The Elixir of Immortality

by Gabi Gleichmann

  THE SPINOZA FAMILY resided at the Hotel Savoy. They leafed through the newspapers at the breakfast table, but Chiara and Jakob had more important matters to consider than all those articles in the Vienna press about the plans of Kaiser Franz Josef and his new bride, Elisabeth, or “Sissi,” as she was called, to take a second honeymoon trip. This time they were going to Corfu, since the empress was quite interested in Homer’s epic about Odysseus, particularly in the stanzas describing the wandering hero’s shipwreck on the shores of that island.

  Chiara and Jakob were preoccupied by arrangements to travel southward across snow-covered Burgenland within a couple of days. Prince Rudolf Biederstern awaited them there with new challenges.

  TIME STOOD STILL at Biederhof. The people who worked on the estate—cooks and servants, washerwomen and housemaids, seamstresses and wet nurses, cleaning women and kitchen maids, foresters and gardeners, stablemen and sawmill workers, artisans and coachmen, journeymen and apprentices—were all natives of the region. Their fathers and mothers had served the Biederstern family for generations and they’d never known any other life. Those who were in the service of the prince knew they would always have work and their wages were assured. If one of them lay ill at home, he could count on a visit from the princess to deliver wine, bread, and fortifying broth, even though she had to take the trouble to lift her long skirts above the mud outside and chase away pigs rooting for scraps. And when someone lay on his deathbed, he could close his eyes in peace, knowing his children’s future was assured.

  The unchanging rhythm of the seasons and years had knit links of common interest, goodwill, and sympathy between the noble family and its servants. Every Sunday they prayed together in the church, where each family sat in its designated place, and during Holy Week they took part in the procession, walking in order of precedence along a path strewn with flower petals. In summer ample quantities of fruits and vegetables not reserved for the castle pantries were distributed among the folk on the estate. The autumn gathering of the grapes was always a festive time when both the great and the humble trod the grapes. Later that season came the annual hunt for boars, stags, deer, fox, and pheasants—a time for dinner conversations over venison steaks for the privileged in the castle and a time in other abodes for platters heaped with the giblets and sweetbreads provided to families living on the estate. The season just before Christmas was filled with the squeals of hogs being slaughtered and the fragrance of ham.

  Biederhof operated as one large family. Each had his place and knew who he was. They all knew one another and knew that they comprised parts of a greater whole.

  No one from the outside had come to Biederhof seeking work for as long as anyone could remember. Jakob Spinoza was the first, and his appointment as the estate manager caused a great stir.

  EVERYONE LIVING on the estate except for Prince Rudolf and his mother, Clementina, had been summoned to stand before the castle that cold winter day when Jakob arrived with his family. Many faces had openly curious expressions as the crowd watched them descend from the carriage. Many stood on tiptoe to get a better view. The previous day the master of the castle had ordered wine to be served and had announced that a manager would be arriving along with his wife and three children. But no one had expected him to bring an old lady as well. She was the most remarkable creature anyone had seen in quite a long time, dressed like a man and with her gray hair cut almost to a stubble. Nor had anyone been expecting Jakob to address them with a short formal speech of greeting. He introduced himself, his wife, Eleonora, and the children, but even before that he told them that the elderly woman was his paternal grandmother—and therefore not his mother, as some of them had supposed. But the greatest surprise came when he told them without a flicker of hesitation that he was a Jew, a fact that Rudolf had forgotten to mention. The mixture of pride and humility in his voice did not escape anyone as he added, “I hope no one will see this as an obstacle to our ability to accomplish our mutual goals.”

  At the sight of Jakob’s enormous nose, the workers felt somewhat uncomfortable. Granted, he wasn’t one of those despicable peddlers, Jews with backs bent beneath life’s heavy burdens, clad in worn black robes and wearing skullcaps, with dangling earlocks and heavy Eastern European accents, who sometimes turned up by mistake in that region where circumcised men were as rare as sea monsters, and then tried to beguile honest folk into buying worthless trash. Jakob’s clothing, his eloquent manner of speaking, and his air of confidence showed that he was a gentleman from the city. Those qualities commanded respect. No one in the castle yard dared even to think of whispering any denigrating words about him.

  But he was a Jew, a strange and alien creature.

  Rudolf had stressed that it was the duty of one and all to carry out the instructions of the manager and comply with even his slightest wish. Ordinarily, this would not have been a problem, since they were used to unquestioning obedience and respected the authority of the prince. But for most of the population of the estate—simple men and women whose concept of the people of Moses was defined by Catholic imagery of the Jews—it was unthinkable to regard a Christ-killer as an equal. And perish the thought of taking orders from a Jew. The very idea was repugnant. And humiliating.

  THE FIRST ENCOUNTER with the master of the castle didn’t turn out exactly as the new arrivals had hoped, even though it began well. Rudolf received them in his study and welcomed them, his eyes shining with pleased expectation. He clapped Jakob on the shoulder with surprising warmth and said, “The gentleman succeeded magnificently in Regensburg. And he’ll do the same here, won’t he?”

  He invited them to accompany him to one of the smaller dining rooms for a light meal and refreshments. After a welcoming toast with the estate’s excellent Riesling, the company sat down around the table. Eleonora had on her knee the tiny Claudia, not yet weaned. A serving maid had taken the two boys, Bernhard and Nikolaus, off to the kitchen.

  Two servants carried in an enormous silver platter filled with sausages, pork pâté, and slices of baked ham elegantly arranged around a large sow’s head.

  “This garlic wurst is assuredly the best-tasting sausage anywhere in all of Burgenland,” Rudolf boasted. He told them that several hogs had just been slaughtered and the fresh sausages were prepared according to the time-honored recipe that plump old Mathilda had brought to Biederhof. Moreover, he added, the childless cook was like a mother to him. In fact, he actually adored her more than his own mother. He proposed a toast to her.

  A painful silence ensued, for although the guests were not particularly devout, none of them ate pork. Jakob made an effort to explain why they preferred not to partake of the food placed before them.

  Rudolf stared at him with an expression that made it obvious he was completely unable to understand how anyone could turn down Mathilda’s wurst. His nostrils quivered at the scent of something here that he could not quite identify. All of this made him nervous. He refilled his wineglass and downed the contents with a single long swig. He served himself more and emptied the glass again just as quickly. He collected himself. He began to talk about the history of his family in an effort to smooth over the awkward situation. He recounted how his ancient forefathers, full of burning passion and pride, with swords in hand and Austria in their hearts, had accomplished great deeds for the emperor. They adored the emperor. God bless him. Of course. No one was more devoted to the church than the Biedersterns. Even if he himself was perhaps a bit lacking in deference for those seated on the thrones of heaven and of Austria. He drank more wine and compared the family’s epic past with the menacing present. He complained of his exile from Vienna. He did not miss the music, the arts, the theater, or the poetry reading. No, not at all. Nor did he miss society life, all those arrogant fools who went around and around in the salons, noses stuck up in the air and exchanging idiotic remarks with one another. What he yearned for was the city itself. Sometimes this stultifying country life got on his nerves. He drank some more. He made malicious co
mments about Ferdinand, the previous emperor, that wretch who destroyed his marriage, and then he poured himself even more wine. He told them he had married for a cause that no one in his family had ever experienced: true love. That was why the family found it so hard to understand him. And for that same reason the nobility in Vienna had spread shameless slanders of him. He drank even more wine, and his speech became slurred. With tears in his eyes, he told them that his wife was a fabulously beautiful woman, but not the deferential type to sit home with her embroidery. She was a whore. She went to bed with anyone. He’d met her in Vienna’s leading brothel, where she was the star attraction. He gave her his heart and his untarnished family name, but she had deceived him left and right. He, who had been swept away to love by dreams of fidelity. But no love is proof against the risk of loss, he proclaimed, and he dumped yet another glass of wine down his gullet. Then he rose from his chair, poured more wine, and raised his glass. He was about to proclaim a toast to the defunct wife whom he still adored, but he passed out instead, fell straight forward, and sprawled full length upon the table, his face a few inches from the sow’s head, as if he wanted to kiss its snout.

  “Pfui, what a disgusting man,” Chiara said, appalled that Rudolf had such scant control of his own conduct and manners. Her face was pale beneath its powder, and she repeated her comment in disgust as she left the room. “Ugh. He is a despicable man.”

  IN HER LATE AGE Chiara began to write her memoirs. She was eighty years old. Other than the meager correspondence with her sister, Allegra, she hadn’t written a thing since her novel half a century earlier. She had made several attempts but each time found herself dissatisfied and at a dead end. She never again managed to recapture those lovely cadences of the language or the exhilarating and fantastical images of poetry. The pleasure of writing and the desire to create were gone. At last she gave up, afraid of failure.

  In her memoirs she writes that it was a great relief for her to encounter Clementina a few hours after their arrival at Biederhof. Rudolf had made an atrocious impression and was certainly no bella figura, and Chiara’s first impulse was to abandon the castle. But Jakob would not permit it, although he acknowledged that the prince’s behavior, hardly appropriate to his status and his birth, had for a short time led him to contemplate the same course of action. He asked her to overcome her distaste and try to put up with circumstances.

  Clementina’s joyous, beaming face was a healthy contrast to Rudolf’s. The princess made no secret of the fact that she was delighted Chiara had come to reside at Biederhof; her presence would alleviate the dull monotony of daily existence there. Delight, let it be said, was something that Clementina had not experienced for a very long time, not since the terrible day when the family carriage drawn by a team of four horses had ventured out onto the frozen surface of Lake Neusiedler and broken through the ice. Both of her daughters had drowned. She had quit the company of her noble kinsfolk in Vienna long ago, and if the reports of her chambermaids were to be believed, her grief was beyond all imagining. She commented that the two of them were about the same age, and few of their generation had managed to stand fast against the merciless onward march of time. This being the case, she dared to hope that Chiara might occasionally enjoy having afternoon tea with her.

  The ladies got along very well despite their great differences. Memory held each of them in its powerful grip, and their daily conversations dwelt most of the time upon the past. Both had lived long lives in violent and turbulent times, and had endured their share of the misfortunes of their eras.

  One day Clementina spoke of the immense significance of Chiara’s novel for her husband and for all like-minded people in Vienna. And, of course, for herself as well. Heindrich had been endowed with a genius uncommon in people of their high standing, she commented. He was a man of action and had books translated into German. It was a great day when Robespierre fell and the end of the reign of terror arrived, she acknowledged, a day that remained sacred to all of them. But only when one read the novel did one finally escape from the terror that had gripped the aristocracy since the eruption of the French Revolution. Only then did one grasp the fact that the dark night of oppression was ended.

  She added that she would have been pleased to read many more works from the same pen. She saw Chiara’s shoulders sag for a moment, and took this to mean that her friend was pained not to have written more. Chiara explained that life over recent decades had obliged her to stand by as one opportunity after another vanished and promises were left unfulfilled. Clementina replied that even though at their age life no longer flourished so abundantly, Chiara should nevertheless try to write her memoirs. She had nothing to lose. No one was insisting upon a masterpiece. With an affectionate smile she said, “You must assemble your thoughts and write us a new book so we can devour it with pleasure.”

  That same night the lamp in Chiara’s room was kept burning until the early hours of the morning.

  JAKOB WAS FIERCELY EAGER to learn everything about Biederhof, and he spent the first days going from place to place and getting acquainted with the people on the estate, finding out everything about their work, and asking them about their families. He knew that formal systems of management were virtually unknown in Austria, and the presence of a Jewish manager could easily provoke envy, reluctance, and even outright hatred. This he wanted to avoid at any price.

  He made his expectations clear to everyone and carefully defined their duties. Whenever they had a problem they were to come to him immediately; no one had anything to fear.

  In these encounters with Jakob the workers kept their faces expressionless. They were uneasy and uncertain exactly how they were supposed to respond. His interest and candor surprised them, for no one had ever paid any attention to them, and they weren’t used to being treated with respect by their betters. But it wasn’t Jakob’s words that impressed them. Many didn’t really understand what he was talking about. His affable presence, his natural friendliness, and his evident engagement had a more positive effect than what he said. Not everyone was convinced, however. Some were still skeptical. Others, a bit more outspoken, suggested that maybe the big-nosed Jew was pretending to be friendly so he could take them all in with his cunning. There was no shortage of right-thinking folk who suspected that the apparently mild-mannered manager might one day turn into a raging evil demon.

  JAKOB SOLD ONE PORTION of the Biedersterns’ fields and forests to the owner of the neighboring estate, Princess Esterházy and Batthyány, and used the proceeds to pay off creditors. He managed to reimburse all those who had provided loans to cover the losses sustained during Rudolf’s systematic mismanagement of family finances. After calculating the income and expenditures of the estate with the same determined precision a Swiss watchmaker applies to constructing his best clock mechanisms, he signed a contract with Solomon Rothschild, the president of the bank’s Vienna office, and obtained a comprehensive mortgage loan. He invested the funds in the timber mill, in farming activity, and in a number of smaller industrial undertakings he established on the estate. He made contact with the most respected middle-class businessmen in the capital city. Within a few years, thanks to his wizardry in finance and commerce, Biederhof was flourishing.

  DURING THE THIRD SPRING after his arrival, the estate experienced a disaster previously unknown to Burgenland. Extensive rains were followed by hot sunshine, and untold myriads of gnats and mosquitoes hatched. They darkened the skies and attacked everything that moved. Within a few days everyone was swollen from countless bites and choking because they couldn’t avoid inhaling the swarming gnats. It was impossible to go outside. They all expected something terrible to happen, but they did not know what it might be. Everyone sat behind closed doors, doggedly waiting. The only disturbance in the great silence that descended upon the estate was the ringing of the church bells for Sunday mass.

  Jakob stiffened when he heard that the priest had gone on interminably in his Sunday sermon about the fourth of the ten plagues
of Egypt, the gnats that invaded the lands of the Pharaoh. He knew that he had to do something without a moment’s delay. He could not simply sit inside with his arms crossed and let the priest flail away, stirring people up. He knew all too well how quickly certain unpleasant suggestions take wing and what the consequences might be.

  Chiara came up with the solution. She had once accompanied Amschel on a visit to a beekeeping operation, and she now remembered the clothing the beekeepers wore to tend the hives. She suggested that the women gather odd bits of fabric and sew masks and gloves. Her proposal was immediately accepted. In a matter of hours everyone was once again able to return to work, veiled like beekeepers. The mood of the people improved and they were pleased to be busy again, even though it took a few more days for the plague of gnats to pass.

  MORE MONTHS WENT BY. One year of busy activity succeeded the next. During the fifth winter of Jakob’s management of the estate, a large number of the workers and their families, especially the old and the very young, came down with chronic coughs, bloody mucus, high fevers, chest pains, and night sweats; they wasted away with unnerving suddenness. The doctor thought it might be an epidemic of tuberculosis, spread through the air when people coughed or sneezed.

  The priest had a different explanation. He asserted with a passion that frightened most of his listeners that this was God’s punishment upon the people for loose talk, whore-mongering, and immoral conduct. During a visit to the home of a gardener where several people were afflicted, visibly declining and about to die, the priest declared that a vampire on the estate was sucking away their will to live. Many shared his view.