“Rabbi Sholom,” I said one evening, “you have received me as a son.”
“You are my son.”
“Are not the arms of woman as the ivy which winds itself about the trunk of the tree, keeping it rooted to the spot? Is not a single man like a bird always ready to fly away?”
“A single man is indeed as a bird.”
“Rabbi, be my father indeed. Give me your daughter Esther as wife. Let me be rooted to my people for all time.”
Rabbi Sholom smoothed his beard and meditated. “Isaac, my daughter is more precious to me than the apple of my eye. I tremble before I open my mouth to say: ‘Take her,’ lest– —” He closed his eyes.
“Father, she shall be no less precious to me than to you.”
Esther entered. Rabbi Sholom rose. “Approach, my daughter.”
She obeyed.
“I love you more dearly than my life. You are my comfort and my joy. But the time has come when God commands you to be a mother in Israel…”
“Father,” she said, pressing her head in his bosom.
I could not tell whether her voice denoted sorrow or joy.
“Our son Isaac—Isaac Laquedem—has asked for your hand in marriage. It is in my power to command you to take him. But he who uses his power against the will of his subordinate is a tyrant, not a father.”
He patted her hand.
“Esther, do you desire to be the wife of Isaac?”
She nodded.
Rabbi Sholom embraced me. Greater than the delight of possessing a beautiful woman was the vanity of having vanquished Don Juan. Poor Don Juan!
Esther was as gentle and as faithful as Lydia, but found passion’s rites, save those sanctioned by custom, abhorrent. The nuances of love, the subtle delicacies of the senses, she refused to learn. She clipped her beautiful hair much against my wishes, and covered her head with a black wig which seemed dusty always. Her meticulous insistence upon every trifle of the dogma palled upon me and her daily prayer that I raise a beard irritated me immensely.
Kotikokura who observed this, seemed to wait for a sign to dispose of her as he had disposed of some of my women in the Harem of a Thousand Graves.
Esther, with a woman’s intuition scented his enmity. “Isaac, Kotikokura is not one of our people. Why should he remain with us?”
“He has saved my life on several occasions when the Gentiles discovered that I was a Jew.”
“Pay him and let him go. Our people hate him. He has desecrated the synagogue by his bare head, and the Sabbath by riding on a donkey.”
“He is not a Jew. It is lawful for him.”
“Why should the daughter of Rabbi Sholom harbor one who is not a Jew, Isaac? It is for this reason, no doubt, that God refuses to give us children. We are tempting the Lord, Isaac! The women whisper that I am unfruitful… I shall soon be ashamed to face the world.”
Every day and several times a day, she found occasion to speak against Kotikokura. “Kotikokura, I have become a proverbial husband, disputing with his wife. Don Juan is avenged.”
Kotikokura grinned, tightening his fists.
“No, no, my friend. It is not necessary—not yet.”
My only friend was Joseph Ben Israel, the student I had met when I entered the Ghetto. We discussed for hours the bigotry of our people. He himself was not entirely free. Once I mentioned the beauty of images and the art of the Gentiles.
“You lived too long away from the truth,” he exclaimed, “and you have become too tolerant of blasphemy.”
I smiled sadly. “Joseph, it is too difficult for a man to cast off his environment. Having breathed the mouldy air of the Ghetto you cannot fully appreciate the deliciousness of fresh air…”
He stayed away for several days. One evening he returned. He pressed my hand to his lips. His face was drawn and white. “Forgive me, Isaac. I have contradicted my wise brother. I am a fool and an ingrate.”
I patted his hand. “Isaac bears no ill will.”
“I have repented for it. For three days I fasted.”
“That was quite unnecessary.”
“It was, on the contrary, very necessary.” He kissed my hand again.
“Joseph, have you no desire to go beyond the gate?”
“I desire to be with you always.” He covered his face and wept quietly. The shape of his head, his curls, reminded me of John, of Damis and of Walhallath, a boy whom I had known in Palmyra.
He looked up. “Isaac, you will leave, and I shall be forsaken…”
“Why do you say I will leave?”
“I know it. You are cramped here as a man in a tomb.”
“It does not matter. I shall remain. I shall try to break the walls of the tomb. Both my people and I shall breathe more freely…”
He sighed and shook his head. “Our people are obstinate, Isaac, and they mistrust you.”
“Have I not given them money? Have I not helped the widows and the orphans?”
“They do not understand why you are good to them. They do not know how you obtained the money. Some consider you a spy and others regard you as a magician. Your companion they fear. They think he is a golem—a creature you have made out of yellow clay who obeys you like a machine and who is strong enough to destroy the town… One saw him uproot a tree, another raise a donkey with one hand, a third one, hurl a rock against the ground, and the rock disappeared.”
I laughed.
“They even suspect me.”
I consoled him. “Joseph, if ever I should go beyond the gate—will you come with me?”
He did not answer for a long while.
“Can one remain a Jew there?” he asked at last.
“One must at least pretend that one is not.”
“Wherever you go, I go, Isaac.”
Within two days, four men died of violent cramps. The Ghetto forgot its quarrels and its petty intrigues, and battered the doors of the Rabbi. “The plague! The plague! Pray to God to spare us! You are a holy man—pray!”
The synagogue was crowded to the brim. Rabbi Sholom, bare-footed and covered in a shroud, called to God to spare his people. The shofar was blown seven times. The congregation beat their breasts. The women sobbed violently.
Two men fell dead on the threshold of the Holy House. The people scattered, shouting and waving their arms.
Rabbi Sholom asked a dozen men to confer with him. They shouted their opinions at the top of their voices. The fault lay in the sinfulness of the city and the lack of proper reverence for Yahweh. They suggested prayers, incantations, and sackcloth and ashes.
I entered the room. An ominous silence ensued. The men retreated and skulked. Rabbi Sholom, a little irritably asked, “What brings you here, my son?”
“Why do you ask me this, father? Is it not evident?”
“It is only for men who have spent their lives in the study of the Torah to discover why the Lord punishes us.”
“You saw that even while you prayed, two men fell dead.”
“Our sins are great!”
“The dirt and the squalor are greater.”
“It is God’s way of purifying our souls.”
“God has given us water to purify our bodies.”
“If our souls were pure, our bodies would need no purification.”
“Very true,” the Chasidim whispered to one mother. “Very true. Our souls must be pure.”
“Father, while you discuss the soul and it. purification, our people die of the plague.”
“It is God’s will.”
“Our obstinacy was our undoing, father. Even in the time of the Romans– —”
“May their memory perish!” Rabbi Sholom interrupted.
The others repeated: “May their memory perish!”
“Father, I am a Jew and have our people at heart.”
There was grumbling among the Chasidim. I stared at them. They huddled together.
“Do you doubt, father, that I am a Jew?”
“How should I doubt it since I gave you
my daughter in marriage?”
“Have I not proved my love for our people? Have I not given charity? Have I not– —?”
“It is not by charity that one shows love but by leading a godly life.”
“Yes, yes,” the others remarked.
“Have I not led a godly life, father?”
“Only the Lord can read our hearts. But there have been many complaints against you, my son.”
“Complaints?”
“You are clean-shaven. Should not a Jew wear a beard? Should he rebuke God for causing hair to grow upon man’s face? You have a Gentile friend.”
“The golem! The golem!” some whispered.
“You object to your wife’s wig. Should a virtuous woman look like a wanton? It pains me, Isaac, to tell you these things in public.”
“Father, whatever the complaints against me may be, and however true, this is no time for words. Hearken to me! I have lived in many lands. I have seen many things, including plagues. Let me help my people. Let me save them from suffering and death.”
“How are you capable of doing this, when our holy men know no remedy?”
“I shall pay large sums of money to physicians to come from the other side of the gate. I shall supply the funds necessary for purifying the sources of water and other necessities of life.”
“But if our souls be impure, how can physicians purify us?”
“They know means by which the pestilence may be stopped. Later, we shall attend to our souls.”
The Chasidim shook their heads.
“You begin at the end, Isaac.”
“At least for the time being, the people should not gather in the synagogue. They infect one another.”
“What?” the Chasidim shouted.
“Isaac!” the Rabbi admonished. “Not foregather in the synagogue? Not pray to the Lord in time of sorrow?”
“You are not a Jew!” one Chasid exclaimed, rising and pointing his forefinger at me. “You are not a Jew! Your words are the Devil’s words and your advice is the advice of one who wishes to destroy our race!”
He stopped suddenly, pressing his hands upon his stomach, groaning with pain.
“He is the Devil!” some shouted.
“He has looked at him with his evil eye!”
“Look away, everyone!”
“He will kill us all!”
They turned their backs upon me and hid their faces. Rabbi Sholom covered his head with a tallith.
Late at night, Joseph entered my room on tiptoes.
“Isaac,” he whispered, “Isaac—leave at once! They are planning to kill you and Kotikokura. They blame you for the plague. They claim that your evil eye killed a Chasid.”
“I know, Joseph. I shall leave. Will you accompany me?”
He looked at me, his eyes filled with tears.
“Come with me, Joseph! The world is beautiful.”
He looked at me reproachfully.
I placed my hands upon his shoulders. “Joseph, you are like the friends of my youth, long ago—longer than you imagine. It is for their sake I cherish you. Believe me, I am neither the Devil nor a magician. I do not mean to destroy your soul, but to show you the way to discover it.”
He wept bitterly.
Kotikokura meanwhile was becoming impatient.
“Do not fear, Kotikokura, we have time enough to escape.”
He looked at Joseph angrily.
“At most, he can be with us a few paltry years,” I whispered.
Kotikokura grinned, pacified.
“Meet me at the gate, on the stroke of twelve!”
Joseph nodded and left.
As we reached the road that led to the gate, we saw dangling from a withered tree, like an immense and grotesque cat or monkey, the body of a man. We approached. The body remained perfectly still. Kotikokura, whose eyes glittered in the dark like a tiger’s, recognized Joseph.
“Perhaps he is not dead yet. We may be able to save him.”
Kotikokura began to climb up the tree.
I stopped him. “Don’t! It is best not to disturb him. He can never overcome his environment; nor can he accept it again. Poor Joseph symbolizes his own existence—suspended between two worlds and belonging to neither!”
We walked along the shore of the Guadalquivir. The sun had not yet risen, but wide strips of red were already visible on the horizon. Here and there, upon the river, a fisherman’s boat turned lightly about itself. From time to time, a dog barked and a cock crowed. Seagulls, fat and slick, uttered ominous screams.
“Kotikokura, you have seen my people and you have not found them to your taste.”
He nodded.
“Poverty is like a horse’s hoofs crushing delicate flowers. You must not judge my people too severely.”
He nodded.
“Perhaps it was my fault, Kotikokura. I was indeed as a son returning to his parental roof. I was offered the toys and dishes I had enjoyed as a child,—but I am no longer a child.”
He nodded.
“In the Christian world, I am not a Christian. Among the Mohammedans, I am a stranger. To the Jews, I seem a wicked magician, bringing about the plague. I do not belong anywhere, Kotikokura,” I sighed.
Kotikokura sighed also.
“But that is the destiny of man. I am Man—and man is always a stranger among men. I am not the Wandering Jew, but the Wandering Man.”
“Ca-ta-pha—god; Kotikokura—high priest.”
“God or man,—I am. Life is. We are two parallel lines, running on always—perhaps. Life knows no favorites. Henceforth I shall know neither creed nor race. I am free, Kotikokura! Free!” I shouted.
Kotikokura echoed: “Free!”
“Kill the Jews! Burn the Ghetto! Drive the dogs into the sea!” Córdoba had become a giant mouth, vituperating and threatening the Jews. “Kotikokura, before long, there will be much slaughter here. We must seek fairer shores. Come!”
LV: THE QUEEN PAWNS HER JEWELS—I DO BUSINESS WITH ABRAHAM—I FINANCE COLUMBUS
THE snow fell leisurely, in tiny flakes like confetti. The sun shone, but a little dimly like an eye opening after sleep. The bells of all the churches rang. The people threw their hats into the air, shouting: “Long live the King!” A regiment of infantry preceded by officers on horseback passed by, laughing and calling their women. Children turned little wooden toys that made a deafening noise.
We entered a wine-shop crowded with people.
“What say you, Magister, to the notion that the earth is round and that we can reach the Indies by water?”
The Magister, an old shriveled up individual, toothless and almost gumless, piped: “Nonsense! There is nothing about it in Aristotle.”
“But Marco Polo, Magister, claims– —”
“Who is Marco Polo? Who is anybody? Aristotle never said that the earth is round!”
“Cristóbal Colón is pledging his head and the heads of all his sailors– —”
“Nonsense!”
“They say that the Queen is willing to sell her jewels to finance his wild expedition.”
“Women are always credulous.”
“If it prove true, Spain will become the richest nation in the world, rivaling Rome in the days of her greatest glory.”
“If—If—” the Magister repeated. “I have always taught my pupils to detest that word! The earth is flat. Aristotle– —”
A Jew entered. He was short, stout, and breathed heavily through his mouth. His beard, the color of carrots, sprinkled with threads of white, did not hide his heavy sensuous lips. His eyes, small and deeply set, shone like beads which supplant the lost luminaries of stuffed birds. His kaftan was threadbare and covered with grease spots.
“The Jew! The Jew!” a few called out.
“Make him eat pork.”
“Give him the cross to kiss—the circumcised dog!”
“Put him on the rack!”
One of the soldiers pulled the Jew’s beard. The other spat in his face. The Jew wiped himself and
remained unperturbed.
The Innkeeper seemed unusually cordial to him.
“Give me another month’s time, Abraham. I could not get the money together. What with the wars, and my wife’s sickness– —”
Abraham waved his hand. “I know. I know. I have not come for that. I am looking for two merchants that have recently arrived in Granada.”
“Two merchants?”
Abraham espied us.
“They look like foreigners, do they not?” he asked the Inn keeper.
The Innkeeper nodded. “Yes. With all the crowd here, I did not notice them.”
“Will you ask them to be good enough to meet me outside?”
Abraham walked out. The Innkeeper came over. “Señores,” he whispered, “the Jew who has just been here—he is the richest merchant in Granada—begs to speak to you. He is waiting outside.”
“Very well.”
Abraham bowed several times, his small stubby hands upon his belly.
“Welcome, señores, to Granada. Welcome! Welcome!”
He reminded me of Don Juan’s parrot.
“The gentlemen come from a long journey, do they not?”
“Yes, a very long journey.”
He rubbed his hands. They produced no noise, as if they had been oiled.
“India?” he asked, smiling obsequiously.
“Yes.”
“Ah, how fortunate am I to have the honor of speaking to gentlemen who come from India! Was the trip very long?”
“Very long.”
“And dangerous too, I presume.”
I nodded.
He clicked his tongue. “How much courage is required to travel! How many are lost on the way!”
I nodded.
“Marco Polo tells such terrible things, señor—but such marvels, too.”
“I have not read his book.”
“No? Is it possible? ‘Mirabilia Mundi’ he calls it. I have not read it either. It is written in Latin. We are allowed to read only the holy language, señor. But a friend of mine, a bishop– —” he grinned, “he owes me some money—related Marco Polo’s adventures to me.”
My First Two Thousand Years; the Autobiography of the Wandering Jew Page 29
