The Elixir of Immortality

by Gabi Gleichmann

  IN SEPTEMBER 1656, after his excommunication by the Jewish council of Amsterdam, Bento descended the stairs of his family home with a spirit of anticipation, carrying the suitcase he had packed in haste. In the hall his mother, father, and two brothers awaited him. His father placed his hands on the young man’s shoulders and solemnly assured him that they all wished him well. His mother believed that he would be home again soon and the whole thing would be over, like a bad dream.

  His younger brother, Isak, who was chubby, nervous, and greatly troubled, threw a tantrum. He smashed a vase that stood on the windowsill and stamped his feet. He screamed that none of this was fair. He didn’t calm down even when his mother admonished him. Only when his father pinched his cheek and sharply reprimanded him did his emotion subside.

  Bento’s elder brother, Benjamin, who liked to speak in the flowery language of a poet and wrote cycles of graceful sonnets in praise of God, insisted that he would soon follow Bento, take care of him, and stand by him in his journey through life. He reminded Bento of the great thinker Maimonides, who said that exile should be regarded as a gift from Providence. The trials of banishment serve, even for those of robust constitution, as unparalled incitements to duty, courage, and daring, character traits uncommon among those who live in security, shielded from all danger.

  Bento was embarrassed as his mother’s hair brushed his cheeks and she kissed him farewell. His father wondered whether they would ever see each other again, but he said nothing. He patted his son’s head and helped him into the wagon that was waiting. And then Bento left his home in the Jewish quarter for the first time in his life. He promised his parents he would soon return, but he never did.

  THE JOURNEY to Rijnsburg was long and difficult. Bento tried to read for a few minutes but he gave up and grumbled to himself. The jolting of the wagon upset his stomach, and several times he was on the point of throwing up. Even so, he felt strangely happy, almost joyful.

  Anyone else in his situation—forced to leave behind his family, Jewish life, and his native city of Amsterdam—would have felt uneasy about the future, since in that world a homeless man was regarded as an affront and an absurdity. But Bento felt strangely liberated. Now he was free from all ties, free from the time and place of his birth, and above all he was free to think for himself.

  HE LOVED HIS LIFE in Rijnsburg, even though he lived in a cellar reeking of damp. He delivered academic lectures about God as the only necessary substance of existence. He set a rigorous course of study for himself, not only in Cartesian philosophy but in almost everything under the sun. He took daily measurements of barometric pressure and investigated water, earth, and the colors of the sky. His neighbors thought that he was out of his mind. He knew that as a freethinking spirit he would just have to get used to such attitudes.

  THE TRUTH IS that Bento didn’t want his elder brother to follow him. He’d always felt oppressed by Benjamin. He ignored Benjamin’s offer for several months. But Benjamin insisted, and eventually in a moment of weakness Bento gave in, hoping really that nothing would come of it.

  Benjamin arrived to find his brother squatting on the floor, bowed over Descartes’s Principles of Philosophy. Bento was thin, his cheeks were sunken, and he was bathed in perspiration from the summer heat. His brain was stuffed with pantheistic thoughts, but he was indifferent to the surrounding mess of unwashed mugs, plates, flatware, and ancient moldering leftovers. The air in the room was as musty as that of a Pharaoh’s burial chamber. The layer of dust on the floor showed traces of the three or four generations of rats that had gnawed the binding of the Torah to pieces and constructed three nests in the bed.

  Benjamin saw at a glance that his brother rarely had visitors, certainly none of the female variety. He was about to say something but managed to hold his tongue because he knew Bento would be terribly offended.

  The brothers were alike in many ways, but when it came to order, they were complete opposites. That was one reason that Bento had always felt a certain resentment of his elder brother.

  Benjamin was a pedantic sort, a man who needed a life of order and routine. He set to work immediately. Bento held forth on the complexities of Cartesian philosophy while Benjamin stopped up rat holes, fetched water, washed the bedclothes and hung them up to dry in the interior courtyard, scrubbed the floor, dried the walls, and arranged the books—not in alphabetical order or according to subject matter but according to size. Once he had finished his cleaning and tidying, he took a seat, heaved several deep sighs, listened to the clock in the bell tower strike eight times, and considered himself ready to begin a new life with Bento.

  DURING THE DAY the brothers were employed in a nearby workshop, polishing optical glass and lenses for binoculars. The work filled their lungs with powdered glass while putting into their pockets a modest but assured income. At night, well out of the hearing of others, they engaged in bold and thoroughly unconventional discussions about human freedom and whether one could live a just life in conditions dictated by the constraints of law.

  They were young, decisive, and free, and as allies they expected to achieve great things. But first, Benjamin suggested, they should expand their own consciousness and develop their spirituality, for only those acquainted with their own souls are capable of reasoning properly. The next step would be to inquire into the secrets of human life. Both were interested in matters of the heart, but they deliberately avoided other noble parts of the body, for they wanted to avoid the temptations of ignominious bodily lusts.

  ———

  ONE NIGHT everything became clear. A sudden insight into the most fundamental principles almost caused them to swoon. Bento tried with no success to capture their thoughts on paper. His hand shook uncontrollably with the excitement of it. Benjamin took up the pen, for he had always had an easy time expressing himself in writing.

  “God cannot be seen, experienced, or defined,” he noted. “God is present in everything but remains eternally silent and unapproachable. He has left traces in his creation for us to study and pursue.”

  The brothers were deeply grateful for the grace allotted unto them. Benjamin would sometimes burst into tears, not from sorrow but from a sense of inner joy. He felt that he had been granted the greatest happiness of any man on earth.

  CONVERSAS, THE FIRST WORK by the brothers, was the thin pamphlet in which they developed their logic and graceful style. Only a handful of copies were issued, for the printer Pieter van Driest was afraid of the ecclesiastical authorities. The church was in the habit of dispatching spies without warning and these visitatores librorum would review newly published texts. Censorship was strict, but there was a certain latitude for unconventional views, provided they were expressed with due discretion and press editions were limited. Only a few months earlier the shops of two book printers had been attacked by arsonists, so one had to be constantly on one’s guard. That was why the pamphlet bore the Latin subtitle Caute, an admonition to beware.

  Conversas was based on the discussions between the brothers, but only one author’s name appeared on the cover: Bento Spinoza.

  ———

  BENJAMIN WAS a magnanimous individual and indifferent to superficial distinctions. He demanded little of life. His primary desire was to remain close to his brother so as to support and protect him. Benjamin was gentle and well-disposed toward others, and harsh only toward himself. He sat at his desk every night. His writing instrument, a steel nib, returned frequently to the inkwell. He devoted himself with tireless invention to transcribing the philosophical studies that were winning his brother increasing recognition. He demanded nothing for himself, least of all any credit as an author. He wanted Bento to be recognized and appreciated, perhaps someday even to exact an apology from the Mahamad in Amsterdam.

  Bento’s health was delicate. The weak lungs he’d inherited from his mother had filled with the powdered glass breathed in the air of the workshop while polishing lenses. He suffered from severe shortness of breath, and his body ac
hed all over. At night he was often subject to chills and high fevers. He complained that his body seemed to be failing him and gradually falling apart. Benjamin was deeply concerned. Bento progressively lost weight and became more and more listless.

  Benjamin bathed his brother, applied herbal remedies, and rubbed pungent salves into his chest. Neither these treatments nor bloodletting were of any use; Bento’s afflictions would not go away. The brothers could not afford to pay a doctor. Benjamin had borrowed money wherever he could in order to finance the printing of the tracts published under Bento’s name. He was deeply indebted and the lenders refused to extend any further credit.

  What could they do?

  Bento resigned himself. Benjamin pondered and suddenly found a solution.

  BENJAMIN DECIDED to take a wife, more to help his brother than anything else. He wrote a beautifully phrased letter proposing matrimony to a somewhat older unmarried Sephardic woman in Rijnsburg who had inherited a fortune.

  Of course, a rich woman had no lack of suitors—but all who had appeared over the years had been scared away by her breathtaking ugliness or else were dismissed because they appeared more interested in the dowry than in the prospective bride. Every Friday evening as the other Jewish women strolled arm in arm with their husbands to the Sabbath service, Mafalda Fonseca hurried to the synagogue to ask God why he was denying her the possibility of learning about love.

  Mafalda read through Benjamin’s letter time and time again. She had never imagined that Judaeo-Spanish could have such a beautiful sound and so many splendid words. A completely unexpected flame rose within her and set her chubby cheeks ablaze. For the first time in her life Mafalda, so long infuriated by her loneliness, started seriously envisioning the many possibilities of love. She realized that it was not too late; she answered the letter the very same afternoon.

  The wedding took place a month later.

  BENJAMIN KNEW little about women. Everything that happened on his wedding night was novel to him—extremely easy and at the same time extremely difficult.

  Mafalda immediately took the initiative and maintained it throughout the night. Benjamin was relieved that the homely woman he had married was so splendid under the covers. Even so, he was baffled by the notion that another person could be so passionately interested in his body. When his droopy and previously lifeless member rose to full erection, he involuntarily recalled the prayer of blessing he regularly recited: Baruch Atah Hashem mechayei hameitim (Blessed is God who awakens the dead).

  He’d never imagined that a woman’s enjoyment of physical pleasure could be so intense as to cause her to cry out almost as if in pain. Mafalda scared him a little; still, he felt extremely lucky.

  Afterward they shared a glass of red wine.

  MAFALDA WAS IMMENSELY HAPPY that the Lord had turned his loving eyes upon her. At last she had a Jewish man of her own, and their union would be as happy as that of her parents, whose warm and affectionate relationship she had cherished in her memory throughout all the years. And she had gotten herself a learned man, too, one who was also polite and considerate. A man who with his intimacy and caresses had aroused her passion. A man who generously cast his seed into the child-producing recesses of her sex. What it came down to was the fact that all the joys of matrimony now lay within her reach.

  What more could she want from life?

  IT WASN’T LONG, however, before dark clouds gathered over the house on Singelstraat. For Benjamin did not arrive alone; he brought along his brother to their married life.

  With every passing day Mafalda found Benjamin spending more time with Bento than with her. She felt lonely and aggrieved. The brothers were caught up in lively discussions but silence was her only companion. She sorely missed their playful night games. Evening after evening she lay naked under the sheets with her heart pounding, tensely waiting in the dark for Benjamin as he sat up until long past midnight assiduously writing out proper copies of Bento’s notes. Finally she became convinced that Benjamin cared more for his brother than he did for her. Her face contorted and flushed dark red in fury, and she locked herself away in the bedroom to weep. She wept every day for three months. Jealousy poisoned her spirit.

  MAFALDA COULD NOT STAND Bento for several reasons. It wasn’t just that he was getting between her and the delights of matrimony. She found him arrogant and proud, and she couldn’t understand anything about him. At times she told herself, straight out, that the man was mad. It seemed to her that his constant lecturing about these different axioms and premises and Euclidean geometry was simply an advanced form of insanity. Sometimes he would just sit there for hours staring at the wall, completely unapproachable, lost in some mystery that he had invented for himself. She was also very put out by his loud snoring and nightly coughing fits.

  Mafalda wanted Bento out of her house. She strongly doubted that it was healthy to have him under the same roof. She could see him sucking the life force out of all those around him, especially out of Benjamin. Bento made her feel almost like a ghost.

  ———

  ONLY WITH the greatest effort was Benjamin able to control himself and hide his despair. This was exactly what he had feared most of all.

  Mafalda was not to be moved: Bento must leave the house. She was ready to do whatever it took to keep from spending one more day with her brother-in-law in the house in Singelstraat. She fell into a sudden rage. “He has to leave! He has to get out of here!” She screamed and threw an inkpot against the wall, then flung herself into bed, sobbing piteously.

  Benjamin knew it was useless to argue with Mafalda, for the tension between them had reached the breaking point. He had no choice. He was obliged to give in, no matter how painful it was. He could see that the sooner he did so, the better. But it took him great effort and strength of character to announce it to his brother.

  BENTO’S FACE FLUSHED with displeasure and he pretended to ignore Benjamin. He took out a magnifying glass, examined two flies that had lighted on the kitchen table, and discussed the value of their lives with philosophical detachment, fully in the spirit of Descartes. But it was no use. Two days later under duress he packed up what little he owned and moved to a room in the house of the painter Mesach Tydeman, an acquaintance who lived in the pastoral Voorburg outside The Hague.

  Benjamin promised Bento he would provide him with the best possible support, not only paying for his room and board but also taking notes during philosophical speculations and converting them into finished texts.

  Bento’s departure left Benjamin laden with sorrow and a very guilty conscience—as well as a number of unexpected debts and a quantity of unpaid physicians’ fees to pay. Benjamin still thought it heartless to drive Bento out of the house. His brother was too sick to live alone and his wife should have been more sympathetic. He avoided Mafalda for a while, but after several days, when she reached out to him in a gesture of reconciliation, he gladly took her hand.

  BENJAMIN SOON DISCOVERED the pleasures of life in Singelstraat without Bento. Now Mafalda was always in wonderful spirits. There was plenty of time for matrimonial pleasures and making babies. The couple had four sons, and their father educated them according to a pedagogic system of his own devising. All became learned men. The eldest, Aaron, became chief rabbi in Paris. Another was appointed to a professorship at the Sorbonne. As years went by, all of the sons and their families wound up in France.

  THE FIRST PERSON to note the brothers’ work was Abrabanel ben Israel. This is how the Encyclopaedia Judaica describes him:

  Abrabanel ben Israel (1619–1688), born Solomon des Pino-Zaah in Andalusia, also known as ABI, active in Holland, was a Sephardic scholar, Cabalist, diplomat, author, liberal rabbi, and founder of the first Jewish book-printing enterprise. He corresponded with many of the leading philosophers and crowned heads of Europe. In 1655 he visited Oliver Cromwell in London and addressed Parliament. With his brilliant rhetoric he was successful in convincing the members of the House of Lords to abrogate a law that since
1290 had forbidden Jews to reside in England. He was also a close friend of Rembrandt, who painted his portrait.

  I’ll tell you immediately who was concealed behind the name Abrabanel ben Israel: none other than Salman de Espinosa. Salman kept a close watch on his relatives in Amsterdam, just as in Spain and Portugal he had followed from a distance the lives of his children and grandchildren, as well as their children and grandchildren. He chose to appear under different names to keep his real identity a secret. He was well past three hundred years of age at that time, but because he was immortal, he had the appearance of a man in early middle age.

  I GET THINGS a little confused again whenever I get distracted by one of my stray thoughts, those little tales that pop up inside my head for a few seconds. Because I mentioned death, the subject of the Cabala has suddenly come to mind.

  I was nine years old when my great-uncle first told us about Moishe, Salman’s father, and I immediately decided—more on impulse, of course, than informed consideration—that someday I would be a Cabalist like him. I had the notion that a Cabalist was some sort of higher noble being, fearless and glowing with dignity, clad in magnificent armor as he rode forth mounted on a proud white steed. I’d probably confused the word “Cabalist” with “cavalier.”

  Several years later my brother, Sasha, and I were given a lengthy, detailed description of the professional work of a Cabalist. He calculates the numerical values of words by applying an extremely complex system, seeking mystical correspondences between our lives and the eternal truths embodied in the perpetual movements of the heavenly spheres. Naturally, all that was much more than anything I could comprehend at the time, but just hearing it still strengthened my desire to become a Cabalist.