Raisins and Almonds

Yossi,' said Mrs Grossman. 'Poor boy, he works all day and then sits up talking all night at the Kadimah, enough to turn his brains. Excuse him, Mr Abrahams. Have some more tea. Then Saul will read for us.'

'And you sing,' insisted Phillip.

'No, no, I only know old songs,' protested Mrs Grossman, delighted but making a ritual objection.

'We insist,' said Simon, and Saul leaned forward to the book.

His voice was a boy's voice, cracking with manhood, and the tones and cadences of the language were utterly foreign to Phryne's ear. But the image of the boy, tucked in the corner of the workaday kitchen, his curly hair topped with a white and gold yarmulke, the striped tallis around his shoulders, his ink-stained boy's finger running the wrong way along the black letter text, stayed with Phryne as an epitome of the experience of all of Australia's Jews: a people who treasured learning, and who never forgot their past or relinquished hold of their future.

Saul accepted the boiled lolly he was given with royal condescension. Learning, to him, was sweet. Mrs Grossman sat down and without preamble began to sing, a quavering lullaby in a strange tongue, and Simon whispered the translation to Phryne as she listened.

In dem bishe micdosh ...

Beneath my little one's cradle

Stands a clear white goat ...

There will come a time, my child

When you will wander Jar and wide.

Remember the song I sing today ...

Schluf-sie, mein kind, schluj,she concluded. Then she sighed, seized her son Phillip and hugged him hard, and summoned a smile.

'You will give my greetings to your father,' she said to Simon. Phryne shook hands all round, and Mrs Grossman accompanied them to the door. As she was leaving, the older woman pressed a packet into her hand.

'Just a little tea,' she protested. 'A few biscuits. Nothing.'

Phryne was touched. 'Thank you,' she said, and went out into the dusty street feeling warmed and a little dislocated, as though she had been away in another country and had come back with unexpected swiftness to somewhere which ought to have been familiar but which looked odd and alien.

'That's a nice song,' she said, wrestling her coat over her shoulders. Simon caught the edges and bodily wrapped it around Phryne.

'It's the one lullaby which everyone knows,' he said. 'There isn't a Yiddish child in the world who wasn't sung to sleep with Raisins and Almonds. My own mother sang it to me. Now, Madame,' he bowed, 'are you coming to my father's house to dine?'

'Yes, I am.'

'Then perhaps you could drop me in the city, where I can get a taxi, so that I can prepare myself fittingly.'

'Certainly. Is this white tie—what should I wear?'

'Just ordinary evening clothes. Mother likes to dress. I don't think Father could care, but he's a merchant at heart, bless him.'

'Thank you, and what do you make of Yossi racing off like that?'

'I don't know what to think, Phryne.'

They had found the big car again, and Phryne tore off the offending coat and flung it into the back before she climbed into the driver's seat. It was such a hot day and the car had not been parked long so she tried the self- starter, and it worked. The engine turned over with a muted roar like an annoyed tiger. Simon, realizing that he was not going to be needed as a wielder of starting handles, climbed up into the seat next to Phryne.

'Is he usually that jumpy?'

'Well, no, I would have said that he was calm, like Saul. A lot of study does tend to disconnect one from the real world.'

'He must know something, Simon, you need to find him again and extract it. Was there anything odd about the words Saul used?'

'No, it's just the word for primeval, 'of earth'. Kadmon. Adam as the first man. I never studied the Kabala, so I really can't tell you any more. Are you going to collect that truck?'

'No,' said Phryne, giving the wheel a deft twiddle. The truck passed, the driver yelling opprobrious epithets. It would not have been fitting for a lady to reply, so she only raised a finger or two in the appropriate gesture.

'One thing I will say, Miss Fisher,' yelled Simon Abrahams, holding onto his hat as the Hispano-Suiza belted down Swanston Street past the brewery in a cloud of dust. 'Life with you is always very interesting!'

'Thank you,' said Miss Fisher. 'Here's the station. See you at eight.'

And because she was both hot and dirty, Phryne beguiled the rest of the afternoon by taking her maid, her adopted daughters and their pestilential new puppy to the beach, where she contemplated the difficulties of the Kabala from one of her favourite thinking positions, neck deep in sea water.

Six

The mating of sol and luna is conjunctio.

Elias Ashmole, Theatrum Chemicum Brittanicum 1689

Dinner, Phryne thought, might well be sticky in more than just temperature. As she allowed herself to be dressed in a Greek-inspired floor-length gown, she observed, 'Dot, I need you to make me a list.'

A list, Miss?' Dot fastened the heavy gold necklace. It was made of old French coins, and it had matching long earrings.

'Yes. Miss Lee said that she sold 'some novels' and then had a discussion with a woman about an atlas that morning—call it 'the fateful morning'—and then there were a couple of young men buying a book about statistics. We need to find Miss Lee's customers. I want you to go through her order book—Jack left it on the downstairs table—and make a list of what she sold. How many people do we need to find, and how do we do that?'

'They should have come forward already, Miss,' observed Dot, flinging the filmy dress over Phryne's head so skilfully that not a hair was disturbed on the Dutch-doll head. 'There's been enough about the murder in the paper.'

'I know, but they haven't.' Phryne surveyed herself in the glass. The dress had an underslip of solid white silk, over which the delicate draperies of the overgown flowed. It was suggestive but not obscene.

'And how do we find someone who has just come into the Eastern Market on the off chance, they might be from anywhere,' continued Dot. 'They might have just come into the city for the day from—oh, I don't know, Bendigo—and might not read the papers.'

'Or they might have been run over by a tram just outside, or be deaf and dumb, or living in a cellar,' agreed Phryne. 'es, I know. It's going to be very difficult. But we need to find them. Also, can you call Bert and Cec for me? Ask them to lunch. The Eastern Market is full of carters and labourers. I need to know what happened to that rat poison, and I need someone on the inside. I have a feeling that this all centres on that market.'

'Why?' asked Dot.

'Just a feeling. Oh, and Dot dear, make sure that Mr Butler locks all the doors and windows tonight, will you?'

'Miss ...' said Dot, her brow creasing in a frown. 'Is this case dangerous?'

'No more than any of the others,' said Phryne airily. 'Now, how do I look?' She turned, watching the draped chiffon fall into place. 'Nice. Very nice. Tomorrow you can go and see Miss Lee again and extract from her memory every detail about her customers that morning, all right? And now I really must go,' she added, patting Dot on the cheek. 'Won't be late. This evening may be something of a trial, I fear. Mrs Abrahams cannot possibly approve of me.'

Phryne arrived at the Abrahams' East Kew mansion in her big red car and drove it neatly up the driveway to park next to the big Rolls. A driver, collar unbuttoned, leapt to his feet and dropped his newspaper and his cigarette at the sight of one slender leg revealed up to the thigh as she alighted. Phryne grinned at him.

'Mind her for me, will you?' she asked.

'Strewth,' said the driver. 'She's a beaut, ain't she? Lagonda?'