Jacob's Folly

by Rebecca Miller

  “How come I have pain, then?” asked Masha softly.

  “Well, the brain is funny,” said the doctor. “It can remember the recipe for a certain pain. And when something happens to the mind, like stress, the brain sometimes recreates that pain.”

  “But why?” asked Masha.

  “We don’t know,” said the doctor.

  “So you’re saying this is psychological?” said Pearl.

  “Not exactly. It’s physiological pain, real pain, without a somatic cause. Sort of … ghost pain. A rogue symptom.”

  “So what do we do?” asked Pearl.

  “Be happy she doesn’t have pericarditis. And … give her Motrin.”

  “But if there’s no inflammation, why should she take an anti-inflammatory?” asked Pearl.

  The doctor shrugged. “For the pain,” he said, with a wisp of a smile. “There is a lot we don’t know about the brain, Mrs. Edelman.”

  The following Tuesday, her chest had improved, but Masha skipped class. She went straight home from the nursing home instead. Touching Hugh in the scene had frightened her. She tried to keep busy, took extra hours at the nursing home, and began to earn a salary there. They said she was wonderful with the old people.

  One afternoon, while she was on break, her phone rang. It was Shelley.

  “What the heck happened to you, Masha? Are you okay?”

  “I can’t come to class anymore,” said Masha.

  “Are you sick?

  “I was, but … that’s not why.”

  “You’re crazy, girl, you were stupendous in that scene last time.”

  “I just … it’s hard to explain.”

  “Listen, Mr. Nevsky—you remember, that guy who gave you his card?”

  “Yeah,” said Masha.

  “Well, he wants to represent me too. And he said, if you and me want, there’s an apartment near the Hamptons we could have rent-free all summer! They would do everything for us—pay for everything, just till we’re ready to go out on auditions. Mr. Nevsky’s a friend of Bridget’s, he’s not some weirdo. And listen, Masha, I went there and checked it out and it’s amazing! The apartment is clean and pretty, and the guy’s mansion in Southhampton, where we would be most of the time, it’s like paradise, there’s an indoor pool and an outdoor pool and a sauna and fucking Pilates machines. The owner and his wife are a little creepy, but it’s a great deal. I’ll do it if you do it or maybe I’ll do it anyway, I need to get away. But I think they only want me if you come. Nevsky thinks you’re amazing. Masha?”

  Masha was quiet. Her mind was blank.

  “I … can’t,” she said.

  “So what am I telling Bridget? You’re quitting class?”

  “I guess so,” said Masha. “Yeah. Sorry. ’Bye.” She hung up the phone.

  27

  My master had a mistress. Her name was Antonia Giardina. Le Jumeau said she cost the count four hundred francs a month, more than my father earned in a year.

  I was amazed at the elaborate toilette the count inflicted on himself in preparation for seeing her. It took him twenty minutes just to trim the hairs in his nose. I myself had to tame his ear hairs. Le Jumeau shaved him, confidently gliding the sharp blade of the razor up the tender lines of his neck.

  “Le Jumeau, tonight I will take the little one,” the count said through soaped lips. “He has never been to the theater.”

  Le Jumeau grunted. “There’s a first time for everything,” he said ominously. I couldn’t tell if he was pleased or not. As for me, I was dying to see a woman worth so much.

  When the coach arrived at the side entrance to the Hôtel de Bourgogne, where the Comédie-Italienne was housed, I hopped off the driver’s bench where I had been sitting with Renard, the twin coachman, and opened the count’s door. In the interest of my cultural education, he bought me a parterre ticket for two sous and then walked up the staircase to his loge. I was to dash up to him the moment the interval began.

  Standing on the packed floor of the theater, I read the gilt lettering sewn into the velvet curtains: CASTIGAT RIDENDO MORES, which I translated with my newfound Latin as “Laughter Improves Morals.” Delighted by my own comprehension, I looked around me, grinning, and just stopped myself from slapping the back of the man beside me. Mercifully, he did not notice my familiarity. I felt a sharp thrill. There I stood on the packed floor, elbow to elbow with every kind of Parisian, from nobles to ruffians and drunks, and I blended right in. What a relief it was to look like a Frenchman! Had I been in my former garb, I would have had to endure curious, hostile, or evasive glances, to feel, at best, apart; at worst, hated or feared. The guards who were walking around the theater with an eye out for misconduct would surely have asked me what I was doing there, and to see my passport. But as it was, I just looked like someone’s valet, or possibly a coachman, in a nice crisp set of livery.

  The orchestra, which had been warming up tunelessly, began to play a rousing folk song. The heavy red velvet curtains parted, revealing four characters frozen in a painterly rural tableau, washed in a warm glow of light. Slowly, the actors came to life. A young shepherdess with long braids the color of raw pine sang a jolly aria in a playful soprano. She then did a little jig, moving her arms and legs with an easy, athletic grace. This was, I guessed, the count’s lover. As the performance continued, the little shepherdess fell in love with a dashing duke, and he with her. The style of the play was broadly comic. Mlle Giardina was funny and very free. The moment the curtains closed on the first act, I pushed my way through the milling crowd on the parterre, then started up the stairs to my master’s box, climbing against the torrent of well-heeled box holders on their way down to the refreshment bar.

  “Go out and buy three dozen lilies,” said the count when I finally got to him, handing me a few coins. “Deliver them to Mlle Giardina with this note. Hurry. There is a florist in the building, just next to the entrance where we came in.”

  When I arrived, panting, at Mlle Giardina’s door and knocked, having gotten lost on my way out of the theater and again trying to find her dressing room in the maze of back rooms, I heard a bright voice say:

  “Who is it?”

  “I have a message from the Comte de Villars,” I called out. The door opened. Through the thicket of lilies I saw the little shepherdess. Her braids had been untied and her caramel hair was tousled around a merry young face. She parted the flowers and peered at me.

  “What happened to Le Jumeau?” she asked.

  “I am the second valet,” I said. She eyed me carefully as she tore open the note from the count.

  “Come in,” she said. I walked into the small, warm room, still carrying the bunch of lilies. A fire raged in the grate. “Put them over there,” she said, indicating a round table in the corner. She sat down at her dressing table looking at her reflection, then shifted her gaze to mine.

  “What is your name?” she asked, rouging her cheeks.

  “Gebeck,” I said, my voice breaking. I was still unused to the name.

  “Doesn’t that mean ‘baked goods’ in German?” she asked, crinkling her small nose.

  “I come from a long line of bakers,” I answered.

  She swiveled around and smiled, raising her perfect eyebrows. “Tell the count I will be happy to meet him after the show,” she said.

  “I shall.”

  “Tell him I will need twenty minutes here after the curtain goes down. Then he can collect me.”

  “Very well, mademoiselle,” I said.

  “Does he always use you as his message boy now?”

  “Usually.”

  “That’s interesting,” she said, turning back to the glass.

  From then on, I went to the Comédie-Italienne with the count twice a week. On occasion he visited Mlle Giardina in her dressing room during the interval. I served them their champagne before withdrawing discreetly. As a rule, however, I simply brought two armfulls of lilies and a note to the little actress, waiting at her door with a hammering heart. Her ro
les alternated between shepherdess, Arabian princess, chambermaid, and wood nymph, depending on which show was on that night. I preferred to be greeted by the diaphanously clad wood nymph. Once, as I handed her a note, Mlle Giardina trailed her fingers across my palm, causing me to retreat in a flurry of shy confusion.

  Hanging about the foyer one night, waiting for the show to end, I learned that the ticket collector, Algrant, a slit-eyed young man with brown teeth, was Mlle Giardina’s greluchon, the word used in those days for a courtesan’s personal lover. I became seized with jealousy and couldn’t take my eyes off him. Though it was utterly out of the question that I would ever touch the courtesan of my master, I didn’t like the idea of this shifty-looking scoundrel pawing her for free.

  The count owed a lot of money, I gathered from being by his side all the time, party to most of his conversations. He also dictated many of his letters to me, now that my French had improved. He gambled almost daily, paid a fortune for Mlle Giardina, and insisted on the finest clothes, food, and horses. The income thrown off by his inherited estates was never enough.

  One day he told me to get the coach ready, we were going out. I was alarmed to hear him tell Renard to take us to the Jewish quarter.

  “Why are we going there?” I asked.

  “Why do you think?” he snapped. “I need money.”

  As I have said, it was forbidden for Catholics to lend money at interest, but it was one of the only businesses Jews were allowed to engage in. Nearly all of us lent trifling sums to the Christians, but for large sums one had to go to one of the serious bankers.

  I had never met Loeb Hildesheim, though I had heard his name many times. He lived and worked on the edge of our neighborhood, in a big house on rue Saint-Denis. When the coach stopped outside this residence, I shrank back, hoping the count would let me stay behind. He got out and turned to me.

  “Gebeck,” he admonished. Reluctantly, I followed.

  The house was well appointed. A young Jewess opened the door for us and offered to take our hats. My master let his eyes linger over her face, and handed her his hat gently. I saw that the young woman was careful not to touch my master’s fingers as she took the hat. I too gave her my hat, wondering if she would guess what I was, but she took it without looking at me.

  “Please wait here,” she said, indicating a small, cozy sitting room furnished in the latest Parisian style. My master sat; I stood by the door.

  “He’s made something of himself, you have to give him that,” said the count, looking around him at all the evidence of the man’s wealth. “All on interest,” he said, waving his arm. “This is one of the reasons the Jews are resented, Gebeck. They say you draw the innocent young sons of France into spending more than they can afford, luring us into a trap of loans and owing.”

  “Is that what you think?” I asked.

  The count shrugged. “I suppose they make it easier to get the money so we can waste it. But the prohibition against Catholics charging interest is stupid.”

  Just then Loeb Hildesheim walked in. An august man in his sixties, his long gray beard divided into two points, he shook my master’s hand with the barest hint of a bow. Hildesheim wore several large rings on his hand, I noticed. He then sat, spreading out the tails of his silk coat on the seat behind him. His skullcap was crimson velvet. Once he had settled himself, he turned to the count and, with kingly reserve, asked:

  “What can I help you with, Monsieur Le Comte?”

  “I need two hundred louis,” said the count. The Jewess walked in carrying a silver tray laden with tea and a plate of small biscuits. She offered me one as well. I ate it. Loeb Hildesheim waited until she had left before he spoke again.

  “That’s a great deal of money,” he said.

  “I have always made good on my pledges to you,” said the count.

  “It’s not that, you are a wonderful customer,” said the old Jew, casting his keen eyes in my direction. My spine tingled as he looked at me quizzically. Then I realized he was simply gazing into space, calculating. “With a figure so high, we need to increase the rate of interest, you understand.”

  While they quibbled about interest, I practiced a look of icy contempt, echoing the disdain I knew the old man had for my master. Hildesheim thrived on libertines but despised them all the same. He himself, I was sure, barely took a glass of wine at dinner, slept only with his wife. Temperance was endemic among the Jews.

  My master signed the pledge and got his money. When we left, he shook his head.

  “He’s a cunning one,” he murmured. “Now. What do you say we use a bit of this cash?”

  The first place we went was the Place des Victoires. There my diminutive master alighted from the coach. His hands shoved deep in a white lynx muff, he stood leaning against the grillwork at the base of the equestrian statue of Louis XIV, staring at a little church opposite, L’Église des Petits Pères, where Mass was just letting out. The crowd of worshippers was disgorged and went off on its way. Several women remained behind, however. They didn’t seem to be in a hurry to go anywhere, and fanned out, walking back and forth in front of the church in a leisurely fashion, the colored plumes on their hats making them look like proud birds. I stood by the coach all this time, baffled. Eventually the diminutive count gestured to one of the feathered ladies. She approached him. I could not hear their conversation. She rushed over to one of the other women and whispered something in her ear, at which she too came tripping over to the count. Renard opened the coach door for the ladies, and they sat on the forward-facing bench. I sat opposite them, beside my master.

  The armatures of the women’s dresses were very wide, and, due to their being crammed together, puffed the skirts up to a point that we could only see slivers of their animated faces through the hedges of silk and tulle. One of the girls, I discerned, was dark and plump; the other, fair, bug-eyed, and an enthusiastic talker. The high feathers on their hats were entwined, and buckled by the roof of the coach. I could tell that my master was partial to the sloe-eyed dark one, but he was very polite to them both, inviting them to come with him to his house in Neuilly. I looked at him, surprised; I had not been aware that he had another residence so near Paris.

  We arrived at a charming little house with a low fence and a gate, which the count opened gallantly for the ladies, walking up the path behind them and casting three bright knocks on the red door, which popped open immediately to reveal Le Jumeau, dressed in a pair of green silk britches, ivory stockings, and a snug navy jacket. I had never seen him out of livery on a working day.

  The moment I walked inside the cramped foyer, the valet set me to making tea. I started opening cabinets and drawers, clueless as to the wherabouts of the tea things. The kitchen was well stocked, however, and I had soon set out an inviting tray. Le Jumeau handed me a box of colorful meringues, which I set out onto a gilded plate shaped like a leaf. I then served the party in the drawing room. Le Jumeau sent me back for an extra cup and saucer for him. When I poured him his tea, he nodded at me.

  “Thank you, Gebeck,” he said, slurping his tea noisily and crossing his legs. The count didn’t seem to notice this disrespect. In fact, all the normal rules of service seemed suspended in this place. I had just returned to the kitchen to have my own tea when I heard Le Jumeau bellowing, “Gebeck!” I scurried back into the sitting room.

  “Take Mademoiselle Charelle up,” he said, indicating the plump, dark-haired girl. “First bedroom at the top of the stairs.” I led the little sausage up the staircase, opened the first door I found, and was amazed to see an array of whips and canes hanging neatly on the wall. The brunette strode up to the collection and, with the air of an expert, took down a long horsewhip, raised it over her head, and flicked it in my direction, laughing. Stung on the hand, I jumped, then sucked my knuckles. In waddled the count, wearing only his chemise and rumpled red stockings, followed by Le Jumeau. The talkative bug-eyed blonde emerged from behind them carrying a length of rope. A quiet, strange atmosphere came ov
er the party as they found their places. Intensely embarrassed, I took hold of the doorknob.

  “Gebeck,” said Le Jumeau sharply, bringing me up short. I stood still, the door open a sliver, looking at him imploringly. “Go, then,” he said in disgust. Feeling I had failed a test of some kind, yet relieved, I spent the next hour downstairs in the cozy sitting room, chewing on the leftover meringues and reading a novel I found on the shelf. Whatever was going on upstairs, I felt frightened and repelled by it. Eventually I fell asleep curled up on the couch. I woke with a slap on the ass from the bug-eyed blonde, who was dressed only in her chemise.

  “And how is our little naïf? Sleeping?” She asked, cramming herself into the space between me and the back of the sofa and cradling me like an infant. She then exposed her vast wobbling tit for me to nurse, clamping it between her fingers and causing the sausage brunette and Le Jumeau to melt into helpless laughter. The more I craned my neck to avoid her plate-sized nipple, the more hysterical they became. Finally I freed myself, vexed and humiliated, my wig askew, and stood panting in the middle of the room. Le Jumeau patted me hard on the side of the face with his palm, in a manner both brotherly and threatening.

  “That’s what you get for desertion,” he said, swinging himself into a chair, one leg over the arm. He winked at the bug-eyed blonde, who rolled off the couch and glided over to him on her knees. The brunette plonked herself on the other sofa and lay down, sighing, her arm over her eyes.

  “Where is the count?” I asked.

  “Upstairs, Le Naïf. You get to clean him up,” said Le Jumeau. He rested his head back, and his dark lips curled into a lazy smile as he looked at me through half-closed lids, his hand open on the blond one’s bobbing head. “You’ll find everything you need in the box on the chest of drawers. Go on,” he said. “We need to get him home.”

  I found the count alone, naked, on a chair. His droopy brown eyes were unfocused, his back slick with blood. The floor was smeared with it. I gagged, and had to open the window, sticking my head into the air and taking long, desperate breaths. I would get used to it soon enough.