by Anne Rice
If Godwin had been born a Jew, he would have been a twin to Meir. But I’m talking nonsensically, for Godwin is the sum of many amazing currents as I’ve explained. Godwin enters a room as if a collection of people have just taken it by storm. Meir appears quietly and with a silken manner. They are alike and not alike at all.
My father consented at once that I might marry Meir, and that, yes, he would go to Norwich, where we knew the Jewish community was very prosperous and where there had been peace for some time. After all, the horrid accusations that Jews had killed Little St. William were almost a hundred years old. And yes, people went to the shrine, and looked on us with fear in their fervor, but we had many friends among the Gentiles and old injuries and slights sometimes do lose their sting.
But was I to enter into marriage with Meir and not tell him the truth? Was I to let such a secret lie between us, that my daughters had a living father?
We could not seek the advice of anyone, or so my father thought, and he brooded over the matter, not wanting me to proceed unless somehow this problem could be solved.
So what do you think I did? Without telling my father, I turned for counsel to the one man in all the world whom I most trusted and loved, and that was Godwin. To Godwin, who had become a living saint amongst his brothers in Paris, and a great scholar of the science of God, I wrote and put the question.
And writing the letter in Hebrew as I did so often, I told him the whole story.
“Your daughters are beautiful in mind and heart and body,” I told him, “but they believe themselves to be the children of a dead father, and the secret has been so well kept that Meir, who has proposed marriage to me, does not dream of the truth.
“Now I put it to you, you who are now well beyond the point where the birth of these children would cause you misery or worry, just as I assure you that these precious girls receive every blessing that they can, what should I do as to Meir’s proposal? Can I become this man’s wife without giving him a full account?
“How can one keep such a secret from a man who brings to the marriage nothing but tenderness and kindness? And now that you know, what is it that you, in your heart of hearts, want for your daughters? And accuse me now if you will, of failing to tell you that these peerless young women are your girls. Accuse me now before I enter into marriage with this man.
“I have told you the truth, and feel some great selfish relief in it, I must confess, but also a selfless joy. Should I tell my daughters the truth when they are of age, and what do I do with this good man, Meir, now?”
I implored him that this not be a shock to him, but that he give me his most pious advice on what I should do. “It is to Br. Godwin that I write,” I told him, “the brother who has given himself to God. It is on him that I depend for an answer that is both loving and wise.” I also told him that I had meant to deceive him, but could never resolve whether I had protected him or done him wrong.
I don’t remember what else I wrote. Perhaps I told him how quick of wit were the two girls, and how well they had progressed in their own studies. I certainly told him that Lea was the quieter one, and Rosa had always something clever and amusing to say. I told him that Lea disdained all things of the world as not important, whereas Rosa could not have too many dresses, or too many veils.
I told him Lea was devoted to me, and clung to me, whereas Rosa peered out the window at the goings-on in Oxford or London whenever she was confined at home.
I told him that he was represented in all ways in both his daughters, in Lea’s piety and discipline, and in Rosa’s irrepressible gaiety and ready laugh. I told him that the girls had much property from their legal father, and that they would inherit from my father as well.
Now as I sent the letter off I feared that if I had angered or disappointed Godwin, I might have lost him forever. Though I no longer loved him as I had in my youth, as I no longer dreamed of him as a man, I loved him with all my heart and my heart was in every letter I wrote to him.
Well, what do you think happened?
I had to confess I had no idea what had happened, and there was so much running through my mind that it was with a great effort that I let Fluria go on. She had spoken of losing both her children. She was filled with emotion as she talked with me. And a great deal of this emotion had taken hold of me as well.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Fluria Continues Her Story
IN TWO WEEKS, GODWIN CAME TO OXFORD AND APPEARED at the door of our house.
He wasn’t the Godwin, naturally enough, I had once known. He had lost the sharp edge of youth, the inveterate recklessness, and something infinitely more radiant had replaced it. He was the man I knew from our letters. He was mild when he spoke and gentle, yet filled with an inner passion that was difficult for him to restrain.
I admitted him, without telling my father, and at once brought in the two girls.
It seemed I had no choice now but to let them know that this man was in fact their father, and gently, kindly, this is what Godwin begged me to do.
“You’ve done no wrong, Fluria,” he said to me. “You’ve borne a burden all these years that I should have shared. I left you with child. I didn’t even think on the matter. And now let me see my daughters, I beg you. You have nothing to fear from me.”
I brought the girls in to meet him. This was less than a year ago, and the girls were thirteen.
I felt an immense and joyful pride when I presented them, because they had become beauties without question, and they had inherited the radiant and happy expression of their father.
In a quavering voice, I explained to them that this man was in fact their father, and that he was the Br. Godwin to whom I wrote so regularly, and that up until these past two weeks, he had not known of their existence, but wanted only to lay eyes on them now.
Lea was shocked, but Rosa smiled immediately at Godwin. And in her usual irrepressible manner, declared that she had always known some secret surrounded their birth, and she was happy to lay eyes on the man who was her father. “Mother,” she said. “This is a joyful time.”
Godwin was stricken with tears.
He approached his daughters with loving hands, which he laid on both their heads. And then he sat weeping, overwhelmed, looking again and again at both of his daughters as they stood there, and giving way over and over to soundless sobs.
When my father realized he was in the house, when the elder servants told him that Godwin knew now about his daughters and they knew about him, my father came down and into the room and threatened to kill Godwin with his bare hands.
“Oh, but you are blessed that I’m blind, and can’t find you! Lea and Rosa, I charge you, take me directly to this man.”
Neither of the girls knew what to do, and I stepped at once between my father and Godwin, and begged my father to be calm.
“How dare you come here on this errand!” my father demanded. “Your letters I’ve tolerated and even from time to time I’ve written to you. But now, knowing the extent of your betrayal, I ask how dare you be so bold as to come under my roof?”
As for me, he had equally harsh language. “You told this man these things without my consent. And what have you told Lea and Rosa? What do these children actually know?”
At once Rosa tried to calm him. “Grandfather,” she said, “we have always sensed that some mystery surrounded us. We’ve asked in vain many times for the writings of our supposed father, or some keepsake by which we could remember him, but nothing ever came of this, except our mother’s obvious confusion and pain. Now we know that this man is our father, and we can’t help but be happy on account of it. He’s a great scholar, Grandfather, and we have heard mention of his name all our lives.”
She tried to embrace my father, but he pushed her away.
Oh, it was dreadful to see him this way, staring blindly before him, clutching his walking stick, yet without his bearings, feeling now that he was alone amongst enemies of his own flesh and blood.
I began to c
ry and couldn’t think of what to say.
“These are daughters of a Jewish mother,” my father said, “and these are Jewish women who will be someday the mothers of sons who are Jews, and you will have nothing to do with them. They are not of your faith. And you must leave here. Don’t tell me stories of your high sanctity and fame in Paris. I have heard enough of this many a time. I know who you really are, the man who betrayed my trust and my house. Go preach to the Gentiles who accept you as the reformed sinner. I accept no confession of guilt from you. If you don’t visit a woman every night of your life in Paris, I stand to be surprised. Get out!”
You don’t know my father. You can’t know the heat of his wrath. I barely touch on the eloquence he used to flog Godwin. And all this in the presence of the girls who were staring from me to their grandfather, and then to the Black Friar who went down on his knees and said:
“What can I do but beg your forgiveness?”
“Come close enough,” said my father, “and I will beat you with all my strength for what you’ve done in my house.”
Godwin merely stood up, bowed to my father, and giving me a tender glance, and looking back on his daughters sorrowfully, made to leave the house.
Rosa stopped him, and indeed threw her arms around him, and he held her with his eyes closed for a long moment—things my father couldn’t see or know. Lea stood stock-still, weeping, and then ran from the room.
“Get out of my house,” roared my father. And Godwin obeyed at once.
I was in dreadful fear as to what he was doing or where he had gone, and now there seemed to me to be nothing to do but to confess to Meir the whole tale.
Meir came that night. He was agitated. He’d been told there had been a quarrel under our roof and that a Black Friar had been seen leaving and the man had been in great distress.
I shut myself up with Meir in my father’s study and told him the truth. I told him I didn’t know what was to happen. Had Godwin gone back to Paris, or was he still in Oxford or London? I had no idea.
Meir looked at me for a long time with his soft and loving eyes. Then he surprised me completely. “Beautiful Fluria,” he said, “I’ve always known the girls were your daughters by a young lover. Do you think there are those in the Jewry who do not remember your affection for Godwin, and the tale of his break with your father many years ago? They don’t say anything outright, but everyone knows. Calm yourself on this account, insofar as it concerns me. What faces you now is not my defection, surely, for I love you as much today as I did yesterday and the day before that. What faces us all is what Godwin means to do.”
He went on speaking to me in the calmest manner.
“Grave consequences can await a priest or brother accused of having children by a Jewish woman. You know this. And grave consequences can await a Jewess who confesses that her children are daughters of a Christian man. The law forbids such things. The Crown is anxious for the property of those who violate it. It is impossible to see how anything can be done here, except that the secret be kept.”
Indeed, he was right. It was the old stalemate, which I had faced when Godwin and I had first loved each other, and Godwin had been sent away. Both sides had reason to keep the secret. And surely, my girls, clever as they were, understood this very well.
Immediately Meir had produced a calm in me that wasn’t too different from the serenity I often felt when I read Godwin’s letters, and in this moment of remarkable intimacy, because it was very truly that, I saw the meekness and innate kindness of Meir more clearly than before.
“We must wait to see what Godwin will do,” he repeated. “In truth, Fluria, I saw this friar leave your house, and he seemed a humble and gentle man. I was watching, because I didn’t want to come in if your father was in this study with him. And so I happened to see him very clearly as he came out. His face was white and drawn, and he seemed to carry an immense burden on his soul.”
“Now you carry it too, Meir,” I said.
“No, I carry no burden. I only hope and pray that Godwin will not seek to take his daughters from you, for that would be a horrid and terrible thing.”
“How can a friar take his daughters from me?” I asked.
But just as I asked this question, there came a loud knocking, and the maidservant, my beloved Amelot, came to tell me that Earl Nigel, son of Arthur, was here with his brother the friar, Br. Godwin, and that she had shown them in and made them comfortable in the best room of the house.
I rose to go, but before I could, Meir rose beside me and took my hand. “I love you, Fluria, and want you for my wife. Remember this, and I knew this secret without anyone having to tell me. I even knew that the old Earl’s youngest son was the likely man. Believe in me, Fluria, that I can love you unstintingly, and if you do not want to give me your answer now as to my proposal, things being as they are, be assured that I wait patiently for you to decide whether we will be married or not.”
Well, I had never heard Meir put that many words together in my presence, or even in my father’s. And I felt greatly comforted by this, but in total terror of what awaited me in the front rooms.
Forgive me that I cry. Forgive me that I can’t help it. Forgive me that I can’t forget Lea, not now as I recount these things.
Forgive me that I weep for Rosa as well.
O Lord, hear my prayer,
listen to my cry for mercy;
in your faithfulness and righteousness
come to my relief.
Do not bring your servant into judgment
for no one living is righteous before you.
You know this psalm as well as I do. It is my constant prayer.
I went in to greet the young Earl who had inherited the title from his father. Nigel, too, I had known as one of my father’s students. He looked troubled but not angry. And when I turned my gaze on Godwin I was once again astonished by the gentleness and quiet that seemed to surround him, as though he were present, yes, and vibrantly so, but in another world as well.
Both men greeted me with all the respect they might have shown a Gentile woman, and I urged them to be seated and take some wine.
My soul was quaking. What could the presence of the young Earl mean?
My father entered and demanded to know who was in his house. I begged the maid to go to Meir and ask him to come in with us, and then, my voice unsteady, I told my father that the Earl was here with his brother, Godwin, and that I had invited them to take some wine.
As Meir came in and stood beside my father, I told all the servants, and the whole body of them had come in to wait on the Earl, to please go out.
“Very well, Godwin,” I said. “What have you to say to me?” I tried not to cry.
If the people of Oxford knew that two Gentile children had been brought up as Jews, might they not try to harm us? Might there not be some law under which we could in fact be executed? I didn’t know.
There were so many laws against us, but then these children were not the legal children of their Christian father.
And would a friar such as Godwin want the disgrace of having his paternity known to everyone? Godwin, so beloved by his students, could not possibly wish for such a thing.
But the power of the Earl was considerable. He was one of the richest in the realm, and had the most power in resisting the Archbishop of Canterbury whenever he chose, and also the King. Something terrible might be done now in whispers and without a public display.
As I considered these things, I tried not to look at Godwin, because I felt only a pure and elevated love when I looked at him, and the worried expression on the face of his brother caused me fear and pain.
I felt again that this was a stalemate. I was gazing at a chessboard on which two figures faced each other, and neither had an opening for a good move.
Don’t think me hard at such a moment for calculating. I saw myself as to blame for everything that was now taking place. Even the quiet and pensive Meir was now on my conscience as he had asked for my
hand.
Yet I calculated as if I were doing sums. If exposed we will be condemned. But claim them and Godwin faces disgrace.
What if my girls were taken from me, and theirs was to be a life of unendurable captivity in the Earl’s castle? This is what I dreaded above all else.
All my deception had been through silence, and now I knew that the chess pieces faced each other and I waited for the reach of the hand.
My father, though offered a chair, remained standing, and he asked Meir if he would take the lamp and light the face of both the men who stood opposite him. Meir was loath to do this, and I knew it, and so I did it, begging the Earl’s pardon, and the man only gestured his acceptance and looked directly beyond the flame.
My father sighed and gestured for a chair and then sat down. He put his hands on top of his walking stick.
“I don’t care who you are,” he said. “I despise you. Trouble my house, and you inherit the wind.”
Godwin drew himself up and came forward. My father, hearing his footsteps, raised his walking stick as if to push him back, and Godwin stopped in the center of the room.
Oh, this was agony, but then Godwin, the preacher, the man who moved crowds in the squares of Paris, and in the lecture halls, began to speak. His Norman French was perfect, and of course so was my father’s and so is mine as you can hear.
“The fruit of my sins,” he said, “is now before me. I see what my selfish acts have wrought. I see now that what I so thoughtlessly did has had grave consequences for others, and that they have accepted these consequences with generosity and grace.”
I was deeply moved by this, but my father indicated his impatience.
