The Books of Jacob Page 22

  The groom is getting ready to go now. Yehuda Levi ben Tovah, Jacob’s father-in-law, has found him a good job in Craiova. It is a sizable city situated on the Danube, a gate between the north and the south. Tovah has a brother-in-law there who is a successful merchant, and he needs help with his warehouse—dispatching things, invoicing. The whole commercial network is run by a macher named Osman of Czernowitz; people say that whatever he touches turns to gold. Gold flows from Poland, from Moravia, they pay him for Turkish goods and the things that they don’t have up north. Why do they not produce hats made of wool felt in Poland? Why do they not weave carpets? And craft faience, and glass? They don’t make much there, importing everything, which is why someone like Osman must exist at the border, the salt of the earth, helping to channel the impulses of the world. The turban that wreathes his suntanned face makes him look like a Turk.

  Reb Mordke thinks he will remain in Nikopol; he is old, tired. He needs soft pillows, clean sheets; his mission seems to have come to an end, the mystery revealed, Jacob matched and married and now a fully grown man. One broken gear in the machine of the world has been fixed. Now, perhaps, Reb Mordke can retreat into the shadows, into the smoke of his pipe.

  Come tomorrow, everyone will part. Jacob and Hershel ben Zebu, Hana’s young cousin, will set out for Craiova, and at least for now, Nahman will go back to Poland. He will carry the good news to the brothers in Podolia, Rohatyn, Glinno, and Busk, and after all of that, he will be free to go back to his own home. He thinks about this with a mixture of happiness and aversion. As everyone knows, it isn’t easy to go home.

  It takes them until midnight to say goodbye. The women have been sent off to sleep; the men have closed the doors. Now they’re drinking that Nikopolian wine and concocting schemes for the future, playing with little crumbs of bread on the table, sprinkling them into little hills, twirling the little balls. Nussen is already asleep on a cotton bale, he has closed his one eye and doesn’t see Jacob, gaze blurry, stroking Nahman’s face, or Nahman, drunk, resting his head on Jacob’s chest.

  At dawn, not yet fully conscious, Nahman sits down in a cart that will carry travelers to Bucharest; he has gold sewn into his light-colored kapota, everything he has earned from this expedition—not bad. And he will carry some dozen bottles of aloe oil that he will sell in Poland for a considerably higher price. Deep in the pocket of his white wool overcoat that he bought at the bazaar in Nikopol, he has a clump of fragrant resin. There is also a bag of letters and a whole pack of gifts for the women in the cart. His freckled, chapped face is wet with tears, but as soon as they get past the town’s outskirts, he is overcome by such elation he feels as if he were flying over the stony tract toward the sun, which is just coming up and completely blinds him.

  He is lucky: in Bucharest, he joins the caravan of the Kamieniec company of Wereszczyński, David and Muradowicz—so say the cases on the carts. The load smells of coffee and tobacco. The caravan is heading north.

  After almost three weeks, Nahman reaches Rohatyn in good stead and dirty stockings, and in his dusty, light-colored overcoat he stands at dusk in front of the Shorr house, where they are just preparing for a wedding of their own.

  In Craiova: Of trade on holy days and of Hershel, faced with the dilemma of the cherries

  The workshop of Abraham, Tovah’s brother-in-law, is a veritable treasure trove; he trades all over Europe the things the Orient does best, which flow through Stamboul to the north in a colorful stream of all kinds of bright and shining merchandise, much vaunted at the courts of Budapest and Vienna, Kraków and Lwów. The Stamboul fabrics, which come in all different colors, interwoven with gold, in amaranth, red, green, in cerulean stripes or embossed with floral patterns, lie rolled up in bales and covered in canvas to protect them from dust and sun. Next to these, soft Algerian carpets made of wool so delicate it feels like damask, fringed or trimmed with galloon. And camlet, also in bales and of various colors, from which European men’s fancy jackets are fashioned, and lined with silk, which is also present here in great abundance.

  There are also little kilims, tassels, fringes, mother-of-pearl and lacquer buttons, small decorative weapons, lacquer snuffboxes—a gift for the refined gentleman—and fans painted with scenes—for European ladies—pipes, expensive stones. There are even sweets: halva and Turkish delight. To the warehouse come Bosnians, known here as “Greeks,” bringing leather goods, sponges, fluffy towels, brocade, delightful Khorasan and Kerman scarves with lions and peacocks embroidered on them. And it all smells different—some exotic, foreign scent emanates from the pile of kilims, the fragrance of unfathomable gardens, blooming trees, fruits.

  “Subhanallah”—“Praise Allah”—say the clients when they enter this place. “As-salamu alaykum.”

  They have to bow their heads because the entrance is low. Jacob never sits in the office, but rather at a little table having tea, dressed lavishly, like a Turk, in a blue-green Turkish caftan and a dark red Turkish cap. Before they get down to business, they always have to have two or three little glasses of tea. The local merchants also want to get to know Tovah’s sonin-law, so Jacob gives audiences of sorts, which angers Abraham. But on the other hand, Abraham’s small warehouse is always full of people now. Precious stones and ready-made jewelry in semi-wholesale quantities are traded here. Strung beads and malachite of every possible size hang from hooks and cover the stone walls with a colorful pattern of undulating lines. The most valuable goods, including an exceptionally expensive pearl, can be found in the glass display cabinet.

  Jacob stands and greets each guest with a bow. After just a few days of his working in Abraham’s warehouse, it has become the most popular place in all of Craiova.

  Several days after the arrival of Jacob and his entourage, the fast of Tisha BeAv begins. It commemorates the destruction of the Temple—a dark and difficult time, a day of sadness; the world also slows down then, as though grown sad, and having started to stagger out of that sadness. The Jews, some dozen households in Craiova, close their stores, don’t work, sit in darkness, and read Jeremiah’s Lamentations, recollecting their misfortune.

  This is good for Abraham, since as a true believer, and as a follower of Sabbatai Tzvi and his successor, Baruchiah, he celebrates the holiday in a different way, aware that in the end times, everything is done in reverse. For Abraham, then, this is a joyful holiday.

  Baruchiah was born exactly nine months after the death of Sabbatai Tzvi, on the ninth day of the month of Av—exactly as predicted! And on a day of mourning, the day of the destruction of the Temple. AMIRAH, as Sabbatai’s name has been written, or Adoneinu Malkeinu Yarum Hodo—Our Lord and King, His Majesty, will be exalted—returned and lived for those years as Baruchiah in Salonika. In 5476, the Christian year 1726, he was recognized as God incarnate, for the Shekhinah, which had previously gone into Sabbatai, had now descended into him. This is why all those who believe in Baruchiah’s mission have converted the day of mourning into a day of joy, to the outrage of other Jews. Women wash their hair and dry it in the August sun outside, clean their homes, adorning them with flowers, sweeping the floors so that the Messiah may arrive to a neat and tidy world. This world is terrible, it is true, but perhaps it can be spruced up a little here and there.

  For on this worst and darkest of days, light is born. Sadness would be nothing without some knowledge of joy. At the very bottom of that sadness, that mourning, there is a dash of joy and holiness—and vice versa. Isaiah 61:3 says: “Bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” And of course, clients of all kinds, of every dress and language, continue to come to Abraham. Jacob and Hershel are already in the office. Who will ring up the bags of tobacco, and how many of them will fit onto the cart? Lots. Who will provide goods to the merchant from Wrocław who is paying in cash and placing large orders?

  Clients, even those who are sworn enemies of the followers of Sabbatai Tzvi, cannot r
estrain their curiosity and also take a peek inside. They refuse the little glass of vodka offered by the hand of an apostate. Nay, nay, nay, they cry in alarm. Jacob plays little tricks to scare them further. His best one is when he asks them what they have in their pockets.

  “Nothing,” they answer in surprise.

  “Well, what about those eggs? Stole them, eh? Which of the stalls did you swipe them from?”

  “What eggs?” the clients say. “What are you talking about?”

  Then in a bold swoop Jacob reaches into their pocket and pulls out an egg. The little crowd bursts out laughing, the delinquent’s face turns red, and he doesn’t know what to say, which only cracks people up even more. Jacob pretends he is angry, and looks serious—he frowns, examines them with his bird’s gaze: “Tell me why you didn’t pay for this! You are a thief! An egg thief!” And quickly everyone starts to repeat the charge, until even the accused begins to struggle with the idea that he might have stolen something, even if he didn’t mean to. But then he sees on Jacob’s face a slightly raised eyebrow, an amused look, so he, too, smiles, then soon guffaws, and it’s clear that the best thing he can do under the circumstances is reconcile himself to being the butt of the joke, offer himself up as a laughingstock, and walk away.

  None of this amuses Hershel. If it were to happen to him, if an egg came out of his pocket, he would die of shame. He isn’t yet thirteen and was sent here by his family, after the death of his parents. Until then he lived in Czernowitz; now he will probably stay with Abraham, a distant relation.

  He doesn’t know how things are supposed to go with the fast on Tisha BeAv, no one has told him the secret, no one has initiated him into why he is to be joyful here over the course of this day, while elsewhere others are grave. In his family home, solemnity always presided on this holiday. It is only here that his experience is different, but no one has bothered to teach him the religious nuances. He understands now that Sabbatai is the Messiah—but why did he not save the world, not change anything? And how exactly would a saved world differ from an unsaved world? For his parents, simple folk, it was obvious—the Messiah would appear as a warrior, wipe the sultans off the face of the earth, along with kings and emperors, and then take over the world. The Temple of Jerusalem would rebuild itself, or God would drop it down from heaven, cast in gold. All the Jews would go back to the Land of Israel. First those who were buried there would be resurrected, followed by those who were buried elsewhere in the world, outside the Holy Land.

  Here, people thought otherwise. Hershel asked about it, but Jacob said nothing.

  Strange is a salvation that can’t be seen. It takes place not here, in the visible world, but somewhere—this Hershel can’t quite understand—in some other world, right nearby or maybe underneath the visible world. The Messiah has already come and inverted the lever of the world, which is a lever like that on a well pump, without anybody even noticing. Now everything is reversed: river water goes back to its source, rain to clouds, blood into wounds. It turns out that Mosaic law was temporary, that it was created just for the world before salvation, and that it is no longer in effect. In other words: now one should relate to it the other way around. While the Jews are fasting, one ought to eat and drink, and while they mourn, one must make merry.

  Nobody particularly looks after him; they treat him like an idiot of sorts. Sometimes Jacob looks at him in such a way as to turn Hershel beet red. He is Jacob’s helper, he cleans his clothes, sweeps the office, brews the coffee. In the evening, as they tally the day’s take, he writes the numbers in the columns.

  He isn’t sure of anything and he’s ashamed to ask, there is some sort of mystery around all of this. Since he hasn’t yet had his bar mitzvah, they don’t let him in when they gather for their prayers. They close the door. Is he supposed to fast or not fast?

  So on the fasting day of Tisha BeAv, Hershel cleans the cellars, sweeps out the cotton dust and mouse droppings. He hasn’t eaten since morning, recalling this day as a fast. That was how it was before. He didn’t want to look while they were eating upstairs. Now hunger has seized him by the stomach, making his innards lament. In the cellar they keep wine and carrots. Pots of compote sit here in the cool. He could just try it. But Hershel can’t make up his mind to do it, he can’t convince himself to eat, after all, his whole life until now he wasn’t permitted to eat on fasting days, so now instead he takes just a teeny-tiny cherry out of the compote and eats half. If Sabbatai Tzvi is the Messiah, then he is fulfilling the command and breaking the law in keeping with the new law, although if he is not the Messiah, then he’s still fasting—for what is one little cherry for a whole day?

  The next morning he asks Jacob. He has brought the Tractate Yoma, which reads:

  “One who eats a large date-bulk of food, equivalent to a date and its pit, or who drinks a cheekful of liquid is liable to receive the punishment of karet. All foods that one eats join together to constitute a date-bulk; and all liquids that one drinks join together to constitute a cheekful. However, if one eats and drinks, the food and beverage do not join together to constitute a measure that determines liability, as each is measured separately.”

  Jacob looks at the text and at Hershel, who is fairly panic-stricken, with mock seriousness. Then he bursts out laughing. Jacob laughs as he is wont to do, that deep, sonorous laughter, from the belly itself, infectiously, and he can probably be heard all over Craiova, until Hershel starts to join in with him in spite of himself; at first he only smiles, but then he starts to giggle. Then Jacob pulls him in by the hand and, shocking him, kisses him on the lips.

  Hershel wonders if the young husband might not miss his wife, whom he left with her father; she sends him love letters, entreating him to come home or asking him incessantly when he’ll take her with him. Hershel knows because he reads these letters in secret, while Jacob isn’t watching. Sometimes he imagines the white hand that wrote those letters. This brings him pleasure. Jacob doesn’t file the letters away, his documents are in a jumble, orders lie scattered over the table; Hershel tries to pick them up and organize them somehow. He accompanies Jacob when he goes to see clients, mostly women clients, wealthy townswomen whose husbands have left, captains’ wives and widows who send for Jacob, asking for him in particular, so he can show them what he’s selling. They arrange it so that when Jacob drops his purse, as if accidentally, Hershel takes it as the signal to make his excuses and leave. Then he waits for Jacob on the street, not taking his eyes off the door to the woman’s home.

  When Jacob steps out, he does so at a vigorous pace. He always walks like this, splaying his legs a little, straightening his galligaskins, his Turkish pantaloons. He looks at Hershel in triumph and claps his hand over his own crotch in Turkish fashion. Hershel wonders what attracts women to this man. There is something women can always discern, a thing they always recognize a man by, even Hershel understands this. Jacob is beautiful, and wherever he shows up, everything takes on a meaning, comes together like it has been tidied up.

  Jacob promised Tovah that he would study, but Hershel sees that reading tires him, that the period of fervor into which Reb Mordke and Nahman once thrust him has passed. The books lie fallow. Sometimes he doesn’t open the long letters Nahman sends him from Poland for several days. Hershel collects these letters, reads them, and puts them in a pile. Jacob is much more interested in money right now. He has deposited with Abraham’s cousin all that he has earned this year. He would like to have a home and vineyards in Nikopol or Giurgiu. The kind where you can see the Danube from the window, and the vines could climb up a set of wooden supports and make green walls and a green roof. Then he’ll bring Hana. For the time being he frolics with the clients, or he leaves midway through the day and disappears somewhere. He must be running a side operation, which Abraham does not much care for. He asks Hershel about it, and the boy, whether he likes it or not, must cover for Jacob. He wants to cover for Jacob. So he comes up with unbelievable stories. Says that Jacob goes and prays over th
e river, that he borrows books, that he is making sales, that he is checking on a shipment that is being unloaded right now. The first time Jacob invites Hershel to his bed, Hershel does not protest. He gives himself to Jacob completely, blazing like a torch; were it possible, Hershel would give him more—his life, even. Jacob calls this Massa Zar, or the Stranger’s Journey—an act of reversal, the opposite of the written law, which in the face of the purifying fire of the Messiah has spluttered out like an old wet rag.

  Of a pearl and Hana

  Jacob is determined to give Hana the most precious pearl. For a few days, he and Hershel have wandered jewelers’ shops. With great pomp Jacob has extracted the pearl from the little box where it rests on a piece of silk; whoever takes it in his fingers squints in ecstasy, smacking his lips. It’s a miracle, not a pearl. It’s worth a fortune. Jacob relishes their ecstasy. But then what tends to happen is that the jeweler returns the pearl as if it were a shred of light that’s caught between his fingers—no, no, he would not dare drill into it; the miracle might break, and the loss incurred would be enormous. Please try somewhere else, maybe someone else will do it for you. Jacob is angry. At home, he sets this pearl on the table and stares at it in silence. Hershel gives him a bowl of the olives Jacob so adores. Later he’ll have to pick up the pits strewn all over the floor.