And as his companions from the lodge recommend Jacob to him, the emperor invites this strange pair, father and daughter, with enthusiasm and out of curiosity, during the time designated for artist visits, and he brings them to the Wunderkammer. He leads them in among the vitrines, where he has collected the bones of ancient animals and the giants who evidently once roamed the earth. He converses with Frank through an interpreter, while with his daughter he speaks French; this creates a certain discomfort. Therefore he prefers to focus on the father. Yet out of the corner of his eye he watches this interesting woman and sees that she is shy and not very sure of herself. The rumors of her beauty strike him as exaggerated. She is pretty, but hers is not a dazzling beauty. He knows many more beautiful women. In principle he is suspicious and mistrustful toward them—there is often something perverse about them; they are always out to get something. But she seems straightforward, skittish, not alluring and not pretending. She is petite, and in the future, like all women from the east, she will be plump; she has now reached full bloom. She has a pale complexion that seems slightly celadon in color, without much pink in her cheeks; she has enormous eyes and terrific hair arrayed up high; onto her forehead and her neck fall pretty, flirtatious curls. Her tiny hands and feet seem almost childish. She does not have the dignity her father does, he being tall, well built, ugly, and self-assured. The emperor is pleased to find that Eva, despite her intimidation, is a wit. He performs a little test—he takes them to the shelves where human embryos float in murky liquid inside great jars; most of them are monstrous specimens. Some have double heads, others torsos, others still have a single great big eye, like a Cyclops. Father and daughter look on without disgust, with curiosity. A point in their favor. Then they go over to the horizontal person-sized case that holds “Sybilla”—that is how he thinks of her—his wax model of a woman with her face in ecstasies, her belly open so that you can see the intestines, the stomach, the uterus and bladder. Usually women faint or at least feel sick when they come to this exhibit. He watches Eva Frank’s reaction with interest. She leans over the showcase and, flushing, examines the contents of the woman’s belly. Then she raises her head and looks inquiringly at the emperor.
“Who was the model?”
The emperor laughs, amused, and then he carefully explains how this uncommonly detailed wax model was made.
As they are returning from the Wunderkammer, Jacob tells verbosely, through the interpreter, of his connections in Warsaw, dropping name after name in the hope one will resonate with the emperor, but unfortunately none of them does. Twice he mentions Kossakowska. He knows the emperor’s secretary will remember this rapid-fire list of names in its entirety and check each entry carefully. It is the first time the emperor is talking with people like them, that is, Jews who have ceased to be Jews. One question does not cease to obsess him: Where has their Jewishness gone? He cannot see it in their appearances or in their manners. Eva could pass for an Italian or Spanish woman, and there isn’t any nation for her father, no specific place that could stake a claim on him. He is completely original. When the emperor puts some direct question to Jacob, he feels as if he’s coming up against the iron sides of the man’s will; he senses the incredibly powerful boundaries of his self. These are people from everywhere and nowhere. The future of humanity.
The audience lasts not quite an hour. That same day, the emperor has the Franks sent an invitation to his summer residence in Schönbrunn. His mother, who saw them for the first five minutes of their visit (she does not enjoy being in the Wunderkammer; she claims it gives her bad dreams), shares her son’s good opinion. She says that such people are desirable to the state. As if it weren’t enough that they are Catholics, they also spend—as has already been reported—up to a thousand ducats a day maintaining their court in Brünn.
“If we could invite all such people to our empire, it would flourish better than Frederick’s Prussia,” she points out, slightly annoying her son.
Of the bear from Avacha Frank’s dream
Eva dreams—as Czerniawski diligently records—that a great brown bear approaches her. She is afraid to move, so she just stands there, petrified. But then this bear starts licking her hands and feet. There is no one to save her from this terrible, oppressive embrace. A man arrives and sits down on a chair, the same red chair her father had in Częstochowa. Eva thinks at first that it is her father who has come, but in fact it is some other man, younger, very handsome. He looks a little like the emperor, but he also looks like Franciszek Wołowski and a little like Thomas Dobrushka. And there is also this magician with the white staff they saw at the emperor’s in Schönbrunn. He tore a handkerchief into four, put on a black hat, and then waved that staff over it—and when he pulled out the handkerchief, it was whole again. To Eva’s great embarrassment, her father went up to the magician and offered to rip apart his own handkerchief for him, the one he wore around his neck. But the magician said no, that he knew how to do it only when he did his own ripping, which everyone found very funny. So in her dream her savior has the qualities of all those people. The bear leaves, and Eva flies away.
Eva has such strange dreams, all so real to her, that she is scarcely ever parted from the Polish dream dictionary she received from Marianna Wołowska, who brought it straight from Warsaw.
For their trip to Schönbrunn, her father bought her the four most beautiful dresses they could find in Vienna. The sleeves had to be shortened slightly, and other alterations made. Each has a powerful corset, and in keeping with the latest fashion, doesn’t even reach her ankles. They spent an entire day buying hats from the milliner. These were so wonderful Eva could not make her mind up as to which to buy. Finally, her father, reaching the end of his patience, bought them all.
Slippers and stockings were also required. Her father watched her try them on. He told Magda and Anusia to leave, and he had her get completely naked. This time he didn’t touch her. He simply watched, and told her to lie down on her stomach and then on her back. She did whatever he wanted. He appraised her with a critical eye, but said nothing. Anusia cut Eva’s toenails and rubbed her feet with oil. Then, according to the Turkish custom, she bathed in scented water, and both her friends rubbed her body with coffee grounds and honey so that her skin would be smoother.
Along with the emperor and his mother, Eva toured the Zeughaus and the gardens. She walked with the emperor when the others stayed behind. She felt dozens of pairs of eyes on her back, as if she were carrying some weight, but when the emperor touched her hand—as if by accident—that weight fell from her shoulders. She had known that this would happen—she just hadn’t been certain of when. It was good to know that this was what it was about. Nothing more.
It happened after a humorous play they all watched from the terrace of the Schönbrunn Palace. She can’t remember the comedy’s contents; she didn’t really understand it, in that strange German. But the play had amused the emperor; he was in a good mood. He touched her hand several times. That same evening a lady-in-waiting came for her, Mrs. Stam, or something like that, and told her to put on her best undergarments.
A worried Anusia Pawłowska said, packing up her things:
“How fortunate your period is over.”
She bridled at this, but it was true: it was fortunate that her period was over.
Of the high life
With the help of Jędrzej Dembowski, Jacob Frank rented an apartment on the Graben for the season. At the same time, he sent Mateusz Matuszewski to Warsaw for money, with a letter to all the true believers there, the entire machna, in which he informed them that he was in negotiations with the emperor. Mateusz was tasked with telling them everything in order, describing every detail of Brünn and their new court, as well as Eva’s expeditions to see the emperor and Jacob’s being on such familiar terms with him.
The letter read as follows:
Notice that before I entered Poland, all the nobles were just sitting there, minding their business, and the king with them, and
yet as soon as I went into Częstochowa, I had a vision that Poland would become divided. It is the same now, too—can you all possibly know what is happening between the kings and emperors, and what they’ve been deciding amongst themselves? But I know it! You see yourselves that it has been almost thirty years now that I am with you, and yet none of you knows where I’m going. Where I am headed. You all thought all was lost when I was imprisoned in the Częstochowa fortress in those close quarters, sentenced to life. But God chose me, as I am a simpleton and do not chase after honor. If you had stood firmly behind me, if you had not abandoned me back then in Warsaw—where would we be now?
Mateusz comes back in three weeks with money. They have raised more than the Lord requested, thanks to news of an ancient manuscript discovered in Moravia, in which it was written in black and white that during its final days, the Holy Roman Empire would pass into the hands of some foreign person. And apparently it was stated, too, that it would be a person in Turkish attire, but without a turban on his head, wearing instead a high red hat embroidered with a slender lamb, and that he would overthrow the emperor.
They needed to buy so many new things.
First, a coffee service of Meissen porcelain, decorated with little gold leaves, with little pictures of pastoral scenes painted with the tiniest of brushes, similar to the one Eva saw in Prossnitz. Now she will have her own porcelain, even more distinguished than that.
In addition, accessories for bathing, which must be purchased from the most fashionable merchant. Special costumes, towels, folding chairs, cover-ups lined with soft fine linen. When Jacob Frank and Michał Wołowski go to bathe in the Danube, they are accompanied by a crowd of Viennese onlookers, and since Jacob swims well, he shows off his vigor in the water like a young man. The townswomen squeak with excitement over this man who is not young, after all, but still so handsome. Some throw flowers into the water. Jacob is always in a good mood until evening after bathing.
Eva’s horse, with its slender gambrels, must also be paid for and brought in from England. It is completely white; in the sun it gleams silverish. Yet Eva is afraid of it, as the horse balks at the clattering carriages, at glimmers of light, at little dogs, and rears up. It costs a fortune.
They also have immediate need of four dozen pairs of satin slippers. They fray if you walk down the street in them for any length of time, which means they are good for exactly one promenade, after which Evunia gives them to Anusia, since Magda’s feet are overly large.
In addition, sugar bowls and porcelain plates. Silver cutlery and platters. Eva considers gold to be too ostentatious. They need a new and improved cook, and a woman to help her. They could also use two more girls to clean—that costs less than the dishes and the silverware, but it still costs quite a bit. Following the death of the little Polish dog Rutka, Eva consoles herself by ordering two greyhounds, also from England.
“What if I were to scratch you and remove what’s on the surface—what would I find underneath?” asks Joseph, by the grace of God the Holy Roman Emperor, Archduke of Austria, King of Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Galicia, and Lodomeria; Duke of Brabant, Limburg, Lothier, Luxembourg, and Milan, Count of Flanders, etc.
“What do you think?” answers Eva. “You’ll find Eva.”
“And who is she, this Eva?”
“Your Majesty’s humble servant. A Catholic woman.”
“And what else?”
“Daughter of Joseph Jacob and Josepha Scholastica.”
“And what language did they speak with you at home when you were growing up?”
“Turkish and Polish.”
Eva doesn’t know whether this is the right answer.
“And the language the Jews speak, does Miss Eva know that, too?”
“A little.”
“And how did your mother speak to you?”
Eva doesn’t know what to say. Her lover helps her:
“Say something in that language, please.”
Eva ponders.
“Con esto gif, se vide claro befor essi.”
“What does that mean?”
“Your Majesty must not ask so many questions. I barely remember all that now,” Eva lies.
“You are lying, Miss Eva.”
Eva laughs and turns over on her stomach.
“Is it true your father is a great Kabbalist?”
“It is true. He is a great man.”
“That he can turn lead into gold, and that’s how he has all his money?” her lover teases.
“Perhaps.”
“And you, too, Miss Eva, must be a great Kabbalist. Look at what you do to me.”
The emperor indicates his rising member.
“Yes, that is my magic at work.”
When the weather is good, they always take a walk around the Prater, newly opened to the public by the emperor. Open carriages, like so many boxes of chocolates, carry Viennese bonbons—elegant women in wonderful hats—and next to them, gentlemen on horseback who bow to their acquaintances as they pass. Those on foot go as slowly as they can, in order to relish their surroundings. There are dogs on leads, monkeys in chains, much-loved parrots in silver-plated cages. Jacob has ordered his daughter a special little English carriage, just for these walks. Magda and Anusia accompany Eva in this sweet little vehicle most often, sometimes only Magda. There is a rumor that she is also Jacob’s daughter, but illegitimate. When you look at her closely, she really does look like Jacob—she is tall, with an oval face, white teeth, more distinguished than Eva even, so that those who do not know them sometimes take Magda for Eva Frank herself. People also say that they all look alike, like members of those blackamoor tribes the emperor sometimes shows as living freaks and monsters.
A machine that plays chess
A certain de Kempelen created for his amusement a machine depicting a Turk in an elegant Eastern costume, with a dark face, shiny and polished, and quite friendly-looking. This machine sits at the table and plays chess, so well that so far no one has beaten it. It would seem that during the match it thinks and gives its opponents time to consider their next move. It rests its right hand on the table and moves the pieces with its left. If the other player makes a mistake and breaks a rule, then the machine shakes its head and waits until its opponent recognizes and corrects his mistake. The machine does all of this on its own, having no external power attached to it.
The emperor has gone mad for this machine. He has lost to it repeatedly, but apparently some people in France have defeated it. Can that be possible?
“If a machine is capable of doing what man can do, and even doing it better than man, then what is man?”
He asks this question over tea, sitting with the ladies in the garden. None dares to answer. They wait for him to say something. He has a tendency to speak at length, and often asks rhetorical questions that he himself answers a moment later. Now, too, talking of life, that it is an entirely natural and chemical process, even though it was initiated by a higher power—he doesn’t end this sentence with a period, rather just suspends it, so that it hangs in the air like pipe smoke. Only when he issues orders do his sentences end with periods, and this brings everyone relief: at least then they know what’s going on. At the very thought of saying something in such company, Eva flushes and has to cool herself down with her fan.
The emperor is still interested in the latest achievements in the field of anatomy. To keep “Sibylla” company, he has purchased a wax model of a human body without skin, the circulatory system marked; when you look at it, you see that the human body, too, resembles a machine—all those tendons and muscles, the coils of veins and arteries, which look like the skeins of embroidery floss used by his mother, the joints that look like levers. He shows Eva Frank his acquisition with great pride—it is once more the body of a woman, this time with her skin removed, the threads of her veins wound through her muscles.
“Could not all that be shown upon a man?” asks Eva.
The emperor laughs. They lean in together over the wax
body, their heads almost touching. Eva gets a distinct whiff of his breath—like apples, no doubt from wine. The emperor’s bright, smooth face suddenly turns red.
“Maybe people do look like that without their skin, but I do not,” Eva says freely, provoking him.
The emperor bursts out laughing once again.
One day, he gifts Eva a mechanical bird in a cage. When it is wound up, it flutters its tin wings and releases a chirp from somewhere inside its throat. Eva brings it back to Brünn, and the little bird in the cage becomes the main attraction throughout the court. Eva winds it up herself, always with the greatest solemnity.
The custom they have is that when the emperor wishes to see the lovely Eva, he sends a modest coach for her, without any coats of arms or decorations, in order not to call attention to her visits. Eva, however, would prefer to travel to him in the imperial carriage. Once it came for her and her father, when she was staying in that large apartment with him on the Graben. For the emperor’s mother has taken a liking to Jacob Frank and permits him to come into her private rooms, where she spends a considerable amount of time with him. Apparently they sometimes even pray together. The truth, however, is that the empress likes hearing the stories of this exotic, pleasant man with his Eastern manners, a person without anger or any type of impetuousness. Jacob confesses to her in great secrecy how they were baptized in Poland, having been for years now in the true faith. And he tells her of Kossakowska, with whom the empress in fact has quite a bit in common, tells her of how that good woman helped them come into the bosom of the Church and took such wonderful care of Jacob’s wife, may she rest in peace . . . This is to the empress’s liking, and she inquires further after Kossakowska. They also often talk about very serious subjects. The empress, for instance, ever since ending up with all of Galicia and Podolia after the partition of Poland, dreams of a vast empire down to the Black Sea, including the Greek islands. Frank knows more of the Turkish lands than her best ministers, and so she asks him for all the details of everything: of sweets, of food, clothing, whether the women wear undergarments and if so what kind, how many children there are per family on average, what life is like in the harem, and whether the women aren’t jealous of one another, whether the Turkish bazaar isn’t closed for Christmas, what the Turks think of the inhabitants of Europe, whether the climate in Stamboul is better than Vienna’s, and why they favor cats over dogs. She pours him coffee herself from the little jug and convinces him to add milk to it—such is the latest trend.
The Books of Jacob Page 85
