The Origin of Sorrow (33 page)

27

Spring rain was falling steadily, bouncing off the cobbles in florets, running into the sewage ditch that would carry it to the sluice and the river. In the narrow space between the front and rear rows of houses the drainage was not as good; the water building up outside the Hinterpfann was threatening to wash under the door and soak the office floor. Alone in the dank shop, Guttle fetched rags and stuffed them against the crack under the door to keep the water out, and climbed down to the small basement and carried up wood for the stove.

Returning to her chair, she soon became bored. Meyer had taken the morning coach to Speyer to show his coins to potential buyers. Not a single person had braved the rain to change money in the shop or to examine medals or antiques, and none was likely to. She enjoyed her job much more on days when Meyer was around, though she could hardly argue with what he said, that he made no profit, and no contacts, while sitting on his rear. She pictured him walking from a coin shop to a nobleman’s house in the rain, if it was raining in Speyer, then to another coin shop, carrying his heavy case. She found herself drifting off to sleep — then bolted her head upright. An idea had occurred to her, a remedy.

The more she thought about it, the more she liked it. She could see no drawbacks. When Meyer returned late in the day and went upstairs to change into dry clothes, she was impatient to speak with him. She made tea for them both, and began to tell him of her idea while he drank, sipping the tea through a clump of honey crystals he held between his teeth. “It’s an idea to save you time and money.”

“So far I like it,” Meyer mumbled around the honey.

“When you take your coins to a collector, suppose you show him a hundred coins, and tell him about them. Let’s say he buys ten.”

With his tongue, Meyer moved the clump into his cheek. “That would be a very good visit.”

“Still, ninety percent of your time would have been wasted, showing him the coins he didn’t buy.”

“I can’t expect them to buy every coin. Besides, one he doesn’t buy today he might buy the next time.”

“Let me continue. If he bought nothing, which happens sometimes, your whole visit was wasted. But suppose you did this. Suppose you prepared on parchment a list of your coins, with whatever descriptions you need. You have a few of these lists printed in a shop, and you send the them by post to the buyers, for them to examine. That way, when you call on them, they will already know which coins they are interested in. If they want to look at ten coins, you save ninety percent of your time. You return home that much earlier.”

“Ah, I suspected there was a sweet Guttle motive here somewhere.”

“Or you can see more clients in a day.”

He sipped more tea through the diminishing crystals. Guttle was tense, waiting for a response. Endeavoring not to show it, letting him consider the idea, she heated more water, and poured him a second glass of tea.

“Suppose,” he said, thinking aloud, “I make many copies of this list. I send it to nobles and other collectors far away. Farther even than I can travel in a day. They could let me know by post which coins they want to see. I send those coins to them. If they want to keep them, they send me the money — or we could bargain through the post about the price; they all love to bargain. If they are not interested in the coins once they examine them, they send them back. That would increase my profits twice. I save the time and the coach fare.”

Guttle felt exhilarated. He not only liked her idea, he was expanding on it. He was getting so used to her ideas, it appeared, that he no longer felt it necessary to praise her. That was a mixed blessing; she was starting to feel hurt.

“But what if they keep the coins and don’t pay for them?”

“They wouldn’t.” He was getting excited now. “These people have the money to pay. They wouldn’t risk their reputations. On the contrary, they would see me trusting them, so they would return my trust. Which would build mutual confidence for bigger transactions in the future.” He reached for her hand across the table. “Guttle, this is a wonderful idea. How did you come up with it?”

Her hurt vanished at once, an inner joy returned. “The rain brought it from the heavens. Or maybe it’s from being with you.”

Meyer nodded distractedly, still building on the idea. “After a buyer has made several purchases by post, I would pay him a visit. So we could get to know one another. So I could work my personal charm.” He grinned.

His smile was self-deprecating, but his words, she knew, were true. Even Gentiles liked him, despite the Judengasse in his voice.

“Unfortunately,” he said, “tomorrow you will begin to regret having this superb idea.”

Guttle scrunched her face, as a child might. “Why would I regret it?”

He stood and bent behind her, and, lifting her French-style braid, kissed the warm nape of her neck. “Whom do you think, in handsome German script, will be making the lists for me?”

7 May

When I see Hiram at his third-floor window in the last house, I am often reminded of Melka — as if Hiram were born broken to offset her legend at the other end of the lane, a balanced configuration of the misbegotten. Perhaps he, too, will be a legend one day: Hiram of the North Gate. I can’t imagine in what way, him being deaf and mute, but he remains close friends with Izzy — who will be the maker of our future myths. Izzy told me what Hiram said with his hands the day Hersch left the lane: ‘You are my brother now.’

Guttle grabbed Izzy and they hurried down the lane. At the south end they found Doctor Kirsch waiting in front of her new house. Yussel Kahn and another carpenter arrived soon after.

The Doctor had warned all of them to bring large handkerchiefs. She made them tie the handkerchiefs over their mouths and noses, so they would not inhale too much acrid dust. Several metres up the lane the fire captain was stationed to keep the curious from getting too close till the Doctor knew what was inside. At once the ever-present Sophie Marcus gave him trouble, demanding that he let her pass. She began to shout, “Is that Schnapper whore better than me —just because she sleeps with Rothschild?” Her son the Cantor came out from their house and led her away. Guttle’s face reddened with anger as she heard the insult, the lie.

The two carpenters began to pry loose the boards that covered the front door. The wood screeched and howled on rusted nails, but eventually came loose. The banker had given Rebecca a key for the front door. It was rusted, but not bent. Guttle and Izzy watched from close behind her as with a bit of jiggling she convinced the lock to turn. Still, the door was stuck shut. Yussel had to lean hard on it with his shoulder before it popped open. Rebecca pushed it wide, then jumped back, bumping into Guttle as, with the light flowing in like a scouring enemy, a cluster of brown rats scurried into the lane and scrambled downhill for the safety of the docks. There were not too many, because for a long time there had been no food or garbage in the house.

“They probably only sleep here in the daytime,” Izzy said, “and go foraging on the docks at night.”

“The Pied Piper would know,” Guttle said.

“This means there are holes in the floor that will have to be filled with poison and boarded up,” Yussel said. “Brown rats stay near the ground. If there are also black rats, they’ll be in the attic.”

Guttle shuddered. That’s where Melka was.

Behind the running rats, a musty smell of dust and decomposed things rushed out through the open door like a long buried odor trying to flee from itself. Beyond the odor was darkness.

The north side of the house was protected by a thick fire wall., built by some previous rich owner to save his home should the adjacent buildings catch fire. Yussel and the other carpenter, called Doov, went around to the south side, which faced the curving ghetto wall and the river beyond. Rusted nails in the boards on the windows screamed like chickens in the slaughterhouse before loosening their grip. When the boards were pried off, the first sunlight in centuries sprayed pale rectangles on the dust that covered the ground floor like a rug. Rebecca entered slowly, followed by the others. The front room was large, had not been divided up; the home had been abandoned long before the Judengasse became crowded; Rebecca was delighted with its size. As their eyes became accustomed to the dim light they saw huge yellow spider webs hanging in every corner of ceiling and floor like the furnishings of tombs, webs made of thick strands woven around other strands. In the spun center of some, spiders hung motionless, dead or alive.

“They must live on vermin that ride in with the rats,” Rebecca said.

Yussel moved closer for a better look. “Don’t go near those things without gloves,” he told the Doctor.

“I won’t go near those things without a fire hose,” she replied, tightening the blue kerchief that covered her dark hair, “and half a dozen strong men to aim it.”

The carpenters had brought a ladder with them. “You might as well uncover the second and third floors,” Rebecca said. “They’re probably in the same condition.”

Guttle felt herself getting anxious. Izzy was scrawling notes in his book.

“What about the attic?” Yussel asked. “As long as we have the ladder.”

The Doctor led them out into the fresher air of the lane. Some in a small crowd of women and children who were gathered behind the fire captain cried out, asking what they had found. Rebecca told the carpenters, “Let’s not do the attic today. I’m not comfortable preserving a myth — but I want to think about it.” Turning to Guttle, she added, “If the attic is as nasty as what we just saw, your Melka is quite a girl.”

24 June

This morning from my window I saw Izzy carrying into the Liebmann house long, thin sticks of wood, a roll of canvas, and what looked like jars of paint. Something is going on.

With Leo dead and Hersch in exile, a painful quiet emanated from the first house by the north gate. It had been weeks since Guttle had seen Yetta. Hiram’s face had disappeared from his window. Concerned, Guttle decided to pay a visit, to make sure they were all right, to make sure Yetta would be coming to the wedding.

She crossed the lane and mounted the stairs. The familiar smell of boiled cabbage had been overcome by a more powerful one, the sharp aroma of paint and turpentine. Glancing at the door to Hiram’s room, which was shut, Guttle asked after Yetta’s health. Yetta said she was fine. But at once she seemed to change her mind. She pointed to the chairs in the kitchen, and they sat.

“I’m old, why should I lie to you?” Yetta said. “Old people don’t have to lie. I miss my Leo.” Guttle thought Frau Liebmann’s eyes were reddening, but that may have been the flickering of the lamp. “There’s no one else to talk to, I forget how my voice sounds. You should never know what it’s like, Guttle, to lose your husband. Even though Leo’s gone, I talk to him still. Sometimes we even fight.”

Who could not smile at that? “And Hiram? I get the feeling he is painting something.”

“To figure that out, you don’t need such a young nose. It’s wonderful, better than looking out the window all day. Isidor brings him paint and canvas and charcoal that Yussel Kahn buys near his bookbinder. From a window in Hiram’s bedroom that faces to the north they tore off the boards, and replaced them with shutters he can open and close. The guard by the gate is too near to see up. The window looks only over the slaughterhouse. Nobody has complained so far, knock wood.”

“What does he paint?”

“You shouldn’t ask. Everything. You know how he used to clock things out the window, make little drawings in his book? It appears it wasn’t such a waste. Now he looks at his book, and makes bigger drawings, from what he remembers. If he likes it, he tries a color painting. His eyes and his memory are good — as if to make up for the other.”

“Can I see them? Can anyone?’”

Guttle was hoping she would say no. What if they were awful?

Yetta did say no. “He says nobody can see them until he is ready. Until he is good enough. He likes the drawings with charcoal, but paint is new to him. Every time he adds a color, he says, the other colors change. He has a lot to teach himself. I told him we could sell Hersch’s bed so he would have more room to work. He said no. He wants to keep it till Hersch comes back.”

“It sounds like he’s doing fine,” Guttle said.

Frau Liebmann closed her eyes, rubbed them with thinning hands. “Now, fine. What happens when I’m gone? There will be only Isidor he can talk with.” She placed her hands on the table. “In two years he’ll be old enough to marry. What girl will have him?” She found a handkerchief in her apron pocket and twisted it between her fingers. “Yahweh shouldn’t hear this, but for Hiram, in one way it’s been good that Hersch was sent away. He wouldn’t have taken up painting with his brother around. But soon it won’t be enough. Hersch was supposed to look after him when I’m gone.”

Cold guilt blew through Guttle like a winter wind. Through all the years, she realized, it never once had occurred to her to learn Hiram’s gestures, so she could converse with him. She had treated him as someone not worth talking to — just as most of the lane had.

Her next thought was to ask Yetta to teach her. But she held back. She needed to think about what future responsibility this might impose on her.

In that moment, she despised herself.

“The reason I came,” she said, “I want to make sure you’re coming to my wedding.”

“Of course I’m coming. I’ve watched you grow up from a tiny thing. I used to mind you in your cradle when your Mama was at the bakery.”

Guttle assured her that Hiram was invited, too. Yetta placed her hands, still clutching the handkerchief, in her lap. “For Hiram I can’t speak,” she said.

Night. A simple bedroom. Cassandra, a future bride, is admiring her wedding dress. She sits on the floor, leans her cheek against the hem of white lace. Mournfully, she sings an aria:

Dear Melka above us, if you really love us