The Marylebone Drop: A Novella

Seasoned Park watchers later said that the affair really began in Fischer’s, that beloved “café and konditorei” that bestows a touch of early twentieth-century Vienna on the foothills of twenty-first-century Marylebone High Street; its warm interior, its spring yellows and glazed browns, a welcome refuge from the winter-drizzled pavements. The more callow of their brethren preferred to believe that it started, as all things must, at Regent’s Park, but then the new generation had been trained to think itself at the constant heart of events, while the older knew that Spook Street, like Watling Street, runs backwards and forwards in time. The meeting at the Park might well have occurred earlier than the drop on Marylebone High, but that was a detail only, and when the time came for the whole business to be black-ribboned and consigned to the archive, nobody would care that a strip-lit office with functional furniture had been where the starting pistol was fired. No, once the facts were safely recorded, they’d print the legend instead. And legends thrive on local colour.
      So Fischer’s was the starting point; as good a place as any, and better than most. To quote from its website, “The menu includes an extensive choice of cured fish, salads, schnitzels, sausages, brötchen and sandwiches, strudels, biscuits, ice cream coupes, hot chocolates and coffees with traditional tortes mit schlag.” How could that not set the heart racing, with its enticing umlauts, its brazen italics, its artfully roman “coupes”? Solomon Dortmund can never pick up its menu without feeling that life—even one as long as his—holds some  consolations; can never put it down again without inner turmoil having raged.
      Today, he has settled upon a hot chocolate—he breakfasted late, so has no need for anything substantial, but various errands having placed him in the neighbourhood, it would be unthinkable to pass Fischer’s without dropping in. And his appearance is instantly celebrated: he is greeted by name by a friendly young waiter, he is guided to a table, he is assured that his chocolate has so nearly arrived that he might as well be dabbing a napkin to his lips already. To all of which Solomon, being one of those heroes whom life’s cruelties have rendered gentle, responds with a kind smile. Secure at his table, he surveys the congregation sparse today, but other people, however few in number, always command Solomon’s interest, for Solomon is a people-watcher, always has been, always will be. His life having embraced many people who disappeared too soon, he is attentive to those who remain within sight, which today include an elderly pair sitting beneath the clock, and whose conversation, he feels, will mirror that device’s progress, being equally regular, equally familiar, equally unlikely to surprise; three intense young men, heavily bearded, discussing politics (he hopes), or at least literature, or chess; and a pair of women in their forties who are absorbed in something one of them has summoned up on her telephone. Solomon nods benevolently. His own telephone is black, with a rotary dial, and lives on a table, but he is one of those rare creatures who recognises that even those technological developments in which he himself has neither interest nor investment might yet be of value to others, and he is perfectly content to allow them to indulge themselves. Such contemplation happily consumes the time needed to prepare his chocolate, for here comes the waiter already, and soon all is neatly arranged in front of him: cup, saucer, spoon, napkin; the elements of ritual as important as the beverage itself. Solomon Dortmund, eyes closed, takes a sip, and for one tiny moment is transported to his childhood. Few who knew him then would recognise him now. That robust child, the roly-poly infant, is now stooped and out of synch with the world. In his black coat and antique homburg, whiskers sprouting from every visible orifice, he resembles an academic whose subject has been rendered otiose. A figure of fun to those who don’t know him, and he is aware of that, and regards it as one of life’s better jokes. He takes another sip. This is not heaven; this is not perfection. But it is a small moment of pleasure in a world more commonly disposed to pain, and is to be treasured.
      Sated for the moment, he resumes his inspection of the room. To his left, by the window, is a young blonde woman, and Solomon allows his gaze to linger on her, for this young woman is very attractive, in today’s idiom; beautiful in Solomon’s own, for Solomon is too old to pay heed to the ebb and flow of linguistic fashion, and he knows beauty when he sees it. The young woman is sorting through correspondence, which gives Solomon a little flush of pleasure, for who today, young or old, sorts through correspondence? Ninety per cent of what drops through his own letterbox is junk; the other ten per cent mere notifications of one sort or another: meter readings, interest rates; nothing requiring a response. But this young lady has a number of envelopes in front of her; brown envelopes of the size codified as C5 (Solomon Dortmund knows his stationery). Job applications? He dabs his lips with his napkin. He enjoys these little excursions into the lives of others, the raising of unanswerable questions. He has solved, or reconciled himself to, all the puzzles his own life is likely to throw at him. Other peoples’ remain a source of fascination. Glimpses of their occupations are overheard prayers; doors left ajar on mysterious existences.
      He returns to his chocolate, slowing down his intake, because endings should never be hurried. Once more, he surveys the room. The young woman has gathered her things together; is standing, preparing to leave. A man enters, his attention on his mobile phone. Through the momentarily open door intrude the mid-morning sounds of Marylebone High: a passing taxi, a skirl of laughter, the rumble of London. And Solomon can see what is about to happen as surely as if he were reading the scene on a page; the brief moment of impact, the startled oomph from the young lady, an equally surprised ungh from the man, a scattering of envelopes, the sudden monopoly of attention. It takes less time to happen than it does to recount. And then the man, fully recovered, is apologising; the young woman assuring him that the fault is as much hers as his (this is not true); the envelopes are gathered up while the young lady pats at herself, confirming that she still has everything she ought to have; the bag slung over her shoulder, the scarf around her neck. It is done. The stack of envelopes is returned to her with a smile, a nod; there would have been a doffing of a hat, had the props department supplied a hat. A moment later, the man is at a table, busying himself with the buttons on his coat; the young woman is at the door, is through it, is gone. Marylebone High Street has swallowed her up. The morning continues in its unhurried way.
      And Solomon Dortmund finishes his chocolate, and at length rises and settles his bill, a scrupulous ten per cent added in coins. To anyone watching as he heads for the outside world, he is no more than old-fashioned clothing on a sticklike frame; a judgement he would accept without demur. But under the hat, under the coat, under the wealth of whiskers, Solomon carries the memory of tradecraft in his bones, and those bones are rattled now by more than the winter wind.
     “John,” he says to himself as he steps onto the pavement. “I must speak to John.”
      And then he too dissolves into London’s mass.