A Sharp Intake of Breath. Джон Миллер

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ sunset

      To trace the moment, the very first moment when my life was set upon a different course, that was impossible. Too many factors, too many decisions, too much being determined by whim and personality and random untraceable influence. Still, if I tried to pick a little, like dragging a thumbnail across a roll of tape, I could snag a beginning of sorts, even if it wasn’t really the beginning, even if it was only the remnant of a previous tear that had settled back and now clung to the rest of a sticky, tightly wound past.

      There was a day that I remembered, a day when Lil’s fascination with Emma Goldman began, that set in motion a chain of events that would affect us all. It was in November of 1926, and I was only ten. I remembered that day for two reasons, and the first had nothing to do with Emma.

      The day started with all of us at the kitchen table, as it always did. We were a family who sat and ate breakfast together no matter what, because other things—jobs, the store, political meetings—might interfere and separate us for lunch or supper.

      My parents were avid readers of the morning newspaper. One newspaper, the Toronto Mail and Empire, they read to keep track of their class enemies. Others, they read because of political interest or because the writers spoke to our community. The communist weekly Vochenblatt and the daily Yidisher Zshurnal—the Hebrew Journal—were in this category, though I believe they also read these two to see who was the latest person to be denounced. The Yiddish press was vicious and retributive and heaven help you if you were on the other side of their graces. Reading those papers satisfied a ghoulish fascination: who would be torn to shreds this week? Whose character would be assassinated ruthlessly? My parents read these denunciations, clucked, and shook their heads, but they kept going back for more.

      Our father, Saul Wolfman, had emigrated, along with his parents, from Russia. They settled in the Ward, the neighbourhood in Toronto mainly populated by Jewish immigrants, bordered by College and Queen on the north and south, and Yonge and University on the east and west. Our mother was born in New Liskeard, of all places: a small, bilingual farming community near the Quebec border in northeastern Ontario, where her Galician peasant parents had settled. There, isolated from any other Jews, they eked out a livelihood. But farm life proved difficult, and in 1908, after too many harsh winters, they moved to Toronto, where they opened a second-hand clothing store with money borrowed from a cousin.

      My parents’ families attended different synagogues—in those days they were organized along ethnic lines—but Ma and Pop met at a secular community dance one weekend. The next year, they married at the Holy Blossom Temple, which upset their families, but it upset them equally, which was the important thing. By 1910, the Holy Blossom had become notorious for its more liberal congregants, some of whom didn’t even wear head coverings when they prayed.

      Maybe it was there my parents first became interested in politics. Not that they needed the Holy Blossom. If a person was working class in Toronto in the early 1900s, the rising proletarian movement in Russia was an irresistible draw to one of the city’s numerous labour organizations. My parents chose the Arbeiter Ring—the Workmen’s Circle, a local organization of mostly Jewish workers in the shmata trade. Much later, in ’27, they joined a more left-leaning faction that broke off and became known as the Labour League. By that time, the Russian Revolution had fired their imagination, and, choosing from an ever-lengthening menu on the spectrum of the political left, my parents identified themselves with the Russian Mensheviks, though they were proud to remain officially unaffiliated.

      We grew up with a steady diet of Menshevik ideology and promotion of Labour League activities. I use the word diet in the sense of a regimen, or the modern American sense that connotes near starvation with nutritional value coming a distant second. Political thought in the Wolfman family was doled out in spare but regular allotments at the table, like dessert. To us children, it was an uninteresting dessert, much like stewed prunes or an apple. None of us joined the Labour League, much to our parents’ chagrin. Bessie was not interested in politics in any way, Lil became involved with an anarchist branch of the Workmen’s Circle, and me? Well, I just got in trouble and went to jail.

      At breakfast that morning in November of 1926, Ma was flipping through the pages of the Mail and Empire, and she came across a small piece in the middle of the society section.

      “My, my! Have you ever seen such a diamond? It’s enormous!” She flashed the page at us. I caught its headline, “Lady Fister stuns socialites with Orange Sunset,” but didn’t get a good look at the picture. Besides, I was ten years old, only cared about the Tarzan comic strip, and had no reason to concern myself with society folk.

      She spotted me spooning absent-mindedly at my porridge. “Toshy, eat up and don’t slouch.” Then, her eyes back on the page: “This woman looks familiar.”

      I considered my gruel. Ma always salted it too much.

      “Can I see?” said Bessie, who was sitting across from me, with perfect posture. She’d already finished her entire bowl.

      Ma passed her the newspaper. “That woman’s diamond brooch was a wedding gift from her husband,” she said.

      “I know how to read, Ma,” said Bessie, squinting at the text.

      Lil was sitting beside her and snatched the paper.

      “Hey! I wasn’t finished.” Bessie pulled it back, leaving a ripped corner in Lil’s hands.

      “You take too long.”

      “Girls, stop it. Bessie, read us what it says.”

      “It saaaaays,” she glared at Lil, who was leaning in to read over her shoulder, “‘Lady Fister makes a rare showing of the Orange Sunset, a thirty-six car-AT diamond...’ What’s a car-AT, Ma?”

      “It’s pronounced ‘carrot’ and it’s a measurement for how much a diamond weighs. Thirty-six carats is very, very big.”

      “‘...a thirty-six carat diamond that her husband purchased in South Africa after fighting in the Boer War. The diamond is an unusual amber colour, bezel-set in a gold brooch, and surrounded by twelve emeralds. After settling in Toronto, Lord Fister built a successful import-export business and he and Lady Fister had a son early in their marriage. Sources say the diamond is worth a small fortune.”

      I’d been pretending not to listen but I picked my eyes up from my porridge. “A fortune? Read what it says about that, Bessie.”

      “Hold your horses. I’m getting to that. It says, ‘Lady Fister almost never wears her wedding gift, and though some say it is because she is afraid of theft, those who know her well say that she finds it too ostentatious to wear in public.’”

      “Where else would she wear it?” said Pop. “In the bathtub?”

      We all laughed. I reached across the table. “Lemme see.”

      Bessie passed me the paper, but in a wide arc to avoid Lil’s clawing hands.

      I saw the photograph. There was a middle-aged couple, the woman sporting an enormous diamond on the breast of her gown. She was stout, much shorter than her husband, and though she wore a fur coat, a hat, and glasses, I knew her immediately.

      “That’s Nurse Grace!”

      “Who?” said Pop.

      “Nurse Grace, who took care of me when I was in the hospital.”

      “Nonsense,” СКАЧАТЬ