Eliasberg’s self-pity had seeped into everyday life like strong bitter tea, and it was even stronger on the days when letters arrived from Uncle Georgii. George was the lucky one, the brave one, the one who’d sailed for the United States in time to escape violence, upheaval and poverty under the guise of opportunity for all. Occasionally Elias retrieved one of Uncle George’s letters from the bin, where it lay buried under potato peelings and tealeaves. ‘Exciting experiments … in the field of …’ He deciphered the blurred violet words with difficulty. ‘Working with an eminent scientist … by the name of—’ But the flimsy paper disintegrated in his hand.
On these black-letter days, his father would disappear, like Mephistopheles, through a trapdoor in the kitchen floor and into the bowels of the building, where he laboured on fine boots for the city’s most beautiful ladies. Moody tappings shook the foundations of dailyexistence, making Elias’s desk shudder and his neat sums wobble. Concentrating, he held his tongue between his teeth so that when his father suddenly shouted he jumped and tasted his own blood.
‘Why will Karl Elias not come and help his poor father?’ Most of Mr Eliasberg’s questions started with ‘Why’ and revolved around his son. Why was Karl Elias so silent? Why did he spend so much time at the library?
Elias had his own question that he phrased equally repetitively, but silently, for fear of receiving a lashing. ‘Why,’ he shouted inside his own defiant head, ‘do you always address me in the third person?’ At times his voice rang so loudly inside his skull that his ears could hear nothing except his own protest.
It was strange but true. Every time his father used his name in this unthinking way, a small part of Elias was slivered away. By the time he was eleven, he felt almost invisible. When he was twelve, he learnt, by listening through his bedroom door, that he might indeed be a spectre sooner rather than later. For the doctor told his weeping mother that her son couldn’t be expected to live past fourteen years of age. Tuberculosis would carry him off.
After the doctor left the house, Mrs Eliasberg sank to the floor outside the bedroom door. Elias knew this, for by now he was adept at interpreting what, in theatrical circles, were called ‘noises off’. First the rustle of skirts. Then the creaking of floorboards on the landing. And, finally, a puff of air from crushed lungs. As he stood barely two feet away from his mother, separated from her grief by a panelled wooden door, he felt curiously optimistic — more alive, in fact, than he had for a long time. Was it true his demise might actually leave a small dent in someone else’s heart?
But it was by checking in at the living-room door later that evening that he received the really useful piece of information, the one that kept him alive, sending defiant blood between his heart and his brain, shrinking the swelling on his neck. For his parents were discussing what they might sell to raise the money to send him to a sanatorium where his blood would be cleansed and his life saved.
‘It must be a substantial sum,’ stressed his tearful mother. Once again her skirts rustled, but this time, obviously, she was swivelling to assess the items of furniture in the room. ‘What about the bookshelf?
‘The only piece of good furniture my parents left me?’ queried Mr Eliasberg. ‘The only good piece they ever owned?’ The familiar contempt weighed down his voice. Having sprung from the loins of men who’d allworked in shoeing — first equine, then human — he’d never forgiven any of them. Grandfather, father, uncles, cousins, all were blamed for apprenticing him to a craft which they saw as honourable and he saw as a stigma. ‘No,’ he said. ‘The bookshelf stays.’ Elias heard him lean on it with a possessive elbow (squeak of cloth on polished oak) and then kick it (crack of leather on wood).
‘What
On these black-letter days, his father would disappear, like Mephistopheles, through a trapdoor in the kitchen floor and into the bowels of the building, where he laboured on fine boots for the city’s most beautiful ladies. Moody tappings shook the foundations of dailyexistence, making Elias’s desk shudder and his neat sums wobble. Concentrating, he held his tongue between his teeth so that when his father suddenly shouted he jumped and tasted his own blood.
‘Why will Karl Elias not come and help his poor father?’ Most of Mr Eliasberg’s questions started with ‘Why’ and revolved around his son. Why was Karl Elias so silent? Why did he spend so much time at the library?
Elias had his own question that he phrased equally repetitively, but silently, for fear of receiving a lashing. ‘Why,’ he shouted inside his own defiant head, ‘do you always address me in the third person?’ At times his voice rang so loudly inside his skull that his ears could hear nothing except his own protest.
It was strange but true. Every time his father used his name in this unthinking way, a small part of Elias was slivered away. By the time he was eleven, he felt almost invisible. When he was twelve, he learnt, by listening through his bedroom door, that he might indeed be a spectre sooner rather than later. For the doctor told his weeping mother that her son couldn’t be expected to live past fourteen years of age. Tuberculosis would carry him off.
After the doctor left the house, Mrs Eliasberg sank to the floor outside the bedroom door. Elias knew this, for by now he was adept at interpreting what, in theatrical circles, were called ‘noises off’. First the rustle of skirts. Then the creaking of floorboards on the landing. And, finally, a puff of air from crushed lungs. As he stood barely two feet away from his mother, separated from her grief by a panelled wooden door, he felt curiously optimistic — more alive, in fact, than he had for a long time. Was it true his demise might actually leave a small dent in someone else’s heart?
But it was by checking in at the living-room door later that evening that he received the really useful piece of information, the one that kept him alive, sending defiant blood between his heart and his brain, shrinking the swelling on his neck. For his parents were discussing what they might sell to raise the money to send him to a sanatorium where his blood would be cleansed and his life saved.
‘It must be a substantial sum,’ stressed his tearful mother. Once again her skirts rustled, but this time, obviously, she was swivelling to assess the items of furniture in the room. ‘What about the bookshelf?
‘The only piece of good furniture my parents left me?’ queried Mr Eliasberg. ‘The only good piece they ever owned?’ The familiar contempt weighed down his voice. Having sprung from the loins of men who’d allworked in shoeing — first equine, then human — he’d never forgiven any of them. Grandfather, father, uncles, cousins, all were blamed for apprenticing him to a craft which they saw as honourable and he saw as a stigma. ‘No,’ he said. ‘The bookshelf stays.’ Elias heard him lean on it with a possessive elbow (squeak of cloth on polished oak) and then kick it (crack of leather on wood).
‘What
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