The Origin of Sorrow (58 page)

“I have till tomorrow.”

“To Ziggy’s. To hire a horse and carriage, before he has none left.”

“I was thinking the regular coach.”

“They might be full. You won’t be the only one going.”

Meyer kissed her cheek, and said, “Where would I be without you?” Still in his shirt sleeves, he hurried out the door.

Hersch Liebmann was riding the twenty kilometres from Riesenburg Castle into Kassel for two reasons. He wanted to hear if there was any news, and he wanted to build the stamina of his new filly, a dappled gray no more than three years old, with a sleek but promising build. In his fifteen years in the wilds he had become a good judge of horseflesh; even Ziggy Zigmund would have found no fault with this one. Because he had to call her something, Hersch had named her Yetta, after his mother. He let the filly walk easily, galloped her, walked her more, interrupting that with an occasional sprint. He liked a horse that could change speeds quickly; back on the castle grounds he would work on her change of directions. As horse and rider reached the outskirts of Kassel, Hersch pulled lightly on the reins. The sound was unmistakable now. Church bells. He thought he’d been hearing them for the last kilometre; now he was certain. They were not tolling the hour, something had happened. He could guess what it was. He touched Yetta’s flanks and the horse moved forward. Around a bend a farmer on an empty wagon that smelled like hay was approaching.

“What are the bells for?” Hersch called out as they came together.

“The Landgrave is gone.”

“Are you sure?”

“I hope so, for his sake. They’re gonna bury him Wednesday.”

Hersch grinned at the tired joke, touched his cap and moved on, leading Yetta deeper into the city. He wanted to make sure. He was peering at the Landgrave’s palace about four streets away when he had to pull up sharply to avoid running down a town crier. The fellow was walking in the road holding a sign on a pole. “Landgrave Friedrich Is Dead — Funeral Wednesday Noon,” the sign said, black letters on a white background. As the man walked he cried out the news for the masses who could not read. When Hersch had passed the man and looked back, he could read the other side. In red letters against gold, it proclaimed, “Long Live Landgrave Wilhelm — Coronation Thursday Noon.”

Farther along the street he saw criers walking in every direction, dressed like the first in the Landgrave’s colors, red and gold, carrying similar signs as they moved through the town. The streets were becoming crowded, people streaming toward the palace. Hersch turned the filly and threaded back against the incoming tide. He knew all he needed.

He found Klaus Fettmilch sitting by a dead fire, polishing his already gleaming sword. The former Kapitäin stood and waved the sword about, causing Yetta to back off skittishly.

“Where’s Leni?”

“Probably in the castle keep. She doesn’t seem to like my company.”

“Who can blame her?” Hersch swung off the filly’s back, tied the reins to a tree. “But never mind that. Friedrich is dead. Soon the roads will be crawling with easy marks.”

“Is the deal still good? I get three-fourths of the take?”

“If you do what I said.”

“I know, I know. Tell this Jew Rothberg what happened. But how come you’re so sure he’ll show?”

“Rothschild. I told you. He was kissing Wilhelm’s ass way back then. He’s not going to miss the coronation.”

“And I have to tell him what I did, why?”

“Do you ever pay attention? He’s the one who accused me of murder, got me thrown out of the Judengasse. I want him to hear the truth, from your own mouth.”

“And after I tell him, you expect me to let him live? Let him spread the story about? I’d sooner slice open his bowels.”

“After you tell him, I don’t care what you do.”

Fettmilch raised his sword above his head. Holding it with both hands, he plunged it viciously into the ground, as if his worst enemy were lying there.

“A clean kill,” Hersch said, “so long as the fellow was asleep.” He patted the flank of the filly, who was grazing calmly, and he said to Klaus, ”I’m going to find Leni.”

As Hersch walked off towards the ruined castle, Klaus called out, “I’ll give you some advice. Don’t believe a word the whore says!”

45

—Did you hear? Levi and Cohen are not speaking.

—If they’re not speaking, how could I hear? What are they not speaking about?

—That school for girls, of course.

—How can you tell?

— That’s what everyone’s not talking about.

—Everyone’s not talking?

—Steinbaum’s not talking to Greenbaum. Rosenbaum’s not talking to Cedarbaum. Frau Schwartz is not talking to Herr Schwartz. Julia Licht isn’t talking to her father.

—Come to think of it, the lane sounds pretty quiet.

—Except for the ones who are arguing. Kahn is arguing with Schultz. Mincus is arguing with Steinbaum.

—… who isn’t talking to Rosenbaum.

—No, to Rosenbaum he’s talking. To Berger he isn’t talking.

—Berger’s also not talking? What’s the big deal, they want a school? So what?

—That’s what you think, so what? Are you meshuganah? Feh, maybe I’m not talking to you!

—Is that so! How will I know you’re not talking to me?

—I’ll tell you.

—Listen, find someone else not to talk to. I’m busy.

The yeshiva auditorium had not been this crowded since the debate between Moses Mendelssohn and Rabbi Eleazar nearly ten years earlier. The extra chairs normally stacked high against the walls had been set out behind the permanent ones. Hundreds of men and a few dozen women filled the seats; most of the women of the lane had stayed at home with their children, and would abide by whatever rules the men decided upon, as was the custom.

The Chief Rabbi, who at the end of the evening would rule on the question, sat alone at a small table; Rabbi Joshua would preside over the meeting. Guttle, as the chief proponent of the school for girls, sat in the front row, to the right, in a dark blue dress. To her surprise, her father had taken a seat beside her. Meyer Amschel, busy preparing for his journey to Hesse-Kassel, had arrived late, and stood with scores of others at the rear.

The leader of the opposition, the moneylender Jacob Marcus, wearing a black suit and a brown yarmulke, sat in the front row to the left. The shoemaker Alexandre Licht, still in his leather apron, sat beside him. The two had become unlikely family when their children married.

Banging a gavel several times to silence the chatter that filled the hall, Rabbi Joshua stated the resolution that had been the talk of the lane for days: “That a secular school for girls should be permitted to function in the community room.” He explained the rules: that speakers on each side would alternate; that the opposed faction would speak first, since they had demanded the meeting; that each argument should be presented only once, because the Chief Rabbi would decide the case on the merits, not on the number of supporters pro and con; repetition would be ruled out of order, lest the meeting last till dawn.

With that, he called on the first speaker for the opposition. Jacob Marcus ascended to the lectern. Guttle, breathing deeply to calm herself, wondered why she and the Marcus family seemed fated always to be enemies. She felt her father squeeze her hand.

“Put them in their place, Jacob!” a man’s voice shouted from the rear.

Marcus nodded, raised a hand for silence. He stroked his gray beard several times, in a manner that reminded some of the late Chief Rabbi Eleazar. Perhaps that was his intent.

“I shall be brief,” he began. “The law, the Halakah, is on our side. There can be no overruling it. According to the Halakah, Adonai enjoined, and I quote, ‘fathers to teach their sons.’ It mentions nothing of their daughters, or their wives. Just ‘fathers to teach their sons.’ Scholars of the Torah, the Talmud, the Mishna, have noted for five millennia that the sacred writings are concise, that they do not waste a word — that omissions are as significant as inclusions. The omission of the words ‘and daughters’ is a clear statement that they were specifically excluded; it is no different than if the Halakah said, in so many words, ‘they shall not teach their daughters.’ For this reason, I ask the Chief Rabbi to declare this meeting over, and rule according to the law.”

The crowd murmured with approval as Marcus looked at Rabbi Simcha. The Chief Rabbi waved his hand in a circle in the air, indicating that the meeting should continue. When Rabbi Jonah tried to approach the lectern, Marcus remained where he was. “I don’t know what a wave of the hand means,” he said. “Could the Chief Rabbi speak?”

“We are here to listen to arguments, not to silence them,” Simcha said from his table, impatience in his voice. “If this speaker has finished, let us proceed to the rebuttal.”

Guttle clenched her hands into fists. She could not respond to every argument herself, each speaker was allowed but one turn. She needed her allies to speak. Rebecca had told her she would not participate, because her husband was the judge. Guttle turned, seeking Yussel Kahn in the audience. Instead, she felt her father rise beside her, watched as he walked to the podium. He had not told her he would do this.

“The honorable Jacob Marcus has quoted the Halakah correctly,” Wolf Schnapper began. Guttle realized he had dressed in his best black suit, the one he wore to special occasions at court. “But Marcus errs when he says it cannot be changed. It has been changed, has evolved, in the past. I shall limit myself to one example.

“Our honored forebears, whose lives are recited in the Torah, practiced polygamy. They were permitted to have many wives — as was also the case in non-Jewish tribes. Perhaps the best-known example is Jacob, son of Isaac, grandson of Avram. Jacob took four wives — four sisters, in fact — Leah, Rachel, Zilpah and Bilhah. No one argues that Jacob sinned. Certainly the Torah does not. Taking many wives was common practice among the Jews of the time. Yet I wonder why it was accepted.”

He paused, poured water from a pitcher into a glass, and drank. Smiling sheepishly, Guttle found herself filling with pride as her father defended her school. She had not felt so wonderfully close to him since the night of her betrothal, when he’d entrusted her to Meyer.

“Here is why I raise this question. We all know that in the beginning, Adonai created Adam and Eve. But wait a moment. That is one man and one wife. The Torah does not say God created Adam and Eve and Emmie. Or Adam and Eve and Guttle.”

“Thank God for His wisdom,” someone yelled.

Schnapper flushed. “Or Adam and Eve and Sophie,” he said, looking at Marcus, who turned away. “Just Adam and Eve. One man, one woman. The learned Herr Marcus has pointed out that omissions in the sacred writings are as important as things stated. Very well. Where are Adam’s other wives, if Yahweh intended men to have more than one? They have been omitted, because they did not exist. It is clear from this that He intended man to be monogamous.

“A second citation. The Torah says in Genesis, ‘Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they shall be one flesh.’ The wording is singular. One wife. One flesh. Is that not a clear instruction for monogamy?

“But for thousands of years, the compilers of the Halakah, the Jewish law, did not make this interpretation. Why not? Because it would have gone against the common practice. It was not until eight hundred years ago that Rabbi Gershom ben Judah, just down the road in Mainz, issued his famous ruling that banned polygamy among Jews. Why did he do that? What had changed?”

No sound could be heard as Schnapper paused again for a sip of water.

“What had changed was that the civilizations around us gave up polygamy. Most Jews gave it up as well. But some continued to practice it — and the learned Rabbi from Mainz saw that this was being held against us by our neighbors. They viewed us as having a lower morality. So he changed the law. He ruled that taking more than one wife was a sin. My point here is that the law can evolve. As to whether girls should be educated — I leave that to future speakers.”

Light applause sprinkled through the room like rain. Most of the audience did not stir; they anticipated juicier arguments to come. Guttle squeezed her father’s hand as he sat, and pressed her forehead into his shoulder, in silent thanks. He had been so well-meaning — even if his example could be turned against her.

Rabbi Jonah called for the next speaker for the opposition. People looked toward Alexandre Licht, but he did not rise from his seat. Instead it was Hannah Schlicter who approached the lectern. Pleased to see a woman on their side, many of the men applauded even before she began.

“My neighbor, Wolf Schnapper, did not speak of the education of girls,” she said. “But that is why we are here. So I shall speak of it. I have had two tragedies in my life. I lost my husband to highwaymen. And I lost my first-born daughter to education. Yes, to education! Many of you know the story, it has been whispered about often enough. It is time for me to speak up publicly — to save some of you from suffering the same tragedy.

“My daughter, Dvorah, was a good girl. She had no fancy notions. When her best friend, Guttle Schnapper, taught herself to read German, Dvorah wanted to do the same; you know how jealous girls can be of one another. It was a struggle, but she managed, with Guttle’s help. I thought little of it at the time. Dvorah married our fine Doctor, Lev Berkov. They had wonderful twins. Then what happened? A Christian gentleman came into the lane one day and took a liking to my Dvorah. What man wouldn’t, with her lovely face and figure? He sent her a book — a German book, some kind of love story — and with this book the goy made love to her, from afar, and turned her head.”

Hannah passed her hands in front of her eyes, as if brushing away a cobweb from the past, a spider’s lair of indecency.

“It hurts me to speak of the rest — how my Dvorah, under a Christian spell, ran off with that man, leaving her husband and children behind. Dvorah’s life, and my life, and Lev Berkov’s life have been ruined, because Guttle Schnapper, now Guttle Rothschild — the same person who wants to start this school for girls — because she taught my daughter to read German! And what has Guttle Rothschild done since? She refuses to answer Dvorah’s letters — her best friend! — as if Dvorah, not she herself, is the sinner. If this school is approved, your daughters, like mine, will be the prey of Christian gentleman. The goys do not want good girls steeped in Jewish prayers, they want ‘educated’ girls they can flaunt before the world. If we let this school open, our daughters will be educated out of the lane, out of their families, out of our lives.”

Sympathy followed Hannah Schlicter to her seat, and murmurs of assent. Guttle felt as if she had been kicked in the stomach. She could barely breathe. Such nonsense, she thought — wasn’t it? It was not the book that had seduced Dvorah, but the opportunity for wealth, the chance to flee the lane. Did Hannah not know her own daughter? Had she convinced herself that what she spoke was the truth? Guttle needed to answer, to defend herself, but she could not; she was not about to waste her allotted turn besmirching Dvorah, any more than her mother had already done. But to leave that fairy tale unanswered?

She felt the warmth in the room overcoming her, the smell of sweat, of stale breath, of wool, of camphor from clothing newly rescued from cedar chests against October’s chill.

Rabbi Jonah asked for the third time if there was a rebuttal speaker. He was about to call for the opposition to speak again when the crowd, especially the women, oohed with pleasure as Doctor Lev Berkov strode to the lectern, still lean and handsome despite the worry lines in his face, the streaks of gray in his hair and goatee. Quivering with curiosity, the women leaned forward, gossip creating more rapture than Godliness, even here.

“Despite my profession, I am not a public person,” the Doctor began. “It pains me to acknowledge in any way the statements you just heard from my former mother-in-law. It pains me even more to spell out the truth, which until now has been my personal preserve. But slander against the teaching of reading, in any language, is something no intelligent man can let stand. Revealing my own personal shortcomings is nothing before that.”

Guttle recalled Dvorah’s drooling over Paul von Brunwald. Watching Lev now, she admired his courage in speaking out.

“So,” the Doctor said. “I must make it clear that what came between my former wife and myself was not a book. No made-up story can destroy a marriage — except, perhaps, whispered lies. The guilty person in my divorce was not the German writer Goethe. Nor was it Dvorah. It certainly was not Guttle Rothschild. It was myself. I was guilty of ignoring my wife, in favor of my work at the hospital. Blaming it on reading, blaming it on Guttle Rothschild in order to oppose a school — that is either malice or ignorance. I should have made clearer to Dvorah, before we married, my dedication to the hospital, to the health of each one of you, and your parents, and your children.”

“Hoorah for the good Doctor,” a woman yelled.

“Please,” Berkov said, “I did not come up here for your approval, merely to tell the facts. As long as I am here, however, I would like to point out where educating a woman can lead.”

“You tell them, Doctor,” Alexandre Licht shouted, sensing an unexpected ally.

Berkov peered into the audience, and pointed. “Will you please stand up?”

Rebecca had not wanted to be part of the argument; she saw no choice now but to stand.

“You all know this woman, Doctor Rebecca Simcha,” Berkov said. “Some of you in this room would be dead by now had not Rebecca, a long time ago, learned to read.”

Murmurs and nods. Berkov left the lectern, returned to his seat beside Rebecca.

The room grew warmer still from so many bodies. One of the lamps began to flicker, as if doused by perspiration, the illusion of flames dancing on the wall. Guttle’s nerves grew taut as harp strings as her turn to speak drew nearer. Rabbi Jonah had told her he would be the final speaker for the opposition; she would follow him. She smoothed her belly to calm the tense child inside.

A woman whom Guttle did not know said what Meyer had predicted days before. “What man will marry a woman who knows more about the world than he does? How will I marry off my four daughters? I’ll have a house full of old maids. Is that how to improve our lives? Better their wombs should be full of babies than their brains full of facts.” The loudest cheers of the evening surged through the hall, men and women alike joining in. Rabbi Jonah had to rap his gavel to restore silence.

Again Guttle fretted when, at first, no one responded. Then Brendel Isaacs strode forward, shapely in a plain gray dress, a subdued style for her. “The school will not be mandatory,” she said from the podium. “No girl will have to come. That woman’s daughters will not have to attend if she does not want them to.” The Café owner took a step away from the lectern, tucked a stray blonde ringlet under her wide-brimmed purple hat, then added, “No old maid will be forced to take dancing lessons from me.”