The Origin of Sorrow (31 page)

Meyer was taken aback. “Not to receive it, nor to give it.”

“You made people think I’m a murderer. I hope we will meet again.”

Hersch loudly brought up from his throat a great gob of phlegm. Meyer did not flinch. He would receive whatever Hersch felt was his due. He permitted himself only to close his eyes.

Arrogance, Meyer thought, arrogance was my sin. Thinking I knew more than anyone. In this matter, someone knows more. To the Gentiles I must fawn in order to do business; they expect it. Perhaps the recoil of this fakery has been arrogance in the lane. I must remember to be my brother’s keeper, not his judge.

The speed of thought is infinite. All this between the phlegm filling Hersch’s mouth and his thick expectoration. Meyer flinched slightly, but felt no sodden blow, no sickly dripping on his face. Opening his eyes, he saw Hersch walking away in the Schul-Klopper’s frayed black coat. The yellow-green glob of disgust was on the ground near Meyer’s boot.

Watching without moving, he saw Hersch kiss his mother on the cheek, slap Hiram on the back, lift his bulging satchel in a strong hand and walk alone through the gate. Wolf Schnapper turned and left with the fire chief. Yetta Liebmann waited, to see her son turn and wave. When it was clear that he would not, she grasped Hiram’s arm and leaned on it as she walked towards Meyer.

“Don’t feel bad, Meyer Amschel,” she told him in a shaky voice. “It isn’t your fault. He did it to himself. When he was little, after Hiram came, he used to take things to get attention. This money, he took to escape from the Judengasse.”

“It appears that he got his wish,” Meyer said.

Nodding, turning, still leaning on Hiram, she walked across the lane to her house. Meyer could only imagine how vast and silent would be the emptiness inside.

As he watched Hersch’s departing figure growing smaller, fading to white, Guttle came up behind him, circled his waist with her arms. Greedily he clasped her hands.

“You mustn’t blame yourself,” she said.

“Mustn’t I?”

He did not turn to her, but continued to stare through the open gate as the distant black speck that was Hersch Liebmann melted to nothingness.

For a few days after the trial, some people in the lane looked at others with suspicion. If Hersch Liebmann had not killed the Schul-Klopper, who had? But soon this question almost disappeared, like smoke dissipating into the air. A new thought came to permeate the lane. Lev Berkov was a fine young man, a good Doctor, but he put too much faith in the new science. Suppose the chemist in Frankfurt had made a mistake, the powder in Solomon’s throat had not been poison. Perhaps milk spilled by the girl had dried there. Or perhaps sometimes from a heart attack white powder from inside the lungs can erupt. No one in the lane would commit murder. No one hated Solomon Gruen. The answer was clear. Yahweh had simply decided that the Schul-Klopper had walked the lane enough. That it was time for his eternal rest. No one could call Adonai a murderer.

The Chief Rabbi did not discourage this line of thought. Not so Doctor Berkov, who was convinced a murder had taken place. But he saw no point in harping on the matter. Without a suspect, it would serve no purpose. Unless another suspicious death occurred in the lane.

26

At times, Guttle felt, the days hurried by as if they were late for evening service. At other times the hours dragged wearily, like the flour merchant’s horse. Brisk mornings could be so robust with gossip that they seemed to have four dimensions. Dull afternoons could be narrow as the lane itself, and seem to have only two. One morning whose character was not yet determined, Guttle was sitting at the office desk, making entries in the ledger, when Meyer bounded down the stairs holding a small package wrapped in brown paper, a red ribbon around it. Eagerly, he handed it to her.

“What’s this?”

“A gift.”

“For what?”

“Today we’ve been betrothed for six months.”

“Oh, Meyer.” She stood and hugged him. “How nice. But I have nothing for you.”

“Hardly a major oversight. A big kiss will be plenty. Open the wrapping.”

“For a big kiss, this had better be good.”

She untied the ribbon and tore apart the paper. In her hand she held a writing book, but one unlike Izzy’s, one unlike any she had ever seen. The cover was made of wood. Carved into the wood were two stemmed roses, entwined.

“This is beautiful! Where did you find such a thing?”

“Do you like it?”

“I love it.” She kissed, him lightly at first, then long and firmly.

“You’re wanting another book already?”

She opened the cover and examined the pages of fine paper, patterned in faint swirls of white on white, like the underside of clouds. “It’s much too beautiful to write in. Who made it?”

“At the September Fair, Yussel saw his bookbinder selling these books, but with plain paper covers. He got the idea to put carved wooden covers on them, but he never did. Then last week he told me he was going to try. I wanted his first one to be for you.”

She traced her fingertips gently over roses. “I’ll bet he could sell lots of these.”

“He hopes to. With different designs, of course. He wants to carve figures from the Torah, Shakespearean heroes, loaves of bread. Those would be for recipe books. He’s not making coffins anymore; he told the younger carpenters that’s their responsibility now. Furniture he’ll still make, but twice each week, on his way to Mainz, he’ll pick up a few more empty books.”

She pressed the cover to her cheek. “From coffins to flowers. It’s good.”

“He’s a new man since he took up with Brendel Isaacs.”

“What man wouldn’t be?” Guttle said.

She looked down at the book, hesitant. Then she asked, shyly, “Do you still like her?”

“Is that a trick question?”

“No. I hope you do, because I like her a lot.”

“Well, in that case, I do, too. There’s something about her that’s very agreeable.”

“She’s adorable, with those blonde ringlets and sparkling green eyes. She looks so innocent, but suggests a temptress. Which she’s not. She’s a good mother, a warm person. She’s honest and real in a way that most of us aren’t. Maybe because she didn’t grow up between stone walls.”

“You may be right. She’s like a creature of nature, with a saucy quality that’s unusual.”

“Do I have a saucy quality?”

“I’d say you were more … impertinent.”

“Is that like saucy?”

“About half way. But more refined.”

“Is that good?”

“It’s you. Which makes it wonderful.” He took her hand, touched it with his lips.

“Should I try to be more saucy?”

“Don’t you dare. Not until we’re married, anyway. And then, only with me.” His arms encircled her waist. “Anoint me with the sweet wine of your petulant lips, my impertinent love.”

“You’ve been talking Shakespeare with Yussel again. The sonnets, no doubt. I’m afraid I’m still only me, Guttle Schnapper from across the lane.”

“My own dark lady.”

They kissed. She earned another book, and another, and another, before a client knocked on the door,

24 March, 1770

Forgive me, pretty book, for you are so beautiful and my lettering is not, and my thoughts surely are not. It has taken me five days to summon the courage to sully these lovely pages. But that‘s what you are for, so I shall will myself to begin.

Last night I lay awake wanting to curse Yahweh. To scream at Him for keeping us locked inside the walls. But cursing Him, I think, is not a good thing to do. So I talked with Melka of the South Gate. I asked her why Yahweh has done this to us. She said Yahweh did not do it, the Gentiles did. I asked her, isn’t Adonai more powerful than the Gentiles? Melka did not answer.

Perhaps if Yahweh reads this journal He will answer me directly. But I doubt He has the time. Though I don’t know what He does with His time, now that all has been created.

Melka said that as I get older I will stop being so angry, and will accept the way things are, just as my parents have. I’m not sure if that is a good thing.

26 March

Hannah Schlicter is going to make my wedding dress. This morning I went up to her shop to be measured. I had to wait a few minutes while she finished showing new fabrics to a Countess — a real one. She comes to Hannah every few months to order a new dress for her next fancy dinner or ball. I confess that I have been wondering since what it would be like to waltz my life away in a grand mansion with marble pillars and polished floors, with classic paintings on the walls and velvet on the chairs, with just the right kinds of dogs lounging on the floor for the painters to place in the corners of family portraits, with a maid serving tea to the ladies while the gentlemen ride to the hunt.

At sixteen I am an adult, but I still have childish thoughts.

28 March

Hardly a week goes by when I do not see Izzy strolling along, piping an invisible flute while a line of marching children, mostly girls, Amelia among them, follow behind, laughing and giggling. Today I was walking by the Chief Rabbi’s study when I saw him standing in the doorway with Yussel Kahn, watching. The marching children waved at us. Only Yussel and I waved back. Surprised, I asked the Rabbi if he thought something more was happening here than just a silly children’s game. Because in the legend, the Pied Piper led the children right out of Hamelin. The Rabbi said, ‘I’ve been having similar thoughts — but it’s even more problematic than that.’

I had never heard that word, problematic. I asked him what it meant.

‘In the legend,’ he said, ‘the children never come back.’

I don’t know if the Rabbi is afraid the children might leave the Judengasse one day — or that they might leave the Jewish faith.

29 March

It was a year ago today that I tripped on the Schul-Klopper. It is something I never will forget, and here, just in time, I have a book in which to write my feelings. Sometimes Meyer seems twice as clever as anyone needs to be.

My quill shakes in the ink, rattling the pretty bottle — Meyer gave me that, also — as I remember the Schul-Klopper lying dead on the cobbles, hammer in hand. Me not knowing then that there was poison in his mouth, his gut.

So much has flowed from his death! Izzy becoming Schul-Klopper. Hiram becoming his assistant. My foul encounter with the Kapitäin. (Sometimes, when I am feeling squeamish, the memory of that still makes my stomach hurt.) Meyer hiring Hersch, and the ensuing theft of the money — which may have caused Leo Liebmann’s death, and certainly caused the exile of his son. And most of all, Meyer. I first caught his eye, his admiration, he has told me, as a young woman no longer a child, when I rushed into the synagogue, among the astounded men, to hug and kiss Izzy, the new Schul-Klopper. Would we have become a couple if that had not occurred? Who is to say?

Other things may have been set in motion whose connections remain invisible. A year later we still don’t know if the murderer was Hersch, or Hiram, or those three boys, or the young guard (why them? why then?) or Sophie Marcus. Or someone else, perhaps the murderer in the moon. Nor do we know why the Chief Rabbi was eager to defend Hersch. Perhaps we shall never know. I count that day, 29 March last, as the day I became an adult. Perhaps because, ever since, almost everything seems problematic.

The rag dealer Ephraim Hess, clearly agitated, rushed into the coin shop just before closing time and asked if he could speak with Meyer in private. Meyer nodded at Guttle, and said he could speak to both of them.

“I need to ask a favor of you,” Ephraim said, breathing heavily, looking over his shoulder for a moment, as if he were being chased by dogs. “I hate to impose on you, you have helped me in the past, but that’s why I come to you. If I ask too much, just send me away.”

“First you’ll have to tell me what this is about.”

“This morning the Chief Rabbi came to my shop. He told me he had information that the Frankfurt Polizei are planning to raid the lane in the next day or two.”

“He came to you, because … ?”

“I’m in my twenty-third year. Not old enough to marry. But we have the baby. If they check the records, they could haul me off to jail. Who knows for how long? I don’t want Eva to be left alone with the child. They could even take the baby.”

“Couldn’t you hide him for a day? Leave him with another couple?”

“We thought of that. They haven’t raided since Solomon was born. But what if they come again in a week? A month? We’d always be in fear. That’s not a way to live.”

“What is it you want me to do?”

“Eva and I have decided to leave. We’ve been saving money to do this for a long time, to get away from these walls, the cause of all our sorrow. We want to go to the British colony in America, where we’ve heard that Jews have freedom. We didn’t plan to go until Solomon was older, until we had saved more money. But we’re leaving tomorrow.”

“And you need money?”

“No, no. We have enough to get to England. I’ll find work there for a few years. Then we’ll sail to America.”

“What kind of work?”

“Whatever is there. We’re leaving in the morning, before the Polizei come. The problem is, I have no time to sell the apartment, and the shop.” He pulled a deed from his pocket. “I would like to sign this deed over to you. If you could sell the property in due course, you could forward the money to me when we have a proper address. Keeping a percentage for your trouble, of course.”

Meyer closed his eyes, squeezing his lips with his fingers. Guttle did not speak, tried to be invisible.

“If I am presuming too much, please say so, and I will ask someone else.”

“Be still,” Meyer said. “I’m thinking.” He glanced at the iron strongbox in the corner, with its huge padlock, the replacement for the old wooden box from which Hersch had stolen the purse. “How much do you want for the property?”

“I’m not greedy, Herr Rothschild, I’ll take whatever you can get for it.”

“I’ve told you before to call me Meyer. How about three thousand gulden?”

“That’s a lot. I would gladly settle for two thousand.”

“You don’t know the demand for space in the Judengasse. A four-room house across the lane, with no air to breathe, just sold for six thousand.” Meyer went to his desk, opened the drawer, pulled out a letter of credit. “Would you like to go directly to America?”

“Of course. But we can’t.”

“I have a proposition for you. I will buy the property right now. For three thousand gulden. A fair price. That will get you to America, with plenty left over to start a life. I could give you cash, but you wouldn’t want to carry that much cash on your travels. Too many robbers out there. I’ll make out a letter of credit in your name. No one else can use it. When you get to London, go to the bank I’m writing down. They’ll have money for the voyage waiting for you. For the rest, they can give you a note on a bank in America, so you don’t carry cash on the boat.”

The rag dealer seemed amazed. “You can do all that?”

“A bank in Frankfurt can. They have an arrangement with a bank in London.”

Ephraim did not know what to say. Meyer told him to just sign over the deed and take the letter of credit. Which Ephraim did, saying, “You’re a good man, Herr Rothschild.”

“As are you, Herr Hess.”

Guttle finally spoke. “The baby is a year old. Is such a long voyage safe for him?”

“Eva’s a good mother. She will keep him warm.”

The rag dealer remained standing there, awkwardly, again looked anxiously over his shoulder toward the door, like a dog wanting out. Guttle hugged him, which made his face redden. “Kiss your wife for me,” she said. “And darling Solomon.”

Meyer shook the rag dealer’s hand and led him to the door. “Have a safe journey. May Yahweh watch over you.”

“Adonai will reward you for this,” Ephraim said. Meyer waved him away, and he took off running down the alley.

Guttle put her arms around Meyer’s neck. “That’s a very small apartment for three thousand gulden.”