Excerpts from
The Jade Cat
By Suzanne Brøgger
Tobias was the man of the world and Otto was the homebody. That was how it had always seemed to Otto, how it still seemed to him, almost half a century after his birth, on New Year´s Eve 1940; the table at No 14 Gammel Mønt laid with the gold-bordered plates from the sideboard. As usual Marie, short-legged and high-bosomed, who had followed the family from Rosenvænget into the next generation on Gammel Mønt, had organized the whole thing. But she had shaken her head at the Director when he insisted on sitting out in the kitchen and mixing the mayonnaise for the lobster himself, one leg propped up on a stool - well, he did suffer from blood clots. Marie had known the Director since he was a boy and she a young lass in the house in Rosenvænget.
Tobias and Katze´s New Year parties were "white tie" affairs. It was only the petty bourgeois who talked of white tie and tails. And black tie was for run-of-the-mill parties only. Although here it should just be mentioned that Tobias was never the one to bother much about what "one" did or said, he could not have cared less and did exactly, and only, as he pleased. He wore his inner black tie with nonchalance. It was Katze, who had married into the Løvin family, who observed the proprieties, over which she suffered agonies even as she was badgering them and watching their language.
Tobias - like every other Løvin - was a born orator, except that in terms of wit he surpassed them all. In the family, round about Tobias, the unspoken belief also prevailed that Løvin with an "ø" was an especially fine name, because it could be traced back to the French pronunciation of the letter "e", thus putting the Løvins a cut above your ordinary Levins. It could not have come as a surprise to anyone that speechifying should come naturally to all the Løvins - for with such a leonine name roaring came easily. Lively discussion was the order of every day around the dinner table, with everyone talking at the tops of their voices. Politics and mundane current affairs, business and gossip. The Løvins scared off every "kemur", and left ordinary white folk tongue-tied and shaking in their shoes.
To outsiders there was something daunting, alarming almost, about the family; the way they shouted and screamed at one another, all talking at once, as if intent on covering up some dreadful secret that could only be revealed in a whisper. Katze, for one, had always viewed all this screaming and shouting as both rude and common. The Løvins were well aware of their eloquent tongues, even though Tobias never gave it much thought, taking it for granted. This was not the sort of family where people pulled scripts from their bags and launched, all in a fluster, into some sweaty discourse laden with cliches. What counted here was a talent for improvisation, fluency and wit. All of which Tobias posessed; Tobias, who adored "Can Can" and later, when it came out, "Annie Get Your Gun". We are getting to that!
The Løvins were as assimilated and as anti-ghetto as anyone could possibly imagine. The Løvins considered the ghetto Jews too meek in the wrong way. Ghetto Jews were the sort to say softly: "Well, there´s nothing to be done about it." But there was something to be done about it and the Løvins always came up with exactly what it was that ought to be done, as Li the eldest daughter of the house said. She never came up with anything at all. But, as every member of the family maintained with one accord until their dying day, it was quite unthinkable that a Løvin should be dragged off to a concentration camp and so much as a hair on their head harmed. A Løvin in striped prison clothing was as ridiculous as a tiger in pyjamas. A Løvin would rather kill himself - having shot a German first! said Tobias"s daughters, Li and Rebekka, in chorus. But they are not going to say it yet, they have to let the story run its course. On the aforementioned New Year´s Eve, 1940, Tobias got to his feet, having requested the attention of the dinner guests by discreetly striking one of the hand-ground Russian glasses. He had personally seen to the setting of the table - Tobias knew just how to bring a festive touch to everything. Earlier in the evening, around eight p.m., the Copenhagen air-raid sirens had started up with a vengeance. The old Town Hall clock had just struck midnight; in his hand Tobias was holding the gold watch and chain he had inherited from Papa and this he placed on the table before picking up a great pile of shellac gramophone records. Everyone in the company assumed that these must be the tunes, a selection of evergreens, which they were to be treated to over the course of the night and that they held some significance which Tobias would now explain - in his own ironic fashion. Instead, to the astonishment of all present, with a crash and an elegant flourish Tobias dropped the whole stack onto the floor. The idea, it seemed, was for the party guests to piece together the fragments in such a way that every one of them had to come up with a bit of a record that matched their own - in the hands of another guest. And that was how they would find the person they were to kiss to bring in the New Year. Very witty, and very elegant. Typical Tobias!
Translated by Barbara Haveland
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