Judah the Pious
Page 21
“Wonder of wonders!” boomed the saint, causing smiles of warmth and affection to appear on his listeners’ faces. “Today, I have met a most interesting fellow, a brilliant young naturalist who has taken the trouble to study every line and detail in nature’s magnificent plan. And, at the end of all the mazes and labyrinths which he has explored in the course of his painstaking research, he has discovered yet another testament to the miraculous power of God.”
XVIII
“AND RACHEL ANNA?” ASKED King Casimir, so eager that he could hardly keep himself from squirming on the carpeted steps. “How long did it take Judah ben Simon to find her and persuade her to forgive his sins?”
“I am afraid that it took him an eternity,” replied Eliezer sadly, and fell into a long, melancholy reverie.
“When my hero returned to his rebuilt, relocated village,” continued the rabbi at last, “he found his entire family reduced to one small boy, the two-year-old dream-child who had been placed in the care of Joseph Joshua’s young and liberal replacement.
Several weeks passed before Judah was able to extract any information from his old neighbors; in the beginning, the townspeople turned their faces from him in fear and embarrassment, as if his anxious, questioning expression was the symptom of some fatal illness. Gradually, however, he managed to piece together certain fragments of overheard gossip, and began to understand about the plague and its cure; as the villagers grew accustomed and oblivious to Judah’s presence in the tavern, they slowly returned to their favorite conversational topics, and once again spoke of Rachel Anna and her departure with Jeremiah Vinograd.
Finally, in the midst of winter, as the townspeople grew more and more desperate for amusement, a few loquacious citizens could no longer resist the temptation to tell Hannah Polikov’s son about the rumors which had filtered back from Warsaw.
It was then that Judah ben Simon began to hear how Rachel Anna had entered the capital city in the mountebank’s employ, and how her remarkable performing ability had transformed her into a local celebrity. He learned how Reb Daniel of Warsaw had haunted her tent, driven by a fierce desire which had plagued him ever since the days of the dream court, and how bitterness and exhaustion had made her take the ugly old rabbi as a lover.
“Then,” concluded the villagers, “she left the mountebank’s service, despite the violent protests of Jeremiah Vinograd.”
“And after that?” demanded the distraught young man, again and again. “Where is she now?”
But even the most dedicated gossips would fall silent and refuse to reply, until, one night, Judah met the apothecary’s daughter, who had inherited all her mother’s good humor. Frowning dourly, she told the anguished husband how his son had been mysteriously sent home from Warsaw, with an anonymous letter explaining his orphaned state.
The boy’s mother, said the letter, had died in childbirth, as she struggled to bring forth Reb Daniel’s stillborn baby. But Rachel Anna’s was no ordinary maternity death; there was no infection, no uterine hemorrhage, no puerperal fever. Instead, the strains of labor had somehow opened an old wound on her neck, and caused the young woman’s blood to flow in torrents down her breast.
“And what does it mean!” cried Casimir passionately. “What does it mean that Rachel Anna, the Baroness Sophia, and the monster wildcat all died in the same way?”
“In the words of Judah the Pious,” shrugged Eliezer, “‘These things happened. What can I say?’”
During the full, thoughtful silence which ensued, King Casimir of Poland rubbed his eyes until the rims were red and teary. “Rabbi Eliezer,” he began at last, regaining a shaky hold on his composure, “it is true that I feel no regret at having taken your advice and sent my courtiers away.”
“Casimir,” interrupted the old man brusquely, “I am going away soon, and you will never see me again. Say what is on your mind.”
Shocked by the boldness of Eliezer’s request, the king hesitated for several minutes. Then, he felt overwhelmed by a sense of tranquillity and relief.
“Before you came this morning,” he murmured tentatively, “I was in a most unsettled state; I had lost almost all my faith, for I had begun to scorn it as a worthless system of injustices and improbabilities. But I will confess that your story has shown me the dangers of such a narrow and scientific view. I am nearly tempted to repair to my royal chapel, to see if I can recapture any of the old emotion. Perhaps nothing will happen,” his voice trailed off. “It is impossible to tell….
“At any rate,” he continued pompously, straining to pronounce his official decision in a properly ceremonious tone, “you have clearly won our bargain. Your people may continue with their custom. But one thing still bothers me.
“How shall I defend myself when my advisors accuse me of having based my royal decree on some charming but fantastic fairy tale, told by an obscure old Jew?”
“King Casimir,” said Eliezer, slyly raising one eyebrow, “what I have told you today is factual history. Let me explain: in my father’s old age, he lived in such fear of the spirits that he consistently referred to himself in the third person, as Judah ben Simon, in the hopes of throwing the demons off his track.”
Attempting to evaluate this new information, the king kept silent until he had reached the obvious conclusion. Then, he began to stare at the rabbi with an intent, dumbfounded gaze, as if he were seeing some supernatural curiosity for the first time.
“So you are the child conceived in a dream,” he said, in a low, awe-struck whisper.
“Yes, I am,” nodded the old man proudly.
“But how do you know?” demanded the boy.
“By now,” replied Eliezer, “there can be absolutely no doubt that I am Judah ben Simon’s son.”
“And how do you know that?” insisted the King of Poland.
“Ah,” said the Rabbi Eliezer of Rimanov, “that is another story, much longer and more complicated than the one I have told you today. That is the story of my fine, exciting life, a story which I regret to see so near its end.”
Embarrassed by this disquieting and morbid turn, the King of Poland half-rose from his seat. “Well,” he muttered nervously, “at least you will have the consolation of knowing that your body will be buried with all the proper ceremonies.”
“I do not care about that ritual!” exclaimed the Rabbi Eliezer. “I need no mourners to tell my spirit it is free to leave this earth. Not for one moment did I ever give a thought to those filthy handfuls of stony graveyard dirt; as far as I am concerned, they can leave my body out in the open, and let the crows pick out my eyes. No, my dear Casimir, I came here because I wanted to see the sovereign of Poland, just once before I died.
“That is the truth,” the old man chuckled happily. “And it is something you would never have predicted.”
Leaning down from the throne, Eliezer kissed the king’s pale forehead with his dry, wrinkled lips. Then, with a laugh just as boisterous as the one with which he had entered the court, the Rabbi Eliezer of Rimanov stood up, walked through the mirrored halls, and departed.
Three years later, a group of Cossacks, grown poor and restless during the unprecedented peace of King Casimir’s reign, descended on the town of Rimanov and massacred nine hundred people. During the general slaughter, the troops invaded the home of Rabbi Eliezer, who harangued and insulted them until the very moment of his death. In revenge, they cut out his tongue and nailed it to the lintels of his doorway—thus displaying the organ which, unbeknownst to them, had once so sweetly addressed their sovereign.
After the pogrom was over, the Jews of Poland realized that they still knew nothing about the man who had made it possible for them to retain one of their dearest customs. The people wept with vexation and dismay when they learned that their newest saint had carried his history with him into the grave. Eventually, they began to make up stories concerning the sage’s early life, and at last, in an effort to understand and preserve the Rabbi Eliezer’s heroic achievement, they invented thi
s legend of his meeting with the king.
About the Author
Francine Prose is the author of sixteen novels, including A Changed Man, winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and Blue Angel, a finalist for the National Book Award. Her most recent works of nonfiction include the highly acclaimed Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife, and the New York Times bestseller Reading Like a Writer. A former president of PEN American Center and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Prose is a highly regarded critic and essayist, and has taught literature and writing for more than twenty years at major universities. She is a distinguished writer in residence at Bard College, and she lives in New York City.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1973 by Francine Prose
Cover design by Jason Gabbert
978-1-4804-4513-0
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