The Origin of Sorrow

by Robert Mayer

  She confessed to him that she would have liked to learn to sing, but she’d never asked her father for training in voice with Ansha Cohen, because she would be too nervous to perform.

  He confessed to an ignorance of the arts — all the arts — but said that one day he would like to learn more.

  “You don’t have to say that on my account,” she had replied, testing her temerity, waiting for a heavy shoe to fall.

  “No, I suppose I don’t,” he’d said, and then, smiling, added, “though I find great beauty in antique coins — especially the Romans.”

  “If you could be somebody else, would you be a Roman?” she asked.

  “Perhaps.”

  “I would be a Greek.” And then, “I guess you would be Julius Caesar.”

  “I’d rather Marc Antony. You, I think, would be Helen of Troy.”

  “If I could not be Cassandra.”

  He smiled uncertainly; he did yet not know her at all; he did not know if she were joking or being serious. “You would like to make dire predictions?”

  “Do any other kind come true?” She sensed she had upset him, and added, “I think of it more as truth-telling.”

  “Can you think of no happy prediction?”

  Her face coloring pink, with points of red in her cheeks, she replied, “I can think of one. But I won’t tell you.”

  “Does it have something to do with me?”

  “Are you Marc Antony now, or Meyer Amschel ?”

  “I think I’d best be Marc Antony.”

  “Then it doesn’t have to do with you.”

  Nodding, he felt cold sweat on his forehead. “Deep inside, are you not a happy person?”

  She expanded her chest with a deep breath, daring herself to take the risk, let her breath out slowly. “I’m happy when I’m with you,” she said.

  Her pillow at night, beneath her hands, across the lane from him, became his chest.

  He began to make a special effort to acknowledge her mother in the lane.

  She wondered if his dead parents would have approved of her.

  A tiny brown mole on her right cheek, just below her ear, acquired for him a special significance. Without the mole, he decided, her face would have represented such perfection that Yahweh might have abandoned His clay and moved on. But Yahweh in His wisdom had left the mole there, to keep Himself interested in doing better.

  On a dark Sunday in June, with the gates locked and the air heavy with anticipated rain, when he came calling she agreed to drink tea in his apartment and look at some new old coins. She was exhilarated — not just by the history of the coins themselves, but by the boyish pride with which he showed them to her.

  He was relieved when he asked about her relationship with Viktor Marcus, and she replied that they had always been just friends, strained friends of late; that she enjoyed his tales of the operas he had seen in Milan and Berlin; that she was flattered when he sang to her in the cemetery; that was all.

  He said, “I shall have to revise my opinion of the Cantor. I’d always heard he was something of a braggart.” And she, her hand in front of her mouth to mute a delightful smile, replied, “Don’t do anything hasty.”

  She thought he was going to kiss her. Instead, he said he could not sing to her in the cemetery like the Cantor, his voice would make the dead rise up and protest; what he could do there was show her the graves of his parents, if she cared. “What I mean to say,” he explained, “is that it’s the only place I can take you to meet them.”

  The rain held off, and in the cemetery, standing beside the soapstone markers, he told her the story of his two long journeys home from school at Furth during the pox — because his father had died, and then his mother. Seeing the glisten in his eyes, hesitating only an instant as a breeze brushed her face, she slipped her small hand into his.

  Book Two: Jesters and Hangmen

  Did I not tell you earlier that a Jew is such a noble, precious jewel that God and all the angels dance when he farts?

  —Martin Luther,

  The Jews and Their Lies

  12

  Heat was a plague that summer in the Rhine Valley, in Frankfurt, and in the Judengasse. The cloudbursts of spring had been followed by three months with little rain. The air was warmer than usual and had not cooled off with the arrival of September. For the first time anyone could remember, the absence of sunshine in the lane was a blessing. But not enough of one.

  The elderly were suffering the most, sweating out their salts, their bodies unable to retain water no matter how much they drank. All twelve beds in the hospital were filled; pallets of straw had been set up in the corridors. Others among the elderly were bedridden in their homes under the care of spouses or children. The four Doctor’s helpers, who normally were on duty two at a time, worked extra hours, applying cold cloths to the foreheads of the ill, giving them water and all manner of liquids. Doctor Berkov hardly slept as he went from house to house checking on the homebound sick. He developed a haggard look, with dark patches under his eyes and a thinning of his cheeks. His colleague, a Doctor Genschow, had left in June to do research at the university in Berlin. The replacement Lev sought had not yet arrived.

  The lane’s water pumps had become the focus of social life. Long lines proliferated as women and older children waited to fill kettles and basins and carry them back, water for cooking and washing dishes and for standing baths, but more and more for drinking, while thirst spread through the lane like a disease. The number of trips to the pump each family made doubled, then tripled. The pumps themselves became more difficult to use as the level of the wells dropped.

  The bakery had become a fiery cave. The women could barely tolerate the heat as it reflected off the fire walls; a number of them fainted each week; the others were not far from doing so. Their foreheads dripped, their necks and the crevices beneath their arms cascaded rivulets of sweat under their clothing as they worked. The people were told to consume less bread; the number of loaves baked had to be reduced to protect the health of the bakers.

  Food spoiled quickly in the heat, despite being moved into cellars. The women went to market through the steaming streets almost every day except the Sabbath to buy fresh milk and sorry-looking vegetables. At the slaughterhouse, Otto Kracauer hung blankets on ropes in the yard to catch any breeze that might fan his dolorous chickens as they lay in the dirt. As he reminded his helpers at least once a week, the chickens had to be alive before he killed them. Otherwise they weren’t kosher.

  In the lane, the stink from the ditch was worse than anyone could remember. It had attracted every house fly from Paris to Berlin, the people agreed, as they slapped at their necks and arms.

  Most people — the Schnappers, the Schlicters, the Kracauers among them — found the heat in the lane, and the stronger stench, so oppressive that they stayed indoors as much as they could. Others, especially unmarried men such as Yussel Kahn and Hersch Liebmann, slept in the lane, after darkness had cooled the cobbles. Some men spent all day in the synagogue; its large, high-ceilinged space was cooler than the cramped houses. The Chief Rabbi announced that men and boys who wanted to sleep there could do so. A few wives sent their husbands off to the temple so they wouldn’t be so crowded in their beds.

  The communal baths were busy. Jewish custom called for the residents to bathe weekly — more than the average Frankfurt resident did. Doctor Berkov suggested they do so twice each week during the hot weather. For whatever reasons, by the start of September only one person in the Judengasse had died during the oppressive heat, an elderly man who had been ill since winter. Some were calling this a miracle. Others gave credit to the Doctor and his staff.

  The only people who noticeably were not affected by the heat were the Schul-Klopper and his assistant. Every morning at dawn, Isidor Kracauer, awakened by Hiram’s pounding, strode the west side of the lane with vigor, eager to begin a new day of research. Every morning, Hiram strode the east side wearing the long black coat with the frayed cuffs, n
o matter how warm the air had become. It was as if the coat had become his identity, and without it he would not have a title, a job — would not have the heady power of awakening the Judengasse each day.

  And yet, despite all these tribulations, a feeling of excitement, of itchy anticipation, had gripped the lane. The Frankfurt Fall Fair was only a week away.

  The town’s annual fairs were the only times that Jewish merchants were allowed to sell their goods outside the Judengasse, alongside Gentile merchants. It was an old tradition. The September Fair had been held annually since the thirteenth century. Merchants and visitors came from throughout the German lands and from as far away as France and Switzerland. The more merchandise on display, the bigger the attraction, the Frankfurt Council knew. Visitors stayed in hotels and inns and ate in coffee houses and beer halls, pouring extra taxes into the town treasury. They increased the income of local merchants, including the Jews, who also paid taxes. For one week, nearly two hundred Judengasse residents carrying special passes would be permitted to spend five days in the city, at the Fair Grounds in the Town Square. There, they had heard from those who’d been there before, they would see jesters in outrageous costumes, acrobats doing daredevil stunts, bands playing, artists of every kind displaying their creations; they would smell sausages frying (they weren’t kosher, but they smelled so good!), see tables laden with all manner of silks and linens and spices and jewelry and household creations, every kind of merchandise from near and far. It was all there to buy if you had the kreuzers or the gulden, to gape at in wonder and tell your friends about even if your pockets were empty. Good conversation, too, was a Jewish treasure.

  But who in the Judengasse would get to attend? Those merchants who could afford the stall rental fee, for sure. But which were those? And some would need assistants for the week while their wives stayed home with the children. Whom would they choose? That question had set minds scheming, especially among the young. A pass to the Fair was a pass out of prison into the Gentile world. At least for five colorful days.

  After mulling the problem, and discussing it with the invisible Melka, Guttle had thought of a way she might get to the Fair. The oppressive heat had given her the idea. She was on her way to the hospital to suggest it to Doctor Berkov when she was accosted by Meyer Amschel. He was not wearing a jacket or a collar, his shirt was unbuttoned at the top, she could see droplets of sweat clinging to the dark chest hairs below his neck.

  “Guttle, do you have a moment? I need to ask you something. Two things, actually.”

  Glancing quickly down the lane, she saw no one nearby. She rubbed the drops of sweat into his chest. He ran his hand gently along her cheek. She took his hand and kissed his fingertips.

  “I need you to write a letter to the crown Prince.”

  Guttle released his fingers reluctantly. “Are you trying to impress me?”

  “Of course.”

  He wanted to touch her hair, her shoulders, her neck. He wanted to lead her to the privacy of the alleyway. But people were approaching.

  “The other thing,” he said. “Would you like to go to the Fair next week?”

  “Me? The Fair?”

  “Jesters, acrobats, Gentiles. I’m sure you’ve heard of it.”

  She wrinkled her nose at him. “I was just on my way … ”

  He interrupted her. “You’d be working with me. As my assistant. All week.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Of course I’m serious. One doesn’t make jokes about the Torah, the Talmud or the Frankfurt Fair.”

  “What about Hersch?”

  “I don’t need him running errands there. I need good handwriting.” He touched her chin, wiping off a droplet of perspiration that may or may not have been there. “Good looks wouldn’t hurt.”

  “Hersch will be upset.”

  “He’s more than upset. He’s angry. But this is business. I have to do what’s necessary.”

  “You already told him I’d be going?”

  “A few minutes ago.”

  “Wasn’t that a bit presumptuous?”

  “Absolutely. Of course, if you don’t want to go, I could always ask your friend Dvorah. She of the bright red curls.”

  “You know, Meyer Amschel, if I weren’t a lady, I would kick your knee.”

  “If you weren’t a lady, Guttle Schnapper, I wouldn’t be asking you.”

  She reached up and touched her braids, hiding her smile behind her shoulder. “Couldn’t Hersch and I both go? Or him three days and me two?”

  “We’re only allowed two persons at each stall. The same two every day. We’ll have passes with our names on them. The fines for cheating are large.”

  “That’s so unfair.” She looked over his shoulder at a common distraction, two merchants gesticulating, waving their arms about, like her father’s shirts drying on a windy day. “I suppose you’ll be wanting an answer.”

  “Before the Fair closes.”

  “Such impatience! But you do know how to impress a girl.”

  “Does that mean yes?”

  His eyes were looking into hers. She did not look away. “I suppose it does,” she said.

  It had happened for him, he’d told her, the very first day, when she came to his office with her hair and her blouse dripping wet, looking like a fallen angel, and she had asked if he were trying to impress her. What innocence, what insouciance, what sweet promise he had seen. What desire he had felt. His first thought every morning since had been how to see her that day — that, and how some day she would be his bride.

  She had perceived the same day through a looking glass — with a similar result. Entering his place looking like a drowning rat. Making a fool of herself while she wrote his letter. Running home and hurling herself onto her bed, hating herself because he would think her a mere child, a brash and forward one. Rushing to the window the next morning, shielding her face with the green curtain, hoping to get a glimpse of him walking to morning services, or walking home. Her heart palpitating with frustrated joy whether she saw him or not. Wanting to run down to him when he was there, but holding back — what could she say, how could she explain? Not knowing then how he would have welcomed it. A pure white spark had ignited within her that day, a new star in the night sky of her being. Months later, when she had placed her hand in his beside the graves of his parents, and he had touched her cheek with his fingertips, the spark had become a secret sun, vying to turn her inner night to inner day. Later still, a time in the alley when his lips discreetly, hesitantly, first brushed hers, the sun flamed violet, a fiery comet streaking to the female center of her. Love had been born like a new universe. As if Yahweh was bored with the old.

  Meyer broke the eye connection before Guttle did. Several people in the lane had been watching them. The observers turned away and went about their business. One of them, Guttle saw, was Sophie Marcus.

  Only Hiram Liebmann, from his third-floor window, continued to look. He’d rarely seen his brother as angry as when he’d stalked into the house a few minutes before, shouting and waving his arms, furious about not getting a pass to the Fair. For the first time, Hiram felt hostility toward the pretty Guttle girl, who was stealing Hersch’s rightful place.

  “About my letter to the crown Prince … ”

  “Can it wait a little? I had an idea for the Fair. I want to give it to Dvorah.” Guttle looked at him with a stern glare. “She of the bright red curls.”

  She hurried off before he could respond. Meyer didn’t seem to mind the delay. Though it would be the most important letter he’d ever sent.

  Isidor Kracauer was alone in the small library of the yeshiva. He sat slumped in the chair where he’d been working, his head resting in his hands. Sheets of paper were on the table, a quill, a jar of ink, a rolled parchment. When Rabbi Simcha passed the open door and saw him, he feared the boy might be ill, and he entered the room. Izzy didn’t stir. The Rabbi approached, asked softly if he was feeling all right.

  “Yes,” the bo
y murmured, without looking up. “No. Yes.” He raised his head from his hands. His yarmulke fell to the floor without his noticing. His eyes were rimmed with red.

  “Which is it?” the Rabbi said. “Yes, or no?” He stooped and picked up the yarmulke and set it on the boy’s blond head and smoothed it in place. Izzy wiped his eyes with the base of his palms and sat up straighter. “I’ve been working,” he said.

  “So I see.”

  “Reading the scrolls from the strongbox. The Chief Rabbi said I could, as long as I was careful. As long as they didn’t leave this room. I could copy anything I wanted, he said. He even liked the idea of having copies made.”

  “And?”

  “I was reading about Mainz. That parchment over there.”

  “Ah. Mainz.”

  “It was written in the year 1140. By a man in Mainz. I forget his name, I have it written down.”

  “Salamo bar Simeon.”

  “You know about it?”

  The Rabbi saw that the boy was badly shaken, that he was more upset than he knew. An image came to the Rabbi’s mind of a young bird leaving its nest before it was ready. “Tell me again,” he said. “Refresh my memory.”

  “It was during what they called the Crusade. In the year 1096.”

  “The first one.”

  “There were more?”

  “Several.”

  “Mein Gott!” the boy said.

  “Some weren’t as bad as the first. Go on, tell me what bar Simeon wrote.”

  Izzy pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his forehead. The small room had no windows — not that windows would have helped much with the intense heat.

  “The leader of the Catholics, the Pope, called a conference in France. He asked the noblemen to make a crusade to the Holy Land, to free Jerusalem from the Muslims. They were in control of it back then. The people got excited. The nobles decided to go by sea, but the peasants and a few nobles started off by land. They marched beside the Rhine. Along the way they started accosting Jews — any Jews they came upon. They told the Jews they were Infidels, that they must become Christians. If they refused, they were tortured, and killed.”