The Bookseller's Sonnets

by Andi Rosenthal

  “I feel like this day is already shot to hell,” I said. “And it’s only ten o’clock.”

  “I know what you mean.” He smiled tiredly. “I feel like I’ve already put in a full day.”

  “You have,” I told him, touching his shoulder. “It was good of you to stay with her. You made her more comfortable than I ever could have.”

  “You mean singing the psalm?” he asked. “I’m just glad I could do that for her. I get the sense that things aren’t so great with her husband.”

  I didn’t say anything while we waited for the elevator. The doors opened, and I pressed the button for the 3rd floor. As soon as the doors closed, and we were alone, I spoke.

  “No, they’re not. And that’s really all I can tell you. But I hope that you won’t talk about it with other people on the staff. I don’t want anyone else to know. She doesn’t deserve to have the staff gossiping about her, and heaven knows she’s got enough going on right now. I’m only acknowledging this at all because, well, it was obvious from what happened this morning. But I’d appreciate it if you’d keep it to yourself.”

  “Of course,” he said firmly. “I would have, anyway.”

  I softened a little. “Thanks,” I said. “And I know Aviva would thank you, too, if she were here.”

  “I just hope he’ll call us to let us know what happens.”

  “I hope so, too. And I hope he’ll call us after the baby is born,” I said, “but I don’t know if she’ll even remember to tell him.”

  The doors opened and we walked out of the elevator and down the hall to my office. “Listen,” I said, “I know we’re supposed to be working on this presentation, but I really don’t want to be away from the phone right now.”

  “Doesn’t your cell phone work in the conference room?”

  “Nope,” I said. “No windows.”

  “Right.” He nodded. “So what should we do?”

  “I was thinking we could look at the manuscript again while we’re waiting to hear about the baby. Besides, I’ve been thinking that I’d like for you to take a look at some of the other notations. I finished reading it last night at home,” I said, “so I brought it back in this morning.”

  He looked delighted. “Is it in the vault?”

  I nodded. “Do you want to get it out? We can meet in the conservation area in five minutes – I just want to send a quick email to Larry to let him know that Aviva went into labor. Oh, and I have to call Ariel and figure out a time to meet with Dr. Schiffman. Seriously, you’d never believe the letter I got this morning. I’ll tell you about it when I come back downstairs.”

  “That sounds good,” Robert grinned. “And hey, I guess I’ve been truly promoted now that Aviva is officially out on maternity leave.”

  “That’s right,” I replied with a smile. “Welcome to the team, kiddo.”

  I found Robert paging through the manuscript when I got back from my desk, having left a message for Dr. Schiffman with Ariel. I also sent an email to Larry, letting him know Aviva was now officially on maternity leave.

  While Robert read, I filled him in on the meeting with the two priests from the Archdiocese and the letter that had come to Dr. Schiffman. I also noticed, from the speed of Robert’s gloved fingertip along the pages that he was a quick reader, going through the pages at a much faster pace than Michael and I ever had.

  “I’m impressed,” I said, as I stood behind him looking down at the manuscript. “It took me a while to muddle through some of the Renaissance language.”

  “I guess I’m just used to old books,” he said modestly. “There’s a lot of idiomatic language throughout the Hebrew texts that I studied in grad school.”

  “Idiomatic,” I repeated. “Good SAT word.”

  He chuckled. “I’m full of good SAT words. But listen, I’m very interested in the condition of this manuscript.” He closed the book and ran a gloved hand gently over the cover. “Did it come in any sort of storage case, something we could look at for secondary age characteristics?”

  “Unfortunately, no,” I said. “I thought about that too. One of the letters said that she had buried it in an old metal box during the war. She had a cousin who was part of Oyneg Shabbes in the Warsaw Ghetto.”

  “Emanuel Ringelblum’s group,” he said. “The ones who buried the ghetto’s historical documents in milk cans.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “That’s how she got the idea to bury the manuscript.”

  “That’s actually a sign in our favor,” I heard a deep, quiet voice behind us say. We turned to see Dr. Schiffman walking towards us. “Not a lot of people know about Oyneg Shabbes. Although there was the exhibition at the Washington, DC museum a couple of years back. Still, it’s fairly obscure information outside of the Holocaust museum community.”

  “Dr. Schiffman,” I greeted him. “I just left a message for you.”

  “I got it,” he smiled. “And I heard about Aviva. So I figured that I’d come down and check in with you, see how things are going. I hear that you’ve both had quite a morning,” he added sympathetically, nodding at Robert.

  “We’re okay,” Robert said. “Just concerned about Aviva.”

  “Of course,” he replied. “But I’m sure she’ll be fine. In the meantime, Jill, I imagine you’ve read the letter from the good Monsignor?”

  I nodded. “What do you think we should do?”

  “Well, I don’t think we should turn it over to them, that’s for sure,” Dr. Schiffman said. “Not without a very good reason. I don’t take kindly to being threatened with legal action, as if they can bully us into handing it over. There’s a better way to talk about things. Anyway, is this it?” he asked, looking down at the counter where we had left the book open.

  “Yes,” I told him. “This is it.”

  Dr. Schiffman looked down at the pages, bent down to examine the lettering and the yellowed parchment page more closely. “It certainly looks authentic,” he said.

  “I finished reading it last night,” I volunteered. “If it’s real, it’s pretty much the Church’s worst nightmare. If the authorship is true, this is the diary of Margaret More – the daughter of Saint Thomas More. And it details an extramarital love affair with a very unlikely person – a converso from Spain who fled the Inquisition. As a result of the affair, she gave birth to a daughter. But as it turns out, this converso was actually a Talmud scholar consulting on the annulment of Henry VIII’s marriage to Katherine of Aragon.”

  Dr. Schiffman’s eyes widened. “That’s certainly an amazing story,” he said. “No wonder they’re resorting to such extreme actions. I could understand why they’d want to bury something like this. But it also sounds like there is a legitimate Jewish connection,” he continued. “I’m just not sure that it’s strong enough for us to maintain that it belongs in a museum that only deals with late nineteenth and twentieth century Jewish history.”

  “What about the donor?” Robert said. “From what Jill has told me, this came to her from a Holocaust survivor.”

  “That may be true, but without actual provenance we can’t determine how strong or authentic the connection really is. Jill, is there any way to track this person down? I mean, it’s easy enough to send this out to the right lab, and someone who would handle it with the care it needs. It would be worth the expense, certainly, if it does turn out to be authentic.” He indicated the parchment. “They can determine the age of the paper easily enough. But keeping it here, keeping it safe, that’s another story.”

  “If the Archdiocese can prove that it was stolen from their archives, then we have a problem,” I said. “But I think you’re right, I think the best thing to do is try to figure out whom this belonged to, and if they really are a survivor.”

  Dr. Schiffman looked at his watch. “I need to get back upstairs,” he said, “but if there’s anything I can do, just let me know. I know this is going to take a lot of research, probably looking up most of the old donor records. Maybe you can at least narrow it down by names of
who is still alive. I know you have the Berlin presentation to deal with, but we need to get this resolved and it can’t wait for Larry.”

  “Thanks, Dr. Schiffman,” I said. “We’ll start working on it.”

  “If you need extra help, send me an email, that’s probably the best way to get to me. But hopefully there’s something we can do to prove this belongs here.”

  I smiled. “I know. I just hope it doesn’t come down to lawyers.”

  “Me neither,” he said. “But we need to move quickly. The clock is ticking.” He walked towards the door. “And call me if you hear anything about Aviva.”

  Robert and I watched Dr. Schiffman leave. “So it’s serious,” Robert said. “We could really be in danger of losing this.”

  “Yeah,” I replied. “And I can’t bear to think about it. After reading this story, I feel really attached to Margaret and Daniel. And I think they deserve better than to be locked away in some Vatican archive.”

  “A lot of people would disagree with you,” Robert pointed out. “On both sides of the argument. Intermarriage isn’t only an issue for Jews, you know. This would create a scandal for the Catholics who want to preserve the image of their saint, and for the Jews who would be angry about the relationship between a great Jewish scholar – potentially a great Jewish scholar who influenced the outcome of one of the most controversial eras of English history – and a Christian woman. There are a lot of people who would probably rather see this go away.”

  “You’re right,” I said, “but that doesn’t mean it should be locked away just because some people won’t like the message.”

  After a moment, Robert closed the cover of the manuscript, turned it over and gingerly opened the manuscript’s back cover. “You know, if this were a Hebrew book, it would read from this direction. This would be its front cover.” He looked down at the hand-painted endpaper, with its gold and green swirls and flourishes. “Very pretty,” he said, touching the paper, “but very water damaged.” He pointed to the where the paper had started to come away from the edges of the binding.

  Then he peered more closely at it. “Wait a second.” He ran his fingertips over the paper. “This looks as if it’s been torn away from the edge. And there’s some sort of irregularity underneath the endpaper.”

  He took a magnifying glass and looked at the edge of the book.

  “Is it in the binding?”

  “No,” he said. “I think there’s something in here.”

  He took a tiny pair of tweezers from one of the drawers underneath the counter and with a firm gloved hand, lightly drew the torn piece of the endpaper back from the inside cover. As the paper started to come away, we saw a folded piece of parchment tucked inside the space between the endpaper and the binding.

  We looked at one another in surprise. “Get another set of tweezers,” Robert said, “and we’ll see if we can get it out.”

  I took a second set of tweezers from the drawer. As Robert held up the endpaper, I slowly, delicately, pulled the parchment from the binding. I placed it on the counter and carefully unfolded it, fearing that it would tear if I handled it too roughly. As I unfolded it, we realized there were actually two thin pages of parchment folded together.

  Robert replaced the torn end of the paper and closed the book. Together, we looked at the first piece of parchment, with its elaborate, unfaded lettering.

  “This looks like Hebrew,” I said. “Can you read it?”

  “I think so,” he said. “But it’s not Hebrew. It’s Aramaic. Hebrew was only used for holy books in the medieval period. But Hebrew and Aramaic look quite a bit alike. Let me see if I can translate.”

  He read aloud from the parchment. ‘This is the last will and testament of Daniél Solomon de Guedalia, Rabbi of the Rema Synagogue.’”

  “Does it say where this congregation was?” I asked.

  “Yes, it does,” Robert replied. “Right here,” he pointed to some letters which I could barely decipher. “Krakow, Poland.”

  I stared wordlessly at the parchment, wondering how Daniel had made out of England and into Poland.

  “Anyway,” Robert said, “to continue, it says here, ‘To my beloved daughter I leave this manuscript. This will is witnessed and inscribed by Chaim Shimon ben Aharon, sofer,’ which means ‘scribe,’ ‘in the name of Rabbi Moses ben Israel Isserles.’ It’s signed here, at the bottom, and it’s the same signature that it says above – Daniel Solomon ben David, and,” he peered more closely, “yes, it’s right here - the other rabbi’s signature. It’s dated in Hebrew as well – 17 Iyyar 5322.”

  “Oh,” I said, slightly disappointed. “It doesn’t say anything about Margaret. So I guess it doesn’t tell us much.”

  “Are you kidding?” Robert’s voice was incredulous. “This is absolutely amazing - an actual document signed by one of the most widely known Talmudic scholars of all time.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “This is from the Rema synagogue. And the Rema – that’s the acronym for Rabbi Moses Isserles – was one of the foremost Talmudic scholars of his time. This synagogue was founded sometime around 1553. But his followers lasted for a couple of hundred years – the site of his grave in the Jewish quarter of Krakow used to attract thousands of people every year on the anniversary of his death. And it looks as if he knew your bookseller – at least well enough to witness his will.”

  “Well, it did say in the manuscript that Daniel was a Talmudic scholar,” I said.

  “But Jill, you realize that even without the manuscript, that two signatures of Talmudic scholars on one document – especially one Ashkenaz and one Sephardic – how rare this is?”

  I opened up the second piece of parchment. The handwriting was sharp, familiar, and clear. I knew instinctively that it was the same hand that had written the Spanish and Hebrew notations in the manuscript. And yet, the form seemed familiar as well, and I knew all at once, it was another sonnet. But this time, it was not written by Margaret.

  Now, death is mine; for thou hast shown the way;

  Thy soul hath followed me unto mine end.

  We chose a faith no Monarch would defend –

  A higher law of love must be obeyed.

  The light doth fade upon the close of day

  And now may our entwinèd souls ascend —

  My love, my jewel, my dove, my sweetest friend

  Hath gone before me to a distant grave.

  Yet we are bound; I hath preserved thy name

  And my heart’s loyalty for time to come.

  As I hath carried forth thy noble fame

  In love which cannot ever be undone.

  Thus is my fate. Now Death awaits our song.

  Dear Margaret, thou shalt not attend me long.

  “Daniel wrote a sonnet to Margaret,” I said softly. “This one is his.”

  “What are you talking about?” Robert asked. “The poems, you mean?”

  “Yes. All through the manuscript, she wrote these magnificent sonnets, about her life, about her marriage, and about Daniel. He must have read them all. And then, at the end of his life, he wrote one for her.”

  I passed the paper to him.

  “It’s a nice poem,” Robert said diplomatically. “I’m still more interested, however, in this other document, with these signatures.” He grinned at me. “Which is not to say, of course, that the writing isn’t lovely.”

  I smiled back at him. “I hear you. But to me, this has become a love story, rather than a historical document.”

  “You curators are such softies,” he joked.

  I laughed. “You have a point, Robert. We still need to prove that this is the real thing.”

  “I think that can be done easily,” he said. “Especially since these pages are detached from the rest of the manuscript.”

  “And actually,” I said, looking down at the paper, “this parchment is in pretty good shape. This is something we might actually be able to authenticate in the lab, especially since, as you
said, it’s not bound into the rest of the manuscript. There’ll be no danger to the rest of the book.”

  He carefully turned the pages at the back of the book until he stopped, suddenly, and looked at a thick torrent of Hebraic letters on one of the pages between the end of Margaret’s story and the damaged cover.

  “Jill, did you see this?” he asked.

  “No, I said, surprised at the lettering. “I finished reading Margaret’s story and didn’t think to go further. I thought there were only blank pages.”

  “Apparently not,” he said. “But this is in Aramaic, too. I’ll translate.”

  He peered at the letters and appeared to be translating as he read. “This book contains the story of the life of my mother, who was a great scholar, and my father, a great teacher, who loved her dearly. She died as I was being born, far away, in a foreign land. After she died, my father brought me here and he taught me the Law, just as my mother’s father taught her, when she was a girl.

  “My father Daniel gave this book to me on my wedding day and so for all generations to come, this story is to be passed on to the firstborn daughter in every generation on the day of her wedding.

  “So may all of our daughters find love as sacred as the love my mother and father bore for each other, so may we all cherish and revere and protect this book, for it contains the story of our heritage, and of the great scholars who were our ancestors.

  “No matter what should happen in time to come, no matter if your future is under threat or if you are fortunate enough to live in fortunate times, the telling of this story is our family’s sacred task. Do not forsake it, for within is the story of a great love that led my father to this place where he lived and served the Holy One of Blessing, just as my mother did, and so did her father before her.”

  Robert smiled as he read the last words. “Signed Chava bat Daniel Solomon de Guedalia.”

  I had to sit on one of the stools by the counter. “Oh my God,” I said finally. “So their daughter did survive. These are her words.” And her name was Chava, too, I thought to myself, though I didn’t say it aloud. Robert looked at me. “And it sounds to me as if she didn’t know – or maybe didn’t want other people to know – that her parents weren’t married – and that her mother was a Gentile.”