by Robert Mayer
The Doctor opened the the door, and turned. “I’ll keep you informed, Rabbi.”
“I’m sure you will,” the Rabbi said. Then, as if realizing he should not be so angry at the young Doctor, he said, “What you should do, Lev, if I may call you that, is take your mind off your work a little. It struck me this morning, when she found the body, how nicely the Schnapper girl has grown up. Maybe pay her some attention. She’s got a brain in her, that one. She’s become a jewel of the lane. ”
“Rabbi, you sound like the women.”
“They all want you to marry the Schnapper girl?”
“They all want me to marry their daughters.”
Rabbi Eleazar smiled through his beard. He clamped the Doctor on the shoulder.
“I’ll think about what you said,” the Doctor told him
The Rabbi answered, “And I’ll try not to think about what you’ve said.”
3
The usual aromas of oak and wood oil in the shop of the cabinet maker were obscured by the smell of newly cut spruce from the coffin that stood upright against a wall. The janitor from the synagogue was supposed to come for it, but hadn’t; perhaps he was at the cemetery, digging the grave. Through his open door Yussel Kahn saw the girl from the bakery kneeling motionless beside the trench. She looked as if she were praying, but Jews didn’t kneel when they prayed, Catholics did. He wasn’t sure about Lutherans.
Even Gentiles, he was certain, didn’t pray to floating turds.
The coffin maker’s story was well known to Guttle and to all the women in the bakery. From his earliest adult years, Yussel Kahn had been the finest carpenter in the Judengasse. He made tables and chairs and cabinets for all the wealthiest families (though wealthy in the Judengasse was not like wealthy outside.) Because his fine work was too expensive for some, he made coffins at no charge for every family that needed one. The boxes did not take long to make, the wood was the cheapest, he asked from the bereaved only a small donation to the temple, at which he prayed each morning, often walking the last few metres alongside the Schul-Klopper.
Yussel took his childhood love Lainie as a bride as soon as he turned twenty-five. Although the minimum age had been established to keep the Jewish population down, Yussel and his young bride learned quickly that Fate (they were reluctant to blame Yahweh) had other ways to achieve that end. In the first year of their marriage, Lainie gave birth to a boy, but he died after two days. Tears rolled down Yussel’s cheeks and wet his beard as he banged together a tiny coffin in which to bury his first-born son. In the second year, Lainie gave birth to a sweet baby girl, the image of herself. The girl lived only a week. Yussel tearfully buried another child. But worse happened the third year. Another boy was conceived, and grew in his mother’s womb, but this one was born dead, and in his posthumous birth he took his bleeding mother with him.
Yussel was near to crazy. For months he didn’t work. Each morning and each evening in the synagogue he asked Yahweh what he had done to offend. He received no answer. He swore he would never marry again, would produce no more children. When finally he reopened his shop, he let it be known that he would no longer make coffins for infants. Adults were supposed to die, he said, but children were not.
This, of course, did not prevent the children of other families from dying — in infancy, or in their first year, or their second. The Judengasse was so overcrowded, the sanitary conditions were so bad, the trench in the street like an open sore, that disease struck often, overwhelming the weakest, the little ones, first. But when the bereaved parents of a dead baby came to the coffin maker, he always turned them away.
“We have to bury her!” the crazed mother would wail.
“Take a drawer from a cabinet,” Yussel would reply calmly, ”and bury her in that.” And he would give them a piece of board with which to cover the burial drawer, and he would send them on their way.
The people of the Judengasse were not happy with this, but the other two carpenters in the lane, both of whom had apprenticed with Yussel and loved him dearly, sided with the coffin maker. They would not break his rule. Someone, they said, needed to stand up to Gott.
Inevitably, what would happen is that month after month the bereaved parents would see the dark space for the missing drawer in their bedroom dresser or kitchen cabinet and be reminded again of their loss. They would come to Yussel again, and plead, and he would agree to make a drawer to match the one now buried in the cemetery. When it was done, and he gave it to them, and they paid him and thanked him, he would always tell them: “You think this will help you forget. Believe me, you will never forget.”
They didn’t argue with him; they knew his own sad story.
In time, a few cynics began to whisper that this was all a business ploy, that because the carpenter made coffins for free, but charged for replacing drawers, he emerged with a fatter purse. But none who knew the coffin maker believed that. Certainly not the women in the bakery. Certainly not Guttle Schnapper.
He wanted to go to her, seeing her kneeling by the trench, ask if something was wrong, but he held back. He would only torment himself. It was five years since his wife had died, since the third of their three babies had died, since he had vowed that he would never marry again. With the passing years his maleness had grown heavy; he needed release more loving than a twisted sheet. But he had made his vow. And the girl was young. She was the daughter of the Court Jew Wolf Schnapper, he knew, and would come with a fine dowry — but what did he, Yussel Kahn, have to offer? Only a small bedroom above the shop, with a small kitchen shared by three families. There was no reason her father would agree.
Turning from the doorway, he bumped his elbow on the coffin. With a fierce burst of strength he embraced the coffin, his chest hard against it, his arms tight around it, and carried it through the open doorway. Carefully he leaned it against the wall outside.
The girl didn’t look at him. Her eyes might as well have been closed.
Had he, when his wife died, embraced a living death as firmly as he’d just embraced the coffin? Perhaps.
In the center of the workshop was a piece he’d been crafting all week, a new writing table commissioned by her father. Only the drawer for pens and paper was missing. He’d have finished it today had it not been for the interruptions. On his work bench lay a new hammer he had carved at the request of the Chief Rabbi, a gift from the synagogue for the next Schul-Klopper, whomever that might be. He’d donated a rare piece of mahogany he’d been saving for something special; it held a smoother, more graceful curve than oak as the hammer broadened from the narrow end that fit in the hand to the wide end that withstood the thumping on doors. Her father’s writing table was lambent with light from the oil lamps. Perhaps he could invite her in to see it. But would she care? Would she think him strange? Would she be frightened?
He was thirty-three years old, and a fool. His rust-colored hair had begun to thin, his beak of a nose made him less than handsome. At his age he could not throw himself at a virgin. If he ever should marry again, a widow with hungry children to feed would make more sense. There were so many of those in the Judengasse.
Her hair had been in braids in the morning, wrapped atop her head. Now one braid had fallen, and hung behind her shoulder, with a white ribbon dangling. She seemed not to have noticed. One day the previous autumn, after she had washed her hair for the Sabbath, he’d seen her hanging her head out the window of her third-story room, apparently hoping the light breeze twisting above the street would dry it quickly. The long dark hair spilling loose, framing her innocent face, became imprinted on his pillow that night. Only on rare nights since had he not imagined her hair splayed there. It was an image, he assured himself, that was historical. He could imagine her in some ancient desert, wrapped head to foot in white, a shepherd’s crook in her hands as she moved among a flock equally white. Behind her, in the distance, was a tent. It was an image from the Torah. Every Friday since, the cabinet maker had cut his eyes toward the bakery five, ten, twenty ti
mes, in hopes of catching a glimpse of her.
Back from the market, leaning against the Owl, Guttle watches Frau Liebmann walk by as if not seeing her. A few minutes later she returns, carrying a long black coat. It looks like the dead Schul-Klopper’s coat. Moments after, Herr Liebmann shuffles past wearing the same coat — then returns without it. Guttle wonders what is happening, wonders if she is imagining things. Leaping about, her mind returns to the threat of marriage to the Cantor. His mother, Sophie Marcus, a contralto, begins to sing.
Just look at her, beside the stinking ditch,
A fit place for a bitch too good for Sonny.
On her knees, the hussy is a tease,
And yet the lad is hers, for love and money.
Filled with gloom, he moons up in his room,
There is no greater pain for any mortal;
When word spreads that he won’t be her groom
He fears that all the lane will surely chortle.
Now my Jake must to the Court Jew go
And end my Viktor’s woe with an arrangement —
A future marriage match! And if he dare say no
This cobbled lane will know a mean estrangement.
See her sweat — she acts as if she’s mute,
As if she cannot see or hear me.
Listen, sweet: if you don’t change your tune
I swear by God above, you’ll fear me.
Not high stone walls, not even iron gates,
Can hurt like Sophie Marcus when she hates!
The shadowy image of Sophie Marcus slunk away. Feeling dazed, Guttle did not notice her friend Izzy approach.
“Your mind is far away,” he said. “Do you want to tell me where it is?”
“Maybe some other time.”
“Can I tell you about something, then?” Izzy asked. Focusing, she began to discern the excitement in his voice. “It’s about the Torah. I’ve been thinking about about how it ends, with Moses leading the Jews to Eretz Yisroel. Moses dies, he never gets to enter the Promised Land. And his story just stops, more than two thousand years ago.”
“What else should there be?”
“The Gentiles added their own New Testament. Which we don’t believe happened, which we’re not allowed to talk about. But what about the Jews? What happened to them? We’re still here. Did our people forget how to write?”
Their homes were side by side, touching. On the Schnapper residence a blue owl, now faded, had been painted long ago. Guttle ran her fingers over it, trying to listen. Many of the tenements had pictures of animals on them, or colorful shields, to brighten the ghetto a bit, and to distinguish one adjoining house from the next. Only these small paintings kept the tenements from resembling two large rows of rotting teeth.
Izzy was still speaking. “When Herr Gruen died today” — that got her attention — “I thought: he knew everybody in the Judengasse, from being the Schul-Klopper for so long. He must know lots of stories. The histories of lots of families. Maybe some of them were important for us to know. Maybe angels spoke to some of those families. Maybe even Yahweh. But now the Schul-Klopper is dead, so he can’t pass the stories on to anyone.”
Guttle glanced impatiently at her door; she wanted to wash her hair. “Adonai, here in the Judengasse?”
“Why not? He talked to the Jews for thousands of years. All of a sudden He stopped. Why did He stop? Who says He stopped?”
“Maybe He can’t find us behind these walls.”
“I’m serious.”
“I’m serious, too.”
“Anyway,” Izzy went on, “I had this idea. It’s crazy, I know. But I worked my courage up, and I talked to Rabbi Simcha after class. About shouldn’t somebody be writing another sacred book, about what’s happened to the Jews since then? All the way to today. Even here in the Judengasse. Just the important stuff, of course.”
“Like what? Moses parting the sewage?”
He ignored her jibe. “You know what Rabbi Simcha said? He thought it was an interesting idea. ‘A powerful idea,’ he said. He took me in to see the Chief Rabbi, without even an appointment, and he made me tell the whole thing again, with the Chief Rabbi sitting there in his big leather chair, with a red carpet on the floor. I never was in there before.”
“And then?” She was getting excited for him now. She had an idea what was coming.
“I was scared. At first he didn’t say anything. He just sat there, stroking his beard. When he finally spoke, he agreed it was an interesting idea. ‘Especially coming from one so young.’ He said it would involve a lot of research, it would take many years to finish. Which meant it was an undertaking only for a young man. He looked at me with those lentil eyes of his, with the centers hard, only now they seemed soft and kind somehow. I’m so stupid, I didn’t understand what he meant. Then he said, ‘I’m told the other boys call you Izzy the Wise.’ I still didn’t get it. So he said, ‘What do you say, Izzy the Wise? Do you think you are up to the task?’”
Isidor began to cough, had to struggle to catch his breath. His freckled face reddened.
“And you said?”
“I began to cough and choke, just like now. I couldn’t say anything. Then I blurted, ‘Do you really think I’m worthy of doing this, Rabbi?’ He sat there and looked at me, stroking his beard again. I think maybe he thinks with his beard. His eyes became like tiny woodstoves, bits of fire flaring in them. ‘Whether you are worthy enough is between you and Yahweh,’ he said. ‘My question is, are you smart enough?’”
Guttle laughed, a short burst, and covered her mouth in apology. She placed a hand on his arm. “What could you say to that?”
“I didn’t know what to say. But I got inspired. Maybe from the painting of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments, which is on the wall behind his desk. Or maybe from my own excitement. I had never meant for me to be the one to write such a book. That would be crazy. But all at once I wanted to. More than anything. The Chief Rabbi just sat there, waiting for me to answer. What I finally said was, ‘If I am entrusted by you to attempt this, perhaps Yahweh will make me smart enough.’”
Guttle grinned, her eyes glistened. “We don’t call you Izzy the Wise for nothing. I’ll bet he ate it up.”
“Like a freshly cooked chicken. That’s my new task — my burden, is the word he used — for all my yeshiva years. Starting now. To gather old stories. To find out what happened to the Jews since the Temple was destroyed. To set it down. As if for a new holy book, for me to write later on, or for my descendants to write. He used that word. Descendants. I never thought about us having Descendants. Have you.”
“That’s wonderful!” Ignoring his question, she squeezed his hand. His breath stopped at the warmth of her touch. “I was going to kiss you on the cheek, for good luck,” she said. “But now I don’t think I’m allowed. Now that you’re a holy man.”
Isidor looked at the ground. Why did she always do that to him? Even in his time of triumph. Perhaps underneath, Guttle was cruel. He managed to mumble, “I don’t think I’m holy yet. Writers aren’t holy, anyway.”
With his eye cast down at the cobbles, Isidor saw neither the smile that parted her lips nor the gleam in her eyes as she leaned close and kissed his cheek. By the time he looked up to see her face she had disappeared into the entrance of the Owl. He could hear her swift footsteps bounding up the stairs. He touched the cheek where for the merest of moments her lips had lightly pressed, where perhaps a wisp of her breath still lingered. It had happened so quickly, he wondered if he had only imagined it.
Guttle wished that Joan of Arc had been Jewish. Her name then would have been Jennie Aron, as in Aron Kodesh. She would have been revered in the lane, just as the women of the Pentateuch were. Guttle was happy for Izzy in part because history intrigued her. The Holy Roman Empire was so scattered that little of interest had happened there, as far as she knew, but neighboring France had been alive with heroes, with vast adventures. Sitting on her bed by the third-floor window, trying to put the dead Schul-Kl
opper out of her mind, she pulled from her shelf her favorite book, The History of France from Hugh Cept to Louis IV; her father, approving of her interest, had bought her a German translation for her fourteenth birthday. She had been enthralled by all of it, but nothing could equal the story of Jennie Aron. Jennie had been only seventeen when God told her to lead the armies of France into battle, to drive out the English, who had taken over her country. Covered head to toe in armor, sword in hand, Jennie had gone to war. Guttle herself still had a year and a half before she reached seventeen — plenty of time for Yahweh to speak to her, to tell her to tear down the gates. She would do it fiercely, if only He would show her how. She kicked off her shoes and stretched out on her bed, wiggling her toes, and opened the book to Jennie’s story. When her chores were done she liked more than anything to read; her books allowed her to escape from the lane. But here was the terrible illustration — Jennie being burned at the stake. The French girl was looking toward the heavens while flames around her knees crept higher. Some of the spectators were laughing.
Guttle shivered, as not the voice of Yahweh but a chill wind blew through the open window. She thought again of what she had been trying to keep out of her mind. The questions the Doctor had asked her about the spilled milk. Later she had seen him going into the Rabbi’s study. The Doctor was not very pious; she had never seen him go there before. She had a strong feeling that something was very wrong, and that it had to do with the death of the Schul-Klopper. She closed her eyes against the vision that assaulted her, and the terrible word: Disease. Had the Schul-Klopper died of the smallpox? Or the plague? Would pock marks blow through the lane like poisoned leaves, spreading pain and death?
