The Library Paradox

by Catherine Shaw

  This part of the story reminded me of Grimm’s fairy tales. I remember various scenes in which evil stepmothers are asked how erring persons should be punished, only to find their precise recipes applied to their unwilling selves.

  ‘You can stop reading there,’ said David, who was peering over my shoulder, ‘that’s all the part that we celebrate today. There isn’t anything else about Esther after that.’ I glanced up at him as he spoke. He looked just a tiny fraction too hopeful.

  ‘I’m nearly at the end, I’ll finish it,’ I said firmly.

  … The king granted the Jews which were in every city to gather themselves together, and to stand for their life, to destroy, to slay, and to cause to perish, all the power of the people and province that would assault them, both little ones and women, and to take the spoil of them for a prey, upon one day in all the provinces of king Ahasuerus, namely, upon the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar … Then the Jews had light, and gladness, and joy, and honour. And in every province, and in every city, whithersoever the king’s commandment and his decree came, the Jews had joy and gladness, a feast and a good day. And many of the people of the land became Jews; for the fear of the Jews fell upon them.

  As well it might, before the fatal day had arrived. But can the Jews be blamed for a commandment which after all reveals more about the procedures of Ahasuerus than their own? And would they, after all, execute it?

  Now in the twelfth month, on the thirteenth day of the same … the Jews gathered themselves together in their cities throughout all the provinces of the king Ahasuerus, to lay hand on such as sought their hurt: and no man could withstand them; for the fear of them fell upon all people. And all the rulers of the provinces, and the lieutenants, and the deputies, and officers of the king helped the Jews; because the fear of Mordecai fell upon them … Thus the Jews smote all their enemies with the stroke of the sword, and slaughter, and destruction, and did what they would unto those that hated them. And they kept the fourteenth day of the month Adar, and the fifteenth day of the same, yearly, as the days wherein the Jews rested from their enemies, and the month which was turned unto them from sorrow to joy, and from mourning into a good day … Wherefore they called these days Purim, after the name of Pur, that is, the lot that had been cast to consume them and destroy them …

  ‘These things always seem to end with a triumphal slaughter on one side or the other,’ admitted David sadly.

  ‘It does alter one’s perception of the Jews as a victimised people,’ I said, remembering that Professor Taylor had once made the same remark. ‘After all, he who laughs last laughs best.’

  ‘Yet they – we – we are, we always have been a victimised people,’ he exclaimed passionately. ‘I don’t say this out of pride, I wish to God that it weren’t true. But the Bible tales that end this way do not disprove it; they are merely signs of a desperate optimism, the hope for triumph and survival, in the language of the time. The status of victim has no value for us – it has no value at all in our Bible. It was your Christ who created that notion: that the victim is to be honoured, that the last shall be first. We don’t have that notion to comfort ourselves in our misery. We have only constantly shattered dreams of victory and triumph over our oppressors. But there have been no such triumphs in living memory, and in much, much longer than that. Only the persecutions, the Inquisitions, the pogroms – and these ancient, legendary memories.’

  There was no possible answer to this: he spoke the simple truth. I rolled up the scroll to the beginning and tied it with its ribbon, thinking about Esther, imagining the struggle between her fear before the king and her fear for her people. I forgot altogether where I was, and jumped at the sound of the rickety door being pushed vigorously open.

  ‘Look at all that I’ve brought!’ rang out Rivka’s youthful voice, as she made her reappearance, her arms loaded with a big bundle of old garments in the middle of which nestled the baby, who was twisting a mass of gold-tinted tulle happily in his fat little hands.

  ‘I got some things for myself as well,’ she added. ‘And Sheyne said we can leave the babies with her when we go out. She won’t leave the house today.’

  She laid her finds out upon the table. David immediately pounced upon a long, somewhat tattered black velvet dress of a loose and flowing cut.

  ‘She can’t go there with this rip,’ observed Rivka. ‘I’ll sew it up.’

  ‘Sew it up as best you can, and she can wear a shawl or something over it.’

  ‘I’ll lend you my silk one, and we’ll cover your hair with something pretty. Then you put this veil over everything; I took it on purpose. Eliel is quite attached to it, dear me, I do hope he’ll allow us to have it back.’

  She tugged gently, but the baby tugged harder and looked stubborn.

  ‘Leave it,’ I laughed. ‘It’s too early, anyway. He’ll forget all about it later on.’

  ‘Yes, if only he doesn’t tear it. Sheyne wouldn’t like that; I’ll need to give the things back this evening,’ she replied, eyeing the little tot suspiciously. But he showed no sign of tearing the veil, contenting himself with turning it and plucking at it delicately, and examining it with deep concentration for all the world like a tiny scientist.

  Young Ephraim joined us for a convivial midday meal, during which I continued to ruminate over the best way to present my story, wondering if the whole thing were not completely absurd and unrealistic, and how on earth I seemed to continually find myself in such theatrical situations, something which had never happened to me in any of my previous cases.

  ‘David,’ I asked suddenly. ‘If I manage to explain the whole situation to the rabbi so that he understands it, how do you think he will actually answer me?’

  ‘It depends on what you ask him,’ he said. ‘I hope that he will give you an answer of some kind, but it may not be easy to understand. Rebbes speak in hints and parables. I wish I could tell you that he would just describe exactly what he saw in the library that day, but it is very unlikely to be so simple, especially before other people. In fact, I don’t advise you to ask him openly about the library or what he was doing there on that day. Remember how his absence was turned into a myth. Whatever he may say to you, no matter how mysterious and irrelevant it may sound to you, don’t dismiss it, study it. One thing is certain: he will not fob you off with an empty response.’

  After lunch, Rivka and I donned our gowns and drapes, and the four of us sauntered out into the street together, the babies in tow. I felt peculiar and slightly foolish, but put a good face on it, and quite soon forgot all about looking strange, as the streets were altogether full of people in all manner of disguises.

  Children rushed about making tremendous rackets with wooden noisemakers, which they shook violently as they ran. Musicians passed with tambourines and flutes, and stopped in little groups to play melodies under windows or in open doorways. The weather was balmy and everyone was in a festive mood. Smells of delicious baking wafted from the kitchens. These smells, and their sources, a multitude of warm little baked pastries, were of particular efficaciousness in convincing Rivka’s two little boys to remain with the lady called Sheyne.

  ‘We needn’t be in any hurry,’ remarked David, ‘let’s take a roundabout way to the rebbe’s house, and see what’s happening in the streets.’

  I was anxious to arrive at the rabbi’s house, but on the other hand, I wanted to blend in as well as possible with the typical behaviour on this special day, so I moved along with them, without saying anything, keeping my eyes open and watching everything about me.

  I was by no means the only Esther upon the streets; I saw several others, garbed in varying degrees of finery, some of whom were obviously men. Each time two Esthers encountered each other, salutations were exchanged. We were surrounded on all sides by kings and queens, prime ministers, executioners, and evil Hamans with weird masks and three-cornered hats. Groups acted out the famous scenes on some of the street corners, or entered people’s houses
in order to give their tiny play; individuals strolled about, carrying harmonicas or accordions, and stopped to tell their stories in a sing-song voice, accompanying themselves with tunes. All were surrounded by groups of children, who at regular intervals burst unanimously into shrieks and vigorous agitation of their rattles and noisemakers.

  ‘They do it to cover the name of Haman every time it is pronounced,’ David explained to me as we passed a storyteller whose voice was drowned by a particularly loud commotion. ‘The children know exactly when his name is about to occur, and they make the racket just in time to pretend not to hear it.’

  ‘And were they really not to hear it, all the pleasure would be gone,’ I laughed.

  Upon this one day, it seemed as though all the weariness and misery, the grey mud, the dirty tenements and their penniless and ragged denizens had completely disappeared, to be replaced by gaiety and music and even, astonishingly, pale rays of sunshine.

  ‘Purim is our happiest festival,’ observed Rivka. ‘Even as children, we loved it best of any. I expect I shouldn’t say this, but it contains less prayer than most of the other festivals.’

  ‘Nem a Hummentaschen,’ said a woman near us, wearing a flour-bedaubed apron and holding out a large tray loaded with the same little triangular pastries that had so charmed Samuel and Eliel. I took one and bit into it, smiling my thanks from under my gold-tinted veil. It was stuffed with poppy seeds. The lady smiled back, and for the first time, a little feeling of rightness and belonging crept over me, and I stopped cringing inwardly like a usurper about to be discovered and deposed.

  ‘They’re called Hummentaschen, Haman’s pockets,’ said Rivka. ‘But they’re supposed to be shaped like his hat.’

  ‘What is that man doing?’ I asked curiously, as we moved on. He was giving a remarkable performance of tumbling, with rapid series of somersaults and cartwheels, and stopping between them to entertain the usual motley group of eager children with bursts of speech.

  ‘He’s telling some story or other,’ said David, stopping to listen for a moment. ‘Obviously this one is not about Esther. Anything goes on a day like this.’ He glanced at me significantly. ‘That’s why I think our plan may work.’

  We came, eventually, to the rabbi’s home on Brick Lane, just around the corner from the little shul outside which we had waited for him three days ago. Like most of the others up and down the street, the door was flung wide and people were running in and out. Besides the tight, severe group of black-clad, earlock-wearing disciples, who were massed inside the room, I perceived several other guests, many of which were children in gales of laughter over some skit played by a couple of actors. Through the door, I was able to perceive the rabbi himself, enthroned in a large armchair, listening to the actors with benevolence, although without laughing.

  David stepped inside, and then beckoned to us. ‘The women are in there,’ he said softly, gesturing towards the far end of the room, where a curtain divided off a portion of the large room from the rest. Ephraim joined the other children immediately. David stationed himself near the wall, among a group of other listeners, and Rivka and I slipped across the room and entered the women’s section. It was here that the women of the household and their many visitors congregated to enjoy the festival. The segregation was not complete; groups of young people in disguise moved in and out; whole groups disguised as the characters in the story circulated together, singing or chanting and playing instruments. The younger boys and girls dashed about freely in all parts of the room.

  After some time during which we watched the mummers in the main part of the room through gaps in the curtain, Rivka led me away from the curtain towards the farther wall, where there was a large table upon which lay several tattered Esther scrolls and prayer books written in Hebrew for the use of the women visitors, who were taking them up and putting them down constantly, as they entered the room or left it to go into the inner portions of the house or capture a stray child.

  ‘There are players all the time,’ she said, fingering the books absently. ‘How will you get a chance to intervene?’

  ‘I’ll wait. There will be a gap at some point, surely,’ I said. ‘I think we are too early. People must begin going home at a certain point.’ Seeing that some of the women were watching us, I picked up a prayer book as well.

  ‘That is a beautiful one,’ said Rivka, taking the well-worn little volume of blue leather embossed with gold letters from me. ‘I wish I had one like it. You can see that it has lived.’ She riffled through it gently, but her gesture caught the eye of a lady who had been in the room the entire time, checking on an impressive brood of noisy little ones, dragging them back from the front part of the room when they became too rowdy, giving them cakes when they whined, and otherwise taking on the responsibility of keeping the festival cheerful and lively. She seemed to be of the household, and this idea was confirmed as I saw her turn towards Rivka and reach out to take the prayer book from her, not rudely, but with a few quiet words. Stammering an apology, Rivka reacted too quickly, letting go of the book before the other woman had grasped it, so that it fell to the floor. Unexpectedly, an old photograph slipped from between the pages and lay face up on the ground, where the three of us stood staring down at it in surprise.

  The picture showed a vigorous couple in the prime of life, of which the man was clearly recognisable to me as the rabbi himself, although he was much younger, probably in his middle thirties. Between them stood a group of four children. The tallest one was a girl of about sixteen; a medium-sized boy was on her left and a smaller one on her right, and she held a little girl of about three in her arms. With her pale colouring and fair hair, her strangely slender, dreamy face, she stood out in the photograph almost like a being of another world. It was difficult to concentrate on any face but hers. I stared at her, fascinated. It seemed to me that she reminded me strongly of someone; another face I had seen somewhere, that had that slender line, that strange fixed gaze.

  The woman who had spoken to Rivka, a heavy, dark and somewhat worn-out looking creature between forty and fifty years of age, looked more surprised than any of us; bending down, she retrieved the picture and held it to her face, inspecting it closely.

  ‘That is the rabbi,’ I said in English, identifying him with a forefinger, and hoping she would not take the gesture as offensive prying. She nodded in answer.

  ‘Die kleyne bin ich,’ she added, planting her own finger on the littlest child, who wore her hair in a dark cask framing her heart-shaped face.

  ‘She says that the little one is herself,’ Rivka translated. ‘The prayer book is her mother’s. We shouldn’t have touched it. No one uses it but her mother. We ought to put it back,’ she added, picking it up from where it lay at her feet.

  ‘These are your brothers and sisters?’ I asked the lady, reluctant to interrupt what appeared to be a moment of discovery.

  ‘Yes,’ she answered in hesitant, broken English. ‘Two brothers; here.’ She pointed vaguely towards the outer room, then, turning towards Rivka, she suddenly burst into a short speech in Yiddish, as though she wished to disburden herself of an anxiety which was exerting some irresistible inner pressure upon her. Several times I caught the word schwester, like the German word for sister, and I waited impatiently for Rivka to provide me with a translation.

  Suddenly she started and stopped speaking. Rivka also looked up guiltily.

  ‘The rebbetzin!’ she said.

  The shadow of the elderly rabbi’s wife fell upon us as she approached. At the sight of the book and the picture, a look of fear came over her features. Snatching both with a word of anxious reproach, she thrust the picture out of sight and hurried out of the room, looking badly upset. Her daughter followed her hastily.

  ‘What was she telling you?’ I asked Rivka quickly.

  ‘She said she had never seen a picture of her eldest sister before, that she hardly remembers her; she has only a few memories of her up till the time she was about five years old. Then
her sister seems to have disappeared. She told me that if it were not for the fact that her two older brothers have much more precise memories than hers, she would hardly be convinced that the beautiful princess she remembers admiring really existed elsewhere than in her dreams. The parents never, ever mentioned the girl after her disappearance; not even one single time, and this lady never dared ask them. She did talk about it with her brothers, but more and more rarely; it seems to have ended up turning into some kind of dread family secret. She seemed deeply moved that her mother had kept a picture of the lost daughter for all these years, even though she never spoke of her.’

  ‘Perhaps the girl died suddenly, and the parents could not bear to think about it,’ I said.

  ‘That is impossible. There are burial and mourning ceremonies and prayers for a dead child. And it is a mitzvah, a good deed, to recall her memory lovingly.’

  ‘But then what could possibly have happened, to make parents behave that way?’ I mused.

  She hesitated. ‘It’s not easy to imagine what a girl can have done to deserve such treatment. But … there is something like that in a book I read, a novel in Yiddish which is much loved by the people here,’ she said. ‘It is a story by Sholem Aleykhem, and it tells about a poor milkman with many daughters, and each of them gets married, one by one.’

  ‘A Yiddish version of Pride and Prejudice,’ I observed.

  ‘In a way,’ she responded, smiling. ‘But so different! Every marriage contains a heartbreak. And the father ends up treating one of his daughters exactly like the rebbe and his wife. He says: once and for all, she doesn’t exist any longer.’