The Dogs and the Wolves (8 page)

The wealthy Sinner kept his promise and gave his relative the opportunity to be useful to him on a few occasions. The commission he agreed to pay him was minimal, but for a man like Israel Sinner, the very fact that he was being protected by a family from such glittering social circles was enough to raise his status. He was showered with respect: what qualities must he possess to be of service to the king of the upper town?

But then his patron died, and the accountants who were dealing with the enormous estate gave Israel the responsibility of concluding several transactions, which he happily did. Other matters were entrusted to him, more substantial ones. Within two years he had become, if not exactly wealthy, at least comfortably well off. With the Jews, everything happened in leaps and bounds. Happiness and misfortune, prosperity and poverty poured down upon them like rain from the heavens upon cattle. This was what filled them simultaneously with perpetual anxiety and invincible hope.

What was more, something else had happened that allowed Aunt Raissa to realise one of her dreams: grandfather had died. Since the night of the pogrom, he seemed to have been shocked into a sort of stupor. He could barely walk and hardly ate anything;
he soon passed away, and with his death, so did the main reason that the Sinners were forced to live in the lower town.

The family moved higher up, halfway between the top of the hill and the ghetto.

Aunt Raissa was not the kind of woman who rested on her laurels. Now it was essential to take charge of Lilla’s education and, most importantly, to have her learn French. At this time, there lived in the city an elderly Parisian woman who gave French lessons to children of the well-to-do classes. She was called Madame Mimi. No one ever found out her surname. She was vivacious, elegantly slim, with bulging eyes and a small hooked nose like the beak of a bird, a bird that was losing its feathers but was still rather charming. She had thin, stiff legs, for she suffered from rheumatism, but that didn’t stop her from dancing at the Christmas parties, gracefully raising her taffeta petticoat, which was fashionably longer than her full skirt, or from drinking ‘one finger of champagne’ to toast the health of her pupils. As well as the French language, she taught them Sully Prudhomme’s ‘La Petite Tonkinoise’ and ‘Le Vase brisé’. She had an optimistic, kindly, sweet and joyful outlook on life that the bitter Jews could not manage themselves. She hinted that in St Petersburg, where she had spent her youth, she’d had a secret affair with one of the princes (she then sighed as she mentioned the name of someone who had once been famous). This fact was not at all harmful to her reputation. Quite the contrary: there was no one who did not feel flattered to have someone so well-placed in high society under their roof, a woman about whom one could say with absolute certainty that she knew the correct way to eat asparagus (with a fork or with the fingers) and that she would only teach her pupils the very best French – its terribly difficult pronunciation and its amusing slang.

She quickly became fond of Lilla and Ada.

‘Lilla is born to inspire love wherever she goes,’ she said.

Then, with a swift, delightful movement of her long, dry fingers, as if she were scattering flowers from a bouquet, she seemed to evoke the spirits of the suitors whom Lilla would encounter on life’s journey.

‘As for little Ada . . . Ah! She knows her own mind . . . When she gives away her heart, it will be for ever.’

Ada felt flattered: the Frenchwoman’s opinions where matters of the heart were concerned were indisputable; she was like a master chef stranded on some deserted island after a shipwreck, enthralling the silent and adoring natives with talk of recipes from his homeland. Madame Mimi was ignorant of and looked down upon anything to do with business, commissions, brokerage or even the hierarchy of quarrels in the town, that is to say, everything that had to do with the daily life of the Sinners and people like them. But when it came to the emotions, she was in her element. It was impossible not to believe her. And Aunt Raissa dreamed of Lilla at the Cannes Flower Festival, on a float decked with blooms, while Ada grew to love more and more a shadow, a ghost: the boy, Harry, whom she hadn’t seen again since the day of the pogrom and who lived constantly in her heart.

Ada had only one other passion that rivalled her feelings for Harry: painting. She had always done sketches. But when she was about ten years old, she was given her first set of paints, and began tirelessly to copy the street covered in snow beneath her window, the greyish shades of the March sky and people’s faces. Whether it was Nastasia with her frightening, dark little eyes set in her reddish face, or Aunt Raissa, hands on hips, her bodice the shape of a mandolin, or Lilla in a smooth cotton petticoat, or the disdainful, elegant Madame Mimi who looked like an aging wagtail, she found everyone interesting, everyone pleased her. But, mainly, it was Harry’s face that she drew, over and over again, just as it was etched in her memory.

She showed her drawings to Madame Mimi, who one day recognised Harry among them.

‘I can organise things so you get to play with that little boy,’ she said, giving Ada one of her bright, knowing looks.

Ada went pale.

‘Do you . . . do you know him then?’

‘I’ve given lessons to his family and have excellent relations with them. So, then, next February . . .’

‘February?’ Ada repeated, breathless.

‘If you come to the party at the Alliance Française with your aunt and cousin, I will introduce you to him.’

Every year, the Alliance Française organised an evening of amateur dramatics, followed by a party; the profits went to charitable causes. The people from the middle town always turned out in force, while those from the upper town sometimes made an appearance. Madame Mimi always took great care over the arrangements for the party.

‘Ah!’ she sighed. ‘Once upon a time, in my beloved Prince’s house, I used to give balls where champagne flowed like water, where you could hear polkas and mazurkas playing all through the night, and I would dance, as light as a butterfly . . .’

‘But you still dance so well,’ said Ada.

Then Madame Mimi delicately lifted the petticoat under her skirt and, standing in front of the wardrobe mirror, danced a step, just one, but with so much grace, so much liveliness, combined with a hint of nostalgic self-mockery, that Ada was enchanted.

‘Ah! If only I could paint you just like that! But do you think my aunt will take me as well as Lilla?’

‘Of course, of course, I’ll make sure of it!’

It was autumn, and the party was to be in February. In February, thought Ada, she would see Harry. He would dance with her, play with her! In his eyes, she would no longer be that beggar girl, that vagabond, that outcast, that little Jewish girl from the ghetto.
She could speak French now, she knew how to curtsey; she was ‘like the others’. Though she barely knew him, he was more real to her than Ben or Aunt Raissa. As she hurried home from school along the dark, wintry streets, blowing on her fingers, feeling the icy wind and snow burning her eyelashes, she could almost sense the presence of the young boy beside her; she would talk to him and make up what he said in reply. Over and over in her mind, she played out a drama full of surprises and delights, encounters, quarrels, reconciliations.

The day of the party finally arrived. Since morning, certain smells had filled the Sinner household: irons heating in the kitchen, the aroma of little bottles of inexpensive perfume that Lilla had opened, sniffed and nervously compared. Lilla and Ada had laid out their black tights, starched petticoats and Lilla’s new grey twill bodice on the bed. Lilla was going to be dancing, singing and reciting in an entertainment called ‘The Rose and the Butterfly’, especially composed for the occasion by Madame Mimi: Madame had many talents.

‘I will appear on stage,’ said Lilla, ‘and everyone will applaud me.’

She began twirling round and round with joy. She was extremely light and graceful; she had tiny little feet and the kind of legs that were admired in those pre-war days, with a delicate ankle, firm calves and full thighs.

She was in the bedroom with Aunt Raissa and Ada. Ada had grown a lot: her wild hair was brushed back into a short, thick plait, but on her forehead she had kept the uneven fringe that came down over her eyebrows and sometimes fell into her eyes; when that happened, she had the wild, intense look of some little animal hiding in a thicket.

The day passed slowly. Finally, the lamps were lit and the house was filled with the smell of red cabbage cooking for the evening meal, which gave off an even stronger odour than the curling irons.

In the dining room, Ben was entertaining a friend, a little boy from school named Ivanov, with whom he had formed an unusual friendship. Ivanov was eleven years old, with blond hair, a rosy complexion and the ruddy, soft cheeks of a baby. His friends liked to pinch him; wherever they had touched him, there remained a mark as white as snow, while the rest of his face turned so red that his flesh seemed covered in cherries and milk. The two children were sitting in the dining room, beneath the lamp. Little Ivanov, sweet and smiling, with his big blue eyes and plump little red mouth, was listening to Ben’s endless talk. He spoke quietly for fear of being overheard by his mother, but the constant movement of his body, his expressive face and gesturing hands were more eloquent than his voice.

He was telling some wild story, a tissue of lies, the tale of a battle he claimed he’d fought, him alone against six boys who were older and stronger than him, who were throwing stones. He described the scene as if he were reliving it: he mimed every detail; he swore by everything that was holy that each and every word was true; he was carried away by his mad inventions; he believed everything he was saying; he could feel his body going hot and cold in turn; he wanted to hug little Ivanov and beat him up, both at the same time, while Ivanov, his head propped up in his hands, seemed to drink in his words, nevertheless asking from time to time:

‘That can’t be true? Can it? Come on, tell the truth. Is that true?’

‘Yes, I swear! May God strike me down! May I die at this very moment if I’m lying! And then a stone hit me right here . . .’

He pointed to the arch of his eyebrow, pushing back the hair that fell on to his face with his feverish little hands. Little Ivanov couldn’t help himself repeating over and over again, like an incantation: ‘He ’s lying. This story can’t be true. I know it’s not true. He’s a little Jewish liar. If he’d really been hit in the
head with a stone, I’d see a mark.’ But wasn’t there actually a mark? By rubbing his forehead and pulling his curls back and forth, Ben had managed to create a red patch just above his eye.

‘Can you see it? There, can you see it?’

Why was he so determined to lie? To show off to Ivanov, of course, because he liked him. It was only Ivanov’s affection and respect that quenched an avid thirst in Ben’s soul, a thirst of which he was barely aware.

‘And so, you see, Ivanov, you see how I’d be able to stand up for you . . . You’ve got nothing to be afraid of if I’m with you. I’m stronger and smarter than Yatsovlev or Pavlov (they were his rivals). Listen to me, Ivanov, why do you play with them? When spring comes, we’ll escape out of the window when everyone’s asleep, and we’ll light a log at the river’s edge, and I’ll teach you how to catch fish at night, by torchlight. One of us holds the lit torch,’ he said, getting carried away by his fantasies, ‘while the sparks fly into the air and singe your hair, and the other one throws in the fishing line, and every time, an enormous silvery fish will leap out, gasping for air, its gills still all red! All you have to do is pick them up with your bare hands. In the morning, we can sell them at the market. After a while, we’ll have enough money to buy a gun and real bullets, or even . . .’

He added, as if in a dream, ‘a bicycle . . .’

And his little hands, which had been burning hot, turned icy with desire.

‘Will you come with me, Ivanov?’

‘Yes.’

‘But if I’m going to take you with me, first I have to be sure you’d rather be with me than with Yatsovlev or Pavlov.’

‘I would.’

‘It’s not enough to just say it. From now on, you must avoid them. You can’t play with them any more. They’re clumsy and mean and stupid. What could you do with them?’

‘I can’t promise that . . .’

‘Fine then! I won’t ask you to do a thing. I’ll find myself another friend.’

‘But why can’t I be friends with you and with them?’ exclaimed Ivanov in despair.

‘That’s impossible,’ Ben said coldly. ‘You’re either with me or against me. Choose. Choose,’ he said again, leaning in so close to Ivanov that his black curls were practically touching the other boy’s pink knees.

And beneath Ben’s glittering, imperious gaze, little Ivanov felt uncomfortable, awkward and impatient.

‘I’ve chosen.’

‘Just me then?’

‘Just you.’

Ben fell back into his chair. He had got what he wanted, or, at least, the symbol, the image of what he wanted, for the truth was less important to him than the illusion of having obtained what he desired, even for a moment. Now, something more was needed: he would have to bring Yatsovlev and Pavlov under his spell, as well as the Natural Sciences teacher who couldn’t stand him, and, finally, Ada, the rebellious Ada, who always stood up to him, challenging him with her bitter mockery, but she . . . Ah! How he longed for the day when he would get his own back on Harry! She never spoke of Harry, but Ben knew that she thought about, and dreamt about, that horrible rich kid. She’d see him tonight . . . That was why Ben had refused to go with his mother and sister to the party. Whenever he thought of Harry, he felt something more subtle, more sophisticated than simple hatred, the kind of feeling you have for a friend who has beaten you up or told on you to the teacher. It was a combination of admiration, envy and fierce repugnance. The fact that Ivanov might have a life that was different from Ben’s was in the natural order of things, but Harry . . . ‘He could be me, and I could be him,’ he thought. He
would have liked to see Harry suffer all the things he had suffered: frostbite, feet shredded by shoes that were too tight, the slaps he got from his mother, the slights from his teachers . . . And, at the same time, in his imagination, he took Harry’s place. In his mind, he was the one who was well fed, well dressed, loved like Harry. Rich like him. His mother and uncle were definitely right: for a Jew, the only salvation was wealth. He and Harry . . . they were from the same bloodline, shared the same name . . . and yet
he
was always pampered, while Ben . . .