The Books of Jacob Page 18

  Pesel’s tale of the Podhajce goat and the strange grass

  Elisha gives them an additional cart lined with hay. The whole family from Korolówka now sits in the two carriages. It drizzles, and the boards with which they have covered Yente are soaked, so the men build her a makeshift roof. She really looks like a corpse now, and so on the road the people they encounter say a prayer, and the goyim bid her farewell with the sign of the cross.

  When they stop in Podhajce, her great-granddaughter, Pesel, Israel’s daughter, remembers that they stopped in the same spot for a rest three weeks ago, and that her great-grandmother, still healthy and conscious at the time, told them the story of the Podhajce goat. Now Pesel, weeping intermittently, tries to tell the story the same way her great-grandmother did. The others listen to her in silence, realizing—and this draws tears to everyone’s eyes—that this was the last story Yente ever told. Did she hope to send them some sort of message through this story? To reveal some sort of mystery? At the time, the story was funny—now it seems to them odd, incomprehensible.

  “Not far from here, in Podhajce, right by the castle, there lives a goat,” Pesel says in a weak voice. The women hush one another in turn. “You won’t see him now, because he doesn’t care for people and lives like a hermit. He is a highly educated goat, a wise animal that has seen many things, both good and terrible. He is three hundred years of age.”

  Instinctively, everyone looks around for the goat. All they see is the dried brown grass, goose droppings, and the great clump of the ruins of the Podhajce castle. The goat must have some relevance to all of this. Pesel uses the toe of one of her leather travel shoes to pull down the hem of her skirt.

  “In ruins like these, a strange grass grows, a divine grass, perhaps, since no one sows it and no one harvests it. And a grass left to its own devices also acquires a wisdom of its own. So it is only this grass the goat eats, no other. There is a certain Nazirite who took a vow not to cut his hair or touch dead bodies; he knows all about the grass. The goat has never ingested any other grass than this kind that grows in front of the castle of Podhajce, the wise grass. That is why the goat’s wisdom grew along with his horns. But they were not the ordinary horns that ordinary animals possess. These ones were soft, they would wriggle around, then twist. The wise goat concealed his horns. By day, he wore them twisted to look perfectly normal. But by night, he would go out, right over there, up to that wide level of the castle, into that once-great courtyard, now collapsed, and from there he would reach out his horns to the sky. He would stretch taller and taller, standing on his hind legs to get as close as he could, until at last, he’d hook the tips of his horns over the edge of the moon, which was young and horned just like him, and he would ask, ‘What’s up, moon? Isn’t it high time for the coming of the Messiah?’ The moon looked around among the stars then, and they paused for a moment in their journeys. ‘The Messiah has come already, in Smyrna—didn’t you know, wise goat?’ ‘I know, good moon. I just wanted to make certain.’ And so they chatted all through the night, and in the morning, when the sun came up, the goat twisted its horns back to how they were supposed to be and went on grazing on that wise grass.”

  Pesel falls silent. Her mother and her aunts weep.

  Father Chmielowski writes a letter to Mrs. Drużbacka, whom he holds in such high esteem, in January 1753, from Firlejów

  Since Your Departure, my Head has been filled with Questions and whole Sentences I did not have the Opportunity to utter at our Meeting, and since You have given me License to write, I shall take Advantage of the Opportunity to defend myself against certain of Your Charges, as well. And since we are in the Depths of Winter in Firlejów now, all I do is tend the Stove and sit over my Papers all Day long, though it spoils the Eyesight, as does the Smoke.

  You ask: Why Latin? And You, like other Members of the fairer Sex, advocate for Polish to be more widely employed in written Forms. I have Nothing against the Polish Language—but how are we to speak in it, since there aren’t enough Words?

  Is it not better to say “Rhetoric” than “Way with Words”? Or “Philosophy” instead of “Love of Knowledge”? “Astronomy” as opposed to “Learning about Heavenly Bodies”? You save Time, and it’s easier on the Tongue, too. You can’t manage without Latin in Music, either—as it happens, Tone, Texture, and Melody are all from Latin. And if Poles—as is now invaluit Usus—were to give up Latin and the Borrowings from Latin made into Polish by Way of Calques, to begin only speaking and writing in natively Polish Terms, then we would need to return to the long-lost and now incomprehensible Slavic we find in that Song of Saint Wojciech:

  The Time hath come, Hour of Bede and God’s right Rede.

  But what does this mean? What is an Hour of Bede? What Rede is right? Would Your Ladyship wish to say “Tir” instead of “Glory”? I doubt it! “Lyft” rather than “Air,” “Lac” instead of “Sacrifice”? How foolish such Words sound; what a Lac it would be. Meanwhile, anywhere in the World You can communicate with the Aid of Latin. Only Pagans and Barbarians avoid it.

  The Polish Language is clumsy in so many Ways and sounds like a mere Peasant’s Tongue. It is suitable for the Description of the Landscape, of Agriculture at the most, but it would be difficult to express complex Matters in it, or higher Themes, or spiritual ones. Whatever Language a Person speaks is the Language in which he thinks. And Polish is neither clear nor tangible. It is more suited to a Traveler’s Descriptions of the Weather, but not to Discourses, where one must exert one’s Mind and express oneself clearly. Well, it does lend itself to Poetry, my dear Madam, our Sarmatian Muse, for Poetry is indistinct and intangible. Though it really does give some Pleasure in the Reading, which cannot be expressed directly here. I know of what I speak, for I have ordered from Your Publisher Your little Rhymes and found in them great Pleasure, though not Everything seems to me clear and obvious in them, on which Subject I shall write to You again at a later Date.

  I opt for a shared Language, held in Common; let it even be a little simplified, but such a Tongue that Everyone in the whole World might understand it. This is the only Way that People will have Access to Knowledge, for Literature is a Form of Knowledge—it teaches us. For Example, Your Verses might teach the attentive Reader what grows in the Forest, what Type of wild Flora and Fauna there are, and a Person might pick up various gardening Skills, and learn about various domestic Cultivars. One can, by Means of Poetry, train in all sorts of useful Arcana, and perhaps the most useful Thing is that one can also learn of others’ Ways of Thinking, which is very valuable indeed, for without this one might conclude that everyone thinks alike, and after all, this is not true. Every one of us thinks differently, and imagines Something altogether singular when he is reading. Sometimes it unsettles me greatly to think that what I write with mine own Hand may be understood in a completely different Way from how I had intended.

  And so, if You’ll allow, it seems to me that Print was invented and Black put on White so as to make a good Use of it, so as to record the Knowledge of our Ancestors and collect it so that every one of us might gain Access to it, even the smallest, so long as he learns how to read. Knowledge ought to be like clean Water—for free and for Everyone.

  I thought for a long While about how I, Your humble Servant, might bring You some Pleasure with my Letters, given all that is occurring around You, our native Sappho. Ergo I have taken up the Idea of sending You in every Letter the various Miranda I have devised within my Books, that You might boast of them in the good Society in which You—unlike myself—appear.

  And so Today I shall begin with Devil’s Mountain, which is near Rohatyn, about eight Miles from Lwów. On the very Day of Easter, in the Year of 1650, on April 8, before the War by Beresteczko with the Cossacks, this Mountain was transferred from Place to Place, i.e., Terrae Motu (earthquake), i.e., ex Mandato (by the Will of) Our Great Lord. The Rabble, not knowing of Geology, believe that Devils wished to knock down Rohatyn with this Mountain, except that the Rooster cro
wing robbed them of their Power. Hence the Name. I read this in Krasuski and Rzączyński, both of the Soc. Jesu, thus I have it from a trustworthy Source.

  7.

  Yente’s story

  Yente’s father, Mayer of Kalisz, was one of those righteous few to be granted a glimpse of the Messiah.

  This was before her birth, in dismal, wretched times, when everyone was urgently clinging to the hope of a savior, for people’s misery was so great it seemed impossible the world could go on any longer. Such pain can’t be relieved by any world. It certainly can’t be explained or understood, and no one would believe it corresponds to God’s designs. And anyway, those with a sensitive eye, most often older women who had seen a great deal during their lifetimes, had noticed that the machinery of the world is breaking down. For instance, one night in the mill where Yente’s father delivered grain, the milling wheels came apart, every last one. And then the sow thistles, with their yellow flowers, arranged themselves one morning into the letter alef. In the evening, the sun set bloody, a deep, dark orange, so that everything on earth turned brown as though coated in dried blood. The reeds along the river grew so sharp they’d cut human calves. The wormwood got so toxic that its scent could topple a grown man. Not to mention Khmelnytsky’s massacres. How were those supposed to fit into God’s plan? As early as 1648, terrible rumors of slaughters began to spread from country to country, and with them came the refugees, the widows and the agunot, the orphaned children, the crippled—all irrefutable proof that the end was on its way and the world would soon give birth to the Messiah, that the birthing pains had already begun and, as had been written, the old law would soon be null and void.

  Yente’s father had traveled to Poland from Regensburg, whence his whole family was expelled for the same eternal Jewish sins. Settling in Greater Poland, they traded in grain, like many of their kin and co-religionists, sending that lovely golden stuff to Gdańsk and on into the world. It was a good business, and they lacked for nothing.

  The enterprise was really just getting under way when, in 1654, a plague broke out; many souls were taken by the pestilential winds. Winter put a stop to the spread of the disease, but then the cold did not let up for months and months on end, and those whom the plague had spared now began to freeze to death in their own beds. The seas turned to ice, so that you could cross on foot to Sweden; the ports ceased their operations, the roads were all impassable, the livestock perished en masse. When spring finally came, so, too, did accusations that all of these misfortunes had been caused by the Jews. Trials began all over the country, and the Jews, in order to defend themselves, sent for help from the pope, but before their messenger managed to return to Poland, the Swedes arrived, laying waste to cities and towns. And once again the Jews were ripped to shreds, for being unbelievers.

  And so Yente’s father moved with his family from Greater Poland to the east, to relatives in Lwów, where he hoped to find a peaceful haven. Here, they were far from the world—all things arrived with some delay, while the earth revealed itself to be more fertile than any they’d encountered. And as in those colonies to which the people of the west were so eager to immigrate, there was plenty of space for everyone. But it lasted only a moment. After the expulsion of the Swedes, amidst the ruins of the towns, on ruthlessly looted market squares, people started asking all over again who could be responsible for the Commonwealth’s misfortunes, and more often than not, they came up with the same old answer: It was infidels and Jews, plotting with the invaders. At first they went after the Polish Brethren, but soon the pogroms began.

  Yente’s maternal grandfather came from Kazimierz, near Kraków. He had a small business there that produced felt caps. In the summer of the Christian year of 1664—5425 by the Jewish calendar—one hundred twenty-nine people died in riots. It started when one Jew was accused of stealing the sacramental bread. Yente’s grandfather’s shop was pillaged and destroyed. Having traded the rest of his possessions for their safety, he put his whole family in their wagon and headed southeast, to Lwów, where their kin lived. It was a good idea: the Cossack element in this part of the world had already had its fun under Khmelnytsky in 1648. Gezerah—the Great Catastrophe—could not occur again. It’s just like what they say about lightning: It’s safest to stand where it’s already struck.

  They settled in a village not far from Lwów. Here, too, the earth was rich, with thick soil, dense forests, and rivers filled with fish. The great nobleman Potocki kept it all in perfect order, never permitting any deviation from the rules. By that point, Yente’s family must have thought that there was nowhere on earth they could hide—that it would be better to simply submit to God’s will. And yet, things were good for them here. They brought in wool for felt from Wallachia, and other goods as well, so that soon their business really prospered, and they were back on their feet—they had a home with an orchard and a little workshop, a yard that geese and chickens roamed, fat yellow melons in the grass, plums they used to make slivovitz as soon as frost set in.

  Then, in the autumn of 1665, along with their goods from Smyrna came the news that soon shook all the Jews of Poland: The Messiah has arrived. Everyone who heard this instantly fell silent and tried to make sense of this short sentence: The Messiah has arrived. For it is not a common phrase. And it is a final answer. Anyone who pronounces it will watch the scales fall from his eyes, will see the world completely differently from that day forward.

  In truth, had there not already been sufficient signs of end times? Those monstrous yellow nettle roots that tangled insidiously underground around the roots of other plants, along with the extraordinarily rampant bindweed that year, its shoots thick as ropes. All sorts of greenery climbing the walls of houses, trees seeming ready to reach for people’s throats. Apples with several seeded cores, eggs with two yolks, hop that grew so savagely it suffocated a heifer.

  The Messiah was known as Sabbatai Tzvi. He already had thousands of people from all over the world in his retinue, preparing to travel with him to Stamboul, where he was to tear the sultan’s crown from his head and proclaim himself king. With him, too, went his prophet, Nathan of Gaza, a great scholar who wrote down the Messiah’s words and sent them out into the world for all the Jews to read.

  Right away a letter came to the Lwów kahal from Rabbi Baruch Peysach of Kraków, saying there was no more time to wait—they needed to get to Turkey as quickly as they could, to bear witness to these final days. To be among the first who would see.

  Mayer, Yente’s father, did not easily succumb to such visions.

  He said: If it were as you all say, then a Messiah would come in every generation, he’d be here this month, and there the next. He’d be born again after every riot and after every war. He’d intervene after every misfortune. And how many of those have we had? Countless.

  Yes, yes, his listeners would nod. He was right. But everyone could sense that this time was also different. And once again the game of signs began—the clouds, the reflections on the water, the shapes of the snowflakes. Mayer finally made up his mind to go because of some ants he’d seen as he was giving the matter serious thought: they were moving up the table leg, in a row, obediently, calmly, and when they got to the tabletop, one after another they scooped up a tiny morsel of cheese and went back down just as calmly and contritely. Pleased, he decided to take this as a sign. He already had money and goods set aside, and being a highly esteemed man, considered reasonable and wise, he had no trouble finding a place in that great caravan that was to travel all the way to Sabbatai.

  Yente was born years after all this happened, so she isn’t sure whether she’d have any share in the holiness of her father’s eyes as he beholds the face of the Messiah. His companions were Moshe Halevi, his son and stepson from Lwów, and Baruch Peysach of Kraków.

  From Kraków to Lwów, from Lwów past Czernowitz, to the south, to Wallachia. The closer they got, the warmer it got, the less snow there was, and the more fragrant and gentler the air became, as her father would
later recall. They would spend their evenings contemplating the Messiah’s arrival. They came to the conclusion that the misfortunes of the preceding years had been blessings in disguise, for they made a kind of sense, foretelling the coming of the savior, just as painful contractions foretell the birth of a new person. As the world gives birth to the Messiah, it must suffer, and all laws must break, conventions be eradicated, oaths and promises crumble. Brothers must lunge at one another’s throats, neighbors hate each other; people who once lived next door must now slit one another’s throats in the night and drink down the blood that rushes up to greet them.

  The Lwów delegation found the Messiah in jail, in Gallipoli. As they were traveling south from Poland, the sultan, disquieted by the Jewish turmoil and by Sabbatai Tzvi’s plans, seized him and locked him up in the fortress.

  The Messiah imprisoned! Inconceivable! How could such a thing occur? A great anxiety now took hold among all those who had come at that time to Stamboul, and not only from Poland. Prison! The Messiah in prison, could that be? Did that fit with the prophecies? What about Isaiah?

  But wait, what kind of prison was it? And was it really prison? And what was “prison,” anyway? After all, Sabbatai Tzvi, amply provided for by the faithful, could scarcely have told the difference between this incarceration in the Gallipoli fortress and a stay in a palace. The Messiah did not eat meat or fish; people said he subsisted on fruit alone—and the freshest of these were picked for him from the surrounding territories and brought in by ship. He loved pomegranates, loved digging his long slender fingers into their granular insides, fishing out the ruby seeds and popping them into his holy mouth. He didn’t eat much—just a few seeds; people said his body derived life-giving strength directly from the sun. They also said in great secret—which nonetheless traveled faster than it would have had it been a slightly lesser secret—that the Messiah was a woman. Those who had been close to him had glimpsed his feminine breasts. His skin, soft and rosy, smelled like a woman’s skin. In Gallipoli, he had at his disposal a great courtyard and salons outfitted in carpets, where he would give his audiences. Was that really prison?