Two
Hungover, unable to concentrate, Moses reckoned the day would not be utterly lost if he put the books in his cabin into some kind of order, beginning with those scattered on the floor. The first book he picked up was The Unquiet Grave; A Word Cycle by Palinurus. “The more books we read,” it began, “the sooner we perceive that the true function of a writer is to produce a masterpiece and that no other task is of any consequence. Obvious though this should be, how few writers will admit it, or having made the admission, will be prepared to lay aside the piece of iridescent mediocrity on which they have embarked!”
Well, flick you, Cyril, Moses thought, flinging the slender volume across the room and then, because he held Connolly in such high regard, promptly retrieving it. There was a Blackwell’s sticker on the first page and a notation in his own handwriting: “Oxford, 1956.”
That, of course, was the year Moses caught his first glimpse of the fabulously rich Sir Hyman Kaplansky, seated at Balliol’s High Table, chattering with two of the most tiresome of the dons. Several weeks passed before Moses ran into Sir Hyman again, this time in Blackwell’s bookshop, a malacca cane tucked under the old man’s arm. Sir Hyman introduced himself. “I read your essay on Yiddish etymology in Encounter,” he said. “Excellent, I thought.”
“Thank you.”
“So I hope you won’t take offence if I point out a small error. I fear you missed the mark on the origin of ‘kike’. Mind you, so did Partridge, who cites 1935 as the year of its first usage in English. As I’m sure you know, Mencken mentioned it as early as 1919 in his American Language.”
“I thought I said as much.”
“Yes. But you suggest the word was introduced by German Jews as a pejorative term for immigrants from the shtetl, because so many of their names ended in ‘sky’ or ‘ski.’ Hence ‘ky-kis’ and then ‘kikes’. Actually the word originated on Ellis Island, where illiterates were asked to sign entry forms with an ‘X’. This the Jews refused to do, making a circle or a ‘kikel’ instead, and soon the inspectors took to calling them ‘kikelehs’ and finally ‘kikes’.”
Another month passed before there came the summons from Sinai.
“There’s no accounting for taste,” Moses’s history tutor said, “but it seems that Sir Hyman Kaplansky has taken a fancy to you.”
Sir Hyman, the tutor explained, was a collector of rare books, primarily Judaica, but also something of an Arctic enthusiast. He owned one of the largest private collections of manuscripts and first editions dealing with the search for the Northwest Passage. A Canadian university, the tutor said, McGill, if memory served, had asked to exhibit his collection on loan. Sir Hyman acquiesced and now required somebody to compile a catalogue. “I imagine,” the tutor said, “that you could manage the job nicely in a fortnight. He will pay handsomely, not that you were about to inquire.”
On his next trip down to London, Moses made directly for Sam Birenbaum’s office in Mayfair. Sam, overworking as usual, if only to prove himself to the network, had barely time for a quick pint and shepherd’s pie in the pub section of the Guinea. Then, back at the office, he had the librarian feed Moses the thick file on Sir Hyman.
The elusive Sir Hyman was reported to have been born in Alexandria, the son of a cotton broker, and seemed to have made his fortune speculating on the currency market in Beirut, before settling in England shortly before World War Two. He was knighted in 1945 for his services to the Conservative party, it was said, and went on to amass an even greater fortune as a merchant banker and property developer. The immediate post-war period, however, appeared somewhat murky, Sir Hyman entangled in at least two botched ventures. In 1946, operating out of Naples, Sir Hyman bought two superannuated troop ships and a number of freighters of dubious seaworthiness, incorporating a shipping line. In the end, he had to write off his fleet, selling his tubs for a pittance. Then one of the freighters, still bearing the emblem of his defunct line, a raven painted on the funnel, was caught trying to run the Palestine blockade and diverted to Cyprus by a British destroyer. Fortunately Sir Hyman was able to prove that he had unloaded the ship in question six months earlier, and said as much in his letter to the Times.
Then, in early 1948, there was another unsuccessful flutter, this time in film production. Sir Hyman, known to be an aviation buff ever since he had learned to fly in Kenya, confounded his admirers in the City again, acquiring a villa in Valletta and announcing that he was going to produce a film about the air war over Malta. With this in mind, he began to recruit former World War Two pilots and to assemble a small air force, comprised largely of Spitfires. But the film never went into production, Sir Hyman unable to settle on a satisfactory script. He returned to London in May, assuring a reporter from the Financial Times that he would not plunge into unfamiliar waters again, and allowing that his air force had ended up in a knacker’s yard, costing him a pretty penny. A day later David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the State of Israel, which he said would be “a light unto the nations.” The new state was immediately attacked by troops from Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, Egypt, and Iraq.
The most recent addition to the file concerning Sir Hyman was actually no more than a typed memo from a researcher, requesting a comment regarding an interview Guy Burgess had given when he had surfaced in Moscow only the day before.
“The Bolshie who did a bunk?” Sir Hyman had said. “I hardly knew Burgess and, furthermore, I do not appear on television.”
The file included magazine articles about Sir Hyman’s country estate not far from Bognor Regis on the Sussex coast. The estate, its art treasures and antiques, its garden statuary, had been featured in both the Tatler and Country Life. Lady Olivia was an accomplished steeplechase jumper. She also bred corgis.
Moses longed to see the estate, but, as things turned out, he was summoned to Sir Hyman’s flat in Cumberland Terrace. Moses arrived punctually at four and was shown into the library by the butler.
Left alone, Moses scanned the shelves encountering, for the first time, names that would come to be embedded in his souclass="underline"
Sir John Ross, Hearne, Mackenzie, Franklin, Back, Richardson, Belcher, M’Clure, M’Clintock, Hall, Bellot.… Then Moses drifted over to take a closer look at a painting that hung over the fireplace. An Eskimo primitive. Against a stark white background a yellow ball of sun bled red rays. Below, a menacing raven plucked at a floating human head.
“Ah,” Sir Hyman said, entering the library, “I see that you’ve been seduced by the deceitful raven.”
“Is that what it is?”
“Once a raven swooped low over a cluster of igloos and told the people that visitors were on the way. If the people did not encounter the travellers before nightfall, he said, they were to make a camp at the foot of the cliff. The visitors did not turn up and the people built new shelters at the foot of the cliff, as instructed. When the last stone lamp in the igloos was put out the deceitful raven flew straight to the top of the cliff that loomed over the igloos. On the summit, perched on an enormous overhang of snow, he began to jump, run, and dance, starting an avalanche. The trusting inhabitants below were buried, never to waken again. The raven waited for spring. Then, when the snows melted, revealing the bodies of the unfortunate people, he amused himself emptying their eye sockets. According to legend, the raven did not lack for tasty provisions well into summer. What would you say to a sherry?”