We were silent, and suddenly it was as if the months that had passed had built a wall of time between us. He spoke first, saying:
- My lady, how did you enjoy the poem I gave you?
I cast my eyes to the floor. – I liked it very much, I said, in a low, trembling voice. I have studied it often these past long months.
- Thou hast? he said, and there was tenderness in his voice. – I had hoped thou wouldst.
- Yes, I said, and to hastily cover my discomposure I added, - It is always good to study the Holy Word.
He looked as if he was making a decision, and then he pulled aside the curtain that separated the back of the shop from the front. – Come with me, he said most urgently. – Come here.
I thought of all of the nights I had read the text - nay, the verses of love - that he had given me. How I had looked upon each holy, and yet unholy word, with hope in my heart and desire beating in my blood at the thought of my friend’s eyes, as they had watched me in those last moments before I became William’s bride. And as I looked at Daniel, my eyes widened in disbelief; he could not have been asking the thing that I had hoped and dreamed…and knew was a sin against Holy God, against my vows, against my eternal soul.
- I cannot, I said, and in my dismay and confusion I said, – I am a married woman.
Then his cheeks reddened, and he said, - I only ask thee to come with me because there is something I must show thee.
I wanted to die. I had given myself, my desires away; I wished to be dead and buried beneath the floorboards and I could not look at him. But when I met his eye again he was gazing intently at my face. My husband had never looked at me in such a way. To cover my embarrassment I stammered, - Please forgive me.
- There is nothing to forgive except for my own poor way with words. Only, do come with me, he said.
I followed him into the back of the shop. A single candle burned, illuminating the darkness. There was the sweet, sharp smell of ink, and I inhaled deeply of its richness. A large press stood sentry in the corner of the room. In the center was a long table, crowded with papers and parchments and leather and binding cord. But on one side of the table, away from all of the work materials, there lay on a smooth, uncluttered surface, a long sheet of parchment, a scroll wound upon two smooth cylinders of wood. Upon the parchment were symbols I had never seen before. I bent low to examine it, and all at once, I knew what it must be.
- This is the Holy Word, Daniel said. The Word of my people. I have waited so long to show this to thee. This is the text I was studying that night; when thou came in here first and I was so disdainful of thee.
- Yes, I said, with the smile of that precious memory softly curving the corners of my mouth. – I remember.
- I hate to be interrupted at study, he said. – Even by one as important as Thomas More’s daughter. Before I met thee, I had hoped to find thee – a woman of grace and learning, a woman unafraid of truth. The more I heard about thee, the more afraid I became. I heard of thy wisdom; I heard of thy wit, thy countenance alight with the bright intellect of a scholar but with the beauty of a princess. And I imagined thee to be arrogant, proud, an unknowable lady, from what I had heard of thee. But now – he said softly – I know thee.
I stood in shock at his words; for no man had ever spoken of me in a way that made me feel as if he knew and understood the depths of my soul, the most secret hopes of my heart.
He beckoned me to draw closer to the scroll. I did not - could not – touch the parchment. I knew it was a text forbidden to me, as a woman, as a believer in the True Saviour. But the Hebrew symbols filled my eyes as if they were the notes to some strange and lovely melody, and I could not look away from them. I felt Daniel’s presence next to me. I could hear his heart beating as though it were my own.
- It is dangerous to have this in the open, I said quietly. - If anyone were to find it I could not bear the thought of what might happen.
- My lady, he said with a smile – Thou must not trouble thyself with imaginings. Nothing shall happen to me.
- Dost thou not treat me as if I were a child! I said. I do know, Daniel, that there are dangers in such things, and I fear for thee. Thou hast said that fear hast been thy closest companion these many years. Dost thou not forget thy parents? Thy sister? The journey of fear from the realm of the Spanish Queen?
He held up a hand to silence me, and I ceased speaking at his gesture, knowing that I had wounded him, and ashamed that my words had been the sources of the sadness that had come into his eyes.
And then I spoke more softly: Daniel, I fear for thy safety. Even if thou art under the protection of the King, he is a king of whims, ruled by his own desires. No one is safe. Not even those dearest to him. And if anything should happen to thee, I – and I suddenly stopped speaking.
- If anything happened to me, he said tenderly, thou wouldst go back to thy husband. As thou wilt today. As thou hast done on that last day we met, all those months ago.
I was silent. – But I would not go willingly, I said, my voice near to a whisper. I did not go willingly then. And I shall not go willingly today.
We looked at one another. I could see the candle-flame reflected in the darkness of his eyes. I was frightened; I knew that my soul was plunged deep into sin; and yet I could not look away from his face any more than he could look away from mine.
His hand reached out for mine; at once it guided my fingertips towards one of the wooden cylinders upon which the parchment scroll was wound. He laid his hand atop mine as he spoke:
-By this holy Word, he whispered softly, I am thine, Margaret. My soul is bound to thee; thou art my beloved.
I felt the smooth wood beneath the skin of my fingers, the heat of his hand above. In the candlelit darkness I felt the presence of his body as he moved towards me; and though I knew the sin that I was inflicting upon my mortal soul, I could not help it. I saw his tenderness, felt the touch of his hand on mine, sensed his other hand as it caressed my shoulder. My body leaned into his; at once we let go of the scroll and our fingers were entwined. He turned my body toward him and lifted my face towards his own. I knew his mouth; my lips opened for his kiss. My kiss was my vow; his was his promise. My soul belonged to him alone.
He unpinned the hood upon my head and laid it aside; his hands felt like flowers in my hair. And yet I could not utter the words that would shatter my marriage to William; Daniel did not force them from me. Instead he guided me towards the room beyond the shop, beyond a heavy curtain through a doorway that led to another, smaller, chamber; he unlaced the laces of my heavy gown without taking his eyes from my face; and all along our kisses burned as one. I who had never known the depth of a caress; had never known a touch that did not come as a bruise; had never known a kiss that did not come with a savage bite; I hardly recognized love in the sweetness of his touch.
As he removed my gown, my laces, my linen; I wanted to feel shame, but did not; instead I felt desire; yet I felt virgin to him – I warmed to the touch of his hands on my skin, on the curves of my breasts and hips.
William had never touched me in such a way, had never looked at me with anything other than disgust, had only used my body as a means to satisfy his own evil desires. But this was different; this was the truth of marriage that had been hidden from me.
Daniel and I lay together, gently, upon the feathered cushions of his narrow bed. My trembling fingers pushed at the buttons of his shirt until they were undone; and we were naked together, as beloved and bride. Only the candlelight bore witness to our love as we moved together in that moment of sacred bliss that was above even the highest and holiest places in our souls.
I became one with him in a way that I was not with any other man; in a way that I had never known nor would ever know with William; beyond wife, beyond daughter to the place where I was simply woman, a soul created in the image of God, a soul that knew finally that divine love that gives light to creation itself; that highest form of love which is God’s gift to his most beloved
children. Daniel and I created this together; it was ours.
We lay together silently after, our love had calmed and soothed us, and without windows our chamber felt as if we were the only beings in an eternal night.
At once the tiny bell sounded from the other side of the curtain. – Wait here, he said quietly, hastily buttoning his shirt and lacing his trousers, and fastening his dark velvet cloak around his wrinkled clothes.
I hastened to a dark corner of the back room as he went out into the shop. With trembling fingers I smoothed my hair and took up my linen and laces, even though I had never dressed without the help of my maid. I struggled with the heavy folds of my rich gown as silently as I could. From outside, I could hear the low rumble and hiss of male voices from the other side of the curtain as I pinned my hood back on to my hair, and after some moments I heard the bell again and then Daniel returned to me.
- Thou must depart, he said roughly. Thou must go at once.
I looked at him with a heart full of fear.
- Margaret, he said, and my fear lessened just enough to hear how sweet my name sounded upon his tongue. – I know thou art afraid but I cannot tell thee anything more. Only believe me when I say that thou must return home at once.
He pulled the curtain aside and looked at me in silence for a moment. – I shall be thinking of thee; try not to fear.
I put out a hand to him before I left the room. – And I shall be thinking of thee.
His fingertips touched mine lightly at first, and then our fingers entwined, and then our hands were firmly clasped; as a bride and a bridegroom in the moment of first bliss, so too did we embrace in the only way we could.
I felt myself withdraw from him, and then I turned my back and left. I hastened down the city road, and all around me there were the sounds of terror and fear.
- He has been taken, I heard the voices say; the King has jailed his dearest friend in the Tower. More has been taken.
My heart beat with fear; the fear for my father, the fear of my own sin.
I ran all the way back to our home; and there I found William and my sisters and my brother and stepmother waiting for me.
They cried to see me; clearly they believed I had been made a prisoner as well. When I could get my breath, I listened and wept to hear their terrible story. William spoke of how my father had been taken without warning to the Tower; how Henry’s face had been like stone, and how the Boleyn girl had silently assented to my father’s imprisonment, even though her own father had been one of my father’s dearest friends.
I knew the truth that I did not wish to know: the most horrible of betrayals had befallen my father; he had been betrayed by his friends, by his King – and perhaps even by his God.
I was overcome by grief at the news of my dear father’s imprisonment and begged to retire to my chamber. I wanted nothing more than to be alone; to consider what I could do to appeal to the King on my father’s behalf; to wonder if perhaps there was something Daniel could do to intercede on my father’s behalf. Daniel, I thought, and my face burned with desire, and I knew that I must be alone.
As I left the room, William bid me a cruel smile. – Wife, he asked me slyly, where is the posset for our child?
I looked up from the manuscript and shook my head. “This is very intense.”
Michael nodded. “Does any of it fit in with what Robert was able to tell you today?”
“Even more so now than it did this morning,” I said. “The fact is that Daniel’s existence isn’t as much of a surprise as I thought it would be. Apparently Henry VIII had some Jewish scholars at court trying to prove that his marriage was invalid. So the fact that Daniel was Jewish might have been more of an open secret in terms of who knew at court, but given the religious climate in England, it would have to be a secret kept from the common folk, who were eager to please the monarchy by rooting out, and probably killing, unbelievers in their midst.”
Michael nodded. “Sure, that makes sense. The courtiers kept silent when it was in the best interests of the court, but he would have had a lot to fear from townspeople, especially in terms of his ability to make a living while still concealing his identity.”
“Also, Robert mentioned something about Henry obtaining a version of the Talmud, because he was interested in the laws regarding marriage, particularly as they applied to his marriage to Katherine of Aragon.”
“And it sounds, in this, as if he had a Torah as well as a Talmud,” Michael said, “So you think we may be on the right track?”
“It’s possible,” I said. “But I’m still really troubled by the fact that we haven’t found a way to authenticate this manuscript.” I walked into the living room and sank on to the couch, and Michael sat down next to me. “I keep coming back to that.”
“No new letter today?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I was really hoping that another one would come today. And I guess I’m a little worried, because she said in her first letter that she was ill. I keep worrying that she’s going to be too sick to write, or that she might even die, before we know the whole story.”
Michael grimaced. “That’s pretty harsh.”
“I know. It’s a terrible way to have to think about this. But nothing panned out in terms of the research that Robert did. He’s going to try to get some information from the Hidden Child Foundation, but we’re talking about thousands of records, with no guarantees. We don’t even know who we’re looking for.”
“It’s really frustrating,” Michael said. “I hope you can find something. But it’s more than that, isn’t it?” He peered closely at my face. “I can tell there’s something bothering you.”
I didn’t speak for a moment. “I don’t know. At first, I wanted it to be real for the museum, so we would have something that no one else had, a story that no one else could tell. But now, I feel like this story is meant to tell me something. Something about her, maybe even something about Margaret. Not just because the manuscript and the letters have come to me, but because whoever she is, she’s telling me her story. The fact that we don’t have a record of her daughter as a hidden child, and that we can’t seem to get a read on who she is tells me that she may not have shared this information before. And for some reason, she’s chosen me to hear it.”
“I don’t want to say this,” Michael spoke gently, “but you know, you have to think about what Aviva said in the very beginning. This might be authentic, and it might not. You have to keep all of the possibilities in mind. But she might have ‘chosen you,’ as you say, because as the granddaughter of someone who went through this experience, you would be the most vulnerable to hearing the story.”
I sighed. “You might be right. I just don’t want to think that this is something dishonest. I’d be so disappointed to find out Robert, and Aviva and I, and now, you – got taken in.”
“I know that.” He put his arm around me and drew me close. “But if turns out that we all got taken in, it’s no different for us than it is for you. In some way, we get taken in because we allow ourselves to be.”
19
The letter arrived the next afternoon. Even before I opened it, I brought it over to Aviva’s side of the cubicle. “Another letter,” I said, as I showed her the envelope with its uneven type and lack of return address.
“Good,” she said. “I was hoping for another one today. I don’t know how much longer I can keep up this schedule.”
I noticed that she looked even more tired than she had yesterday as she shifted, uncomfortably, in her chair.
“Should we call Robert?” I asked her. “He’ll want to know.” She looked reluctant. “Has he read the others?”
“Not yet.”
“Then let’s read it first,” she said. “Then we can decide.”
“Fair enough,” I told her, as I reached for the letter opener on my desk. I glanced at the first page and it looked as if it were simply a continuation of the letter than had come before it.
I wept to know that I had so little
time left with Minna, and yet, my heart was at peace knowing that the convent had agreed to take her, since we did not know then what deportation meant – only that it was safer for our children to be sheltered while we went off to face whatever the future would bring.
And then the postman brought us a letter the next day, addressed to my mother, from my cousin Rivka in Warsaw. She wrote mainly in code. She was part of a group called Oyneg Shabbes, an underground society of young people, writers and artists and teachers mostly, who were making a record of life in the ghetto where the Jews were now forced to live. She told me that they thought the end would come soon; there was much sickness in the ghetto, and every day more and more innocent people were being taken away for ‘relocation’ as they called it.
She wrote to us to say that if we had anything precious, anything we needed to save that was too big to bring with us, that we should bury it in the ground.
She said that she had heard that we should take our jewelry, that if we needed to sell it for money, or trade it for our freedom, we should have it with us. But she said that anything else we treasured should go in the ground, in secret, that we should not trust anyone to keep our possessions for us, and that when it was all over we could always come back for them.
She told us that Oyneg Shabbes was collecting the documents of the ghetto, the memorial books, the holy texts, the schoolbooks, and saving them in milk cans and burying them underground. She told us that they didn’t have much time, and from what she had heard, neither did we.
The night before I was to take Minna to the convent, I packed my daughter’s things in her little case, and then I tried to sleep. It was still dark outside when I awoke, knowing what I had to do. I watched my Minna sleep for a little while, and then I had to awaken her, to bring her there under the cover of darkness.
We left the house as silently as we could. On the way, Minna was quiet. The only words she uttered were when she picked a little white rose from a bush along the path, and held it out to me with a serious little face, saying, “Ist fur Sie, Mama.”
The Bookseller's Sonnets Page 21
