The Elected Member Read online

  ‘You’ll be sorry for that,’ Norman said quietly.

  Nobody said anything for a long time. Norman rubbed his stubbled cheek, and Bella watched her father choking back his tears. Once or twice, she saw him open his mouth to speak, but his voice was not yet ready. She heard him mutter an apology. Then he tried again.

  ‘Norman,’ he said gently. He hesitated, fearful of what he knew he must ask. ‘Norman,’ he said again, ‘where d’you get them from? How many have you taken?’

  ‘I haven’t got any,’ Norman shouted. ‘I haven’t taken any. I haven’t taken any for years.’

  Rabbi Zweck lost his temper again. ‘Who is the murderer who gives them to you? I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him,’ he was crying with the agony of it. ‘What for you want to take them?’ he begged. ‘Stop it with the pills already or I shall go mad.’

  ‘Why d’you have to do it to him?’ Bella shouted. ‘Can’t you see it’s killing him? What are you trying to do to us?’ Rabbi Zweck buried his head in his hands. Stop it with the bloody pills already,’ he said feebly. He hated his own unfamiliar language, but he had used it deliberately as a desperate bid for his son’s confidence. ‘I’ll ring Dr Levy,’ he said, getting up.

  ‘You’ll be sorry for that,’ Norman said quietly. Nobody said anything for a long time. Norman rubbed his stubbled cheek, and Bella watched her father choking back his tears. Once or twice, she saw him open his mouth to speak, but his voice was not yet ready. She heard him mutter an apology. Then he tried again.

  ‘Norman,’ he said gently. He hesitated, fearful of what he knew he must ask. ‘Norman,’ he said again, ‘where d’you get them from? How many have you taken?’ ‘I haven’t got any,’ Norman shouted. ‘I haven’t taken any. I haven’t taken any for years.’

  Rabbi Zweck lost his temper again. ‘Who is the murderer who gives them to you? I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him,’ he was crying with the agony of it. ‘What for you want to take them?’ he begged. ‘Stop it with the pills already or I shall go mad.’

  ‘Why d’you have to do it to him?’ Bella shouted. ‘Can’t you see it’s killing him? What are you trying to do to us?’ Rabbi Zweck buried his head in his hands. Stop it with the bloody pills already,’ he said feebly. He hated his own unfamiliar language, but he had used it deliberately as a desperate bid for his son’s confidence. ‘I’ll ring Dr Levy,’ he said, getting up.

  ‘You keep that bastard out of this house,’ Norman said. ‘I’m not having him here. What’s he know about anything, that tit. You bring him here, and I’ll kill him.’ He pushed his unfinished breakfast away from him, and strode out of the room. They waited, listening, until they heard his key turn in the door.

  ‘Poor, poor boy,’ Rabbi Zweck muttered, and he went to the telephone.

  ‘Dr Levy?’

  ‘Rabbi Zweck,’ the doctor said. He recognised the voice and he knew what it wanted. The calls were getting more frequent.

  ‘It’s silver-fish again,’ the Rabbi said, and he hated the contempt for his son that he heard in his own voice. ‘I’ll come right away.’

  Rabbi Zweck put down the phone. He was shivering with his son’s fear. He wished to God he could see them like his son saw them, that they could go into madness together, hand in hand. It was his son’s loneliness that stabbed him like a knife, his yellow-faced boy, haggard with the terror of his imaginings, no doubt at this moment sitting crouched on his infested floor, trapping his evidence. ‘I’ll tell him I can see them,’ the Rabbi said to himself. ‘Perhaps he’ll stop the joke already.’

  He tapped on Norman’s door. ‘Norman,’ he called.

  ‘What d’you want?’

  ‘Norman,’ he repeated softly. ‘They still there? I should have another look?’

  There was a silent suspicion behind the door.

  ‘I should have another look?’ Rabbi Zweck pleaded.

  The key turned in the lock and the door opened gingerly. It was dark in the room. The curtains were drawn, and books held them down at each corner to block out the light.

  ‘You’ve got to be very quiet,’ Norman whispered.

  His father watched his son’s drawn face the black eyes that swelled out of it. The dark and the whisperings made him ashamed and he wondered what God must think of his behaviour. He hoped He wasn’t misled by it. Who was He punishing anyway, he thought, himself, or his son.

  ‘Stand by the fire-place,’ Norman was saying. ‘Be quiet. You’ll see plenty, if you just wait.’

  But Rabbi Zweck was prepared to see without waiting. ‘I can see them,’ he whispered, staring at the empty carpet. He raised himself on his toes, excitedly. ‘My, my,’ he marvelled, ‘so many, like an army they are.’ He looked at his son for his gratitude.

  ‘You think I’m mad, don’t you?’ Norman said quietly.

  ‘Look here,’ he opened a drawer. Inside, wedged in the corner, was a glass jar, with a few leaves that rested on red carpet Ruff on the bottom. Opposite the jar was a magnifying mirror. ‘Look in that mirror,’ Norman said, ‘you’ll see them all right.’

  ‘Leaves I see,’ Rabbi Zweck said bewildered. ‘I’m feeding them,’ Norman laughed.

  He wanted to hit his son again, but instead, he left the room quietly.

  ‘Don’t come back,’ Norman almost sobbed after him. ‘Leave me alone. Just leave me alone.’

  The key turned again in the door, and Rabbi Zweck went back to the kitchen. ‘Go down, open the shop,’ he said. ‘Is already nine o’clock.’

  As she passed him, Bella put her hand on his shoulder. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘he’ll be over it soon.’

  ‘And then again it starts.’ He clutched at her arm. ‘We must find them,’ he said desperately. ‘We must get him out of that room and you must find them. They’re there. He’s getting them from someone. If ever I lay my hands on him, I’ll … You haven’t done the room thoroughly enough,’ he shouted at her. He bit his lip to stem the tears. ‘Go, go,’ he said quickly, ‘open the shop. On top of everything I should lose the business too.’

  He caught sight of her white ankle-socks as she left the room. She was forty, almost, his Bella, and still in her girlhood socks. But that was another agony. He daren’t give any thought to that one. He sniffed his tears away and waited for the doctor.

  When the bell rang, he heard Norman shout, ‘If that’s that shit Levy, tell him to piss off.’

  Rabbi Zweck knew that Dr Levy must have heard through the door and he began apologising on his son’s behalf as he let the doctor in.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Dr Levy said, ‘it’s natural. Can we go into the kitchen?’ he whispered. He knew Norman would be listening by his door, and he didn’t want to be overheard. He followed Rabbi Zweck into the kitchen and sat at the table. He had become familiar with the room. The copper ladle that hung over the kitchen sink was always at the same angle and with the same high polish. In the cup of lemon tea that Rabbi Zweck put before him, he saw the familiar and now fading rose pattern that lined the cup. He was not their official family doctor. Dr Levy was a psychiatrist, but he was a long-standing friend of the Zweck family. As a friend, he had been in on Mrs Zweck’s dying, sitting on the same chair by the kitchen table, drinking tea out of a less faded rose-patterned cup. Then he had sat with Rabbi Zweck much as he was doing now, comforting him, the truth exposed between them.

  ‘It’s only a matter of time,’ he had told the Rabbi then, ‘and the sooner, the better for you all.’ Meanwhile, in the vast seven-footer, Mrs Zweck wondered why she was taking so long to recover from her operation. ‘It takes longer when you’re older,’ the doctor had told her. ‘Another month or so and you’ll be up and about.’ So she lay there, having patience, fingering the holiday brochure that Rabbi Zweck had bought her, to help her decide where to convalesce. Now, it was Norman, on the same bed, with a different illusion, but an illusion all the same, while between his father and Dr Levy in the kitchen, straddled the same uneasy truth.

  ‘How long has he been like this
?’ Dr Levy asked.

  ‘How should I know,’ Rabbi Zweck said helplessly. ‘For many days now he doesn’t eat. Breakfast he has, a big breakfast, and afterwards, nothing.’

  ‘Has he been in the shop?’

  ‘He goes downstairs. fie sits. He does nothing, Bella says. And always so rude, I’m ashamed for my customers. If only I knew where he got them. If only…’

  ‘Rabbi Zweck,’ the doctor said gently, ‘even if you found where he was getting them, it would be of no use. He’d find another source. They’re all the same, these addicts. They’re so cunning. Come what may, they’ll find somewhere to get it. It’s expensive of course. Does he have so much money?’

  Rabbi Zweck was silent. Then without looking at Doctor Levy, he stretched his hand towards him over the table. ‘Doctor,’ he said, ‘I’m ashamed, but you’re a doctor, and is confidence what I tell you.’ Dr Levy patted the Rabbi’s hand.

  ‘He’s stealing it?’ he said.

  Rabbi Zweck hung his head. ‘My own son,’ he whispered. ‘a ganuf, and from his father’s money. The till,’ he said, ‘last week, my Bella is missing fifteen pounds. What can I do? Every minute I can’t be with him.’ Dr Levy opened his black case. ‘We must get him better, at least over this bout, then we must try again to persuade him to go to hospital.

  It’s the only way. Six months, a year, away from the drug.

  He might get over it.’

  ‘I’ve tried,’ the Rabbi said, ‘Bella’s tried. Each time he gets over it, he says he’ll stop it. Then he starts again. What will become of him?’

  ‘Let’s get him over this lot first,’ the doctor said business-like.

  Rabbi Zweck squeezed the doctor’s hand. ‘I am thinking,’ he said, ‘perhaps takka is silver-fish in his room. Perhaps when they come from the cleaning people, they don’t look so thoroughly. Like Norman said, a real spring-clean we should have. So we should find them and take them away.’ He looked at Dr Levy pleadingly.

  ‘You will drive yourself mad,’ Dr Levy whispered. “You are trying to defend him at the risk of your own sanity. There is nothing in his room. You know it as well as I. Listen Rabbi, it’s very simple.’ Dr Levy leaned forward and spoke very slowly with the patience of one who has explained the same situation over and over again. ‘When he started to take the drugs, they gave him what they call, a kick. You understand?’

  ‘What should I know from a kick,’ Rabbi Zweck said wearily. At each of Norman’s breakdowns, and at each explanation, he refused to acknowledge that the diagnosis had anything to do with his son. ‘Doctors’ talk,’ he muttered to himself. A real spring-clean Bella will give,’ he said.

  ‘When Norman started,’ Dr Levy went on, ignoring the interruption, ‘it took just one tablet to make him feel good. Then as time went on, in order to get the same effect, he had to take more, and more and more. Until, like now, he’s taking them by the handful. Now these drugs are dangerous. If you take enough of them, you begin to see things, things that other people don’t see. Snakes, elephants, pins, or like Norman, silver-fish. He sees them all right, but he’s hallucinating. They’re not there, Rabbi Zweck,’ Dr Levy said firmly, no matter how much he convinces you. You know they’re not there. don’t you.’

  Rabbi Zweck sighed. Sometimes he hated Dr Levy. ‘How are you so sure they’re not there?’ he mumbled.

  Dr Levy took a small tablet out of the box. ‘I won’t go in and see him,’ he said. ‘It will only make him worse. Persuade him to join you and Bella for some coffee during the morning, and crush this into the sugar. Let Bella do it. It will dissolve and with luck he won’t taste it. If he drinks the whole cup, he’ll sleep for a few hours and I’ll come over later and give him an injection. Same as before. We’ll give him deep sedation for a fortnight. Like last time.’

  ‘And the time before that,’ the Rabbi put in. ‘And the next time.’

  ‘Let’s cross this hurdle, shall we, and afterwards we’ll try to talk to him. All of us. It’s you I’m worried about, Rabbi. More than Norman,’ Dr Levy said. ‘You’re letting it kill you.’

  ‘You want I should dance?’ Rabbi Zweck muttered.

  ‘Remember the times when he’s’ all right. In between the bouts. These times are time to live for and look forward to. The times when he’s a good son to you.’

  ‘They’re not so often, these times. Not any more.’ Rabbi Zweck said. He banged his fist on the table in sudden anger. ‘I should only find the murderer who sells them to him.’

  ‘Walk me downstairs to the shop,’ the doctor said gently. ‘You can sell me some cigarettes.’

  Rabbi Zweck stopped at his son’s door. ‘Norman,’ he called.

  ‘You can tell Dr Levy from me,’ Norman shouted, ‘he’s a psychiatrist like the cat’s a psychiatrist, and he can take his injections to hell. There’s nothing the matter with me,’ he yelled, half-sobbing. ‘It’s you and your lot. You’re mad. the lot of you. Just leave me alone.’

  ‘I’m going downstairs to the shop,’ his father said evenly. ‘Soon I’ll come back. We’ll have a tea together, huh. You, me and Bella.’

  ‘I don’t want any family conferences,’ Norman said. ‘Just leave me alone.’

  Dr Levy put his arm round Rabbi Zweck’s shoulder and led him downstairs to the shop.

  An hour later Bella and her father left the shop in charge of the assistant and returned to the flat. They whispered together in the kitchen as Bella ground the white pill into the sugar at the bottom of the glass. Then she covered the mixture with a piece of lemon.

  ‘It’ll be better once he’s sleeping, Poppa. We’ll have to ask Auntie Sadie to come over again and look after him. Shall I phone her?’

  ‘This is already the sixth time.’

  ‘She loves it. You know she does. I’ll phone her from downstairs.’

  ‘Wait. Wait till he sleeps,’ her father said. ‘Then we’ll The tea was ready and they stared at each other, neither of them willing to call Norman.

  ‘You should tell him his tea’s ready,’ Rabbi Zweck said.

  ‘You tell him. He won’t listen to me. All right,’ she said, seeing him hesitate, ‘I’ll tell him.’

  She shouted through the passage, ‘Norman, your tea’s ready.’

  ‘Norman, your tea’s ready,’ he mimicked her.

  ‘You want your tea or don’t you?’ she said angrily.

  ‘You want your tea or don’t you,’ came from behind the door.

  Bella went back to the kitchen. can’t get anywhere with him,’ she said. Rabbi Zweck got up wearily and went down the corridor. ‘Norman,’ he called gently. ‘You want tea?’

  ‘I told you. I don’t want a family conference. You’ll have Auntie Sadie here next in a white coat pulling a Florence Nightingale on me.’

  ‘You want it in your room?’ his father said timidly.

  ‘Put it outside the door.’

  ‘Please,’ Bella prompted from the kitchen. She found it hard to treat him as an invalid. She wanted to punish him for what he was doing to her father. To her too, for he had already done enough to her. She looked down at her feet. Of course, she didn’t have to go on wearing those white ankle-socks. But it was habit by now. She would have to start being another person if she wore anything else. That was all his fault too. She resented the feeling of obligation she felt for him. They had nothing in common; all they shared were the same parents, the same miserable childhood, and the same mutual embarrassment. She tried not to wish him dead.

  Rabbi Zweck picked up Norman’s cup from the table. ‘This one?’ he said. He gave it an extra stir and carried it to his son’s door. ‘It’s outside, Norman,’ he said. ‘Careful. is hot.’

  He returned to the kitchen where they both sat and waited. They heard Norman’s door open and close again. Rabbi Zweck peeped out and saw that the cup had gone. ‘Thank God,’ he said, ‘at least he’ll drink it.’ But hardly had Rabbi Zweck sat down again than they heard Norman open his door. ‘What d’you think I am?’ he was yelling. ‘
D’you think I can’t taste it?’ He stormed into the kitchen, and put the cup on the table. ‘What are you trying to do? Murder me?’

  ‘What, what?’ Rabbi Zweck mumbled, ‘what’s the matter?’

  ‘You’ve put something in my tea,’ Norman said. ‘Go on, taste it.’

  ‘There’s nothing in your tea,’ Bella said coldly. ‘We’ve all got the same. It all came out of the same pot.’

  ‘Is the lemon perhaps too bitter?’ Rabbi Zweck tried. Deception was not his forte.

  ‘Lemon, my arse,’ Norman said. ‘Go on then, if you’re so sure there’s nothing in it, you drink it.’ He pushed the cup towards his father.

  Rabbi Zweck had not envisaged this eventuality. But he had no alternative. He picked up the cup gingerly and took as small a sip as was possible without raising his son’s suspicions. ‘Is all right,’ he said. ‘Perhaps more sugar you need.’

  ‘Drink some more,’ Norman ordered, ‘you’ll taste it.’

  The Rabbi raised his cup again to his lips, while Norman stood over him measuring his dose. ‘More, more,’ he kept saying, until his father had drained half the cup.

  ‘Is all right,’ he said again.

  ‘You taste it then,’ Norman pushed the cup over to Bella. Bella was horrified to discover how much her father had drunk.

  ‘Go on,’ Norman said, as he saw her hesitate. ‘Poison yourself a little.’

  She took a mouthful. It had an undeniably bitter taste. Dr Levy must have been crazy to think that Norman, with his gourmet taste in drugs, would not have noticed it. She hated Dr Levy. She hated everybody for all they’d done to her. She hated her sister Esther for marrying and opting out of the responsibility. She hated Norman for what he was doing to all of them, and even her father because of the love she could not deny him. ‘There’s nothing wrong with it,’ she said, ‘it’s your imagination. Like your silver-fish.’

  She hated herself for saying it. Why couldn’t she pretend her brother had jaundice, or measles, or rheumatism, or any other respectable malady. She looked at the black stubble that shadowed his jaw and the sallow shadings on his cheeks. He looked ill, terribly ill. Wasn’t that enough for her?