‘She is a pearl of a child, of the kind all Jewish parents would wish. A little quiet, perhaps, but then silence is golden, isn’t that right?’
Chanele, holding her index finger impatiently between the pages of the book, confirmed that his observation was quite correct.
‘And she will have a nedinye… We are not rich people, but God willing, we are fine.’ His wife had said the same thing word for word; she had the tendency of quoting her husband’s words without divulging the source, as one quotes a proverb or a well-known aphorism. ‘Yes, my Chaje Sore is a good match, and angel, God willing, and at twenty-one she is exactly the right age. Your son is a doctor, isn’t he?’
‘Arthur? You mean that Chaje Sore and Arthur…?’
‘He’s thirty-three, my wife tells me. Exactly the right distance between them. Of course my Malka sees shidduchim everywhere. What do they say? “God couldn’t be everywhere, so he created the Jewish Mamme.” But I like the thought. A doctor from Zurich — it’s a far cry from a chandler or a trader in Herring. Everyone thinks they’re something, while in fact… In a little village it’s easy to be a king. So, Frau Meijer, what do you say? Are we agreed? Shall we shake on it?’
Chanele didn’t pull a face and it wasn’t easy. Hersch Wasserstein looked so ridiculous, kneeling in front of her there in the sand, in his bathing costume like the ones that wrestlers wear at the funfair, and with the straw hat that he had bought two sizes too small. He actually held his hand out to her the way Salomon had done when a cattle trade had been concluded and only needed to be sealed, he really thought he could do the deal here on the spot and then move on to truly important matters like the prices on the lumber market and how last winter’s storms would affect them.
But he was also a father, who wanted the best for his daughter.
Chanele remembered Zalman asking so clumsily for Hinda’s hand, that had been ridiculous as well, and the pair had been happy together, she thought of all the things she herself had done to marry off François, so she didn’t laugh, but just said, ‘Not so fast, Herr Wasserstein. You don’t even know my son.’
‘I know his mother!’ he said and with an elegant motion that would have suited a frock coat better than a sweaty bathing costume, Wasserstein put his hand to his heart. ‘If the son is bentshed with only ten per cent of your charm… What am I saying?’ he broke off and began to negotiate with himself to hike up the compliment, ‘If he has only five per cent, only one per cent…’
‘You don’t know him,’ Chanele repeated, ‘and in any case: you would have to discuss such matters with my husband.’
‘Very sensible,’ said Hersch Wasserstein. ‘Business is men’s affair. I have also made some inquiries. Tell me: this Meijer who has that fine store in Zurich — is he mishpocha of yours?’
‘Meijer,’ said von Stetten, ‘that is a good German name. We had a Meier in our regiment, he even became a district president.’
They were sitting at their regular table in the Strandcafé, and the first round of beers stood still untouched on the table. The six musketeers had a lot of things to discuss, because something that had originated as an idea prompted by beer or grog had quickly assumed concrete forms, so quickly that they were quite alarmed. The management had made the ballroom available to them, for free, and had undertaken, at its own suggestion, to ensure that it was appropriately decorated. The editor of the Kuranzeiger, with whom they had very cautiously discussed their plan, immediately went great guns for it, and contacted all the associations on the island, all of which now wanted to take part in the parade. At that point the mayor of Westerland had suddenly realised that he had long ago conceived this plan himself, and offered not only to greet the heroes of Sedan with a word of welcome, but also to award them the Sylt badge of honour, a distinction normally reserved for hoteliers celebrating their anniversaries or for particularly meritorious wine suppliers.
It would all have been wonderful, if the editor of the Kuranzeiger hadn’t announced in bold letters that a real veteran would deliver a speech for the occasion, relating his own experiences in the great battle.
None of the musketeers wanted to be that speaker, and each of them had a different excuse. Von Stetten argued that the memories of a private soldier would be much more effective than those of an aristocratic officer. Kessler mentioned a stammer that always afflicted him when he appeared in public, Neuberth, he had learned that trick in the men’s singing club, suffered from hoarseness, Staudinger had witnessed none of the crucial events because of his injury and Hofmeister blushingly admitted to his comrades that he had been with the baggage train and not with the fighting troops. So that left only Janki, whose detailed accounts of the battle they had all listened to with such fascination.
‘But he’s a Frenchman!’ Kessler protested. His objections were eloquently demolished by the others. The former enemy being allowed to speak on such an occasion, von Stetten said, was a proof of genuine chivalry, and Neuberth supported him, saying that after the Battle of Sedan even Bismarck had treated the defeated French emperor with exquisite politeness. And in any case, said Staudinger, Comrade Meijer wasn’t really a true Frenchman, because after all he came from Alsace-Lorraine, and that had been a solid part of the German Reich for over forty years.
Which prompted von Stetten to observe that Meijer was also a good German name.
Janki demurred, but not very violently. He already saw himself marching into the ballroom to the sound of the Hohenfriedberger, limping but brisk, he already saw himself standing behind the lectern, supporting himself on his walking stick, whose story he would of course tell, he already saw the expectant faces and already heard the applause. So he drained his beer glass in one go, as he had learned, rose to his feet and said, ‘Comrades! When duty calls, a soldier cannot shirk.’
At the table d’hôte Chanele wanted to tell her husband the funny story of Hersch Wasserstein’s surprise offer, but Janki’s thoughts were so focused on the planned party that he didn’t hear her words. He was very disappointed — he hadn’t expected otherwise, but he was disappointed none the less — that his wife was not at all enthusiastic about his plan, and was even trying to put him off the whole idea. She had never understood, he said, how important it was in this world to be accepted, and what acceptance could be more complete than to be allowed to give the ceremonial address at a Sedan Day party?
‘But you weren’t even at Sedan!’
Janki gave his wife a censorious look and then said in his most charming voice, which had previously been reserved only for his best lady customers, ‘Why don’t we order another bottle of wine, my dear? We have something to celebrate.’
The next day, when the six musketeers were in the Strandcafé again, discussing the details of the big day — in what sequence were they to march in? Did one shake the mayor’s hand after the badge of honour had been awarded, or did one give a military salute? — a strange man approached their table. He was wearing a white linen beach suit with brown street shoes that didn’t match. A straw hat a couple of sizes too small sat ludicrously on his curly hair.
‘Please excuse me,’ said the man, ‘but I had something urgent to discuss with Herr Meijer.’
His voice had an unpleasantly foreign accent.
‘As you see, we are very busy,’ Staudinger said dismissively.
‘It won’t take long,’ said the man, who was clearly used to having things that he had got into his head sorted out on the spot. ‘Five minutes, if we agree. And if we don’t — well, we will have finished even more quickly than that.’