The Fifth Servant (70 page)

           
“We need look no further for proof that man both deserves and does not deserve to have been created,” said Rabbi Loew, watching the future leaders of the
Yidnshtot
recede into the smoke-filled streets. “I can only hope that you find the strength to forgive yourself.”

           
“Why?” I said.

           
“Because a community is too heavy for one man to carry alone.”

           
“Next you’ll be telling me that a stitch in time saves nine.”

           
“We need to make a fresh start,” said Rabbi Loew. “Come,
mayn khaver
, let us travel together to Poznan.”

           
“I’ll be ready first thing in the morning.”

           
“No, it will take me several days to pack up and get my affairs in order.”

           
“Then I’ll go ahead and wait for you there.”

           
“No, it’s not good to travel alone.”

           
“Seems like I’m always traveling alone.”

           
Rabbi Loew laid his hand on my shoulder in a fatherly way. “We will go together, and from now on you will travel as my companion and my equal. Believe it or not, I have learned a great deal from you, Rabbi Benyamin.”

           
I heard what he said clearly enough, but it took a few moments to sink in.

           
“You have taught me something as well, Rabbi Benyamin,” said Rabbi Gans, shaking my hand.

           
I nodded, and for a minute I felt as if I truly belonged here, with these two wise men by my side.

           
“So, when will you be ready to leave?” I asked.

           
“Soon. What’s your hurry?”

           
“I want to get out before the Christians change their minds and attack us again.”

           
“We’ll leave soon enough,” said Rabbi Loew. “And I happen to know some nice women in Poznan with an eye for a promising young scholar.”

           
“I’m not that young anymore, Rabbi.”

           
“None of us are,” said Rabbi Gans.

           
The street was slowly filling with regular working people, some of them stumbling along like sleepwalkers, or tiptoeing as if they were testing the un-paved surface with the trepidation normally associated with tightrope walkers. But when they saw that the earth did not swallow them up, others followed, walking with more confidence, and soon the streets were filled with people stepping around me as if they couldn’t wait to recover the last few hours that remained of the holy day and get back to their normal routine.

           
I even heard one Christian speak to a Jew who was carry ing a bucketful of water, telling him, “So, I’ll see you in the fish market on Tuesday, Mordecai,” before turning to follow his fellow Christians out of the ghetto.

           
I stood there watching the smoking ruins, waiting until the embers were cool enough to recover Yosele’s body. And I was still standing there when the timbers crumbled, sending up a shower of sparks and thick clouds of smoke, which made my eyes tear up again.

           
I covered my eyes for a moment. And when I finally blinked and wiped them clean, I saw Trine coming toward us through the haze, holding a bundle of clothing.

           
I didn’t know what to say to her. Sometimes in my dreams I still see those dark eyes, following me wherever I go.

           
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I tried to—”

           
She just handed me my cloak and turned away. There was nothing I could say to console her, so I just lowered my eyes and stared down at my cloak and the hateful yellow spot that marked me as the emperor’s property. Then the sleeping dragon inside me opened its yellow eyes, loosed its hot breath of rage, and tugged at the chains that held it down, and acting against all propriety, I took out the knife and cut through a couple of inches of the threads forming the seam. Then I hooked my fingers through the yellow ring, tightened them into a fist, and ripped out the stitches of the Jew badge and threw the cursed thing in the mud.

           
And none dared approach me.

           
WE LAID Y OSELE TO REST in a secret place inside the ghetto, within ear-shot of Zinger and his
klezmorim
, who were preparing for the Rožmberks’ wedding. Soon they would be filling the streets with the gay sound of fiddles, hand bells, and hornpipes.

           
And later that evening, as the deep blue of twilight gave way to night, we delivered Freyde and Julie Federn to the ritual bath in the drafty cellar of the Klaus Shul, and Rabbi Loew’s wife Perl personally oversaw the purification ceremony. The
mikveh
’s regular attendants wouldn’t do it because they were afraid of upsetting the most powerful members of the Rabbinical Council.

           
Everyone went back to work the next day. The chisels rang out again, the tailors plied their needles, the butchers slaughtered animals and let the blood run out into the gutters.

           
The city rebuilt the gates of the ghetto, but they made the Jews pay half the damages. The emperor annulled the expulsion decree and ordered that the gates be marked with the image of the royal eagle and the words, “Protected by His Imperial Majesty,” but the Jews still had to “lend” him 150,000 gold pieces in return for the privilege. And how many brigands can read, anyway?

           
Three days later, Emperor Rudolf quietly reversed the decree granting the Meisel Shul status as a sanctuary, but that’s another story.

           
Tomáš Kromy was arrested for looting at least a dozen Jewish homes, but he blamed his actions on witchcraft, and the bishop granted him immunity from prosecution if he would cooperate with the investigation and help identify the heretics who had bewitched him and caused him to behave in such a manner, which he was only too happy to do.

           
No one ever charged his father Josef with anything, although he was just as responsible for his son’s behavior as any witch.

           
The two mercenaries eventually led the authorities to Janoš Kopecky, who was charged with conspiracy to commit murder. When they called in his wife as a witness for the defense, she told the court, “A widow has rights that a wife does not have,” and he received a sentence of death by public strangulation. But the emperor graciously reduced the sentence to a large monetary fine on the condition that the condemned man be newly baptized as a Catholic. Kopecky freely chose to redeem himself in this manner.

           
My colleagues offered me a permanent post as a shammes, since I was now a member of the Brotherhood. I thanked them, but said that I couldn’t wait to go back to Poland and leave this intolerant empire behind.

           
Alone of all people, the country folk who shared the garret with me thanked me for all that I had done. The rest of the ghetto treated me as if I wasn’t even there. They had cut me out of their world. Or rather, they had never let me in.

           
My father was a wandering Aramean
, they say.

           
But I wasn’t alone. Because many of my brethren are living among the nations of the world, traveling farther and farther east till they reach Siberia, and eventually crossing the ocean. And those who stay behind will mix in, hiding right under your noses and evading detection by changing their names from Mordecai to Angelo, from Hayyim to Juan, from Weissberg to Chiaromonte. They have published books under the names of de Rojas and da Ponte, been reborn as monks and bishops with names like de Santa Maria and Torrecremata, drawn up the astronomical tables used by Columbus and made maps for Amerigo Vespucci, and we will even learn to wash our linen on Sunday and call our children by Christian names like Matthew and Peter, hiding among you until the day we stand naked before God. (This is the hidden meaning of the verse,
and they knew that they were naked,
according to the
Zohar
.)

           
Rabbi Jaffe was elected the Chief Rabbi of Prague, and the next morning Rabbi Loew and I left the Land of Calamity behind, setting out on the long road north. Some days later, on our way through the mountains, we met a wise woman with gray-green eyes and long brown hair who turned out to be a fellow outcast from Prague like ourselves, carry ing all of her worldly possessions tied up in a bundle. She asked many clever questions about our faith and knowledge, and decided to join us in our travels, and we arrived in Poznan in time for Shvues.

           
And not a moment too soon, because not long after his kinsman’s wedding, Vilém Rožmberk went to his reward. The old warrior was one of the last voices of tolerance among the Catholic gentry, and the uneasy coexistence between the Protestants and Catholics eventually collapsed, dragging the German Empire into thirty bloody years of all-out war.

           
At least one good thing came out of all this: the children on Würfelgasse went back to playing together. For it is written that the world itself rests on the breath of the children in our schools.

           
Of course, it is also written that the world is in the hands of fools.

           
Because a foolish idea can always come back to life, even after many centuries in the grave. And hatred always lies in a shallow grave.

           
After all, we had stopped the blood libel from becoming excessively murderous. But if the past was anything to go by, the word would soon be spreading and the Christian version of the tale would be told, first in songs and stories, and then in broadsides, pamphlets, and eventually in official documents, and in fifty or one hundred years their version would be the God’s truth.

           
So we went looking for our version of the story in the ruins of Rabbi Gans’s house.

           
We sifted through the remains, but came up with nothing but ashes.

GLOSSARY

           
aggadah
—Talmudic legends.

           
alef-beys
—the alphabet.

           
a likhtigen gan-eydn zol er hobn
—May his light shine in Paradise.

           
babicka
—(Czech) grandmother.

           
badkhn
—wedding jester, entertainer.

           
balkoyre
—Torah reader.

           
Bamidbor
—
In the Desert
, Hebrew name for the Book of Numbers. (
Bamidbar
in Modern Hebrew. Note: All Hebrew in this glossary reflects the sixteenth-century Ashkenazic pronunciation.)

           
Borukh atoh Adinoy eloyheynu meylekh ha-oylem
—Blessed art thou, O God, Ruler of the Universe.

           
batlen
—a man hired to remain in the synagogue all day in case he is needed to make up a
minyen
.

           
beys din
—lit. “house of judgment” a Jewish court of law.

           
Betlémská Kaple
—(Czech) Bethlehem Chapel.

           
beys khayim
—lit. “house of life” a cemetery.

           
bimeh
—platform in a synagogue between the congregation and the holy ark containing the Torah.

           
Blutschreiber
—lit. “bloodwriter” the official scribe in a criminal court.

           
bove mayses
—stories from the
Bovo Book
, published by Elya Bokher in 1541; origin of the phrase
bubbe mayses
, “old wives’ tales.”

           
bulvan
—dolt, blockhead; related to Moravian
balvan
, large rock (also dolt, blockhead).

           
chutzpah
—nerve, guts, audacity (also used negatively, i.e., “gall”).

           
converso
—Spanish and Portuguese Jews who converted to Christianity in or after 1492, usually forcibly.

           
Defend the truth unto the death, for truth will set you free
—a famous quote from Jan Hus, based on John 8:32.

           
emes
—truth.

           
erev
—eve.

           
eyrev-rav
—lit. “mixture of multitudes” source of the modern word “riffraff.”