Jacob is silent awhile, like he’s trying to decide whether or not to say anything.
“The Virgin has many forms. She also manifests herself in the guise of the ayelet, the roe deer.”
“What do you mean? As an animal?” asks Kazimierz, concerned, but more with the meat than the conversation.
“I have been given her to take care of in exile here.”
“My Lord, it’s ready,” Kazimierz says, all his attention on his dish, laying the best little pieces of meat on their tin plate. Jacob reaches for it with his hands, without showing any particular interest. Kazimierz looks at the meat with reserve.
“I don’t know if I’m all that convinced about this pig meat,” he says. “It’s different somehow, kind of loose.”
Then someone knocks at the door. The men exchange nervous glances.
“Who is it?” asks Kazimierz.
“It’s me, Roch.”
“Come on in,” Jacob says, with his mouth full.
The veteran’s head peeks in through the doorway.
“Today is Good Friday. Have you men gone mad? Roasting meat? You can smell it all over the monastery. It’s disgusting.”
Kazimierz throws a cloth over the plate with the pieces of meat.
“Give him something, make him go,” Jacob says quietly, and goes back to scraping at the wall.
But Kazimierz, frightened, explains:
“How were we supposed to know what to eat on Good Friday? We’ve never had a Good Friday before in our new religion, maybe someone could enlighten us about it.”
“Right you are,” says Roch. “It’s not your fault. You can’t eat meat until Sunday. Tomorrow you’re supposed to have eggs to be blessed. The monks might invite you to breakfast, in fact. They invite us every year.”
When Kazimierz prepares to put out his candle and go to sleep, he first takes the flame over to the wall. He sees a single inscription in Hebrew and is surprised by it. For it is written: ladybug, parat moshe rabenu. He looks at it, his surprise not wearing off, then shrugs and blows the candle out.
A letter in Polish
Hana gets a letter from her husband she can’t read. It is in Polish. Nahman, or Jakubowski, is the one who reads it. He reads it and starts crying. They all look at him in astonishment—Hana and Matuszewski, who’s there, too, with Wittel. The sight of Jakubowski crying over this letter makes them feel something like revulsion. Jakubowski has aged—Jacob’s imprisonment has completely wiped him out. Not to mention the fact that they all view him as a traitor, even though everyone had their part in it, at least a little. The hair on the top of Jakubowski’s head has thinned lately, and freckled pink skin peeps out from underneath. Now a sob shakes his back.
Do not worry about me, I am in the good hands of the Pauline Fathers, and I want for nothing. If I could, however, kindly request: warm wraps for my feet [Jakubowski starts crying here, at the mention of the wraps] as well as a few sets of warm underwear, wool if possible, and a woolen żupan, if possible two, that I might have a spare. Some sort of fur to spread over my bed. Kazimierz could use a set of dishes and a cooking pot as well as utensils at your discretion. I would further request any book written in the Polish language, that I might study. As well as paper, ink, and pens . . .
On the letter is the monastery’s seal.
It is read many times, and in the end they copy it, and Jakubowski takes it to the Wołowskis and Krysiński. And soon everyone in Warsaw knows it, the whole machna, the whole company. The letter also travels to Kamieniec, to Mrs. Kossakowska, and, in secret, it makes its way from Nahman Jakubowski to Moliwda (who reads it secretly, smoking). Thus this wonderful news reaches everyone, that Jacob, the Lord, is alive. That the worst has not happened, and now all those months they suffered in uncertainty seem like months of breathlessness and silence. A fresh wind has blown in, and since all of this happens around Easter, they celebrate it like a resurrection. Yes, the Lord has risen, come back from the darkness like a light that merely dove down into the dark water, but that has now come back up to the surface.
A visit to the monastery
Shlomo Shorr, now Franciszek Wołowski, heads hurriedly to Częstochowa, hoping to get there before the others. It is the start of May. In just a few days, the fields have all turned green, and across those sheets of green splash yellow drops of sow thistle. He rides on horseback, only by day, and only on the main highways. He is dressed modestly—you can’t even really tell whether his attire is Christian or Jewish. He has shaved, but he’s left his hair longer, and he puts it back now in a small braid. He wears a black frock coat of Dutch cloth, and trousers that come just past his knees, and riding boots. His head cannot be bare, regardless of the good, warm weather, so he has covered it in a sheepskin hat.
Just before he reaches Częstochowa, he runs into a familiar figure on the road: a young man, really just a boy still, traveling on foot down the very edge of the road, a bundle over his shoulder. With a stick he slashes the yellow tops of the blooming sow thistle. His clothes are rather unbecoming. Shlomo Wołowski recognizes in astonishment Kazimierz, Jacob’s cook.
“What are you doing here, Kazimierz? Shouldn’t you be at your master’s table, is it not time for lunch?”
The boy stops dead for a moment. When he recognizes Franciszek, he rushes to him and greets him effusively.
“I’m not going back there,” he says after a moment. “It’s prison.”
“Did you not know you two were going to prison?”
“But me? Why would I be there? Why would I voluntarily imprison myself, that’s what I don’t understand. The Lord has his moods, several times he’s beaten me, recently he kept grabbing me by the hair. Sometimes he doesn’t eat anything, and other times he gets a craving for some special dish. And—” he starts, but he breaks off. Shlomo Wołowski can guess what Kazimierz isn’t saying, and he doesn’t follow up. He knows he has to tread lightly here.
He dismounts and sits on the grass under a tree that has already put out some little leaves. He produces some hard cheese, bread, and a bottle of wine. Kazimierz looks covetously at the latter. He is thirsty and hungry. As they eat, both turn their gaze toward the city of Częstochowa. In the warm spring air the sound of the monastery’s bells floats over to them. Shlomo Wołowski starts to get impatient.
“Tell me, what’s it like there? Will I get in to see him?”
“He’s not allowed to see anyone.”
“But if I pay, who do I give the money to?”
Kazimierz thinks a long while, as though savoring the fact that he is in possession of such valuable information.
“None of the brothers will take a bribe . . . The old soldiers would, but they don’t really have that kind of power.”
“I would like to chat with him, even if it’s just through a window. Do you think I could do that? Does he have a window that faces onto the outside of the building?”
Kazimierz, in silence, considers the monastery’s windows.
“I think you would be able to do that through a window. But even so, they’d have to let you into the monastery.”
“I’ll get into the monastery myself, as a pilgrim.”
“So you will. Then you go, brother, to those old soldiers. Talk with Roch. Buy him tobacco and vodka. If they think you’ll be a generous friend to them, they’ll help.”
Shlomo Wołowski looks at Kazimierz’s linen bag.
“What do you have there?”
“The Lord’s letters, brother.”
“Let me see.”
The boy obediently pulls out four letters. He sees the carefully folded pages with the seal Jacob had made in Warsaw. The addressees are written out in beautiful penmanship, with many flourishes.
“Who writes for him in Polish?”
“Brother Grzegorz, one of the younger ones. He is teaching him to write and speak.”
One of the letters is to Josepha Scholastica Frank, otherwise known as Hana, and then there’s one to Yeruhim Dembowski—that’s the
thickest one—and a third to Katarzyna Kossakowska and a fourth to Antoni Moliwda-Kossakowski.
“Nothing for me,” Shlomo says, in a tone that neither asks nor affirms.
Then Wołowski learns many more disturbing things. That for the whole month of February Jacob did not get out of bed, and when the terrible frosts set in, and they couldn’t quite heat their chamber, he fell ill and had a terrible fever, so that one of the monks would come to treat him and let his blood. Kazimierz repeats the same thing several times: that he feared the Lord would die, and he would be the only one to be there with him when he died. Then through all of March, Jacob was weak, and Kazimierz fed him only chicken broth. For the chickens, he was permitted to walk to Częstochowa, to Shmul’s store, and he spent all the money for the Lord’s board and had to put in some of his own. The brothers don’t bother themselves much with the prisoner. Just one of them, Brother Marcin, who is painting the inside of the church, talks to him, but the Lord still barely understands it. The Lord spends a great deal of time in the chapel. He also lies facedown with his arms outspread before the holy picture when they haven’t let in the pilgrims yet, meaning at night, so that he sleeps during the day. According to Kazimierz, in that damp and without sunlight, Jacob won’t last much longer. And there’s something else—he’s become extremely wrathful. Kazimierz has also heard him talking to himself.
“Well, who’s he supposed to talk to? Certainly not you,” mutters Shlomo Wołowski under his breath.
Wołowski tries to arrange a visit with Jacob. He has rented a room in town with a Christian who looks at him suspiciously, but, paid well, doesn’t ask too many questions. Every day he goes to the monastery and waits for an audience with the prior. When he finally gets one after five days, the prior only allows him to give him a package for Jacob, and only after it’s been searched. If there are letters, they must be in Polish or Latin, and they are censored by the prior. Those are his orders. No visits have been envisioned. The audience lasts but a moment.
Finally, Roch, having been bribed, leads Wołowski at night through the walls into the monastery, where everyone’s asleep. He tells him to stand beneath the little opening in the wall, whence comes a faint glow of light. Roch, meanwhile, goes on inside, and after a moment, Jacob’s head appears at the window. Wołowski sees him hazily.
“Shlomo?” asks the Lord.
“Yes, it is me.”
“What news do you have for me? I received the package.”
Wołowski has so much to say he doesn’t know where to begin.
“We’re all of us in Warsaw. Your wife is still with that woman, outside Warsaw in Kobyłka—she’s been baptized now.”
“How are the children?”
“Good, healthy. Just sad, like the rest of us.”
“Is that why you all put me in here?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why hasn’t my wife been writing to me?”
“They can’t write you everything . . . Those letters are read along the way. Here and in Warsaw. Not to mention that now Yeruhim Dembowski is trying to pass himself off as our leader. And his brother Jan. They want to rule us and give us all our orders.”
“I write in my letters what you are supposed to be doing.”
“But that’s not enough, you have to designate a deputy.”
“But I’m right here, and I can tell you myself.”
“That won’t do. There has to be someone—”
“Who has the money?” asks Jacob.
“Osman Czerniawski has some of it, deposited, and some of it is with my brother, Jan.”
“Have Matuszewski join him—they can be in charge together.”
“Appoint me as your deputy. You know me well and know I have the strength and the mind for it.”
Jacob says nothing. Then he asks:
“Who betrayed me?”
“Out of stupidity we all let ourselves be drawn in, but we all wished you the best. I never said a word against you.”
“You’re all cowards. I should spit on all of you.”
“Spit,” says Shlomo quietly. “Nahman Jakubowski talked the most. He betrayed you, and he was your closest confidant. But you knew he was weak—good at disputation, maybe, but for such things, weak. He is the traitor. The coward. The weasel.”
“A weasel is an intelligent animal, it knows what it’s doing. Tell him I will never lay eyes on him again.”
Shlomo Wołowski gathers all his strength.
“Write a letter for me saying how I’ll fill in for you until you get out. I’ll keep them all in line. For now we’ve been gathering at Yeruhim’s. He’s doing business, employing our people. There are a lot of ours in Kobyłka, on Bishop Załuski’s property, but we’re all of us impoverished and on our own. We weep over you every day, Jacob.”
“Weep, then. Try to get to the king through Moliwda.”
“He’s stuck in Łowiczu with the primate.”
“Then try and get to the primate!”
“Moliwda isn’t with us anymore. He’s had it with us. He’s out.”
Jacob is silent for a while.
“And you?”
“And I’m in Warsaw, where my business is going well. Everybody wants to be in Warsaw, you can give the children a good education there. Your Avacha has two tutors, thanks to Kossakowska. She’s learning French. We want to take her in to live with us, Marianna and I.”
Somewhere in the next courtyard a light appears, and Roch comes back and grabs Wołowski by his black frock coat and pushes him toward the gate.
“That’s it. Done.”
“I’ll wait until tomorrow evening. Write a letter to everyone, and I’ll take it to them straightaway. Roch will give it to me. Write it in our language. Designate me as your substitute. You trust me.”
“I don’t trust anyone anymore,” says Jacob, and with that, his head disappears from view.
And that is all Shlomo Wołowski gets out of his visit to Jacob. The next day he goes to the picture of the Virgin Mary. It is six in the morning, the sun is rising, the day will be sunny, the sky is a lovely pink color, and a silver mist rises over the fields, and into the monastery flow waves of the aroma of damp and calamus. He stands among the sleepy crowd. When the trumpets sound, people prostrate themselves on the cold floor, bent over their knees. Wołowski does the same, and with his forehead he feels the chill of the stone. At the sound of the trumpets, the picture’s silver veil is raised, and Shlomo sees from afar a small rectangle containing a barely outlined silhouette with a black face. A woman next to him starts to sob, and this spreads to almost everyone. Wołowski is overwhelmed by the same emotions as the rest of the crowd, compounded further by the intoxicating smell of May flowers, human sweat, the rags, the dust. He spends the whole morning working on Kazimierz, trying to get him to stay and serve the Lord, until someone else can replace him. In the afternoon, Roch passes him a letter written in Hebrew in a thick roll like a pack of tobacco. Immediately after, Shlomo Franciszek Wołowski departs from the monastery, leaving Kazimierz some money and making a sizable donation through the prior.
Upupa dicit
A few days later, a chest of things comes to Jacob in the monastery. He doesn’t know who it’s from. The chest spends its first whole day with the prior, who searches it thoroughly with the brothers. The monks examine the clothes, the Turkish scarf, the leather shoes with fur inside, the thin linen underwear, dried figs, dates, a wool rug, a down cushion covered in yellow damask. There is also paper for writing and pens of a higher quality than the prior has ever seen in his life. He spends a long time contemplating the contents of the chest and isn’t sure whether he should allow the prisoner such luxuries. He is not an ordinary prisoner, on the one hand, but on the other, such extravagance in a monastery, where the priests all live so modestly—is that not taking things a bit too far? Which is why the prior keeps going back to the chest and unfolding the fine woolen scarf, holding it out in his hands; it is almost without adornment, but so delicate it
resembles silk. And these figs! When he is left alone for a moment, telling himself that this is just a test, he puts one of them in his mouth and holds it there for a long time, until his mouth fills with saliva that flows into his stomach, together with the flavor of the fig, filling his whole body with pleasure at the unparalleled sweetness. How good are these figs that smell of the sun, not like those hard ones of which the monastery recently acquired a small quantity, from a Jewish merchant with a spice shop on the outskirts of town.
The prior also finds two books, which he reaches for suspiciously, smelling heretical treatises—those he will of course never let through. But when he picks them up, he is surprised to see that the first one is in Polish, and that it was written by a priest. The father hasn’t heard this name before, Benedykt Chmielowski, but that doesn’t mean anything, since he has no time for secular reading—this is a book for laypeople, not an episcopal book, not a prayer book. The second is a beautifully illustrated edition of Comenius’s Orbis Pictus, in which every word appears in four languages, making it a useful study tool. And as the prisoner himself had mentioned it, and similar suggestions had been made by the nunciature—to teach the prisoner Polish—then why not let him learn it from both Comenius and from this New Athens? The prior himself, flipping through the volume, is interested to read a page opened at random.
How curious, thinks the prior. That could come in handy in life. His religious materials do not contain this kind of information. He didn’t know the Hoopoe saith (Upupa dicit).
Of Jacob’s learning to read and where the Poles come from
A separate chamber is designated as a classroom by the head guard at the prior’s request. Two tables and two stools have been brought in. There is also a carafe of water and two soldiers’ cups, as well as a narrow cot and a bench. Hooks stick out of the stone wall for hanging clothing. The two windows don’t let in enough light, and it is always cold. Every hour they have to go outside to warm up.
The Books of Jacob Page 72
