.’
‘No, not: okay. Do I speak in tongues? This. This. This. Here! This is your ship to the other world. You don’t know it yet, but you’ll find out.’ He emptied his glass and rose unsteadily from his chair. ‘That is, if you’re made of the same stuff as …’ His voice dissolved in a peal of laughter that rang out from the kitchen. ‘Listen,’ he said, raising his right hand, ‘they’re enjoying themselves. Fine. That’s fine.’ He tapped on the pockets of his jacket, glanced down at the table next to his chair, and then rested his eyes on Sophie. She stood up hurriedly. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘Let’s all laugh. This way, ladies and gentlemen, to the gas chambers. Everything’s fine.’ He offered Sophie his arm, and as they stepped into the darkness that lay outside the circle of firelight, he tapped me on the shoulder. ‘Yes. Laugh. But just remember where it all came from and where it’s going. Don’t ever forget …’He paused to enhance the dramatic effect of what he was about to say. ‘… we’re still a family of clockmakers!’
They strode off into the dusk. My mother cast a confused glance at me over her shoulder, but when I grinned back, she frowned.
And so, speaking in tongues, more than a little tipsy, leaning on my mother’s arm as if he weren’t my uncle at all, her brother-in-law, but an ageing Casanova, finally at peace in the company of the woman with whom he would spend his last years, my Uncle Herman left the library, never to return, and I was left behind, staring at the slow flickering of the fire, painfully aware of the walls of books that seemed to be whispering softly, ‘You’re all ours now. It’s you and us and the house. We’ll never let you go.’
When I left the next morning Mrs Sanders was standing in the front doorway, at the top of the whitewashed stairs. She had one hand on her hip and the other raised halfway above her head, but she wasn’t waving. I waved to her, hoisted my suitcase onto my shoulder and walked down the path, towards the trees, on my way to the bus that stopped at the bottom of the hill. When I reached the edge of the forest I looked round one last time. Mrs Sanders had gone back into the house. The shutters on the first floor windows were closed and the library curtains drawn to keep out the morning sun. In the late August light, the house looked like the head of a giant whose body was the hill I now descended. I could see him, the Titan, crouched, his arms around his knees, sound asleep for centuries. Moss, grass, shrubs, and finally trees had sprung up all over his body. But there would come a day when he would feel the blood flowing through his limbs once more and his body would stir beneath the earth. The trees would shake and the thick layer of humus and woodland soil would burst open. He’d flex his muscles and rise up and look out over the lazy, elfin landscape of the East, over the rippling farmland, the slopes overgrown with broadleaved trees, the mossy banks and the drowsy little villages at the place where two roads meet.
‘Here we are …’ Nina had said, when the house came into view.
The snowstorm screeched around us. Nina’s hair flew about wildly, only her pale forehead, and now and then part of her face, were visible in the stream of red flames.
‘This is it,’ I said.
I crunched my way to the entrance, a green door at the top of a flight of stairs that was no more than a ripple in the snow, took the big key out of my pocket, and jiggled it in the lock.
In the hall, where the air was grey with snowlight, the stale smell of emptiness leapt up and hurried towards us. I leaned over and began untying the rope around Nina’s waist. I sank down on one knee and tugged at the rope with stiff, cold fingers. I blew on my hands and fiddled with the knot, which had been pulled tighter by our struggle through the snow. Nina didn’t move. She stood bolt upright. When I looked up after a while to apologize for my fumbling, I saw her gazing down at me patiently. Several more minutes went by before I had freed her, and it felt as if I had set myself free. The warmth of her body escaped from her coat and glided around me. I was amazed, so much warmth from such a slender woman. As if she were ablaze, as if it were no coincidence that the red hair kept reminding me of fire, but the visible manifestation of a heat raging within her. I straightened up, the rope still in my hands, a hangman who suddenly lacks the conviction to fulfil his task. Nina laughed like an anaemic angel.
We stood on the black-and-white marble-tiled floor and looked around in silence. The twilight hung about us like vapour, the cakes of snow that had fallen from our coats lay on the