Free Raisins and Almonds by Kerry Greenwood Page A

stood up in and our papers and the children and I was pregnant with Fanny, and in the hold we had a treasure which we couldn't get at.'
    'I remember the ship,' said Phillip quietly. 'I was seasick for days and we met bad weather and Papa prayed. I remember his voice and thought that as long as he kept praying we wouldn't sink.' He gave a half-apologetic smile and his mother cried, 'Well,
did
the ship sink? So, we heard at some places that they were killing the Jews in Russia, that we had escaped in time because they had closed the borders, that our old village was burned and gone. My dear Yossel
alav ha-sholom
, he told me that the revolution would treat us no better than the Czar had. Then we came here—I remember, we saw this Australia first from Fremantle, a terrible dry dead flat place, and my little Philo said, "
This
is the
Goldene Medina
, Mama?" and I was so disappointed I could have cried, but when we got to Melbourne there were people waiting, it was so strange, we were standing on the deck looking at the quay and I took Yossel's hand, I was suddenly so afraid, what had we done, leaving our own place and coming to this new country, and then someone yelled from the shore, "
Shalom aleicheml
" out loud, like that, so that anyone could hear and know it was a Jew speaking, and I was so relieved that I cried anyway, nu, where was I? Please, Mr Abrahams and lady, have some more tea.'
    'What happened then?' asked Phryne, sipping more hot, thin, refreshing tea.
    'We were safe then. Yossel spoke to Mr Abrahams, and he took charge of the trunk and paid us the full gold price for it, and we bought this house, and then just when we were settled and we all had jobs and we were happy, my Yossel he took tuberculosis and died,
ai, ai
, he lasted long enough to see his son, and then he was gone. My Yosselah,
alav ha-sholom.
God rest his soul, he was a good man.' Mrs Grossman wiped her eyes with her apron. 'But we are doing well. I keep a boarding house and Mrs Hallenstein sends me some of the new ones from the boats, so I have a household to feed and they have a good kosher home. My daughter Helen makes buttons and my daughter Fanny works in an office and my son Philo—who would have thought he would grow so tall?—he has his own shop in the Eastern Market, a picture frame maker. And my Saul is a son of the Book. And we are all happy except that Yossi brings me distinguished visitors without any warning.'
    Phryne took Mrs Grossman's hand and said, 'We are very glad to be here and your house could not be any tidier or cleaner if you had ten years' notice. I like this tea. Do you buy it locally?'
    'King and Godfreys,' said Mrs Grossman promptly. 'But maybe you can come again, and we will make you perhaps some French coffee, and my seed cake which I make better than any woman in Faraday Street though I say it myself, it was my mother's recipe. Now I will not intrude any more on this business of the death, a terrible thing, such a young man.'
    She collected her daughters and bustled away Yossi Liebermann and Phillip sat down at the table, pushing aside the plate of biscuits, and Simon laid out the Hebrew notes and the strange pictures on vellum. They looked at them for some time in silence. Phryne saw a white bird rising out of a black cage, a red-robed woman crowning herself with gold and a face perhaps of the moon with the subscription 'Luna'. In the middle of the flames, brilliantly red and gold, a small pale couple lay, crowned, limbs entwined, clearly making love. Phryne looked at the tiny female face blank with ecstasy and fought down a pang of lust.
    'This is alchemy,' said Yossi. He touched the picture of the copulating couple with one hardened forefinger. 'This is the mating of the Golden King and the Silver Queen, which is sun and moon. You see, there are their names.' He pointed out 'Sol et Luna' in the margin of the brightly coloured painting. 'I don't know what this is about.' He laid aside a list, in Latin, and a block