‘Maybe Mother is very grand. She is secretive like you.’ I found it strange that he should compare us, let alone call me secretive. I always compared them. A light danced in his eyes. ‘Maybe Mother comes from a noble family in Spain.’ He mouthed the name to himself: ‘Cardoso … Cardoso …’
‘You are fantasising,’ I said, happily, teasing, the light still dancing in his eyes.
‘Do you want to go there, Benjamin?’ my brother asked. He was looking at me. ‘Maybe she is really a marquesa,’ he continued, his eyes expectant. ‘Wouldn’t that be a thing to tell Augusta!’ Edgar sprang up in his seat and tapped the carriage roof.
‘Edgar!’ I cried.
‘Rue des Rosiers!’ he called up to the driver.
Minutes later, the carriage pulled into a narrow throng of dark streets. We turned a corner onto another street and from above us the driver huffed down: ‘Ici.’
My brother and I got out of the carriage and stood in the gloom of the long, narrow street. We walked along a little. ‘Look!’ Edgar cried, pointing up. Above a door, a few houses ahead, hung a wooden sign with the words carved into it:
CARDOSO
NÉGOCIANT
Négociant: a merchant. ‘This is it,’ I said. Before I could say anything more, Edgar ran forward and loudly knocked on the door. ‘Edgar!’ I cried and he just grinned and shrugged at his own fait accompli. I rushed up behind him just as the door opened, only slightly, and an elderly man appeared behind it.
‘Yes, what do you want?’ He spoke in heavily accented French, but I could not recognise from where. He glared at me with undisguised suspicion. I leaned forwards and he pushed the door even closer to its frame. ‘What’s your business, hmm?’ he cried.
‘We are Cardosos,’ Edgar said, brightly in French.
The old man frowned, looking up and down our bodies: ‘Who, you?’
‘Yes,’ Edgar answered as I looked past the man and into the darkness of the interior.
‘Is there anyone to whom we can speak?’ I asked. ‘One of our relations? Are you a Cardoso?’
‘Me?’ the old man groaned. ‘Pah, I should be so lucky.’ Edgar glanced at me. Maybe our mother was going to be grand after all. Reluctantly, the man ushered us inside. ‘Me,’ he muttered to himself, ‘a Cardoso. Ha!’
The house was much like any other. In the fashion of business, the ground floor was an office. Dusty scrolls and wooden folders were arranged in teetering towers on top of mazes of desks and drawers, labyrinths of disorder. The old man scuttled forward, clinging to desks and shelves to stop himself from falling. We were led up the stairs and into a small, elegant sitting room on the first floor. ‘Do you want coffee?’ he barked. I did not know what the right answer was: yes or no? When we did not reply immediately, the old man croaked: ‘Or is our coffee not good enough for you?’
‘Coffee would be very nice,’ I said.
‘Nice?’ the old man groaned. ‘Nice? Pah!’
He went back out into the hallway he had led us through, mumbling complaints to himself. Edgar and I sat in silence. Then the door to the sitting room opened again. In walked a tall, elegant man, rather handsome, dressed in a good though subtle dark blue suit, his hair not wigged but in a turban. He bowed as he entered and spoke in French, also accented:
‘I am sorry, messieurs, but I am not sure if I know …’
We both got to our feet and bowed. I began to explain that we were on the first stage of the Tour, having sailed from London. I listed the cities to which we hoped to go, and he told us which of those he knew, mainly because of commercial connections. As we exchanged pleasantries, my brother began to look around the room at the little oriental oddities. The old man bustled in again, and behind him a boy of about thirteen, carrying a tray of coffee. ‘They said they wanted coffee,’ he complained to the turbaned gentleman. ‘I told them, I don’t have time to make coffee, but they insisted.’
I looked to our host who smiled at me as though resigned, a request for patience towards the old man, I supposed. We sat back down and received our coffee cups. ‘Forgive me, messieurs,’ the Cardoso fellow tried again, ‘but I am not sure I understand why you are here.’
‘Monsieur,’ I began, ‘our mother’s maiden name was Cardoso. And I have never met or even heard of another Cardoso. I know nothing of the surname’s provenance.’
The man bowed his head forward a little, with the air of one confused.
‘And I thought I knew every Cardoso in the world,’ he said, clearly a joke. ‘But we are a disparate group, it’s true. Amsterdam, Berlin, here, Riga, North Africa, Constantinople.’ North Africa and Constantinople? I thought, amazed. What kinds of contact did this man have, and more to the point, what kinds of cousin? ‘I did not know there were any Cardosos in London just now, at least not any connected to me.’ His eyes were searching ours as if we were supposed to give some secret signal to show we shared some knowledge. ‘Forgive me, gentlemen, but may I enquire your mother’s name?’
‘Rachel,’ I said. Immediately Cardoso’s face fell. He hesitated. I thought perhaps he might make to leave. ‘Monsieur?’
‘Say your surname again, please?’
‘Bowen,’ Edgar said.
Cardoso got to his feet. ‘I am sorry, gentlemen, but, uh, I have another matter to which to attend.’ He bowed quickly. ‘Good day.’
Edgar and I looked at one another before I turned back to Cardoso. ‘Will you explain yourself, sir?’ I asked. ‘You do know our mother?’
It was then that Edgar said, ‘Benjamin, perhaps we should leave.’ I glanced between the two of them as if they understood some secret I did not. Edgar’s face was instantly all agitation, horror even.
‘Monsieur,’ I said, not grasping whatever the two of them seemed to understand, ‘can you explain …?’
‘Gentlemen –’ he now spoke in crisp, clear English ‘– I would prefer that I did not speak any more on the subject of my cousin.’
‘Your cousin?’ Edgar spat. His fists formed tight balls as if ready to strike out. I had never seen him like this before. ‘Benjamin, I want to leave.’
Cardoso flashed his eyes at me. ‘You should listen to your brother. There is nothing I want to say about Rahel.’ The name he used – Rahel, Rahel – seemed to blare mysteriously through the silence, as loud as a trumpet.
Edgar leapt up and swung at Cardoso. ‘Scoundrel! Liar!’ he yelled in English. Cardoso flew sideways out of his seat. I screamed Edgar’s name. Our cups of coffee shattered into smithereens across the floor. I tore at my brother.
‘Edgar! What are you doing?’ I shouted.
My brother swung around as if ready to strike me too.
‘Don’t you see? Can’t you tell?’
‘What?’ I cried. ‘What?’
‘This man is a Jew, Benjamin! Are you so stupid you do not know? He is a Jew. That means he is saying that our mother is a Jew too, that we are—’ The word died on his lips. It was choking Edgar to death.
Wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve, our cousin got to his feet. I was restraining my brother, but my brain was reeling. Cardoso was holding the side of his face, perhaps where Edgar had struck him. ‘Your mother has not earned the title of Jew, any more than you two ruffians do.’ Edgar reared up upon hearing this, but I managed to contain him. ‘Your mother was thrown out by her family, by her community.’ The word lingered in the air.