St. Urbain's Horseman by Mordecai Richler Read Free Book Online Page A

fleshpots of South Lambeth about which Hollingshead wrote in
Ragged London:
“The houses present every conceivable aspect of filth andwretchedness” and “the faces that peer out of the narrow windows are yellow and repulsive: some are the faces of Jews, some of Irishwomen …”
    Thomas Neill Cream, begot in Glasgow, in 1850, came to Montreal as a child and, at the age of twenty-two, entered McGill, emerging four years later, another immigrant fulfilled, with his M.D. degree. “An excellent worker, a brilliant boy,” his professor wrote, “but he has some queer ideas: monstrously queer ideas, and I don’t know which way they may lead him.”
    They led Tommy, for openers, to murder with morphine the Toronto girl an irate father forced him to marry at pistol point. As the girl lay dying in Cream’s arms, he sobbed in apparent grief, and then lit out for Illinois, where he did in an elderly rancher with strychnine, the better to savor his rambunctious wife, for which indulgence he endured ten years in the pen, after which he sailed for London. Swinging London (Eng.), where the cross-eyed doctor poisoned at least six
filles de joie
within a year, four of whom died in agony, before he was apprehended and hanged in 1892, falsely claiming on the gallows to be Jack the Ripper.
    Yet another Canadian bigmouth trying to make his mark in London.
    Possibly, Jake reflected, sitting in the dock, lowering his eyes demurely whenever a juror glanced at him, possibly colonials coming to London have always had a taste for nymphs of the pavements, and he sang to himself,
    â€œI’m not a butcher, I’m not a Yid,
    Nor yet a foreign skipper,
    But I’m your own light-hearted friend,
    Yours truly, Jake the Ripper.”

6
    J AKE HAD ONLY BEEN GONE AN HOUR WHEN THE PHONE rang. “Yes,” Mrs. Hersh said, “she’s here. Who shall I say is calling, please?” But before the man on the other end of the line could identify himself –
    â€œIs it for me?”
    â€œYes,” Mrs. Hersh agreed, proffering the phone.
    Nancy took it, yielding the baby to her mother-in-law. “Could you take him into the kitchen, please? You can give him some mashed banana, if you like.”
    Suddenly, without a struggle, Fort Knox surrenders its gold. Suddenly I’m not too unhygienic to feed my own grandson.
    â€œYes, certainly,” she heard Nancy say, “as long as I’m back by five. He phones as soon as court adjourns …”
    â€œYou’re going out?” Mrs. Hersh demanded, appalled.
    â€œSo it seems,” Nancy agreed icily.
    â€œWhat shall I say if the lawyer phones at noon?”
    Say I’ve gone to Forest Mere Hydro for a colonic irrigation. “I must get a breath of air, Mrs. Hersh. I need it.”
    Nancy retrieved the baby, nursed him, and sang him to sleep. Mrs. Hersh kept Molly occupied in the kitchen, helping her to make a Lego building, until Nancy reappeared, no longer in slacks, but dressed to kill, wearing her Schmucci-Pucci, if you don’t mind, andsmelling like a perfumery. Yankel’s Princess. She bestowed a smile on Mrs. Hersh. A small smile. “Now please don’t worry about a thing. Molly will play in the garden, like a good girl. Ben’s next feeding is at four. I’ll be back long before and he should sleep through anyway.”
    Alone in the house, Mrs. Hersh did not sift through Nancy’s wall-to-wall, cedar-lined cupboard this time, for its extravagant contents, out of Dior and Simonetta, Saint Laurent and Lanvin, had already been revealed to her. Neither did she bother with the umpteen drawers of lingerie, which were no longer a mystery to her either. For Yankel’s Princess, silk panties yet. If she ever got a splinter in her ass, that one, only rosewood would do.
    Mrs. Hersh hugged Molly, sent her out into the garden with the promise of a present after lunch, and climbed into Jake’s attic