Rashi's Daughters, Book III: Rachel (24 page)

Thus it was decided. On Eliezer’s final day in Córdoba, as he loaded his goods onto the pack animals, Hasdai directed a manservant to add another chest to the pile.

“No astronomer can tell me if our city will be standing next year,” Hasdai said. “Or if I will ever have great-grandsons to enjoy my books.”

Eliezer suddenly realized what treasure Hasdai’s chest contained and, with tears in his eyes, he’d embraced the old man. They would probably never meet again.

That chest was sitting in his cart now, a year later, hidden under rolls of woolens and furs, as he passed through Toledo’s city gate. Along with volumes of Philo, Aristotle, and al-Khwarīzmī was a pouch containing some magnificent diamond jewelry. Rachel told him a dubious story about Count Eudes’ mistress pawning them and then dying before she could redeem them, which is why they couldn’t be sold in Troyes.

Eliezer shrugged. Eudes was the one who was dead, and if he’d given Rachel diamonds, then that was just payment for all the aggravation he’d put their family through.

 

Joheved put her hands on her hips and scowled at her little sister. “I don’t care how busy you are, Rachel, you’re coming to the bathhouse with me and Miriam. I haven’t had a hot bath since the Cold Fair, and after two months delivering lambs in the sheepfold, I am more than ready for one.”

“We’re not prepared for Purim yet.” As much as Rachel loved hot baths, she wasn’t going to let Joheved order her around.

“Joheved and I will help you, and so will Zipporah and Judita.” Miriam tried to diffuse the tension between her sisters. “By the way, Zipporah was so useful with the lambing that I’ve decided to train her as my apprentice.”

“You’re going to make a mohel out of her? Shemayah will be furious.” Joheved said this with a great deal of pleasure. Negotiating Zipporah and Shmuel’s betrothal agreement with the man had been infuriating.

“You’ll have to find your own way to punish Shemayah for how he mistreats his wife and daughter. I’m only teaching Zipporah to be a midwife,” Miriam replied. “But if she wants to become a mohel later, that’s her decision.”

“Considering her family’s curse, I can’t imagine that she’ll want to perform circumcisions,” Rachel said.

Along with the other women in her family, Zipporah’s mother, Brunetta, was cursed. If their sons were cut, the bleeding sometimes didn’t stop. Enough of their baby boys had died after being circumcised that Salomon exempted them from the rite, and Shemayah had never stopped blaming Brunetta for only giving him daughters.

Joheved reached out and ran her fingers through Rachel’s stringy curls. “Can you even remember the last time you washed your hair? Your husband being away is no excuse.”

Joheved was appalled by her sister’s wan appearance. Rachel had always been the beautiful one, but now her once lustrous hair hung limply like burnt straw. Her creamy skin had lost its glow and in the sunlight looked decidedly sallow. It seemed impossible, but even Rachel’s gorgeous green eyes seemed changed, more like murky ponds than emeralds.

“When I washed my hair last is none of your business.”

Before Joheved could say something even more argumentative, Miriam grabbed her and Rachel’s hands. “Now that I’m back in Troyes I need to immerse in the
mikvah
, and it would be nice if both my sisters came with me to bathe.” Rachel would surely respond better to her plea than to Joheved’s criticism.

“All right, I’ll come with you.” The thought of her sisters luxuriating in hot water while she cleaned the courtyard made Rachel even more irritated. “But if Mama complains, it will be both your faults.”

Seated in the large bathtub, clouds of steam surrounding them, Rachel allowed herself to relax, while Joheved and Miriam exchanged glances and nodded.

“Now that Joheved has recovered her full health, we’ve decided that our family should continue to celebrate Passover in Ramerupt,” Miriam said.

Before Rachel could speak, Joheved explained, “Then you and Miriam won’t have to expend all that effort preparing for the festival, and I can invite Zipporah and Judita’s families without making more work for you.”

“What about Mama?” Rachel stared at them in astonishment. Their mother had been bedridden for months.

“If Mama can sit in a chair, she can sit in a cart.” Miriam felt guilty for harboring such thoughts about her own mother, but she sometimes wondered if Mama’s symptoms were exaggerated in order to thwart Rachel.

Rachel reached for a handful of soft soap and began lathering her hair. “Have you talked to Papa?”

“Not yet,” Joheved replied. “We thought it best if the three of us approached him together.”

The three of them bathing together, planning to present a united front to Papa, created an intimacy Rachel had never felt with her sisters.

“Do you mind if I ask you something first?”

Joheved handed Rachel a bucket of clean water for rinsing her hair. “Not at all.”

Rachel took a deep breath. “Does it bother you very much that I’m Papa’s favorite?” There, she’d actually said it.

Miriam spoke first. “Before you came along, Joheved was Papa’s favorite, so things didn’t change for me. And once I became a mother, I made sure to keep my preference to myself.”

“You have a favorite?” Rachel had no idea; her sister seemed the perfect mother.

“When a woman has many sons and one daughter . . .” Miriam shrugged, her cheeks redder than from the steam alone.

They turned to Joheved, who looked down at the water for some time before speaking. “I admit that I did resent you for some time.” Joheved’s chin began to quiver. “But then we both lost babies to Shibeta.”

Now, after Rachel’s stillbirth and subsequent barrenness, Joheved’s jealousy had been replaced by sympathy. Not that she would hurt her little sister further by reminding her of these.

“If I’m Mama’s least favorite child,” Rachel posited, “who do you think she prefers?”

“Not me,” Joheved replied immediately. “I’ve given her far too much aggravation by studying Talmud and wearing tefillin.”

They both looked at Miriam, who shook her head. “I don’t think any of us has replaced the boy Shibeta took from her.”

There was an awkward silence until Joheved turned to Rachel. “So will you talk to Papa with us?”

“Of course. He can’t possibly refuse all of us together.”

Miriam broke into a smile. “I told you she’d agree.” Then she turned from Joheved back to Rachel. “We’ve also decided that you and your children should go back to Ramerupt with Joheved after Purim. The country air will be good for you.”

“But . . .” Rachel began to protest.

“My alewife has more daughters than she knows what to do with,” Joheved said. “So I offered to take two of them off her hands and bring them to Troyes, where they can help Anna look after Mama and Papa.”

“And all the yeshiva students.” Rachel’s mood brightened further. “Papa should have hired more servants long ago.”

“Sending those two girls to Troyes will solve another of Joheved’s problems,” Miriam said. “Then they won’t be chasing after Milo and he can get his work done.”

“Oy, Milo.” Joheved sighed. “I don’t know what to do about him.”

“What’s the matter with him?” Rachel asked. “I thought he was a better steward than old Étienne.”

“He’s an excellent steward; that’s part of the problem. If he were at all unsatisfactory, we could just replace him.”

Rachel squinted at her sister in confusion. “But why do you want to replace him if he’s so good at his job?”

Joheved blushed and looked away. “Milo says that he’s so sick with love for me that if I don’t return it he’ll die. It’s all nonsense of course, and I can’t imagine how he came up with such an idea. But the more I tell him the whole thing is impossible, that I will never love him, the more determined he becomes.”

“Milo didn’t invent this idea of knights suffering from love for their ladies.” Rachel had no choice but to explain the subject, despite the unpleasant memories it evoked. “It’s called courtly love, and it seems to be the fashion in French courts. The knight expects his love to be unrequited, at least at the beginning.”

“I’m a married woman and I’ll soon be a grandmother,” Joheved declared. “His love will remain unrequited forever.”

“But according to the rules of courtly love, the more you reject him, the more you insist that he will never win your love, the more determined he becomes to have it. What you’re doing now only encourages him.”

“Joheved, now you see,” Miriam said. “Rachel knows all about these things.”

Rachel’s eyes flashed. “You told Joheved about—” She stopped in time to avoid naming the count in the public bath.

“Joheved needs your help.” Miriam remained calm. “How long do you think this can go one before Meir or someone else becomes suspicious and your sister’s reputation is damaged? Besides, you know about Joheved and Meir and their magic mirror, and about Judah and Aaron. Why should you be the only one with secrets?”

“That’s why you’re so eager for me to go to Ramerupt,” Rachel accused them.

“I want you to come to Ramerupt for your health,” Joheved said softly. “And if you can help me find a way to disabuse Milo of his ridiculous courtly love notion while you’re there, I would greatly appreciate it.”

 

As Rachel rode with Joheved through the mostly leafless forest, her daughter snuggled in her lap, she felt at peace for the first time in months. When the fields of sheep and lambs came into view, causing Rivka to squeal with delight, Rachel had to smile as well.

“How is your plan to become a clothier coming?” Joheved asked. “Are you going to need our wool this spring?”

Rachel’s spirits fell abruptly. “I found some weavers who’ve agreed to work for me, and Simon the Dyer has colleagues who will gladly dye any fabric we bring them if we provide the dye and alum. But . . .” How could she tell Joheved the truth without insulting her?

“But what?”

“I still need a fuller, preferably more than one.” Rachel stared at the sheep, avoiding her sister’s gaze. “But that’s only a matter of money. The bigger problem is the quality of your wool. The expensive dyes Eliezer imports would be wasted on anything less than the finest woolens, and everyone says that the best wool comes from English sheep.”

“Oh.” Joheved sounded disappointed, not upset. “Importing English wool would cut into your profits.”

“Unfortunate, but true.”

They rode silently until they rounded a bend, where Rachel was startled to see a man riding toward them. He waved his arm in greeting and Joheved groaned.

“It’s Milo. I keep telling him not to, but he always rides out to meet me. He says a lady should have an entourage of knights to escort her home, but since he’s the only knight available on our estate, he comes alone.”

Rachel observed carefully as Milo rode closer. No wonder the alewife’s daughters needed to be sent away: this was a very attractive fellow. But the smile he flashed while welcoming Joheved, and the way his face lit up as she addressed him, filled Rachel with trepidation. Meir was as fine a husband as a woman could want, but how long could he compete with this young Adonis? How long could any normal woman remain unaffected by Milo’s offers of love? Rachel had no idea how she would dissuade him if Joheved couldn’t, but she resolved that at least she would not leave the two of them alone.

Rachel soon found that this was unnecessary. Joheved was meticulous in ensuring that someone was present whenever she met with Milo. The two might have a private conversation while sitting at the dining table and going over the estate’s accounts, but they did so in full view of the household.

Suspecting that Joheved was not as forceful in her denials as she could have been, Rachel decided to speak with Milo herself. After all, she’d kept Count Eudes at bay for months and would surely have been successful in rejecting him if he hadn’t been her sovereign. Here the situation was reversed. Joheved was lady of the manor and Milo a lowly knight. If Rachel could convince him how hopeless his situation was, he might turn his attentions toward a woman who’d welcome them.

She asked him to show her the new vineyard, hoping for an excuse to ask about his feelings for Joheved. “Milo, the fields look different from the last time I was here for Passover.”

“That was two years ago.” Milo paused to think. “The land that was planted in wheat back then lay fallow last year, so now it’s growing spring crops like peas or barley, and the land that was fallow then—”

“I understand the three-field rotation.” Rachel cut him off. “But before the spring crop was oats. Now I realize what’s different: there are scarcely any oats now.”

“Remember the eclipse last fall.”

Rachel nodded.

“Such a sign portends disaster in the coming year. With the mild winter we just had, I thought that if the trend continued we’d have a hot, dry summer and a poor wheat harvest.” An expression of pride appeared on Milo’s face. “When I discussed this with Lady Joheved, she decided to plant the spring fields with food crops for people rather than for horses.”

The mention of Joheved’s name was what Rachel was waiting for. “Speaking of Joheved . . . Milo, I don’t know how best to approach this.” She cleared her throat while Milo looked at her expectantly. “My sister tells me that you have become greatly enamored of her, and despite her every effort to dissuade you, you keep trying to win her love.”

Milo blushed crimson, and to Rachel’s surprise, tears came to his eyes. “I was smitten with Lady Joheved not long after arriving here, and I have tried with all my might to conceal my wound. Yet the more I tried to hide it, the more my pain increased, until I could no longer remain silent.”

“Milo. You must not imagine for an instant that my sister can love you.” Rachel was saddened by Milo’s passion and by his blindness to its futility. “It would be sinful for her to enjoy the embraces of another man, especially when she has such an excellent husband. Meir loves her with his whole heart, and she is equally devoted to him.”