The ducks gathered hungrily around another bread-bearing small child, a girl this time, as he strode off round the lake and towards the baroque opulence of the Krasinski Palace. He lovingly fingered the watch in his pocket with his free hand. It had only been retrieved from the pawnshop a week ago. He’d thought he’d lost it forever and couldn’t believe that the broker hadn’t sold it. Goldschmidt had been a school friend of David’s Uncle Samuel and maybe that had softened his heart a little, although compassion was not a common trait in that profession.
The Krasinski Palace had been built in the late seventeenth century for a mayor of Warsaw. David had learned all about its design and construction in his studies. The ornamental reliefs above the fa?ade of the palace had been sculpted by Andreas Schluter, who had gone on to do more great work in his native Germany. There was no time, however, to dawdle gazing at the meticulously crafted heroic dress of the Roman figures, as David had done many times before. He hurried on out of the gardens and turned into Miodowa Street. More baroque and neo-classical architectural splendours presented themselves there, but David kept his head down and moved as quickly as he could down the street towards his rendezvous in the Old Town. After passing behind the Branicki Palace, he turned left and raised his eyes. The bronze statue of King Zygmunt III glinted in the sun on top of its tall, granite column in the Castle Square. As David entered the square, he bumped into a blind man who was trying to sell his last few copies of one of the daily newspapers. He apologised and the man wandered off shouting out something about the Polish team’s recent qualification for the football World Cup and then about anti-Jewish riots in Dabrowa.
A small crowd was milling in front of the Royal Castle, another baroque masterpiece whose walls displayed different shades of colour as the sun dipped in and out of the light cloud cover – one moment orange, another salmon pink, another rose. He suddenly saw the crowd’s subject of interest – a tall bear wearing a Turkish fez and a brown waistcoat. The animal was under the control of a grizzled, old hunchback, who danced about clumsily and was mimicked in even more laboured fashion by the bear, which growled plaintively at the onlookers. David hurried on and entered Piwna Street, one of the streets leading from Castle Square to the Rynek Starego Miasta, the heart of Warsaw, the Old Town Market Square. It was there that his destination lay.
It was a very busy market day and people crowded into the narrow passages between the stalls that covered all but the very centre of the square. There, a group of colourfully dressed jugglers and acrobats were entertaining those of the crowd not intent on buying any of the wide range of food, clothing, old books, cutlery or pictures on offer. The sounds of violins and tambourines mingled with the indignant squawks of chicken and other fowl, the disgruntled squeaking of pigs, the barking of dogs and the shouts of merchants selling their wares.
Slowly David pushed his way through the throng towards the far corner of the square diagonally opposite from where he had entered it. As he shrugged off a juggler pestering him unsuccessfully for a contribution, he noticed a stall selling playing cards, dice and a ragbag of other sources of amusement. He waved a hand at the youthful proprietor, who smiled broadly back at him, revealing a large gap where his two front teeth should have been. “Yes, sir, what can I do for you?”
David bowed, in the process knocking a ragdoll from its resting place on the stall to the ground. Beads of sweat poured down his forehead as he bent down to pick up the doll. The square was stifling and he was wearing a thick, coarse suit and had walked a good distance. He would be glad to get into the shade of the house. But before he did that, he would do a little something for his younger brother. After all, he now had some money and soon, if all went well, he would have more. “I see you have some chess pieces. Do you have a full set with a board?”