“W-we stuh-ayed on c-c-campus for dinner,” I said, stepping carefully from truth to truth. “We w-went to a Hannukah s-service at Sproul and…and…w-we got s-separated. I c-came home “
I wasn’t particularly worried about Dagmar. She has a way of making things turn out the way she wants them to. But I wondered what happened to Gabriel. I hoped the police hadn’t dragged him down the stairs.
“You’re okay?”
I nodded.
“I’m sorry, but I absolutely have to get to the lab to monitor an experiment. It’s chaos on campus, today. If there are picket lines, I’m going to have to cross them, much as I’d rather not. Research is research. Your grandpa is still sleeping. He should be fine, but I don’t think he should be home alone for the entire day. Since you’ve already missed half of school, could you stay home with him until I get back?”
I nodded again. “M-Mom?”
“I left a message at her hotel. The police are still arresting the demonstrators who occupied Sproul Hall last night. Dagmar might be one of them. Call me if you hear from her or you need anything.”
Later, I stood in the shower, offering my back and shoulders the hottest water I could manage. Exhausted, I climbed into sweats and hauled myself upstairs to Grandpa’s room.
His breathing had an overtone of a gurgle—what Mom calls a rale. I opened the blinds partway to let in the sunshine. He needed to get up and eat something. Judging from the sour odor, I needed to change his pajamas and the linens on his bed again.
His eyelids fluttered. He finally focused on me. “Miriam?”
I nodded, not knowing if he meant my grandmother or me. “I’ll g-get fuh-resh p-pajamas.”
He grabbed my wrist, his grip firmer than I’d felt it since he gave up his apartment and moved in with us. “Help me. The box under the bed.”
He let me clean him up first, and then sat in his chair sipping water while I took care of the bed. I refused to get the box until he had his pills, crackers, and diluted orange juice. Sylvester joined us for a cracker crumb extravaganza. Then I took the tray back to the kitchen and retrieved the box.
“I want you should have this,” he said, opening the top. An old leather album nestled inside, musty with age. “She had a samples album in Portland, for the print shop. She made it in 1912, before she left for California.”
I sat cross-legged on the floor next to his chair. “Th-this is from n-nineteen tuh-welve?”
His head shook slowly. “Who knows what happened to that album when they sold the store. This one is later, from our print shop. Double-J Printers. Better than Josefsohn and Jacobowitz. More American. She was so American, my Miriam of blessed memory. So determined that everything should be fair and just.” He patted the top of my head. “Like you. I want you should take it to your room for safekeeping.”
“We’ll l-look at it at d-dinner,” I said.
He closed his eyes and smiled. “Yes,” he whispered.
I helped him back into bed, with Sylvester and the radio to keep him company. He told me he wanted to nap until his next meal, which he insisted should consist of a small turkey sandwich with mustard on whole wheat—he hated rye—and a dill pickle, and a radish, and a large bowl of chocolate pudding.
Satisfied that my grandfather felt good enough to think about food, I told him that I might be gone for an hour—two at the most.
“Enjoy,” he mumbled, already half asleep.
I stood in the doorway and watched until he turned on his side and started to snore. He was fed and clean and in command of his faculties, and I had to see that history professor. I had to get answers. Mon Trésor’s life was at stake.
I raced downstairs, shoved the album under my bed, extracted the silver coin from my mattress, and started looking for my purse. That’s when I realized I’d left it at Sproul Hall. In Mr. Nash’s office. With my coat. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I pounded the desk. Not only did I have no money and no coat, but I might as well have left a note for the police. Dear Sirs, I, Miriam Hope Friis, a junior at Berkeley High School, do hereby confess that I unlawfully occupied Sproul Hall in defiance of Mr. Zegarelli’s orders and have thus forfeited all rights to go to the super-important high school music festival in Portland.
I huffed, and paced, and snapped two pencils in half. Then I started thinking again. I couldn’t do anything about my things at Sproul yet—Dad said they were still arresting kids there. But I could get to the history building from the other side of campus, and I had to see Professor Cavanaugh. I’d take the spare keys from the kitchen and borrow a coat and some money from Dagmar.
Why Dagmar kept Josh’s old fisherman’s sweater in the back of her closet is beyond me, but it fit well enough and would keep me warm. Searching the pockets in her clothes, I unearthed a tortoise-shell comb, a cat’s-eye marble, three foil packets of condoms even though she’s on the pill, two nickels, a key to who knows what, assorted candy wrappers, and—yes!—a crumpled five-dollar bill.
A kid’s dot-to-dot coloring book fell from the shelf on top of her closet. The same coloring book my fairy princess sister took with us to the Halloween party. When I went to put it back, a plain manila envelope slipped from the coloring book to the floor. Someone had scrawled, “Connect the dots!” across the envelope.
My jaw tightened. Something felt wrong. Sitting on the floor, I undid the little bow-tie clasp on the envelope and pulled out a rectangular piece of blotting paper in a purple-and-gold paisley pattern with perforated squares. Four of the perforated squares were missing. Four doses of LSD.
She promised me! From the moment I got home from the hospital. No more LSD doses in our room.
I pounded my fist on the floor. This time, I was going to do something about my sister and her natural high, fungussy rye. I wasn’t sure what yet, so I stashed the dot-to-dot coloring book back on the top of the closet and hid the envelope and LSD blotting paper in my grandmother’s album. No way was my sister going to touch those damn doses again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The Department of History bulletin board listed a Joan Cavanaugh in Room 206. I took a breath, climbed the stairs, leaned against the wall outside her office, and practiced saying “Mainz.” Because Mainz was the key. I was still muttering to myself, when someone said, “May I help you?”
I turned to see a tall, thin woman about my mom’s age standing by the open office door. She had on a navy blue blouse, gray flannel slacks instead of the skirt I would have expected, and a no-nonsense face.
I touched my lips and cleared my throat.
”Come on in. Are you one of my students?” Her voice had a pleasant lilt to it. Second soprano, maybe alto.
I shook my head.
She raised her eyebrows. “Are you going to a Renaissance Fair?”
I shook my head again.
”Excellent!” She waved her hand toward her office. Then she extracted a packet of chewing gum from her pocket and offered me one. “I’m trying to give up smoking. Chewing helps.”
I took a stick.
She did, too. “Most of the students who show up at office hours want to know what to wear to a Renaissance Fair,” she said, guiding me to the chair facing her desk. “I send them to the theater department.” She took her regular seat behind her desk and put on the academic face I’ve seen Dad wear with his students. “So, now, what’s on your mind?”
Mainz stuck in my throat, so I started with Dolcette’s coin. I handed it to Professor Cavanaugh, licked my lips, and managed to ask her about it.
She turned it over several times. “William the Conqueror. This is an excellent replica of coins minted in England after the Norman invasion. Late eleventh century. I’ve never seen one this shiny. Where did you get it?”
I had an urge to tell the professor that the coin came in a Cracker Jack box, which would sound more
credible than the truth. Instead I said, “A g-gift.”
”Very nice.” She gave me the coin. “Is that all you wanted to ask about?”
Nod yes and walk out the door. I took a breath.
”Was there anything else?”
I stared at the floor. Say it! Now!
”M-M-M-Mainz.” My cheeks burned.
”Mainz?”
I jerked my head. Yes.
”Mainz, the archbishopric and free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire. It’s interesting you should ask about Mainz. I wrote my dissertation on the interrelationship between economic conditions and religious fervor as regards the Rhineland peasantry in the eleventh century. You’ve come to the right place. By the way, what’s your name?”
”Hope Fuh-riis.”
”Henry Friis’s daughter? From the physics department?”
I nodded.
”Did he send you to me?”
I nodded again.
”Well, Hope, what do you want to know about Mainz?” She waited. And smiled. And chewed her gum.
”W-were there…um…J-Jews?”
She tented her fingers. “Certainly from the beginning of the eleventh century, maybe earlier. By then Jews had migrated into the Rhineland, in the Rhine River region of West Germany today. Cologne had Jews, as did the city of Worms. And Speyer. And a few others. The larger Jewish communities in Europe at that time were in Spain, Italy, and southern France. There was a Jewish community in Paris as well.”
I put the coin in my pocket and stared at a black-and-gray ceramic bowl of paper clips on Professor Cavanaugh’s desk.
The clock ticked off eight seconds. She cleared her throat once, but said nothing. Verbal ball in my court.
”D-did they b-b-bake buh-read?”
”You mean separate from their Christian neighbors?”
Another nod.
”Definitely. Is this for a paper?”
”S-sort of.”
She let it go at that. “The Jews had separate ovens and supervised the baking of bread. There were separate kosher vintners and butchers. Although the Jews paid taxes to the secular authority—the king or prince—they governed themselves as an autonomous community. That was common for Jewish communities in much of Western Europe.”
The clock ticked off eleven seconds. I licked my lips. And coughed.
”There are no stupid questions.” Professor Cavanaugh sounded like she’d told this to her students a thousand times.
I concentrated on the paper clips. “D-did they ever k-k-kill their ch-ch-children?”
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. “D-during the Cuh-ru-s-sades?”
”Oh, my, Hope, do you really want to hear all this?” Her voice softened, now almost a whisper.
I nodded.
Tick. Tick.
”As I recall the phrase used by the Jewish community was kiddush ha-Shem, which is Hebrew for ‘sanctifying the Name.’ Martyrdom to preserve the honor of God. We unearthed chronicles about this in the late nineteenth century. I am sorry. This must be very disturbing for you. What would you like to know?”
Nothing! And everything. I stared at the floor. A sigh erupted from my chest.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. “I canceled class today. The students are on strike, so no one would have come anyway. There’s plenty of time. No rush.”
Tick. Tick.
”Henry is raising you in the Jewish faith, as I recall.”
Another nod. I shifted my gaze to the swirls of wood grain on Professor Cavanaugh’s desk.
”Kiddush ha-Shem was one of the horrors of the First Crusade,” she said. “It was a sudden response to sudden terror. You have to put the incident in context. Everything in history is context, Hope. That’s key. The Jews of that region had never been attacked so viciously before.”
”S-so it r-r-really happened.”
”Sad to say, yes. I have a few of the primary sources.”
”I-I’d l-l-like to s-s-see them.”
Tick.
”Are you sure?”
I forced myself to look at her face. Her deep brown eyes bored into mine. I didn’t look away.
”Yes,” I whispered.
Professor Cavanaugh extracted a notebook from the bottom shelf of her bookcase. “Wait here, please, I’ll be back in a minute. The history department just got one of those new photocopiers. They’re a godsend.”
The office smelled of Earl Grey tea and chalk. A neatly stacked pile of papers guarded one side of her desk, and a notepad and three identical ballpoint pens held court on the other. In between stood a silver-framed photo of two corgi puppies.
Professor Cavanaugh cleared her throat. “Context,” she reminded me, coming back to sit behind her desk again. “Do you know anything about the First Crusade? How it started in France?”
”P-P-Paris?”
”Clermont, in southern France. After Pope Urban II’s speech, Peter the Hermit and his followers marched north through France, including Paris, but the Jews there essentially bribed Peter to leave them alone. Peter’s group wasn’t primarily responsible for what happened in Mainz and other places in the Rhineland. Those atrocities were committed by Count Emicho, Godfrey of Bouillon, and other knights, for their own economic gain.
She handed me a piece of paper. “This comes from Albert of Aix-la-Chapelle—or Aachen. The same place. He was a Christian chronicler of the First Crusade. It’s a translation from Latin. I’d like you to skim it here in case you have any questions.”
[The Crusader Emicho] and the rest of his band…attacked the Jews in the hall with arrows and lances…Breaking the bolts and doors, they killed the Jews, about seven hundred in number, who, in vain resisted the force and attack of so many thousands. They killed the women, also, and with their swords pierced tender children of whatever age and sex. The Jews, seeing that their Christian enemies were attacking them and their children…likewise fell upon one another, brother, children, wives, and sisters, and thus they perished as each other’s hands…rather than to be killed by the weapons of the uncircumcised.
When I looked up again, fighting nausea, Professor Cavanugh handed me another piece of paper. “And here are quotes from a Jewish source, Soloman bar Samson. They are similar to ones from another Jewish chronicler, Mainz Anonymous.”
The women there girded their loins with strength and slew their sons and their daughters and then themselves. Many men, too, plucked up courage and killed their wives, their sons, their infants. The tender and delicate mother slaughtered the babe she had played with…The maidens and the young brides and grooms…in a loud voice cried: “Look and see, O our God, what we do for the sanctification of Thy great name…
Inquire now and look about, was there ever such an abundant sacrifice as this since the days of the primeval Adam? Were there ever eleven hundred offerings on one day, each one of them like the sacrifice of Isaac, the son of Abraham?
Inhale. Slow release. Inhale. Slow release. Professor Cavanaugh gave me a glass of water. I slipped the chewing gum against the inside of my cheek, sipped the water, and listened to her mini-lecture.
”I don’t recall that the Jewish communities along the Rhine or elsewhere in Northern Europe ever did this again. Unfortunately, this one instance might have formed the basis for the blood libel against Jews in the later medieval period. The people of the early medieval period in Europe were extremely religious. In general, the Christians and Jews, and the Muslims and Jews, co-existed rather well. But this was a highly unstable time, economically and politically. Alliances shifted after the Norman Conquest, and the era witnessed the initial stirring of a mercantile class in Northern Europe. Do you see what I mean?”
I nodded.
”Even nature played a role. The spring of 1096 was unusually wet, resulting in a spike in ergotism a
mong the peasants.”
”F-from r-rotten r-rye.”
Professor Cavanaugh smiled, as if I were her star student. “Yes. Precisely. Basically, it comes from eating grain infested with the ergot fungus. Usually rye, which was the main diet of the peasants. Some peasants ate three pounds of rye bread a day.”
Tick.
“Saint Anthony’s fire? Yes, I see you’ve heard of that, too. So you know it’s associated with gangrene. But another strain resulted in convulsive ergotism, which affected the brain not unlike an LSD trip. Recent evidence indicates that convulsive ergotism was more prevalent on the northern and eastern side of the Rhine than elsewhere. Some poor soul suffering from convulsive ergotism might be revered as a saintly visionary or killed as a witch.”
The neurological component. That’s what Gabriel was going to tell me. I clutched my glass and struggled to put into words what zipped through my brain. Did the Jews of Mainz do what they did because of a rye fungus? Maybe the Crusaders were high, too.
Professor Cavanaugh seemed to read my mind. “You’re wondering about the role of convulsive ergotism in the events at Mainz?
I arched my eyebrows.
”There seems to be no evidence that the Jewish community in Mainz suffered from this disease. Many of them were from the burgeoning mercantile class, and thus economically better off than the peasants. Their diets were better. More wheat bread, less rye. More protein, fewer grains. Of course no one knows whether any of the peasant followers of the Crusader knights might have had ergotism.”
End of mini-lecture. Professor Cavanaugh touched my sleeve. “Hope, you must not judge those people by today’s standards. They lived in different times. And some Jews did decide to save their families by accepting conversion. As for the others, a few hundred apparently, they believed that Heaven was waiting for them and their loved ones. We have to forgive these poor souls, don’t you think?”
I stared at the silver picture frame and imagined Mon Trésor playing with those two puppies. “No,” I whispered.
Tick. Tick.
Professor Cavanaugh handed me her business card. “This also has my home phone number, in case you have any more questions. Or you just want to talk.”
