Gibbous House 45

Not even this mishap could disturb the dwarf’s remarkable sang-froid, and he announced that he would serve the port since he was up, or at least down, from his chair. Luckily the port decanter and glasses had been placed somewhat nearer to the edge of the really quite ostentatiously large table. Having charged a glass for each of us, he drew himself up to his far from considerable height and addressed me thus:

‘Mr Moffat, if you would be so kind as to indulge me, a mere guest in your home, to propose a toast of my own.’

I nodded my assent; Enoch Rothschild began a rambling anecdote seemingly as preamble for his toast. His voice was strangely compelling for me; so much so that I paid little heed to the wanderings of this academic Jew as he related them. No, I spent the time cudgelling my brains in a vain attempt to ascertain quite why this voice captivated me so. It was, it must be admitted, a fine one. Befitting an actor on the London stage. Not for the principal parts of course, but it would have done splendidly for the villainous foreigner of whatever stripe, which character at that time was the sine qua non of the dramatic arts. Neither was it the contrast I had previously noted, between his beautiful diction, coupled with an undeniable erudition, and the starkly alien accent. It was the familiarity of it: I do not mean to say that I had heard this voice before my arrival at Gibbous House. Indeed not, my feeling was that I had heard, somewhere, at some forgotten time, a similar voice; with similar traits of vocabulary and accent. Naturally, I was quite unprepared to find Maccabi and the Professor both upright and looking at me expectantly with glasses raised: I cleared my throat and the Professor repeated the toast:

‘Next year in Jerusalem.’

Maccabi repeated the toast in a choking voice and I wondered if he had been as unlucky as Harbinger in the matter of fishbones. Certainly he was affected enough to have a tear in his eye. I raised my glass and tossed off the port. It struck me that there had been quite some fuss for a small household’s dinner on a Friday evening. Waving my empty glass; I said slowly:

‘Well, I think there’ll be a little less formality in future. Or at least such that there is will be of a more civilised kind.’

‘Let it be so, Mr Moffat.’ Rothschild replied with great equanimity.

I espied Maccabi turning a little puce at this point and hoped to see the spectacle of the Professor attempting dislodge a fishbone from his throat by leaping up to strike the middle of his back. Unfortunately, the bone was swallowed forthwith or there was some other reason for my factotum’s antics. Professor Rothschild continued in a most affable voice;

‘Mr Moffat, you must forgive us if we have been a little more formal than usual. It is a holy time, perhaps the holiest in our calendar; Seder or Passover…’

On and on he went, as if I were a student in some lecture hall in Siena, Berlin or Vienna and as if I gave a bent farthing to boot. The voice continued to nag at me; my mind turned quite inward. I did not hear the word that brought the memory back, I only knew that the owner of the voice which his own so brought to mind, had been instrumental in Alasdair Moffat’s long awaited release from the asylum, years before.