Tom Murphy Chapter 3

It was a few weeks after my unexpected entry into the working world that I first met the Rosenblums. I had taken my Sunday stroll to the city park to listen to the city brass band in the rotunda.
Every Sunday –as was then the custom– half the town, the moneyed half, put on their sartorial best and promenaded in the park. They thought themselves very swell. I now did too.

I too was now attired in a suit of a modestly prosperous young gentleman. The business of purchasing that suit had cost me my first wage of one pound. I was alone and horribly bored. I had a freckled inquisitive grin and artfully shaped face. But real manliness never seemed to arrive. My voice remained as high as a chirping sparrow. No hair marked my upper lip. As for the rest of me, my nether region was as bald as a twelve year old. That was my private secret that I hid from the world.

Only Dad knew, God bless him. He had spotted my humiliation in the wash house before I had time to fling a towel around me. Instead of laughing uproariously with rude jokes and spreading the news, as everyone else would have done, Dad patted me sympathetically on the shoulder.

Don't worry about it son, it runs in the family. When I was your age, I was as bald down there as a baby's bottom. A year or two later, I was the deepest voiced, hairiest, biggest donnybrooker of my age in the neighbourhood.

I felt so relieved and grateful I could have hugged him. Then I remembered the booze and worried about Dad's blessing.

I was standing in my own self‑loathing space when I spotted a boy and girl standing arm in arm a few paces away. I wasn't the only one becoming sharply drawn to this couple. They looked foreign. That would mean something very different these days. Now that we have turned the country into an open-air fun-park for the world, we are used to spotting exotics.
But in those days, foreigners, especially swell ones, excited general loathing and contempt. They might be the King's enemies, mysteriously in the Dominion. It was most disquieting of all when they appeared to resemble ordinary loyal subjects.

The public grew more hostile. There were whispers. The boy and girl began to converse to each other in a language that was foreign. Two plain young women began to giggle.

They are Huns, a truculent manly voice muttered through a fag.

I saw the couple flinch and clasp themselves ever closer. I now gave them a policeman's scrutiny. I was after all working for the Mayor even though I had not yet worked out which side of the law I was supposed to be on.

The boy looked to be a tall and mature sixteen year old. He was dressed in black with a high collar that elevated his head. His hair was tousled with black ringlets. Most startling were his eyes. They gazed into the far horizon as though all the people around him were unwelcome pygmies, and he was secretly conversing with invisible sky beings. I felt an agony behind those radiant irises.

The girl looked to be about thirteen. She was dressed all in silky fluffy white. She too had diamond black eyes and coal black hair. It was wavy rather than ringlets. Out of a delicate oval face, her deep inlaid eyes above dark shadows also gazed mournfully into the distance. Suddenly she turned to the boy and said something, and raised her head and laughed so naturally and so happily that my heart melted. In those few moments of watching that couple, I had felt sorrow, joy and everything in between.

AAs the Mayor's spy I had a duty. I strolled over and greeted them. I forget my words because they were so hick. But my chirpy tones were perfectly suited to excite a general warm reply. Normally at such a moment, a grown boy would puff out his chest and lower his voice. A grown girl would look me up and down and mysteriously titter. But these two studied me very gravely.

Good afternoon, I am Gustav Rose In Bloom. This is my sister Maria,
said the boy in an accent that thrilled my ears, so unused was I to anyone outside the city and district.

We began to talk about the band. Moments before I had stood parched and desperately lonely. I soon found they didn't think much of the band. They agreed they should be playing things more serious than American popular songs.

In the Dresden parks, the bands sometimes play … and the two began to reel off names that sounded like the names at the top of the local Italian fish & chip shop.

The boy glanced at his watch on its chain.

It is time Maria and I went home, maybe you could visit us at home.

His voice was coolly studied, but I sensed a pleading desperation in his face.

Oh please could I? I said, surprised at my equally desperate reply.

Please come with us, we would like you to remain our friend, said the boy gravely.

I followed behind them as they departed, chatting animatedly arm-in-arm.

We walked away from the park. I was astonished to find that we were walking into the back streets where my own home was. We stopped at the big rich house, the only one that lorded over our poor neighbourhood. We local people only ever saw big shiny cars entering into the grounds behind a brick wall. So I was excited to find out the owners were rich foreigners. Gustav nonchalantly pulled back the catch to open the gate. I took one gaze and gasped. I might have been in Hollywood. Then I quickly closed my mouth. I felt ashamed of myself now that I had met rich people.

To my surprise, some small children playing with a ball in the garden appeared not to see us at all. Gustav led us not to the front door but to the back of the house. He opened a door into a gloomy passage way, and led us up a rickety stairway. He opened a door to a garret. I was astonished when a stench of kerosene and faint urine met us. A woman, I thought elderly, with a long fleshy nose and a swarthy complexion, greeted us. She was in a dirty apron, and did not appear to be so clean herself. Gustav introduced his mother to me. I was a friend of theirs, they both said proudly.

Mummy, as they called her, appeared to be too distracted to notice us. I could see with disappointment I would not be sharing their tea. In matters of acquiring food I had learnt to be shameless.

Gustav asked me to come to their room. I was a little surprised to see Gustav and Maria shared the same room. I immediately put that down to the strange customs of foreigners. I noted other strange customs. A chalked line over the bare floor divided their room. On one side, there was a bed fussily made up with a quilt. On the other side, there was an unmade bed and a mess that made my home for the first time ever look good.
On top of a chipped dresser and on the floor beside the unmade bed, there were stuffed toys and silver trinkets.
On the walls there were ginger bread coloured picture frames with photographs of soaring mountains, spires of stone and painted glass buildings, and a wide blue river under a castle.
A strange bird sound disturbed the room. A wooden bird hopped out of a large wall clock, flapped its wings and retreated. I saw it was six o'clock.

Gustav went to the tidy side. He pulled out from the dresser a batch of dog‑eared pencil scribbled papers.

This is my opera I am writing, he said proudly.

I of course had never heard of an opera. I looked at the papers with a knowing expression. I recognised lines of musical notations. On the top of the first page I saw the name Gustav Rosenblum.

It is called The Righteous Murder of Eggnog, said Gustav.
Righteous murder is a title you English could never understand even though you do it all the time, and call it something else.
The Germans will have no difficulty with the title. We Jews will have to learn it fast.
I actually find it highly satisfying.

That was a surprise to me that the Rosenblums were Jews. I then didn't know that any Jews still existed in the world. At religious instruction with the priest, I had assumed all the Jews had been converted to Christianity.

Eggnog, I repeated, with a raised eyebrow like my old English teacher.

Eglon, corrected Gustav patiently.
He was the King of the Moabites.
The children of Israel served him for eighteen years because they had gone soft and served the Moab God Baalim.
The children of Israel cried to the Lord, and the Lord raised them up a deliverer, Ehud the left hander.

The idea of a cack-handed hero both intrigued and startled me. I myself was left handed. While we talked, Maria lay on her bed and scribbled with a pencil into an exercise book. I glanced sideways at her book, and saw that it was covered with her erratic handwriting. She looked up at me, smiled, and lowered her eyes. If a cat had done that, I would have felt the same sensation. Above her head were stuck posters I recognised of Hollywood stars. In the middle of these, there were a bunch of photographs of Maria's face striking cheeky poses. Tiny captions gave funny expressions to each photograph. I glanced above Gustav's head. There was only one poster of a very weird painting. I looked at it and shivered. ‘Ship Of Fools’, said the title.

After I had returned home and eaten that evening's pickings, I went to see Dad.
Dad was sprawled in his armchair with the racing pages from Truth newspaper.
I would speak to Dad because this time his eyes lacked that glassy stare.

Dad, how many Jews are there still alive in the world?

Dad scratched his head.

I don't know son. A few million, maybe.
They are still waiting for their Messiah.

Dad closed his eyes.