Jacob speaks reluctantly, faltering once at the mention of a name, but Moliwda translates fluidly that when it came to certain Jews, even if they tried very hard to get Jacob to accept them into the faith, even if they wanted to give him large amounts of money for it, he would reject them when he did not see the light over their heads. And he knew, in any case, who was sincere, and who had murkier intentions.
Now they ask him for details of his first stay in Poland. When he speaks in terms that are too general, they further inquire into the names of localities and the persons who hosted him. This takes a long time, and they have to wait for the secretaries to write it all down. Jacob starts to falter under this bureaucratic regimen; he has a chair brought to him, and he sits.
Moliwda translates Jacob’s account of events in which he himself played a part, but he would rather not acknowledge that, and there isn’t any need for him to do so, no one is asking him. He just prays that Jacob himself won’t somehow spill this information; but as Frank is telling them of Nikopol and Giurgiu, he doesn’t say a word about Moliwda, doesn’t even look at him. The court will think that they don’t know each other at all, that they met recently in Lwów, through translation, as Moliwda wrote in his statement.
They hold a small recess, during which time they bring in water and cups. The interrogator changes—now it’s the Jesuit.
“Does the accused believe in God in the Trinity? That there is one in three persons? And does he believe in Jesus Christ, the True God and Man, the Messiah present in the Holy Scriptures, according to the confession of faith made by Saint Athanasius? Is he ready to swear to it?”
They give Jacob the text of the credo in Latin, which Jacob isn’t able to read, so he repeats after Moliwda, sentence by sentence: “I believe in one God . . .” Moliwda adds: “with all my heart.” Now they tell him to sign his name to a page with the credo on it.
Then comes the next question:
“In what places of the Holy Scriptures did the accused look into the mystery of the Holy Trinity?”
Again there is a secret little understanding that exists between the defendant and his interpreter, invisible to any other eye. Moliwda had taught him this once, Jacob remembers it well. And those lessons turn out now to be useful. First he mentions a passage from Genesis 1:26: “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness,” and Genesis 18:3, where Abraham says to the three men as though to one: “Lord, if I have found favor . . .” Then he goes to the Psalms and points to a passage in Psalm 110: “The Lord says to my Lord: Sit at my right hand.” Then he gets lost, he has his books in Hebrew with him and turns the pages, but then he finally says he is tired and would need time to find the right places.
So they ask him the next question: Where in the Scriptures does it say that the Messiah has already come, and that he is Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary and crucified 1,727 years hence?
For a long time, Jacob is silent, until they have to prompt him to answer. Jacob says he was once clear on this, back when he was teaching. But after his baptism he lost that clarity of his mind, and there are certain things he doesn’t need to know now, for now he and the others are guided by the priests.
Sometimes his quick reflexes amaze Moliwda. This answer, against all expectations, is to their liking.
“Which are the places in the Holy Scripture from which he was able to arrive at and lead others to the fact that the Messiah, Jesus Christ, is the true God and Creator and consubstantial Father?”
Jacob rummages around in his books but doesn’t find the right passage. He rubs his forehead and finally says:
“Isaiah. ‘And shall call his name Immanuel.’”
Inquisitor Śliwicki won’t give up that easily. He harps on about the question of the Messiah.
“What does the defendant mean in saying that Christ will come again? Where will he come? How will that be? What does that mean that he will come to judge the living and the dead? Is it true that the defendant has maintained that he is already in the world in some human body and will appear suddenly, like lightning?”
Śliwicki’s voice is calm, as if he were saying ordinary, common things, but Moliwda can feel the silence thickening, as everyone listens carefully for what Jacob will say. When he translates the Jesuit’s question for Jacob, he adds in a little word: “Careful.”
Jacob catches that word and speaks slowly, cautiously. Moliwda also translates slowly, waiting until Jacob finishes his sentence, turning the words over in his mind a few times.
“I never thought the Messiah would be born again on earth in human form, and I never taught that. Nor did I think he would come as some rich king who would bring down judgments among people. That he is concealed in the world is what I had in mind, that he is hidden in the guise of bread and wine. And that is what I understood at some point myself, deeply, in church in Podhajce.”
Moliwda exhales but in such a way that no one will notice. He can feel that the light elegant żupan he is wearing underneath his kontusz is sopping at the armpits and down his back.
Father Szembek interjects now: “Does the defendant know the New Testament?”
“Have you read the books of the New Testament? And if so, in what language?”
Jacob says he has not, that he has never read them. Only in Lwów and here in Warsaw has he read anything from the Gospel of Saint Luke.
Father Szembek is interested in why he wore a turban and attended mosques. Why did he receive a ferman from the Porte that allowed him to settle as if he were a new Muhammadan? Is it true that he converted to Islam?
Moliwda is close to fainting—so they do know everything after all. He was an idiot to expect otherwise.
Jacob answers immediately, as soon as he understands the question. Through Moliwda’s lips he says:
“If I believed that the best religion was Muhammad’s, I would not have turned to Catholicism.”
And he goes on to explain that the Talmudist Jews turned the Porte against him and were giving them bribes so that the Turks would apprehend him.
“Because I was persecuted, I was forced to accept that religion, but I only did it superficially, in my heart I did not have that faith as the true one even for a moment.”
“Why do you write in your supplication to the sultan that you were poor and persecuted, while you told us you are wealthy, with a home with a vineyard and other properties?”
Triumph sounds in the questioner’s voice—here he has caught the defendant in a lie—but Jacob does not see anything wrong about it. He responds carelessly that he was told to do this by the mayor of Giurgiu, a Turk, who saw that he could make some money that way. And what could be wrong with that? Jacob’s tone seems to be saying.
Father Szembek rummages around in his papers and finds something of evident interest, since he interrupts before the Jesuit can get back to asking his questions.
“One of the men we interrogated, one Nahman, now called Piotr Jakubowski, said that you revealed to him the Antichrist in Salonika. Did you believe that?”
Jacob answers with Moliwda’s lips.
“No, I never believed it. Everyone said it was the Antichrist, so I passed it along, like a tidbit.”
The Jesuit gets back to it:
“Did the defendant speak of the Final Judgment as being near? How could such knowledge have been obtained?”
Moliwda hears:
“Yes, the Judgment is near, and that conviction can be found in the Christian Scriptures, that although we do not know when it will happen, it is near.”
And he explains:
“To awaken the others, I cited the words of Hosea 3 and told of how for so many years we Jews had no priest and no altar, while now, we, the sons of Israel, are converting to the Lord God and seeking through that faith the Messiah, son of David. Having accepted the Christian faith, we already have priests and altars, so these must already be the last days according to that prophet.”
“Was the accused aware that some of his students took him to be the M
essiah? Is it true that, sitting on a chair and consuming coffee, and smoking a pipe, he permitted others to worship him while they cried and sang? Why would the accused allow this? Why would he not prevent his students from calling him ‘Lord’ and ‘Holy Father’?”
Father Śliwicki is becoming increasingly belligerent, although he does not raise his voice at all; he asks his questions in a tone that suggests that in a moment he will rip off the veil and reveal to the world some terrifying truth, and the tension in the room increases. Now he asks why Jacob selected twelve students. Jacob explains that there were not twelve to begin with, but fourteen, and two of them died.
“Why did they all choose, at their baptisms, the names of the apostles? So that Frank is as if in the place of Our Lord and Savior?”
Jacob denies this, saying not at all, they simply chose the names they wanted. And besides, Franciszek is among them.
“God forbid,” translates a sweaty Moliwda. “They simply do not know any other Christian names. Besides, there are two named Franciszek.”
“Is he aware that some of his students saw some sort of light over him? What is known to him on this topic?”
Jacob says that this is the first time he is hearing of it, and that he does not know what it means, either.
Now Father Szembek asks another question:
“Did he foretell his imprisonment in Lanckoroń and in Kopyczyńce, his wife’s arrival in Podolia, the death of Piotr Jakubowski’s child, as well as the deaths of two persons from the family of Elijah Wołowski, and even his detention here, as witnesses from previous interrogations have testified?”
It strikes Moliwda that Jacob is trying to minimize himself, as if suddenly understanding that his person is too big, too attention-grabbing. Just as before he played the big man, just as he lorded everything over everyone, now he takes on this new role, imperceptibly and somehow naturally playing the role of insignificant defendant, polite, acquiescent, happy to cooperate, stripped of both teeth and claws—a little lamb. Moliwda knows him well enough to see that Jacob is cleverer than all the rest of the assembly put together, though they take him for an idiot, just as the Jews once did, and he himself seemed to have a particular fondness for hiding in smallness, for taking on the guise of a simpleton. When was it he used to say that he could barely read?
Moliwda translates his response almost word for word:
“I did predict the arrest in Lanckoroń, but not in Kopyczyńce. Regarding my wife, I just figured out how much time my messenger needed to get to her, and how much time she’d need for packing, and to get there, and that’s how I happened to figure it would be on a Wednesday. Jakubowski’s child was born weak and sick. But that I could have predicted the death of someone from the Rohatyn Wołowski family—that I don’t remember. It’s a big family, someone’s always dying in it. And it is true that I was praying over the book and suddenly said out loud, ‘In two weeks.’ I don’t know why I said that, but those who heard those words explained them immediately as imprisonment by the Bernardines. I also admit that when someone adhering sincerely to the faith was to come, my nose would itch on the right side, and when it was someone who was insincere in their belief, then it was on the left side that my nose itched—that was how I’d sense it.”
And now the honorable judicial commission is laughing discreetly. Father Szembek and Father Pruchnicki, the secretary and the episcopal official. The only person not laughing is the Jesuit, but everyone knows, thinks Moliwda, that Jesuits have no sense of humor.
The Jesuit asks somberly:
“Why when someone comes to the accused in illness, does he perform some sort of charm over him, touching his forehead with his fingers and whispering spells? And what does he mean by such charms?”
The hilarity among the commission has emboldened Jacob a little. Moliwda sees that from now on the defendant will play both angles, be strong and weak, so that nothing will be clear, so that each person will have the impression that his notions are contradictory and vague.
“What I mean by a charm is when someone puts the evil eye on somebody. I would undo that charm on everyone who needed it.” Now Jacob says the names of those who died, to once more diminish his strength. He says, “I did it for Werszek, who had already been baptized, who died here in Warsaw, and for Reb Mordke, called Mordechai, who died back in Lublin. It didn’t seem to help them.”
Now the interrogators turn to Ivanie—this period interests them a great deal. Is it true, they ask, that in Ivanie he commanded them to have nothing of their own, to give everything over for communal use? And furthermore, that whenever several of them would argue and finally come to some agreement, then that idea was God’s? Where did he get those ideas?
Jacob is tired, they’ve been there all afternoon, and in this stuffy, unventilated room, all he wants is water. He says he doesn’t know, that he has no idea. He rubs his forehead.
“Is it true that you forbade them from giving their children to their godparents and good Catholics to raise, telling them they had to stick together? Is that true?” Father Szembek reads from a page. The testimonies they have are evidently quite extensive.
And further:
“Is it true,” asks the priest, “that his students replace the name of Jesus in their copies of the New Testament with the name Jacob?”
Jacob counters this briefly. He stands with his head bowed. He’s lost his confidence.
When the interrogation is over, Moliwda says goodbye to an unexpectedly chilly Father Śliwicki and a silent Father Szembek, and he walks right by Jacob, without even looking at him.
He knows they will not invite him back to the next hearing, that they don’t trust him.
He steps out into the frosty Warsaw air, and the cold, predatory wind blows open his kontusz, so he wraps it tightly around him and goes down toward Długa Street, but then he realizes he is afraid to go to the Wołowskis, so he turns around and slowly drags himself toward the barriers by the church at Three Crosses Square. When he gets there, guilt—dark, sticky—overwhelms him, and there is nothing really left for him to do but go inside the little Jewish tavern and drink, showing off to the alewife his knowledge of Hebrew.
In the morning they bring him a letter from the primate’s chancellery that says he is to report there in the afternoon. He pours a bucket of cold water over his head, rinses his mouth out with water and vinegar. He stands with his face to the window and tries to pray, but he is so shaken up he can’t find within himself that place from which he is usually able to launch like a stone thrown into the sky. Now he’s very aware of the ceiling over his head. He knows what is about to happen, and he wonders whether they will let him leave. He glances at his minimal luggage.
At the primate’s palace, some ordinary priest receives Moliwda, not even introducing himself, and takes him in silence into a tiny room, where there is just a table and two chairs, and on the wall hangs an enormous cross with a skinny Christ on it. The priest sits facing him, folds his hands one over the other and says gently, not appearing to be addressing anyone in particular, that the past life of the esteemed Mr. Antoni Kossakowski, alias Moliwda, is well-known to the Church, in particular that heretical time spent in the colony of apostates in Wallachia. The activities of the Philippians are also known, and they fill right-minded Catholics with great disgust. The Commonwealth is not the country for such perversions, and all dissidents from the true faith ought to find themselves another place to live. Known to the Church, as well, are the esteemed Mr. Kossakowski’s youthful transgressions; the Church’s memory is everlasting; the Church never forgets. And he goes on and on like this, as if showing off his information, and the information is a massive trove, and then the priest opens a drawer and pulls out a few sheets of paper and a small bottle of ink. He steps out for a moment to bring back a pen, and with his fingertip he checks to see whether it is sharp enough. In one word, he alludes to Łowicz. Moliwda is so depressed that he ceases to be able to understand him. The priest’s words are still knocki
ng around in his head: magic, metempsychosis, incest, unnatural practices . . . and he feels as if a great weight has pinned him down.
Then the priest tells Moliwda to write. He says there is no limit to the time he has. Everything he knows about Jacob Frank that other people might not know. And Moliwda writes.
23.
What hunting is like at Hieronim Florian Radziwiłł’s
Until February 2, Candlemas Day, a festive atmosphere prevails throughout the country. Ball costumes are aired out in the cold, wrinkled dresses over panniers, silk żupans, elegant cassocks. Even in the peasant chambers holiday clothes are hung around, trimmed with ribbons, beautifully embroidered. In the pantries there are pots of honey and lard, cucumbers quietly pickling in great, gloomy barrels, livening up only in the hand of some impatient person—then, slippery, they escape. Hanging from poles are sausage rings, smoked hams, and fatback from which some bold scout stealthily slices off pieces each day. As little as a month ago, these were living animals, trusting in their cozy stables and barns, with no idea they wouldn’t make it past Christmas. Mice plunder sacks of nuts; cats, fat and lazy at this time of year, settle atop the sacks, but it rarely comes to a confrontation—the mice are too smart for that. The scent of dried apples and plums fills people’s homes. Music bursts out from doors opened onto the chilly night like the puffs of steam that come from human breaths.
Primate Łubieński, a person who, at his core, is vain and childish, has been invited by Radziwiłł to hunt, and he takes with him one of his secretaries, Antoni Kossakowski, known as Moliwda. They sit in the same carriage as his adviser Młodzianowski, since the primate never stops working. Moliwda neither likes nor respects this man, having seen a great deal already at the palace in Łowicz. He tries to make some notes, but the carriage shudders in the frozen ruts and doesn’t let him.
They are silent for a long while, as the primate observes through the window a noisy, happy sleigh ride passing by; finally Moliwda works up the courage to say:
The Books of Jacob Page 68
