The Elected Member Read online

  ‘Ach,’ he moaned, folding the naturalisation certificate into its original creases. He hadn’t come very far since his arrival almost half a century ago. Out of the window, he could see the side-door of the synagogue, and a group of small children coming out of their Hebrew lessons. He had probably taught their grandparents, in the same little ill-ventilated rooms next to the beadle’s lodge. He had probably married their parents, joining them beneath the marriage canopy according to the laws of Moses and Israel. For forty years he had served in that synagogue, first as a pupil Rabbi, then as a fully-fledged teacher and minister, and then later on, as the congregation fell off, doubling as a cantor. The Hebrew class was now only a trickle of children, and who knew who and where they would marry? He thought of his daughter Esther, who had taught classes there too, and he shuddered at the thought of whom and how she married. He went over to the window. It was only a few steps from his shop below to the door of the synagogue. and within its span lay his life’s activity. Forty years as a Rabbi, then only to cross the road to his retirement as a help to Sarah in the shop, and he scanned the tiny compass in which so much sadness had gathered.

  He hoped again that Norman was sleeping. He looked around him, at the cluttered drawers, and the naked privacy of his wife and son. ‘Ach,’ he murmured again, ‘if he had seen a burning bush, like the nurse said, takka, I would have blessed him. But silver-fish.’ He shuddered, and taking off his shoes, he climbed wearily on to Norman’s bed, hesitating for a moment between Norman’s side, and Sarah’s, and then, as if acknowledging their equal and terrible sadness, he lay across the bed, and absorbed them both.

  Chapter 5

  Norman was woken by the pain. He knew only one way of staving it off, and the thought of the floorboard underneath his bed comforted him even before he opened his eyes. But something bound him to the bed, the fear that some change had taken place, the suspicion that the floorboard had moved, or had been finally nailed down. He shuddered. He dared not open his eyes, and he tried in the dark to confirm or deny the change that he dreaded. He felt the sheets. They were stiff and rough to his touch. But perhaps Bella had changed them and they were new. He stroked the pillow. That too was starched, but that too could be accounted for. Gingerly he stretched one leg to embed his toe in the security of the division of his mother’s bed. Slowly he urged it outward, and stopped where the division should have been. He felt the cold steel of the bedframe. He shivered. He had to face it. He was not in his own He clasped his hand over his heart to still its fearful beating. He owed it to his body to find some reason for the change. Himself, he could cope with, but he needed to hoodwink his heart.

  ‘You were ill last night,’ he said to himself, ‘and Bella carried you into the spare room with the little bed.’ That was it. But he still had the problem of getting back to his room and the floorboard. But perhaps his father was sleeping in there. He would wait. Yes, it was easy to wait with your eyes closed, knowing that the floorboard was only two doors away. But the pain racked him. He would have to open his eyes and get out of bed. But first, he slithered off the bed, his eyes still closed. As his feet touched the cold lino, he knew with fearful certainty that he was not at home. Home was carpet, home was infested edge to edge, home was other people’s blindness from wall to wall. He sat on the bed and opened his eyes wide, trying to control his panic. A male nurse was approaching him, wheeling the tranquilliser trolley. He stopped by Norman’s bed, and taking two pink pills from a bottle on his cart, he reached out to the bed-table for a glass. He filled it with water and crossed to Norman’s side. Then holding out the tablets, he said, ‘You’ll feel better when you’ve had these.’ His was gentle. It had dispensed with the white-coated ‘good mornings and how are we feeling today’. It was an immediate recognition of Norman’s fear. ‘Take them,’ he went on, ‘then I’ll bring you some tea.’

  Norman looked at the pink tablets in the palm of the nurse’s hand.

  ‘That’s not my colour,’ he said curtly.

  ‘It’s your colour while you’re here, I’m afraid,’ the nurse said, adding a little laugh to soften his undeniable authority.

  ‘Pink,’ Norman scoffed. ‘No, thank you. You’re not pulling pink ones on me.’ He’d had them before, the pink ones. Dr Levy, more than once, had throttled him with pink. He called them tranquillisers, but Norman knew jolly well what they were. They were drugs that made him blind to his silver-fish, and Levy was trying to make an addict out of him. They were drugs that sent his fish away, so that his father and Bella could say, ‘I told you so. I told you they were never there.’ ‘Pink,’ he mocked again, ‘the be-a-good-boy colour, the stop-driving-me-mad colour. The get-rid-of-the-evidence colour. No thanks, you have them. Be my guest.’ He heard his voice breaking with the pain that racked him, and he turned away from the nurse. He didn’t want this stranger to see his helplessness. ‘Haven’t you any white ones?’ he pleaded.

  ‘Take them,’ the nurse said and he took Norman’s hand and fitted his fingers round the glass. ‘They’re for the pain,’ he added.

  Anything, anything for the pain. Even pink. Norman took the tablets without turning round. Their colour humiliated him. If he stared at them long enough, they would tum to white. He would will them white, and into the kick, the great indescribable kick that white fed him. But that was long ago, he confessed to himself. He had to acknowledge that of late, the kick had become describable, diluted and mundane. And the woman, and the loving that white had provided, that too, was long ago, and the appetite had fled. He swallowed the pills without bothering with the water. He’d never given the white ones the indignity of liquid, especially lately when it was as much as he could get and as quickly as he could get it, solid and uncontaminated by watery accompaniment. But oh, for what little return. ‘No, no,’ he chided himself, now was no time for remorse, now was no time for turning over new leaves. ‘I’ve got to fight them. They’re wrong.’

  ‘You’re wrong…’ he turned to the nurse, but he had gone.

  The ward was stirring. The patients, lately come from sleep, were tranquillised once more. Opposite him a man beckoned, the man, Norman remembered, who had stared at his father the night before, and who probably the whole night had stared across to Norman’s bed, as he stared still. Norman went over to him. The man was holding the pills in one hand, while he beckoned continually with the other. Norman grasped his hand.

  ‘What colour are yours?’ he demanded. The man opened his palm and the offensive pink was already smudged in the sweat of his hand. He reached for the glass of water which the nurse had left on his side-table. Then he threw the tablets in the glass and tossed the lot down the sink. Then he put the glass down and wiped his hands off the whole business.

  ‘You must have some colour,’ Norman said desperately.

  ‘Is white a colour then?’ the man said.

  ‘God is good, God is good,’ Norman whispered, and he dropped his head onto the man’s hand. ‘Please, please,’ he begged.

  The man lifted Norman’s head with one hand, and the other he thrust down the bedclothes. Then withdrawing his hand he relaid Norman’s head in place. ‘Shut your eyes and open your mouth,’ he said.

  Norman lifted his head, glanced at the man’s clenched fist, and looked furtively around the ward. The nurse and his trolley were safely down the other end. ‘Let me see,’ Norman said.

  The man opened his palm, and inside lay one white tablet. ‘That’s for you,’ he said generously.

  Norman stared at the tablet, then at the man, then back to the tablet in his hand. What struck him most, was not its comforting colour but its terrible isolation. Not for many years had Norman seen one pill on its own. His daily ration was an increasing handful, uncountable. On its own, the tiny white spot seemed monstrous in its effrontery. How dare anyone underestimate his capacity to such a humiliating extent. If nothing else, a man had a right to his own dignity. He looked back at the man and laughed. ‘Who d’you think you are?’ he said. ‘A doctor?’r />
  ‘I’m the Minister of ‘Ealth,’ the man said. ‘You can ‘ave that one for nothing.’

  There was hope, still hope. ‘Is there more for money,’ Norman asked.

  ‘I s’pose you know it’s against the law,’ Minister said. ‘Their law. Those lunatics outside.’ He knelt up on the bed. ‘May I quote,’ he said, assuming his ministerial voice. ‘May I quote my opposite number in the shadow cabinet. The outside cabinet,’ he added, needing to make himself clear. ‘Amphetamines,’ he said, rolling the word off his tongue with the agility of a pusher, ‘amphetamines is as dangerous as the hard stuff, and the hard stuff is against the law.’ He slouched down on his bed. ‘In other words, mate, you and me. being as we are on the white kind, the amphetamine kind, you and me are law-breakers. On the outside,’ he added. ‘But in this place, where I ‘ave the honour to ‘old office for as long as there is a government, the only thing against the law, apart from my lousy Mum, is not ‘aving the money.’

  ‘How much is it?’ Norman asked.

  ‘A quid a day. You can ‘ave as much as you want.’

  Norman could hardly believe his good fortune. At home, it had cost him more than twice as much, and then only for a limited supply. He smiled as he recalled his father’s leave-taking. ‘It’s for your own good,’ he had said, and how right he had been. He looked around the ward, and had thoughts of permanent tenancy. Why not? There was a life here, other wards, other people, gardens, women, no family, and above all, unlimited white. He slipped the tablet into his mouth as a token gesture to assure his fretting stomach that more was on the way. Then he remembered that he had arrived in this place moneyless, in pyjamas. Again panic seized him. He turned to the man on the bed. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked. He felt that were they to have some kind of relationship, an exchange of names was indispensible. ‘Mine’s Norman,’ he said.

  ‘I told you. I’m the Minister of ‘Ealth.’

  Norman put out his hand, surprised by the automatic respect he felt for the man. ‘Then may I call you Minister?’ he said.

  ‘At your service.’

  ‘Then,’ Norman hesitated, ‘Minister, may I have some white on account. I arrived here in pyjamas.’

  ‘We ‘ave a provision for that,’ Minister said, ‘since most of us arrive in what you may call our night attire. Cash on delivery or a ten per cent interest charge for an account.’

  Norman had no idea how he was to come by the money, but it was a secondary consideration. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I agree to the terms. I’ll get you the money tomorrow.’ He held out his hand.

  ‘Not now,’ Minister said. ‘They’re in my desk at the office. I’ll bring them along later.’

  ‘Of course,’ Norman said, again with the ready acceptance of the man’s fantasy. ‘But will you be long?’

  ‘After breakfast,’ he said, ‘you and me shall dine on white together.’

  Norman went back to his bed. He turned to look back at Minister and found him staring at him. As an afterthought, Norman shouted across the ward, ‘How long have you been here?’

  Minister continued to stare at him. ‘How long?’ Norman asked again.

  ‘Six years, on and off,’ one of the patients offered. ‘He’s been here for six years.’

  Norman shivered. For a moment, he’d had a strange vision of himself in Minister’s cold and distant stare. He recalled his thoughts of permanent residence, and quickly he decided against it. He never wanted to stare like Minister, no matter how inexhaustible his white supply. ‘Six years,’ he muttered to himself. He had to get out of this place, and quickly. He got up and strode across the ward. The nurse in charge was standing idly by the door. Norman went straight up to him. ‘I want to go home,’ he said. ‘Let me have my things.’

  The nurse straightened and took him by the arm. ‘Have you taken your pills?’ he asked. The arm was urging Norman towards his bed.

  ‘I’ve had my pills,’ he said. ‘Pink ones. It seems we all have pink ones here.’ He heard something new in the tone of his voice that surprised him. It had suddenly and quite voluntarily become upper-class. It helped him to put some distance between himself and the nurse who was so politely yet so authoritatively ordering him to his bed. He shook his arm free. ‘I can go alone,’ he said with great dignity. ‘I’m perfectly all right,’ he added. ‘I shall go to bed and wait for my tea.’

  The nurse relinquished his hold and returned to his sentry post at the door of the ward. Norman lay on his bed. Minister was still staring, and Norman abdicated with a faint smile. The stare did not flicker. Norman settled back on his pillow and let the pain tear through him. Until the after-breakfast white, he would busy himself with plans, plans to escape, and until the escape, plans to get hold of some money.

  Chapter 6

  ‘You ring them up. Bella,’ Rabbi Zweck said.

  ‘There’s no point in ringing so soon. He hasn’t been there long enough for there to be any change.’

  ‘Do me a favour, Bella. Go to the phone.’ They had been sitting at the breakfast table since six-thirty. Both of them, neither of them having slept. Each in their separate rooms, they had waited for the first glimmer of light, and when it came, they slipped stealthily from their beds, neither wanting the other to know of their anguish. They had confronted each other on the landing. Neither referred to the earliness of the hour, yet both felt trapped red-handed in their suffering.

  ‘You go first,’ said Rabbi Zweck nodding towards the bathroom.

  ‘You go,’ Bella said. ‘I’ll wait.’

  They looked at each other positively avoiding the unmentionable. Then Rabbi Zweck could contain himself no longer. ‘Is too early to phone, already?’ he said timidly.

  ‘Wait until after breakfast,’ Bella said. ‘You should go back to bed anyway. You haven’t slept all night, I can see.’

  ‘Sleep. Who should sleep?’ Rabbi Zweck muttered to himself as he went to the bathroom. Inside, he felt sick. He leaned over the towel rail. He was conscious of a movement in his chest that seemed to stutter its way down to his stomach. It was not painful. In fact he drew some relief from it in his curiosity to find out how the movement would end. Then it settled, with ease, in his groin. He heard Bella in the kitchen and the sound of tea-cups and the kettle. The pale sun limped through the bathroom window and he ran the water and felt its warmth through his fingers. He heard himself humming through his beard, without wondering what he had to sing about. Norman’s torment knocked at his whole being, yet there was a sense of peace inside him. He used it to pray, knowing that it would not last. Then he washed himself but took no joy in the freshness, and the sun was like any sun on any morning. He went into the kitchen. ‘What time is it?’ he said.

  ‘A quarter to seven.’

  ‘In hospitals is always somebody by the telephone. Ring please, Bella.’

  ‘But Norman will be sleeping. The doctor won’t have seen him yet.’

  ‘Yes,’ Rabbi Zweck said, ‘you’re right. Let him sleep a little. Is sleep he needs. Lots of sleep.’

  He drank his tea noisily. He wanted to talk to Bella and he wanted Bella to talk to him. He wanted her to give him something to hope for, although he knew he couldn’t accept it. And Bella in her turn, wanted talk, but feared it. And both of them hoped that if you didn’t talk about matter, that matter would cease to exist. After all, they had, by constant reference to it, kept it alive. Perhaps, Bella had often thought, they themselves had contributed to it, had in fact sparked it off. All those great expectations, they’d had of him. All that infant prodigy stuff, with him in short trousers till his beard started to grow, and her in those white socks to clinch the illusion. She didn’t want to think about it. She felt guilty of the part she inevitably played in her brother’s madness, and the part played indeed by the whole family. Norman and his whole life had been an event for them all, it was something that had happened to them and had ultimately nothing to do with Norman at all. Norman might be in an asylum, but it was they, the two of them arou
nd the table, who were in crisis, because their event had gone sour. They had elected Norman for their scapegoat, each in their own way, her father, her mother, her sister and herself, and now the back-lash was on them. Norman was in a nut-house, asserting his rights, the right not to have been chosen. For a moment she saw Norman alone, without sisters or parents, and she saw him whole and sane.

  She turned to pour her father more tea. Something to do, something to kill the time which would soon, in the course of the dreadful day ahead, become unkillable.

  ‘What time is it?’ Rabbi Zweck asked again.

  ‘Ten to seven.’

  ‘Too early still.’ he said.

  ‘Go back to bed, Poppa,’ Bella tried to persuade him.

  ‘What should I do in bed?’ He got up and went to the telephone. His hand rested on the receiver. He would leave it there until it was decently late enough to phone. He kept asking the time until Bella gave him her watch. He refused. It would have eliminated all conversation between them. ‘You keep it,’ he said. ‘Tell me when it’s eight o’clock.’

  Nevertheless, at five-minute intervals, he asked the time again, and his question and her answer were enough to keep the matter of Norman spoken and alive between them. Bella managed to get him back to the kitchen. She tried to get him to eat something, but he had no stomach for it. They sat opposite each other, looking into their cups. They heard the milkman deposit his bottles downstairs.

  ‘So late it is, already?’ Rabbi Zweck asked.

  ‘Eight o’clock,’ Bella said.

  ‘Is late enough,’ he said, getting up. At the telephone, he stopped. He couldn’t do it. He was afraid. He turned to Bella. ‘You ring them up,’ he said.