Hector slept badly that night, even though he kept all the lights on in his flat and bolted every lock. Even though he had been told that one of Solli’s boys was staying the night below in Mrs. Fishburn’s rooms. He tossed and turned and tried not to see blurs or shadows that moved independently. He again read Mayhew, which had always been a solace and an entertainment when he had been unwell. But tonight it seemed hopelessly remote, even though he sat in the very heart of its subject matter. He pottered about making tea with gin, but nothing worked. Only at dawn’s first feeble rays when the city stoked up did he get a little troubled sleep. An hour later he turned off the gaslights and dragged himself to his ablutions. He washed with the strange-smelling soap that he had accidentally bought and pondered again why the British liked such things. In Germany, soaps were always tinted with flowers or citrus, the bite of lime or the tang of lemons, but here? He looked at the heavy lump again and was totally perplexed as to why a nation would want to smell of coal and tar.
Eventually he began the morning ritual of twisting and folding his few strands of hair into their hirsute camouflage of many. He first combed down the nightly tangle, ready for weaving. In the mirror this normally made him look like an egg wearing a battered and irregular cobweb that flopped about his ears, but this morning it was different. There appeared to be a bushiness about it and stubble shadowing the worried-looking egg. It looked like new growth. But that was impossible. He turned this way and that, eventually unhooking the little brass chain that held the modest mirror on its bent nail, hanging over the sink. He took it to the window to bounce more light off his weird new head. There it was, hair. Hair sprouting this way and that, an abundance of shoots. A childish joy seized him and he heard a polka humming up from inside. He jigged about to it, holding the mirror away as if it were some kind of remote dancing partner.
“This is madness,” he said out loud, between the splutters of giggles that even surprised the hums. It took him a long time to become dressed this morning, seeking out things he had never worn or had not remembered he owned. He bubbled and played, trying on different combinations of garments, utterly forgetting the grave purpose of the day.
There was a weighty knock on his front door and he pulled himself together to let the boys in. He swung it open, ready to bounce mischievously with His Nibs. The square hillock of Rabbi Weiss stood unflinchingly in his path. He was still wearing the old homburg and the black shiny suit of many years. But now around his shoulders he wore a long black-and-white prayer shawl with many tassels. In his arm he preciously carried a dark, polished wooden box.
“Are you ready, Professor?” he said with grave earnest.
Hector said “Yes” and retrieved the closest coat. But Weiss was still blocking his way, frowning and looking him up and down. Suddenly Hector became horribly aware that in his previous high spirits he had dressed frivolously. Without thinking about anything else, he had put on things that he had bought on a whim (spending Himmelstrup’s money with abandon) and also the garments that he had been given by Mrs. Fishburn and Christmas presents from some of the inmates of Bethlem. What he was wearing was never meant to seen outside the privacy of his own moment of playful celebration.
“Oh, I think that I should change.”
“No, you are needed now, bring the key. We must begin.”
Weiss turned, beckoning him to follow, and Hector scuffled behind him, still forcing one arm into the new coat, the key gripped tightly in his other hand. As they went down, he tightened the braces of his plus fours that were beginning to sag. On the second landing he stopped. Below him was a pulsating mass of black-clad men. They were dressed identically and were equally impatient. He and the original prototype slowed and stopped a few steps above them. They all looked up at Hector and Weiss…The rabbi addressed them in Hebrew and then introduced the learned academic from the great University of Heidelberg. Some stared at his hair, which was trapped loose and hanging under a jaunty cloth cap. Some stared at his tartan socks and the gap where they attempted to join the cuffs of the plus fours. Others stared at his pinstriped coat, worn over the Fair Isle pullover—well, at least that was what he thought Mrs. Fishburn had called it. He had hastily grabbed the coat on his exit and desperately wished he was now wearing the rest of the three-piece suit. He looked down at them through their distaste into their purpose. One was carrying a thick scroll wound around ornamental wooden staves. Others held smaller, partially hidden things under their thin shiny topcoats. The one standing next to the door held the horn of a sheep, a ceremonial instrument ready to blow.
“Hector, the key, please,” said Weiss.
He put it into the square hand of the old rabbi, who stared at the long piece of bent metal, then quickly passed it down to the seventh bearded man who stood next to the horn carrier at the door. The swollen mob shuffled forward as the skeleton key was put into the lock.
“Oyfhern,” said a voice from below.
All the bearded heads spun round.
“Stop it. It is verboten.”
Weiss, who was still three steps above them, twisted his head into the stairwell to see who dared. Solli stood ten steps below him. The old man exploded, his face turning purple.
“How dare you, how dare you speak to us like this. What do you mean by this outrage?”
Solli did not even flinch. He held his ground, steely and resolute. Behind him were three of his khevre who looked pale and jittery.
“You must not enter, you are forbidden to perform this ceremony,” he said in a demanding tone.
Weiss was beside himself in speechless outrage, his skin becoming a dangerous lurid white. He suddenly held out his hands before him and pushed his way down the stairs towards the impudent, blasphemous young man. Hector fell back in his shock, his new two-tone white-and-tan brogues slipping on the stone. Weiss bustled past the others and gained the head of the stair just above Solli, who also started moving. Nobody said a word as they watched the rabbi and the thug confront each other. It started with shouting, turned into concealed asides, then into head-to-head, face-to-face violent whispers. The audience leaned forward, trying to hear what was going on. Solli’s quick hand was suddenly at the back of the old man’s head, pushing his ear closer to his continually moving lips. The homburg slumped askew against the impertinent violation. After being held ridged there for a moment, the solid square of the old man shrank and folded away, his astonished eyes never leaving the black intensity of the younger, slighter man. Weiss faltered, grabbing the metal balustrade, and then looked up at Hector with a countenance that was unreadable. No man had ever looked at him like that before. He had never witnessed such an alarming expression. Weiss moved like a scolded sleepwalker, past Solli and down towards the street. The rabbi’s lost companions looked at one another and started to shuffle down behind him. After a few minutes only Hector and Solli remained on the stair, Solli’s men having been told to retrieve the key and wait in Mrs. Fishburn’s apartment.
His Nibs slowly walked up the faltering empty flights. This was not the walk of the fleet-footed panther that Hector had known from before. As he passed, Solli said, “You still got some of that kosher brandy left, Prof?”
“Yes,” said Hector, grabbing the young man’s arm as he lurched and plodded upwards.
Hector brought them both large tumblers of brandy to the seats by the fire. Solli said nothing: his concentration in the flames, his nose in the glass.
“What did you say to him?” said Hector cautiously.
“I told him to stop.” Solli’s voice was distant and impassive.
“Yes, I know that, but how?”
“I told him it was verboten.”
“Verboten…” repeated Hector. “You told him in German.”
Solli gradually came out of his stupor and stared at Hector.
“I don’t speak German,” he said, barely moving his mouth, like a bad ventriloquist.
Hector got up to retrieve the bottle, while the young man tried to strangle sense out of his memory.
“What else did I say, Prof?”
“I don’t know, you were fiercely whispering in the old man’s ear.”
More brandy was poured as they struggled to find meaning in the strange event.
“Who told you to say this?” asked Hector.
“Uncle Hymie and your creepy friend.”
“My…” said Hector, for a moment not understanding.
“Nicholas,” said Solli. The name sounded distorted and looked as if it tasted like bile on the sunken panther’s lips. “He wants to see you.”
“Oh, when?” said Hector, trying to sound casual, trying to tether the conversation to some kind of normality.
“In a week or two, when the weather gets better. He said at St. Paul’s.”
“St. Paul’s Cathedral?”
“That’s the one, he’ll tell you when,” said Solli, losing interest now that his task was completed.
“Why?”
“Don’t ask me,” said Solli, shrugging.
Hector took his statement literally and didn’t.