Raisins and Almonds

teaching, even though his auditor was a shiksa and probably unclean, 'that it could cure all diseases and make men immortal.'

'By raising them to their perfect state.'

'Good.' He raised his eyes, saw Phryne, and blinked when he realized to whom he was talking. But it was too late for him to slip back into his shell, so he continued. 'They described it as being as fine as oil and solid as glass, and no one has ever managed to make it. A dream, but men must have dreams.'

Phryne wondered what dreams the old man had dreamed, to bring him to Australia, and how they coincided with this poor drab place.

'Alchemy has always been connected with the study of the Holy Kabala, and these writings use a system of numbers which is derived from a reading of the Torah, the scriptures. If I can only find ... here is Zorah, Sepher Yetzirah, Akiba's Alphabet, yes, and Shuir Komah, which states that the measurement of the body of man is the measure of being and of the nature of God. Hmm, surely I didn't lend it to Shimeon?' He lifted books with difficulty, singing his litany of titles, searching for a particular text. Phryne did not offer to help. Who knew if her gentile touch might make his most precious books unclean? 'If you will excuse me, I must find the Book of Razael,' said the Rabbi, and dived back into the volumes.

Mrs Rabinowitz was in the kitchen, clattering crockery. Phryne went that way, as the old man did not require her presence.

The kitchen contained one tray, one teapot, two cups and saucers and plates. It was dusty and unused. Clearly the Rabbi didn't do any cooking.

'Look at this!' exclaimed the older woman. 'Not one of my good pancakes eaten. It was different when Sarah was here, Sarah was his wife. But the boys are coming tonight and they'll bring food, they always do, the ones who can't afford to pay him. And that's all of them.'

'Will he let me give him money for this translation?' asked Phryne. Mrs Rabinowitz's workworn countenance seemed to shrink.

'If he could give me a little towards the rent, that collector has no manners, he shouts at the old man, but if I could catch him in the stairway, he doesn't like climbing all them stairs ...'

Phryne handed over a note, which vanished at the speed of light.

'Miss ... Miss ... er ... I have it,' called the scholar, and Phryne swapped a grin with Mrs Rabinowitz. She saw the old scholar on his feet, his white locks flying, a book open over one hand, reminding Phryne of the denouncing God over the church door in Ravenna. She hoped that he wasn't overstraining his heart.

'Yes, Rabbi?'

'It is a number code, using the most obscure system,' said Rabbi Elijah, looking as though he might combust with some emotion—rage? fear?

'Indeed?'

'He has based it on the name of Adam Kadmon. That such learning should be used for such a purpose— shameful. Shameful! I had not thought it of Shimeon.'

He was waving the papers around and Phryne recaptured them before they flew from his trembling grasp.

'Shimeon is dead,' she reminded him. 'Is this the translation?'

'It is. What it means—' he waved a hand. 'But that such a thing should be!'

'Was Shimeon one of your students?'

'He was.'

'A good student?'

'Very good, a devoted young man. I cannot believe that he would have used this holy text for some mundane purpose. It must have been very important to Shimeon. We must sit shivah for him, say Kaddish. We were his only friends. I will speak to the others.'

'Who was his particular friend?'

'Kaplan, the oldest Kaplan boy.' The Rabbi was calming down.

'And Yossi Liebermann?'

'He is. What is Yossi to you, a ...' He could not find a term which would not be insulting, so he left the end of the sentence to droop under its own weight.

'He lives at the house of my friend Mrs Grossman,' said Phryne, and the old man almost smiled. 'Such a woman,' he said approvingly. 'She feeds the hungry. Her price is above rubies. Her husband was a good man.'

'Her son Saul is also learned and almost at his bar mitzvah,' commented Phryne.

'The knowledge of the Torah is the beginning of all wisdom,' quoted Rabbi Elijah approvingly.

'Do your students study the Torah?' she asked artlessly, and Rabbi Elijah twitched, seemingly just becoming aware to whom he was talking.

'Always the Torah, and also the Holy Kabala. Not this ... abomination. I do not know what this is, Miss Er, but I hope that it helps you. The murderer of my Shimeon should not go unpunished by the law, though surely God knows and will repay.'

'I'll do my best. Is there anything you can tell me which might help?'

Phryne saw that the old man was about to tell her something. Words were hovering on his lips. But then he flickered again, looking at Phryne's fashionable clothes and her undoubted gentility, shook his head and decided against it. 'No.'

'And your fee, Rabbi?'

'Feed the widow and orphan, give shelter to the fatherless,' said the Rabbi, then opened a book and began to read, dismissing her from his mind entirely.

Mrs Rabinowitz took her to the door.

'No trouble, Miss, but I heard you asking about Shimeon. He was Yossi's friend, and David Kaplan and his brothers. And ...' her hand crept out, cupped. Phryne produced another note which joined the first in its secret destination. Mrs Rabinowitz breathed, 'He was mad for Zionism, that's why the rabbi was angry with him. Rabbi Elijah says that Israel is meant to be an exile, and until the coming of the Messiah should have no home. Oy, he's calling you.'

Surprised, Phryne turned and looked back through the doorway. The Rabbi's face was blank, like an ink sketch which had been crumpled and thrown away. He said 'Woman,' again in a voice which came from somewhere deep in his chest.

'He's having a vision. Go on.' Mrs Rabinowitz pushed Phryne back into the scholar's room.

'Beware of the dark tunnel,' said the Rabbi. 'Under the ground,' he added. 'There is murder under the ground, death and weeping; greed caused it.'

He seemed dazed or tranced. The scholar's face was whiter than old linen, the sculptured bones visible under the tight-stretched old man's skin. The room seemed to have grown darker. Across the pages of the books, red-clad and black-clad letters seemed to crawl. Phryne smelt a scent like oranges and dust. Under the ground. Beware of the tunnels. She shuddered strongly. The old man's eyes were open but perfectly unseeing, like the eyes of a corpse. He looked like a patriarch, mummifed in some desert tomb.

Phryne smelt a blessedly familiar sour smell of soap as Mrs Rabinowitz pulled her by the shoulder and conducted her to the door.

She didn't draw an easy breath until she was out in the comfortingly grubby St Kilda street and Simon Abrahams was excitedly demanding to know what had happened.

'I really don't know,' she said, truthfully.

But she stopped the car on the way home to stuff a handful of paper money into the surprised tambourine of a Salvation Army lassie on the Esplanade.

That should feed the widow and orphan. And the puppy was certainly fatherless.

On arrival at her own house, Phryne collapsed into the leather sofa in the sea-green and sea-blue parlour, calling feebly for a cocktail and a light for her cigarette.

Simon supplied the flame for her gasper. Mr Butler obliged with a mixture of orange juice, gin and Cointreau which he ventured to think that Miss Fisher might find refreshing. She did.

Simon accepted a cup of tea and asked, 'Phryne, do tell! What did that terrible old man do to you?'

'Tell me—is the Rabbi Elijah mad, or senile, or just possessed by something?' asked Phryne, blowing out a