Raisins and Almonds

Seven

Without counsel purposes are disappointed: But in the multitude of counsellors they are established.

The Holy Bible, Proverbs 15:22

I really can't remember anything about it,' protested Miss Lee. 'I already got the novels wrong, that was Wednesday.'

'Yes you can, Miss, you just have to close your eyes and put yourself back there and it's all in your head, just like a moving picture, that's what Miss Phryne says,' Dot instructed. 'Now, you're opening the shop and hanging up your coat and putting on your smock. Go on from there.'

'I unlocked the cash tin and just as I was taking out my stock book a young man came in and asked if I carried newspapers, and I told him I didn't.'

'What did he look like?'

'An ordinary young man,' said Miss Lee. 'Oh, dear, I can't do this. He had a serge suit and an umbrella—I would have said that he was a clerk. In any case he was only in the shop for less than a minute. I broke my pencil, then, and I was sharpening it when the bell tinkled and ...'

'Yes?' prompted Dot. Miss Lee's brow creased with effort. 'You're doing very well, you know.'

'The bell rang, I looked up from my pencil, and there was a delivery man with a big box. It was my auction books from Ballarat ... yes. I asked him to put it in the corner and I checked the invoice—there was something wrong with the invoice—what was it? Ah, yes, it had a blot over the list of contents, I couldn't read it. You have to be careful with dispatch notes, they fudge the orders sometimes, and if I was to sign it without checking what was in the box I couldn't complain if the one valuable book was missing and all the dross was there. Dross always is, somehow. I've never lost a set of Victorian sermons in my life ... I made the man wait until I checked the volumes, then I signed it and he went away. After that there was Mrs Johnson looking in for her cookery book, which I sold her, then this absurd woman and her atlas. Then the two young men and then Mr Michaels. Poor boy.'

'Tell me about the carter,' said Dot. Miss Lee ran her fingers through her short hair and groaned.

'He was just a carter, in gloves and boots and overalls and a greasy cloth cap—rather stout like they often are, dark, I thought, and gruff. But he did look at the books while I made him wait. I really didn't see his face, Miss Williams. Is it important?'

'Probably not,' conceded Dorothy. 'What about the woman with the atlas?'

'Oh, my dear, she was raddled and forty if she was a day, dressed in a rather tight dark blue suit and a perfectly absurd hat. It was a broad black straw with half a seagull on the side and shells all round the crown, I noticed it particularly because I really wanted to ... visit the convenience, and she was holding me up. She was asking me such silly questions and all I could see of her was this awful hat. She was small. About five foot.'

And common?' asked Dot, who had strong views on style.

'Oh, very. And foreign. Then two young men, friends, I gathered that they worked in the city. They had nice suits, a little loud perhaps. They were probably mechanics, or maybe something horsy.' Miss Lee's fine nose crinkled. 'They had a rather ... gamy smell. Then after that it was quiet and I could go to the convenience, and when I got back there was poor Mr Michaels and this all happened. Will this help?' she asked, and Dot patted her hand.

'Yes,' she said with perfect faith. 'Miss Phryne will find them.'

Phryne Fisher had dressed carefully for her encounter with Rabbi Elijah. She wore a black suit, the straight skirt reaching almost to her ankles, and a close-fitting black hat. Simon was impressed at how decorous she looked until she gave him a sensual smile which disturbed his equanimity.

'What do I call this rabbi?'

'He probably won't speak to you, don't be too offended, Phryne. He isn't supposed to talk to ... er ...'

'Shiksas?'

'Er ... yes. Call him Rabbi, if he speaks to you. Also, you must not touch him, in case you might be ritually unclean. Menstruating, you know,' blushed Simon. 'But you might catch his interest if you can show him the papers.'

'I can but try,' Phryne shrugged and got out of the car.

'He lives over there—and—what luck, Phryne!' exclaimed the young man. 'There he is, walking along there with all those children. Oh, no ...' he groaned, as Phryne saw what was happening and moved without thinking.

A ring of grubby children were dancing around an elderly man who was standing still, as though they had trapped him in a magic circle. They looked positively Pixie O'Harris if you could not hear what they were saying, thought Phryne, as she crossed the road at her fastest run and grabbed the biggest assailant by the ear.

'Yid, yid, yid.' The chant stopped abruptly.

'And just what are you doing?' she snarled at the largest child, suspending him painfully by the lobe.

'He's a yid,' he protested.

'Very clever. So he is. Is that a reason for tormenting him?'

'It's only what Dad says,' offered one child, biting her plait.

'What does Dad say?'

'That they're yids.'

'Then your dad is a bigoted idiot and you'll grow up the same.' Phryne was furious. The child she had by the ear began to cry.

'We didn't know it was wrong, Miss,' he pleaded.

'Well, you know now,' snapped Phryne. 'Now get home, you horrible little ratbags, and if I catch you doing such a thing again I shall take you all home to your mothers and order the biggest belting—you won't sit down for a month. Is that clear?' She thrust her face close to the terrified blubbering countenance, and he nodded.

'Go away right now,' said Phryne, dropping him and dusting her hands together. The children ran for their lives.

'You should not have done that, Miss,' said the old man softly.

'Why not?' Phryne was not noticeably softened.

'It will cause more trouble.'

'If people of goodwill do not act against evil, then they assent to evil,' said Phryne sententiously.

The quotation from Maimonides stopped the old man in his tracks. Phryne looked up into his face.

He was tall and painfully thin and he moved as though his bones hurt. The gaberdine was shiny black with age and inconspicuously patched, and his shoes were broken. His hat had seen better years and his hair was white. But his eyes were remarkable, bright, penetrating and deep.

'Who are you?' he asked abruptly.

'Phryne Fisher.' She did not offer her hand. 'I am trying to find a murderer. I need your help.'

'I cannot help you.' He turned and began to walk away.

'Shall I follow you down the street quoting Maimonides?' she asked, keeping pace with him. 'This is an evil thing, a young man dead, and I am responsible for getting a woman out of prison, which means I have to find the killer. Strychnine, it's a nasty death.'

'The dead are with God,' said Rabbi Elijah, not turning his head.

'But the concerns of the living are with the living.' She turned the quotation back on him. She had not spent three hours' hard reading for nothing. 'He who saves one man saves a nation. I cannot bring back Shimeon Mikhael, but I will save Miss Lee from the gallows. And I need your help.'

'How can I help?' At least he had stopped and was looking at her again. 'I go nowhere, see only my students.'

'I have some papers, found on the dead man.' She thrust them at him. 'No one can read them. It is thought that you might. They must contain a clue.'

He cast a glance over the red and gold parchments, shaking his head, then his attention was riveted by a line of Hebrew.

'This, maybe, I can read. Where did you find this?'

'In the pocket of a man called Simon Michaels, Shimeon Ben Mikhael.'

'Shimeon is dead?' murmured Rabbi Elijah.

'Shimeon is murdered, don't you read the papers?'

'The papers? No,' he said absently. 'We can sit in my study, Mrs Rabinowitz will come in. This way, Miss ...'

'Fisher. Phryne Fisher.'

Phryne walked beside Rabbi Elijah. He was looking at the Hebrew and speaking under his breath in an unknown tongue, a harsh and authoritative language, whatever it was. Phryne was amazed at the success of her tactic. But she wondered about the old man. He changed moods abruptly and his character seemed to flicker. He seemed close to the edge of sanity, perhaps senility. However, nothing to do but go on with the task.

They came into the lobby of a block of apartments, and he knocked on the second door.

The staircase smelt of urine; poverty reeked from the dilapidated building.

'Coming, coming,' yelled someone behind the blistered door. 'Oh, it's you, Rabbi, what can I do for you? Did you like the latkes I left for you last night?'

Mrs Rabinowitz was small and would have been stout if she had been properly fed. She was wiping her wet hands on her skirt as she came to the door. When she saw Phryne she stared in astonishment. The Rabbi waved a hand at her.

'This is Miss ... Miss ... it is of no importance. She has a translation task for me, can you come and sit with her? I must consult my books.'

Mrs Rabinowitz tugged off her apron, put her door key in her pocket, and picked up a covered plate. She accompanied the scholar and Phryne on a long climb. The old man was short of breath, and stopped to pant at every landing. Phryne, trying not to shame him with her own health and strength, fell behind with Mrs Rabinowitz.

'There isn't any trouble, is there, Miss?' asked the older woman in a whisper. 'He's a holy man, no one to care for him, if it wasn't for his students he'd have nothing but his books, he'd be a great teacher if he would take more than a few pupils, but he won't. And he forgets to eat, so I bring him a little something when I can. You're not looking for ... magic, are you Miss? Fortune telling, is it?'

'No, I need him to read some mysterious papers for me. Does he tell fortunes?'

'Everyone knows he can see the future. But telling fortunes, that's against the law. He never tells fortunes,' emphasized Mrs Rabinowitz, making Phryne certain that occasionally the Rabbi did tell fortunes. 'He's studied all his life, never eats meat or drinks wine. But here he is, no one to care for him since his wife died last year, she was an angel, that woman.'

Eventually they reached the Rabbi's door, and then had to wait while he searched all of his pockets for his keys. Phryne heard babies crying and smelt old boiled cabbage and ancient ghosts of long dead fried suppers. Her miserable childhood came back with a rush. Young Phryne had played up and down steps like these, cold dirty cement. She had lived in a flat like this, so old and grimy that it could never be made clean. Her scalp itched as she remembered filth and headlice, and she was glad when the rabbi finally managed to open his door and she could go in.

It was bare and poor and dusty, but it smelt of old books. On a kitchen table stained with ink was piled a treasury of leather-bound ancient volumes, and there were more on the floor, stacked up, open at illustrations of dragons and lions. She saw the Tree of the Kabala again in a folio tome on which a scatter of pages lay. 'Please sit down,' said Rabbi Elijah, in a rusty social manner. There didn't seem to be anywhere to sit, so Phryne stood and watched as the old man sorted the leaves and laid them out in piles. His hands were long and fine, with pale knob-knuckles which spoke of arthritis. His skin seemed untouched by any sun. His fingernails were clean and cut slightly long.

'These,' he said, pushing one stack over, 'are illuminations from a medieval textbook on alchemy, and I cannot decipher them, except to say that they show various stages in the composition of the philosopher's stone. The ancients believed that it rendered all things perfect.'

'I thought it turned base metal into gold,' commented Phryne.

'Certainly. Gold is the perfect metal. Therefore the lapis philosophorum would make lead into gold. It was also believed,' Phryne noted with glee that Rabbi Elijah, a teacher, could not refrain from teaching, even though his auditor was a shiksa and probably unclean, 'that it could cure all diseases and make men immortal.'

'By raising them to their perfect state.'

'Good.' He raised his eyes, saw Phryne, and blinked when he realized to whom he was talking. But it was too late for him to slip back into his shell, so he continued. 'They described it as being as fine as oil and solid as glass, and no one has ever managed to make it. A dream, but men must have dreams.'

Phryne wondered what dreams the old man had dreamed, to bring him to Australia, and how they coincided with this poor drab place.

'Alchemy has always been connected with the study of the Holy Kabala, and these writings use a system of numbers which is derived from a reading of the Torah, the scriptures. If I can only find ... here is Zorah, Sepher Yetzirah, Akiba's Alphabet, yes, and Shuir Komah, which states that the measurement of the body of man is the measure of being and of the nature of God. Hmm, surely I didn't lend it to Shimeon?' He lifted books with difficulty, singing his litany of titles, searching for a particular text. Phryne did not offer to help. Who knew if her gentile touch might make his most precious books unclean? 'If you will excuse me, I must find the Book of Razael,' said the Rabbi, and dived back into the volumes.

Mrs Rabinowitz was in the kitchen, clattering crockery. Phryne went that way, as the old man did not require her presence.

The kitchen contained one tray, one teapot, two cups and saucers and plates. It was dusty and unused. Clearly the Rabbi didn't do any cooking.

'Look at this!' exclaimed the older woman. 'Not one of my good pancakes eaten. It was different when Sarah was here, Sarah was his wife. But the boys are coming tonight and they'll bring food, they always do, the ones who can't afford to pay him. And that's all of them.'

'Will he let me give him money for this translation?' asked Phryne. Mrs Rabinowitz's workworn countenance seemed to shrink.

'If he could give me a little towards the rent, that collector has no manners, he shouts at the old man, but if I could catch him in the stairway, he doesn't like climbing all them stairs ...'

Phryne handed over a note, which vanished at the speed of light.

'Miss ... Miss ... er ... I have it,' called the scholar, and Phryne swapped a grin with Mrs Rabinowitz. She saw the old scholar on his feet, his white locks flying, a book open over one hand, reminding Phryne of the denouncing God over the church door in Ravenna. She hoped that he wasn't overstraining his heart.

'Yes, Rabbi?'

'It is a number code, using the most obscure system,' said Rabbi Elijah, looking as though he might combust with some emotion—rage? fear?

'Indeed?'

'He has based it on the name of Adam Kadmon. That such learning should be used for such a purpose— shameful. Shameful! I had not thought it of Shimeon.'

He was waving the papers around and Phryne recaptured them before they flew from his trembling grasp.

'Shimeon is dead,' she reminded him. 'Is this the translation?'

'It is. What it means—' he waved a hand. 'But that such a thing should be!'

'Was Shimeon one of your students?'

'He was.'

'A good student?'

'Very good, a devoted young man. I cannot believe that he would have used this holy text for some mundane purpose. It must have been very important to Shimeon. We must sit shivah for him, say Kaddish. We were his only friends. I will speak to the others.'

'Who was his particular friend?'

'Kaplan, the oldest Kaplan boy.' The Rabbi was calming down.

'And Yossi Liebermann?'

'He is. What is Yossi to you, a ...' He could not find a term which would not be insulting, so he left the end of the sentence to droop under its own weight.

'He lives at the house of my friend Mrs Grossman,' said Phryne, and the old man almost smiled. 'Such a woman,' he said approvingly. 'She feeds the hungry. Her price is above rubies. Her husband was a good man.'

'Her son Saul is also learned and almost at his bar mitzvah,' commented Phryne.

'The knowledge of the Torah is the beginning of all wisdom,' quoted Rabbi Elijah approvingly.

'Do your students study the Torah?' she asked artlessly, and Rabbi Elijah twitched, seemingly just becoming aware to whom he was talking.

'Always the Torah, and also the Holy Kabala. Not this ... abomination. I do not know what this is, Miss Er, but I hope that it helps you. The murderer of my Shimeon should not go unpunished by the law, though surely God knows and will repay.'

'I'll do my best. Is there anything you can tell me which might help?'

Phryne saw that the old man was about to tell her something. Words were hovering on his lips. But then he flickered again, looking at Phryne's fashionable clothes and her undoubted gentility, shook his head and decided against it. 'No.'

'And your fee, Rabbi?'

'Feed the widow and orphan, give shelter to the fatherless,' said the Rabbi, then opened a book and began to read, dismissing her from his mind entirely.

Mrs Rabinowitz took her to the door.

'No trouble, Miss, but I heard you asking about Shimeon. He was Yossi's friend, and David Kaplan and his brothers. And ...' her hand crept out, cupped. Phryne produced another note which joined the first in its secret destination. Mrs Rabinowitz breathed, 'He was mad for Zionism, that's why the rabbi was angry with him. Rabbi Elijah says that Israel is meant to be an exile, and until the coming of the Messiah should have no home. Oy, he's calling you.'

Surprised, Phryne turned and looked back through the doorway. The Rabbi's face was blank, like an ink sketch which had been crumpled and thrown away. He said 'Woman,' again in a voice which came from somewhere deep in his chest.

'He's having a vision. Go on.' Mrs Rabinowitz pushed Phryne back into the scholar's room.

'Beware of the dark tunnel,' said the Rabbi. 'Under the ground,' he added. 'There is murder under the ground, death and weeping; greed caused it.'

He seemed dazed or tranced. The scholar's face was whiter than old linen, the sculptured bones visible under the tight-stretched old man's skin. The room seemed to have grown darker. Across the pages of the books, red-clad and black-clad letters seemed to crawl. Phryne smelt a scent like oranges and dust. Under the ground. Beware of the tunnels. She shuddered strongly. The old man's eyes were open but perfectly unseeing, like the eyes of a corpse. He looked like a patriarch, mummifed in some desert tomb.

Phryne smelt a blessedly familiar sour smell of soap as Mrs Rabinowitz pulled her by the shoulder and conducted her to the door.

She didn't draw an easy breath until she was out in the comfortingly grubby St Kilda street and Simon Abrahams was excitedly demanding to know what had happened.

'I really don't know,' she said, truthfully.

But she stopped the car on the way home to stuff a handful of paper money into the surprised tambourine of a Salvation Army lassie on the Esplanade.

That should feed the widow and orphan. And the puppy was certainly fatherless.

On arrival at her own house, Phryne collapsed into the leather sofa in the sea-green and sea-blue parlour, calling feebly for a cocktail and a light for her cigarette.

Simon supplied the flame for her gasper. Mr Butler obliged with a mixture of orange juice, gin and Cointreau which he ventured to think that Miss Fisher might find refreshing. She did.

Simon accepted a cup of tea and asked, 'Phryne, do tell! What did that terrible old man do to you?'

'Tell me—is the Rabbi Elijah mad, or senile, or just possessed by something?' asked Phryne, blowing out a plume of smoke and taking another sip of the cocktail. She felt shaken. There had been power in the old man's eyes, and his trance or foreshadowing or whatever it was had made her feel extremely uneasy. Phryne did not like tunnels overmuch, or any close confined spaces.

'I've heard him called all of those things, and a miracle worker as well. Every now and again Judaism is swept by a Messiah fever, and quite sensible people are caught up in it.'

'Tell me about it later. Right now I have to change for lunch—can you stay, Simon?—and brief my two comrades about the Eastern Market. I'm sure that there is something there, and I want someone on the spot. I'll need to get them a job, though.'

'Uncle Chaim will arrange it,' said Simon. 'I'll mention it this afternoon.'

'Your uncle seems pleasant,' Phryne said idly 'It's hard to get an impression of what he is like, you know, amongst all you vivid people.'

'Oh, he's a good chap. No talent for business on his own—no vision, or rather too many visions, my father says. He was on the verge of bankruptcy when Father came to Australia with the Michelangelo money. He had tried all manner of things, all rather good ideas, but under-capitalized, and anyway he lost interest after the first couple of months. He had a gem cutter's that failed because of an unwise investment in some smuggled diamonds, only they were white sapphires when he got them. His staff went on to join the best jeweller's in town, then he took up making knives, a good idea, no one can have enough good knives, but the market was flooded with Sheffield ware and he could not compete. Then he started the shoemaking business, that's the one my father rescued. Uncle Chaim was just about failing when Papa arrived on a white horse. Not that Chaim is not clever, but he doesn't know how to run a business. For instance, he had his premises scattered all over the suburbs and he was paying for cartage, also his leather was not the best and he was asking the best prices. My father went out to the abattoirs where they strip the skins, and chose them before they were cured. His shoes are the best ready made ones which can be found in Melbourne.'

'So I see, if you are wearing specimens. Is your uncle married?'

'No, well, it's a sort of family matter, Phryne, if you wouldn't mind not mentioning it? Uncle Chaim was in love with my mother, when she and my father first met. For awhile she thought about which brother she wanted, and she picked my father. And Chaim never really got over it, it's sad, over the years Mama has brought him all the eligible women in Melbourne and he will not look at them. But he is grateful to my father for rescuing him, and he's very useful to Papa. He handles all the day-to-day arranging, the social things and the dates, you know, anniversaries, that sort of thing. He's my father's secretary and they get on well. But he is a bit self-effacing, Uncle Chaim.'

'Your mother is really delightful.'

'Did you like her?' Simon blushed. 'I'm so glad. She was a little worried about ... about you and ...'

'Yes, dear boy, but that is all sorted out. Only took three sentences and we were like sisters. Where does she stand on the Messiah and Rabbi Elijah?'

'Difficult,' said Simon, and Phryne extinguished a giggle in her high-octane drink. 'Naturally we all admire him, a man of such scholarship, such austerity. But he won't take more than a few pupils, all as fanatical as he is, and he lives in that dreadful flat as poor as a 'Church mouse?' suggested Phryne.

'I've always wondered about that. You'd think, in a church, that there'd be candles to munch on ... where was I? Phryne, shall I tell you that I love you?' He took her hand and kissed it.

'Yes, I am always pleased to hear this, but not now, not when we have guests for lunch.' Phryne leaned forward and kissed Simon full on the mouth—he tasted of tea, an ordinary taste on a silky mouth—and effectively took his breath away. 'So despite my private feeling that one should only talk about important matters in bed, we shall stay here and converse about Rabbi Elijah and your father and many other interesting things.'

Simon nodded, gathering his wits, but kept one hand on Phryne's knee as he continued. 'Father tried to give him a nice place to live and a little money—maybe to hire someone to look after him—but he completely refused. Such a scene! The Rabbi denouncing Papa for being no better than a heathen because he does not spend all his time studying, Papa getting upset because he was trying to help a great scholar, Mama just stopping herself from denouncing the Rabbi right back for saying such awful things about Papa, who was only trying to save the old man from starvation, Uncle Chaim trying to stop Mama from yelling, and then the Rabbi just walked out, quite humbly, not angry at all any more. Possibly he is dotty. But Yossi and the others kiss the hem of his garment and say he is the holiest of holy men. Is the flat really dreadful?'

'Pretty dreadful, but he doesn't seem to notice. If your father still wants to help the ungrateful old person, he might give a little money to a Mrs Rabinowitz, she seems to be looking after him as far as she can. And she could at least pay his rent for him.'

'I'll tell Uncle Chaim. He'll arrange something,' said the young man, sliding the hand up Phryne's thigh. She caught her breath and stood resolutely up, leaning on the mantelpiece and smiling into the imploring brown eyes.

'Later,' she promised. The doorbell rang.