Judah the Pious

by Francine Prose

  It was then that the young man decided to return home. Later that night, when the others had retired, Judah ben Simon crept softly down the long hall which led to the back of the house, and, knocking once, pushed open the heavy wooden door.

  The room into which he stepped was decorated and furnished more luxuriously than any other in the mansion. Its walls, however, were not covered with murals but, rather, with massive, mahogany bookshelves, filled with hand-bound volumes. One side of the room was taken up with a gigantic marble desk; elsewhere, there were comfortable leather-backed chairs, brass-hinged chests, cabinets, a red Persian carpet, and a long, lemon-colored divan beside the curtained windows.

  On the divan lay Dr. Boris Silentius, a pale spider-monkey of a man—shriveled, spindly limbed, wizened. His shrunken, blotchy face was almost obscured by a pair of thick gold-rimmed glasses; four white hairs lay across the top of his head. Partially covered by a tattered bright gypsy shawl, Dr. Silentius was propped up against the arm of the couch, clutching a small volume in his long, trembling fingers.

  After one look at the wasted old man, Judah comprehended the severity of his disease, and immediately understood his reluctance to go among men who had seen him in better days. Ashamed to have disturbed the sick man’s rest, Judah was just about to leave the room when Dr. Silentius spoke.

  “Who are you?” he whispered, in a hoarse, croaking voice.

  “Judah ben Simon,” answered the young man, realizing how long it had been since he had pronounced his own name. “I am sorry to have intruded this way. I would never have invaded your privacy had I not come all the way across Poland to study with you, and spent two years in your house without ever having seen your face. I only wanted to meet you once before I left.”

  “Think nothing of it,” laughed the old man, sitting up with a surprising burst of energy. “It is delightful to have a visitor; I entertain so rarely these days. And I suppose you were sent to my home by one of your professors at the university?”

  “No,” murmured Judah uncomfortably. “I was referred to you by a shifty old peddler named Jeremiah Vinograd.”

  “Jeremiah Vinograd,” repeated the scholar. “Ah, yes. What can I do for you?”

  Suddenly, the young man could hardly remember why he had come. “I would like you to tell me about your scientific system,” he stammered after a few minutes, “about the things you have learned in your travels through the world.”

  “Gladly,” chortled the old man, his eyes dancing crazily. “Gladly. That is just what I am here for. But it has been so long since my teaching days that I hardly know where to begin. Let me see…. Perhaps you would like me to relate my experiences with the white tigers of Bengal. Yes, the white tigers of Bengal.

  “When I was thirty-five years old,” he began, “I conceived such a powerful desire to see the albino jungle-cats that I trekked six months, hoping only for a single glimpse of them. Then one day, just after the monsoon, I spotted one, a fine female it was, padding towards me through the brush, her pink eyes gleaming in the high grass. Instinctively, I backed away, and reached for my musket. But there was no need. Much to my amazement, the cat slowed down as she approached me, licked my hand, and led me back to her lair, waiting patiently for me as I stumbled through the jungle. There, in the hollow of an overgrown hill, were four young cubs and the carcass of a fierce male. I understood at once that the tigress had been seeking a head for her family, and had been attracted to the whitest beast she had ever seen.

  “I stayed among them for three weeks, observing their habits, wrestling with the cubs, stroking their mother’s silky back. Eventually, I could stand it no longer, for, despite what the poets would have us believe, one quickly grows bored living among the wild beasts. Early one morning, I slipped away. But for years afterward, I was constantly afraid to turn around, lest I find the she-tiger at my heels, stalking me across the earth like a wronged woman. And that is the story of the white Bengal tigers.”

  A pang of uneasiness passed through Judah ben Simon. “Fascinating,” he murmured. “I myself have had some experience with possessive she-cats. But tell me, what do such unnatural attachments mean?”

  “Ah,” sighed Dr. Silentius, ignoring his question. “I can see that you are still unsatisfied. Is it that I am being too anecdotal for you, insufficiently scientific? If so, let me apologize, and try to make amends by telling you about the black Amazonian orchids. I must admit that this particular story is somewhat personal, but, in the interests of science, I will relate it.

  “On my first journey through the South American jungle, I chanced to discover an entire grove of black orchids—mysterious, velvety, and rich. I had never seen such flowers before, though I could immediately identify them as belonging to the species Galeorchis negris. I headed for the nearest village, to see if anything was known about this strange breed; there, I was invited to pass some time, and informed of a most interesting local legend.

  “It seemed that these simple-hearted people firmly believed that each of those inky orchids corresponded to the spirit of a particular village woman; it sprouted at her birth, blossomed during the week of her marriage feast, and withered at her death. Strangely enough, this improbable myth was accepted by everyone in the settlement, including the beautiful young girl who came out of curiosity to spend a few nights in my tent. In an attempt to convince me of the fable’s truth, she even took me out to the grove and pointed out the precise flower which mirrored the stages of her life.

  “You can imagine how my experimental spirit rebelled against such foolishness; therefore, when I left the village out of boredom with the savages—who were really no better than the tigress at the gentle art of conversation—I plucked and carried off my mistress’s orchid, just to show them that she would still go on living.”

  “And did she?” asked Judah.

  “Who knows?” muttered the scientist distractedly, as if the young man’s question were beside the point. “I assume so.” He paused, obviously considering the matter for the first time. “At any rate,” he continued, “these are two of my favorite stories, for, between the tigress and the jungle goddess, they seem to cast me in the role of the great heartbreaker, a part which I played only these two times in my long life. But that is a fact,” he wheezed in an undertone, “which I rarely add. Now tell me, have these stories not made your long journey worthwhile?”

  “I am afraid not,” sighed Judah. “I am afraid that I was not seeking to hear fascinating sidelights from your travels, but, rather, to find out what you have learned of scientific truth. Excuse me for failing to make myself clear.”

  “My fault completely,” said Dr. Silentius. “I am not surprised. People are always correcting me for being too anecdotal in my conversational style. Now, since you want to know the truth, I will tell it to you gladly: have you heard my insanity story? For that is the truth about my ailment, you know. There is no tropical disease chewing on my nerves. I am mad, an amnesiac, given to delusions. And I will tell you the truth about how it began.

  “At the end of my last voyage to the Arabian subcontinent, I was feeling profoundly depressed by the monotonous desert scenery. Reaching the coast, I eagerly accepted a boatman’s offer to ferry me to an island, several miles from shore, covered by lush foliage and populated by giant lizards. The local priest accompanied me as a guide.

  “When we reached the sandy shore, the boatman headed back to the mainland, promising to return that afternoon. But, as we walked inland, I realized that there were no jungles, no lizards. The island was a vast leper colony, watched over by the curate, who knew that no important European visitor would have voluntarily come out to inspect the fruit of his labors.

  “I am not a squeamish man; still, you can imagine my distress. I demanded to be taken off the island. But, eager for some funds he imagined me to have, the priest insisted on catering to my ‘scientific interest,’ showing me the stumps, sores, and stubs of his miserable patients. Yet, even with all my investigative spirit, I cou
ld not force myself to come within ten feet of those disgusting spectacles.

  “Perhaps the priest was slightly mad; even after he saw my dismay, he did not allow the ferryman to return for seven days. When I stepped into the open hull at last, I was no longer myself: my mind was just as scarred as the skin of those verminous invalids.”

  Suddenly, Judah perceived that all the traits which he had interpreted as symptoms of physical illness could just as well be signs of extreme age and mental derangement. “I sympathize with your bitter experience,” he stammered uncomfortably, heading for the door. “And now I will leave you alone, in peace.”

  “My boy!” cried the scientist, leaping up with a spryness which a sick man could never have mustered. “Why are you not thanking me for sharing my wisdom with you?”

  Judah paused on his way out of the room, and turned. “Because,” he shrugged sorrowfully, “what you have told me is not at all related to scientific truth.”

  “You are quite right,” sighed Dr. Silentius, sinking back onto his divan. “Nothing to do with science, nothing to do with truth. You are very perceptive, I am amazed, you have caught me at my own game. Now, I can only hope to redeem myself by including both truth and science in a single explanation. I will give you the scientific truth, Judah ben Simon. And this is it:

  “My master’s system looks very simple in black ink on white paper, broken down into categories and subcategories, printed in neat charts and columns. But, in the natural world, applied to reality, it begins to reveal an entire network of mazes within mazes, false turns and twisting corridors. And it was at the end of one of those dark tunnels that I lost my way, and my sanity, so that now I hardly believe them when they tell me I am the great Dr. Boris Silentius, who once studied with Linnaeus and traveled the world.”

  “Can you tell me what you mean about the mazes?” asked Judah ben Simon, passionately eager now for the first time.

  “No,” replied the scholar. “But since you are such a perceptive young man, I will reward you by showing you my prize possession, my favorite work of nature—which I found, oddly enough, not far from our own Danzig.” While speaking, he kneeled over a carved wooden chest, and began to take out wrapped objects, which he uncovered and assembled carefully on the figured carpet.

  “This,” he said proudly, when the skeleton was fully assembled, “was the body of a beautiful young woman, the most magnificent of all nature’s creations. If only it had not taken me eighty-five years to learn that.”

  “Thank you for showing me,” nodded Judah politely.

  “You are very welcome,” replied Silentius grandly. “You may go on your way now, and give my regards to your mother and father.”

  Early the next morning, Judah ben Simon headed back towards the city of Danzig.

  VIII

  “UNFORTUNATELY,” SAID ELIEZER HASTILY, before the king could interrupt, “Judah never had a chance to give Simon Polikov the scientist’s regards. For, by the time the young man left Silentius’s home, the grass had been growing on his father’s grave for eighteen months.

  “On the night of Simon Polikov’s death,” continued the rabbi after a brief, somewhat melancholy pause, “Hannah had awoken to find him sitting bolt upright in bed. ‘Wait!’ he was screaming. ‘Wait! I have something to tell you!’ Only after lighting the candles did she notice how his breath sprayed the air with blood, and that his face was twisted in a look of unimaginable desperation.

  The memory of this expression remained before Hannah’s eyes for several days, and kept her from accepting any comfort from the neighbors, who advised her to thank God for Simon’s sudden and painless end. “Nothing is painless,” she had snapped, and it was truer than she could have known.

  For what even Hannah did not realize was this: every night, for the past eight months, Simon Polikov had dreamed the same dream; every night, he had relived each moment of his son’s last visit, dwelling on each of their words, their glances, their smallest gestures. In the mornings, he had awoken in a fog of discontent. Though pleased to discover that he was not wasting the sleep of his old age by inventing romantically distorted pictures of his youth, Simon still knew that God would not be sending him such meticulously accurate dreams if not to rebuke him for having let the boy leave without a final blessing. At the evening services, the old man always prayed for a happier ending to his fantasy; he never shut his eyes without hoping to see himself place one arm around his son’s shoulders and fill his ear with sweet benedictions. Indeed, so badly did Simon want this vision that, at the moment of his death, he spent all his remaining strength in a struggle against the terrible muteness of dreams, and screamed after Judah’s disappearing form.

  The next morning, Hannah Polikov put on her husband’s overshoes and slogged through the muddy forest to fetch Judah back for the funeral. Since Simon had never remarked on the odd finality of their son’s last good-by, Hannah had naturally assumed that his failure to visit them for six months represented a clear cut victory for the redheaded demoness. This idea so infuriated the old woman that, when she finally discovered the girl lying on a heap of brownish pine needles in the half-dark wooden shelter, it was all she could do to keep from throttling her.

  “Where is my son?” she demanded angrily, in a tone which implied that she expected to hear nothing but lies.

  Rachel Anna, who had been studying a yellow spider spin its silvery web across the ceiling, was so startled by her mother-in-law’s arrival that she was unable to respond for several minutes. “In Danzig,” she whispered at last.

  “In Danzig!” cried Hannah suspiciously. “Swear it on your mother’s soul!”

  An entire range of emotions passed across Rachel Anna’s face before it assumed a somewhat shakier version of the composure it had worn during her first meeting with Hannah Polikov. “On my mother’s soul,” she answered softly, “he has gone to Danzig to study orchids and tigers.”

  “Then he really was crazy after all,” sighed Hannah, sinking down beside Rachel Anna on the dried-out pine needle bed. “And now there is no one but me,” she groaned. “For all Simon’s success in finding a son to say the memorial prayers for him, he might just as well never have married me.”

  “Has something happened to your husband?” asked Rachel Anna.

  “All deaths are the same,” answered the old woman brusquely. “There is no point talking about it. Besides, what happened to Judah ben Simon is much more important, and that is what I have come to hear.”

  Rachel Anna, however, had no desire to narrate the story of Judah’s departure, even though she had rehearsed it so many times in her mind. She wondered if she would be able to tell it calmly, without tears; it all seemed strange to her, unreal, as if she were being ordered to relate a nightmare. Stalling for time, Rachel Anna rubbed her eyes with her thin, work-callused hands.

  Hannah Polikov recoiled in horror from the sight of the sixth finger. Soon, she perceived that the reality of it was far less gruesome than she had imagined, but, by then, Rachel Anna had already noticed—and, in that one look, had suddenly remembered what it was like to deal with other people.

  “Late in August,” she began, her clear, defiant voice ringing through the embarrassed stillness, “Judah ben Simon met a stranger outside the apothecary shop.”

  “The apothecary shop,” murmured Hannah, her eyes widening with concern. “Which one of you was sick?”

  “Judah was only buying poison for a troublesome cat,” the girl answered.

  “So that is what all his fancy science has come to!” snorted the old woman. “Killing cats!”

  “It never proved necessary,” replied Rachel Anna coldly. “The cat disappeared by itself right after Judah ben Simon left.”

  “And where did you say my son went?” cried Hannah, fearing that all these new developments would surely unhinge her mind.

  “I am trying to tell you,” said her daughter-in-law. “Now listen: that August afternoon, when I returned from gathering herbs in the forest, I sa
w him pacing back and forth in front of our house, twitching like a marionette. At first, I could barely understand the words tumbling from his mouth, but, gradually, I began to comprehend that a traveling mountebank had told him something about a great naturalist living near Danzig, teaching his precious scientific truths to anyone who might care to listen.

  “‘Never trust a mountebank,’ I had laughed nervously, trying to make a joke of it. ‘They have been known to steal the silver from old women’s hair.’”

  “And right you were!” interrupted Hannah.

  “If only Judah ben Simon had thought so,” sighed Rachel Anna. “Two hours later, he had gathered together all his clothes and pennies; then, kissing me so violently that I almost fell over backwards, he set off toward the north-south road.”

  “Yes,” nodded her mother-in-law, not without a trace of satisfaction. “When it comes to a choice between women and work, the good man will always choose one way.”

  “But it was I who made the choice,” said Rachel Anna quietly. “Judah ben Simon begged me to go with him, but I refused.”

  Hannah Polikov could not have been more surprised had her daughter-in-law suddenly sprouted sidelocks and a full beard. “What was the matter with you?” she asked, staring at her in awe.

  “Pride and obstinacy,” replied Rachel Anna. “That is the plain truth, how else can I explain it? The journey which brought me here from Cracow was so tiresome that I swore never to embark on another. And I truly believed that no scientist in the world could lure Judah ben Simon away from me. Indeed, I believed it until the moment of his departure; then, watching him leave, I wanted to run after him, to hold onto him, to call him back. But pride and obstinacy were standing at my sides like two burly Cossacks, pinning my arms behind my back, stopping my mouth, rooting my feet to the ground.”