Jacob's Folly (4 page)

“Better be good. Yelding's still way ahead after that chocolate soufflé last week.”

Hiding under Leslie's shirt collar on the ride to the hospital, comforted by the darkness, I wondered what my purpose as an angel here could possibly be. What could I help with? I already saw that Leslie was a noble soul overwhelmed with duty, visited by occasional odd little lustings he would never act on. He saved bitter old men who were about to die anyway from a little peaceful smoke inhalation, then went to visit them in the hospital to make up for the fact that he wished they had been children or young women. I worried that I would die all over again, this time of boredom. Confident that I wouldn't miss anything important at this rate, I allowed myself a short nap.

H
aving fled the great house of the Comte de Villars and his bizarre offer of employment, I had returned gratefully to the routine of my days: my mother woke me tenderly at five o'clock each morning, bringing a basin of water to my bed. I performed my ablutions, washing my hands of the unclean spirits that might have settled on my body during the night, and said my morning prayer of thanks. I put on my tzitzit, a fringed protective garment, like a prayer shawl with a slit cut in the middle for the head to go through. Over this I wore what I hoped was a French-looking chemise, a red vest with silver buttons, and a black coat. I hid my yarmulke beneath a black felt three-cornered hat.

I scurried to morning prayer with my brother and my father at one of several places of worship set up in various houses in our section of Paris—we did not have a synagogue—then my father and I yoked up our peddler's boxes and set off to make a little money, calling out hoarsely, “Watch fobs! Knives! Snuffboxes!” etc. The streets of Paris were cacophonous with the cries of peddlers selling everything from baked apples to firewood to water pumped from the Seine. Each peddler had his or her own cry, and we milled through the streets, across the bridges, baskets and boxes strapped to us, crying out our wares.
My brother Shlomo was exempt from this work; the treasured scholar of the family, he stayed back to study all day. I didn't envy him. In the afternoons I played skittles with other boys in the courtyard, or ran wild through the neighborhood with my gang of friends. I had no inclination to study the holy texts in my free time as I was meant to—nor did I have any great interest in business. I just wanted to enjoy myself as much as possible. My father, a serious, even doleful man, thought I was a ruffian in the making. His selling was punctuated by prayer morning, afternoon, and night: Shacharis, Mincha, and Ma'ariv. He was also one of a group of stalwart men who volunteered to prepare the dead of our community in the traditional manner. His attitude toward me, his blithe eldest son, was one of resigned disappointment, occasionally peppered with disgust. I avoided him as much as I could.

In addition to selling, I loaned small sums to the gentiles in the area—trifling amounts, really; I was no banker. People often needed a little something to tide them over to the next month, and usury was forbidden to Catholics. My father, brother, and I lent money at reasonable interest, collecting the pledges when they were due. Within our own community, we lent to one another without charging interest. That was our custom.

Our world of German and North European Jews took up about four cramped and winding streets of Paris, branching off the rue Saint-Martin, on the Right Bank of the Seine. The Portuguese Jews lived on the Left Bank, near the rue des Grands Augustins. They traded in silks and chocolate, and received passports for twice the time we did.

There had once been a much larger Jewish community in Paris. But in 1306, Philippe IV, in need of income for the bankrupt French state, had a brilliant idea: he simply arrested all the Jews in France, confiscated our money and property, and deported us. This initiated a series of expulsions that were revoked and reinstated several times during the coming centuries. We were let in or kicked out, depending on how important for business we were seen to be. Luckily for
me, Louis XV was a tolerant king; in the past fifty years or so, we Jews had been allowed to slink into Paris in dribs and drabs, like rats trickling back into a house once the catcher has left the premises.

My young life pattered on in its usual way for several months until I got the jolting news that I was to be married. I was seventeen. My betrothed had been selected for me out of the meager handful of Jewish girls in Paris by the local matchmaker in collusion with my parents; the marriage contract was hammered out through a marriage broker. Hodel Mendel was just fourteen. As my parents saw it, Hodel was a catch: her father, Mayer Mendel, was the only ritual slaughterer on the Right Bank. The ritual slaughterer was an important man in our community. On top of that, the Mendels offered a substantial dowry, plus room and board for three years. Who could resist? As for me, I was dying to sleep with a woman, and Hodel was not a bad-looking girl.

I thought of marriage as a sort of Eden where you could pluck sensual—and sanctified—delight from every
fruitier
in the garden. I couldn't wait. The day before my wedding, my scholarly uncle Yitzak sat with me, breathing thickly through the dense hairs in his nose, and explained that what I was about to do had been done by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and there was nothing to be nervous about. He gave me a brief layout of the geography of my future wife, and myself in relation to her, causing me to nearly faint with embarrassment, but teaching me nothing I didn't already know from having once witnessed two stray dogs humping, and my habit of idling inside bookshops where
livres philosophiques
, with their carefully illustrated descriptions of persons in flagrante delicto, were clandestinely sold. Having fulfilled his duty, Uncle Yitzak stood up stiffly, kissed my head, and walked out of the room. My mother, to my surprise, stormed in the minute he left, weeping, and clasped me violently against her breast.

When I saw little Hodel on the evening of our wedding, she was hanging by her elbows between her tall mother and her squat father,
being guided through the courtyard of her family building like a blind person. Her face was entirely whited out by an opaque veil that fell to her waist, giving me the curious impression that her head was on backward. I stood with my parents beneath the wedding canopy, trembling in my white coat, waistcoat, and britches, over which I wore a kittel—a white linen robe, white for mourning, to remind me of my own death. Yet in truth my kittel could have been my own burial shroud, given what my marriage would turn out to be.

Hodel looked very small and rigid beside her pantherlike, black-browed mother, who was maneuvering her toward me with a firm grip. Her little badger of a father had to raise the girl's elbow in order to keep her level. It looked as if they were heaving a draped statue across the courtyard. Hodel seemed to be making no effort to walk; in fact, she was quite stiff. I wondered if her feet were being dragged along the ground beneath her wedding gown. The four candle-bearing matrons walking before this coercive procession lent the ceremony an eerie air of sacrifice. At last Hodel was beside me, perfectly hidden behind the thick white silk. After my father pronounced the seven blessings, when Hodel's veil was raised, a corner lifted by each parent, I saw that her eyes were inflamed and swollen from weeping. Her round cheeks had tear tracks on them. Her breath shuddered and caught like that of a tiny child who has been bawling. I crushed the glass beneath my heel with a sudden rush of anger.

I
awoke from my nap and crawled out from under my cotton tent. I was in a sterile chamber buzzing with greenish light. Mr. Tolan, the old man whom Leslie had saved in the fire, was sitting up in bed, his skinny, shriveled arm connected to a shiny tube. Rheumy, helpless eyes glistened in the dry landscape of his face like shallow ponds. With striking vanity, he wore a ratty brown toupée that seemed to hover over his scalp. Leslie couldn't reconcile this pathetic figure with the powerhouse he had known as a child. Mr. Tolan's rages were legend in the neighborhood; you could hear him halfway down the block, screaming at his kid, wife, dog.

“If there's anything Deirdre or I can do for you, Mr. Tolan … you let us know,” Leslie said. Ugh. Leslie was perfect! I felt so low in his presence, so unworthy. Was this what I was supposed to feel? Was this why I had been sent down here, to follow this exemplary man around day and night until I couldn't stand it anymore and had no more will to live? Could angels commit suicide? I felt a sudden, acute dislike for Leslie Senzatimore. He reminded me, I realized, of my father, a man whose damning rectitude could scorch your eyebrows if you got too close to him.

I spread my wings, jumped, and took off, circling the room as Leslie
listened to the old man, nodding, his blue eyes wide with understanding, big jaw set. I was depressed—numbed by boredom and a sense of worthlessness. And then it occurred to me: maybe angels had free will. I had always been told that they did not, that it was only humans who were distinguished with that feature, that angels were bound to praise Him day and night for all ages. But here I was, on “Long Island,” whatever that was, not singing or praising, but floating around useless and invisible. What if I left? I decided to try it. I flew out the door and down the shiny hallway. My trajectory was interrupted by the sudden disappearance of the wall to my left. It dissolved, revealing a box full of expressionless people. I hung in the air, staring at this phenomenon, when the wall began to close up again. A woman rushed by me, stepping into the secret room. I was sucked into her wake, and hovered over the deanimated passengers, observing them with interest.

All the people, dressed in strange, ill-fitting garments, the womens' limbs exposed, hair disheveled, as though they had left their beds in a rush, stared dumbly at the doors, which glided shut magically, sealing us in. I now felt a sickening lurch in my stomach as the room plummeted through space. I was forced toward the ceiling, listening to the whoosh of the thing as it fell, then came to a soft halt. The doors opened again. All the people walked out. I followed, grateful to be free.

I found myself in the mezzanine, assaulted by violent, inexplicable light. Many people walked back and forth, entering and exiting through a bank of glass doors that slid open and shut constantly of their own accord and led outside. The women were stripped down like Deirdre, with tight trousers, or short skirts. There was no modesty about them, no elegance. I noticed one such vision with white wires coming out of her ears, talking to herself emphatically. The nails on her fingers and toes had been lacquered to perfection and shone like black Chinese boxes. I wondered if this might be a lunatic asylum. Then I heard a tinny voice, crying out from within the wires: “You can
fucking pick him up for once, but no, obviously not, your mother's imaginary infection—” Was I reading the woman's thoughts? A man seated on a low couch, his enormous feet splayed in a pair of egregious blunt-toed shoes, his neck bent over a tiny keyboard, played a fast-paced tune with his thumbs, but no sound emitted from the shiny ebony instrument. I hovered over him and saw minuscule words forming in a glowing rectangle:
Get bucket of chicken am starving
. Some of these people looked unwell, others merely unhappy. The women wore no white powder on their skin or hair, yet many of them had dipped their locks in yellow dye, and their eyes and lips were daubed liberally with glistening colors. You can imagine how confusing all this was to me, innocent as I was of the customs and mechanics of this new world with which I am now so deeply familiar.

A shop selling bright flowers caught my eye. Inside, a woman with orange, greasy skin leaned on the counter, flipping the pages of a broadsheet. I flew closer to see what she was looking at: an amazingly rendered color image, so lifelike it seemed impossible to create with paint or the printer's gravure, shiny with varnish. It was a portrait of a dark-haired woman and a blond man. They were smiling. I flew to a rack of other such publications. Here I saw the same set of handsome Viking faces, alone or together or in a pair, smiling down from each of the glossy covers in different poses, with different words beneath them. Sometimes a third female joined them in the images. They all three had strong teeth and bony, flat faces. They looked Nordic. Or perhaps they were Austrians? Stamped beneath them were a series of proclamations: “Brangelina's secret wedding!” “Jen's phone call to Brad's weeping mother.” “Nanny tells all in Brangelina shocker.” I assumed Brangelina must be the name of the current monarch of this land, or perhaps his courtesan. In my time, we had libelous books whirling around town, depicting Mme de Pompadour, and, later, Mme du Barry, the king's mistresses, in all sorts of licentious poses with men and women of the court. It was our entertainment.

After reading as much of the libelous literature as I could without
opening the pamphlets, weak angel that I was, I became bored. Determined to find new stimulation in this panorama of ugliness, I decided to take a risk and reenter the secret room that plummeted, see where it burped me up this time. I retraced my flight path out of the shop, diagonally across the room of abominably dressed humans talking into their magic shining voice boxes, and waited in front of the metal doors of the plummeting room. Eventually they opened, and I flew in, joining a young woman pushing a small, half-naked child in a low, open buggy. The young woman was chewing the inside of her lip, one bare leg flung away, the opposite hip jutting out. With that posture, I assumed she was a prostitute. But why the child? The metal doors shut, sealing us in. With a terrible feeling of being buried alive, I felt the box ascend. When the doors opened again, a warm stream of air reached through the open doors and caressed my face. Tantalized, I followed the heat, out the secret room and down the hallway. Whenever I veered away from its path, the air went frigid. Careful to avoid parting with the delicious warmth, I swam it midstream, veering sharply as it led me through an open door.

I flew high, skimming the rough panels in the ceiling, and looked down at two narrow beds separated by a cloth curtain. The shades were drawn; the room was fairly dark. Two young women were lying on the two beds. One was asleep. Her body lay jagged, as if broken, under the thin blanket. Her hand swiped her face as she slept. I floated down and had a look at her, hovering so close that I could see her eyeballs scanning beneath the lids as she dreamed. Her skin was slick. Her hair, unwashed, clung to her forehead. I was reminded of prison; the women had been so shockingly unkempt there. Hair frayed and dull, skin sallow, lips cracked. It made me realize how important a woman's toilette was to her appearance. In a state of nature, most women are hideous—even the beauties. I was so close to this one I could smell her metallic breath. Still giddy with my ability to fly, I sucked up my abdomen, pumped my wings a couple of times, and banked to the right, over the top of the curtain, toward the other girl's bed. This one was awake,
looking up at a luminous box clamped to the ceiling with a metal device. I flew up to the box and looked inside it. Within, tiny figures moved around in a most lifelike way. One of them was a fair-haired woman. She removed a red wrap to reveal a slender torso barely covered in a chemise. I tried to fly into that luminous world, but was repelled by a wall of warm glass. Slightly stunned by the collision, I looped up to the top of the box and perched at the edge, feeling its heat and vibrations as I gazed down at the girl in the bed. She was propped up on several pillows, staring upward with an expression of amazed fascination. Her intent face, bathed in the cerulean glow of the box, was captivating: very large onyx eyes, padded lips drifting open to reveal an insolent gap between strong front teeth. Her long, thick hair was dark, almost navy in the half-light. Her flimsy green gown hung open, and I glimpsed a patch of naked skin. Habitually curious about all breasts, I dove down to get a better look and hung in the air, wings beating, peering into the folds of the gown. I was just able to make out the curve of a plump, high tit. As with Leslie, the air near this girl felt as hot as dipping into a bath. I wondered if she was the warm tide's source. Boldly, I landed on the nipple. Tiny as I was, I seemed to be crawling up the face of a cratered red mountain. Strange, I thought, that I was unable to stand upright. I strained my mind for examples in painting or sculpture of crawling angels, and could only think of the thick-limbed cherubim gamboling through frozen cascades of wax on the candelabrum I was staring at as I died. Was I a cherub? An invisible, fat toddler with wings? I remembered myself alive: clear blue-green eyes, a somewhat lupine yet delicate nose, a chiseled mouth. My hair was jet-black and fell in shining ringlets to my shoulders. I looked quite angelic, though somewhat too shrewd, intense.

Instinctively, I flicked out my tongue to glance the ridged mound of rose-colored flesh beneath me. I tasted salt and smelled the aroma of young, unwashed flesh—a pleasant, milky bouquet—with a faint undertone of sweat. Without warning, I felt a solid wall sweeping my body over the fleshy hill. I rolled over several times and was propelled
into the air, my wings beating frantically to keep me up. A hand rose up huge before me, still in the act of brushing me off. She had felt me. I had substance! That was good. Invisible, but extant. I floated in the air, enjoying the weightlessness, the giddy feeling of power that flight brought to me. I had always hated the heaviness of life. Senseless obligation, the strictures of time—I had made my life an affront to these killjoys. True, I had only had thirteen years of freedom, but better to die beautiful, with a bacchanal taking place downstairs where certain people are actually missing your presence, than in unlusted-after old age, your day a round of senseless tasks, no pleasure in sight. Pleasure, oh! To manifest myself!

Flying in neat circles in the light of the luminous box, I was enlivened by my memories. What a joyous time a handsome young angel could have with this lush girl, as that sickly rag doll snored behind the curtain. I felt my sex so keenly it was a torture not to be able to touch it, to reassure myself it was still there, but my withered angel arms were too short, I could only wave them miserably. What if, as an angel, I had no sex, only desire? That would be a tailored hell. I had to know what I was!

I landed on a smooth, cool vertical plane.
I am so light
, I thought,
I can grasp a wall
. I rested there for a moment, gathering my thoughts. Perhaps this was only a phase of being. Corporeal manifestation might come in time. I looked at the smooth, unrippled surface before me. Reflected in it was the luminous box with its tantalizing, unreachable images. I was standing on a mirror. I stared into it, yearning to see an image of myself, but, where my form should have been, all was dark. Was I casting a shadow? Filled with hope, I took off, my wings propelling me back slightly before I rose, circling the mirror and looking into it. All I could see was the luminous box, the girl's profile, the ceiling with its gray square tiles, and a fly, zigzagging back and forth through the air. I was still invisible. I yearned to see myself. I looked into mirrors compulsively when I was alive—I never passed one without
checking the state of my beauty, and I passed many lustful moments with others and alone staring at my own reflection in ornate mirrors belonging to aristocrats or the cracked, stippled rounds hanging in brothels. Now, with no reflection to confirm my existence, I felt claustrophobic, suffocated, erased. Desperate, I beat my wings and rose up; flight soothed me. The fly in the mirror rose. I let myself sink a bit; so did the fly. I landed on the mirror and watched the glass go dark, felt the cool of it on my feet. I was a fly! I wept with rage and helplessness.