Raisins and Almonds

Dot gave Bert the carbon of the dispatch note, which had Wm Gibson, Cartage and an address in Carlton on it over the blotted contents. The room emptied. Bert and Cec were escorted to the door by Jane and Ruth. Ember stalked after them, scenting cold meat in the kitchen. The Butlers were going out for the evening and sometimes Mrs Butler forgot to lock the pantry. Phryne allowed Dot to put her into a loose velvet coat which had cost a prince's ransom and picked up a pouchy handbag on a string. Phryne had had enough of trying to hang onto a coat with one hand and a bag with the other and use a putative third hand for useful things, like opening doors, stroking beautiful young men and holding her cigarette.

'Have we got enough to go on with, or not?' sighed Phryne. 'More questions, not fewer. Who were the two thugs, speaking Yiddish, who tied up poor Mrs Katz and broke her plate and ransacked her house? What paper were they looking for, and if it was the piece of paper I showed to Rabbi Difficult, what use is it? Even decoded, it doesn't mean anything. Who killed Shimeon Ben Mikhael? If that bottle contained the strychnine he was poisoned with, who gave it to him and when? Not Miss Lee and not, presumably, in her shop. Can we trace his movements? Have we got anywhere with the clerk?'

'No, Miss, and not likely to, unless we advertise,' replied Dot.

'Well, we have done very well for one day. Bert and Cec have found the strychnine and they can look for the carter. Strange that he hasn't come forward with all this publicity, but perhaps he doesn't read the newspapers or he was on some fiddle or frolic of his own. And you have found Mrs Katz. Excellent work, Dot dear. Expect a bonus. Are you going out?'

'Me and the girls are going to the pictures. Hugh's taking us.' Dot blushed, though a more blameless way of meeting one's beloved than by taking two adolescents to see the new Douglas Fairbanks was hard to imagine, Phryne thought. 'I hope you have a lovely time. Don't wait up for me,' said Phryne, and went out in a wave of Jicky.

Simon was waiting in the parlour. Phryne descended the stairs, making her entrance, and he was gratifyingly struck by her elegance.

'Where are you taking me?' he asked, wonderingly, a question which could mean many things. Phryne chose the practical answer.

'To the Society for dinner and then to Kadimah, where I expect to hear many interesting things from all your friends. Come along,' she extended a hand, and he went willingly.

'I didn't know there was anything really good at this end of town,' he remarked, as Phryne stopped the car in Bourke Street, almost to the Treasury.

'Once,' Phryne said, 'there was a man who was just stopping off on his way from Italy to his home in the Argentine, but as has happened to a lot of people, he liked it here so he stayed. He set up a meeting place for Italians in Little Bourke Street. He makes real coffee,' said Phryne, a confirmed caffeine addict. 'He was successful so he moved to a bigger place. It's just a simple restaurant but I expect that he will flourish. You'll like him. His name's Guiseppe Codognotto and he's a superb chef. Oh, I hadn't thought. Can you eat his food?'

'Yes, of course,' replied Simon, a little nettled. 'But I will have my coffee black.'

'The only way,' agreed Phryne, and opened the door.

The Society was bright and warm and they went in on a gust of air scented with basil. Robby the waiter, fair haired and elegant, appeared to take Phryne's coat and murmur admiration of the green dress and suddenly Simon felt as though he had been coming to this place for years. He sat down and beamed.

'Very nice,' said Robby ambiguously, looking at Phryne and then at Simon. 'Nice to see you again, Miss Fisher. You match the decorations.' Phryne's green satin was indeed much the same shade as the green pines in the mural of Capri behind her.

'Thank you Robby dear, I don't need a menu. The gentleman is Jewish and I'm starving. Feed us,' said Phryne, and leaned back in her comfortable chair.

Robby returned with a bottle of wicker-clad chianti, which he opened with an ease which spoke of long practice. Simon looked at it dubiously.

'Isn't that the stuff that tastes of red ink?'

'Generally, yes, but this won't,' promised Phryne. Simon was delighted to find that it didn't. It was a light vintage tasting of crushed grapes. He watched Phryne sipping, noticing the way that the red wine was matched by her ruby mouth, how she passed her tongue neatly over her wet lower lip.

'This wine is the colour of your mouth,' he said. 'You don't really want to go to Kadimah and listen to a lot of people talking, do you?'

'Yes,' said Phryne uncompromisingly 'I do.' She slid one fingernail over the back of his hand and he shivered. 'But I haven't forgotten you,' she added.

'I haven't forgotten you,' he replied. 'I love you.'

'No, you don't,' said Phryne gently. 'You love the idea of me. You love the femaleness of me. I told your mother that I was just borrowing you, and that I'd give you back. I have had that conversation before,' she added, remembering Lin Chung's alarming grandmother. 'But I'll love you while I have you, dear Simon.'

Robby, who had been waiting for a break in the conversation, put down two plates of pasta with a thin red sauce.

'Fettucine puttanesca,' he said, grinning at Phryne, who grinned back. Fettucine in the manner of whores, eh? Phryne resolved to clip Robby's ears for him when she got him alone.

'Now pay attention, because this is the best pasta you will ever have,' she instructed.

Simon found that spaghetti, which he had only previously experienced as white gluey worms in a tinned tomato sauce, could melt in the mouth. The sauce was sharp, almost sweet, and strongly garlicky. He was glad that Phryne was eating the same thing. It was so delicious that he put off his further declarations of eternal passion until he had wiped his plate with a piece of bread, as he saw Phryne doing. It would have been a sin to waste any of that sauce, anyway.

'Tell me about Zionism,' she said, as Robby filled her glass. He had the talent of being always there when needed and impalpable and invisible when not needed. Phryne had noticed this admirable quality before and wondered if he had any will o' the wisp in his family.

'Zion has always been the hope of the Jews,' said Simon. His face lit with a fervour almost as strong as his passion for Phryne. She was pleased with the success of the question. She had distracted him from making any more unwise speeches, and she needed to know about Zionism. 'Every year when the youngest child asks the questions, he asks, 'Why is this night different from all the other nights?' And he is told that it was the night that God chose us and brought us out of Egypt and bondage. But we pray 'Next year in Jerusalem'. Next year in Zion. One day it will be next year in Zion.'

'Palestine. Your father says it is desert and swamp.'

'It will bloom,' said Simon confidently. 'We just need the will.'

Tell me about this movement, then. Is it a political party?'

'No, not at all—well, yes.' Simon explained. He started again. 'It used to be wholly religious until late last century, when Herzl, Theodore Herzl, didn't actually found but crystallized Zionism as a political movement at the first Zionist Congress in 1897. People went to Palestine and started farms, businesses, bought land from the Turks, they owned it then. Later we bought land from the Arabs. Baron Rothschild has poured money into it, although patronage has its own problems, but everything has problems. Herzl said we had to find political support or we would never survive, but no one likes Jews, and although some of the most anti-Semitic countries supported a homeland—they want to get rid of us—Herzl was in favour of Uganda and we cannot have that. Who is to say that Africa would be safer than anywhere else? And there must be a place which is ours—ours alone.'

'Africa, certainly, would not seem to be a good choice. It's just a little unstable—but surely, so is Palestine?' Phyrne was interested. She saw his point.

'Herzl died in 1904, I think it was. Then there was a terrible quarrel which led to some people leaving—the ultra religious, for instance, who believe that only God can restore us and wait for a Messiah. We divided into Practical Zionism and Theoretical Zionism, which was eventually resolved in 1911 into Synthetic Zionism, largely due to Chaim Weizmann arguing everybody into a reasonable frame of mind, a mensch, that Weizmann. The Zionists kept the faith through the Great War ...'

'Pesce,' said Robby, who was worried that the food would get unacceptably chilled if he waited for a break in this discourse. 'Grilled mullet, steamed celery and boiled potatoes. Eat it while it's hot,' he chided. Simon, startled, picked up his fork without thinking.