Rashi's Daughters, Book III: Rachel (48 page)

Was he well? What was he doing right now in Toledo? He must be worried about Rivka, with no knowledge yet of whether she was dead or alive. Somehow she must find a fuller, so he won’t need to travel anymore. Everyone thought her goal of becoming a clothier was futile, that she should accept defeat and be content with the weavers. But that would mean accepting Eliezer’s separation from her, which she could not do.

By early March, everyone was in the mood for celebrating, and the Jewish calendar provided the excuse they needed. Purim was less than a week away.

Isaac, as grateful a young father as any, discovered a way to celebrate Purim twice. He pointed out that, according to Jewish law, people who live in a walled city observe Purim on the fifteenth of Adar, while those living in a regular town celebrate on the fourteenth. Meir’s students quickly grasped that they were entitled to two days of Purim revelry, the first in Ramerupt and the second in Troyes, and they lost no time in communicating this information to their older classmates.

Salomon arrived early, to avoid traveling on the Fast of Esther. Seeing his young grandchildren and great-grandchildren arrayed to greet him, all having survived the pox, his eyes filled with grateful tears. “Blessed is the Merciful One, King of the Universe, Who has given you to us and not given you to dust,” he said as he hugged each one, reciting the Aramaic blessing made upon meeting someone who has recovered from a serious illness.

The next day the student bodies of both yeshivot descended on Ramerupt for the yearly recitation of the Book of Esther, to hear how the beautiful Persian queen dramatically revealed her Jewish identity to the king and saved her people from annihilation. After the reading concluded with the evil Haman hanging from the very scaffold he’d planned for the hero Mordecai, everyone settled in for hours of feasting, drinking, and carousing.

Isaac and Shmuel, each wearing a fur mantle inside out, spent the early evening on their hands and knees, either giving the younger children rides on their backs or chasing them around. Once the moon was high and the children in bed, several students pulled out dice in anticipation of a night of gambling. Daytime was for playing ball, tossing horseshoes, or running races in the manor’s large courtyard, while music and dancing would be the entertainment the following night in Troyes.

Like Salomon, Meir drew the line at gambling with his students. “It will be awkward whether I lose to them or they lose to me.”

“I think it should be fun to watch the gamblers,” Rachel whispered to Joheved. “We’re always too busy at Papa’s.”

In less than an hour, Rachel had learned several new dice games. She was about to warn Shemiah against an imprudent wager when Joheved grabbed her sleeve.

“Why should we watch when we can play?” A slightly tipsy Joheved pulled her into the warm kitchen, where Miriam was waiting with Zipporah, Judita, and Salomon’s granddaughters.

To Rachel’s surprise, Joheved placed six dice on the table. “You have no idea how many Milo confiscates from villagers fighting over bets.” She grinned and added, “These are some of the few that aren’t weighted.”

“What game are you going to play?” Rivka asked, her voice at once timid and excited. For the first time she and Alvina were allowed to stay up past the usual children’s bedtime.

“Let’s start with Marlota,” Rachel replied. “That’s a simple one.”

Joheved nudged Judita. “I told you she’d know.”

Rachel handed three dice to Judita and the other three to Zipporah. “You alternate rolling your dice until each of you gets a total between seven and fourteen. That becomes your mark.” When they both nodded, she said, “Then you continue rolling until one of you rolls her own mark, and wins, or rolls the other’s mark and loses. The rest of us place bets on which of you we think will win.”

They took turns playing until Miriam turned to Hannah and complained, “This game takes forever before everyone gets a turn. Let’s play chess and leave dice to the others.”

“Please, Mama.” Leah jumped up and held out her hand. “Can I get Grandmamma Marona’s chess set?”

Joheved removed a key from the bunch pinned to her
bliaut
. “Be sure to lock the pantry when you’re done.”

Leah returned with a large inlaid box, and dice were temporarily abandoned as she arranged the silver and ivory pieces on the gilt chessboard. When Joheved nodded permission, Alvina and Rivka examined the minutely detailed king with his drawn sword and the knights astride their horses. But the girls’ favorites were the tiny elephants, and they eagerly awaited their capture, so they could play with them until the next game started.

Dice were again thrown with enthusiasm, with the non-players placing bets on both Marlota and the nearby chess match.

Miriam and Hannah were reduced to only a few pieces when Meir stuck his head in the door.

“We should be getting to bed.” He couldn’t restrain a yawn. “It’s past midnight.”

The women reluctantly agreed to continue their chess game the next day. After all, they would have to get up early for the morning Megillah reading and the banquet that followed if they expected to get back to Troyes in time do the whole thing again the following night.

 

The month between Purim and Passover passed slowly. Miriam and Rachel made occasional trips from Ramerupt to Troyes, Miriam to attend a few early births and Rachel to deal with the tardy wine buyers who always showed up just before Passover. Despite Miriam’s concern that their daughters might experience a relapse, it was impossible to keep Rivka and Alvina indoors. Especially not on sunny spring days when the meadows were overrun with frisky newborn lambs.

As guilty as Rachel felt for neglecting Nedarim, she couldn’t resist the pleasure of watching her daughter play with the lambs. Rivka was almost ten and would soon be too old for children’s games. So Rachel decided to accompany Milo as he checked the quality of the new lambs’ wool.

“Our experiment has worked well,” he said, running his hand over one lamb after another. “Every year the new lambs’ wool is finer.”

When Rachel received his pronouncement with a less than enthusiastic
oui
, his expression became puzzled.

“But this was for your benefit. Aren’t you pleased?”

She saw no reason to keep the truth from him. “I hired, and later dismissed, two men I hoped would be competent fullers. Yet my chain from shepherd to dyer cannot be complete without one.”

“Surely that one missing piece cannot be critical to your success,” he said.

“The fullers’ guild in Troyes seems determined to thwart my goal. They keep the best woolens under their control, and if Eliezer weren’t a dye importer, it would be impossible to find a dyer to work with me once the fullers threaten to boycott him.”

His next question shocked Rachel into silence.

“Do you think that’s because you’re a woman or because you’re a Jew?”

She gulped and replied, “I assume it’s because I’m a woman. After all, there are many Jews in the textile business. Why do you ask?”

Milo frowned. “When I first came to Ramerupt, I never heard any disparagement about Lord Meir studying strange books and not attending church. If anything the other lords might have complained that he treated his villeins too kindly.”

“But lately things are different?” Rachel tried to keep her tone neutral; yet she couldn’t forget Eliezer’s concerns.

“I think so. Sometimes I hear things in the marketplace: how the monks were shrewd when they charged higher prices for grain after last year’s bad harvest, yet a Jewish merchant is taking advantage.” He shrugged. “Other criticisms too.”

“And what do you say to them?”

“Nothing.” He eyed her with reproach. “I still keep the oath I took for Lady Joheved.”

How convenient, Rachel thought. But she said instead, “Do you fear for her safety?” Wasn’t that why Milo hadn’t gone on pilgrimage?

“I did when so many armed and angry pilgrims were here with Peter the Hermit,” he admitted. “But now I merely feel uneasy. As though I used to hear noise in the night and assume it was harmless animals in the fields, but now I don’t know what’s out there and if it’s dangerous or not.”

“My husband worries too,” she confided. “He wants us to move to Toledo.”

“Perhaps you should,” Milo said with a seriousness that chilled her despite the sunny day.

But Rachel refused to accept Milo’s recommendation. The danger from armed pilgrims was on the road, not in Troyes. Once Eliezer stayed home, he’d be safe.

 

Rachel’s letter was waiting for Eliezer at synagogue. He read it once, then twice more, before closing his eyes and reciting the blessing for receiving good news, “
Baruch ata Adonai
. . . Who is good and does good.” He also thanked Heaven that Salomon had avoided another demon attack. Next year perhaps Rachel could finally stop fretting about her father’s health, so she and the children could spend Passover with him in Toledo.

When he returned to his rooms, Gazelle informed him that Abraham bar Hiyya was waiting. When her undulating form reached the end of the hall, Abraham sighed and muttered, “Greater is he who has succeeded in training himself to abandon thoughts of worldly passion and longs only for the service and adoration of the Most High than he who has still to wrestle with the appetites of the flesh, though he overcomes them in the end.”

Eliezer accepted his friend’s implied criticism. “When my wife comes to live with me, I won’t need a concubine.” Gazelle satisfied his physical needs and never complained about his absence, but she wasn’t Rachel.

“I meant no offense,” Abraham replied. “I was speaking only of myself. Have you heard from your wife yet?”

“I received her letter just this morning.” Eliezer reached over to hug Abraham. “Apparently our daughter and the other children in my wife’s family have survived the pox—may the Holy One continue to protect them.”

“I have news as well,” Abraham announced.

Eliezer knew his friend was waiting to be questioned, but he couldn’t resist joking first. “After hearing how I taught about the calendar’s secrets in Troyes, you’ve decided to write your next book about intercalation?” Abraham was always in the middle of writing some treatise or another.

“An excellent idea,” Abraham replied. “I’ll start on it as soon as I finish ‘Form of the Earth.’ Now let’s go to the observatory. I want you to meet someone.”

Eliezer wasn’t sure if Abraham was teasing him, but clearly his friend was in a fine mood. They raced through Toledo’s twisting streets, walking too fast for conversation, until they reached their destination.

Abraham knocked three times on a closed door, which opened slowly to admit them. A small dark man hovered protectively over a table covered with pages of calculations; otherwise the room was empty. Abraham looked up and down the hall, which was completely unnecessary since every civilized person in Toledo was at home sitting down to his midday meal, and then, apparently satisfied, closed the door behind them.

“May I introduce Ibn Bajjah,” Abraham indicated the Moor, who bowed in Eliezer’s direction. “He has returned from several years of study in Baghdad and is most interested in your recent observations.”

Ibn Bajjah scuttled around the table and pointed to one of the manuscripts. “There can be no doubt that Ptolemy’s planetary model is incorrect. As I have demonstrated here, it is mechanically impossible for a physical sphere to move at uniform speed around an axis that does not pass through its center.”

Abraham nodded approvingly, and Ibn Bajjah moved to another page. “This treatise discusses the precession of the equinoxes, and in it I propose a model of trepidation, rather than Ptolemy’s simple uniform precession.”

Eliezer leaned over for a closer look, but before he could finish the first sentence, Abraham pulled on his sleeve. “Look at this.” A new page was shoved in front of Eliezer.

“These appear to be my results.” Eliezer squinted at the small characters, which were not in his handwriting. “But this diagram of circles is not mine.”

“I have added your observations to my own,” Ibn Bajjah said. “And calculated an improved model for lunar motion.”

Until that moment, Eliezer’s preeminent concern had been how soon the three men would leave to continue their discussion over
disner
. But as he gazed back and forth between Ibn Bajjah’s calculations and diagrams, trying to discern how each formula corresponded with a particular lunar motion, thoughts of food receded in importance.

“This is amazing,” he finally said, slowly shaking his head. “Do you mind if I study these more carefully?”

“Study them all you like and check diligently for flaws.” Abraham laid his hand on the manuscripts. “But do not remove them from this room, and lock the door after you leave.”

The following week Eliezer hurried to finish all his business so he could devote himself to Ibn Bajjah’s astronomical data. He began copying the Moor’s calculations, verifying their accuracy as he wrote, and pointed out some minor errors. Whenever they were together, he plied Ibn Bajjah and Abraham with questions about the new model, to ensure that he understood it thoroughly.