Rashi's Daughters, Book III: Rachel (29 page)

Joheved wiped away the tears running down her cheeks. Mama hadn’t been this alert in months. “Maybe it did.”

“So, do you forgive me?”

Joheved threw her arms around her mother. “I forgive you. And I ask your forgiveness for all the trouble and grief I caused you.”

“Children are supposed to give their mother trouble and grief, especially daughters. But I forgive you . . . And tell your sisters that I forgive them too.”

Joheved made her decision. She couldn’t let Mama die thinking Meir had blown that shofar. “Mama, it wasn’t Meir blowing the shofar for you. It was Hannah.”

Mama chuckled softly. “Your father must have gotten angry.”

“
Oui
, he did. But he calmed down eventually, like always.”

“Thank Heaven for that. Otherwise I never could have lived with him.”

Mama closed her eyes and lapsed into silence. Joheved watched her chest slowly rise and fall, and then quietly left the room. Meir was waiting in the hall.

He smiled and whispered, “After hearing about the new rams, I decided to pay them a visit and see for myself. I thought I’d revitalize your special mirror while I was there.”

Twenty years earlier, Joheved’s magic mirror had saved their marriage and led to the birth of their first child. She looked up at him and smiled. He was gazing at her with the expression that still, years later, could kindle her desire.

She blushed and whispered back, “I don’t think you need any magic to strengthen your
yetzer hara
, but then again it couldn’t hurt.”

 

That night it seemed as though Meir had just returned from a journey, so quickly did he and Joheved rid themselves of their clothes and wrap their arms around each other. Meir half caressed, half massaged her naked back as they kissed hungrily. Soon his hands slipped around to her breasts, tweaking her nipples as her tongue fenced with his.

Though she was expecting it, the first flush of desire made her whimper, and when he continued to toy with her hardening nipples, her moans of pleasure grew stronger. Now his lips were on her neck, and the surging fire below made her squirm in his embrace.

Joheved’s sensuous movements so close to his groin, coupled with thoughts of what he’d be doing next, soon had Meir fully aroused. He lifted her onto the bed and lay down beside her, his kisses forcing her head against the sheets, his hand fondling her breasts.

Joheved couldn’t wait a moment longer. She pulled his hand down her belly, the ache below desperate for attention. Meir replaced his fingers on her nipple with his mouth, while his hand spread her thighs, stroking her gently. She rewarded him with more groans of delight.

Meir continued caressing her opening until his fingers were wet. But instead of entering immediately when her passion flared, he searched until he found the small knob where he knew she would be most sensitive. He drew slow circles around it with his index finger, noting with satisfaction as Joheved’s breathing quickened and her hips thrust against his hand.

When he finally pulled his hand away, he knew she was expecting him to enter, and he smiled at her surprise when he stood up and pulled her sideways on the bed, her derriere at the edge. Then he knelt and rested her legs on his shoulders.

Joheved raised herself on her elbows. “Meir! What are you doing?”

“Just let me pleasure you.” He began stroking the inside of her thighs as she fell back.

With her legs spread wide before him, Meir gently massaged her lower lips, bending closer so his tongue could reach that sensitive spot his fingers had so recently caressed. Eliezer said that it might be difficult to find, but Joheved’s sudden squeals made it clear that Meir had found his goal.

Careful not to overstimulate her, he varied his technique. Circling with his tongue, moving from side to side, strongly and then more gently, he listened as Joheved gasped and moaned, trying to ascertain what she enjoyed the most. All the while his fingers were busy inside her damp passage, probing its depths, as his senses reveled in her intimate flavor and aroma.

For her part, Joheved was helpless to do anything except revel in the spiraling delight Meir’s mouth was creating. Who could have imagined that her body was capable of such feelings? Ripples of exquisite sensation passed through her as Meir modified his efforts. Just when she thought she was going to explode with passion, he would pause and begin something new. She desperately wanted both the ultimate climax and for him to never stop.

Meir sensed that her release was near. Her secret place had grown round and hard, like a pearl, under his lashing tongue. Her lower lips were swollen and full, much like her nipples after he’d fondled them. He pressed his hand hard against the muscles inside her womb, waiting for her contractions.

Abruptly Joheved’s cries reached a crescendo, as wave after wave of the ecstasy coursed through her. Mindless with rapture, she grabbed Meir’s arms and squeezed them convulsively, while he forced his mouth to remain in position, leaning back only after she finally jerked her body away.

When Meir opened his eyes, he was glad they had forgotten to extinguish the lamp. He gazed in awe at Joheved’s most private parts, glistening and plump like segments of apple dripping with honey. He’d never seen anything so erotic and exciting, and his loins responded immediately. He began lightly caressing her thighs, then kissing her flesh closer and closer to the crease where her leg met her torso.

Joheved lay exhausted, her heart pounding, focused on the receding spasms of pleasure. She was sure she wouldn’t be able to move for hours. Her breasts and
ervah
were still pulsing when she felt Meir’s lips on her leg, so gentle at first that she might have imagined it. But as the sensation moved up her thigh, her desire flared so intensely that before she knew it she’d dragged Meir up on top of her.

More delights awaited her. Meir had barely entered before she was at the zenith once again, urging him to move faster and deeper. As she reached a new climax, he found that, for the first time, he was able to restrain himself while her womb convulsed around him. When he began moving within her again, he allowed himself to fully savor the sensation, confident that when his passion was about to overwhelm him, his vigorous thrusts would force Joheved to emit her seed as well.

Finally it was over and Joheved lay limp in his arms, her heart beating wildly and her body damp with sweat. How was it possible that after twenty years of marriage, they should discover something so new and wonderful?

She somehow found the strength to reach over and brush his lips with hers. “
Merci beaucoup
. That was magnificent.”

Meir chuckled and replied, “My pleasure.”

 

As Rachel forecast, when Eliezer returned to Troyes for the Cold Fair, he brought back sufficient grain profits to more than offset Salomon’s dismal vintage.

“I was lucky to get out of Mayence without injury,” he told her that night. “Wheat was so scarce that we could name our price, but buyers resented having to pay that much for it.”

“They should have been grateful you had any wheat at all. If not for your shipments, the famine would have been worse.”

“Most didn’t see it that way. They were angry that we took advantage of their suffering to make more money.”

Rachel’s curls shook with exasperation. “They probably think you should have donated the wheat out of charity, never mind all your trouble and expense procuring it.”

“Logic had nothing to do with it,” he replied. “There was such rancor over Jews profiteering while ‘good Christians’ went hungry that I came through Worms on my way back from Prague rather than face anyone in Mayence again.”

“The bishop was probably charging just as much for his wheat.”

“Of course he was, but nobody’s going to complain about the bishop—at least not out loud.”

When Rachel remained silent, Eliezer saw his chance to say what he’d been thinking about the entire ride home. He pulled her close and dropped his voice seductively. “Belle, I hate being away from you. Come with me to Toledo.”

Rachel’s heart leapt with joy. “What about the children?”

“Shemiah should remain to continue his studies, but we can bring little Rivka if you’d like.”

Rachel thought back to their early journeys, how inhibited she’d felt with Shemiah sharing their room and often occupying their bed. And yet the one season she’d left Shemiah with Eliezer’s mother, he hadn’t recognized her when they returned.

“I don’t know,” she said slowly.

“You’ll only be gone a few months.” He pulled her close. “Let Miriam take care of your clients and help in the vineyard. After all, you shouldered her responsibilities last summer while she was in Paris.”

“I didn’t mean I don’t know about going with you.” She gazed up at him and smiled. “I miss you so much when we’re separated; I just don’t know whether we should take Rivka or not.”

“You can decide that when it’s time to leave.” He bent down to kiss her.

But Rachel had already made up her mind. If she weren’t enceinte by the end of Hanukkah, she would leave her daughter with Miriam and accompany her husband the following week when the Cold Fair closed. Little Rivka was almost four years old; she wouldn’t forget her mother so easily.

To avoid the Evil Eye, Rachel divulged her plans to Miriam alone.

“Of course your children will stay with me. Alvina would be lost without Rivka to play with,” Miriam said. “While you’re away, I can begin teaching her how to read and write.”

Rachel threw her arms around Miriam. “
Merci
, you are the most wonderful sister.” Though they were alone, she lowered her voice and added, “Maybe Adam’s curse won’t reach as far away as Toledo, and I’ll get pregnant.”

Miriam smiled conspiratorially. “It’s either broken or it didn’t reach to Ramerupt. Joheved’s expecting another child this summer,” she whispered.

“So that’s why she goes to bed early rather than study Talmud with us,” Rachel said. “But are you sure? I thought her flowers had stopped.”

“I’m a midwife; I can tell. But just to be safe, don’t speak of it to anyone, please.”

Meir knew very well that his wife was with child. When Joheved greeted the first week of Troyes Cold Fair by throwing up each morning and then eating a hearty
disner
, he calculated that their new son should arrive shortly after Shavuot.

Of course they would have a son. Joheved had emitted her seed first every time. And if, as the Talmud taught, a child’s quality reflected the quality of the act that conceived him, this boy would surely grow to be a
talmid chacham
. But Meir said nothing of this, keeping the blissful knowledge inside, where it warmed him better than any hearth during those chilly autumn days.

 

Each night, as she kindled another wick in their Hanukkah menorah, Rachel grew increasingly uneasy about going to Toledo. Eight years had passed, but she recalled her previous visit well. Isolated at home like the Sephardic women, her only companion had been little Shemiah. True, Eliezer shared her bed at night, which was a mighty consolation, and she had no nagging anxieties about his safety in some faraway place. The price she would pay for enjoying those pleasures this time would be her constant worries about Papa and Mama’s health, no Talmud study with her sisters, and missing her children for six months.

But when her flowers arrived the day before their departure, Rachel put her concerns aside and packed her things. That night she slept with little Rivka, holding her daughter securely in her arms, and the next morning at dawn she was overcome with guilt at her daughter’s tears and wails of protest as she and Eliezer joined a band of Jewish merchants heading southwest.

Their caravan was enlarged by pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela, which gave Rachel the company of enough women that she no longer felt like an oddity. They had just passed through the Pyrenees, thankfully without experiencing a blizzard, when she realized that her seven clean days were finished. But it was too cold for her to immerse in the local rivers, so she and Eliezer abandoned the others and made for Saragossa. The large Jewish community there was sure to have a
mikvah
.

Luxuriating in the sumptuous bathhouse that housed the
mikvah
, while a masseuse kneaded the muscles that ached from too many long days on horseback, Rachel began to anticipate her six months in Sepharad. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad after all. Papa had given her a copy of Tractate Nedarim, one of the few he hadn’t written a commentary on, with instructions to go through each page and jot down anything he ought to address. Surely that would keep her occupied during the day.

The Jewish Quarter was overflowing with refugees fleeing Berber attacks in the south, but Eliezer’s old host Dunash still had space in his house, located just off Calle del Ángel, the main thoroughfare. Like other homes in Toledo, the whitewashed walls facing the street had no windows, and the entry door opened into a hallway that immediately turned right, thus presenting any curious passersby with a blank wall.

Standing in the tiled entry hall, Rachel knew that the austere exterior was a facade, and that the interior rooms would open onto a central courtyard. But Dunash’s beautiful patio was quite unlike Papa’s utilitarian outdoor space in Troyes. Its walls were covered with flowering vines, and a path wandered among bushes and fruit trees to the well in the center, which fed a fountain surrounded by a shallow pool. Benches sat scattered along the path, and Rachel imagined herself studying Tractate Nedarim on one of them, while the fountain gurgled pleasantly in the background.

She held her breath, waiting to see their chambers, hoping there would at least be a view of the garden. The apartment was small, just two rooms off one of the lesser salons. The tiny bedroom had no windows, but the sitting room did open onto the courtyard. Rachel sighed with relief; they could enter and exit their quarters without walking through the main house.