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Authors: Philip Pullman
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handwriting."
"Must be. Bill. Now look—the melame{f% here. Mr. Kipnis. He's waiting for you next door. Take your book—there you are—on the chair by the window."
Bill took the little cloth book Goldberg pointed out, thanked him, and left the room. Goldberg relit the cigar and settled back, feet on the table, to study the notebook.
A melamed was a teacher of Hebrew: not a learned man like a rabbi, but a poor drudge who spent his days drilling the elements of the language into the heads of naughty boys. In the case of Bill, it wasn't Hebrew he was teaching but the art of reading English, for Bill was illiterate, and as a Jew he felt that to be shameful.
He hadn't always known he was a Jew. He wasn't entirely sure who he was, or where he came from. He'd grown up among the Irish families in Lambeth and had avoided the Board Schools, running wild and learning nothing but violence and cunning. At thirteen his life had lurched in an-
other direction: he had taken to helping out in the household of Reuben Levy, a poor tailor in Walnut Tree Walk, and had fallen in love with Rebecca, the tailor's daughter—or not so much with her as with the richness and warmth and beauty of her family life, with its networks of ritual and remembrance. It was glamour. He wanted it. He wanted to belong.
There was no reason to suppose he wasn't Jewish. He certainly looked more Jewish than Irish. He'd heard there was a ceremony of some sort you had to go through to be a full Jew; but before it came to that, he must learn to read and write. One thing that he'd noticed about all the Jews he knew was that they were learned. Old Reuben Levy—at the drop of a hat he'd put down his work and start arguing and giving learned opinions about politics, about religion, about literature, about the law, about anything else at all; and his fellow Jews would join in—ordinary, poor workingmen talking like Solomon. A man like Kid Mendel, thought Bill, was bound to study deeply; bound to be able to read. That's what made him the man he was.
He kept this desire to himself until he met Mr. Goldberg. Mr. Goldberg had found the broken-down old melamed, Mr. Kipnis, whose nerves had gone for teaching small boys, and brought the two of them together; and now Bill toiled obsessively, learning A and B and C and scratching them on a slate while Mr. Kipnis refreshed himself with furtive sips from a flask.
And in the room next-door Dan Goldberg dropped the greasy notebook into a drawer, poured himself a glass of brandy, and took out his notes on this other extraordinary affair of Mr. Parrish's: this lawsuit involving a woman called Lockhart.
Target Practice
Next morning Sally had three clients to see and a number of letters to write, and it wasn't until the afternoon that she managed to find time to visit the lawyer.
He seemed surprised to see her.
"There is very little new to report," he said. "The case is due to come to court, as you know, on the fourteenth of next month—surprisingly soon, but that might be, perhaps, a good thing.?"
"How can it be good, Mr. Adcock.? It hardly gives us time to do anything!"
"What is there to do.?"
He spread his hands. She could hardly contain her impatience.
"You don't mean to tell me there's nothing to be done.? For goodness' sake, what on earth—"
"We claim that he is mistaken on the marriage point," said Mr. Adcock. "That is what we do. I have been drafting replies to all the particulars, and if you wish we can discuss them again, point by point, though I must say that I have another client to see at three—"
"Mr. Adcock, I've been to look at the marriage register in Portsmouth, and it's been forged."
"I beg your pardon.?"
He listened attentively as she told him what she'd found out. Then he frowned, pursing his lips, and tapped the table thoughtfully.
"The register was intact? It had not been tampered with— a page inserted or replaced—anything of that sort?"
"That was particularly what I was looking for.
"Must be. Bill. Now look—the melame{f% here. Mr. Kipnis. He's waiting for you next door. Take your book—there you are—on the chair by the window."
Bill took the little cloth book Goldberg pointed out, thanked him, and left the room. Goldberg relit the cigar and settled back, feet on the table, to study the notebook.
A melamed was a teacher of Hebrew: not a learned man like a rabbi, but a poor drudge who spent his days drilling the elements of the language into the heads of naughty boys. In the case of Bill, it wasn't Hebrew he was teaching but the art of reading English, for Bill was illiterate, and as a Jew he felt that to be shameful.
He hadn't always known he was a Jew. He wasn't entirely sure who he was, or where he came from. He'd grown up among the Irish families in Lambeth and had avoided the Board Schools, running wild and learning nothing but violence and cunning. At thirteen his life had lurched in an-
other direction: he had taken to helping out in the household of Reuben Levy, a poor tailor in Walnut Tree Walk, and had fallen in love with Rebecca, the tailor's daughter—or not so much with her as with the richness and warmth and beauty of her family life, with its networks of ritual and remembrance. It was glamour. He wanted it. He wanted to belong.
There was no reason to suppose he wasn't Jewish. He certainly looked more Jewish than Irish. He'd heard there was a ceremony of some sort you had to go through to be a full Jew; but before it came to that, he must learn to read and write. One thing that he'd noticed about all the Jews he knew was that they were learned. Old Reuben Levy—at the drop of a hat he'd put down his work and start arguing and giving learned opinions about politics, about religion, about literature, about the law, about anything else at all; and his fellow Jews would join in—ordinary, poor workingmen talking like Solomon. A man like Kid Mendel, thought Bill, was bound to study deeply; bound to be able to read. That's what made him the man he was.
He kept this desire to himself until he met Mr. Goldberg. Mr. Goldberg had found the broken-down old melamed, Mr. Kipnis, whose nerves had gone for teaching small boys, and brought the two of them together; and now Bill toiled obsessively, learning A and B and C and scratching them on a slate while Mr. Kipnis refreshed himself with furtive sips from a flask.
And in the room next-door Dan Goldberg dropped the greasy notebook into a drawer, poured himself a glass of brandy, and took out his notes on this other extraordinary affair of Mr. Parrish's: this lawsuit involving a woman called Lockhart.
Target Practice
Next morning Sally had three clients to see and a number of letters to write, and it wasn't until the afternoon that she managed to find time to visit the lawyer.
He seemed surprised to see her.
"There is very little new to report," he said. "The case is due to come to court, as you know, on the fourteenth of next month—surprisingly soon, but that might be, perhaps, a good thing.?"
"How can it be good, Mr. Adcock.? It hardly gives us time to do anything!"
"What is there to do.?"
He spread his hands. She could hardly contain her impatience.
"You don't mean to tell me there's nothing to be done.? For goodness' sake, what on earth—"
"We claim that he is mistaken on the marriage point," said Mr. Adcock. "That is what we do. I have been drafting replies to all the particulars, and if you wish we can discuss them again, point by point, though I must say that I have another client to see at three—"
"Mr. Adcock, I've been to look at the marriage register in Portsmouth, and it's been forged."
"I beg your pardon.?"
He listened attentively as she told him what she'd found out. Then he frowned, pursing his lips, and tapped the table thoughtfully.
"The register was intact? It had not been tampered with— a page inserted or replaced—anything of that sort?"
"That was particularly what I was looking for.
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