Jacob's Folly (16 page)

T
wo weeks after the Comte de Villars came to see me in Bicêtre Prison, Inspector Buhot himself shook me awake roughly in the dark. “Cerf. Get up. You're free.”

Befuddled by a bare hour's sleep eked from the cold and noise of a night in jail, I sat up and followed him from my cell, down the reeking hallway, through a padlocked door opened by a pallid teenage guard, down a long, narrow set of stairs. In the courtyard, Buhot's narrow, erect form etched a peevish silhouette against the milky sky. He turned to me, framed by the arched stone entryway, the iron gates of which were, miraculously, swinging open on my account. I could hear the hoarse cries of the lunatics housed in the next courtyard. I hesitated, unable to believe I was being released.

“Jacob,” he said sharply. My head pounding with fatigue, I followed my captor out the prison gates, clutching my filthy lapels around my bare throat, and saw, as if in a vision, the vermilion coach of the Comte de Villars rising from a swirl of morning fog. I recognized the family crest of two lions rampant that had so impressed me a year earlier. A driver, impeccably dressed in a light blue uniform edged with white, a powdered wig on his head, looked down at me implacably from his perch.

“Here he is,” said Buhot to the coachman dryly, as if sharing a joke. The man stepped off the coach and opened the door crisply.

“Monsieur,” he said, his brutish face an expressionless mask. I put one foot on the step of the coach and looked back at Buhot.

“Well, Jacob,” he said. “This just goes to show that none of us can predict his fate, eh?” And then he smiled coldly, his chapped, flaky cheeks creasing. I said nothing, but stepped into the coach and flopped back in the seat, staring ahead. The driver closed the door. With a jerk, we set off.

As we clattered through Paris, sending urchins dashing out of the way and forcing peddlers to pin themselves against the buildings to avoid getting hit, I peeked out through a crack in the drawn curtains and surveyed the desperate poor looking up at the coach as I passed, some of the men touching their hats in respect for the great man who must be inside. If they had known it was an unwashed Jew, fresh from prison!

I lay back on the yellow silk bench of the coach and drifted into sleep. In what seemed like no time, my door swung open. The dead-faced driver stood at attention, waiting for me to disembark. He had small brown eyes, heavy eyebrows, a dark mouth. I stepped out onto the buffed stone floor of the count's carriage house. Solange stood at the top of a short staircase. She wore the same red-and-white-striped dress she had worn when I last saw her. I looked down at the floor, ashamed of my appearance.

“Come,” she said kindly.

I followed her up the steps and into the kitchen where I had imbibed so much wonderful soup a year earlier. Solange put a plate of fried potatoes and a glass of milk in front of me. I ate ravenously, my eyes on the plate. When I had finished, she refilled it.

“Thank you,” I said.

“I knew you would be hungry,” she said.

When I had eaten my fill, Solange led me across a stone courtyard, through a lacquered red door, up a staircase, down a fragrant, light-drenched
hallway, and into a dining room. The Comte de Villars looked up from his breakfast and smiled, looking like a benevolent frog. Beside him, a desiccated-looking man in a tightly curled wig sat frozen, a cup of coffee halfway to his puckered lips.

“Jacob Cerf,” said the count, “may I present Monsieur Cabanis, the man of letters. Monsieur Cabanis, Jacob Cerf.” I wasn't sure what to do at this point, so I bowed slightly. M. Cabanis put down his cup.

“Good Lord,” he said.

“You can go now, Jacob,” said my master. I heard Solange rustling behind me. I retreated gratefully from the room.

I followed the quick-stepped Solange up another flight of steps, down a hall, and into a room painted light green.

“Of course, it is a guest room, but the count wanted you to be most comfortable to wash and prepare yourself,” said Solange. I could not bring myself to look at her.

“First of all, you can wash. It might make you feel better,” she said, opening a paneled door to the bathroom.

The bath was being topped up by a heavy young maid who glanced at me curiously out of the corner of her eye as she knelt to pour the steaming water from a great tin bucket, her hands ruddy and wet, arms shaking from the weight. As I entered, I glimpsed myself in a mirror: I looked inhuman, terrifying. My sparse beard had grown wild, my side curls were frazzled, hanging at either side of my sooty face. I stood, slightly stooped, in my stained black jacket and torn trousers, trembling with fatigue, cold, and embarrassment. The muscles between my shoulders ached. Solange darted, birdlike, from one side of the bathroom to the other, pouring a few drops of lilac scent into the bath, then fetching a clean sponge, a cloth, a dressing gown. The maid had disappeared.

“I will leave you now,” said Solange, folding a clean bath sheet and setting it on a chair.

“Thank you,” I whispered. With a slight smile, she retreated, shutting the door.

I undressed as quickly as I could, leaving my rotten clothes, yarmulke, and protective fringes in a pile on the floor, and lowered myself gingerly into the scalding tub. Looking into the cloudy surface of the old, speckled mirror before me, I saw my sinew-and-bone body, frog-belly white, swarthy genitals framed by a silky black flame of pubic hair, disappearing into the water. Behind me, the walls were dark pink Indian silk edged with gold, the dresser painted rose, shelves of crystal bottles glinting in the cool light. I soaped my hair and beard and fashioned absurd shapes with the stiff white hair, making myself look like a crazy old man. I laughed, not realizing I would be dead before my first gray hair sprouted.

I emerged from the bathroom, fragrant, swaddled in the woolen dressing gown. Solange was sitting erect on a delicate chair, waiting for me.

“Sit down,” she said, her voice musical, lilting, as she offered me her chair. My heart hammering against my chest, I sat. I had put my yarmulke on again after my bath, even though it was dirty; my people were forbidden to go bareheaded. Looking at me in the small mirror on the white dressing table, her head cocked, Solange placed her fingers on my skullcap.

“May I?” she asked. I nodded faintly. She lifted the yarmulke from my head, setting it down on the white vanity table. The little brown dome stared up at me reproachfully. I could still feel it on my head, as if it were there. Solange's sharp nails raked through my wet hair, causing a tingling bolt to branch down my spine. “Wonderful hair,” she murmured. A little pair of golden scissors glinted in her hand. With two quick snips she amputated the peyos from the sides of my head. The curled black ribbons of hair lay discarded on the shiny white table. I felt unwrapped, displayed, vulnerable. Solange cut my hair, and trimmed the last few strands from around my small red ears. She soaped my beard and took a razor in her hand. “My father is a barber,” she said reassuringly. I submitted, as if in a dream.

Afterward, casting a shy look at my delicate face in the glass, the blue eyes with long, thick lashes, shaved cheeks flushed, my head so naked without the peyos, I was shocked by my girlishness.

Solange laid out a set of livery on the bed: robin's-egg-blue britches and matching jacket with brass buttons, a green waistcoat, white hose, a white cotton chemise with a frill tacked to the neck. Then she left me. I drew on the clothes, savoring the dense fabric, the sturdy seams. The britches were loose at the waist, but they fit. Solange knocked softly on the door and opened it, carrying two pairs of shoes with silver buckles on them.

“Oh, look at you,” she said. “Try on these shoes and see which are the best size. This pair belongs to my husband. But he works at the country estate now, he never wears them.”

Once my hair was dry, Solange fitted me with a neatly coiffed horsehair wig. The hair had been powdered with white starch and drawn in a little braided ponytail at the back. I stood up awkwardly. Solange assessed me, cocking her sleek head to one side, then another, her elbows resting on the wide armature of her striped silk dress.

“You look like a different person,” she said with quiet delight.

“Excuse me, madame,” I ventured. “What is to be done with my old clothes?”

“We will wash them, and you can have them,” she said. “If you like.”

“I would like to have them burned,” I said. “There is nothing that will clean those clothes. Only the vest with the fringes and the—the little hat there, I would like to keep them.”

“All right,” she said. “Now. Let's go and see the count.”

The tubby count leapt from his chair and clapped his hands when I was led into his study. He took me in, shaking his head incredulously, then circled me.

“He looks fantastic. Solange, you are a marvel. How do you like your uniform, Jacob Cerf?” he asked me.

“Very much, Monsieur le Comte,” I answered.

The count frowned, looking at Solange. “What are we going to do about the accent? He sounds like … maybe German? Can we say he's German? Isn't Yiddish similar to German?” he asked me, his brows knit.

“Many of the words are the same,” I said. “But I don't speak real German.”

“That doesn't matter at all. You'll learn German, French, English, whatever you like. We need to think of a name. How about … Gebeck?”

“Gebeck?”

“A tradesman's name. You come from a long line of bakers. It's believable. I like Gebeck. This is my new valet, Gebeck. From … Tutzing. In Bavaria. No one ever goes to Tutzing. It's perfect. And I was in Bavaria a few months ago. I can say I poached you from Vieregg's schloss. Can you read French?”

“Only a little, Monsieur le Comte.”

“Well, we will begin our lessons tomorrow. Go now to Le Jumeau. He will train you.”

Solange told me Le Jumeau, the first valet, was in the kitchen. I walked into the large, fried-onion-scented room, gleaming copper pots hanging from hooks in the ceiling, and saw the dark-lipped coachman who had driven me from prison, glaring at me from a low table where he was shining a pair of shoes.

“Excuse me,” I said. “I was looking for Le Jumeau.”

“You've found him,” said the man.

I stood staring stupidly. “You're the valet?”

“Unless you've already stolen my job, yes.”

“I was told that you would give me something to do.”

“Here,” said Le Jumeau, standing. “Shine these.” I sat on the low stool he offered me, noticing, as I passed, that his cheeks were deeply scarred with pockmarks. The coachman had no such marks.

“Figured it out yet?” asked Le Jumeau, leaning back on the stove.

“You're twins,” I said.

“Hence my name. The master loves renaming people. Who are you, now?”

“Gebeck,” I said.

“Nice,” he said, laughing. “So, Gebeck, where did you live before you were arrested? With your mother, by the looks of it.”

“I lived with my wife's family.”

“Married already. How old are you?”

“Almost eighteen.”

“You look younger. You look like a girl. So where is the wife, then?”

“With her … with her mother. When the count got me out of prison, I made a bargain to leave …”

“Your wife.”

“… my life, before.”

“And how do you feel about your bargain?”

“I don't know,” I said.

“Yes, you do,” he said. “You love it. Who wouldn't love being free from what came before?”

“Someone who was happy,” I ventured.

“Yes, that is the question,” said Le Jumeau, glancing with surprising thoughtfulness out the window. “What is preferable: freedom, or happiness?” Just then the cook, a voluptuous, bustling woman, walked in and reached up to pluck a clove of garlic from a strand that hung from the ceiling. Le Jumeau lay a pensive hand on her plump rear, charting its curve. She slapped his hand, laughing.

“Today,” he said, “happiness.”

I was to sleep in a small chamber off the master's bedroom, so that I could, once trained, be called at any time of night to undress him or get him what he needed. The room was tiny, but warm and dry, furnished with a bed, a chair, and a high chest of drawers that took up an
entire wall. The room had two doors; one led directly to the count's bedroom, the other to the hall.

The following morning, the weak light shining through my tiny window woke me just after dawn. I said the prayer of thanks to Hashem and sat up. My first thought was my ablutions; I must rinse my hands. I drew the little bowl of water and tin cup I had provided for myself for this purpose from under my bed, and had just begun to perform the ritual washing of hands when I looked up and saw the count standing in the doorway in his dressing gown and nightcap, a small red leather notebook in his hands.

“Monsieur le Comte!” I whispered.

“Good morning, Gebeck,” he said cheerfully, pulling up a chair and sitting down. “Sorry to frighten you. It's just that I am fascinated by your habits. The habits of your people. And I was anxious to know which of them you would preserve while in my employment.” I lay in my narrow bed, half propped up on one elbow, and stared at him stupidly.

He continued. “Certain things you have already given up. Your head was uncovered yesterday. Though of course you could have thought of the wig as a covering …” I shifted in the bed.

“So,” he continued. “Please tell me. What were you doing with the water?”

“Washing my hands,” I said, pouring a little water thrice over one hand, thrice over the other.

“Why so urgently?”

“A little bit of death or … unclean spirits can settle on the body in the night,” I explained. “If you wash your hands, it gets them off the whole body.” The count nodded, watching carefully, and wrote in his notebook.