The Origin of Sorrow (56 page)

“The five minutes passed. The driver must have taken pity on me, because he stalled, adjusting the reins and bridles, checking the large wooden wheels, for another five minutes. I told my father I would not leave without Lucas. Father pointed out that I was due at the university in two days, that no other coach would leave today. One of the merchants overheard, and approached us. He was not a merchant at all, but a professor at Göttingen, going back for the new term. Rather than risk losing my place in the medical school, he told me, I must go, and tell them that my friend had been delayed, and would be arriving late. I didn’t want to leave without him, but it made sense. Papa promised to wait at the coach station for another hour. When Lucas arrived, Papa would tell him to hire a fast horse and catch up with the coach down the road — certainly at the first post exchange. His trunk could be sent on later. I had no choice but to climb into the coach with the professor. We left without Lucas.”

Rebecca’s mouth was dry, she was not used to talking so much.

“And he didn’t come?” Simcha asked. “He didn’t overtake you on the road?”

Silent, remembering, Rebecca under the sheet moved her fingers among the hairs on her husband’s abdomen. Finally she said, “I never saw him again.”

Simcha closed his eyes, leaving the words hanging in the blue, attempting something he had learned from Rabbi Eleazar: trying to put himself into her body, her mind, at that time, trying feel what she must have felt. He stroked her hand.

“Those two nights at the coach house inns, I paced the floor, crying, afraid to sleep. I had no idea what had happened to him. Instead I slept as we rode, my head on the shoulder of the professor. At Göttingen, I moved as in a gypsy’s trance. Every day I expected him to appear. Or at least to receive a letter, explaining. Every day was a disappointment. How I got through my studies I don’t know. Some days I was furious with him. How could he abandon me like that? What had I done to him? Then I would be furious at myself for feeling that way — of course he would not abandon me. We loved one another. Something terrible must have happened to him that morning. Perhaps he had been waylaid by highwaymen, who stole his trunk and broke his skull. Or shot him, and left him in a forest. Then I would get into a rage at myself. Because it was my fault.”

Simcha heard her despair. It was as if the young man’s disappearance had happened yesterday. “Becca, Becca, how could it be your fault?”

“Because Lucas did not want to go.”

“To the university?”

“He wanted to be a merchant, like his father. Import valuable antiques. From China. From India. From Persia. Make money for us, so we could be comfortable when we married. I told him that money was not important to me, that at the university we could be together.”

“That didn’t make you responsible for whatever happened.”

“It did. If he was waylaid on the way to the coach — he would not have been there if I had not convinced him. If he fled on a ship, to China, to India — then I had been overbearing, had driven him away. For three months I wrestled with those thoughts, every night.”

“Three months?”

“Then I received a letter.”

Simcha took a deep breath, let it out silently, and waited.

“It was a complete rejection of me. Of everything about me. He never wanted to be a philosopher, he wrote. He never wanted to study at the university. He wanted to go to sea as a merchant. He didn’t want a Doctor for a wife. He wanted a real woman, not a walking brain. A woman who would open her legs — he actually wrote that — and bear his children and raise them while he was off traveling.”

She stopped, wiping tears from her cheeks, tears hot with memory.

“He was a fool,” Simcha said softly.

“He wasn’t a fool. He was honest. He had come to hate me for what I had done to him.”

“What you had done to him? You hadn’t done anything!”

“He didn’t know the words. But I had taken away his manhood.”

“That’s nonsense. Look what you do to me.” He kissed her cheek. “So you came here to forget.”

“I managed to get through school. I felt awful every morning for years, but I wouldn’t let him take my career from me. Afterward, I couldn’t live in Berlin. Everywhere there would be memories. When I saw Lev Berkov’s posting about a position here, I decided this would be the perfect place. I could hide myself inside the walls. Here I would not expect to see him around every corner — since there are no corners. I was a good Doctor — and an awful person. Here I could put up my own wall.”

“You feared being betrayed again.”

“Yes.”

“And excised your emotions.”

“When possible.”

“When you first arrived here, Yussel Kahn liked you, as I recall.”

“We used to talk. I was not ready for more. When Brendel came along, and rejuvenated him, it was clear I’d made the right decision.”

“But all these years … “

“Sometimes in bed at night I wanted to die, I needed so badly to be touched. To be held. Calm Doctor Kirsch, always in control. But you know the men in the lane. Most of them feel the way Lucas did. The way almost all men do. I refused to go through that again. My work had to be enough.”

“And now?”

She took his hand, placed his palm on her breast. “When your heart still beats, fifteen years is a long time to be dead.”

Her roaming eyes found the horse-head knot, barely visible; the moon’s reflected light had vanished. “Though part of me hates Lucas, every year, as Yom Kippur approaches, I think I should light a Yahrzeit candle in his memory. I once heard a rumor that he was on a ship that went down at sea. But I never have. Because he might still be alive.”

“Perhaps this year you should light one. Not for him, but for you. To signify that he is dead in your heart.”

Unable to contain a smile in the dark, Rebecca wondered if all men were that transparent, or only her Simcha. “I think I will do that,” she said.

Birds were heralding the dawn with an avian orchestra. A skylark and a nightingale piped a fugue, a gold-fronted leaf bird fluted in harmony, a woodpecker tapped on an oak-trunk drum, pink and blue fruit doves, a colorful chorus, cooed. Lying on the grass, his hands behind his head, Hersch was reminded of his brother; like Hiram, the birds could make every sound but words. Yet he envied the freedom of their flight. Perhaps that’s what Hiram was doing when he painted the pictures that Hersch had heard about. Perhaps the pictures were Hiram’s wings.

“Damn birds!” Klaus Fettmilch, who had been sleeping on the grass a few metres away, sat up, muttering. “They kept me awake all night.”

“You snored from dark to dawn.”

As Klaus meandered down the path to the river, Leni came up behind Hersch and kissed the top of his head. “Why do you stay around that Klaus. I don’t like him.”

“I hate the cocky whore-son. But I’ve got a use for him. When the old Landgrave dies — a few days after — we can go away without him.”

“What kind of a use for him?”

“I need him to tell somebody something. It’s important. Don’t worry your pretty head, find some twigs for a fire. We’ll make some coffee.”

The birds were chirping at the risen sun when they finished. “My horse is going lame,” Hersch said. “I’m gonna go down the road a ways, see if I can find a nice horse in a pasture, that nobody’s watching.”

“I’ll go with you,” Klaus said. “See if I can find a young girl milking, that nobody’s watching.”

“Watch your mouth. There’s a lady present.”

Klaus looked directly at Leni, then around and behind him. “I don’t see any lady,” he said, and he grinned at them both. Hersch found a small stone on the ground, fired it at Klaus. It struck him in the knee. “That hurt!”

“Next time I’ll make you eat it.”

Klaus stood, rubbing his knee. “Some day, Jew, I’ll hurt you bad. When you’re not expecting it.” He started to walk away, to find his black stallion.

Hersch turned to Leni, but spoke loudly. “That’s the only time he’ll try anything. When I’m not looking. Hey, Fettmilch, I know you won’t poison me! You don’t have three little boys to hold me down!”

Behind thick bushes ten metres away, Klaus bent and found a stone. In one motion he stood and fired it at Hersch. His aim was errant, the stone struck Leni in the face. From her knees she pitched forward, both hands covering her eyes, her long hair falling over her face like a curtain, almost into the dying fire. Hersch with his arms around her waist dragged her away from the smoking twigs, told her to lie back on the grass. Blood was trickling from high on her cheek, just below one eye. He looked at her small face, her pug nose, saw pain in her pale blue eyes. She had not made a sound since being struck. “Are you all right? You’re not much for complaining.”

“I don’t like that man,” Leni said.

The children were asleep. Guttle was strumming her harp, Meyer was reading the Talmud in his favorite chair, half listening to the tender chords. As the light burned low, he stood and adjusted the wick, and sat again. Hesitant, her heart beating rapidly, Guttle said, “We have to discuss something.”

“I’m listening.” He did not raise his eyes from his book.

“Many years ago, I got the idea to start a school for girls. I never acted on it.”

“Which was very wise of you.” He turned a page.

Guttle let her fingers rest on the strings. “Now I want to do it.”

“Not a good idea.” He put a marker in his book and set it aside. “What is different now than back then, when you first mentioned it?”

“Two things. Now we have the older children, who can watch the little ones. I’m thinking perhaps three mornings each week.”

“And the other thing?”

“Rabbi Eleazar is gone. I was afraid back then that he would forbid it.”

“You think Rabbi Simcha would approve? He still has to uphold the Torah, The Talmud.”

“I don’t know that he would approve. But it is not his nature to forbid.”

“I’m not so sure. Have you asked him?”

“I wanted to speak with you first. Then I’ll go to Rebecca for help. Surely he wouldn’t forbid his wife. I want her to teach science. I plan to teach the girls to read and write German. And perhaps French history. Yussel would teach literature, and other history. Perhaps Brendel could teach them to dance.”

“You have it all planned. Have you considered that asking Rebecca would put her on the spot? She’s the Chief Rabbi’s rebbetzin.”

“People have to act on what they believe. If she agrees, she could talk to Simcha.”

“Of course. And that would put Simcha on the spot. You want to come between man and wife? Sometimes what seems like a good idea can lead to disaster.”

Guttle stood from her round stool beside the harp. “It doesn’t have to be that way! Why do you see it like that?”

“I see things as they are. You’ve told me that often enough.” He lifted his yarmulke, ran his hand through his hair. “Listen to me, Guttle. You have not thought this through. This is a dangerous thing you are proposing. It will divide the lane into opposing factions — divide it as perhaps it has never been divided before.”

“There are always factions over something. Look what happened when I brought in Georgi. Some were upset, but they learned to live with him. They even like him now, if they admit the truth.”

“Georgi was different. The idea of him upset people, but they could ignore him if they wanted. A school to teach girls — teach them subjects that even the boys are not taught? Think about it. It goes against five thousand years of tradition. That is sufficient reason right there. But consider what would happen. Some girls will want to attend the school, and their parents won’t let them. This will cause unhappiness for both. Those girls who are not allowed to attend might become envious of those who do. Worse than that — it could upset the entire social order in the lane. What young man will want to marry a girl who is more worldly wise than he is? These girls you teach — the more you educate them, the less marriageable they become.”

Guttle was stunned by his diatribe — by the obvious truth of it. “Not necessarily,” she said, weakly. “Look at Rebecca.”

“Fine, look at Rebecca. She’s, what, forty years old? It took her that long to find a husband. Perhaps too long to have children.”

“She doesn’t want children.”

“There you go. I admire Rebecca Kirsch — Frau Simcha now . . .”

“Doctor Simcha.”

“Right. Doctor Simcha. I admire her as much as anyone. But turn girls into scholars, and where will mothers come from? And babies — the future Jews? And who was strong enough to marry her, in the end? The new Chief Rabbi! For your plan, we don’t have enough Chief Rabbis.”

“You married me!”

“Exceptions there always are.”

“Who is the exception, you or I?”

“No doubt both of us.”

He seemed to run out of words suddenly, like a carriage horse pulling up short at the post house. Guttle sat, feeling almost as if she had been physically beaten. “What if everything you say is true,” she said, her voice hoarse, “and what I want to do is the right thing to do?”

“Who says it is right?”

“Mendelssohn, for one.”

“He is just one man.”

“Sometimes acting morally has consequences. But it is still acting morally.”

“That’s true. But in this case, most of the lane will not agree with you.”

Meyer picked up the Talmud from the small table beside him, looked at its worn leather cover, set it down again. He pulled his watch from his pocket. “It’s late. I have to go to bed. Promise me you won’t do this.”

“I can’t promise so much.”

“So much? Am I asking so much — that you listen to your husband? What can you promise then, if not that much?”

“I can promise to consider what you said. To consider the consequences.”

“Fair enough.” He stood from his chair. “You’re the smartest woman I know. If you consider the consequences, you’ll come to the right decision.” He leaned over, kissed her forehead. “Now, if you’ll come to bed, we can put this disagreement behind us.”