It came from my aunt, written in her native Portuguese, for in her hour of despair her uncertain English had perhaps abandoned her. And it said what I most feared. My uncle’s pleurisy had struck him another blow, and from this one he had not recovered. It came hard and fast, and though for an hour he had struggled most heartily to breathe, his strength could not match the power of the affliction. He was dead.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I WILL SPARE THE READER AND MYSELF FROM THE SCENES OF SADNESS I was forced to endure. I will say only that by the time I reached the house, much of the neighborhood was already in attendance, and the ladies of her acquaintance labored to give my aunt what little comfort can be had in such times. My uncle had been ailing, yes, and his days had plainly been limited, but I now understood that my aunt had never believed the end to be imminent. Eventual, certainly, and more quickly than she would have considered just, but not this year, or the next, or, perhaps, the one after. And now her great friend and protector and companion, the father of their lost son, was now himself lost. Though I have many times been despondent in my solitude, I cannot say that I have ever been so alone as she was without her husband.
The men of the burial society had already sequestered my uncle’s body to prepare it by washing and then placing the lifeless form in a burial shroud. One of these men, I knew, would by custom be asked to stand guard to the body, that it might not be left alone at any time. It has ever been our custom that the body be buried quickly, within a day if possible, and after making inquiries I learned that arrangements had already been made by several of my uncle’s associates, including Mr. Franco. A representative of the Ma’amad, the ruling council of the synagogue, informed us that the funeral would be scheduled for eleven the following morning.
I sent a note to Mr. Ellershaw, informing him that I would be absent from Craven House the next day and explaining the reason. Mindful of Edgar’s warning, I sent a note to Mr. Cobb, informing him as well. I would be indisposed for the next day or two, I told him, and given that I believed his actions had accelerated my uncle’s decline, I advised that he would be wise not to trouble me.
The long night somehow passed. Mourners faded away, and I remained in the house, along with several of my aunt’s closest friends. I begged Mr. Franco to stay but he declined, saying he was too new to the family’s friendship and had no wish to impose himself.
As has ever been the custom, friends brought food the next morning, though my aunt ate little, partaking only of some thinned wine and a piece of bread. Her friends aided her in dressing, and together we walked to the magisterial Bevis Marks synagogue, that great monument to the efforts of Portuguese Jews to establish a true home in London.
Though she was in the horizonless darkness of grief, I must believe that it was some consolation for my aunt to see how full that building was with mourners. My uncle had made no small number of friends among our community, but here too were members of the Tudesco race and even English merchants. If there is one feature of Christian worship I admire, it is that women and men are suffered to sit together, and never have I more lamented our synagogue’s separation of the sexes than that day, wishing to remain with my aunt and give her comfort. Perhaps the need for comfort was my own, however, for I knew she sat with her friends, women who offered her what friendship she desired and who, I must admit, knew her far better than I. To me she had always been a quiet and congenial lady-when I was a child, quick with a sweet or pastry; as an adult, equally quick with a kind word. Her friends would know her inner heart; they would know what to say while I remained too torpid of mind to find the right words.
I, too, had the comfort of friends. Since my return to the neighborhood of Duke’s Place I had been warmly embraced, and I sat with many well-wishers. Also by my side was Elias. I had neglected to inform him of the event-out of pride, I suppose, not wishing for him to see me in my sorrow-but my uncle was well known about town, and he received word in very little time. I must say he surprised me by knowing enough of our traditions to refrain from bringing flowers, as he would to a Christian service, and spoke instead to the beadle of the synagogue about a gift to an appropriate charitable cause in my uncle’s name.
The day was cold and crisp, full of dark clouds but surprisingly free of wind, rain, or snow, and so when we retired to the nearby grave site, the weather seemed to me fitting-hard and cruel without being punishing. It accented our sorrow without distracting us from it.
After the conclusion of prayers, we took turns tossing a shovelful of earth upon the plain wooden casket. Indeed, here was one area in which I believed absolutely that Jews have the right of it over Christians. I do not understand why members of their churches insist on dressing their dead in finery and burying them in ornate coffins, as though they subscribed to the superstitions of the Egyptian kings of old. The body, it seems to me, is a thing without life. The commemoration should be of the ineffable thing that has passed, not the material thing that remains, and such showy ostentation is a product of earthly vanity, not the hope of heavenly reward.
The service concluded, we made our way slowly back to my aunt’s house, where we would begin the traditional ten-day period of mourning. It is the custom of my nation that in this time the mourner is not be left alone but rather visited throughout the day and given gifts of food and other provisions so that the necessities of life need not trouble her. Here I felt great consternation, for I believed it my responsibility to tend to my aunt’s needs, yet I could not stay away from Craven House and Cobb for ten days. There would be too much to do during those days of mourning, and if I was to aid Ellershaw, as was indeed my task, I could not retire from my duties now without endangering Elias and Mr. Franco. Cobb might grant me a day or two, but more than that, I knew, would push the limits of his humanity.
As I walked among the swirling crowd of friends and mourners, I felt a hand upon my arm and turned to see Celia Glade walking beside me. I confess I felt my heart leap, and for a wondrous fleeting moment I forgot the depths of my sorrow and felt joy, unambiguous joy, at her presence. And though the recollection of grief soon returned to fill my heart, there was another moment, a more deliberate moment, in which I allowed myself not to dwell on the disturbing truths of this lady-that I knew not who or what she truly was, if she was a Jewess as she claimed, if she was in the service of the French Crown, and what she wished of me. In that moment I allowed myself to think of those questions as mere trivialities. I allowed myself to believe she cared for me.
I stepped aside, under an awning, and she came with me, her hand no longer upon my arm. Several of the funeral procession studied us with interest, so I entered an alley that led to an open courtyard, a place I knew to be clean and safe and where she followed me.
“What are you doing here?” I asked her.
She had come dressed in black, and these colors showed off the dark of her hair and eyes and the light of her skin to advantage. A slight wind had picked up since the burial, and it blew strands of hair about her dark bonnet. “I heard the news of your uncle. There are no secrets among Jews, you know. I came only to tell you of my sorrow for you. I know you and your uncle were very much attached, and I feel for your loss.”
“It is interesting that you know of my feelings for him, as we have never spoken of it.” My voice was low, steady. I could not say why I took this tack with her except that I so wanted her to be someone I might trust that I could not stanch the urge to thrust all doubt forward.