King of the Fields

by Isaac Bashevis Singer

  “Thank you, krol. I greet you in the name of our master, whose message has spread to all corners of the world, despite the wicked heathen and those who hate truth and love falsehood.”

  And saying these words—slowly and in a loud voice—the stranger dismounted from his horse. Inasmuch as the stranger spoke like a learned man, holding that there was but one god and dismissing the heathens with scorn, Cybula was eager to acquaint him with Ben Dosa. But Ben Dosa had vanished. He was seen running in the direction of the field, toward the forest. Cybula shouted after him to return, but Ben Dosa did not even turn his head. Standing in their midst, the stranger delivered a sermon. From what Cybula could understand of it, the stranger—whose name was Bishop Mieczyslaw—served the same god as did Ben Dosa. His god had also revealed himself in the distant city of Jerusalem. His teaching was also recorded in a book. The stranger called it the “Bible.”

  After the sermon, Cybula invited him to his hut. When he mentioned that there was a man in this camp named Ben Dosa, a shoemaker, a teacher who both read and wrote, who was a Jew, Bishop Mieczyslaw asked, “Who is this man? The black-bearded one who fled?”

  “Yes, it is he.”

  “The Jews killed God. They hung him on a cross,” Bishop Mieczyslaw said. “They are cursed here on earth and they will never inherit the kingdom of heaven.”

  “Can a god be killed?” Cybula asked.

  “His Father in heaven sent him down to earth to redeem the world from sin through his death,” the bishop answered.

  “The father wanted his son to be killed?” Cybula asked.

  “God promised through his prophets that his son would give a new Torah, but the Jews who rebelled against God and changed money in their temple distorted the prophets’ words. They denied the miracles that Jesus Christ performed, and one of them, a liar and betrayer, pretended to be a loyal follower of Jesus and later betrayed him for the sum of thirty shekels and delivered him into the hands of the heathens.”

  “Where are the heathens—in Jerusalem?” Cybula asked.

  “Before God sent his son, all the nations worshipped idols,” Bishop Mieczyslaw answered. “But when they saw the truth, many of them destroyed the altars they used for human sacrifices, expelled the whores and false prophets from their temples, and smashed their idols. One nation alone remained headstrong and rebellious—the Jews.”

  “Did Ben Dosa kill God?” Cybula asked.

  “Not he himself. His people did.”

  “When did they kill God?”

  “Oh, a long time ago. Several hundreds of years.”

  “Is Ben Dosa so old?”

  “No, but he is descended from their corrupt seed.”

  The longer the stranger spoke, the more bewildered Cybula became. Nosek also seemed confused. Cybula blurted out: “Pan Mieczyslaw, is your Bible written in the Polish tongue?”

  “No, in Latin.”

  “Is that the language the Niemcies speak?”

  “No, the Romans.”

  “Is God also in Rome?”

  “God is everywhere.”

  “Is God everything?”

  “He has created everything—the heavens, the earth, the sun, the stars.”

  “This is what Ben Dosa also says,” Nosek broke in.

  Kora, who had listened in silence, asked the bishop, “Does God have a wife?”

  The stranger did not answer immediately. “No. He let his holy spirit rest on Mary, Joseph’s wife, and she became pregnant and bore a son, exactly as the prophet Isaiah had foretold.”

  “In Jerusalem?” Cybula asked.

  “No, in Bethlehem.”

  “Where is Bethlehem?”

  “In the holy land which God had given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

  “Shall I send someone to look for Ben Dosa so that you may discuss with him the gods of Jerusalem?” Cybula asked.

  The stranger paused before he answered.

  “Ah, the Jews are a stiff-necked people; that is why God dispersed them in all the lands and banished them from his presence. Try to show them the prophecies of their own prophets, and they twist and distort the meaning of the words.”

  “Ben Dosa taught our children to write with chalk, and he recites a prayer with them every morning. He says the Sabbath is a holy day,” Cybula said.

  “What does he teach the children? A man such as he may poison them with the utterings of his mouth. He may teach them to blaspheme against God. I would not entrust the souls of children to him.”

  “He tells them curious tales,” Kora said.

  “They may appear to be curious, but they may contain many lies. The Jews killed their own prophets. They killed the prophet Zechariah, and the prophet Jeremiah they threw into a pit,” Bishop Mieczyslaw said.

  “We are simple folk,” Cybula said. “We can neither read nor write. When the woyaks attacked us, the gods were not with us and most of our people died. Later the woyaks began to kill one another, until it happened that I became krol. Now we are a small band of women, children, and old men. Any day new enemies may come to wipe out what remains of us. That is why we live with hope only. Why, Bishop Mieczyslaw, did you come to us?”

  “I have come to teach you to serve the true God, to teach you the way of love.”

  “Of love?”

  “You will learn to love one another, and even to love your enemies.”

  “We tried to make peace with our enemies because they had given us seeds and taught us to plow and to sow,” Cybula said. “But they used our crops to make intoxicating beverages. They broke into our huts and tents and attacked our women and children. Their former king, Krol Rudy, still lives with us. He has taken my daughter for a wife, but he no longer lies with her. He is more an animal than a man now. Kora, my wife’s mother—the woman you see before you—wants to offer a sacrifice to Baba Yaga. But I don’t believe that will help us.”

  The bishop’s ears pricked up. “What sort of sacrifice?”

  “A girl from the distant steppes, at the end of the world.”

  “Cybula, that is a secret,” Kora said.

  “It is a secret no more.”

  “Baba Yaga is not a goddess but a devil, she is Lucifer’s wife,” Bishop Mieczyslaw said. “And to sacrifice humans is sinful. It is what heathens do, not those who believe in God and in his son, Jesus. Those were the wicked ways of Assyria and Babylon, who served Baal and Astarte. The Jews also committed these sins. They threw their own children into Moloch’s fires, sacrifices to demons, worshipped idols, practiced witchcraft, and fornicated under the trees. And when God sent his only begotten son to them, they falsified his teachings and tortured him. But he arose from the dead—his grave was found empty—because he lives and he will live forever. Amen.”

  “Where does he live, in Jerusalem?” Cybula asked.

  “With his father, in heaven,” Bishop Mieczyslaw answered.

  (3)

  In the evening the bishop retired early. Cybula gave him one of the huts left empty by the fleeing woyaks. Cybula had feared that Bishop Mieczyslaw would refuse to partake of their evening meals—as Ben Dosa had previously done. But the bishop explained that in the new covenant which God had concluded with the faithful he had, through the mouth of Jesus and his apostles, lifted the old prohibitions. A Christian was not required to be circumcised, he could eat the flesh of a pig, and he could light a fire on the Sabbath. These things found favor with Cybula.

  “Why should men be burdened with so many difficult commandments?” he asked Kora that night in their bed. The bishop’s god was far wiser than Ben Dosa’s. But Kora was offended by Bishop Mieczyslaw’s vehement words against human sacrifices.

  “He could be a spy,” she said.

  “Whose spy?”

  “Oh, the pans who seize all the land for themselves and make others their slaves.”

  “If the pans want to destroy us, they need no spies. They need only come with their soldiers and wipe us out. You know this as well as I.”

  “He ma
y have come from them to make us surrender without a battle,” Kora answered.

  They talked together for an hour. Yagoda had been the first to fall asleep, as always. During the feast which Cybula had ordered for the guest, they had eaten abundantly and drunk mead. Soon Cybula and Kora themselves fell into deep sleep. It was midnight when Cybula awakened. He rose and quietly walked outside, into the cool night air. The sky hovered above the camp studded with stars. As he looked, a star tore from its place and sped across the sky, leaving behind a trail of fire. As often as Cybula raised his eyes to the starry heavens, he was astonished anew. What was happening up there in the heavens? He remembered from previous years that more stars darted across the sky in late summer than at any other time. But why was that so? Cybula had heard of stargazers who could predict from the stars whether a krol would win a battle or lose it, whether an ailing man would recover or die, whether a man’s wife would be faithful to him or deceive him. But how could the stars know all this beforehand? Ah, the world was filled with so many wonders, so many puzzles.

  He began to walk. Crickets chirped and dew formed on the ground. From a nearby swamp arose the croaking of frogs. While Cybula was walking past Ben Dosa’s hut, he saw a dim light shining within and stood listening. He heard a voice. Was Ben Dosa speaking to himself? No, he was saying a prayer to his god. But how could he pray to a god he had killed? Cybula opened the door and saw Ben Dosa with a long robe wrapped around his body, his hair sprinkled with ashes as one who mourned a death. When Ben Dosa saw Cybula, he fell silent. Cybula asked, “To whom were you speaking, to yourself or to your god?”

  Ben Dosa hesitated. He put his finger to his lips, a sign that he was not permitted to speak until he had concluded his prayer. But Cybula did not understand his signal. He called out, “Have you lost your tongue?”

  “No, my krol. I am praying to God.”

  “In the middle of the night? Perhaps your god is asleep and you will wake him up,” Cybula said.

  “No, my krol. It is said, God neither dozes nor sleeps. He watches over Israel.”

  “Who is this Israel?”

  “The father of the Jews was named Jacob, but God renamed him Israel, and all his children and grandchildren carry this name.”

  “Does Jacob still live?”

  “In heaven, not on earth.”

  “Is he God’s son, whom the Jews killed?” Cybula asked.

  Ben Dosa was startled. “No, no. He whom the Jews are supposed to have killed was named Joshua, not Jacob. The Greek scribes wrote the name as Jesus and the name Christ is a Greek word for Messiah. But Joshua was not the Messiah. The Jews did not kill him, the Romans did, the same Romans who destroyed our temple.”

  “The bishop who came to us today said that the Jews killed Jesus.”

  “It is not true, my krol. How can a god be killed? And if he was God’s son, why would God allow his son to be killed? The truth is that Joshua was the son of a carpenter named Joseph and his wife, Miriam. When he grew into manhood he proclaimed himself God’s son. The miracles he performed for his followers he performed not with God’s help but with magic. He denied the Torah and its commandments. He does not sit in paradise now, he is roasting in the fires of hell.”

  “Where is hell? In heaven?”

  “There are seven hells,” Ben Dosa said.

  “Have you been there and seen them with your own eyes?”

  “No, my krol. But a Jew who denies the Torah is bound to be in hell.”

  “The bishop says that God has given a new Torah.”

  “The Torah will forever be the same Torah, just as God will forever be the same God.”

  Cybula raised his eyebrows. “How do you know that you are right and the bishop is wrong? Perhaps the opposite is true.”

  “No, my krol. The opposite is not true. They say that their Jesus is the Messiah. How can he be the Messiah, if Jews are scattered all over the world and Jerusalem lies in ruins? When the Messiah comes, God will gather the dispersed and oppressed tribes of Israel from every corner of the world and rebuild the temple, and the righteous will sit with crowns on their heads and bathe in the glow of the Shechinah.”

  “Who is the Shechinah?”

  Ben Dosa thought for a moment. “When God is angry at the Jews the Shechinah comes, and like a good mother, she pleads on their behalf. She asks God to be patient and merciful.”

  “Listen to me, Ben Dosa, I wish you no evil. You have done much good for the camp. You’ve taught our children to read and to write. You have made shoes for us all. But now it is summertime, and the children have no patience for study. I promised you that if you wanted to journey to distant cities and search for the holy book, I’d give you silver or gold. I am prepared now to keep my promise. But you must first tell me the truth. What happened between you and Kosoka? Kora found her lying half dead near your hut. Did you strike her?”

  Ben Dosa lowered his head. “My krol, I prefer not to speak of this matter.”

  “I am your krol and my word is the law. When I order you to speak the truth, you must.”

  “She has done a wicked thing. She made me impure against my will.”

  “While you raped her?”

  “No, in my sleep.”

  Cybula chuckled. “How is that possible?”

  Ben Dosa told Cybula his story. “And that, you believe, angered your god?”

  “It is against the Torah.”

  “How can the Torah know what Kosoka does in the middle of the night? Tomorrow Bishop Mieczyslaw will address our camp once again. You may, if you like, come and tell him that your god is better than his. But be careful not to insult him, he is our guest. When do you wish to set out in search of your holy book, now or after the harvest?”

  “Whenever my krol wishes me to go.”

  “Where might it be found?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve heard that in Rome there are Jews and scribes who write books.”

  “Where is this Rome?”

  “Far far away.”

  “How long will your journey be?”

  “I don’t know. It’s all in God’s hands.”

  “By the time you return to us, we may all be dead,” Cybula said. “This Bishop Mieczyslaw may be a messenger of the pans who seize all the land for themselves and make those who work it their slaves. Wait until after the harvest. I will never be anyone’s slave. Better death than slavery. We all must die in any case. There is only one god and he is all there is—the god of death, Shmiercz.”

  “Forgive me, my krol, but the true God is the God of life.”

  “Not true. A man lives a few years and then he, too, is dead forever. Man lives in terror: someone may kill him, he may fall ill, his wife may deceive him, his children may die by drowning, his house may burn, he may break his leg. But the rivers and mountains and trees never worry. It is they who are God, not he who sits up in heaven and says, ‘Don’t eat pig, don’t lie with Kosoka.’ Good night.”

  “Good night, my krol.”

  Cybula left the hut, meaning to return to his house, to Yagoda and Kora, but all desire for sleep had left him. Something drew him instead to the field, and he began to walk toward it. A cool breeze blew, and Cybula inhaled deeply. He was seized by a longing to plunge into the wheat, to lie among the stalks, and to lie there forever. How good it would be, he thought, if everything remained as it is now—the summer’s warmth, the silver moon, the whispering breeze. As Cybula continued to walk, he stepped over horse manure, pig droppings, cow manure, goat dung. Still, the animals were all less foul than man, who, if Ben Dosa was right, was given a brain to think, power to choose between good and evil, truth and untruth, God and Satan. “It’s all made up,” Cybula murmured to himself. “A pack of lies.”

  (4)

  Was it only his imagination? Cybula thought he heard a voice singing. Yes, it was a voice, a woman’s voice—raised in a long and monotonous lament, such as he heard when they buried or burned the dead. Cybula froze in his tracks. Who could be singing in the
middle of the night? Was it a she-demon, or one of the dead unable to rest in her grave? Cybula did not believe in these things, but nevertheless a terror took hold of him. It seemed to him that the voice was familiar, but whose voice was it? Did it belong to one of his dead servant girls? The moon shone brightly over the camp, but Cybula could see no one. He strained his ears. There was a pleading in the voice, a suffering. All at once it became clear to Cybula that the singing came from behind a wall. Was it the pigsty? A chain and a hook locked the door from the outside. The Lesniks herded the pigs into the pigsty at night and locked them in. When Cybula opened the door, he saw Kosoka. She sat on the earthen floor, naked, surrounded by filth, tied to a roof rafter by a rope. She stared at Cybula as he stood at the door, trembling. The girl blurted out, “Krol Cybula!”

  “Kosoka! What are you doing here?”

  She stood up, dragging the rope behind her. Everywhere there were pigs, standing or lying on the earthen floor. Kosoka said, “Yes, krol. See what they’ve done to me.”

  “Who did this?”

  “Kora.”

  Cybula asked, “When did Kora bring you here?”

  “Ah, I don’t know. The day before yesterday? I can’t remember. With the help of two other old women, she carried me here. I screamed, but they clapped their hands over my mouth. What do they want of me? I’ve done nothing!”

  “What made you sing in the middle of the night? Had you not sung, I would never have found you here.”

  “I remember days of long long ago. Krol, I don’t want to live. Please, be kind to me, kill me.”

  “No, no, no. Wait, I’ll untie you. I didn’t know Kora was so cruel. Wait!”

  Cybula tried to free Kosoka, but the hide rope had been tied in many knots. The stench in the sty nearly overwhelmed him. He felt nauseated. Slime covered his arms and his legs. He became enraged at Kora. “I’ll kill her! I’ll whip her until she is dead!” he vowed. “Who were the other two women? What are their names?” he asked.