A CANOPY OF STARS
BY
STEPHEN TAYLOR
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First printing October 2010
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Copyright Stephen Taylor 2010
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All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or any portions thereof, in any form.
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This book is available in print at most on line retailers.
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All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Published BY Stephen Taylor at Smashwords
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Table of Contents
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PROLOGUE
The power of emotions can be overwhelming. For now; now there was only annoyance; quite low, it would hardly act as a counterweight on the other side of the scales that measure such things. There was no hint in Julia’s mind of the more powerful emotions that lay in wait for her; that would ambush her, change the way she thought, the way she behaved; that would change her very being in the weeks, the months to come. Emotions that would be both, at the same time, pleasurable and vindictive; emotions that she had no comprehension even existed, yet would bite into her, savage her. Her sheltered life had so far protected her from the force of them, she was little more that an emotional virgin to match her virginal physical state. But now; now was just another day – or so she thought: but that was not to be.
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Julia looked forlornly out of her carriage window as it rattled past St Paul’s Cathedral, the din of the iron clad wheels and the clatter of the hooves on the cobbled streets hardly registering in her mind. She was angry with her father. He was sat facing her but she did not want to look at him. George Carmichael was a renowned lawyer and barrister. His head was bowed studying the papers on his lap; the rocking carriage making them difficult to read.
‘It’s no good being angry at me,’ he said without looking up from his papers, ‘I don’t make the rules. All court personnel, from the judges and juries to the lawyers and court officials, are men.’
‘I know; the only women allowed are the witnesses. I have to be a spectator in the gallery.’ She recited it back to him the way he had said it to her many times before.
‘I shouldn’t have indulged you and let you study under me. It’s given you expectations that I can’t fulfil.’ His tone was philosophical.
‘I’m the best student you have ever had; you’ve said so yourself.’
‘That’s true, my dear, but the best I can do is let you clerk for me.’
‘So why can’t I do that from the courtroom?’
‘Sorry my dear, but you just can’t. You’ll have go into the public gallery and take your notes from there.’ He reached into his waistcoat and took himself a pinch of snuff. Julia turned her head away; the aromatic smell of it was not one that she liked.
The carriage turned onto Old Bailey Street and Julia looked back out of the window. She sighed as they passed the semicircular brick wall immediately in front of the courthouse. They went around the rear to the covered colonnade for the carriages. George Carmichael held out his hand as his daughter stepped down from the carriage steps. He kissed her on the cheek affectionately and she smiled back, but only out of politeness.
‘Will you be alright in the gallery?’ He wanted to indulge her as he often did, but was unable to, ‘You’ll have quite a wait for my case.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ she said, ‘I find it interesting sometimes to watch the other cases. The poor souls who can’t afford counsel, doing the best they can to represent themselves.’
‘The ‘Judge is there to help them,’ said her father matter-of-factly.
‘Sometimes; but sometimes they are convicted and leave the court without even knowing that.’
‘Aye, the lack of education is a terrible thing.’
She gave him a wry smile. ‘I never know whether you really care or not,’ she said as she walked away.
‘Julia,’ he called after her. She turned and stepped back to him. ‘You are twenty-two now, my dear. Isn’t it time you put all this lawyer nonsense behind you and found yourself a nice husband.’
‘I’m too plain for that. A husband won’t take me.’
‘Now stop that talk at once,’ her father wagged an admonishing finger and frowned, ‘you are a most attractive young lady.’
‘Bless you Father, but you see me through a father’s eyes. I know I’m too tall and too plain.’
‘Nonsense,’ he snapped, hurrying away, but in his heart he knew what she said was true. Julia had inherited his physique rather than that of her petite mother. She was unfashionably tall and towered over other women, but she had a natural elegance. Her features were angular rather than delicate; even so, she was a handsome woman, if not a beauty by the standards of the day. It irritated him that she could not see that.
Once in the gallery, Julia perched her portfolio precariously on her lap and lifted the lid. In the corner was a hole purposely made to take an ink well; she opened the hinged stopper and placed her pen in the groove next to it. The gallery was not busy today and there was an empty chair beside her on which she placed her satchel. She would need to balance that on her lap as well if the gallery filled up. She looked down over the courthouse; it had only one courtroom, but it was vast. Four large brass chandeliers hung from the ceiling to add majesty to the auditorium and she thought to herself that it must frighten the wits out of the prisoners. Searching the room beneath her she could see the large semi-circular mahogany table provided for the counsel to plead from, but her father was not yet there, his case was much later.
The business of the session got underway, and Julia took the opportunity to scribble some preparatory notes in her portfolio. The commissions were read and the justices seated. She didn’t look up as the jury was sworn and they started to examine the bills of indictment as produced by the clerks, but the shuffle of feet broke her concentration when the prisoners, chained together at the ankles, were brought into the court to await their arraignment. They were, in the main, a rag-bag collection of the low-life of London, but Julia still had a compassion for them. She was an inherently compassionate person. She was a Christian and that coloured her view of humanity, but that in itself made her different from the majority of her fellow worshippers, who seemed only to pay lip-service to the concept of forgiveness. It annoyed her that, when it came to it, so many had so little charity in their hearts. Julia shivered as she contemplated the fate of many of these poor souls. She knew the laws were made by the rich with the purpose of protecting their property. But worst of all, she knew that nearly two hundred offences carried the death penalty. If found guilty, the best these poor wretches could hope for was transportation; the worst was the hangman’s noose.
The prisoners had been brought from the cells in the basement and before that from the disease-ridden dungeons of Newgate Prison, which was attached to the courthouse by a brick-walled passage. Their ruffian clothes were now even more dishevelled, but one man stood out from the others. Somehow he had managed to keep himself reasonably clean. His clothes, although dirtied, had quality that the others didn’t have. He was taller than the others too and Julia found herself looking at his handsome face; he had such a noble aspect. Then she chided herself for being silly and returned to her scribbling.
As each indictment was read out, the prisoner it named was brought, with shackles struck off, to the bar of the court and asked, ‘How do you plead?’ Most pleaded not guilty, and twelve jurors were sworn from the panel provided by the sheriff. The Clerk then called for anyone to give evidence against the accused. The witnesses who came forward for the Crown were sworn to tell the truth. The jury then gave its verdict.
Julia took little interest as the cases sped by, many lasting no more than a few minutes, perhaps half an hour for a felony. Still scribbling she became aware of some confusion below her and looked up from her papers. The name ‘David Neander’ had been called and the tall, handsome man, his shackles struck off, was brought to the bar. He was indicted for the felony of stealing, on the 10th of December, a wether sheep to the value of forty shillings, being the property of Herbert Bond. The confusion had come about because the accused was a foreign Jew and despite the same jury having sat for several cases, Judge Harcourt Cardew now ordered a jury of half English and half foreigner. There was a buzz of noise as the old jurors shuffled out and the new ones took their places. Saul Hugeunnin, sworn in as the interpreter, asked the prisoner how he was to plead. The normal response was not forthcoming and Julia, looking at the interpreter’s face, could see he was confused. Amused, she put down her pen and craned forward to watch the proceedings below.
Clearly irritated, the Clerk snapped, ‘How does he plead?’
‘He doesn’t,’ said the interpreter, ‘he says that Yiddish is not his first language, sir.’
‘So what is his first language?’ asked the Clerk, an expression of increasing exasperation crossing his features.
‘German, sir, but he says he is fluent in French and Latin as well. He would like an interpreter in one of these three.’
Laughter broke out around the court, and Julia also smiled at the accused man’s colourfulness. The gallery was to his right, above the jurors, and she could see them turning to each other enjoying the amusement.
Judge Harcourt Cardew clearly considered the man’s request impertinent. He scowled and called out for order, his full-bottomed wig swishing from side to side as he shouted to each side of the court. ‘Did he impart that request to you in – err, Yiddish?’ he asked Saul Hugeunnin when the noise had died down.
‘Yes, Your Honour.’
‘Then that will suffice; let that be an end to it.’ It was his ruling and he emphasised it with a dismissive wave of his arm.
Julia thought to herself that the prisoner my have inadvertently made a great mistake; the Judge may take against him. Justice might be hard to find this day. She unexpectedly felt concern for this unknown foreigner, although she could not have explained why. She looked across at the Judge, his elevated position and his scarlet, ermine-lined robe emphasising his importance, and saw the contempt etched large on his features. And then she understood why. The prisoner’s request for a different interpreter should have told the Judge that this was an educated man; not just another ignorant vagabond, but Judge Harcourt Cardew saw only a Jew before him and he was making no attempt to hide his displeasure. Julia leaned forward in her chair and listened intently; she wanted to know this man’s fate.
*
Frankfurt 1816
When I was 14, I first became aware of the animosity towards my family. No, that’s not quite true. I was aware of it from my very first memories of childhood consciousness. Even though I couldn’t articulate exactly what it was, I knew it was there; that somehow we were different from other people. For a start we were Jewish, but German speaking Jews; Papa insisted on that. So we were not German and not quite part of the Jewish community either – they spoke Yiddish, or to be more precise a variation called Judendeutsch. It was my responsibility to see my brother Moses and my sister Henriette safely home from school. We attended the Jewish school on the main road, the Allerheiligen Strasse. Papa taught at the school but he stayed behind to work after our lessons. It wasn’t a long walk; we turned onto the Bornheimer Strasse, which led onto the Judengasse, and then cut through to the Kiostergasse. We lived on the corner of the Kiostergasse and Nonnengasse. It was no more than six hundred metres.
At eleven years old, Moses was three years younger than me and Henriette was two years younger than him. They were both difficult to control; after spending all day at their studies cooped up in the classroom, all that energy wanted to explode. They wanted to run and jump, but Papa had told me that we needed to be as inconspicuous as possible until we were home. This particular day was not exceptional, it was like any other, we were on the Allerheiligen Strasse; but there was a German on the path coming towards us. He yelled out, ‘Dud mach mores’, which roughly meant, ‘Jew pay your dues’. I ushered Moses and Henriette into the street out of his way and then I took off my hat and bowed as I had been taught to do. That’s what Papa had told me. But there was a mule, harnessed to a cart, on the road. It was a fiercely hot summer’s day and the animal stank. Dozens of flies danced around it and the occasional ineffectual wafting of its mangey tail did little to dissuade them from getting at the main attraction: its festering foul-smelling droppings. The animal was obviously parched and uncomfortable in the heat of the burning sun, it snorted at us for getting in its way, irritated, although it was going nowhere without its master.
‘Loeb, why do we have to walk in the street?’ asked Henriette.
‘Because we’re Jewish,’ I answered without really thinking about what I was saying and that seemed to be enough to satisfy Henriette and Moses. I was their big brother Loeb, and I knew what I was talking about. But for the first time the animosity towards us troubled my mind and I realised that the fact that we were Jewish was no answer – it was merely a statement of fact. As we walked home that thought began to bother me. I had been taught about the Judenstattigkeit, the Jew’s Statute. It imposed severe limitations on our freedoms, banned us from owning land, said what commodities we could trade in, where in the city we could go and even had a clothes ordinance saying what we could wear. All this started to trouble my mind.
We turned onto the Judengasse, the Jewish Alley, and suddenly we seemed to be in darkness and our eyes needed time to adjust. The street was cobbled but there was no sunlight to pick out the individual cobbles. I shivered, despite it being high summer the Judengasse seeming to be several degrees cooler that the rest of the city. That should have been pleasant and yet it wasn’t; there was an open sewer that ran in shallow ditches. The air was foul and you could smell the street well before you got there. Papa had told me all about the Judengasse. It was originally located outside the east wall of the medieval city. It was long, about 330 metres long, but just three to four metres wide, with three town gates. These gates used to be locked at night as well as on Sundays and Christian holidays. For hundreds of years it had been the home to all the Jews of the city; the city authorities demanded that of them – they had created a ghetto. The population grew, of course, but the city senate refused to allow the ghetto area to expand. The place had been massively overcrowded, but then, as Jews we were non-citizens; we were at the mercy of the Lutheran senate of aristocratic families and rich merchants: I realized at that moment that they hated Jews.
I didn’t like the Judengasse, it gave me the creeps. It was as though all colours had been banished; it was all shades of grimy grey through to demonic black. The people had been forced to build upwards. Four stories tall, the brick, wood and slate buildings towered above us, and there they were topped off by garrets overhanging at their tops so that they were nearly touching the houses on the other side of the street. The semicircular road snaked round, a mass of terraced buildings arching into the sky above us, leaving the road in permanent twilight. Our footprints suddenly echoed back at us and it always made us involuntarily quicken our steps until we could cut through onto the Kiostergasse and back into the light. Moses always made a point of saying he wasn’t scared, but I knew he was only whistling in the dark.
Papa had grown up in the Judengasse with Uncle Meno until they were both sent away to the Freischule - the Free School - in Berlin. They weren’t in the city twenty years ago. In July 1796 French revolutionary troops besieged and shelled the city. I had learned all about that at the Jewish School. The northern part of the Judengasse was hit and started to burn, destroying about a third of the houses. The ghetto was at an end, despite the anti-Jewish city senate, which was now forced to allow the Jews to leave the Jewish quarter.
We cut through an alleyway onto the Kiostergasse. We could see our house as soon as we entered back into the brilliant sunshine. I cupped my hand over my eyes at the sight of it. It was only a matter of metres but it was a million kilometers from the isolation of the Judengasse. I would painfully learn later, however, that the sensation of isolation was still fixed in the psyche of German and Jew alike.
We lived on the corner of the Kiostergasse and Nonnengasse. Our house was quite a big house. It was three stories tall and we lived on the third floor with Mama and Papa. I say our house, but it was really Uncle Meno’s house. He was rich, or at least I thought he was at the time. Uncle Meno was a doctor. It was one of the few professions that Jews were allowed to follow. He was very successful, not only with rich Jewish families but also the rich German families. Papa had told me that the German‘s looked distastefully on our religion as being ritualistic and superstitious. But in some paradoxical sort of way that view seemed to assist Uncle Meno. Jewish doctors were somehow seen as having mystical powers that Germans didn’t posses. It made Uncle Meno chuckle and he did nothing to dissuade his patients of this. I liked Uncle Meno; he indulged us. He had no children of his own and he liked spending time with us – well, especially me, and I helped him in his pharmacy making up the potions.
When Moses and Henriette saw our house they ran ahead excitedly. I was happy to let them go now. They ran into the open side door and up the stairs pulling themselves up by holding onto a braided rope that worked as a banister, their footsteps thudding against the steps so that they echoed around the house like a drummer pounding away at a kettle drum.
‘Children, Children!!’ I heard Mama saying as I followed them up the stairs. ‘Uncle Meno is at work downstairs. Be a little quieter can’t you?’ She said this every day, but there was such a release of energy after being at school that they couldn’t help themselves. As I entered the kitchen, Mama was stood with her hands on her hips but she was hiding a smile. She was glad to see us home again.
The front door was reserved for patients. The whole of the ground floor was Uncle Meno’s place of business. He had his office and a consulting room and a room at the back which was used as his pharmacy. His office fascinated me. It smelled of leather and beeswax. All along one wall was a bookcase filled with large medical textbooks. I was allowed to look in them when Uncle Meno was with me. He would look at me over his spectacles and chuckle when my face contorted at the sight of the gruesome drawings that assaulted my senses. He used to chuckle a lot, Uncle Meno. That’s what I remember of him.
Mama gave us something to eat and drink, and then sent us out to play. She knew we needed to get rid of all that energy before the evening meal. I was still troubled, however, and I just sat on the step by the side door. We had been in Frankfurt for just over a year by then, but we hadn’t made many friends. When we did play in the streets with some of the neighborhood kids, they didn’t always come back to play the next day. That was disappointing but I hadn’t really thought about the reason for it until now. The Jewish kids dressed and spoke differently to the German kids, but we didn’t. We dressed like them and spoke German.
Moses and Henriette were playing a game of dare. Henriette had dared Moses that he wouldn’t run down the full length of the Judengasse and knock on the front door of the Rothschild’s house, No.148, on his own. Believe it or not, old man Meyer Amsell Rothschild still lived there in the Judengasse, despite having built a banking empire, which he now ran with his sons. He was one of the richest men in the world, we all knew that. People said the Rothschilds had built mansions all over Europe, but he still lived here where he had always lived.
Our Moses was a plucky little so-and-so. No matter how frightened he was he was always up for a dare. Henriette, on the other hand, had worked that out and could play him like a fiddle. Although she was only nine she was somehow the dominant one of the two. She was clever at her studies as well, nearly as good as I was. She was the apple of Papa’s eye. I was a bit jealous, if truth be known. I knew that Papa loved me; it was just that he seemed to expect so much more of me. If she wanted his attention, she just climbed onto has lap and snuggled up to him. No matter what he was doing or who he was talking to, he gave her his full attention. She was good at getting everything she wanted, our Henriette.
I should have stopped Moses running off to the Judengasse but I was too absorbed in my reverie. I saw him set off and disappear around the corner of the cut through alley, but I wasn’t concerned for him. He was gone about four or five minutes, but then came running back, his pounding boots announcing his return long before we could actually see him. His face was crimson; he was panting heavily and the thumping of his heart was evident from the tremor in his voice, but he pumped out his little chest in pride. ‘See, I told you I wasn’t afraid,’ he lied.
That evening after the family meal, I was desperate to talk to Papa, but I had to wait. Papa had a visitor and they were talking politics as usual. Papa was a journalist as well as a teacher and he edited a political journal, much to my mother’s displeasure. Moses and Henriette had gone to bed; I was allowed to stay up longer than them, but the man seemed to stay forever and I knew that I too would be sent to bed before too long. Papa and the man and Uncle Meno were arguing, or it seemed to me that they were, but then Papa liked a good argument though he called it ‘debating’. Eventually the man went and I saw my chance, but before I could say anything, Mama spoke.
‘Papa, you should be careful,’ she always called him ‘Papa’.
‘Stop fussing Mama, I know what I’m doing,’ he always called her ‘Mama’.
‘The city authorities don’t like the journal and the elders at the Jewish school don’t like what you’re doing either. You need that job, Papa.’
‘And we need that extra money, Mama.’
‘Where is this extra money, I never see much of it?’
Papa went quiet for a moment. I think Mama had caught him out in his fib. I was surprised as I thought Papa knew everything about everything, but I saw my chance.
‘Papa,’ I said, ‘why does everybody dislike us?’ Suddenly I was aware of the atmosphere changing. Papa looked round at me, but at the same time so did Mama and Uncle Meno. I thought I had said something wrong and I felt myself blushing.
‘You’re a good boy, Loeb,’ interrupted Mama, ‘nobody dislikes you.’
‘I don’t mean that, Mama,’ I said.
I realize now that the atmosphere had changed because I had asked one of those questions. Those questions in life that, on the face of it, are very simple, but yet are the hardest to answer; they tap into so many other difficult and disparate concepts. But it was also a rights-of-passage question, a question that a young boy asks when he advances to being a man. In my case I needed to establish my sense of self, but that was not so easy, we were not a normal family. I heard Papa sigh heavily; he knew it might be a long night.
‘You ask a good question my boy,’ said Papa, ‘and it’s true that maybe it would be easier for us if we were strict in our religious observance.’
‘So why aren’t we, Papa?’
‘Because the old orthodoxy comes with strict ritual and superstition and we have taken the decision to educate ourselves. I don’t like the ignorance of the common Jew. They dress and speak differently and contribute to their own isolation.’
I think I understood that; Papa believed in reform, I already knew that. But it was not the answer I was looking for. ‘But where are all our relatives, Papa? At the Jewish school all the other kids seem to be related to each other one way or another, but the only relative that Moses, Henriette and I have is Uncle Meno.’
‘Ah,’ said Papa, sighing deeply. ‘Yes, our family never forgave your grandfather for sending Uncle Meno and me away to be educated at a German Free School. They look on us as bad Jews. Mama’s family doesn’t speak to her either.’
‘So our own people don’t like us and the German’s certainly don’t,’ I said. ‘You dress and speak like a German, but you are still barred from most professions, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, Frankfurt is the worst of the German cities; it’s the most anti-Semitic.’
‘So why did we come back here, if you knew that?’
Papa looked at me intently for some moments. Then he looked down at the floor and he seemed to drift away from us. He scratched the nape of his neck in contemplation. It was as though my words had revived a long lost memory; a very painful memory. I looked at Mama and I could see the concern on her face. I had seen Papa like this before and we kids knew better than to bother him when he was like this. Melancholy was a frequent visitor to him and it upset Mama because she didn’t know how to deal with it. The silence seemed to go on forever and I felt that I needed to do something.
‘I’ll go to my bed,’ I said. It was the best I could come up with at fourteen. I headed for the bedroom that I shared with Moses and Henriette, but Uncle Meno took me by the arm.
‘After school tomorrow,’ he said, ‘you come and help me in the pharmacy, yes?’ He winked at me as if to say, I’ll explain it all to you then.
*
Julia Carmichael took a blank piece of paper from the back of her portfolio. She placed it on top of her other working papers and wrote down two words that would stand as heading – David Neander. Then she wrote down a note that said, Judge won’t allow the prisoner access to a proper translator. Then she put down her pen and listened intently.
Herbert Bond was the prosecutor of the charge and he was called and sworn. The Clerk called upon him to give his testimony.
‘I am a butcher in the Strand; I lost a sheep on the 10th of December, out of a field at Mary-le-bone. I swear to the skin of the sheep that was found upon him.’ He spoke as though he had been rehearsing it for days, which he probably had, thought Julia, as Bond pointed at the accused.
‘Have you seen the side of the sheep?’ asked Judge Harcourt Cardew.
‘Yes, my mark was across the loins. I marked it down the head and across the shoulders, and there were two crosses besides across the loins, which is the mark that the salesman puts upon them.’
‘I suppose the salesman puts his mark upon the whole lot that he is to sell that day?’
‘Yes sir’.
‘Was your own mark so particular that you could venture to swear to it?’
‘There was my own mark upon it, a cross with red ochre. Butchers generally mark different marks. I can venture to swear to the skin from that mark.’
The next witness was the Watchman, John Henry. He was sworn in and gave his story. ‘I am a shopkeeper on Oxford Road. The 10th December was in the period when it was required of me to act as the Watchman for the area. I met the prisoner between seven and eight in the morning, at the top of Oxford Road, towards the fields and I saw that he had a bundle on his shoulder. I retreated after he passed me, about ten or fifteen yards, then I went forward and laid my hand on his bundle and perceived it was some animal. I then followed him for about two hundred or two-hundred-and-fifty yards, but he realised that I was following him and he threw away the bundle and endeavoured to escape. I then laid hold of him and he told me he was promised a shilling by a farmer, or some man in the country to take the bundle to Oxford Road. I asked him why he threw away the property and he answered me in French - he said he could not speak English, Your Honour - that the property had only been delivered to him, to take it to Oxford Road.’
Julia picked up her pen again, and jotted down another note. How did the Watchman know what he said? Can he speak French?
The Watchman continued. ‘I brought him back to the bundle, but he would not take it up any more. I asked him where he lived. He said he had no abode. I asked him again to take up his bundle and go with me but he said he would not, so I, with two or three more young men, put the bundle upon him and went with him to the Watch-house, where we opened the bundle. It was the hind part of a sheep with half the skin on, which belonged to that flesh. It was cut right through and was the hind part - the two hind legs. We examined the thief, but he would not speak English, any more than now. He insisted that this bundle was given him by a man in the country, to take it to Oxford Road. He did not say what particular place; just that he was to take it to Oxford Road. Mr Bond then came and said that he owned the skin.’
A juror stood and asked, ‘Had the prisoner a knife?’
‘We did not examine him at the time,’ said the Watchman, ‘but when we did, which was about four hours after he was taken, he had no knife upon him.’
He was not armed and did not resist arrest. Julia jotted down the note.
The Clerk to the Court then called on the prisoner to give his defence and David Neander came to the witness box. Julia looked down at what seemed to her such an exotic figure. He looked around the courtroom in bewilderment, then up at the gallery and she caught a glimpse of his eyes; they were large and dreamy blue, and his whole persona seemed to radiate from them. This pale-skinned, lean man was not what she expected a Jew to look like; he was so tall. His well-groomed hair was dark, almost black, brushed back to reveal a high forehead; the hair then fell away in waves to his shoulders. She wondered how he had managed to stay so tidy having been kept in a cell for weeks. His black jacket was not of a fashionable English style and she assumed it be Continental; the only thing she recognised was the open, loose Byronic-style collar. He held a wide-rimmed, high felt hat in his hands, his fingers curling it anxiously by the rim. Although this anxiety was also etched across his face, he nevertheless seemed to have a dignity that was so unusual to see in a felon.
His first words were to answer the Clerk to the Court’s request that he state his name, address and occupation; he spoke in short sentences in Yiddish and the translator then conveyed his words to the court.
‘My name is David Neander and I lived temporarily in St Giles,’ he said. ‘I am a poet.’ Saul Hugeunnin looked sheepish as he spoke the translated words. Laughter again broke out in the court and the Judge winced in annoyance: prisoners were, commonly, not men of letters. If such a man came before the court he would most likely be before the King’s Bench as a debtor, not charged with a felony. The people in the gallery now viewed the case as a comedy and this was spreading to the minor officials in the courtroom. This man was being viewed as an entertainment, Julia thought to herself, intrigued. He had the presence of the poet Byron himself; a hint in his appearance of that famed handsomeness and flamboyance.
The Judge interrupted, making no attempt to hide his irritation. ‘Are you a published poet, sir?’ he asked. ‘Do you earn your living by such activity?’
‘Yes sir,’ Neander answered through the interpreter. ‘Writing is my chosen profession. But it is true that at the present time I have to meet my living expenses by other means.’
‘Well perhaps you would like to tell the court what those other means are?’
‘Before arriving in England, I worked as a translator but I also fought as a pugilist to supplement my income.’
‘You are a fighter?’ said the Judge, whilst waving away the attempt at further laughter from the gallery. There was disbelief evident in his voice.
‘That is correct sir,’ said David Neander.
‘And have you done any fighting since you came to England?’
‘No sir. I had only been in England for two days when I was arrested. I came with funds that I had saved, but my money was stolen from my lodgings on my first day in this country. I had then resolved to rely on my youth and strength to offer my labour to anyone who would employ me.’
The Judge wrinkled his nose as though there was a bad smell under it. He looked down on the accused through narrowed eyes, his fingers toying idly with the file of papers on his bench. After a moment he shrugged and looked away. Watching his body language, Julia could tell he was wondering if there was any truth in what the strange man in the dock was saying, dismissing him as a Jew and a liar. She, on the other hand, was convinced she saw truth in Neander’s eyes. It was as if she and the Judge were viewing the same man from opposite ends of a telescope such was the difference in their perceptions. The thought troubled her. How could anyone receive justice in the face of such prejudice?
The Judge shot a look to the Clerk as if to tell him to proceed. The Clerk nodded, viewed the prisoner and told him to continue with his defence.
‘I was alone, when a person offered me a shilling to carry a parcel. I was to carry it into Oxford Road, but I did not know where that was. The man gave me directions, but I was still not sure that I understood them as I had so little of the English language. He said that it did not matter because he would be following fifty paces behind me. I had no particular place to deliver it to; the man was to direct me. At each corner I turned to look at the man and I followed his hand signals for the directions. When I came upon Oxford Road, another man stopped me, but I did not know what he was saying and I did not know that he was a law officer. I looked around for the man that had offered me the shilling, and I saw that he had turned and was running away. So I threw down the bundle and started to run after the man.’
He was not attempting to escape. Julia jotted down another note.
‘I tried to explain to the man that had stopped me that the other man was running away, but I have only a few words of English. I told him I could converse in French if they could find someone to translate, but they did not understand me. This man then called on the assistance of several others and they put the bundle back on my shoulders and took me to some other place that I did not know. I continued to try and explain in French, but they did not bring a French speaker to assist me. Nobody would listen to me.’
The watchman didn’t investigate the prisoner’s story. The transcript will show that the Judge has said nothing wrong, but his tone and inflection throughout has been negative to the prisoner. Julia jotted the comments but then kept her pen in her hand, putting the end to her lips pensively, as the Clerk set the case over to the jury.
The jury huddled; the case had been put to them to consider their verdict. Julia noticed the Foreman was becoming agitated as, in hushed voices they debated for a considerable time. Finally, the Foreman stood to inform the court that eleven gentlemen were of one opinion, but that the twelfth gentleman wished the jury to go out of the court. The Judge set them to do so and the jury filed out, withdrawing at twelve o’clock.
In a state of obvious confusion, David Neander looked around the courtroom. He leaned sideways from the dock to try to get the attention of the interpreter, but the Dock Officer pulled him back forcefully. It was clear to Julia that he had no idea what was happening; his incomprehension was evident in his features, his eyebrows knotted and those large blue eyes gazed beseechingly around the courtroom looking for a friendly face to help him, but he saw no one. Julia felt a pang of compassion for this man; he was alone, so totally alone. She knew she could have helped him, but was not allowed to do so. The minutes ticked by slowly, as if time itself was taking a rest. Eventually, the interpreter remembered his duty and advised the prisoner that the jury was considering its verdict. Julia took to scribbling again. She wrote the names of the law cases that she thought would have precedence and the errors in procedure at this hearing.
At twelve-thirty the jury returned. The Foreman was called to stand and give his verdict. He stood and coughed to clear his throat, his gaze darting to the prisoner and back to the Judge.
On the edge of her seat, Julia realised she had been chewing on her pen, but then put it back into her mouth, her attention focused entirely on the Foreman as he opened his mouth to deliver the verdict.
‘GUILTY.’
The word rang out as if a bell was tolling. It echoed in the vastness of the chamber. Julia’s heart sank. Her compassion for this man was now overtaken by her anger; justice had failed to be done. The Foreman continued. ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘the jury wish to recommend him strongly to his Majesty's mercy.’
All eyes now turned to look at the Judge. His shoulders hunched as he placed his elbows on the bench at which he sat. From his high perch much of his robe was obscured, but his face was clear for all to see. Julia saw only his coldness as he stared down at the prisoner: two cold eyes sat in judgement atop sagging, ruddy cheeks, criss-crossed with red, snake-like veins.
Judge Harcourt Cardew sniffed before he spoke. ‘David Neander the Jew; you are new to this country but this did not stop you committing this crime within days of arriving in this fair country of ours. Your kind must realise that this will not be tolerated by the citizens of this city.’ So saying, he drew his black cap onto his full-bottomed wig. There was a sharp intake of breath around the court and then it went silent.
Oh my god, thought Julia, he’s going to disregard the jury’s plea for mercy.
‘Prisoner at the bar,’ the Judge intoned, ‘it is my painful duty to pronounce the awful sentence of the law which must follow the verdict that has just been recorded; that you be taken to the place of execution, there to be hanged by the neck until you are dead, and may God have mercy on your sinful soul.’
*
That next day was also baking hot. I went through the front door into Uncle Meno’s surgery as soon as I got home from school, but he had a patient with him and I started to wait, but he told me to come back in an hour. Mama gave us some apple-spritzer and I took mine to the side door and watched Moses and Henriette playing. They were playing soldiers and were pretending to be cavalry officers. Moses was using a broom handle as a lance. He told Henriette that she couldn’t be a soldier because she was a girl but she could still play and they would rescue her from the Frenchies. Henriette was having none of that; she decided that if Moses could pretend to be a soldier then so could she. Dieter saw them playing and came to join in. He was a German boy and lived down the street; he played with us sometimes but I don’t think his father approved. Moses waved at me to come and play. At 14; I thought their games were far too childish for me, but there was something about playing soldiers that a boy just cannot resist. I sprang to my feet, mounting my invisible charger in one movement and set off after them, hacking at invisible French infantrymen with my imaginary sabre as I ran.
We were Prussian cavalry officers in our game. I now realise how incongruous that was. Napoleon had defeated Frederick William III of Prussia in 1806. Although Frankfurt was a city state and not part of Prussia it was still German, and from Dieter’s point of view it made sense to pretend to be Prussian. But we were Jewish kids. Under Napoleon, Jews were given full citizen rights. But even Prussian Jews fought in the Prussian army in the subsequent war of liberation. It was a strange form of patriotism but it was no less strong for all that.
We charged up and down the dirty street shouting our battle cries, our boots stirring up little eddies of dust that we then ran through so that grime clung ever upwards on our legs and collected on our faces and in our hair. Four doors down from our house lived Fraulein Breitner. She was the meanest woman on the street. I was never quite sure if it was because we were Jewish or that she was just plain mean all the time. An outsized, rotund woman with large hands; her calloused skin seemed to be stretched tautly over them so that they appeared like bony crab claws. We normally gave her house a wide berth, but in the excitement of our game we ran past it. She came out wielding her broom at us, telling us to keep away from her house and to take our noise elsewhere. Moses took this as a personal challenge. She was now a Frenchie and with his own broom handle, now converted into a sabre, he made a thrust at hers. ‘Die, French dog,’ he said, but this particular French dog didn’t take kindly to the name or the challenge. She reached out, her eyes bulging in incandescent rage, her free crab-like hand trying to grab him by the hair, and I could see that Moses was in for a whipping. I grabbed him by the collar and pulled him back out of her reach just as her skeletal fingers clawed at him. Her impotent fury now raging out of control, she rushed into the street swinging wildly at any of us that came near her, and so the cavalry decided to retreat back to their lines, which were outside our own front door. Frau Breitner continued to rail at us from down the street, in particular threatening to give Moses a good whipping when he wasn’t expecting it.
If we couldn’t be cavalry officers in our game then we decided to be gunners. In the Napoleonic wars the artillery had proved to be a battle-winning force and we had read all about that in the newspapers. We now loaded our imaginary cannon, pushing a wad down its long barrel and then ramming home the shell with an imaginary large wooden ramrod. I was to light the fuse and I told the others to move out of the way so they wouldn’t be hit by the recoil, but Moses wasn’t happy about the target.
‘Not yet! Not yet!’ he shouted. He scurried around the side and then swivelled the imaginary carriage so that it was facing Frau Breitner’s. ‘Lower the trajectory,’ I yelled, because the target was now much nearer, and Henriette turned the wheel so that the unseen barrel descended. I reached out with the touch paper and lit the fuse; everyone retreated as I had commanded to avoid the recoil and then we all collectively shouted: ‘Booom!’. The ball exploded from the barrel reducing Frau Breitner’s house to rubble and we cheered at the destruction of the hated Frenchie.
Uncle Meno chuckled when he saw me. ‘What!’’ I said, not understanding his amusement. He directed me towards the mirror and I could see at once the problem. My hair and face were covered in brown dust, but large rivulets of sweat had run down my face leaving trails that revealed glowing bright pink skin beneath. I looked like a dishevelled clown.
‘I can’t let you into my clean pharmacy like that,’ he said.
‘I’ll go and wash,’ I was anxious not to miss this opportunity. He saw the disappointment in my face.
‘Come on’, he chuckled, ‘let’s take a walk down the Judengasse. It’ll add perspective to what I’m going to tell you.’
I wasn’t sure what he meant, but I jumped at the opportunity. I wanted to talk even if that meant going down the Judengasse.
I shivered as we entered the sun-starved alleyway; Uncle Meno saw my unease. ‘I hadn’t realised before that you find it uncomfortable,’ he said and then he wrinkled his nose; we both did. ‘Yes it does smell a bit doesn’t it,’ he chuckled. ‘We grew up here – your papa and me; it is perfectly normal for us. It was all we knew, until of course we went away to Berlin to the Free School. Did you like the Free School in Geissen?’
‘Oh yes,’ I said, ‘much better than the Jewish school. We learned German, French, Latin, Greek - and German history and literature as well,’ I added, ‘it was the best.’
‘German, French, Latin and Greek,’ he repeated nodding his head. ‘Is not your Jewish education interesting then?’ Uncle Meno looked down at me sternly and I thought I had said something wrong. Then his face broke away from that sternness and I saw that he was teasing me. He gave his usual chuckle as he spoke. ‘Go on then, tell me what’s wrong with the Jewish school?’
‘Well,’ I said trying to put my thoughts in order, ‘If I’m Jewish then I suppose that it’s good to learn Hebrew, it’s just that…’
‘It’s all that reciting,’ he said, helping me out.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and speaking Yiddish. It uses those strange Hebrew characters. When they are chalked on the board instead of the alphabet, I don’t always follow them.’
‘Don’t always follow them?’ I realised that he was repeating everything I said; he did that, Uncle Meno; it was like a game with him. He saw my irritation, but I don’t think he could stop himself teasing; it was what he did. ‘You are a very bright boy, Loeb; you will learn it well in time.’ He patted me on the head; I took it as affection rather than that he was patronising me.
We walked along for some moments with only the echoes of our feet keeping us company. Then Uncle Meno stopped and looked down at me. ‘What do you know about your father?’
The question took me by surprise. It wasn’t a question that anybody asks a person. I looked up at him. Uncle Meno was in his late forties; taller than my father but somehow more Jewish looking, although he too was clean shaven in the German style. He had large dark eyes, a little sunken but expressive and always a little mischief in them.
‘Well,’ I stumbled, ‘he was a lecturer in German Literature at Geissen University, but he lost his job when the edict of citizenship was suspended after the defeat of Napoleon.’
‘The defeat of Napoleon?’
‘Are you going to keep repeating everything I say, Uncle Meno?’
‘Repeating?’ And then that chuckle emerged again. That was usually enough for me join in the humour, but today was different.
‘I’m sorry my boy,’ he said, putting his arm around my shoulder and hugging me towards him as if to reinforce his words. We walked on in silence for some moments and I could see that he was deciding what to tell me. A yelping dog somewhere in the distance broke into his reverie and he turned to look at me earnestly.
‘Yes, that’s true my boy, you have learned your history well, but did you know your father was regarded as a great German poet?’
‘What! Papa?’ I was incredulous.
‘Oh yes; your papa, Felix Ephraim. He was widely published and read by all the German intellectuals. He is not just your papa – he is a great man.’
‘Papa a great man?’ We stopped walking and I stared at Uncle Meno, but I didn’t know what else to say. I just continued to look at him, my expression asking him to tell me more. That chuckle emerged and he started to walk again; I followed him, keeping close to catch what he was saying.
‘I need to take you back thirty years or so. Your father and I were sent away to the Free School in Berlin. Your grandfather was an enlightened man for his time and he wanted us to better ourselves. He wanted us to have an education and then become doctors. The free schools were something new. They were for poor young men, not only the privileged rich. It enabled us to get a general education but also to mix with non-Jewish students. You know that for yourself, of course. I was two years older than your papa and I did what your grandfather wanted; I went on from school to study medicine. But going to the Free School was like coming out of a dark tunnel into the light; like walking out of the Judengasse into the summer sun. Studying German, French, Latin, Greek, German history and literature – I don’t think your grandfather ever realised the immensity of sending us to the Free School. It opened up a new world to us; especially your papa.’
‘Especially Papa?’ I saw Uncle Meno look down at me; there was a twinkle in his eye. He was being serious but he could not let this humour pass him by. I then realised that I was now repeating what he was saying. He started to chuckle but then stopped himself and went on.
‘Oh yes, especially him. You see he fell in love with German literature and he started to write poetry. And then he abandoned his medical studies and changed to study German literature. But there was far more to it than just that.’
‘I’m not sure I follow, Uncle Meno.’
‘No Loeb, you won’t. Let me try and tell you about that time in Berlin. There was something very special, very new going on there. It was a city that was nothing like Frankfurt. It was a time of open-mindedness, and it was a time of the growth of literary salons.’
‘What were they?’ I asked eagerly.
‘They were just gatherings, usually at somebody’s house, where you could go to meet writers and poets, and talk and join other people who loved literature. It doesn’t sound so much does it, but I promise you that it was a remarkable time. The salons were about the promotion of the arts, but it was also a time of free thinking. Your papa wasn’t the only Jew who loved German literature. There was a large Jewish middle class who shared his love. Some of these salons were run by Jewish ladies, but the meetings were not confined to just Jew or just German. The love of literature was common to both.’ He paused for a time, looking ahead purposefully as though in his mind’s eye he was seeing those times again. He suddenly snapped back to the present. ‘Felix, your father, became a favourite of Rahal Levin. She ran a very successful salon, and she championed your papa’s poetry. She was instrumental in getting it published and once it was, his fame spread. He became recognised as a great German poet, even though he was Jewish. For a time the Germans seemed blind to his Jewishness.’
‘I didn’t realise all that.’
‘Why should you? You weren’t born then, and then you were a child, but now you are a man. I think that now you need to understand.’
‘So why can’t Papa tell me all this?’
‘Ah – he will Loeb, but in his own time. It’s very painful for him.’
We reached the end of the Judengasse and paused for a few seconds and then we just turned instinctively and started to walk back.
‘I want you to put yourself in his position. He is a young man in Berlin, not much older than you. He is among other young enlightened Jews who mix socially with the German intellectuals and are accepted by them as equals. He is educated in the language and culture of the country in which he lives and he wants to be part of it. Many of these young Jews hated their Jewish background and some of them converted to Christianity, but your papa resisted. He was a free thinker and his philosophy was of an enlightened Judaism not strict ritual and superstitious observance. He believed that Jews contributed to their own isolation. He was a reformer and he wrote extensively about his vision. It was a wonderful time and he was one of the prophets of change. He was a follower of the great Moses Mendelssohn – your brother is named after him. Your sister is named after Henriette Herz, another Jewish salon hostess, she was said to be the most beautiful woman in Berlin. Oh, but it was a great time; a time of hope, a time of optimism, my boy.’
‘So what went wrong?’ I asked naively.
‘The victory of Napoleon in 1806; that’s what went wrong.’
‘But Napoleon gave the Jews emancipation. Surely that was what Papa wanted.’
‘Oh yes, that’s exactly what he wanted, but that defeat stung the Prussians and the other German states. It released the patriotism in them, but it wasn’t a good patriotism; it was a very nasty form of patriotism aimed at anybody who was non-German, and that included the assimilated middle class Jews who lived among them.’