Julius Page 5

  The Prussians would not attack - they waited on the hills.

  ‘Mère, I’m hungry, let me have another piece, just a little piece.’

  ‘No, my darling boy, there will be none left for to-night - to-night you will be hungry again.’

  Jacques Tripet came in, reeling a little, smelling of spirits.

  ‘Look here, why are you such a devil to me, Madame Lévy? I don’t harm you, do I?’

  ‘Oh! go on with you - I haven’t the mood for silliness.’

  ‘I bet you’re a hot one, when you feel like it, eh? With those eyes and that body. Tell me, eh?’

  ‘Maybe - go off, don’t breathe at me and keep your hands to yourself, young fellow. When a woman’s limbs are cold and her stomach is empty she does not want to be bothered with men.’

  ‘You’re a devil, you are, you’re playing with me, you’re putting me off. You shouldn’t smile at me as you do. Listen, I know a fine way to warm those limbs - don’t you want it?’

  ‘No, you puppy, you fool. Leave me alone.’

  Julius nibbled at his nails, his little belly empty.

  ‘Mère, give me a sou - give me a sou to buy some bread.’

  ‘I haven’t any - you must wait till Père comes home.’

  ‘Here, young fellow - here’s a sou for you. Run and play, maybe you’ll find something with your sharp eyes and nose, Jew-baby. Go on, leave your mother and me to talk.’

  Julius went out in the streets. Most of his time was spent in the streets now, away from the cheerless room and the moans of the old woman in her corner, away from Jacques Tripet harping at Mère. He was beginning to know the quarter. He found his way through the maze of the Halles to the wider streets, and out on to the Place du Châtelet. Here a bridge crossed the Seine to the Ile de la Cité. He wandered along the quays, his mind working hard, peering into the holes and crevices, feeling with his hand up the pipes that led from the sewers. In a scavenge heap on one of the quays he found the remains of a stale crust of bread. He stuffed this at the end of a sewer pipe and waited, a heavy stone in one hand, crouching behind the pipe. In twenty minutes or so he saw the bright eyes of a rat peering from the edge of the pipe. The rat hesitated a moment, sniffing the air, and began to nibble the crust. Julius raised his hand slowly, then hurled the stone, crushing the head of the rat. When he lifted the stone he saw that the creature was dead. Julius smiled, a queer, pinched smile in his thin face, and he rubbed his hands together, gloating, wishing that Grandpère was not rotting in a ditch but was standing by his side, laughing at him.

  ‘Something for nothing,’ said Julius, ‘something for nothing.’ By the end of the afternoon he had caught six rats in this way. It was getting dark, and a fog was rising over the Seine. The houses loomed drab and gloomy through the mist, the streets ill-lit. People with their heads low hurried home to their cold rooms. There were no shops open, even the churches were closed. The streets were bare of fiacres and carriages, the horses had been killed for food. Only one or two omnibuses plodded their customary route, half empty, along the dark silent streets.

  Julius swung his rats by the tails, beating his feet on the pavement to keep warm, humming a little tune to himself. He walked down the long Rue St. Antoine to the Place de la Bastille. He knew his quarter - he knew the poverty-stricken queues of starving work-people who would be grouped there, waiting outside the butcher’s for their thirty grammes of horse-flesh. They would be tired, frozen, their bellies aching for food.

  He pushed his way amongst them, holding up his rats for all to see.

  ‘Forty sous a rat, messieurs, mesdames, forty sous a rat.’

  On Christmas Day old Madame Tripet died. She had been lingering for over a fortnight, suffering from dysentery brought on by starvation and the cold. No one was sorry to see her taken away. Her groans had been too irritating, the dirt and the smell she caused had become unbearable. Jacques Tripet bought a wooden coffin for his mother, but the thought of burning the wood for fire proved too strong for him, and the old woman was buried in the common ditch.

  The room could be heated at last. The Lévys and Jacques Tripet spread out their hands to the blaze and sighed for sheer luxury, the incredible pleasure of self-indulgence. Even Père drank wine that first evening, wine supplied by the bereaved son, and Julius wondered to see the colour rise in his pale cheeks, Père, thin as a corpse himself, in his uniform that hung on his bones. He played upon his flute, his eyes closed, his black hair falling over his face, and as the sound of his music fled and was lost in the air he smiled to himself.

  Mère also closed her eyes, she was drowsy from the wine. She breathed heavily, her sensual mouth half open, and she leant against the shoulder of Jacques Tripet. They were friends now. People could not be enemies for long living in one room. Jacques Tripet listened to her breathing, his green eyes hot and silly, and he ran his hand up her leg under her petticoats. Julius thought him a fool, ugly with his red hair.

  Julius yawned, stretching his arms above his head. He went close to Mère, and curled himself up against her, glad of her warm body, pillowing his head on her lap. She smiled in her sleep and sighed. Jacques Tripet stroked her gently, secretly, watching Paul Lévy out of the tail of his eye, and Père slept with his face in his hands, never moving, scarcely breathing, lost in his secret city.

  The days dragged by, endless and wretched, the January mornings were bitter cold, and to stand in a queue for rationed meat became physical torture.

  Still the guns rumbled and the shells fell on defenceless citizens, still the pathetic efforts of the imprisoned troops to pass the Prussian batteries continued, always in vain - back they came wounded, bleeding, faith and courage gone from them. The strictly rationed food was practically uneatable, nor would the tough horse flesh, the black bread, nor even the rats last much longer.

  It was the beginning of the end. The surrender of Paris, inevitable, fatal, loomed into the minds of the people. On the fortifications of Auteuil Paul Lévy stood on sentry duty, his hands clasping his bayonet, his head bent low. He had not slept for twenty-four hours. He had no other thought in his brain, no other desire in his body, but to lie down, anywhere, in a ditch and sleep. His feet were like two solid lumps of ice, frozen in his leaking boots, he had lost the feel of them and the feel of his fingers, blue knobbly bones sticking out from his hands. Paul Lévy was no longer a magician who breathed music, who dreamed dreams, he was a senseless thing of no will, who could not even raise his head to watch shells whistle through the air from the Prussian batteries. He wanted to sleep, he wanted the warm body of his wife next to him, her arms to cradle him, her breast to pillow him. He wanted to lose himself, he wanted to sleep.

  In the room in the Rue des Petits Champs, Louise Blançard was preparing supper. She had stood for four hours outside the butcher’s and when her turn had come the doors were shut in her face and a soldier, his face a wooden mask, told her the rations were finished for the day.

  ‘But we have nothing in the house?’ she pleaded, clutching his arm, ‘what are we going to eat? My little boy is hungry.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said the soldier, pushing her away,‘it’s not my fault, is it?’

  She climbed the seven flights to the cold room, her shawl over her head. There was no fire now, and a trickle of water ran down the wall by the window. One flickering candle was stuck in a bottle.

  Jacques Tripet knelt by the fireplace. He had three sticks of green wood which he was trying to light.

  ‘I took them off a peasant who had been scavenging outside the gates,’ he said, ‘they are damp, they will not give much warmth. Have you any food?’

  ‘The butcher’s was shut,’ she told him, ‘we shall have to make wine soup. We must have something inside us.’

  Julius looked up from his corner. His skin was drawn tight over his bones. ‘I don’t like wine soup,’ he said fretfully, ‘it gives me a pain. I always have a pain now.’

  ‘There is nothing else,’ said Mère, ‘you must bear wit
h it. Wine soup is good, it puts warmth into you.’

  The boy began to cry, the tears slowly rolled down his cheeks. He brushed them away so that no one should see. He was ashamed to cry. He did not know it was weakness. He stuffed his fingers in his mouth. The nails tasted good.

  ‘You will feel better when you have had some wine soup,’ said Mère.

  Jacques Tripet produced a flame from the green sticks. Mère put the saucepan on top of them, and began to stir slowly, a soft watery mixture.

  Julius could not manage more than half a bowl. It made his head muzzy and gave him a pain in his belly.

  ‘When Grandpère used to give me wine I felt fine,’ he complained. ‘I don’t see why this soup should disagree with me.’

  ‘It’s because you have nothing solid inside you,’ laughed Jacques Tripet, ‘it goes to your head at once. That’s why it’s good - it makes you forget you are hungry.’

  He and Mère had two bowls and could have wished for more. They smiled at each other, Jacques Tripet kept laughing for no reason. He breathed heavily as though he were hot; he opened his blouse.

  ‘You know what I want, don’t you?’ he said to Mère, ‘and you want it too. I can tell, don’t you try and put me off.’

  Mère made a face at him.

  ‘What if I do?’ she said. ‘You’re only a big bumping boy.’

  He shook his finger at her, smiling foolishly. ‘You didn’t say that last time, did you?’ he said, ‘you told me a different story. You were pleased enough, I know.’

  ‘Shut your silly mouth,’ she said.

  Julius rubbed his hand on his stomach.

  ‘Go outside in the street.The air will do you good,’ said Mère.

  Julius went out of the room.When he came on to the landing he began to cry again, softly to himself. He could not help it. It was that beastly wine soup. After a little while he felt better, but his head still ached. The air was bitterly cold. He thought perhaps if he walked fast his headache would pass away. He found his way down through the maze of streets, scarcely looking where he went. Hoo! But it was cold. He stamped on his feet and bit his fingers. He had walked some way and the moving had not warmed him at all. He would like to be inside again. He found himself in a square surrounded by cloisters. There was comparative shelter here, the sleet did not blow in his face. Somebody was knocking at the door of one of the houses. After a moment the door opened and the person went inside. Later one or two other people came to the door and knocked and were also admitted. There was an old man with a white beard, there was another man, and then another. A woman came carrying a child. Julius was puzzled.

  ‘Can they all live there?’ he wondered. Perhaps food was being given away free. He went and knocked on the door. A face peered at him through a little grille. The face of a man whose dark eyes stared from a white face, whose black beard came to his chest. The eyes smiled at him, and the door opened. Julius found himself in a stone corridor, looking up at the bearded man. He wore a queer-shaped cap on his head.

  ‘The service is just beginning,’ said the man, ‘push open that further door into the Temple.’

  Julius obeyed, curious, wondering what it was all about.When he went through the further door he saw that he had come into a church. At least, the first impression was that of a church, but in a few moments he realised that it was quite different, it was more friendly, more intimate, it was like a meeting-place for people who knew one another.

  There were rows of pews the same as in church, and here men were standing or sitting, shaking hands with each other, smiling, talking in low tones. There was something about their faces that was curiously familiar to Julius, it was as though he knew them all, as though he had met them long ago, and they smiled at him too and they understood. At first he thought there were no women, but when he looked about him he could see some sitting in separate pews, like creatures apart.

  He smiled to himself, it was just, it was right. Instinctively he approved of this. Creatures apart.

  He leant against the pew, trying to catch snatches of conversation. The men were speaking a language that was not French, and this too was strangely familiar to him, words he knew and understood, that were part of him, that were connected in some way with his life.

  It was peaceful here and simple.There were no painted figures of saints, no crucifixes, no decoration. The walls were plain, the roof rose in a high dome, and two galleries stretched one above the other round the building. Instead of an altar there were high black gates, and in front of them stood a golden candlestick, bearing seven candles.

  ‘All of this has happened to me before,’ thought Julius, and he felt happy, queer. A man bent down to him and gave him a book of prayer. Julius looked at the letters, he saw words that were known to him, Yöschev Besseïsser, Adonoï Mo-Odom. Alenou, Kadisch, he saw the word Israélite.

  Then he knew, then he understood. It was as though something warm took hold of his heart, clasped him softly, loved him, murmured to him. He was amongst his own people. They saw with his eyes, they spoke with his voice; this was his temple, those were his candles.

  They were poor, ill-clad, ill-fed, their temple was tucked away in the heart of the city, but they came there to be together because they all belonged to one another. Their minds were alike, they shared the same longings, their blood was too strong for them - they were bound hand and heart, they would never break away.

  That was the Rabbin who bowed before the golden candlestick, who chanted in his soft sweet voice. He turned to the people, and lifted up his voice, he cried to them, he whispered, he echoed the prayer in their heart. It was not the Rabbin only, young, pale-faced, who stood there, it was Paul Lévy, it was Julius, it was child and boy and man, it was Père’s mind in Père’s body, it was Julius’s eyes in Julius’s face. And the psalm he chanted was Père’s music, the song that rose and whispered and lost itself in the air, the voice cried out like the music had cried, it pleaded and wept, it sorrowed and rejoiced in his sorrow, it quivered immeasurably high as a bird hovers, beating his wings to escape, it travelled away, beyond the gold sun, flinging itself against the stars, exquisite, trembling, a song of beauty and pain, of suffering and joy and distress, the cry of one who searches the sky, who holds out his hands to the clouds. Julius sat huddled in the pew, his chin propped on his hands, and the chanting was food to him, was eating and drinking, was peace and consolation, sleep and forgetting.

  The young Rabbin was himself, the seven candles were the symbols of his song and the iron gates were the gates of the secret city.

  Julius was lost in a dream, he was nothing, he was no one, nor any longer a little starving boy whose bones showed through his clothes. He had no more tangibility than a measure of music and the tremor of a song; he was as abstract as the sound of wings in the air, of a running stream, of the wind in the trees. He would never be touched, he was the flight of a bird, the shadow on a flower; he was the river bed and the desert sand and the snow upon the mountains.

  When the Rabbin ceased from chanting it was as though Julius could feel his body falling through space, hurtling through the air, striking once more the cold hard ground. The people stood up in the pews shaking hands with one another, the Rabbin leant over the rail and talked to them, the iron gates were closed. Julius had come back into the world again, he was a poor, hungry boy in a besieged capital. Everyone was leaving the Temple. He followed the rest of them, looking over his shoulder for the last time at the seven candles before the gates. Then he was in the cloisters once more and the heavy door banged behind him.

  The sky was clear, the grey sleet was not falling, but the night was cold.

  ‘When I grow up I will be a Rabbin, too,’ thought Julius, ‘and I shall lose myself in the singing like he did. I shall make music and dream dreams in front of the golden candlestick.’

  As he walked home he wondered why the air was so silent and the streets so still, and he realised that the rumble of the guns that had continued now incessantly for a whole
month had ceased at last.

  ‘Perhaps the Prussians have used up all their shells,’ he thought; ‘perhaps they are tired of firing and are going back to their own country. Anyway, none of this matters to me. I am going to be a Rabbin. I am going to make music.’

  He turned down into the Rue des Petits Champs, his hands deep in his pockets, his head poking forward.

  ‘I shall go back often to the Temple,’ he said to himself, ‘I will learn Hebrew properly with the young Rabbin, and I shall never go to Mass again.’

  A smile of satisfaction came over his thin little face. ‘Besides,’ he reflected, ‘there was no collection and that means there is nothing to pay ...’

  He turned into the house in the Rue des Petits Champs and began to climb the staircase. He wanted so much to tell Père about the young Rabbin and the visit to the Temple. He did not know how he was going to put into words all the things he had felt and seen and already he was making up little sentences in his mind - ‘You do understand, don’t you, Père? You know how I felt when I saw the seven candles and the writing in the book of prayer? His voice was your voice when you make music, it cried in the air and was sorry and was lost. You understand, don’t you, don’t you? I’ll never be a glutton again - I’ll never be a glutton again!’ - The voice was still in his ears and the golden candlestick before him. Père and Julius were bound to one another, other people did not matter at all. The singing in the Temple had taken away his headache and his bellyache, he was not tired any more or sick from the wine soup, he wanted to run to Père and tell him he was happy.

  When he tried to open the door of the room he saw that it was locked. He rattled and shook at it and still it did not open. He began to kick the panel.