The Library Paradox (35 page)

Rising, the magistrate announced a ten-minute recess. Everyone relaxed momentarily as he rose and exited, calling Sir Morris Hirsch to join him. My heart leapt. Could it be? Were we, finally, about to understand?

Amy had seen me, and was making her way towards me, her face filled with anxious and bitter dismay.

‘Vanessa, it is going as badly as it possibly could. Is there nothing you can do?’ she said accusingly. I felt that I had failed her indeed. Yet all was not lost – if only …

‘We succeeded in seeing the rabbi yesterday,’ I told her quickly, ‘and I believe I managed to make him understand the situation. He did not tell me anything, but we hope that he will come here to testify. Perhaps it is his arrival which has caused this interruption.’

‘Do you think so?’ Her eyes lit up momentarily, then darkened again. ‘But will it be enough? What if he simply
says that he talked with the professor for a while, then left, noticing nothing. It would probably be the truth – people like him are in the clouds. Oh, Vanessa, what we need is to understand who murdered that monster!’ She looked at me pleadingly, and I felt a little stab of guilt. Why, why was this problem proving so intractable? Why was I unable to solve it? Her gaze, fixed upon me, startled me. Suddenly and for no discernible reason, a little snatch of my dream came back to me; I remembered those two other pairs of eyes, from the two photographs, who persisted in confounding and identifying themselves. I tried to put the image aside.

‘Rubbish,’ I murmured to myself. ‘And yet …’

‘What did you say?’ said Emily politely.

The sensation of revelation, like a wave, was so incredibly strong in me that I felt as though I should faint. I leant backward in my seat and closed my eyes for a moment, remembering, visualising. Surely, surely dreams are the word of God.

‘The girl in the picture looks exactly like Gerard Ralston,’ I said. ‘I realise it now; they have the same face, the same eyes, the same fanatic look. They are too similar – she was or is related to him. Who can she be?’

‘What girl are you talking about?’ said Amy.

‘A girl in an old photograph we saw yesterday at the Purim festival in the rabbi’s house,’ I explained. ‘It was a picture of the rabbi himself, but much younger, and his children. One of them was a girl of about sixteen. It is she whose face reminds me of the photograph of Professor Ralston that I saw at Professor Taylor’s house.’

‘Vanessa, are you sure? Can it be possible?’ Emily was saying, pressing her hands to her forehead in order to concentrate. ‘So there
is
a connection between the rabbi and the professor.’ She paused for a moment, thinking as always in terms of numbers. ‘Listen, how old do you think that girl would be today?’

‘Let me try to be as precise as I can,’ I said, calculating quickly. ‘The trouble is that I have to guess all the ages. The woman who showed us the photograph yesterday is probably between forty and fifty. Let us say forty-five – and she was about three in the picture. So it would have been taken forty-two or -three years ago. That corresponds more or less with the father’s age, I think. He must be practically eighty now, and he looked in his mid-thirties in the picture. The girl in the picture looked about sixteen, so that would mean she would be nearing sixty now.’

‘Nearing sixty … and how old was Professor Ralston?’

‘He was forty. Emily – she could be his mother. She could. It is possible, indeed, it must be so! I remember now that Professor Taylor told me that his father married a girl from “over there”, where he travelled for his research, and all this time, I have been assuming that he married a Frenchwoman, because of Professor Ralston’s knowledge of French. But he studied both French and Polish history! He must have married a
Polish
girl! Emily,
the rabbi was the professor’s grandfather.
I feel as certain of it as though I had always known it! His daughter was Ralston’s mother. Rivka told me that she must have married a Gentile to have
been rejected from her father’s family. And she died when her little boy was only five or six.’

‘Vanessa,’ said Amy slowly, ‘what you’re saying is perfectly impossible.’

‘Why?’

‘Because obviously, if the professor’s mother had been Jewish, he could not have hated the Jews so. In fact, he would have been a Jew himself. Judaism passes through the mother only.’

‘But perhaps she converted, and the child never knew that she was Jewish,’ said Emily. ‘She must have converted in order to marry the father, and they came to live in this country, and she died when the child was small. Perhaps she never told him a word about her origins.’

‘That seems likely,’ I agreed. ‘Perhaps she resolved to forget them just as her father resolved to forget her. And the rabbi only came to England himself a few years ago. If he knew that his daughter was long dead, or even if he didn’t know, I can well imagine that he would make no effort to contact her Christian family.’

‘It is still hard to believe,’ said Amy slowly. ‘Even if he didn’t know it, still, of all people, why should the son of a Jewish woman become so rabidly anti-Semitic?’

‘I don’t know. I have wondered what made him become so,’ I said. ‘But listen: this may explain why the rabbi went to see the professor!’

‘He went because the chief rabbi of France asked him to intervene, didn’t he?’ said Emily.

‘Yes, I know that. But up to now I couldn’t understand
what he could have hoped to actually
tell
the professor, which could have any hope of persuading him to stop his activities. But now I can imagine that when the other rabbi asked him to try and stop the professor from his anti-Semitic activities, our rabbi decided to talk to him about the fact that his mother was Jewish. If, as we imagine, Professor Ralston had no idea about that, it would be a powerful argument to change his attitude. Surely he would be obliged to feel differently after learning
that
– otherwise all that enmity would come down to hating himself!’

‘Jews know how to do that well enough,’ said Amy softly. I remembered thinking the same thing, while reading the novel she had given me. But Emily was speeding forward with her reasoning.

‘So let us accept the hypothesis that the rabbi went to tell Professor Ralston that his mother was Jewish. And perhaps the professor became so angry at the news that he took out his gun to attack the rabbi in a fit of rage, and there was a fight and the rabbi snatched the gun—’ She stopped suddenly as she noticed Amy glaring at her.

‘That explanation is unlikely,’ I said. ‘First of all, even if the rabbi lost his temper or resorted to self-defence, it is hard to believe he would have quietly walked away afterwards. And Professor Ralston was only forty, while the rabbi is twice that. How could he have had the strength to wrest the gun away? But above all, how could he have reached the street gate so soon after the shot? We cannot get away from that difficulty. It’s the thing that has convinced us of his innocence from the start.’

‘They’re coming in again,’ said Amy, turning towards the magistrate’s door. ‘Look, Vanessa, you were right! It is the rebbe! He’s coming in. I must return to my parents. Oh, what is he going to say?’ She hurried off, edging between the gallery seats, and I leant forward in my seat and fixed my attention on the rabbi. He stepped forward, heavily dressed in his black clothes, the wheel-shaped fur hat upon his head, his thick grey beard pouring over his chest. Although he was old and walked slowly, his step was firm and his look was clear and direct. The magistrate called the court to order once again, and Sir Morris Hirsch ushered the rabbi to the stand respectfully.

‘I call this witness for the defence,’ he said formally to the magistrate. I had the impression, however, that he looked rather taken aback. Obviously he had no idea what role the rabbi played in the tale unfolding before us. He glanced quickly at Jonathan. I followed his look, and saw that Jonathan’s face had lit up with eager hope.

There was a slightly embarrassing pother while the rabbi was sworn in. A Bible was produced and hastily put aside. The magistrate had a Torah brought out, and the swearing took place.

‘Do you speak English?’ was Sir Morris’s first question.

‘I speak some English,’ was the quiet reply.

‘What is your name?’

‘Moyshe Avrom.’

‘Your age?’

‘Seventy-nine.’

‘How long have you been living in this country?’

‘For six years now.’

‘Where did you live before?’

‘In Poland.’

‘Why did you emigrate?’

‘Life was too difficult, and the danger of pogroms was too great.’

‘Did you bring your family with you?’

‘Yes, I came with my wife, two sons, one daughter, and their nine children.’

‘Where do you presently reside?’

‘Brick Lane, in the East End of London.’

‘What is your occupation?’

‘I am a Hassidic rebbe,’ he said quietly.

There was a pause, as Sir Morris seemed to decide that the time had come to broach the question of the man’s involvement in the case presently before the court.

‘Do you know some fact or some piece of information concerning the death of Professor Gerard Ralston of King’s College?’ he finally asked, point-blank.

‘Concerning his death, I know nothing. But I was with him briefly on the evening of March 6th,’ replied the rabbi calmly. ‘I have heard that he died immediately after my departure.’

A murmur ran around the crowd.

‘Are you able to tell us exactly at what time you saw the professor, how much time you spent with him, and at what time you left the library?’

‘I arrived at about a quarter to five. I left at five o’clock exactly.’

‘How can you be so certain of the precise time of your departure?’

‘I looked at my watch as I walked away.’

‘Did you see anyone on your way out of the library?’

‘I remember passing a young man, who was coming in at the street gate just as I was going out of it.’

‘Were you acquainted with that young man?’ asked Sir Morris.

‘No. I do not know who he is.’

‘Do you see that young man in this room now?’

The rabbi looked slowly around the assembled lawyers and witnesses before raising his eyes to the dock. ‘He is there,’ he said finally, pointing to Jonathan with quiet poise.

Sir Morris then took a deep breath.

‘When you left Professor Gerard Ralston at five o’clock,’ he enunciated clearly and purposefully, ‘was he alive and well?’

An infinitesimal flicker of time passed before the rabbi responded,

‘Certainly.’

‘Are you aware that when Jonathan Sachs, the young man sitting in the dock over there, whom you saw entering the gate, reached the library and went inside, he found the professor dead, shot through the heart?’

‘I had heard only a rumour of this fact. I do not know precisely what occurred. But that rumour is what made me come here today.’

This answer caused a stir of approval among the assembled listeners. Sir Morris took advantage of it immediately.

‘You were not summoned by the police?’

‘Certainly not. I have had no contact with the police.’

‘That answer corresponds with what we heard before,’ said Sir Morris with satisfaction. ‘Indeed, the police have shown themselves to be singularly incapable of discovering this witness, and even shed doubt upon his existence.’ He smiled and looked around to see the effect of his words, but nobody else was interested, because they were merely impatient to hear the continuation of the rabbi’s story.

‘Can you tell us exactly why you went to see Professor Ralston, and what occurred during your visit?’ was the next question.

The tension in the room increased considerably. There was a little buzz.

‘I had heard that Professor Ralston was a well-known anti-Semite,’ said the rabbi. ‘I had been told that in reaction to the discovery of a new document, he was preparing to renew his attacks against Captain Dreyfus, a French Jew wrongly convicted of treason. A French colleague of mine close to Captain Dreyfus asked me if I could attempt to persuade the professor to cease his attacks against our community. So I went.’

‘You wished to persuade him to stop his anti-Semitic activities?’

‘Yes. In particular those he was preparing against Dreyfus.’

‘Did you expect him to listen to you?’ said Sir Morris, visibly surprised.

‘Certainly.’

‘And he did listen?’

‘Certainly.’

Emily squeezed my hand, containing her excitement with difficulty. ‘Of course, he
had
to listen,’ she whispered into my ear.

‘And how did he react to your suggestions?’ asked Sir Morris.

‘He was very angry,’ said the rabbi, causing a small commotion.

‘I can imagine that,’ said Sir Morris, ignoring it. ‘And how did your interview end?’

‘When I had finished telling the professor what I wanted to tell him, I said goodbye and left,’ said the rabbi simply.

‘You left? You walked away?’

‘Yes. I walked out of his study and down the path and out of the gate and down the street and took the omnibus home.’

‘You saw no one, apart from Mr Sachs there?’

‘No one at all until I reached the street.’

‘And you had no idea the professor lay dead behind you?’

‘No. Otherwise I should not have left, but remained to aid the dying man.’

‘Too brazen!’ murmured the woman sitting near me. ‘And Sir Morris is helping him. Well, he would, wouldn’t he?’ She aimed a vinegary sneer in my direction but I ignored her wrathfully.

‘There was no one in the library? Are you sure? No one else in the professor’s study?’

‘No one. Both rooms were absolutely empty. If they had not been, I would not have spoken to the professor.’

‘Did you hear anything in the room behind you after you left it?’ insisted Sir Morris. ‘Voices or cries?’

‘I believe I heard the professor shouting something after me as I walked out,’ he replied. ‘But I am somewhat hard of hearing. I did not catch the precise words.’

There was a silence.

‘We appear to be at a standstill,’ observed the magistrate dryly.

‘Let me cross-examine, my Lord!’ cried Mr Andrews.