The Books of Jacob Page 3

  God situated paradise, or the Garden of Eden, in a delightful unknown place. According to the Arca Noë, paradise is somewhere in the land of the Armenians, high up in the mountains, though Brunus insists it’s sub polo antarctico: below the South Pole. The signs of proximity to paradise are the four rivers: Gihon, Pishon, Euphrates, and Tigris. There are authors who, unable to locate paradise on earth, put it in the air, fifteen cubits higher than the highest mountain. But this strikes the priest as extremely silly—for how could that be? Wouldn’t those living on Earth be able to glimpse heaven from below? Could they not make out the soles of the saints’ feet?

  On the other hand, one cannot agree with those who try to spread false claims, such as the notion that the Scripture on paradise has mystical meaning only—in other words, that it ought to be understood in some metaphysical or allegorical sense. The priest believes—not only because he’s a priest, but also from his deep conviction—that everything in the Scriptures must be taken literally.

  He knows everything about paradise, having just last week completed that chapter of his book. It’s an ambitious chapter, drawing on all the books he has in Firlejów—and he has a hundred thirty of them. Some he went to Lwów for; others, all the way to Lublin.

  Here is a corner house, modest—this is where he’s going, as instructed by Father Pikulski. The low doors are wide open, letting out an unusual smell of spices amidst the surrounding stench of horse shit and autumn damp. There is another irksome scent, with which the priest is already familiar: Cophee. Father Chmielowski does not drink Cophee, but he knows he will have to acquaint himself with it at some point.

  He glances back, looking for Roshko, who is examining sheepskins with grim attention; farther back, he sees the whole market absorbed in itself—no one returns his gaze, for the market is all-consuming. Hustle and din.

  Above the entrance hangs a crude handmade sign:

  SHORR GENERAL STORE

  This followed by Hebrew letters. There is a metal plaque on the door, with some symbols next to it, and the priest recalls that according to Athanasius Kircher, the Jews write the words Adam hava, hutz Lilith on the walls when a woman is due to give birth, to ward off witches: “Adam and Eve may enter here, but you, Lilith, you evil sorceress, must leave.” That’s what those symbols must mean, he thinks. A child must have been born here not long ago.

  He takes a big step over the high threshold and is entirely submerged in the warm fragrance of spices. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, since the only light inside is admitted through a single little window, cluttered with flowerpots.

  An adolescent boy stands behind the counter, with a barely sprouted mustache and full lips that tremble slightly at the sight of the priest, before attempting to arrange themselves into some word or other. The priest can see he is unnerved.

  “What is your name, son?” the priest asks, to show how comfortable he feels in this dark little low-ceilinged shop, and to encourage the boy to talk, but he does not respond. So the priest repeats, more officially now, “Quod tibi nomen est?” But the Latin, intended as an aid to communication, winds up sounding too formal, as if the priest has come to perform an exorcism, like Christ in the Gospel of Saint Luke when he poses the same question to a man possessed. The boy’s eyes bulge, and still all he manages is a “buh, buh” sound before he bolts back behind the shelves, bumping into a braid of garlic bulbs hanging from a nail, and then vanishes.

  The priest has acted foolishly. He ought not to have expected Latin to be spoken here. He takes a bitter look at himself, notices the black horsehair buttons of his cassock poking out from underneath his coat. That must be what has scared the boy off, thinks the priest: the cassock. He smiles to himself as he recollects Jeremiah, who in a near-frenzy stammered, “A, a, a, Domine Deus ecce, nescio loqui!”—“Lord God, for I cannot speak!”

  From now on, the priest will call the boy Jeremiah in his head. He doesn’t know what to do, with Jeremiah having disappeared. He looks around the store, buttoning his coat. Father Pikulski talked him into coming here. Now it doesn’t really seem like such a good idea.

  No one comes in from outside, for which the priest thanks the Lord. It would hardly be your ordinary scene: a Catholic priest—the dean of Rohatyn—standing in a Jewish shop, waiting to be helped like some housewife. At first Father Pikulski had advised him to go and see Rabbi Dubs in Lwów; he used to go there himself, and had learned a lot from him. And so he went, but Old Dubs seemed to have had enough by then of Catholic priests pestering him with questions about books. The rabbi had seemed unpleasantly surprised by the priest’s request, and what Father Chmielowski wanted most he didn’t even have, or at least pretended not to have. He made a polite face and shook his head, tut-tutting. When the priest asked who might be able to help him, Dubs just threw up his hands and looked over his shoulder like someone was standing behind him, giving the priest to understand that he didn’t know, and that even if he did, he wouldn’t tell. Father Pikulski explained to the dean later that this was a question of heresies, and that while the Jews generally liked to pretend they didn’t suffer from that problem, it did seem that for this one particular heresy they made an exception, hating it head-on.

  Finally Father Pikulski suggested he go and visit Shorr. The big house with the shop on the market square. As he said this, he gave Chmielowski a wry, almost derisive look—unless Chmielowski was imagining it, of course. Perhaps he should have arranged to get his Jewish books through Pikulski, despite not liking him very much. Had he done so, he wouldn’t be standing here, sweating and embarrassed. But Father Chmielowski has a bit of a rebellious streak, so here he is. And there is something else a little irrational in it, too, an element of wordplay. Who would have believed that such things had any impact on the world? The priest has been working diligently on one particular passage in Kircher, on the great ox Shorobor. Perhaps the similarity between the two names—Shorr and Shorobor—is what brought him here. Bewildering are the determinations of the Lord.

  Where are the famous books, where is this figure inspiring such fear and respect? The shop looks like it belongs to an ordinary merchant, though its owner is supposedly descended from a renowned rabbi and sage, the venerable Zalman Naftali Shorr. They sell garlic, herbs, pots full of spices, canisters and jars containing so many seasonings, crushed, ground, or in their original form, like these vanilla pods and nutmegs and cloves. On the shelves, there are bolts of cloth arranged over hay—these look like silk and satin, very bold and alluring, and the priest wonders if he might not need something, but now his attention is drawn to the clumsy label on a hefty dark green canister: Thea. He knows what he will ask for now when someone finally comes back—some of this herb, which lifts his spirits, which helps him to continue working without getting tired. And it assists with his digestion. He might buy a few cloves, too, to use in his evening mulled wine. The last few nights were so cold that his freezing feet prevented him from focusing on his writing. He casts around for some sort of bench.

  Then everything happens all at once: from behind the shelves appears a stocky man with a beard, wearing a long woolen garment and Turkish shoes with pointed toes. A thin dark blue coat is draped over his shoulders. He squints as if he’s just emerged from deep inside a well. Jeremiah peeks out from behind him, along with two other faces that resemble Jeremiah’s, rosy and curious. And meanwhile, at the door that leads to the market square, there is now a scrawny boy, out of breath, perhaps even a young man—his facial hair is abundant, a light-colored goatee. He leans against the doorframe and pants—he must have run here as fast as he could. He looks the priest up and down and smiles a big, impish smile, revealing healthy, widely spaced teeth. The priest can’t quite tell if it’s a mocking smile or not. He prefers the distinguished figure in the coat, and it is to him that he says, with exceptional politeness:

  “My dear sir, please forgive this intrusion . . .”

  The man in the coat regards him tensely at first, but th
e expression on his face slowly changes, revealing something like a smile. All of a sudden the dean realizes that the other man can’t understand him, so he tries again, this time in Latin, blissfully certain he has now found his counterpart.

  The man in the coat slowly shifts his gaze to the breathless boy in the doorway, who steps right into the room then, pulling at his dark jacket.

  “I’ll translate,” the boy declares in an unexpectedly deep voice that has a bit of a Ruthenian lilt to it. Pointing a stubby finger at the dean, he says something in great excitement to the man in the coat.

  It had not occurred to the priest that he might need an interpreter—he simply hadn’t thought of it. Now he feels uncomfortable but has no idea how to get out of this delicate situation—before you know it the whole marketplace could hear of it. He would certainly prefer to get out of here, out into the chilly fog that smells of manure. He is beginning to feel trapped in this low-ceilinged room, in this air that is thick with the smell of spices, and to top it all off, here’s somebody off the street poking his head in, trying to see what’s going on.

  “I’d like to have a word with the venerable Elisha Shorr, if I may be permitted,” says the dean. “In private.”

  The Jews are stunned. They exchange a few words. Jeremiah vanishes and only after the longest and most intolerable silence does he reemerge. But evidently the priest is to be admitted, because now they lead him back behind the shelves. He is followed by whispers, the soft patter of children’s feet, and stifled giggling—and now it seems that behind these thin walls there are veritable crowds of other people peeking in through the cracks in the wood, trying to catch a glimpse of Rohatyn’s vicar forane wandering the interior of a Jewish home. It turns out, too, that the little store on the square is no more than a single enclave of a much vaster structure, a kind of beehive with many rooms, hallways, stairs. The house turns out to be extensive, built up around an inner courtyard, which the priest glimpses out of the corner of his eye through a window when they briefly pause.

  “I am Hryćko,” pipes up the young man with the narrow beard. Father Chmielowski realizes that even if he did wish to retreat now, he could not possibly find his way back out of the beehive. This realization makes him perspire, and just then a door creaks open, and in the doorway stands a trim man in his prime, his face bright, smooth, impenetrable, with a gray beard, a garment that goes down to his knees, and on his feet woolen socks and black pantofles.

  “That’s the Rabbi Elisha Shorr,” Hryćko whispers, thrilled.

  The room is small and sparsely furnished. In its center, there is a broad table with a book open atop it, and next to it, in several piles, some others—the priest’s eyes prowl their spines, trying to make out their titles. He doesn’t know much about Jews in general; he only knows these Rohatyn Jews by sight.

  Father Chmielowski thinks suddenly how nice it is that both of them are of moderate height. With tall men, he always feels a little ill at ease. As they stand facing one another, it seems to the priest that the rabbi must also be pleased that they have this in common. Then the rabbi sits down, smiles, and gestures for the priest to do the same.

  “With your permission and under these unlikely circumstances I come to Your Excellency altogether incognito, having heard such wonders of your wisdom and great erudition . . .”

  Hryćko pauses in the middle of the sentence and asks the priest:

  “In-cog-neat?”

  “And how! Which means that I implore discretion.”

  “But what is that? Imp-lore? Disc . . . ration?”

  Appalled, the priest falls silent. What an interpreter he’s wound up with—one who understands nothing he says. So how are they supposed to talk? In Chinese? He will have to attempt to speak simply:

  “I ask that this be kept a secret, for I do not conceal that I am the vicar forane of Rohatyn, a Catholic priest. But more importantly, I am an author.” Chmielowski emphasizes the word “author” by raising his finger. “And I would rather talk here today not as a member of the clergy, but as an author, who has been hard at work on a certain opuscule . . .”

  “Opus . . . ?” ventures the hesitant voice of Hryćko.

  “. . . a minor work.”

  “Oh. Please forgive me, Father, I’m unskilled in the Polish language, all I know is the normal words, the kind people use. I only know whatever I’ve heard around the horses.”

  “From the horses?” snaps the priest, a bit excessively perhaps, but he is angry with this terrible interpreter.

  “Well, because it’s horses I handle. By trade.”

  Hryćko speaks, making use of gestures. The other man looks at him with his dark, impenetrable eyes, and it occurs to Father Chmielowski that he might be dealing with a blind man.

  “Having read several hundred authors cover to cover,” the priest goes on, “borrowing some, purchasing others, I still feel that I have missed many volumes, and that it is not possible for me to access them, in any case.”

  Here he stops to wait for a response, but Shorr merely nods with an ingratiating smile that tells Chmielowski nothing at all.

  “And since I heard that Your Excellency is in possession of a fully realized library,” says the priest, adding hurriedly, reluctantly, “without wishing to cause any trouble, of course, or any inconvenience, I gathered up the courage, contrary to custom, but for the benefit of many, to come here and—”

  He breaks off because suddenly the door flies open and with no warning a woman enters the low-ceilinged room. Now faces peer in from the hallway, half visible in the low light, whispering. A little child whimpers and then stops, as if all must focus on this woman: bareheaded, wreathed in lush curls, she doesn’t look at the men at all, but rather gazes fixedly, brazenly, at something straight ahead of her as she brings in a tray with a pitcher and some dried fruits. She is wearing a wide floral dress, and over it an embroidered apron. Her pointy-toed shoes clack. She is petite, but she is shapely—her figure is attractive. Behind her pads a little girl carrying two glasses. She looks at the priest in such terror that she inadvertently crashes into the woman in front of her and falls over, still clasping the glasses in her little hands. It’s a good thing they are sturdily made. The woman pays no attention to the child, though she does glance once—rapidly, impudently—at the priest. Her dark eyes shine, large and seemingly bottomless, and her overwhelmingly white skin is instantly covered in a flush. The vicar forane, who very rarely has any contact with young women, is terribly surprised by this barging in; he gulps. The woman sets the pitcher and the plate on the table with a clatter and, still looking straight ahead, leaves the room. The door slams. Hryćko, the interpreter, also looks perplexed. Meanwhile, Elisha Shorr leaps up, lifts the child, and sits down with her in his lap. The little girl wriggles loose and runs after her mother.

  The priest would wager anything that this whole scene with the woman and the child coming in here was staged solely for the purpose of everyone getting a look at him. It is something, a priest in a Jewish home! Exotic as a salamander. But so what? Isn’t he seen by a Jewish doctor? And are not his medicaments ground by another Jew? The matter of the books is a health issue, too, in its way.

  “The volumes,” says the priest, pointing to the spines of the folios and the smaller Elzevir editions lying on the table. Each contains two symbols in gold, which the priest assumes are the initials of their owner, as he can recognize the Hebrew letters:

  He reaches for what he thinks will be his ticket into the fold of Israel and carefully sets the book he’s brought before Shorr. He smiles triumphantly: this is Athanasius Kircher’s Turris Babel, a great work in terms of both content and format; the priest took a big risk in dragging it all the way here. What if it fell into the fetid Rohatyn mud? Or what if some ruffian snatched it from him in the marketplace? Without it, the vicar forane would not be what he is today—he’d just be some ordinary rector, a Jesuit teacher on some estate, a useless clerk of the Church, bejeweled and begrudging.

&nbs
p; He slides the book toward Shorr as if presenting his own beloved wife. He delicately raps its wooden cover.

  “I have others,” he comments. “But Kircher is the best.” He opens the book at random, landing on a drawing of the Earth represented as a globe, and on it, the long, slender cone of the Tower of Babel.

  “Kircher demonstrates that the Tower of Babel, the description of which is contained within the Bible, could not have been as tall as is commonly thought. A tower that reaches all the way to the moon would disrupt the whole order of the cosmos. Its base, founded upon the Earth, would have had to be enormous. It would have obscured the sun, which would have had catastrophic consequences for all of creation. People would have needed to use up the entire earthly supply of wood and clay . . .”

  The priest feels as if he is espousing heresies, and the truth is he doesn’t even really know why he is saying all this to the taciturn Jew. He wants to be regarded as a friend, not as an enemy. But is that even possible? Perhaps they can come to understand each other, despite being unfamiliar with each other’s languages or customs, unfamiliar with each other in general, their objects and instruments, their smiles, the gestures of their hands that carry meaning—everything, really; but maybe they can reach some understanding by way of books? Is this not in fact the only possible route? If people could read the same books, they would inhabit the same world. Now they live in different worlds, like the Chinese described by Kircher. And then there are those—and their numbers are vast—who cannot read at all, whose minds are dormant, thoughts simple, animal, like the peasants with their empty eyes. If he, the priest, were king, he would decree that there be one day each week reserved for the peasants to read; by urging all peasants to engage with literature, he could instantly change the Commonwealth. Perhaps it also has to do with the alphabet—that there isn’t only one, that there are lots of them; each produces its own type of thinking. Like bricks: some, fired and smooth, yield cathedrals, while others, of rough clay, become the peasants’ shacks. And while Latin is clearly the most perfect, it appears that Shorr does not know Latin. Father Chmielowski points out an illustration, and then another, and another, and he notices his interlocutor begin to lean in with rising interest, until finally he pulls out a pair of spectacles, elegantly set in wire—Chmielowski wouldn’t mind having a pair like that himself, he’ll have to inquire how he might order them. The interpreter is curious, too, and the three of them lean in over the illustration.