Read Online The Song Before It Is Sung by Justin Cartwright - Free Book Online
Authors: Justin Cartwright
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thumb goes in,' said Mendel. 'That's probably why the soup is served cool, for health-and-safety
reasons.'
They sat in a small panelled room, the Common Room, which the Fellows used when there were not many of them dining. Mendel
told him that dessert was always served here after dining in hall, a custom whose origins had been forgotten. The eggheads
of all shapes and sizes, boyish, awkward — some, he fondly imagined, idiots savants - greeted Mendel before they moved to their tables. Mendel was like a saint in an obscure church, whose effigy or relics have
to be touched or kissed or stroked when entering.
'They're always surprised, I hope pleasantly, to find I am still alive.'
These brainy folks seemed to be physically tortured by their intelligence, stooped, contorted, with out-of-control hair and
clothes that ranged blithely between the resolutely tweedy and the hopelessly ill-assorted, as though great minds were unable
to take in the merely cosmetic.
And now Conrad sees that those early days in All Souls, when Mendel was in love with Rosamund, had been wonderfully happy,
the freedom to read and write and the encouragement to live the life of the mind unreservedly. In his own way, Conrad has
been trying to do this for ten or more years, without much to show for it. And it is this aspect of the life of the mind,
the snub to the free market and its bogus laws, which Francine resents most: where's the vaccine, where's the best-seller,
where's the academic tenure? What's the product of this free-range thinking?
Yes, it must have been bliss, with Rosamund coming up from London for the weekends, and Mendel going often to London to see
her and reading her new chapters with that wonderful enthusiasm and humour, and the love-making which was still new and utterly
entrancing to Mendel; love and sex dissolved the protective deposits of cynicism and selfishness. And, Conrad guesses, caused
Mendel to understand that there are many human actions that are animal or irrational in essence. Conrad himself knows this
all too well. Dumped by Francine he feels jealousy and rejection, but still more strongly, the loss of innocence. He wants
to believe in love and its redemptive power; in fact he loves the idea of love perhaps more than he loves Francine, although
he remembers The Leopard: Love. Flames for one year, ashes for thirty. It's the nature of love that you enter the lists knowing you will both lose.
Rosamund and her cousin Elizabeth, who had become even more bored in Jerusalem, were making a visit to Germany and were proposing
to see von Gottberg. Rosamund wanted Mendel to patch up his relations with Axel.
'He's very hurt, Elizabeth says. Please write to him, Elya.'
'I will write him. But what he wrote to the Guardian was unforgivable, although it is possible he had his reasons.'
'Elizabeth says he is trying to avoid joining the Party.'
'The only way to avoid that is to emigrate.'
'You are a hard man. And I thought you were soft.'
'I have surprised myself. Perhaps I was reacting as a Jew. But Axel must have known exactly what laws were passed. When we
were in Jerusalem we met German Jews arriving in their thousands. What were they fleeing? A few cartoons showing them heavily
bearded? No, loss of property, loss of jobs, loss of life. What he wrote was that the only hardship the Jews were suffering
was because of "aid" for German Jews from abroad. And he cited the storm troopers as witnesses of their excellent good treatment
at the hands of the authorities. Do you know what angered me most? It was the idea that Jews should be grateful under the
circumstances. Only the wilfully blind cannot see. Anyway, now you and Elizabeth can see for yourselves. But in my mind Axel
has passed from the grey world to the black-and-white. Books have been burned. Jewish shops have been expropriated. Axel knows
these things. His idiotic letter is not in keeping with his beliefs and character, or if
reasons.'
They sat in a small panelled room, the Common Room, which the Fellows used when there were not many of them dining. Mendel
told him that dessert was always served here after dining in hall, a custom whose origins had been forgotten. The eggheads
of all shapes and sizes, boyish, awkward — some, he fondly imagined, idiots savants - greeted Mendel before they moved to their tables. Mendel was like a saint in an obscure church, whose effigy or relics have
to be touched or kissed or stroked when entering.
'They're always surprised, I hope pleasantly, to find I am still alive.'
These brainy folks seemed to be physically tortured by their intelligence, stooped, contorted, with out-of-control hair and
clothes that ranged blithely between the resolutely tweedy and the hopelessly ill-assorted, as though great minds were unable
to take in the merely cosmetic.
And now Conrad sees that those early days in All Souls, when Mendel was in love with Rosamund, had been wonderfully happy,
the freedom to read and write and the encouragement to live the life of the mind unreservedly. In his own way, Conrad has
been trying to do this for ten or more years, without much to show for it. And it is this aspect of the life of the mind,
the snub to the free market and its bogus laws, which Francine resents most: where's the vaccine, where's the best-seller,
where's the academic tenure? What's the product of this free-range thinking?
Yes, it must have been bliss, with Rosamund coming up from London for the weekends, and Mendel going often to London to see
her and reading her new chapters with that wonderful enthusiasm and humour, and the love-making which was still new and utterly
entrancing to Mendel; love and sex dissolved the protective deposits of cynicism and selfishness. And, Conrad guesses, caused
Mendel to understand that there are many human actions that are animal or irrational in essence. Conrad himself knows this
all too well. Dumped by Francine he feels jealousy and rejection, but still more strongly, the loss of innocence. He wants
to believe in love and its redemptive power; in fact he loves the idea of love perhaps more than he loves Francine, although
he remembers The Leopard: Love. Flames for one year, ashes for thirty. It's the nature of love that you enter the lists knowing you will both lose.
Rosamund and her cousin Elizabeth, who had become even more bored in Jerusalem, were making a visit to Germany and were proposing
to see von Gottberg. Rosamund wanted Mendel to patch up his relations with Axel.
'He's very hurt, Elizabeth says. Please write to him, Elya.'
'I will write him. But what he wrote to the Guardian was unforgivable, although it is possible he had his reasons.'
'Elizabeth says he is trying to avoid joining the Party.'
'The only way to avoid that is to emigrate.'
'You are a hard man. And I thought you were soft.'
'I have surprised myself. Perhaps I was reacting as a Jew. But Axel must have known exactly what laws were passed. When we
were in Jerusalem we met German Jews arriving in their thousands. What were they fleeing? A few cartoons showing them heavily
bearded? No, loss of property, loss of jobs, loss of life. What he wrote was that the only hardship the Jews were suffering
was because of "aid" for German Jews from abroad. And he cited the storm troopers as witnesses of their excellent good treatment
at the hands of the authorities. Do you know what angered me most? It was the idea that Jews should be grateful under the
circumstances. Only the wilfully blind cannot see. Anyway, now you and Elizabeth can see for yourselves. But in my mind Axel
has passed from the grey world to the black-and-white. Books have been burned. Jewish shops have been expropriated. Axel knows
these things. His idiotic letter is not in keeping with his beliefs and character, or if
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