The Origin of Sorrow (66 page)

“Hand me the bucket,” he said.

Others were trying to crowd around. The fire captain was shoving them back. “Give him room,” he was saying. “Let him breathe. He almost died in there.”

Rebecca pushed through to see if she could help. After a quick look she said, “We need to get him to the hospital. On a board. He can’t walk on that leg.”

“The bucket,” Georgi said again.

Guttle shrugged and picked up the bucket. Half the water was gone.

“Pour it over my head.”

Guttle looked at Rebecca. The Doctor nodded. She overturned the bucket above his head, watched it soak his blackened hair, his face, drip onto her soaking robe. He took a step toward the burning house, a grimace visible in his flickering face, then another step.

“Wait!” Guttle shouted into the fire’s rushing wind. “This way!” She reached out a hand to him; she feared stepping closer, burning planks from the front wall were falling beside him. He ignored her proffered hand.

“He’s disoriented,” Rebecca said. “The heat, the smoke.”

“No,” Georgi yelled. “I have to go back in.”

“What?” Guttle and Rebecca cried the word at once.

“There’s a Torah in there. I have to rescue it.”

He was waving smoke from in front of his face.

Melekh!

The fire captain had come near to pull them back. “Get him away from there.”

With a crash a burning plank fell in front of the captain, just missing him as he leaned back. It blazed between Guttle and Georgi, flames from the board obscuring Georgi’s legs.

“We’ve got lots of Torahs!” Guttle screamed. “You can’t go back in.”

“It’s the sacred word of Yahweh!”

“Melka!” a woman in the crowd wailed. “Melka is burning! What will we do now?”

“Georgi!” Rebecca shouted, but he was not listening any more. Turning away from them, pulling Guttle’s wet robe over his head, he pushed into the the mass of flames where for centuries the door to the River View had been, and disappeared.

“Stop him!” Guttle cried, her face in the face of the fire captain, her eyes wild with fear, but she knew it was too late, that nothing could be done.

The captain took her hand. “Frau Rothschild, Yahweh saved the lad a moment ago. Maybe He will save him again. There’s none of us humans can.”

Blistered segment of skin sizzles on his scalp. He staggers under the soaked blanket, heavy as the past. Finds the black hole of a fiery door, pushes through, ankle cutting like a butcher’s knife, eyes stinging in the smoke, peers this way, that, all ways burning, smoke thick as morning fog, smelly as musket spit — coughs, coughs again, mouth dry as autumn hay — sees the gleaming crown between the flames — that way! — ember ashes hot beneath his feet, booming sounds above like artillery. Peering up into ash falling like snow he sees flames wrestling beams, his ankle twists, scalds on a blackened pan. He falls to a knee, hot handle poking his groin, drops to his other knee, sweat coating his body like grease, his uncle’s hand pushing him down, stinking like rotted cheese or chicken shit, doesn’t the bastard ever wash? Twisting from the hot metal — palm stings as he pushes down on hot ash — turn away will you I’ll shove a musket up your ass, squeeze the trigger I will. Heat or suck making him dizzy. He turns — where is the Torah, the coffin? Lashes out with a punch to his uncle’s groin, uncle screaming as he falls or is that him screaming from a burning board bouncing off his back? Eyes tearing from smoke and flame and shame — run, hide, say you ran from the recruiters, no one need know the truth. Flames like angel wings point, he sees the gleam of the coffin, stumbles toward it, trips over the fallen lid, the soaked blanket catches on a post as on a restraining hand, twists away, pulls itself half off, he is exposed. There is the Torah. Flames surround it. He cannot breathe he must get out the pain is too much he must get both of them out. Hurls himself through a storm of fire to a clearing of white ash, falls to his knees, ankle like a smith’s hot iron in his leg. Lifts the Torah still wearing its crown of gold, scroll heavy as lead itself, have to get it out — works blistering hands beneath the scroll, it budges off the ground, he strains to pull it higher, cradles it to his chest, tries to stand, to drag his shattered leg through the ember glow, ignoring the pain, stooped by the weight, but moving. When like a tree falling unseen a roof beam falling knocks him prone, his body covering the Torah like a lover. Has to get up but the beam won’t lift. No feeling in his hands. His back is broken. Cries for help but only croaks — no matter, no one can rush in now. Cradles the Torah beneath him, the warm parchment, the soft sweet cheek of God, as the roof collapses, crashes down, a burning wooden tent covers him, pain ascendant like a shofar’s wail till in the highest octave of scream it calls down upon itself a cooling light. His blistered forehead falls into the melting Torah crown. One leg twitches, stops. His face is white as a Jew.

Late that afternoon, as Meyer returned from his journey, the horse reacted first, rearing up, refusing to enter the stable, before Meyer smelled the residual smoke. Zig Zigmund grabbed the reins, somehow calmed the horse and led him in, told Meyer about the fire. His mind still stuck in the castle killing, Meyer could barely comprehend. “Burned to the ground?” After all of Guttle’s work … “I don’t believe it.” But in the wind rushing up from the river like a teller of tales he smelled the truth of it. “In the night? Then it was empty, no one was hurt.”

“Just the Christian fellow.”

“Georgi lives there! Not badly?”

“He’s gone. Rushed into the burning house like a Dummkopf, and the roof collapsed.”

“Georgi was no dummy!”

“Maybe Adonai doesn’t want converts.”

The story did not make sense. Meyer told Zig he would settle his bill later, and he hurried into the lane, carrying the case of clothing he had taken to Hesse-Kassel. He saw Guttle’s father standing in front of the Owl, looking toward a faint spiral of smoke still rising at the south end.

“Guttle — how is Guttle?” Meyer asked.

“Papa! Papa’s home!” Nathan shrieked as he ran out of the Owl doorway and leaped into Meyer’s arms. Meyer pulled the boy’s head to his chest, knelt and covered his face with kisses.

“There was a fire, Papa! Georgi went to heaven, because he tried to save the Torah.”

“Yes, I heard,” Meyer said. To Wolf Schnapper he added, “Where is Guttle?”

“Sleeping,” Nathan answered. “She told us not to bother her.”

Meyer stood and rubbed the boy’s red hair and looked at Schnapper. “I can’t believe it. And what’s this about a Torah?” The court Jew told him what details were known, and about the funeral for Georgi Kremm that would begin in an hour.

“They poured oil and lit a match?” Meyer was incredulous.

Schnapper shrugged, as if to say, What is there to say?

Meyer told Nathan to stay with his grandpa, that he wanted to speak with Guttle alone, Walking down the lane, he left his case in front of the Green Shield, continued toward the south end. He realized what was strange about the lane. No one was visible. It was as if the fire had sucked out all the air and driven the people inside.

As he neared the south gate the smell of smoke and the sickening sight assaulted his nose, his eyes, like acid. There was no more River View, no Mendelssohn Academy, just this wide sore pocked with ash and rubble, spits of smoke rising here and there, the ash blackened by water so the fire would not flare. A woodstove still stood, its bent pipe leaning into the air like unfinished business. Twisted metal poked from the ash, the remains of lamps, of pots from the kitchen. The lead coffin lay on its side, the lid in the rubble not far away. The metal fire wall was charred in places, had buckled in other places, but gleamed in the afternoon light. “Thank you, Adonai, at least for that,” Meyer murmured, but bit his lip in memory of the boy whom Guttle had saved.

He found her in their bed, curled like a fetus around the fetus in her belly, elbows guarding the sides of her head, a blanket drawn to her waist. Her eyes were closed, the skin around them puffed. Her sheitl was askew, her short dark hair peeking out like a frightened animal. He set down his case, exchanged his hat for a yarmulke, and sat on the bed beside her. He could tell she was not asleep. Gently he took her hand. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“I killed him.”

She did not stir, did not open her eyes to look at him.

“You didn’t kill him. Whomever set the fire killed him.”

He leaned over, kissed her shoulder, the only part of her he could reach. Her shift smelled of wood and smoke.

“I brought him into the lane so he would not die in a war. Instead his death was worse.”

“You couldn’t foresee that.”

“If I hadn’t started the school, he would be alive. He would have become a Jew. He would have married, started a family.”

“Guttle, it’s terrible what happened. But you shouldn’t torment yourself. Who could predict a Jew could do such a terrible thing?”

Sweat bathed his forehead as he said those words. Who could predict a Jew could shoot a pistol?

“I provoked them with my new ideas.”

“Perhaps they needed provoking.”

She opened her eyes. “This from you?”

“There are sins and there are sins.”

“Georgi was my little brother, replacing Benjy. Perhaps that’s why I took him in.” She was sniffling; she pressed a balled handkerchief to her nose.

“I know.” Feeling helpless, Meyer stroked the light down on her arm, as he had done a thousand times in happier days, sensual nights.

She set the handkerchief aside, took his hand, attempted a brave smile.

“They say he ran into the flames to save a Torah. Surely that was not your fault.”

“I should have held him back. I wanted to.”

“You knew of this Torah?”

She nodded like a guilty child. “Melka. Hidden in the attic. For us women, a symbol of the madness of adapting to the lane. Now we have fire and ash. Complete insanity.”

“You never told me about the Torah. I didn’t know we kept secrets from each other.”

“We were forbidden to speak of it — those who knew.”

Meyer exhaled, closed his eyes, ran his hand across his forehead. He thought: I, too, now have a secret. “The funeral will be soon,” he said. “Will you be able to go?”

“I must.”

He moved aside as she pushed away the blanket, held her belly with one hand, put her legs with difficulty over the edge of the bed. He took her in his arms, held her.

“I haven’t asked about your journey.”

“There is plenty of time for that.”

“At least you got home safely.”

“Yes.”

He looked away, at the window, at a slit between the curtains, saw Fettmilch’s drawn sword, his bloody heart exploding, smelled again the gunpowder in his beard. The pressure of the pistol shot returned to his ears, warning him it would never go away. Not entirely.

“Look,” she said, touching above his ear. “You have some gray hairs.”

“Was I gone that long?”

“It seemed so to me.”

He pressed his lips to her cheek. “Have you heard what Simcha decided? About Georgi’s burial? Your Papa told me.”

She shook her head, shivered, pulled her gown tight around her breasts. “I haven’t been out … since morning. I sent the children to Mama. To Amelia. Someplace.”

“The Torah in the River View was partly burned. They found Georgi’s body … what was left … curled over it. As if to shield the parchment from the flames.”

“I know.” Tears slid down her cheeks. She pressed her fists to her eyes. She felt as if she were acting like a little girl, not a woman who herself had lost three babies.

“I’m sorry to speak of this … his remains,” Meyer said. “But you’ll want to hear. When a Torah is damaged, it must be buried in a coffin, like a person. The Chief Rabbi has given an astonishing honor. Because Georgi gave up his life trying to save the scroll, his bones and the Torah will be buried together. In one box. I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

Guttle sniffled. “He was so excited about becoming a Jew. He’ll like … He would have liked . . .”

Meyer put his arm around her, hugged her close as they sat side by side.

“Hesse-Kassel,” Guttle asked after a time, “it went well?”

“I’ll tell you later.” Some of it, he thought, helping her to her feet. “Now we must get ready for the services. But the school — where will you hold your classes?”

“The school? The school is dead,” Guttle said. “That, too, will be buried in the box with Georgi.”

49

Meyer mourned the death of Georgi, but he believed that Guttle was punishing herself for something that was not her fault. He saw a vagueness in her eyes that had never been there before; it obscured her inner light the way morning fog sometimes hid ships on the river. She dressed in the same shift day after day, put on a gray coat and walked the lane hour after hour, while Schönche did the cooking and directed the other girls in the cleaning. His attempts to talk to her were drowned in vacant stares. He could only hope that her despair would pass with time, that it would not affect the health of the child she was carrying.

His own guilt was undeniable. He had pulled the trigger with his own finger, a man’s heart had exploded. The body had not been buried, had been left as carrion for birds or wolves. Thou Shalt Not Murder. Of his journey he had told Guttle of meeting Dvorah and Goethe. But the killing he did not mention. It occurred to him that if he confessed it, she might let go of her own assumed guilt. But he could not do so. Some day, perhaps — if the proper time came. He had always prided himself on his morality. It was a fixture of who he was as much as the coins he sold, the profits he made. Now, to anyone who knew of the murder, his moral acts could appear fraudulent, a facade to hide his guilt, or a penance to atone for it.

If Hersch keeps his word, Meyer thought, no one need ever know; my moral actions will be a fraud only to myself.

For seven days he sat shiva for Georgi at the Chief Rabbi’s house, with Simcha and Yussel and Lev Berkov and enough other sympathetic men to make up a rotating minyan. In her own way, he understood, that was what Guttle was doing. She was sitting shiva by herself, perhaps with her companions of the mind. He would try to be patient.

When the shiva for Georgi was done, Meyer turned to the other task that burdened him: to reveal to the lane the truth of the Schul-Klopper’s murder so long ago; to clear Hersch Liebmann’s name. Out of courtesy he told it first to the Chief Rabbi, in his study. The Rabbi listened silently. When Meyer finished, Simcha said, “Rabbi Eleazar must have guessed right away. Maybe not whom, but why. That the Schul-Klopper was killed because of his spying. Eleazar carried guilt to his grave.”

Like a minstrel without a lyre, Meyer roamed the lane and told the story again and again of his meeting in the ruined castle with Hersch Liebmann and Klaus Fettmilch. He made no mention of weapons, only of the words that were spoken. He told the tale in the community room and in the Café, in the courtyard of the schul and to knots of men gathered outside shops and houses. Always his concluding words were the same: “Should Hersch ever return to the lane, please remember: although he did commit theft in a youthful error, he has paid the penalty. He is not a murderer. Wrongful charges that I rashly made long ago, each evening with my bread and wine I now taste bitterly.”

Which was true.

After each telling, the same questions and comments were hurled at him by the listeners. Why did the bastard confess now? I wish he’d told me — I would have killed the sleazy dog!

“Why did he tell me?” Meyer would reply. “Perhaps to clear his conscience. He didn’t look well when I left.”

Where is he now? they growled.

Meyer would pause, silently ask Yahweh to forgive him for speaking in metaphors. Then he would say: “He rode off into the woods on a pale horse. I don’t think we shall see him again.”

And they would erupt: if we see him, we’ll hang him! Hanging is not good enough, we’ll tear him limb from limb! We’ll butcher him, if we see him again!

In the crescendo of their bravado Meyer would turn and walk away, and find another group to whom to tell his tale.

No one spoke to Guttle as she trod the cobbles from the south gate where the ashes of the school still smelled of death to the north gate through which she had first escorted the boy, dressed as a girl, into the lane. She recalled Amelia’s childhood wisdom, why Jews walk in a circle, though hers was not a circle but a straight line endlessly doubling back upon itself. Her friends knew not to approach her; those she considered her enemies were respectful enough to turn away, now that the deed was done. She could not have said why she walked the lane hour after hour as if in a trance, or like a ghost, but with each passing day she came to represent, to some, the lane’s collective guilt.

Meyer was wrong, she was not communing with her spirits. Melka was dead, buried with Georgi — she still could hear the earth dropping onto his coffin like desolate rain. Mortality’s ultimate sound. Jennie Aron, alias Joan of Arc, had died anew in the flames of the River View, with Georgi; Guttle could not witness with her mind’s eye the burning of one without acknowledging the burning of the other. She had not banished Madame Antoine, but the Queen of France offered no consolation, only a willing ear. The people she passed in the lane saw her lips moving but caught only a word, a phrase, as she drifted by in conversation with the Queen, day after day making the same comments, the same accusations.

“I likened them to animals, I likened the lane — which is their home — to a barn. I cast doubt on the wisdom of Solomon, and in doing so, murdered Georgi. In his innocence, Meyer, so worldly wise, could never kill. But with words I have slain Georgi as surely as if I had splashed the oil and lit the match. My words were the match.”

Marie Antoinette answered, “Do you plan to have them cut out your tongue?”

Guttle shuddered, continued walking, trying to see what her mother had lately begun to see in her dementia: the River Main as the Red Sea, the walls as the hills of Galilee, the south gate a passage from Egypt to the desert. She tried to escape into the world of the ancients, to become one of them, but she could not. All she saw was the school devoured by fire, with Georgi trapped inside.

The Chief Rabbi was coping no better. One day Meyer accosted him outside his study after, for the second week in a row, Simcha had let the younger Rabbis lead the daily prayers. “If I may say so, Rabbi,” Meyer told him, “you seem as morose as my wife. I suppose more than anyone in the lane you and Guttle, and perhaps Yussel Kahn, were closest to Georgi Kremm. Still . . .

“Georgi ben Avram.”

“Yes. Still, you have presided at many funerals, even of Jewish infants without number. Infants without names. For this … accident … to undermine your spirit so . . .”

The Rabbi led Meyer into his study, closed the door behind them. It was virtually unchanged since Rabbi Eleazar had presided over the lane. He motioned to a chair; Meyer sat as the Rabbi settled behind the desk.

“You have, what, three sons, Meyer? Six children, a seventh coming. I loved Georgi like the son I will never have. But we sat shiva, I will say yizkor for eleven months, in time I will get over his death. That is the way of life, as you well know. What I may not get over is my failure in my first testing as Chief Rabbi — a failure that led to his death, that has divided the lane into warring camps.”

“You exaggerate, Rabbi.”

“Do I? Is not arson an act of war?”

“With all due respect, you sound like my Guttle. She also claims responsibility. As if guilt were a prize. You both can’t both be guilty — especially when you are both innocent. Why do you say you failed? At what?”

“Had I allowed them to start their school in the community room, there would have been no fire. The synagogue is stone, it has survived fire for centuries. Georgi would still be alive.”

“But you said that would have been wrong.”

“It would have. But I knew, of course, their plans for the River View. I played a game. Had I banned the girls school altogether, then Georgi — my student — would be alive.”

“But you felt a ban was unwarranted — your true feeling, I would guess.”

“Of course. I am not a king, a landgrave, a pope. Just the Chief Rabbi. I do not rule, however I may rant.”

Meyer grinned, glad Simcha could still make a joke. “So you had no choice.” Just as I had no choice, he thought. “You did what you believed was right.”

“And look what happened. The fact is, I had another choice, which I did not think of then. That is where I failed. That is why I am considering resigning my position. The thought of which makes me morose, as you have observed.”

“Resign? You cannot resign. The lane needs you to guide us.”

“Rabbi Jonah would make a capable replacement, till one of the younger Rabbis gains stature. I might even leave the lane, move to Mainz, to Berlin, were it not for Rebecca. She is the one who is needed.”

Meyer lifted off his yarmulke, ran a hand through his hair, felt sweat on his scalp. “Your reasoning escapes me, Rabbi. I still don’t see where you failed.”

“I should not have made any decision. This I realized long before the fire — as soon as I saw the demonstrations outside the school. The lane was divided, like a cleft cow at the slaughterer’s. That was clear at our meeting. It was the duty of the Chief Rabbi to heal this division, to bring the two sides together — not to split them further apart. It was my job to restore the arm of Jew around Jew.”

“How could you have done that?”

“I could have expressed my own view of secular education. The spectre raised at the school meeting was that we will lose our faith if we study the outside world. It seems to me that Adonai would not have created the outside world if we were not to know of it. He would not have driven Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden if He did not want them to see the rest. Yahweh gave us Jews brains large enough to encompass both religious and secular studies. Since all creation is the work of God, studies of His creation — what we call secular studies — cannot be deemed irreligious.”

“Do you think that would have swayed them?”

“Some of them. But it is not my place to address secular matters.”

“So what could you have done?”

“That is the problem. I do not know. I am not King Solomon.”

“According to my eldest daughter, even Solomon was wrong sometimes.”

“Yes, it was the talk of the lane that Sunday afternoon. Someone with a match disagreed.”

“Resigning as Chief Rabbi will solve nothing.”

“My successor might solve everything.”

“What does Rebecca say?”

“I don’t treat her patients. She doesn’t make my decisions.”

“There must be a way to bring the people together. To end this bitterness.”

“When you think of it, Meyer, let me know.”

As he left the Rabbi’s study, Guttle was passing in the lane. She did not greet him. Perhaps, Meyer told himself, she had not seen him. Though he believed she had.

She was not so different from Meyer, she thought. If her school had been a ten-year fantasy that lasted less than a week, his dream of extreme wealth was a similar fantasy. Anger had flushed his face when he told her how Crown Prince Wilhelm, now the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, had not even recognized him at the coronation ball. Meyer had come back with no new investments, not even the promise of profits in the future. The defeat had aged him, she felt; not just the beginning of gray in his hair, but a new sobriety in his manner. She could not tell how much he was mourning for Georgi, for her school, how much for his own shattered hopes.

The gray silence in which they were trapped frightened her. This was something new in their marriage. The ashes of the River View had extinguished her bright world. Wilhelm’s indifference had extinguished his. But they had to pass beyond this darkness soon, if only for the children. They were old already — Meyer was forty-one, she thirty-one — but the young must be raised with hope, or they would wilt like an orchard without rain; their fruit, which was their intelligence, would molder.

The baby kicked, as if he could hear. Perhaps, she thought, he could.

—Where have you been? It’s been weeks since I saw you.

—In bed with the grippe.

—Tell me something. If you weren’t sick, would you have gone to the goy’s funeral?

—Certainly not! A goy buried with a Torah? It’s a sin! What kind of Chief Rabbi do we have?

—He was only three days from being a Jew.

—A ger! A convert! A cross they should have buried him with. Maybe in three days he would have risen.

—It’s true, they didn’t bury Rabbi Eleazar with a Torah.

—Or Rashi, or Maimonides. Just this goy.

—Still, the fire was a terrible thing. Whom do you think?

—Whom do I think? What am I, an eye in the back of your head? The moneylender Marcus, maybe. He didn’t want the school, he didn’t want the goy to marry his Misha. Two kugel with one match.

—Such a rich man? He wouldn’t do such a thing.

—His meshuganah Sophie, then. It had to be a crazy, to risk burning the gansa lane.

—I think the cobbler Licht. You heard at the meeting, his daughter hated him from the school. That could make you crazy.

—Or the seamstress Hannah Schlicter, whose daughter was shtupped by a book. She maybe was setting fire to Guttle Rothschild.

—Half the lane hated the school, it could have been anybody. It could have been more than one. A plot.

—Whomever, they made a mitzvah. Good riddance to the school. And the goy. Now they can build three new houses on that land, there’s so many people wanting to buy. The rebbetzin will be rich.

—Then the buyers will sell off apartments, and they, too, will be rich.

—If they could afford to buy, they already were rich.

—So they’ll be richer. It’s the way of the world. But they might just build another school.

—So someone could burn it down again? They wouldn’t take a chance.

—I suppose. What’s that?

—What’s what?

—Under your sleeve. When you waved your arm just now. It looked like a bandage wrap. You fell and hurt your wrist?