Cocksure by Mordecai Richler

Author:Mordecai Richler [Richler, Mordecai]
Format: epub, azw3, pdf
Published: 2010-12-05T18:30:00+00:00

19

Dino Tomasso, somewhat subdued, wearing a patch over his left eye, came out of the London Clinic and returned to work in time to gloat over the success of the first title in the Our Living History series, already gone into a second printing.

More luck than brains, Mortimer thought grudgingly, but he let it pass. He had a more pressing matter to cope with. For, beginning with his next “Reading for Pleasure” lecture, Jacob Shalinsky contrived to make life a misery for him.

“Ah, Mr. Griffin, I may have misinterpreted you, of course, but it seems to me you place T. S. Eliot among the great writers of our age. Do you think it possible, Mr. Griffin, that anti-Semitism goes hand in hand with literary greatness? Answer me that.”

Shalinsky brought I. M. Sinclair with him.

“Griffin, it is a historical fact that when Sholom Aleichem came to New York, Mark Twain was among the first to greet him. ‘I want to meet you,’ he said, ‘because I understand I am an American Sholom Aleichem.’ “

“Your question, please, Dr. Sinclair.”

“How come, then, that we have been asked to read Huckleberry Finn, but not The Adventures of Mottel?”

I. M. Sinclair brought Daniels, who came with Katansky. Katansky took his brother-in-law Shapiro along with him. Shapiro opened his Daily Mail, licked a pencil, and filled in the time doing the crossword puzzles.

Another newcomer, a man called Michaelson, sat alone in a corner, He was incredibly pale, an emaciated man of fifty or so, with large staring eyes and a thin mouth; he twitched. Beside him there sat two more of Shalinsky’s people, possibly father and son, who were given to whispering together conspiratorially. The younger of the two, still in his twenties, wore a dirty windbreaker. He needed a haircut badly and was constantly jerking his head back to get the hair out of his eyes. The older man wore a shiny gray suit. Whenever Mortimer paused in his lecture, riffling through his notes, he smiled contemptuously, nudging the younger man. And the younger man, responding to the prod, would begin to laugh, but between his teeth, making a small noise that sounded tssst-tssst-tssst.

Fumbling, in a foul temper, Mortimer would hurtle onward, skipping whole pages of carefully prepared notes. Even so, he was clearly never finished with his lecture before the dreaded question-and-answer period began.

“And now, Griffin,” I. M. Sinclair would demand, shooting up from his seat, “how about a little give and take?”

“Well, I—”

“Speak Hebrew,” the pale emaciated man called out, his head lowered, the face hidden behind trembling hands. “Say it in our own language.”

Next Katansky demanded to be heard. Slowly he shed his glasses, dropped them into his breast pocket, and wiped his eyes. “First of all, Griffin,” he said, “let me say your lecture tonight was A-l—and I’m a hard man to please. In your command of the English language, Griffin, you are a field marshal while I am a mere corporal. Of course it’s true I speak many other languages,” he added, shrugging his shoulders, “but .

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