“I don’t think anybody believes it.”
“What about Bishop Sołtyk? Does he believe it? I don’t know. I know people have different ways of handling things. Good work, Mr. Kossakowski.”
The next day, Moliwda heads straight for Łowicz, where he will take up his new post, in a new state of mind that verges on elation. The snow and ice have already begun to thaw, and the roads are difficult, so that the horses’ hooves slip over the still-frozen clods of mud, and in the afternoon, as it begins to get darker, the water in the ruts freezes, and the cold, sulfur-colored sky is reflected in the little tiles of very thin ice. He travels alone on horseback, sometimes joining up with other travelers, only to leave them for the next leg of his journey. Somewhere along the way he catches fleas.
Just past Lublin, he is attacked by some tatterdemalions with clubs, and he chases them away, waving his saber and howling like a man possessed, but from then on he travels in a group to Łowicz. He reaches his destination after twelve days and almost immediately gets to work.
The primate’s chancellery is active already, and one of the first matters that must be dealt with is the supplication from the Jewish “Puritanes,” as Primate Łubieński himself calls them—the same supplication that Moliwda wrote not long ago in Ivanie. Now it looks as though he will have to answer it himself. For the time being, he has a few copies made to be sent on to others, to Nuncio Serra, to the royal chancellery, for the archive.
More than once he begins the delicate conversation with the primate about this, but Łubieński is too absorbed by the organization of his primate’s palace, which is, sadly, a little worse for wear, lacking its former splendor, from the time when the interrex primate resided here during the interregnum.
The primate’s books have just arrived in trunks from Lwów. He looks them over inattentively.
“I need you to investigate why they’re insisting upon baptism like this. Whether they have ulterior motives, and what the scale would be of such a conversion,” he says, still distracted.
“There are at least forty such families in Lwów alone, and the rest come not only from the Commonwealth, but also from Hungary and Wallachia, and these are the most learned, the most enlightened,” Moliwda lies.
“But how many of them are there?”
“It was said that there might be as many as five thousand of them in Kamieniec, and now the latest reports are suggesting there might be three times that number.”
“Fifteen thousand,” says the primate, and picks up the tome at the top of the pile, opening it and flipping through it absentmindedly. “The New Athens,” he says.
IV.
The Book of
THE COMET
19.
Of the comet that augurs the end of the world and brings about the Shekhinah
The comet appeared in the sky on March 13, 1759, and as though at its command, the snows melted and poured into the Dniester, causing it to overflow. For many days, it has continued to hang suspended over the wet, vast world, a brightly shining star, disquieting, upending the order of the sky.
The comet is visible the planet over. It can even be seen in China.
It is seen by soldiers after a battle in Silesia, as they lick their wounds; by sailors as they sober up on the cobblestones in front of Hamburg taverns; by Alpine shepherds guiding their sheep to summer pastures; by Greek olive pickers, and pilgrims with Saint James shells stitched onto their caps. It is scrutinized by anxious women expecting to miscarry at any given moment, and glimpsed by families crowded down below the decks of fragile ships as they cross the ocean in search of a new life on the other side.
The comet resembles a scythe aimed at humanity, a naked glistening blade that might slice off millions of heads at any moment, and not only the ones on the craned necks in Ivanie, but also city dwellers’ heads, Lwów heads, Kraków heads—even royal heads. There is no doubt it is a sign of the end of the world, a harbinger of angels rolling up the whole show like a rug. The play is evidently over, armies of archangels already gathering on the horizon. If you pay attention, you can hear the clanking of the angelic arsenal. And it is a mark of the mission of Jacob, and of all who follow him on his arduous path. Any who yet doubt must now acknowledge that even the heavens are joining this onward march. As the days pass, it becomes clear to all in Ivanie that the comet is a hole drilled into the heavenly firmament, through which the divine light may pass in order to reach us, and through which God is now checking on the world.
The sages say that the Shekhinah will pass through this hole.
Strange as it is, remarkable though it may be, on Yente the comet makes little impression. From her vantage point, of greater interest are the countless humble human things that make up the warp of the world. The comet? Why, that’s just a single gleaming thread.
For example, Yente sees how Ivanie has a particular status in the hierarchy of being. The village isn’t firmly planted on the ground, isn’t altogether real. Homes stooping over like living things, ancient aurochs, muzzles approaching the earth, thawing it with their breath. From the windows, a stream of yellow light, the light of a faded sun, much more powerful than candlelight. People take one another’s hands, then let go to eat from a single bowl, halving their bread. Steam rises from the kasha that fathers tenderly spoon into the mouths of the children sitting in their laps.
Couriers on tired horses carry letters from the capital to far-flung provinces, barges loaded with grain glide sleepily to Gdańsk—the Vistula never froze over this year—while raftsmen come to after last night’s carousing. In court, expenses are tallied, but the numbers stay on paper, never turning into money—it’s always better to settle up in flour and vodka than in jangling coins. Peasant women sweep the cellars, and children play with pigs’ bones left from the slaughter. Now they toss them onto the sawdust-strewn floor and study the resulting patterns to divine whether winter will be over soon. Will the storks be quick to return? In Lwów’s market square, commerce is just getting going—you can still hear hammers bringing boards together to make stalls. The horizon lies somewhere past Lublin, just past Kraków, at the Dnieper, at the Prut.
The words pronounced in Ivanie—great and powerful words—transgress the world’s boundaries. Behind them lies a completely other reality—there is no language to express it. It’s like holding silk embroidered in fifty-six colors up to gray fustian—incomparable. Yente, whose vantage point is inaccessible to any other person, is reminded of a bursting—a softness, a stickiness, a fleshiness, with many facets and dimensions, though without time. Warm, gold, light, soft. It’s like some strange living body revealed by a wound, like the juicy pulp that escapes from under broken skin.
That’s how the Shekhinah comes into the world.
Jacob speaks of it more and more often, calling it a she but rarely using her name at first, and yet this new and powerful presence in Ivanie spreads fast.
“The Maiden goes before the Lord,” pronounces Jacob at the close of one long winter evening. It’s after midnight already, the furnaces have cooled, and a bitter chill sneaks into the room like a little mouse through the cracks in the walls. “She is the gateway to God, who can only be reached through Her. As the peel precedes the fruit.”
They call her Everlasting Virgin, Heavenly Queen, Benefactress.
“And we are going to get under Her wing,” Jacob continues his teaching. “Each and every one of us will look upon Her in his way.”
“You thought up until now,” he says one winter morning, “that the Messiah would be a man, but under no circumstances can that occur—the Maiden is the foundation, and it is She who will be the true savior. She will conduct all worlds; all weapons will be surrendered to Her. David and the First came in order to pave the way to Her, but they completed nothing. That’s what I’ll be doing, finishing what they started.”
Jacob lights his long Turkish pipe. A warm, soft light flits from it into his eyes and disappears under his lowered eyelids.
“Our anc
estors had no idea what they were even searching for so long and hard. Perhaps a few of them knew that in all their writings and all their wise teachings, ultimately what they were looking for was Her. Everything depends on Her. As Jacob found Rachel by the well, so Moses, when he reached the source, came to the Maiden.”
Of Yankiel of Glinno and the terrible smell of silt
Yankiel, the young rabbi of Glinno, a widower who recently buried both wife and child, found himself in Ivanie in the spring at the urging of Nahman, with whom, years earlier, he was a student of the Hassidim. They act boisterous together, as if to emphasize their mutual attachment. But it would seem that more divides them than unites them. In the first place, stature—Yankiel has grown, and Nahman has not. They look like a poplar and a juniper. Seeing them walk together makes people smile, whether they intend to or not. Nahman is an enthusiast, while Yankiel of Glinno is all sad reserve, and fearful, too, here in Ivanie, for this place frightens him. He listens to Frank’s words and watches how people react to them. Those who sit closest never take their eyes off him—not a single one of his movements escapes them—while those in the back, despite the tenuous light of several lamps, can barely see and hear. But when the word “Messiah” is spoken, a sigh spreads through the room, almost a moan.
Thanks to a relative in the Lwów kahal, Yankiel of Glinno brings them the news that Talmudist Jews from all over Podolia have gathered together and written a letter to Jacob Emden in Altona to request his counsel. They also have Yavan, who continues to whisper into Minister Brühl’s ear on every possible occasion, encouraging him to take a view of the whole matter that is favorable to the Talmudists. Brühl borrows money from Yavan, sometimes even for the Polish king, giving this Jew considerable influence at the royal court.
And Yankiel says that the rabbis have once again sent a message to the highest ecclesiastical authority—to Rome itself, to the pope.
Yankiel has already received the ironic nickname of Mr. Gliniański, a Polish name, since he carries himself like a Pole and turns up his nose like a Pole. He seems pleased to be the center of attention. He speaks briefly and waits a moment for his words to take effect.
He sees that his news disturbs the assembly. They have gone silent, aside from the occasional cough. The barn, which they have repurposed to be a kind of common room, with a stove in the middle, now transforms into a ship sailing in the dark through stormy waters. Everywhere you look some new danger lurks. It is strange to be aware that everyone out there, on the outside, wishes them ill. The wooden walls of this ship, this Ivanie ark, are too thin to block out the enemies’ whispers, their scheming, their accusations and slanders.
Jacob, the Lord, who senses all emotions better than anyone else, intones a joyful song in his powerful, low voice:
Forsa damus para verti,
seihut grandi asser verti.
Which, in the language of the Sephardim, means:
Give us the power to see thee
and the great fortune to serve thee.
And now everyone is singing “para verti,” the whole barn, their voices uniting into something singular and strong, leaving no room for and no memory of Yankiel of Glinno and his bad news.
Nahman and his very young wife, Wajgełe, whose nickname is the Little Ant, have taken Yankiel in. Sometimes, pretending to be asleep, Yankiel eavesdrops on his arguing hosts; she wants to go back to Busk. She is very thin and prone to fevers and coughs.
The fact that they all have to go through the motions of accepting the Nazarene faith and acting more Christian than the Christians themselves strikes Yankiel as dishonest. It is fraud. He likes having to live piously, humbly, not saying much, keeping his thoughts to himself. The truth should be in your heart, not on your lips. And yet: converting to Christianity!
Nahman dispels his doubts: accepting the Christian faith does not mean becoming Christian. They cannot, for instance, marry Christian women, or even have concubines from among them, for although Señor Santo Baruchiah repeated: “Blessed is he who permits all forbidden things,” he also said that the daughter of a foreign God is forbidden.
Yankiel of Glinno is mostly impervious to these arguments. That’s how he is—he never goes too close to anything, standing instead to one side, not listening to the teachings but leaning up against a tree, against the doorframe, as if he were just pausing for a moment on his way out. He observes. Two years have passed since his wife’s death, and he, a rabbi living on his own in poverty-stricken Glinno, has endured much angst over one Christian woman, older than he, a governess on an estate near Busk. They met by accident. The woman was sitting on the riverbank, dipping her feet in the water. She was naked. When she saw Yankiel, she simply said, “Come here.”
As he always does when he gets nervous, Yankiel plucked a blade of grass and put it in between his teeth—he believes this heightens his selfconfidence. Now he knows that he should have turned on his heels and vanished from the sight of this shiksa, but in the moment, he could not take his eyes off her white thighs, he was suddenly seized by such an intense desire that in some sense he simply lost his mind. It also excited him that they were shielded from view by reeds as tall as walls and that the marshes smelled of rot and silt. Every particle of the hot air felt swollen, full, and juicy like a cherry, and soon it would burst, and its juice would spill onto their skin. A storm was coming.
He crouched shyly by the woman and saw that she was no longer young, that her breasts, full and white, hung down, and that her stomach, slightly protruding, with a birthmark on her navel, was cut across by a fine line that has been impressed into her skin by her skirt. He wanted to say something, but he found no words in Polish appropriate to the situation. And anyway, what exactly would he say? Meanwhile, her hand was the first to reach out, moving toward him, starting with his calf, his thigh, stroking his crotch, touching his hands and his face, where her fingers played a little with his beard. Then, gently, as if it were only natural, the woman lay down on her back and spread her legs. Yankiel, to tell the truth, does not believe that there is anyone in the world who would have turned around and left had they been in his place. He experienced a brief, incredible pleasure, and then they just lay there, still, without a word. She stroked his back, their heated bodies stuck together by sweat.
They arranged to meet in the same place several more times, but when autumn came, and it got cold, she stopped coming, which meant that Yankiel of Glinno was no longer committing a terrible sin, for which he was grateful to her. But he was overwhelmed by an inconsolable longing as well as a great pain that prevented him from focusing on anything. He realized he was unhappy.
That’s when he met Nahman, with whom he had studied at the Besht’s years ago. They threw their arms around each other. Nahman invited him to Ivanie, saying he would understand everything once he got there. Why should he sit around in an empty house? But Rabbi Yankiel of Glinno was not particularly enthusiastic. So Nahman mounted his horse and said:
“Don’t come to Ivanie, if you don’t want to. But beware your own mistrustfulness.”
That’s what he said to him. Beware your own mistrustfulness. This got the rabbi of Glinno—this convinced him. He stayed leaning against the doorframe, grass between his teeth, indifferent on the surface, but in fact deeply moved.
At the beginning of April he set out on foot for Ivanie, and since then he has slowly succumbed to considerable genuine enthusiasm, to the point that he doesn’t even want to admit to himself how important it is to stay close to this man in the Turkish hat.
In Busk, a small scandal breaks out at Princess Jabłonowska’s estate around the time that Mrs. Kossakowska arrives a few months later. The governess of the young Jabłonowskis, already forty years old, suddenly starts to weaken and seems to have caught something like hydrops, and then develops pain so terrible that they call the medic for her. But the medic, instead of letting her blood, calls for hot water: she’s about to give birth. This announcement occasions a small nervous breakdown on the part
of the princess, for it had never entered her mind that Barbara . . . Well, of course, there are no words! And at her age!
At least the floozy has the decency to die on her third day in childbed, as often happens with older women, their time having obviously passed. She is survived by a little girl, tiny but in perfect health, whom Princess Jabłonowska is ready to give to the peasants in the village and maintain from afar. But Mrs. Kossakowska’s arrival in Busk causes the matter to take a different course. For Mrs. Kossakowska, having no children herself, had been thinking about setting up an orphanage, with the help of Bishop Sołtyk, but somehow the idea had never quite become a priority. Now she asks Princess Jabłonowska to keep the infant on her estate for a little while, until she can ready the shelter.
“What harm will it do you? You won’t even know that such a tiny person was ever here, on such an enormous property.”
“It’s a child obtained from harlotry . . . I don’t even know whose it is.”
“But what fault is that of the little girl’s?”
Truth be told, the princess doesn’t require too much convincing. The baby is lovely, and so quiet; she is christened on Easter Monday.
Of Strange Deeds, holy silence, and other Ivanie diversions
A trusted messenger brings a letter from Moliwda just as the comet is slowly disappearing. Drying off from the drizzle outside by the fire in the room, he tells them that all over Podolia this celestial body has generated great anxiety, and many people have insisted that it augurs a great plague and pogroms, as in Khmelnytsky’s day. And famine, too, and an impending war with Frederick Augustus. Everyone agrees that the Last Days are coming.
The Books of Jacob Page 52
