“It will be different when it is the younger one’s time. He was peeking through the curtains.”
Nialie blessed the candles at seven-thirty and the family sat down to their sabbath dinner. Henry regaling Isaac with tales of Moses—“No, no, not your Uncle Moses, but the original. Moses, our Father”—that great angakok of the Hebrews who could turn his red into a serpent, bring forth water from a rock, and part the seas with a command. Only Moses, Henry explained, had seen God plain, as it is written: “And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.”
Later, Henry lowered his son on to the bed he had built for him. The letters of the Hebrew alphabet had been painted into the head-board. It was cleverly done. A seal barked a “shin.” A “resh” was tied to a caribou’s tail. A “daled” danced with a muskox. And out of the raven’s beak there flew the deadly “gimel”. The sign of the great one who had come on the wooden ship with three masts.
Nialie stood in the doorway, watching over them. Her husband, her son. Isaac was stealing again, shop-lifting at the Co-op and the Hudson’s Bay trading post. She had found things that he had hidden. Two packs of Player’s Mild cigarettes, a girlie magazine, a pocket knife, a gold Cross pen. She wanted to talk to Henry about it, but once more she procrastinated. He was so devoted to the boy. He had such faith in him. Nialie wished she could admonish the boy herself, but that was out of the question—impossible—as she was understandably fearful of Isaac’s name-soul or atiq, who was Tulugaq, the name she had cried out immediately before giving birth to Isaac.
While Nialie did the dishes, Henry retired to his rocking chair with the latest copy of Newsweek. In the outside it was still Watergate above all. Eighteen and a half minutes of a Nixon tape had been mysteriously erased. A committee, chaired by a Senator Sam Ervin, was in daily session. The people were perturbed.
Overcome by restlessness, a sudden tug of unease he couldn’t account for, Henry hurried into his parka, slipped outside, and headed for the camp of the Faithful. Mingling with them always calmed his spirits. He could do with that now. But when he got there, he was surprised to find the camp abandoned. They had gone without a word to him. It was odd, very odd. Old Pootoogook was sifting through the camp’s detritus.
“What happened?” Henry asked.
“Somebody came. Somebody from Spence. He was very excited. They gathered their things together fast fast and they were gone,” Pootoogook said, beating his arms to scare off the other scavengers, the swooping ravens.
Ravens, ravens everywhere.
Henry jogged all the way back to the nursing station. When Agnes came to the door in her fading dressing gown he didn’t even apologize for wakening her, which was certainly not like him. All he said was, “I must send a cable. It’s urgent.”
The Faithful had left a message scrawled in the snow:
WE WANT THE MOSHIACH NOW!
Two
MOSES BERGER
CARLETON UNIVERSITY
OTTAWA ONT
THE RAVENS ARE GATHERING. REPLY SOONEST. HENRY.
HENRY GURSKY
NURSING STATION
TULUGAQTITUT NWT
MOSES BERGER NO LONGER EMPLOYED HERE. WE HAVE FORWARDED YOUR TELEGRAM. DAVIDSON. BURSAR. CARLETON UNIVERSITY.
HENRY GURSKY
NURSING STATION
TULUGAQTITUT NWT
I’VE GOT PROBLEMS OF MY OWN RIGHT NOW. REST, PERTURBED SPIRIT. MOSES.
MOSES BERGER
THE CABOOSE
MANSONVILLE QUE
SOMEBODY MUST WARN MR. BERNARD. REPLY SOONEST. HENRY.
HENRY GURSKY
NURSING STATION
TULUGAQTITUT NWT
RABBI JANNAI ONCE SAID THE SECURITY OF THE WICKED IS NOT IN OUR HANDS. BEST. MOSES.
Three
Mr. Bernard, as was his habit, charged out of his chauffeured limousine at 7:50 A.M., cursing the driving rain, the unresolved problem of numerous vacancies in his latest Montreal shopping plaza, the high cost of French-Canadian unrest, the uncertainty of sterling, a spread of northern oil leases as barren as his daughter (though penetrated as often, God knows), and Lionel’s foolish investment in a sinking TV series (all in the name of more pussy, no doubt). Lionel had phoned Mr. Bernard at home that very morning, catching him just as he came out of his shower. “How are you feeling this morning, Daddy?”
“Bad news. I didn’t croak during the night. So it isn’t yours yet.”
“I’m returning your call.”
“I’ve enjoyed bigger honours in my time.”
“Aw, come on, Daddy.”
“The Dow-Jones is down again. Everybody knows we’re going to announce a loss this quarter, but my little cabbage patch has put on another two points. Tell me why?”
“Some, raiders out there are buying in New York, Toronto, and London, but your guess is as good as mine.”
“Mr. Bernard doesn’t guess. He knows. I say it’s a real impatient putz, namely you, warehousing shares and hiding behind the skirts of surrogates.”
“Daddy, if you would only sign those trust papers, delegating me as CEO upon your retirement, I’d stop those speculators cold in their tracks.”
“Whatever you’re into I’m not shaking in my boots. But one thing I want to lay on the line, you whoremaster. You absolutely mustn’t try to buy out Henry or Lucy. There are things you haven’t
been told. Family things. So I want your word. No finger-fucking with Solomon’s crazy kids.”
“Daddy, I swear on the heads of my children.”
“From which marriage?”
“I—”
“I-I-I. And I suppose you expect me to believe that I-I-I doesn’t know how many shares changed hands in Tokyo yesterday?”
“Did you say Tokyo?”
“Don’t act innocent with me,” Mr. Bernard said, hanging up. Lionel immediately buzzed Miss Heffernan. “Get me Lubin on line one and get me Weintraub and put him on hold.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I thought you were in Montreal,” Lubin said.
“I’m flying in this afternoon. Sol, have we been buying McTavish in Tokyo?”
“No.”
“That’s what I thought. I’m putting you on hold. Yes, Miss Heffernan?”
“I’ve got Mr. Weintraub on line three.”
Lionel asked him about Tokyo.
“Not us.”
Shit.
THERE WAS, THEY SAID, ice lodged in Mr. Bernard’s heart, glacial ice, but he had come by it honestly. From Ephraim walking out. A ball of phlegm percolating in his throat, Mr. Bernard negotiated the slippery sidewalk with care, mindful of bones grown brittle with age. Then he swept through the doors of the Bernard Gursky Tower on Dorchester Boulevard, stumbling into unaccustomed darkness—gloom—when he was startled by a sudden and blinding explosion of light.
Oh, my God!
Automatically throwing up his arms to shield his face, Mr. Bernard fell to his knees. He subsided, moaning, to the marble floor, curling into the fetal position, fearing the mindless guns of Arab terrorists even as he had once ridden out the fury of Detroit’s Purple Gang, hunkered down with the bats, two hundred feet below ground, in that freezing talc mine shaft in the Eastern Townships for three terrifying weeks, waiting for Solomon to arrange a truce.
Miss O’Brien, surveying the scene, turned to Harvey Schwartz, flicking him with that special look of hers. “Oh dear,” she said with a certain asperity, “are you ever in for it now, Mr. Schwartz.”