The Fifth Servant (29 page)

           
Izzy licked his lips. He must have found them a little dry, because he took another sip, leaving his teeth stained purple from the cheap wine.

           
“You must beware of dreams in which you are being attacked by rats, for it is a sure sign that someone means to do you great harm,” he said. “Finding tooth marks on sacks of meal, shoes, or any kind of clothing means bad luck, maybe even death. A sudden swarm of rats fleeing a ship or a house foretells an imminent disaster—”

           
“Wait a minute—” I stopped him.

           
“What?”

           
“I saw a swarm of rats early this morning.”

           
Beynish’s eyeballs nearly popped out of his head.

           
“Where
exactly
was this?” said Izzy.

           
“A few feet from Federn’s shop on the Geistgasse, where the girl’s body was found. And there were more inside. They came pouring out the door—”

           
“Wait, wait. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Tell me about the rats in the street first.”

           
It was the height of creepiness. The street seemed to come alive with an undulating layer of greasy pelts. Then the rats scattered and left something behind on the blood-soaked cobblestones.

           
“They were fighting over a hunk of raw meat lying in the middle of the road.”

           
“A hunk of meat big enough to attract a
swarm
of rats? Did somebody happen to toss a whole joint of beef into the street?”

           
“I don’t know, but from where I was standing it looked like there was plenty of meat left on it.”

           
“And the rest were actually inside the shop? And they all came running out the door?”

           
“Well, yes. That’s what I saw.”

           
“You’re sure?”

           
“Yes. Why?”

           
“Nothing. Just that it’s very unusual behavior for rats. They generally creep in through holes and chinks in the walls. They’re not in the habit of using the front door.”

           
“What does it suggest to you?”

           
“It suggests that the rats were all in the front room, that they were unfamiliar with it, and they chose to flee through the first opening that presented itself.”

           
“That’s some pretty strange behavior, all right.”

           
“No, I’d say it’s a pretty common reaction for cornered animals.”

           
“I mean, how did they get there in the first place? Did they follow the smell up the block and get trapped inside the store?”

           
“Oh, I suppose there are a lot of ways they could have gotten in there. But…”

           
He drummed his fingers on the table. I tried not to stare at the stunted digit on his right hand.

           
“But…?”

           
“But—” He brought his hand up to his throat. “But it’s so hard to talk with my gullet being so dry and all.”

           
He rubbed his throat like a wanderer in the desert, desperate for water.

           
I ordered another round. That made him smile. In the meantime, my cup was still half-full, so I let him have the rest of it.

           
He took his time drinking it, then continued. “But the most likely explanation is that whoever put the body of that poor girl there brought along a sackful of live rats just in case they needed them.”

           
“Needed them? For what purpose?”

           
“To distract people. It worked on you, didn’t it?”

           
It certainly did.

           
“They took the trouble to gather a sackful of rats?” I said.

           
“It’s not hard if you’re willing to use good bait.”

           
“Like—?”

           
“Like good cuts of meat. Did they look well fed?”

           
“How should I know?”

           
The ratcatcher shook his head as if he were supremely disappointed in me, because naturally
he
would have spotted it immediately. Then he shrugged it off as if he had gotten used to the gross incompetence of meddling amateurs.

           
Three more cups of wine arrived.

           
They drank. I sipped.

           
“A single piece of rotten meat in the right location will attract a few dozen rats in a couple of minutes,” said Izzy.

           
“What kind of locations?”

           
He took another long, slow drink before saying, “Places where rats gather. Slaughter houses, dungheaps, the waterfront—”

           
The pieces were starting to fit.

           
I said, “And the only kind of cart that wouldn’t miss a hunk of beef that big is—”

           
“A butcher’s cart,” said Izzy. “Mystery solved.” He celebrated this triumph of reasoning by draining his wine to the dregs.

           
“I saw such a cart,” I said. “There were two men in it. The driver and somebody else.”

           
“One to pick the lock and the other to carry in the body,” said Beynish.

           
“They nearly ran me over, and a Christian girl, too, they were in such a hurry to get out of there.”

           
“And you want me to help you find out which direction they went,” said Izzy.

           
“Sure, but I think the most important question is what direction they came from.”

           
“Why is that more important?”

           
“Because I might be able to answer it, if I only knew the streets better—”

           
“Not that way, you idiot!” A woman’s voice blared, scattering my thoughts like frightened starlings.

           
“Ha ha ha!” A drunken man cackled, kicking his half-naked legs in the air and sending his gaily colored pantaloons flapping all around him.

           
“Mr. Johnson, please—!”

           
The hostess nearly spilled a pitcher of wine as she rushed over to help the woman drag him back into the dark corridor behind the bar.

           
It was just a quick flash of color, but it was enough. The man’s clothes, his carefree attitude, and the unwashed turnip swinging between his legs told me it was time to abandon my drinking partners and follow the hostess into the plea sure garden behind this underground tavern.

           
The hostess reappeared in time to block my way to the passage.

           
“I’ve changed my mind about seeing your other line of business,” I said.

           
“Too late. We’re all full up.”

           
Nobody had come in after me.

           
“Oh, I see.” I feigned disappointment. “How much?”

           
“That depends,” she said, practically batting her eyelashes at me, trying to be coy, although she couldn’t have pulled off being coy with the help of a team of dray horses.

           
I reached inside my cloak, and her smile turned sour when I held up a piece of parchment signed by Rabbi Loew granting me license to investigate in his name.

           
She blinked.

           
“What the hell is this?” she said, looking at the Yiddish words as if they were a collection of meaningless squiggles.

           
“Do you recognize this signature?”

           
Her eyes flitted along the page like frogs hopping around Pharaoh’s bedchamber.

           
“Sure, but what is it supposed to mean?”

           
“It means don’t bother yourself, I’ll show myself around.”

           
Some chairs scraped behind me as several gentlemen stood up from their games and gallantly offered to come to the lady’s assistance.

           
“And I’ll take my change now,” I said, holding out my hand.

           
She looked like she wanted to drive a corkscrew through my palm, but decided against it. “Fine. Take your change, you cheap shammes.”

           
She slapped a few kreuzers on the bar. At least she didn’t throw them at me.

           
“Thanks,” I said, picking them up. Then I nodded toward the middle gaming table. “And by the way, one of those pairs of dice is loaded.”

           
I FOLLOWED THE SOUND of voices to a little room at the end of a pale green corridor, where a half-dozen women were lounging on a long couch, drinking cups of peppermint tea and joking among themselves. Some of them had their feet up on the table, exposing even more of their forbidden flesh. The only attempt to dress up the room was an embroidered tablecloth and a couple of lanterns with tinted glass emitting a reddish glow that rendered the women’s soft curves all the more mysterious and alluring. I wondered what the artisans who spent their days piecing Virgin Marys together out of stained glass thought about the less-than-sacred uses of their materials. It probably kept them sane.

           
Many are Thy works, O Lord
. There were women of every shape and size, for every style and taste, from twiggy teens to full-figured fertility goddesses, including a blond as white as bleached flour with a cross around her neck. Her name was Jana, and she wasn’t just there to be someone’s fantasy dress-up, she really was a Christian.

           
“You mean there’s actually someone here who’s more out-of-place than I am?” I said.

           
“I’ve never felt more at home,” Jana said, linking arms with the girl next to her. “The richest men in the ghetto come to me.”

           
“Second richest,” said a good-looking slightly older woman with dark wavy hair, whose name was Trine. “The richest have their own class of whores in the Christian part of town, only they call them
mistresses
.”

           
“What does it matter?” said a woman whose attributes were as full and round as ripe melons. “The milk of white goats and black goats is the same.”

           
What would the rabbi say if he heard the Midrash quoted in this room, from such a mouth?

           
Or if he heard Jana proposition me in fluent gambler’s Yiddish: “
Nu?
You wanna play the
froyen-shpil
with me for a little while?”

           
“He’s not interested in your games,” said Trine. “Can’t you see that he’s a scholar? You have to say, Come, let us explore the
sod ha-zivug
together.”

           
The mystery of coupling. A term from the Kabbalah.

           
“So what’ll it be, mister?” said one of the skinny ones, smiling at me and revealing a number of missing teeth. I guess there were men who found that sexy.

           
“Yeah, we don’t have all night, O learned one,” said Trine. “For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”

           
Now the Torah. If you ignored their profanities, they had to be the most literate bunch of whores in the kingdom.

           
I picked Trine.

           
She grabbed a candle and led me down a nearby corridor with doors lining both sides. Her raven hair glistened in the candlelight, and the stark shadows accentuated her cheekbones. Her skin was a bit weathered, but she must have been a
groyse yefeyfiyeh
, a real stunner, when she was younger, because she was still very attractive to my eyes. Considering how sharp-witted she was as well, I wondered what happened on the road of life that sent her down this path. Did she take a wrong turn somewhere, or did someone happen to give her especially lousy directions?

           
“I’m right, aren’t I?” she said. “You’re some kind of a scholar.”

           
“Sure. Now, if only I could figure out what kind.”

           
I listened closely, catching bits of Yiddish, Czech, and German conversation through the cracks and keyholes. A sallow-faced girl with layers of makeup painted on as thick as a wooden marionette’s stepped around us, followed by a slow but eager-looking man with the perpetual stoop of a porter and rope burns across his hands.