A Curable Romantic (102 page)

“Divine Sir,” the rebbe bowed his head, “allow a humble Jew to greet
you. We stand before you, as I think perhaps you know, because my cousin here, Ya’akov Yosef ben Alter Nosn, challenged your brothers and sons
and
on their relative cowardice vis-à-vis the Holy One, Blessed be He.”

Each time the rebbe mentioned the Lord’s name, from nowhere seemingly — or rather from everyplace at once — a chorus of angelic voices sang out:
May His great name be blessed forever and ever!

The archangel Metatron tilted his head and scrutinized me. “Your cousin?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Dr. Sammelsohn is your
cousin
?”

The rebbe nodded. “And a descendant of the holy Seer of Lublin, as. am ”

The archangel Metatron grumbled, and I regretted that the rebbe had mentioned my name, that he’d brought me into the story at all, making me, in this way, its protagonist. I was more comfortable as a minor side character, the role I’d played my entire life with Dr. Freud and Dr. Zamenhof, and with my father and my mother and my sisters and even my wives. Forced to speak now by the expectation that I would, I blustered, “Well, I might have said something or other. As I’m sure His Majesty knows, our life on earth is at a particularly low point, and perhaps I was overly critical in comparing the angels’ seeming complacence with the moral stance their forefathers — ”

“ — took in the case of Rabbi Akiva, yes, I know all about that,” the archangel Metatron said. “Although forefathers isn’t the correct word.”

“As they informed me.”

“And
I
found Dr. Sammelsohn’s hat,” the rebbe said, “and followed him in order to return it.”

The archangel Metatron moved his gaze from the rebbe’s face to my fedora, which I still wore, apparently uncertain what made this hat so irreplaceable a trip through the Divine Palaces was necessary for its return. “But surely you’re here for other reasons as well,” he said.

And the rebbe nodded. “Indeed, I was wondering … that is to say, I’d
assumed, from all my years of toiling in the vineyards of the Holy One’s holy Torah” — here, the voices rang out: “May His great name be blessed forever and ever!” — “that we might find Him” — the voices sang: “Blessed be He!” — “on His holy throne, so to speak” — the voices: “Blessed be the glory of God from His place!” — “where we might successfully petition Him for His mercy or at least come to understand the divine withholding of it.” The rebbe looked about the room with a calculated nonchalance. “And where, by the way,
is
the Lord’s holy throne?” he said.

In answer to this impertinent question, the archangel Metatron, King of Angels, et cetera, et cetera, drew himself up to his full height. His many sets of wings bristled — they sounded like an army on the march — and I assumed at that moment that we’d be chased out, flung from those lofty heights like mice swept out of a cupboard. But, no, he simply said, “Would that all humanity had made the ascent you two have done today.” He seemed in the grip of some terrible emotion. “May we sit?” He pointed with his forehead to three armchairs in a nearby chamber. “Over here. Away from all this paperwork.”

We did as he asked, and I was amazed to feel the chair, although constructed out of humming script, sink comfortably beneath my weight.

“The text you see forming the chair,” the archangel answered my un-uttered question, “is the mathematical formula for ‘chair.’ The chairs you know on Earth are the product of this equation. The same holds true with everything you see here: the books, the ladders, et alia.”

The rebbe scanned the tall shelves of books behind Metatron’s head.

“Yes, it’s there,” the archangel told him.

“What’s where?” I said, looking between the two of them.

The rebbe laughed modestly.

“The book your rebbe is writing,” the archangel explained. “You’ll find it on the shelf and also listed in our card catalog.”

“And the publication date?” the rebbe asked innocently enough, I thought.

A sort of fire flickered in the archangel’s eyes. “Let’s not get greedy, shall we?”

“Fair enough, fair enough,” the rebbe demurred.

THE ARCHANGEL LEANED
back in his chair and crossed his legs. He gripped the top of his thigh with both hands and interlaced his fingers around it. There were so many of them, it took a moment for his wings to settle in around his shoulders. At last, he said, “Ah, well, you’ve asked the right question there, haven’t you? Indeed, where
is
the Holy One’s throne? You’ve made it to the Seventh Heaven, you’ve braved the storehouses of ills in the Sixth. You’ve passed through the Door of Fire, and here you are, in the fabled Seventh, hoping to challenge and confront your Creator, to awaken His Exalted Conscience and to stir Him into action, to remind Him that He is not only the Maker of Peace but also, as it says in our holy books, a Man of War, so that you might say to him: ‘Look down, look down, see how Your people are suffering. Arouse Yourself and come to our aid.’ Or words to that effect, yes?”

The archangel Metatron glanced between us. Light from a skylight fell diagonally across his bearded face. “Perhaps I can ring for a little coffee or tea. Would either of you care for a little something?”

We nodded and shrugged in the polite way of guests who fear their presence might be inconveniencing their host. Nevertheless, the archangel Metatron lifted a bell from the coffee table and shook it. Its little ringing seemed to echo down many adjoining hallways and corridors. The archangel Metatron listened for a moment, hearing apparently nothing in response. “Oh, dear.” He sighed. “I’m afraid we’ll have to make do with nothing for the nonce.”

He picked at a thread on his gown and brushed away a bit of lint from the fabric. “I can tell you in confidence that I have long been in the Divine Service — it’s been aeons and aeons since I walked the earth as a humble shoemaker — and though times have been dark, I’ve never seen them quite as dark as these.” He shook his head at some private thought. “Oh, gentlemen, how I wish you could have seen this place in the old days!” He closed his eyes and hugged himself. “All the cooking and the preparing and the feasting! You wouldn’t believe it now, but the Heavenly Kitchens were once filled with clouds — What am I saying: clouds? — with whole
stratospheres
of delicious vapors. All for the never-ending banquets for the righteous! Oh, how I used to love walking these corridors, sticking my head into the kitchens. The smells would draw me from my writing
table, and it was all I could do to finish my bookkeeping before dashing in to help. Of course, they never let me, but one of the sous-chefs was sweet on me, and she would always give me a little taste of whatever she was preparing before chasing me out again. The Seraphim, the Cherubim, the holy Chayyos running in and out, the clatter of silverware, of drawers opening, of rolling pins pounding, the Heavenly Choirs, the Earthly choirs as well, all singing the Holy One’s praises.” He smiled sadly. “It was a proper Heaven then, gentlemen, with music and dancing …” His enormous chest lifted and fell. “You could feel the presence of the Holy One in these halls then. But now?” He shrugged. Glancing over the top of his spectacles, he peered into the sky-embossed ceilings above us and, as though he’d caught a glimpse of cobwebs in a corner, he scowled. “Now you can’t even get a fucking cup of tea.”

The rebbe brought his fist to his lips and coughed. He cleared his throat politely. “And where, so to speak,
is
the Holy One?” He seemed to be pressing the issue as gently as he could, and the archangel Metatron gave him a piercing look, as though taking in the measure of the man in order to determine exactly how much of the truth he might reveal to him.

“Weeping,” he said simply.

“Weeping?” the rebbe asked.

“The Holy Blessed One is weeping. Oh, yes, he has a place for it. But you would know that, wouldn’t you?” the archangel said to the rebbe. “It’s called the Mistarim.”

“Concealment,” the rebbe translated softly for me.

“It’s an actual place?” I said.

The archangel Metatron nodded. I leaned back in my chair and gazed at the clouds in the ceiling above me, and for a moment, I couldn’t help imagining the Holy One sneaking out of a window, as I had done after my marriage to Ita, and I couldn’t help feeling sympathy for the Lord.

“As God is infinite,” the archangel explained, “so is His pain infinite. There are some things, Dr. Sammelsohn, so great, so immeasurably large, that they cannot be seen at all. The Holy One’s pain is an example of just such a thing.”

“If the world could hear the Holy One’s weeping,” the rebbe added, “it could never bear it.”

“Of course not,” the archangel confirmed. “Everything would return to chaos and desolation. Instead, the Holy One chose to disappear, so to speak, to slip through the cracks of the Mistarim, and His absence, as you well know, has been as traumatic on Earth as it has been in Heaven. Now, the Holy One’s pain has grown so large and so great that even I cannot hear His weeping.”

I DON’T KNOW
how long we sat together in silence, but it felt like a very long time. The sorrow between us was palpable. I glanced at the rebbe. He seemed pale, unnerved, drained of vitality. “Well, you’ve cleared up everything,” he finally said, “thank you. And now perhaps I can finish my book.” After a long moment, he stood, and the archangel Metatron stood as well. He bowed at the rebbe’s feet, the span of his enormous wings stretching out before him, and the next thing I knew, I was lying facedown in the mud in the Tłomackie Place Square in a not dissimilar position.

“Dr. Sammelsohn! Cousin!” I heard the rebbe’s voice from very far away. “Wake up, wake up! Oh, dear, we’ve got to get you out of here!”

I raised my head. The rebbe was standing over me, his beard flecked with mud, his hat askew. Mud darkened the knees of his trousers as well. He was holding on to my hat, which he placed on my head before lifting me from the ground. He threw my arm over his shoulders and carried me to his home.

THERE, ONE OF
the rebbe’s Hasidim met us at the door.

“Bad news,” he said.

“Bad news?” The rebbe held on to me more tightly.

The Hasid ducked his head. “It’s the rebbe’s daughter, I’m afraid.”

“Rekhl Yehudis?”

“She’s gone.”

“Gone?”

“Kidnappers. Or so we suspect.” The man smiled unhappily. “In any case, she hasn’t been home since Wednesday.”

“Wednesday? How long have we been away?” the rebbe said to no one in particular.

• • •

I MUST HAVE
blacked out again because soon I was in the middle of the street, the traffic roaring on either side of me. A cloud of thoughts buzzed around my head like angry flies. Rekhl Yehudis had been kidnapped! The Zamenhofs were gone! My world was disappearing! Everyone I knew had gone missing! Like God, they’d disappeared into the Mistarim! The conviction suddenly overwhelmed me: I no longer wished to live. I’d been walking along Nowolipie Street, but I made an abrupt turn and veered down Karmelicka, towards the Umschlagplatz. I’d turn myself in, I’d surrender, I’d accept my loaf of bread and my jar of beet marmalade, and I’d let myself be transported east, where, as so many of us had been murdered, I’d be murdered as well.