Are You Listening Rabbi Löw Read online

  To

  Rabbi

  Jehuda Low ben Bezalel

  1523 - 1609

  Who

  Out of faux pas

  Can make

  Mitzvah

  Table of Contents

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  1

  The London sky darkening over the western reaches of Knightsbridge and the falling snow thickening as it began to whiten the streets and sidewalks. Schultz’s limousine comes around the corner skidding on an icy patch as a taxi swerved out of the way. The chauffeur manoeuvring the long vehicle to park, backing into a space in front of Lord Nectarine’s tall austerely elegant townhouse. Schultz jumping out.

  ‘Holy canine shit. I’ve just stepped in it. In my brand new loafers.’

  Schultz scraping the bottom of his shoe on the edge of the kerb and wiping it off in the snow. Turning to cross the pavement and hopping up the steps two at a time to the grey stone framed entrance. Pushing the ebony button of the door bell. Snowflakes settling on his black curly locks as he waited chewing a fingernail and turned to look back out into the street. Twin clouds of white exhaust smoke puffing into the air from the rear of this long black limousine. The sound of an aircraft passing in the sky above. A light going on in the dining room window of the house across the roadway and the curtains drawing closed. On the top step of a stoop a black cat creeping towards a wary fat pigeon that takes off to disappear up into the pearly grey snowy sky.

  ‘Come on your Lordship what’s taking you so fucking long in there.’

  Schultz slamming the golden hued brass dolphin knocker against the gleamingly white door. The black cat disappearing as a curvaceous legged, moss green tweed suited lady hurries out of the house next door. Brown hair severely drawn flat back on her head and parted in the middle, a black scarf flying from her neck. With her sleeve she brushes the snow off the windscreen of a low slung bright red sports car. Her knees and thighs showing as she crouches in on the seat. The engine exploding into life, rattling window panes. Attesting to his Lordship having at least one elegantly beautiful fuckable neighbour.

  ‘Hey come on in there, open up.’

  An elderly grey suited butler with a shock of wavy white hair holding the door slightly ajar, and inclining his ear out towards the waiting figure.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Lord Nectarine.’

  ‘May I enquire as to the nature of your business sir.’

  ‘Personal.’

  ‘Who shall I say is calling sir and I’ll see if he’s in.’

  ‘He’s in don’t worry.’

  ‘It is possible he may not be sir.’

  ‘I spoke to him just five minutes ago on his private line from the telephone in my private car. And it’s Sigmund Franz Isadore Schultz calling. For a private visit.’

  ‘Just a moment sir, if you wouldn’t mind privately waiting.’

  ‘I do mind. I’m coming inside. It’s publicly snowing out here for Christ’s sake. And I ain’t got no overcoat on.’

  Closing the door behind Schultz the butler turning on the hall light. A crystal chandelier sparkling its rainbow hues down across the black and white tiled hall. The butler picking up a salver with several envelopes, his heels clicking on the floor as he disappeared through a door beneath the balcony of the staircase landing. Schultz lifting a copy of a glossy fine art auction catalogue and turning through the paintings, drawings and sculptures.

  ‘His Lordship will receive you sir if you’ll come this way. I had thought that he might have already left for the House of Lords for a committee meeting.’

  In a sombre oak panelled room a wall lined with books. A log fire blazing. Two large desks stacked with papers either side of a high white marble chimney piece facing a leather sofa and two chairs. The tall blond figure of Lord Nectarine, a magnifying glass in hand, standing at drawings laid out on the inclined surface of an architect’s desk.

  ‘Jesus christ no wonder nobody ever sees you anywhere. Look at all this solitary peace and tranquillity you got going here. And who is this new butler who doesn’t know me you’ve got all of a sudden.’

  ‘He’s not new, Schultz. While my housekeeper and secretary are on a skiing holiday, he’s temporarily come out of retirement to assist and keep at arm’s length various and sundry individuals such as yourself who elect to descend upon one suddenly out of snowstorms. You did indeed get here in an awful hurry.’

  ‘You bet your fucking ass I did, all the way from Maida Vale and circling about six times around Marble Arch. This is an emergency. I need confidential advice and I need it fast. Look at both my eyes. She rushed me on my own private doorstep yesterday on my own butler’s afternoon out shopping. And at my age and recent income I don’t need this.’

  ‘Good god both your peepers appear to be turning rapidly black.’ ‘She did it for the last fucking time I can tell you. And jesus christ almighty. Do you know what I suddenly discovered. I married a whore. Her fucking mother was procuring for her. Charging innocent guys a god damn fortune for maybe twenty god damn minutes in a penthouse suite they had rented in the afternoons. I mean half the guys didn’t get fucking well even to touch her, walking in with their pricks out, can you imagine what a disgusting scene.’

  ‘Well dear me I can quite, but this is all awfully mournful Schultz.’ ‘Some guy having an orgasm right there and then on the floor. The whole god damn thing is giving me a moral breakdown.’

  ‘Well we mustn’t have that Schultz, must we. But I’m sure you’ll find when you look more deeply into matters that there is an entirely innocent explanation.’

  ‘Don’t worry I looked. And there’s nothing innocent about that bitch. Just imagine out of the whole wide world someone can come into your life you’ve never met before and fucking well stay there, getting on your nerves, spending your money, opening your mail, tearing up previous girlfriends’ pictures. Some of whom I worshipped. And just when I’m able to keep my life in a style to which I adore being accustomed, I get a writ. This. Handed to me right in the theatre at today’s standing room only matinee. She’s suing me for divorce.’ ‘I’m about to have a spot of tea Schultz, will you join me.’

  ‘Hey I think my appetite even has even been ruined. In one of her lawyer’s letters I’m even accused of glaring at her. Imagine.’

  ‘Did you.’

  ‘Of course I did. Who wouldn’t glare at that bitch for Christ’s sake.’ ‘And will Schultz have tea.’

  ‘Yeah I’ll have tea.’

  ‘Ah but Schultz you have the pleasant distraction of having the top grossing show in London.’

  ‘And that’s what’s caused all this trouble I know it. Pure insane greed. But when they thought the show looked a flop, her and her behemoth mother were nowhere to be seen. Let me tell you boy, friends were scarce including some others I could mention. You were the only single guy who didn’t let me down. Hey don’t turn it off. What’s that soothing music.’

  ‘Choral evensong. For Epiphany. Choir of Trinity College Cambridge. But I can see by this conversation that such a back
ground could be more than a little inappropriate.’

  ‘Jesus this is how I always dreamed of living. In calmness and peace with a fire on the hearth glowing like that.’

  ‘And ah if you do look out there Schultz, across the gardens in the evening light through which the snow is falling and the ground turning white. You will see the lights going on in the house directly opposite where one of your female star performers has just taken up residence.’ ‘Jesus I know who you mean. Jesus what legs on such a body, in which there is hardly any brain. Which makes her body even more beautiful. And I’d like to get my hands on her but meanwhile evidence is being collected against me. Two fucking private detectives were trying to follow us here in a taxi. We lost them first at a red light up Edgware Road but then it took us in and out all over Marylebone to finally give them the slip. And I’ll get the bill for the taxi. I mean if you saw what she was claiming I did to her. No human being would have the time to do it all. She wants half the profits of my share of the show. Plus capital to purchase residences for her to live in in the manner to which she thinks she has become accustomed. Plus meanwhile to evict me from the matrimonial home out of which I am never never getting. Holy christ what do I do your Lordship. Can she get away with it. Come on you must know. I mean this is an onslaught upon me without an end in sight. Right in the middle of while I’m deeply and madly in love with somebody I deeply and madly love.’

  ‘Well dear me Schultz I don’t suppose I can be of a fat lot of help to you as you know I don’t approve of divorce. I do of course approve of your being deeply in love for a change.’

  ‘Well all I’m asking is could she really get me out of my own house and get her hands on half my share of the show. She and her fucking fat mother.’

  ‘Depends perhaps Schultz on where she is presently living and what other halves or three quarters of other assets you give her.’

  ‘Holy shit three quarters. Nobody but nobody is ever going to get three quarters off me. For anything. That’s gospel. Hey what about when I stood embattled and alone with nobody, I mean nobody giving me even the fucking time of day. Now just as I’m poised to make it big and able to pay off a mortgage with the first time money pouring out of my ears and slapping a fat cheque into the vaults of the bank every week and with a chance to move in on the movie industry, this has to happen to me. Her god damn lawyers the fuckers want further and better particulars of my fucking assets and income all over the world. The world. I mean the whole world. Like coast to coast from Los Angeles to New York.’

  ‘It also Schultz could include the touring rights in the jungles of Ethiopia not to mention amateur rights deep in the backs and beyonds of Manchuria. Plus the merchandising rights from one end of the Kalahari desert to the other.’

  ‘Holy shit. Don’t mention any more. All I know is I’ve got a battering ram of tremendous proportions slamming at the foundations of my life. I had a nightmare last night I was in some sleazy Paris hotel unable to pay the bill because I lost all my charge cards and cheque book. This could do permanent psychological damage to me.’ ‘Schultz you’ll be lucky if that’s all it does.’

  ‘This conversation is setting off pains in my stomach. I got two children I adore for Christ’s sake. She’s a mother. I mean you can’t fight a mother. But shit she’s trying to destroy me. I mean she even shakes her fist at my butler when he’s chauffeuring me.’

  Tea set on the table before the fire. His Lordship’s houseman wheeling in a silver tea service on a trolley covered with cakes and a stack of wholewheat bread prawn sandwiches. A bottle of whisky and two glasses. Hot scones stacked under a napkin. Bowl of Devon clotted cream and strawberry jam. A blaze of sparks up the chimney as Noble struggling with a pair of brass tongs places two more logs on the fire and pulls the crimson drapes closed across two tall leaded mullioned windows and the French door to the garden. The chimney piece clock chiming four with a light tinkle.

  ‘Thank you Noble. That will be all this evening.’

  ‘Very good milord. But shall I wait up.’

  ‘No thank you Noble. I’m liable to be quite late.’

  ‘Goodbye Mr Schultz.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  Noble withdrawing. The door clicking quietly shut. Schultz quaffing back gulps of tea in which he plunked several slices of lemon. Then digging out a dollop of clotted cream to drop down on a scone and slathering a knife full of strawberry jam in the soft whiteness.

  ‘Jesus wait up. Do you have to pay him overtime for that. Hey who you screwing these days that keeps you out late.’

  ‘I fear that to both of your questions Schultz one must reply that it is really none of your bloody business.’

  ‘Jesus I really knew what I was doing all those sensible years of free unhindered bachelor life, before I was stupid enough to let myself get trapped in marriage. But jesus the way you live. I’m going to do this every afternoon like you do. Keep up a routine under the pressure, that’s the secret to my survival.’

  ‘Well I don’t Schultz do it every afternoon. But those afternoons upon which I do, one likes to make a proper occasion of it.’

  ‘Hey what’s the whisky for.’

  ‘A tipple.’

  ‘A tipple. What do you mean a tipple. Hey you’re not becoming an alki are you.’

  ‘Dear me Schultz, if you intend introducing this custom into your life you must become aware that a spot of pure single malt whisky is quite a sensibly enjoyable indulgence following a spot of tea.’

  ‘Boy, you tell me. I’m listening. Because I’m going to start enjoying life after what I’ve been through.’

  ‘By the sound of things Schultz you haven’t been through it quite yet.’

  ‘Holy shit, you’re right. This could be the beginning of a reenactment of the holocaust. But nobody and I mean nobody is going to shove me in a fucking gas chamber and then get the gold fillings out of my teeth. She and her lawyers are going to learn that unrelenting tenacity is my double barrelled middle name.’

  ‘Sit down. For god’s sake Schultz. You’re going to knock over your tea. I must say you do sometimes dance about like a man who thinks he is being attacked by the wind.’

  ‘That’s because it’s a female whirlwind out of a female fucking hurricane. Jesus you know you could be just about the only last person left I got who I can turn to in a crisis.’

  ‘Well Schultz, you’d be advised not to depend upon me in a crisis either.’

  ‘OK sure. Who doesn’t accept that. But then if you were out to fuck me up at least you’d be polite about it. And if it weren’t for that fucker Al Duke holding incarcerated the woman I love, there’d be one certain somebody I could really trust in my life. It’s been like an empty lifetime since I saw her last. She was naked, steam coming out of the bathroom behind her. Like she was the most beautiful apparition. Gorgeous fucking body. Beautiful gentle mind. And that fucking old dried up geriatric celebrity collector pretending he’s some kind of king of the cultural universe, has got her up there behind locked doors in tax dodgers’ towers. When he should be perverting himself on some hag his own age.’

  ‘Talking of taxes Schultz. And dodging. And especially of depending upon me in a crisis. As recently as two days ago the company of Sperm Productions has been the subject of some more than superficial scrutiny relating to you on that particular subject.’

  ‘Fuck them boy. Nobody is going to get taxes out of me. I’ve outwitted those fuckers for years and I’m going to outwit them for more years. Schultz don’t pay taxes. That’s gospel. I’ll fucking well chisel those accounts and dump suitcases of receipts on top of them till they can’t tell one number from another.’

  ‘Aside from the indiscretion of your words making one wince Schultz, I may say that as someone who is enjoying the benefits of life here as we know it in the United Kingdom, that is simply not cricket. Nor awfully wise.’

  ‘Hey why should I pay full taxes. I don’t deserve to pay after all the worries struggles and treachery I’ve had to suf
fer. Who has struggled like me. You and Binky silver spooned from babyhood have had fortunes heaped on you. I had two parents making peanuts squeezing a bargain basement living out of the fashion fickle lingerie trade up a side street in Woonsocket Rhode Island. Do you know how hysterical it is in the garment business.’

  ‘Well Schultz perhaps not. But I do have an eye for a well made shoe.’

  ‘Hey you like these new loafers.’

  ‘As complementing the style in which you dress Schultz they are perfectly acceptable. However what is not acceptable is seeing the bill for them and a few other costuming items charged against the production account.’

  ‘Hey come on when is a few paltry miscellaneous items like a pair of shoes such a big sin on a big production budget.’

  ‘Handmade to measure footwear obtained in the vicinity of St James, is not paltry, Schultz. And taken together such items listed under miscellaneous expenses are staggeringly considerable. And rather, I should think, be thought of as defrauding the production budget.’

  ‘O god. You really are persnickety sometimes.’

  ‘I hope you’re not going to say it’s persnickety Schultz if I continue to object to my office private phone being used by you. Apparently you have been giving my number to charge against when making your long distance calls to New York, Sydney. And Tokyo. Not to mention one call to Valparaiso, Chile during which you spoke for nearly an hour.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake do you want to stifle the potential west coast South American Spanish rights to the show.’

  ‘You were speaking in an amorous manner to a young lady in an hotel there Schultz and whom you had once fucked here in London and were begging her to return to recommence such fucking.’

  ‘So now I have spies betraying me. For Christ’s sake an afternoon that’s suddenly being blissful. Now I’m a tax dodger committing fraud. Cheating on someone else’s phone bill. Hey come on. How much do you want. I’ll give you a cheque right now.’

  ‘I want nothing Schultz except for you to discontinue the practice.’ ‘Jesus do you mind if I help myself to another cup of tea. And put it on my bill. No. Instead. Pour me a big glass of whisky. And put that on my bill. And come on your Lordship can’t you turn off that accountant’s mind of yours for a few minutes. Forget money. And think of love and beauty and some of the finer things in the world for a few seconds.’