Now he had frightened her, now she thought he must be mad or had been drinking. Yes, she was afraid. The loneliness and misery of these months in London seemed to culminate in a great wave of despair and close in upon her heart.
‘I don’t want you to be like that,’ she cried. ‘I don’t want you to give me things. I want us to be home in Alger in a little house, just the sun and the flowers and being happy, and you shall sell in the market-place and I will look after you and give you children.’
She began to cry, closing and unclosing her hands.
‘Julius, my darling, my darling - let’s go home now, before it’s too late, away from this cold unhappy country. I’ve been so miserable here, so terribly miserable.’
Then he smiled; he held out his arms and pulled her to him; he was not a stranger any more but himself again, his hands running over her, his lips in her hair.
‘Why, my little silly, my little absurd love, I haven’t said anything. What are you chittering and whimpering about? You deserve to be beaten. I shall beat you and thrash you. You little foolish, you little nonsense.’
She thrust her head under his chin, she clung to him like a child and demanded to be comforted, and half drugged, she listened to his voice in her ear, calling her ‘his love, his own Mimitte,’ funny words she did not understand, but which seemed to assure her that she would be happy again.
‘Are you cold?’ he asked her.
‘No, not any more,’ she said.
‘I can feel you, shivering and trembling,’ he said, ‘silly one that you are. Are you hungry, too!’
‘Yes, I’m hungry.’
There was a thin watery soup and bread, and a scrap of butter; and then the fire must die down lest they should burn and waste the wood.
‘If we were in Alger now,’ sighed Elsa, ‘we’d be sitting by an open window.You know how the sky is there at night. The air smells different, too, queer and spicy, sometimes moss and scent float down on it from the trees in Mustapha.’
He was sitting on the floor, his head against her knee.
‘In Ahèmed’s house the dancing girls are painting their heels and their nails,’ he said lazily. ‘Naïda is smoking a cigarette and blowing rings into the air, and Lulu is scolding one of the new girls for running away with her ear-rings. I can hear the jingling of her bangles. Down below the musicians are throbbing the drum, and one of them breathes on his pipe, a thin reedy note. It would be warm in the dancing room to-night, Elsa, all the old men huddled together and clutching themselves, and the dust rising from the floor as Naïda stamps and shakes herself. Do you want to be there?’
She would not answer. Supposing she told him the truth and he sent her back?
‘I like to be wherever you are,’ she said.
But he must go on with his teasing of her, hiding his laughter at her pain.
‘Think of the sun in Alger, and the food, and the low divan where you used to sleep. That’s better than this, isn’t it? Look at this bare, empty room, and the old iron bedstead, and the ashes of that fire. You don’t like it, do you?’
She would not give way, though.
‘I love you,’ she said. He took no notice of this. It did not come into his scheme of things at all, this business of words and protestations. She could murmur and whisper if she liked, it was all the same to him.
‘At least there’s one way we can keep warm,’ he said, and pulled her up from the floor, thinking of Nanette with a sigh; and she said anxiously, peering into his eyes:
‘You do love me, don’t you? Tell me you do.’
‘Of course, little idiot; be quiet, anyway,’ and she must be content with that.
Later, when he woke suddenly in the middle of the night for no reason but because she had stirred against his shoulder, he thought clearly as though a cold light had broken into his brain: ‘I’m hungry and poor and cold - but I’m happy - I’m happy. This won’t come again.’
And as he knew this and held it to him, the thing was gone from him, out of his reach, and he whimpered subconsciously like a lost child, and fell asleep and was alone again.
It was often a mystery to old Grundy that his assistant Lévy, this Jew fellow, should work so hard. It surely was not for the money, a low enough wage at any consideration, but with scarcely a word he seemed even from the beginning to have grasped the essentials of the business and to bear all responsibilities upon his shoulders.
The financial side of the little shop was taken in hand most admirably by this new-comer, the week’s takings invariably showed a profit instead of the old deficiency. He had a good manner with the customers, too, and more than this, he had a way of arranging the shop that attracted a passer-by. He knew how to dress a window, he set the cakes and the bread to view in a tasty manner for all the world like a smart confectioner. It was a relief, when you were getting old, thought Grundy, to have someone at hand so reliable and strong who didn’t fuss you, who worked smoothly, who, as it were, ran the whole concern for you. Just a Jewish fellow, a foreigner of sorts who had begged for a job two years past as though he had come to the end of his tether and demanded a charity, and now bore the whole brunt of the work and made Grundy comfortably aware that there wasn’t any need for him to stir from the back parlour behind the shop. To get up late in the mornings, to sit with a newspaper on his knee and blink at it over his spectacles, to take a walk along Holborn and watch the traffic, to look now and again in at the shop and see Lévy behind the counter and customers standing, it was all very pleasant and made him feel he didn’t have to think or bother about things.
So that when his assistant came to him one day, in the autumn of eighteen eighty-three, and said to him: ‘Your lease is up in November, Mr Grundy; what are you going to do about it?’ he stared at the fellow in amazement.
‘How the devil do you know? - what’s it got to do with you? I’d forgotten as it happens.’
‘I thought you had. Well, it’s like this, Mr Grundy. I’m very willing to buy the lease from you.’
Old Grundy could not believe his ears.
‘Buy the lease? Have you taken leave of your senses? Where’d you get the money from to buy me up, I’d like to know?’
This fellow Lévy smiled; he wasn’t going to give anything away. ‘That’s my business, Mr Grundy - enough to say that I’ve had the money put by. For some time, too.’
‘Weren’t you near to starving when I gave you this job three years ago?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Well - what the devil? You looked half starved, thin as a rake - seems to me you’ve always looked as though you didn’t feed yourself. Had you the money then?’
‘Yes - but I’d never touched it.’
‘You let yourself go hungry, and you worked here as you did, and you had money put by - I don’t follow. Are you mad, Lévy, or what?’
‘I don’t think so. If I’d wanted to buy your business then you wouldn’t have sold it. Nor would I have made it pay. Things are different now. People know me round here, and anyway, there’s no need to go into all that. Will you sell your lease, Mr Grundy?’
The old fellow was disturbed, he did not understand; everything was upset.
‘The shop does very well,’ he protested. ‘Why should I sell up? I’m not going to turn out at my time of life. No, thank you.’
Julius Lévy shrugged his shoulders.
‘Of course it’s for you to say,’ he said carelessly. ‘It’s a question of take it or leave it. If you won’t sell I’ll go somewhere else. I’ve got my eye on another business. It will mean you having to shoulder the responsibility of the shop again, that’s all. These last years you haven’t made much of an appearance, though. Customers have forgotten you. If I set up for myself farther down Holborn I’ll take your custom with me.’
He turned away as though the matter was settled. Old Grundy was afraid. He saw the truth of these words, and he didn’t like the fellow’s manner. Unscrupulous, queer.
‘Here,’ he said gruffly, ‘wait
a moment. Don’t be in such a tearing hurry. I’m quite willing to talk it over.’
Julius sat down at the table, a piece of paper and a pen before him, and he waited for Grundy to come to terms. For three years he had been waiting for this moment. He had infinite patience. He dipped his pen in the inkpot and looked up at Grundy, his face immobile, showing nothing of his feelings. But he was laughing inside and he knew he had won. Julius bought the lease and was the owner of ‘Grundy’s.’ He had a new name painted over the door: ‘Lévy - Baker and Confectioner.’
He took Elsa away from the wretched little room in Clifford Street, and installed her in the three rooms behind the shop. He did not tell her much of what had happened for fear she might think he had money to spend.
‘We’ve got to be as careful as before,’ he told her severely. ‘It’s got to be a matter of pinching and scraping. Just because there are three rooms here you needn’t think I have money to burn. No nonsense over fires and food, mind.’
She shook her head gravely. Of course they were still very poor; she would be careful. How clever he was, though, her Julius, only twenty-three and this baker’s shop belonged to him. She did not understand how he had managed. If he was pleased, though, nothing else mattered.
It was certainly better here in a way than Clifford Street, but the noise was worse.The traffic in Holborn never stopped rolling and rumbling past the shop. At the end of a long day her head ached so that she would want to scream. The rooms were dark and gloomy too.Very stuffy in the summer. She had much more to do now than in the old days, keeping these rooms tidy and cooking. She had to cook for the men in the bakery too, and sometimes she must come and help in the shop.
Julius told Elsa that she must busy herself with the confectionery. So now it would be that, from morning to night, late to bed and early to rise, till she was tired - tired, and had no wish for anything but sleep.
Julius’s energy was unbounded; it was as though he could not understand that anyone else could be weary, that anyone should rest for a moment, their head in their hands, back breaking and throat burning.
‘Oh! Julius, don’t scold - for a moment let me be,’ and the thought of another world swam into her tired mind half dazed with want of sleep, a world of song, and sun, and long hours of siesta, and the smell of moss and eucalyptus trees. ‘Shall we ever go back?’ she wondered; and his voice would call through to her from the shop: ‘Elsa, Elsa, the new loaves are through from the bakery; what about those cakes? It’s half-past three; they ought to be ready for the shop.’
‘One moment - they’re coming,’ and she dragged herself from the chair where she had fallen, and put her hand up to brush back her hair, and caught sight of herself in a little mirror on the wall - pale, haggard, two enormous eyes set in a sunken face; Elsa, the little girl who laughed and clapped her hands on the dancing floor in the Kasbah. ‘I’m eighteen,’ she thought. ‘I’m getting old. Soon he won’t love me any more.’ And she took her cloth to seize the hot tray loaded with cakes and carried it out into the shop.
‘They’re late,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t get slack. I don’t want to tell you again.’
A customer in the shop glanced at her curiously. Elsa flushed, ashamed that he should speak to her so before people. She went back into the dark kitchen, coughing, something inside her tearing at her chest. She put her handkerchief over her mouth to stifle the sound. He would be irritated if he heard. He had scolded her for it once before.
‘Keep that cough quiet, can’t you? It sounds bad to a customer. Anyone would think we had an invalid in the place. Nobody will want to buy your cakes if you cough over them like that.’
She told him she could not control it: she would do her best and then it seized her again, like a suffocating wave.
‘You had better buy some lozenges,’ he told her. ‘You surely don’t expect me to get a doctor to see you? Think of the expense. It’s as much as I can do to keep us both as it is.’
She assured him she wanted no doctor, that she was perfectly well.
The work was too much for her, she knew that, but she was afraid to tell him. He would say she was nothing but a slack, lazy prostitute from the south. He often said things to hurt, even when they were alone together, and he had loved her, and she was close to him. Once, lying next to him at night, feeling his hands that she worshipped wandering up and down her body in a caress familiar to her and beloved, she kissed his throat and whispered happily: ‘What are you thinking about?’ And he yawned and said: ‘I was thinking about Nanette, the coloured blanchisseuse - I’d like to have her again.’ When she pushed his hands away from her, her blood curdling, revolting, and turned her back to him, he seemed surprised and asked her what was wrong.
Now, tired from the endless baking, and her cough tearing at her, she thought that perhaps if she had a child she would not have to work. She would be able to rest for nine months. The idea of such rest and tranquility opened itself up to her like a dream of loveliness. The longing stayed with her now continuously; she waited and watched and prayed for a sign that it should be, but the months passed and nothing happened. She realised with a sickening sense of disappointment that now it would probably never be. Perhaps her body was not fit for child-bearing. She did not know about these things. All she could do was to pray to God. Finally she summoned up her courage and casting away her pride she asked Julius why she could not have a child.
He laughed at her and said he supposed she would be bearing one every year if he had chosen to let her.
She imagined that in his way he must be like God, and she felt humble in her ignorance, and she asked him again.
‘Julius, I would like to have a child.’
‘What - another one to feed besides ourselves? Don’t be a fool,’ he said.
‘A child would cost very little,’ she said wistfully. ‘I believe you would be happy when he was born.’
Then he hurt her once more, strangely and inexplicably, like a thrust of a sword in her heart, caring not at all how much he wounded her.
‘I can’t have responsibilties of that kind yet,’ he said. ‘Time enough years hence. Besides, you’re not my wife. I don’t want children by you.’
He changed the conversation and began to talk about the shop. She sat very still, not listening, but some of the warmth that she once bore him, close to her heart, was gone from her for ever.
She did not speak of a child again, often after that day she was silent with him and dull. She wondered now why it was she stayed with him when he gave her nothing of himself but his body.
After some harshness to her, some impatient gesture before a customer or an assistant, she would say to herself: ‘This is the end, I won’t bear it any more. I shall go from him and never come back’; and then sit white-faced and tight-lipped over their evening meal in the stuffy parlour behind the shop, while he ate hungrily, paying no attention to her mood, his mind busy with thoughts he could not share with her, and he would look up suddenly, throwing her a smile and catching her unawares. ‘Mimitte has hidden herself and has put out her claws. Does she want to be loved?’
She would shake her head, her eyes grim, refusing to be drawn, and he with one touch of his lips upon her and one careless hand upon her heart would bring her weakness back to her; nor could she move nor think while he was there, laughing in her ear; but she knew she belonged to him body and soul, that her very blood and her flesh were part of him, her mind in his keeping, and she could never go from him without her own life leaving her.
‘Why do you do it?’ she whispered once, after a bitter word flung at her and a long silence followed by a painfully exquisite reconciliation, and she turned a tear-stained face to his, tears of happiness and distress. ‘Why do you do it?’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said.‘I haven’t done anything but love you. You talk too much.’ And there she would be in the dark again with him forgetting her, a stranger imprisoned in her flesh.
Julius had no time for the moods a
nd fancies of Elsa. She was only a dancing girl from Alger after all. He had never asked her to follow him. She must be sulky and strange because she was a woman, and women had no concern in the business of life as he would have it. Little problems of sex and jealousy were not for him. He had work to do. Work of absorbing interest and intense excitement to him because of his habit of looking far ahead.
Elsa imagined that because he owned at twenty-five a promising baker’s and confectionery business he had reached the limit, and should be prepared to settle comfortably into the position, earning enough to keep the wolf from the door and a little over besides. So that it was only Julius and not Elsa and the two hard-working assistants who realised the significance of a day in March, when a customer, sheltering from the rain, bought a big-sized roll of bread about midday, and being hungry ate it standing up before the counter.
It was Julius who seized a chair and a small table from his own parlour and placed it in the shop, suggesting with a smile that the customer should have his ‘lunch’ in comfort.
Five minutes later a cup of coffee appeared. The customer, pleased at the attention shown to him, drank his coffee, bought a small chocolate cake and a pastry roll, and discovered he had lunched excellently for eightpence instead of spending his usual one-and-sixpence at a neighbouring tavern.
He came again, and the next time there were two other tables beside his own, both of which were occupied by people of his own type, eating rolls and coffee. The following day ham and egg sandwiches were added to the menu and fruit tarts.
The assistants, flushed and weary with the extra work, declared the ‘boss’ to be crazy, and a damned young slave-driver into the bargain. Elsa, her back nearly breaking from bending over the fire, outraged at the coffee and the ham she had been told to pillage from her own little private store, was near to weeping at this new departure from the normal. ‘I was keeping it for our supper,’ she protested stubbornly. ‘Why must our own food be sacrificed to the shop?’