The Books of Jacob Read online

  “There’s no one left. These cowards who are frightened of a pearl,” says Jacob.

  When Jacob is angry, he moves faster than he usually does, and more stiffly. He furrows his brow, drawing his eyebrows down. Hershel fears him then, although Jacob has never done him any harm. Hershel knows that Jacob loves him.

  In the end, he tells the boy to get ready, and they put on their oldest clothes, the most worn ones, and they go to the port and take the ferry across the river. There, on the other side, they go up to the first decentlooking stand they find that does polishing. With firm conviction in his voice and gestures, Jacob tells the man to take this fake trinket, which is worth almost nothing, he says, and just make a hole through it. “I’ve got a girl I want to give it to.”

  Now the pearl is produced directly from Jacob’s pocket; he tosses it onto the scale pan, making small talk; the man takes the pearl boldly, without any ecstasy or sighs, puts it in his vise, and, still chatting with Jacob, drills a hole through it; the gimlet goes through the pearl like it’s passing through butter. The man takes a modest fee and goes back to his interrupted tasks.

  Back on the street, Jacob says to an astonished Hershel:

  “That’s how you’ve got to do things. Don’t ever make a fuss about them. Make a note of that.”

  These words make an enormous impression upon Hershel. From that moment forward, he wants to be like Jacob. And being close to Jacob evokes in him some incomprehensible excitement, produces a warmth that flows all through his small body, so that the boy feels safe and powerful.

  Over Hanukkah they go to get Hana in Nikopol. The young wife runs out to meet them, before Jacob has even scrambled out of the cart with presents for the whole family. They greet each other in an official way, a little stiffly. Everyone here treats Jacob like someone more significant than an ordinary merchant, and he in turn takes on a gravity of tone Hershel has never heard from him before. He kisses Hana on the forehead, like a father. He greets Tovah as though they are both kings. He’s given his own room, but he quickly disappears into Hana’s in the women’s part of the home. Hershel still leaves him the made bed, while he sleeps on the floor by the stove.

  By day they eat and drink, and they pray without putting on tefillin. Besides, the boy sees that they do not keep the kitchen kosher here, they eat ordinary Turkish bread, dipping it in olive oil and herbs, crumbling cheese with their hands. They sit on the floor like Turks. The women wear wide-legged pants made from lightweight material.

  Hana comes up with the idea of visiting her sister in Vidin. First she proposes it to her father, but he merely scowls at her, and Hana quickly understands that she is supposed to ask her husband now. She plays with the pearl hanging on its gold chain, Jacob’s gift to her. Hana has clearly had enough of her parents, must want to show off her wedded status, wants Jacob to herself, wants travel, wants a change. Hershel sees she’s still a child, just like him, that she’s pretending to be a grown woman. He spies on her one time as she’s bathing in the back part of the garden. She is plump, with wide hips, big buttocks.

  During their three days of travel along the Danube from Nikopol to Vidin, Hershel falls in love with Hana. Now he loves both of them, Jacob and Hana, with a single feeling. It is a strange state to be in. He obsessively desires to be near Hana. He still remembers her buttocks, big and soft and innocent—he wants to storm them.

  Just before they come to Vidin, they ask Hershel to drive up into the surrounding rocky hills outside the city. Out of the corner of his eye, Hershel can see where Jacob’s hand is heading, and he tightens his fingers around the reins. They tell him to wait with the horses like a servant, while they disappear in between rocks that resemble petrified monsters. Hershel knows that it will be a while, so he lights up a pipe and adds to it a dash of the resin he has been given by Jacob. He takes a drag like old Reb Mordke, and the horizon softens. He leans against a rock and looks down at the huge brown grasshoppers, all angles. And when he lifts his gaze to the rocks above, he sees a white stone city outstretched past the horizon, and—how strange—it is a city that looks at people, and not the other way around. He doesn’t know how to explain it, the fact that the rocks are watching. In fact it doesn’t surprise him at all. He’s watching, too. He sees a naked Hana bracing her arms wide against the rock wall, and, pressing into her backside, a half-naked Jacob, moving slowly, rhythmically. Jacob suddenly turns to look at Hershel where he sits behind the horses, and although he looks at him from far away, his look, so hot and powerful, gives Hershel an erection. Soon the brown grasshoppers meet a wet impediment in their path. It must surprise them to encounter this potent splotch of organic matter, this abrupt incursion into their insect world.

  10.

  Who the person is who gathers herbs on Mount Athos

  On his small boat from the port in Develiki, Count Antoni Kossakowski reaches the harbor at the base of the mountain. He feels profoundly grateful, deeply emotional, and the pain that was only just recently squeezing his chest now passes completely, though it isn’t clear whether it’s because of the sea air and the wind, which, bouncing back off the steep bank, takes on an inimitable smell of resin and herbs, or because of his proximity to a holy place.

  He ponders this sudden change in his own mood and sense of wellbeing. A radical and unexpected change. When he left cold Russia a few years earlier for the Greek and Turkish countries, he became another man, someone “luminous and airy,” as he might say. Is it that simple—is it just about light and heat? Oh, the sun—its abundance renders colors all the more intense, and because it heats the land, fragrances dazzle. And because of all that sky, the world appears to be subject to mechanisms other than the ones that apply in the north. Here Destiny is still in effect, the Greek version of Fatum that sets people in motion, marking out their paths like little strings of sand that flow along a dune from top to bottom, creating arabesques and other figures of which the finest artist would hardly be ashamed, twisting, chimerical, exquisite.

  Here in the south, all this exists quite tangibly. It grows in the sun, lurks in the heat. And the awareness of its existence brings Antoni Kossakowski relief, so that he becomes lighter, softer, more tender toward himself. At times he feels like crying, that’s how free he feels.

  He considers that the farther south he goes, the weaker Christianity becomes, the stronger the sun, the sweeter the wine, the more Fatum there is—and the better his life gets. His decisions are not decisions, arriving instead from outside, having their proper place in the order of the world. And since it is this way, there is less responsibility, and therefore less of that internal shame, that unbearable feeling of guilt for everything he has done. Here every action can be corrected, you can have a chat with the gods, make them a sacrifice. That is why people are able to look at their reflections in the water with respect. And look upon others with love. No one is bad, no murderer can be condemned, because it is all part of a larger plan. That is why you can feel the same love for the executioner as you can for the condemned. People are gentle and good. The evil that happens comes not from them, but rather from the world. The world can be evil—and how!

  The farther north you go, the more people concentrate on themselves, and in some sort of northern madness (no doubt due to the lack of sun) they ascribe to themselves too much. They make themselves responsible for their actions. Fatum is punctured by raindrops, then farther on, snowflakes making a final incursion, and soon it disappears altogether. What remains is the conviction that destroys every person, supported by the Ruler of the North, the Church, and its ubiquitous functionaries, that all evil is in man yet can’t be fixed by man. It can only be forgiven. But can it be forgiven? Hence comes that tiring, destructive feeling that one is always guilty, from birth, that one is stuck in sin and that everything is sin—doing something, not doing it, love, hate, words, and even thoughts. Knowledge is a sin, and ignorance is a sin.

  He lodges at an inn for pilgrims run by a woman everyone calls Irena or simply Mother.
She is a petite person with dark skin, always dressed in black; sometimes the wind whips her hair, which has gone completely gray, from under her black kerchief. Even though she is an innkeeper, they all address her with great respect, as if she were a nun, though it is known that she has grown children somewhere in the world, and that she is a widow. Irena oversees the prayers every evening and every morning and chants in a voice so pure it opens pilgrims’ hearts. She has what seem to be two serving-maids in her employ—at least Kossakowski thought they were serving-maids at first, only noticing after a few days that they were in fact castrates, but with breasts. He has to be careful not to stare at them, for if he does, they stick out their tongues at him. Someone tells him that there has always been an Irena here at the inn, for hundreds of years, and that that’s how it must be. This Irena comes from the north and does not speak flawless Greek, instead mixing in words Antoni often knows, so he thinks she is probably Wallachian or Serbian.

  There are only men around, not a single woman (aside from Irena, but is she a woman?), not even a single animal that is female. It would distract the monks. Kossakowski tries to focus on a greenish-winged beetle traipsing down the path. He wonders whether it is also male . . .

  Along with the other pilgrims, Kossakowski climbs to the top of the hill, but they cannot be admitted to the monastery. People like him are assigned to a special place in the stone house under the holy wall, where he sleeps and eats. In the early mornings and in the evenings they dedicate themselves to prayer according to the holy monk Gregory Palamas. This consists of repeating, “Lord Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me” a thousand times a day. Those praying sit on the ground, their heads curled into their stomachs, as if they are fetuses; as they do this, they hold their breath as long as possible.

  In the morning and the evening a high male voice summons them to communal prayer—across the whole place you can hear it call, “Molidbaaa, Molidbaaa.” All the pilgrims drop whatever they are doing and race up to the monastery. Kossakowski associates this with the behavior of birds alerted to a predator by other birds.

  By day, at the port, Kossakowski tends to his garden.

  He has also reported to the port as a longshoreman, helping to unload the ships that come in once or twice a day. It’s not about the meager income he earns from this work, but rather about the opportunity to be with people, and to go up to the monastery and even enter the outer courtyard. There, the caretaker, a robust monk in his prime, receives food and other goods, gives them cold, almost icy water to drink, and offers them olives. These deliveries do not happen often, however, since the monks are largely self-sufficient.

  At first, Kossakowski is resistant, viewing with some disdain the pilgrims possessed by that religious mania of theirs. Instead, he devotes himself to his walks along the stony paths that surround the monastery, along the heated earth, incessantly disrupted by the cicadas’ little bows, the land that from the mixture of herbs and resin smells like something to eat, like a dried herb-encrusted cake. On these walks Kossakowski imagines the Greek gods living here once, the very same ones he learned of at his uncle’s house. Now they return. They wear glimmering gold robes, have very light skin, are taller than people. Sometimes he almost thinks he’s walking in their footsteps, that if he hurries he might still be able to catch up with the goddess Aphrodite, glimpse her magnificent nakedness; the scent of hyssop becomes for a moment the half-animal smell of a perspiring Lord. He exerts his imagination; through it he wants to see them, he needs them. The gods. God. Their presence in this resiny fragrance, and especially the secret presence of some force that is sticky and slightly sweet, pulsing in every creature, makes it so that the world seems full, filled to the brim. He makes every effort to imagine it—this presence. His member swells and, like it or not, Kossakowski has to relieve himself on the holy mount.

  One day, just when he seems happiest, he falls asleep at noon in the shade of a shrub. Suddenly the rumble of the sea wakes him up—it sounds ominous, even though it has been with him the whole time. Kossakowski leaps up, looks around. The high, strong sun separates everything into light and shadow. Everything has paused, he sees from afar the waves of the sea stuck in stillness, above them hangs an isolated seagull that looks like it’s affixed to the sky. His heart rises to his throat, he leans forward to try to stand, but the grass beneath his hands dissolves into dust. Everything turns to dust. There is nothing to breathe, the horizon has come dangerously close, and in a moment its gentle line becomes a noose. In this moment, Antoni Kossakowski realizes that the plaintive rumble of the sea is a lament, and that all of nature is taking part in this process of mourning those gods of whom the world has been in such desperate need. There is no one here. God created the world, and the effort of doing so killed him. Kossakowski had to come all the way here to understand this.

  This is why he starts to pray.

  Yet prayer fails. In vain he brings his head into his stomach, curling his body up into a ball, similar to how it was before his birth—that’s how they taught him to do it. Peace, however, does not come, his breathing won’t even out, and the words “Lord Jesus Christ,” repeated mechanically, bring him no relief. Kossakowski can only smell his own scent—the stink of a sweating, middle-aged man. Nothing more.

  The next day, early in the morning, unswayed by Irena’s objections and unmoved by the responsibilities he’s casting off, he gets on the first decent sailboat and doesn’t even ask where it’s heading. He can still hear the call of “Molidbaaa, Molidbaaa” from the shore, and it feels as if the island is calling to him directly. Only out at sea does he learn that he is sailing to Smyrna.

  In Smyrna things turn out very well for him indeed. He finds a job with the Trinitarians, and for the first time in a long while he manages to earn some decent money. He spares himself no expense: he buys himself a fine set of Turkish clothing. He orders wine. Drinking brings him enormous pleasure, so long as he has good company. He notes that whenever, in conversing with Christians, he mentions that he has been on Mount Athos, it arouses great interest, so every evening he adds some new detail to his story, until it has become a never-ending array of adventures. He says he is Moliwda. He’s happy with this new designation—which of course is not a name. Moliwda is more than a name, it’s a new coat of arms, a proclamation. His previous denomination—first name, last name—fits a little tight now, a little worn and insubstantial, as if it’s made of straw, so he gets rid of it almost completely. He uses it only with the Trinitarian brothers. Antoni Kossakowski—what’s left of him?

  Moliwda would like to examine his life now with a certain distance, like these Jews from Poland he’s met here. By day they do what they’re supposed to, focused and always in good moods. In the evenings, they converse without pause. At first, he eavesdrops—they assume he cannot understand. They’re Jews and yet Moliwda feels so close to them. He even wonders, quite seriously, if it might be that the air, the light, the water—nature—just sort of settle into a person, so that those raised in the same country must bear similarities to one another, even when everything divides them.

  He likes Nahman best. Clever and talkative, he knows how to twist things around in a debate to prove any assertion, even the most absurd. He also knows how to ask questions that astonish Moliwda-Kossakowski. Nonetheless, he sees that the vast knowledge and intelligence of these people gets used up in bizarre word games, of which he has only the most general idea. One time he buys a basket of olives and a large jug of wine and goes to visit them. They eat the olives, spitting the pits under the feet of passersby who are running late, for dusk is coming; the heat of Smyrna, sticky, moist, is loosening its grip somewhat. Then the oldest of the men, Reb Mordke, begins to lecture on the soul. It is in effect in three parts, he says. The lowest part—the hungering part, the desiring part, the part that gets cold—that is nefesh. That part animals have, too.

  “Soma,” says Moliwda.

  “The higher part, that’s the spirit, ruah. That part animates our thou
ghts, makes us become good people.”

  “Psyche,” throws in Moliwda.

  “While the third part, the very highest part—that’s neshama.”

  “Pneuma!” Moliwda exclaims. “What a fine discovery for me!”

  Reb Mordke, unruffled, goes on:

  “This is the truly holy soul, which only a good holy husband and Kabbalist can obtain; and one gets it only by delving into the mystery of Torah. Thanks to that we can view the hidden nature of the world and of God, for it is a spark that chipped off Binah, the divine intellect. Only nefesh is capable of sin. Ruah and neshama are impeccable.”

  “Since neshama is God’s spark in man, how can God punish us for our sins with hell? If he did, wouldn’t he be punishing himself as well, in particle form?” asks Moliwda, a little overexcited by the wine. With this question he gets the attention of both of his companions. All three of them know the answer to this question. Wherever there is God—the great God, the greatest God—there is neither sin nor any feeling of guilt. Only the little gods produce sin, similar to how dishonest craftsmen counterfeit coins.

  After their work for the Trinitarians, they sit down in the kahvehane; Moliwda has learned to take pleasure in drinking bitter coffee and smoking long Turkish pipes.

  Moliwda takes part in the payment of 600 zlotys by way of ransom for Piotr Andruszewicz of Buczacz, and another of 450 zlotys for Anna of Popielawy, who spent a few years at the court of Hussein Bayraktar of Smyrna. He remembers their names because he wrote up the purchasing agreements, in Turkish and in Polish. He knows the prices paid for people here in Smyrna: for one Tomasz Cybulski, a forty-six-year-old nobleman, quartermaster of the Jabłonowski regiment, in captivity for ten years, they paid the great sum of 2,700 zlotys and sent him straight to Poland, under escort. For some children they paid 618 zlotys each; for Jan, an old man, the price was just 18 zlotys. Jan comes from Opatów and weighs about as much as a goat; he spent his whole life in Turkish captivity, and now, it seems, he doesn’t have anyone left in Poland to go back to; still, he’s overjoyed. Moliwda watches the old man’s tears flow down his face, made swarthy by the sun, wrinkled. Moliwda also pays careful attention to Anna, who is a mature woman now. He likes the imperiousness and pride with which she treats the Trinitarians and himself, the translator. He can’t understand why a rich Turk would get rid of this beautiful woman. Judging by what she has told Moliwda, he promised her her freedom out of love, because she was homesick. In a few days she is to board a ship to Salonika, and then travel over land to Poland. Moliwda, possessed by some incomprehensible passion, tempted by her white, abundant body, once more throws all caution to the wind and agrees to the insane escape plan she proposes instead. Anna Popielawska does not intend to return to Poland at all, not to some boring estate somewhere in Polesia. Moliwda doesn’t even have time to say goodbye to his friends. They flee on horseback to a small port city north of Smyrna, and there, with Moliwda’s money, they rent a home from a Christian woman, the wife of a Greek merchant, where for two weeks they give themselves over to every form of delight. They spend their afternoons on the expansive balcony that looks out over the waterfront, where every day at around this time the Turkish agha passes by with his janissaries. The janissaries have white feathers in their caps, and their commander wears a purple coat lined with a thin silver fabric that shines in the sun like the belly of a fish just tossed up onto the shore.