Recovery and the Return of Ethan Hart (38 page)

A lot of it had to do with the crusades. A priest from the Christian Pope had come to the marketplace on a recruiting drive, to get men to join the armies in the Holy Land and take up arms against the infidels.

“But what about the infidels in York?” That had been the immediate reaction of the crowd. “All Jews are infidels!”

So it seemed there was just as much anti-Jewish as anti-Moslem hysteria sweeping through the city. And even the Pope himself had warned the English to beware of us: we exerted a ‘corrupting influence on Christian souls,' he had written. That priest in the marketplace was a demagogue who hardly cared in what direction the passions of the mob would flow.

It hadn't always been like this. Intermittently we'd been allowed to get along in peace—especially when King Henry ruled. He'd treated us well. It was largely due to him we'd usually won our cases at the assizes. (Even if we
did
have to send him a tenth of all our damages!) Throughout King Henry's reign, York really hadn't been—well, by and large—such a bad place to live.

I'd started off in Lincoln, I'd spent the whole of my last life there…although until I was old I never used to think in terms of this life, next life, last life, why should I? It was a passing stranger in our tiny synagogue on Steep Hill who drew me to one side and acquainted me with how things stood. He told me that a thousand years ago I'd struck the Messiah while he was on his way to crucifixion. I couldn't believe I had done that. I still can't believe it, not deep in the heart of me. Done something so contemptible? Something so utterly vile?

I mean, I'm not a saint. My God, you should have asked my wife, Rebekah, about that. I'm not even a passably good man, I've never pretended to be. No patience, that's my trouble. I
do
sometimes lash out, not so much physically any more, but with a vicious and irrepressible tongue.
Intolerant
is what I am, although at least these days I usually feel ashamed and seek forgiveness. But what I'm saying is—I may not be a good man but I can't believe I would actually have
hit
somebody when he was down, not even somebody in whom I'd felt so disappointed, some self-proclaimed deliverer. You see, I know only too well what it's like to be spat on and reviled, what it's like to be the underdog.

But if I didn't know it
then
and if I really did strike him—as I suppose I must have done—well, at least I've got to be improving. This travelling wise man, I'm not sure what to call him, in fact he reluctantly admitted I might be making progress—well, half reluctantly, half teasingly, it seemed like an odd mix. (
Certainly taking your time about it
was the phrase he used.) And though, as I say, I didn't quite believe him at the start—how could he even be a Jew, with a countenance as fair as that?—I was obliged to stop and listen on account of some magnetic power he had, magical maybe (since, later, no one could remember seeing him), and I was also obliged to believe him afterwards,
long
afterwards, just by the very fact of my staying alive so incorrigibly…and then by the very fact of my coming back, so incorrectly.

Therefore, I'm making progress. I believe that, too, and if there's hope for
me
there must be hope for anyone.

Improving…and the knowledge that you're improving makes you want to improve still further, like when you've first got a bit of money saved and you're keen to see it grow.

Improving.

But at what a cost.

Because I've got to tell you.

I've spilt blood! I've spilt a lot of human blood.

Spring, 1190—and I myself am older than the century. There's this man called Malebisse, Richard Malebisse, who's the arch-conspirator against us Jews. And some months back he borrowed heavily from one of my neighbours, Benjamin of York. But, only a short time later, categorically denied having done so. Declared his signature was forged.

The case was about to come to court. Malebisse would definitely have had to cough up. But one stormy night in mid-March he and a band of his henchmen broke into Benjamin's house, killed him, killed everybody, then set the place on fire and carried off what treasure they could find.

I heard the screams and smelt the smoke but thought at first these were only a part of some appalling dream. I believed that Benjamin had fortified his windows, doors and courtyard gates just as we all had, and kept servants always on the watch just as we all did. So by the time I'd struggled up and managed to get downstairs and out into the street, the murdering cowards had made their getaway. But I knew that it was Malebisse, because my own two servants saw him and soon afterwards, anyway, before he fled to Scotland, he even bragged about it. Drunkenly. Claimed recognition as—get this!—‘the man who gave the signal for the massacre'.

That's right. Massacre.

For by the middle of the next day the narrow streets were all but jammed with looters on the rampage, with murderers crying out for vengeance. Vengeance for what, you ask? Vengeance for the fact our forefathers had come to England with nothing? Had by sheer hard work turned that nothing into something? Vengeance for the fact that a year ago hundreds of Christians had died in York from a localized plague which hadn't killed a single Jew? For the fact that three ‘boy martyrs' had recently been canonized in England because
we
allegedly had killed them—ritually and horribly—by crucifixion?

Or was it vengeance for that most terrible crime of not sharing in their beliefs? Of being more thorough in our ablutions, more particular about our diets, more anxious to teach our sons whatever we could teach them?

More intent on securing for ourselves a close-knit family life? Was it because they felt jealous of this—or threatened by it—or what?

Anyhow.

By now it was nearly dark and the whole of the Jewish population had been smoked out and was running for its life—or I, for my unmutilated limbs. There were fewer than two hundred of
us
; of
them
there were many thousands. We thought about hiding in one or other of the city's forty churches, or in the crypt of the Minster, but that rabble would no more have respected the holy laws of their own places of worship than the sanctuary of ours. So we decided to make for the castle.

We made for it along the back alleys and even—the more nimble amongst us—over the rooftops, and prayed we wouldn't be anticipated. Behind the thickness of castle walls we might be safe; or certainly as safe as anywhere. The Royal Constable would have to let us in, since we went in fear of our lives and were as much the subjects of the King as were those who'd do us harm. In a day or two, we thought, the situation must surely be defused…either by the authorities or by the elements: it was excessively wet and windy. Disappointed of their sport, please God, and lacking the stamina for any lengthy siege, the crowds would eventually drift home in search of food and sleep and dry clothing. Besides—didn't they have their livelihoods to think about?

We assumed that getting to the castle would be the hardest part. We did so in little groups of two or three, and in the main, though terrified, were able to slip through successfully; only nine of us were seen and chased—and caught and killed. Plainly, I would have made a captured tenth, if it hadn't been for the two young men who gave me their support, half lifting me between them as they ran. We huddled against walls, pressed into doorways—once disturbed a pair of sheltering cats which, stepped on in the gloom, sprang into screeching life. Often we heard the clamour of the crowd come agonizingly close, and saw the blaze of torches lighting up the brickwork only yards from where we cowered. But, yes, in the end, fighting for every breath and with the sweat of fear making our robes feel even damper and more weighty, we got there, to the castle. We got there and the Constable had been prevailed upon to admit us and safety seemed—almost—within our grasp.

Yet there were those who didn't trust the Constable and infused the rest of us with their suspicions.

Until, eventually, we locked the man out of his own castle.

Which proved a wretched move. The Constable appealed to the Sheriff of Yorkshire. And the Sheriff decided to use his soldiers to eject us.

The soldiers joined the mob now waiting jubilant beneath the battlements. The people cheered at their arrival. They believed the presence of the troops bespoke the new King's sanction for the way they were behaving. It was a kind of royal warrant.

A white-robed monk, parading back and forth along the walls, whipped them up into an even greater frenzy. The soldiers had a battering ram with which they stormed the gate.

By then, in spite of our more confident predictions, the siege had lasted several days. Several days of prayer and fasting and of trying to keep our spirits up, days of darkness and of hunger. Of shivering and of fear.

Of the screaming of babies, the sobbing of children.

Of acts of kindness and of sacrifice.

Confessions in the dark.

In conditions such as these…you learn about your fellow beings.

But this was the end. There remained only one course available to us if we wished to avoid a lingering death.

If
they
wished to avoid a lingering death.

Yet only exceptionally do we Jews commit the sin of suicide. So it was agreed that the men should first cut the throats of their children and their wives, then kill each other. Which was how it started. But the rising consternation as the children realized what was happening, the stifled sobs and hysteria of the mothers, the final terror in the eyes of women who had always been so giving and were now so dearly loved: all this led inevitably to a weakening of resolve. Strong men, hardened men, world-weary men—they found they couldn't do it.

And so it was that with the regular and horrifying thud of that battering ram shaking the very floor beneath us, the very walls around us, I felt obliged to volunteer my services.

Oh, God! Dear God! I dispatched maybe sixty lives in the space of just ten or fifteen minutes.

And it didn't get any easier, not even after practice. “Peace, and may the Lord receive you,” fifty or sixty times over. All of these people were known to me, some of them were my friends, had shown me many kindnesses. This was a kindness I was showing in return but the thought did nothing to increase my courage—possibly the two most difficult throats to cut were those of the strong young men who had recently supported me, saying as they did so, “Are you all right, old Solomon, rest a moment, have no fear that we'll desert you.”

Only fifteen minutes, yes, but undoubtedly the most debilitating of my life…or lives. When I was the only living thing left in that foul-smelling room, I sank down on my knees through sheer exhaustion and slumped red-handed and wet-robed across the nearest pile of corpses.

Not a minute too soon. Already they were battering at the dungeon door. The hinges were about to give.

And, oh, you should have heard them shouting at us. Telling us to come out to be slaughtered. Asking if we had crucified any little boys recently. Describing the terrible things they were going to do to us as soon as they had broken through.

I lay there stiff and cramped and aching, my nostrils filled with the stench of dead humanity. But I knew I couldn't fool them into thinking I was dead. Uncontrollable breathing—shudders—tear ducts. I prayed. God, in your infinite mercy, take me forward to my next life. Don't let me fall into the hands of these barbarians. Pardon my sins. Show me pity.

Take me.

But in truth I had no faith that his mercy
was
infinite. Or that he hadn't simply left me to the devil.

22

We were having problems we hadn't had before.

Down-and-outs. Charitable appeals. Flag days.

But mainly down-and-outs.

Although in Birmingham, where we lived now, there weren't as many destitute and homeless as there would be later, not nearly, there was still a distressingly large number. I felt a need to give, and to give substantially. I knew I would sometimes be duped but this seemed unimportant. “For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat… Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” I wanted—no, felt driven—to act out the teachings of Jesus as fully as I could. I didn't wait to have hands held out to me in want, I searched for those who looked as though they needed help. No special virtue here, I simply couldn't stop myself. In fact, in some ways I felt it was very far from being a virtue. Witness the dissension it provoked at home.

“But this is madness. We are getting into debt.”

She was always accusing me of madness, though this took many forms. Prison-visiting, “when you can't even find the time to visit your own parents!” Helping out in missions, “until you're practically sleepwalking and no doubt thoroughly in the way of those whose job it is!” Giving shelter to derelicts, “who might steal everything we have, or be sick on our Persian rug, or even murder us while we sleep—though on these occasions, as you very well know, I never do sleep! Not that you ever care about
that
, naturally!”

“And not only are we getting into debt,” she added now, “we are getting
steeply
into debt! Frighteningly so! What a fine example to our children!”

She had been talking, of course, only about financial management, but inadvertently had gone straight to the nub of it. When I was out with my children—and I was out with them as often as I could be, despite her taunts about not visiting my parents (which I didn't believe justified)—when I was out with my children I neither repressed this urge towards giving, nor exaggerated it. Actually, all four of them put it down to ‘Daddy being in one of his crazy moods', a phrase they had possibly picked up from Geneviève herself. But whereas Anne and Philip would speak about it with me, and sometimes shyly hold out a coin on their own account, to the ‘poor people who just aren't as lucky as we are', Jacqueline and Arthur often appeared uncomfortable, Arthur even more so than his sister. “Don't, Daddy—don't! It makes us look so silly. And Mummy says they only drink it.” Later I heard Philip say to him, “If they have to drink money they really are very poor people!” and out of the corner of my eye I saw the six-year-old Arthur—having first decided, erroneously, that my attention was engaged elsewhere—give him a pinch.