A Conspiracy of Paper (13 page)

I pretended not to find his offer intriguing. “What you propose is undeniably generous,” I said, “but I am still uncertain why you are interested in my business with Balfour or why you should like me to cease perusing the matter.”

“The matter is a delicate one. To begin with, I would not want to see any stench stirred up in regard to our people. Should the newspapers get wind of your search, I fear it should reflect badly upon the Jews of England, and that is bad for all of us—rabbis, brokers, and pugilists alike, yes? The second reason is that the South Sea Company involves itself in some exceedingly complex renegotiations of the dispersal of public funds. I cannot go into detail, but suffice it to say that we are concerned about the high rate of interest on the funded national debt, and we are in the process of convincing Parliament to proceed with measures to aid in lowering the interest, thus freeing the nation of a terrible financial burden. Our plan cannot work if people lose confidence in a web of credit that most find befuddling. Any public suspicion that there is some connection between Balfour’s death and the funds would harm us irrevocably. If the people believe that the funds are rife with murder and intrigue, then I am afraid we shall fail in our plans to ease the national burden of debt, and you, sir, will have cost your King and your Kingdom, quite literally, millions of pounds.”

“I should not like to do such harm,” I said cautiously, “but there is still the matter of Balfour’s concerns. He believes that these deaths are not what they appear, and I believe that I must look further into that matter.”

“You will only be squandering your time and harming your Kingdom.”

“But surely you can accept the possibility that these deaths are more than coincidence.”

“I cannot,” he told me with utter confidence.

“Then how do you explain the fact that Balfour’s own clerk cannot account for the ruin of the estate?”

“Matters of credit and finance are, even to those who make their livings in dealing with them, fantastical, unfathomable things,” he explained in a sharp tone, no longer so polished and friendly. “They are, to most men, on the order of the supernatural rather than the physical. I daresay there is hardly a broker in England, if his death was unexpected, whose papers would not reveal themselves to be inextricably tangled and appear to be lacking.”

“Mr. Balfour’s death was not unexpected,” I observed. “Not to himself, if his death was indeed self-murder.”

“Balfour is hardly a valid example. He took his own life, which proves his inability to order his own affairs. Come, Mr. Weaver, let us not prove our Christian neighbors correct about us by being overly rabbinical in our examination of these things.” He handed me his card. “Forget this Balfour nonsense, and come visit me at Jonathan’s. I shall provide you with introductions to men who will make you rich. Besides,” he said, with a smile I could sense even in the darkness of the coach, “it will save you the trouble of spending the morning in the synagogue with your uncle.”

I politely thanked Adelman as the coach came to a halt outside Mrs. Garrison’s house. “I shall, sir, give this very serious consideration.”

“It should require but little,” he said. “I am glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Weaver.”

I stood and watched the coach drive away, considering his offer in my mind. Perhaps it would be a wonderful thing if I were the sort of man who could dismiss with ease what Adelman had proposed, but the thought of serving such men as he knew had a powerful allure. All he asked in return for his favors was that I not trouble his business, and what objection could I offer to abandoning an inquiry into the death of a father for whom I could recall no fondness?

I turned toward Mrs. Garrison’s house and entered into the warmth of her front hall, but somehow, before I reached the top of the staircase, I had dismissed Mr. Adelman’s offer forever. I could not say if it was because I did not relish the idea of dealing perpetually with men like Adelman, men who believed their wealth gave them not only influence and power, but also a kind of innate superiority to men such as myself. I could not say if it was because there was something compelling in the unexpected ease I had known in the presence of my uncle and aunt, or the displeasure I felt at the notion of severing a connection with a household wherein lived my cousin’s lovely widow. Perhaps it was a combination of these, but I understood before I had even struck a single candle that my duty was clear.

It might be an awkward thing having to tell Mr. Adelman of my decision, but it then occurred to me that I should be surprised if my inquiry brought me again into contact with so busy a man. At that time I could not have even guessed how intricately his affairs would intertwine with my own.

NINE

I
T WAS WITH
ambivalent feelings that I met my uncle the next morning and proceeded to the Bevis Marks synagogue. Perhaps I should mention that not all Jews are so nice in their observation of the Sabbath as my uncle. Some are far more observant, of course, but an even greater number care little for this day of the week or that. Even my uncle’s short beard was thought by many Jews to be of ill fashion, for it was something of a truism that any Jew with a beard upon his face was either a rabbi or a recent immigrant.

Many of the Jews of Iberian origin had long ago been robbed of the knowledge of their rituals, forced, during the time of the Inquisition, to convert to the Catholic faith. These so-called New Christians were sometimes sincere in their conversions, while others had continued to practice their religion in secret, but after a generation or two they often forgot why they secretly observed these now-obscure rituals. When these secret Jews fled Iberia for the Dutch states, as they began to do in the sixteenth century, many sought to regain Jewish knowledge. My father’s grandfather had been such a man, and he schooled himself in the Jewish traditions—even studying with the great Rabbi Manasseh ben Israel—and he raised his children to honor the Jewish traditions.

I, too, had been raised with those traditions, but I had long since found them easier to ignore than to honor. For that reason I was not sure what I expected upon my return to the synagogue. Perhaps I had been making a point of expecting nothing, but I found myself somewhat comforted by the morning service. As when I was a boy, the presiding rabbi was David Nieto, grown much older than I remembered and looking fragile and thin, but still a venerable man who cut a striking presence with his enormous black wig and his wisp of a beard that covered but the tip of his chin.

In Jewish worship, men and women seat themselves in different areas to shield the men from the distracting allure of female flesh. I always believed this custom a wise one, for I have never known Elias to attend church and not return with tales of fashionable ladies and their finery. In the Bevis Marks synagogue, the men sit downstairs in a series of pews that rest perpendicular to the rabbi’s pulpit. The women sit upstairs, where they are meant to be shielded from men’s sight by a latticed wooden partition. The latticing is such, however, that one can see, if not perfectly, glimpses of fair femininity through the gaps.

The synagogue was crowded that morning—more crowded than I had remembered ever seeing it as a boy. There were perhaps three hundred men downstairs and close to a hundred women in the upper section. In addition to the worshipers, there was a pair of young English bucks who came in to observe the Jews at worship. These visits were not uncommon; I recalled having seen curiosity-seekers many times as a boy, and they generally behaved themselves reasonably well, though it was not uncommon for these men to find themselves restless when confronted with hours of Hebrew liturgy. Indeed, visitors rarely hid their perplexity with a service conducted almost entirely in a foreign language and in which men appear to engage in private contemplation as much as group worship. For my own part, I found myself struggling very little with the Hebrew of the prayer book, for I had read these prayers so often when I was a boy that they remained still firmly etched within my memory, and speaking them again made me happy in a way I would not have anticipated. I felt a kind of comfortable pleasure at having a prayer shawl, borrowed from my uncle, cast about me, and I saw him offer numerous approving glances in my direction throughout the long service. I could only hope that he was less observant of the frequent glances I cast upward toward the ladies’ section, where I could discern the beautiful if obstructed face of Miriam through the latticing. Indeed, there was something compelling about catching this anatomized view of her—now her eye, now her mouth, now her hand. The eye was in particular gratifying, for I could not but be pleased that it was cast in my direction as often as it was cast upon her prayer book.

After the conclusion of the service, Miriam and my aunt returned directly to the house, while I remained in the synagogue’s courtyard with my uncle. He engaged in chatter with men throughout the community, while I looked on, pretending to take an interest in discussions about who had moved into and out of the neighborhood. As I stood there, I heard my name called out, and I spun around to face a handsomely dressed man whose face, disfigured from far too many beatings and blade wounds, I instantly recognized. It was Abraham Mendes, Jonathan Wild’s man.

I have rarely been more astonished to see anyone in my life, and I only stared.

Mendes took some small delight in my confusion. He grinned at me like an impish child. “It is a pleasure to see you once more, Mr. Weaver,” he said, with an exaggerated bow.

“What are you doing here, Mendes?” I sputtered. “How dare you follow me here.”

He laughed. Not contemptuously, but out of genuine amusement. Indeed, there was something unaccountably charming about his ugly face. “I follow you, sir? You must think your business most interesting to suspect such a thing. I am here only to attend services for the Sabbath, and upon seeing an old acquaintance, I thought it incumbent upon me to greet you.”

“Am I to believe you are here only to attend the service?” I asked. “I find that incredible.”

“I might say the same of you.” He grinned. “But you may ask around if you misbelieve me. I once again reside in Dukes Place, and have done so for several years now. And though I may not come here every Sabbath, I come often enough. It is your presence that is something of an anomaly.” He leaned forward. “Do you follow me?” he asked in a stage whisper.

I could not help but laugh. “I am astonished, Mendes. You have utterly surprised me.”

He bowed, just as my uncle turned to me. “Shall we return home, Benjamin.” He bowed briefly to my companion. “
Shabbat shalom
, Mr. Mendes,” he said, offering the traditional Sabbath greeting to this villain.

“And to you, Mr. Lienzo.” Mendes grinned at me again. “
Shabbat shalom
, Mr. Weaver,” he said before making his way out of the crowd.

My uncle and I took a few steps before I spoke. “How is it you know Mendes?” I asked.

“There are not so many Jews in Dukes Place that one cannot know them all. I often see him about the synagogue. Not a devout man, I suppose, but fairly regular in his attendance—and in London that is something in itself.”

“But do you know what he is?” I pressed on.

My uncle had to speak more loudly than he liked, for a man selling pork pies had wandered toward the crowd exiting the synagogue to amuse himself by crying out his wares to the Jews. “Of course. Not everyone does. Ask most men, and they will tell you he works as a butler for some great man or other. But in my trade, you know, sometimes I may get a shipment of something or other that is not precisely legal to own, and if I have no buyer, Mr. Mendes can frequently offer me a fair price on behalf of his employer.”

I could not believe what I heard. “Do you mean to say, Uncle, that you do business with
Jonathan Wild
?” I all but hissed the name and spoke it so quietly that it took my uncle a moment to understood what I said.

He lifted his shoulders in a gesture of defeat. “This is London, Benjamin. If I wish to sell a certain kind of goods, I do not always have a choice of buyers, and Mr. Mendes has offered me assistance more than once. I have had no dealings personally with this Wild, and I am anxious to keep my distance from him, but Mendes has shown himself a capable factor.”

“Surely you are not unaware of the risks of having even indirect dealings with Wild,” I nearly whispered.

“Mr. Mendes likes to say that in certain kinds of trade, one cannot but deal with Wild. I have found that to be true enough. Certainly I have heard that Wild is a dangerous man,” he said, “but I trust Wild knows that I too, in my own way, can be dangerous.”

My uncle smiled not at all when he said these words.

W
E RETURNED TO THE
house for a luncheon of bread, cold meat, and ginger cakes, all of which had been prepared the day before. Miriam and my aunt served the food themselves, and when we were finished they placed the dishes in the kitchen for the servants to tend to after sunset.

I retired to the sitting room with Miriam, and I was somewhat surprised not to find myself followed by either uncle or aunt. Miriam looked radiant that day, wearing a striking indigo gown, offset with an ivory petticoat.

I asked Miriam if she would join me in a glass of wine. She politely declined and instead sat in an armchair, turning to a volume of Mr. Pope’s
Iliad
, of which I had often heard but had never inquired into. I poured myself a glass of Madeira from a handsome crystal decanter and, feigning a meditative mood, I sat across from her to watch the expression on her face as she made her way through the work. It was not my intention to stare, for I am a man not entirely unschooled in the social graces, but I found myself entranced as I watched her dark eyes follow the words across the page, her red lips pursed in appreciation.

Perhaps seeing that I regarded nothing but her at the moment, Miriam set her book aside, carefully marking her place with a small strip of cloth. She picked up a newspaper lying about and began leafing through it with an affectedly breezy air. “You have made your uncle very happy by coming here today,” she said, without looking at me. “It was all he could speak of at breakfast.”

“I am astonished,” I said. “Frankly, I suspected he cared for me not at all.”

“Oh, he values family loyalty tremendously, you know. I rather think he has taken a fancy to the idea of reforming you. By that he means, I suppose, having you move to Dukes Place, attend the synagogue with some regularity, and setting you up with responsibilities in his trade.” She was silent for a moment. She turned the page. At last she looked up at me, her face an inscrutably stoic mask. “He told me that you remind him of Aaron.”

I dared show neither contempt nor disagreement to Aaron’s widow. “He told me the same thing.”

“I can see perhaps some family resemblance in the physiognomy, but you strike me as men of different character.”

“I believe I would agree with you.”

There was another pause, one of the many moments of awkward silence that punctuated our conversation. Neither of us knew what to say. At last she had a new topic. “Do you ever attend dances and balls and such?” It was a casual question, or, perhaps, a question aiming to be casual. She spoke slowly and without looking up.

“I am afraid I tend to feel uncomfortable at such gatherings,” I told her.

Her smile suggested that we shared a secret. “Your uncle believes London society is not for refined Jewish ladies.”

I could not understand what she wished to tell me. “My uncle’s opinion may be a very just one,” I said, “but if you do not wish to adhere to it, I do not see what hold he has on you. You are of age and I presume of independent means.”

“But I have chosen to remain under the protection of his household,” she said quietly.

I wished to understand her meaning. For a widow of her standing, accustomed as she was to fine clothes and food and furnishings, to set herself up in her own household would prove an expensive endeavor. I knew not what money Aaron had settled upon Miriam; her fortune had become his at the time of their marriage, and I could not guess how much he might have left to my uncle or gambled away or wasted on a failed business dealing, or lost in any of the other countless ways that men of London see their fortunes shrivel. Perhaps independence was not an option. If that was Miriam’s case, then she merely waited for the right suitor so she might pass out of the hands of her father-in-law and into those of a new husband.

The idea of Miriam’s bind, the suggestion that she felt herself a prisoner in my uncle’s house, made me uneasy. “I am certain my uncle only has your best wishes in his heart,” I attempted. “Did you enjoy the amusements of town with your late husband?”

“His trade with the East made it necessary that he be abroad for long periods of time,” she responded without emotion. “We spent only a few months in mutual company before he embarked for that voyage on which he was lost. But in that time, he showed himself, upon the issue of diversions, to be much of his father’s spirit.”

In my discomfort I found myself digging my thumbnail into my index finger. Miriam had placed me in a difficult position, and I wagered that she was too clever not to know it. I sympathized with her for her confinement, and yet I could hardly disagree with the rules set forth by my uncle.

“I can say from my own experience that London society is not always the most welcoming to members of our race. Can you imagine how you might feel were you to attend a tea garden, strike up a conversation with an amiable young lady, one you might wish for a friend, and then discover that she had nothing but the most contemptuous things to say on the topic of Jews?”

“I should seek out a less illiberal friend,” she said with a dismissive wave of the hand, but I saw by the diminished sprightliness of her eyes that my question had not left her unaffected. “Do you know, Cousin, that I have changed my mind, and desire a glass of that wine.”

“If I pour it for you,” I asked, “would that not be labor, thus breaking the Sabbath law?”

“Do you then think of pouring wine for me as labor?” she inquired.

“Madam, you have convinced me.” I stood and filled a glass, which I handed to her slowly, that I might watch her delicate fingers carefully avoiding all contact with my hand.

“Tell me,” she said after taking a measured sip, “how does it feel to return to your family?”

“Oh,” I said with an evasive laugh, “I do not feel myself to be returning so much as visiting.”

“Your uncle said that you prayed with enthusiasm this morning.”

I thought on how I had seen her watching me through the latticed gate. “Did you find my praying enthusiastic?” I inquired.

Miriam did not understand me or pretended not to. “It should have been very enthusiastic indeed if I could have heard you in the ladies’ gallery.”