The Origin of Sorrow (8 page)

The concluding prayers, led by the Chief Rabbi, did not take long. When he was through, he took a handful of earth from the pile beside the grave and tossed it onto the coffin. To those watching, the dull thud as the earth struck the wooden lid resounded with a forbidding finality.

As the mourners filed back to the lane in the quick-falling dark, the brothers Liebmann hefted their spades and began to fill in the grave. Hersch worked slowly. His arms felt heavy, as if his prayer shawl were made of lead. Perhaps his muscles had tightened from the effort of digging the grave. Or perhaps he was in no hurry to learn the identity of the new Schul-Klopper. Pausing, looking up at the darkening sky, he took a deep breath. The air was brisk and clean. He realized, for the first time, an oddity: the center of the cemetery was the one place in the Judengasse to escape from human stench.

In contrast, his brother worked quickly, dumping one heavy spade load after another into the grave. His prayer shawl didn’t hamper him at all. Was he hurrying because darkness, and thus the Sabbath, was approaching rapidly? Or was he in a rush to get back to the temple, expecting to see if not hear himself offered the sacred hammer — as if some teasing messenger had whispered into his useless ear that it would be so? Hersch dared not ask.

When the grave was full they patted it level with the back of the spades, then left the tools inside the cemetery gate. As they walked up the lane, Hersch was conscious of a dread to which he was not accustomed, while his brother, who usually lumbered through the lane slowly, with no destination outside his own imagining, kept moving two or three steps ahead, turning and waiting for Hersch to catch up, then moving ahead again. When they reached the synagogue, Hersch would have kept on going, would have walked straight home. But Hiram quickly crossed the trench toward the temple doors. Hersch knew he had no choice but to follow.

The last to leave the cemetery was Meyer Amschel Rothschild. When the burial service was done he walked alone in the stone-pocked darkness to the plot where his father and then his mother had been buried when he was barely twelve years old. Every funeral he had attended since had drawn him there with a pull on his leaden soul. He had not cried for his father. He had not cried for his mother. He had not known why, then. He did not know why now.

They had sent him away to school in Furth that year, in Bavaria, instead of to the yeshiva. It was almost as if they had foreseen what was coming. He was in mathematics class, he remembered, hunched over his desk working on a problem, when the Rabbi who headed the school summoned him from class. Seated in his office, the Rabbi said, “Sit down, Meyer Amschel. I have received today a letter from your mother. It is bad news, I’m afraid.” The Rabbi had hesitated, then continued. “Smallpox has appeared in the Frankfurt Judengasse. Your father was one of those stricken. It appears that he has passed away.”

Meyer felt stunned for a moment, then stood up. “I have to go back.”

“Sit, son, sit. It takes at least three days for the post to reach here from Frankfurt. Your father passed away on Thursday evening. The funeral would have been Friday. There’s nothing you can do now.”

“I have to be with my mother. And visit his grave. How can this be, Rabbi? My father went to schul every day. When I was little he would take my hand, and I would walk with him, alongside the Schul-Klopper, Herr Gruen. Yahweh wouldn’t do this to him. I have to go see.”

“The journey takes three days,” the Rabbi said. “More important, let me read from your mother’s letter. ‘Please tell Meyer Amschel I shall be writing to him directly as soon as I am able. Under no circumstances should you allow him to come home. I know that will be his desire, but the lane is rife with smallpox, and it would not be safe for him. I am praying that this plague will pass before the school year ends.’” The Rabbi put the letter on his desk. “You see now why I cannot let you go back?”

Meyer had nodded dumbly, and left the Rabbi’s office and went back to class, where the numbers no longer had meaning. That night he slipped out of the dormitory with all his spending money and one change of clothes in a sack, and walked two miles to the stable, and hid amid new-cut hay, till he could board the morning coach. He slept two nights on ragged beds arranged by the coach driver in cheap way stations. In Frankfurt the driver left him not at the town square but one street away from the north gate. His mother hugged him and kissed him and cried tears into his hair, and was frightened. It was not safe for him to be here, she said.

He visited his father’s freshly turned grave with her. He did not cry. He wanted to be strong. Four days he stayed before making the long journey back to school.

When he next returned to the lane, six months later, it was because his mother, too, had succumbed to the pox. He was too late for her funeral as well. His small consolation was that he had come to see her when his father died. Again, he forced himself to be strong. He did not cry. Perhaps he had been too angry at Yahweh to cry.

As he stood by their graves now, Meyer unexpectedly felt tears welling. They seemed to be rushing up from his chest to his eyes like water from an underground spring. This had never happened in his many visits to their graves through the years. He did not know why it was happening now. Perhaps the death of Herr Gruen, his father’s good friend, had stirred old memories. Or perhaps because he had just become old enough to marry, and realized his parents never would meet his bride. Under the dark sky pocked with stars he sobbed for them. He sobbed until there were no more tears within him. He felt as if the tears had cracked a wall of stones in his chest. He could feel the stones crumbling. He could hear them.

Reaching for his handkerchief, he discovered his pocket was empty; he had forgotten to bring one. He wiped the last of his tears on his prayer shawl, and found his way among the stones to the lane, and back to the schul, to his own seat, which long ago had been his father’s.

The synagogue was almost full, as it always was on a Friday night, but not nearly as crowded as before. Moving past a knot of standing women, Hersch was surprised to see his mother among them, wearing her best hat and her one good coat. She was holding the arm of their young neighbor, Guttle Schnapper. The dread in his chest reached deeper, like a small tree extending its roots. He should never have told her about Hiram’s stupid hope. He slumped onto the nearest bench. Hiram sat beside him, his shoulders thrust back, looking around eagerly.

The Sabbath service was led by Rabbi Simcha. It lasted, Hiram guessed in his silence, about half an hour, though he did not take out his watch to check; that, he’d decided, would not be proper in schul. Upon its conclusion, the Chief Rabbi once again approached the lectern. He held up his hands for quiet. In one of them Hiram saw the new carved hammer with its sleek, sensual curve. Just by looking he could imagine touching it.

Hersch peered at his brother. For a moment he himself wanted to be not only deaf but blind. He did not want to see or hear what happened next. He covered his eyes with his hand. He didn’t dare to cover his ears. Where had Hiram gotten such an absurd idea as becoming a deaf and dumb replacement for Herr Gruen?

“Now, it is my happy task to name the new Schul-Klopper,” the Chief Rabbi intoned. “I will not be presenting this fine hammer to him tonight, because as you know, the hammer is a tool, and no tool can be used on the Sabbath. Tomorrow morning and tomorrow afternoon he will knock on your doors with his fist. But tomorrow evening, in the community room, at the conclusion of the Sabbath, we will drink wine and toast the health of the new Schul-Klopper, and present him with his hammer.”

The Rabbi sipped water from a cup on the lectern. His eyes seemed to take in every face in the temple as he turned about to include them all.

“We were all shocked to learn this morning of the death of Solomon Gruen, our dear friend, whom we have just laid to rest. But soon after, my thoughts turned of necessity to the selecting of his replacement. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. I must tell you, it was not an easy task. By tradition, a new Schul-Klopper is a young man, who can walk the lane with ease. We have many fine young men in this community; it made me proud to contemplate upon them. But which one to select? I was making little progress in coming to a decision — until this afternoon, the Lord, blessed be His name, delivered the answer into my hands. Rabbi Simcha brought into my study a young man from the yeshiva, who had approached him with an interesting notion. I will not dwell on what we talked about, except to say I thought the idea was extraordinary for a boy his age.”

In his seat next to his father, Isidor Kracauer was having trouble accepting what he was hearing. He heard the words but his mind denied their content. In the knot of women at the rear, Guttle let go of the hand of Yetta Liebmann. Her eyes widened with disbelief.

“Some of you know this boy, many of you don’t,” the Chief Rabbi continued. “In some ways he is quite shy. That is one of the very reasons I have chosen him. By knocking on your doors every day, he will meet, sooner or later, every one of you. His shyness, I am confident, will disappear. This will make a serious work of scholarship upon which he is embarking that much more rewarding for all of us. He is also clever enough, his teachers assure me, to understand the records he will need to keep as shammus of the schul, which is an important part of the Schul-Klopper’s job.”

Izzy finally understood. He was breathing rapidly. He could scarcely believe what was happening — this joy that was filling his being. His father Otto, seated beside him, had taken hold of the boy’s arm, high up near the shoulder. He was squeezing so hard — an act of both pride and dismay — that Izzy felt real pain. At the rear, Guttle was having trouble standing in her place. Her feet kept wanting to dance.

“So without further delay,” the Rabbi said, “I announce to you my choice to be the new Schul-Klopper. He is the fine son of our longtime friend and butcher, Otto Kracauer. His name is Isidor. Stand up, Isidor, bitte, so everyone can get a look at you.”

Izzy did not stir. His father put both his strong arms around his son’s slim waist and hoisted him into a standing position. The temple was filled with oohs and ahs and cries of Mazel-tov. Izzy smiled blankly. His father stood and waved to the men on one side and then the other, like one of those rare Jewish prize fighters acknowledging cheers.

Hersch Liebmann looked at his brother’s face. He saw no change of expression. If Hiram was disappointed, he was not showing it. He rarely showed what he was feeling. But Hersch became aware of an odd sensation within himself. The dread that had taken root in his chest the past few hours had vanished. Instead, he felt almost exultant. He did not care to examine why. Perhaps he’d wanted desperately to remain the superior one.

In the women’s place at the rear, giddy from wine and exultation, Guttle could not stop herself. She found herself running down the aisle, the faces of the congregation a blur, throwing her arms around Izzy the Wise, hugging him close, kissing his cheek, more firmly than the brush of her lips that afternoon. The embrace, the kiss, flushed Izzy’s face. Extra blood may have rushed to his brain, because suddenly he was aware of where he was and what was happening. He smelled the perfume of Guttle’s soap, felt her breasts pressed against his chest, marveled at the residual power of her kiss — and realized that hundreds of men in yarmulkes and prayer shawls were staring at them, including all eight Rabbis and the Cantor.

Guttle felt Izzy’s body grow tense in her arms. With disbelief, she became aware of what she had done. She let him go. She looked around into staring eyes and open mouths. Shame inflamed her cheeks. But she stayed where she was. For several long seconds she stayed and looked at them, proud and defiant, as if daring them to come and get her, to physically throw her out of the men’s section for congratulating her friend. If they tried, she’d make them carry her.

Her resolve and her knees weakened together. Rather than collapse in front of them, she ran, meeting no other eyes, ran down a red-carpeted aisle that seemed to extend for kilometres, stumbled out of the synagogue whose sacred maleness she had violated, ran across a wobbling board that bridged the sewage ditch — feeling it would have served her properly if she had fallen in — turned and ran on her sore ankle along the slick cobbles beneath glowing windows, many of the windows flickering now as the oil in the lamps burned low, ran toward her home as fast as she could run in her long Sabbath dress.

Pausing to catch her breath, she found herself at the south gate, beside the cemetery. In her shame, in her rush to get away, she had run in the wrong direction.

7

Short of breath, ankle pulsing, Guttle felt mortified when she realized where she was. To walk home at once, the length of the lane, she would encounter all the men and women strolling home from the schul. What if they laughed at her? What if they scolded her? She couldn’t face them.

She would wait just a few minutes. The air had turned colder, people would be going inside, not idling in the street. Once they were in their houses she could quietly slink home. But her back was aching, she had been standing for so long, at the funeral service, in the cemetery, at the Sabbath prayers. There was no place nearby to sit, but she could stretch out there, on that small plot of dirt in the deep shadow between the cemetery and the gate. It was just big enough. She smoothed her skirts beneath her and lay down to rest, arm cradling her head. Just for a few minutes, till the lane was clear.

When she awoke, the world was fragmented, a diaspora of the brain. She didn’t know where she was. Then the gradual acknowledgment of raw dirt under her palms. Of chill from lack of a quilt. Of sleeping fully clothed. As remembrance returned, she became aware of a subtle sound, rhythmic, liquid, lapping. Sleep-inducing. She sat up to fight its lull. It could only be the river, lapping against the quays, against the stone arches of the bridge, against the wooden hulls of boats anchored against the current. The sound was lovely, like flowers made audible. A sound impossible to hear in daylight, beneath the bustle in the lane and the tumult of the docks. She struggled to her feet, shook away the wrinkles in her clothes. The lane was deserted. The candlelight in the windows was gone. Only a few oil lamps still flickered. She looked up over the cemetery in this near-total darkness, hoping to see a star. She had never been at this end of the lane after dark, there was no telling what she might see. But the sky had clouded over. No stars were visible. Just a pale hint of butter moon.

Backing onto the cobbles, still scanning the sky, she was startled by a gruff voice: “Who’s there? What are you doing here?”

Pressed against the gate, peering in with invisible eyes, was the silhouette of a Constable. A pale sheen of moonlight reflected dully off his sword.

“Who’s there? Come closer to the gate!”

Frightened, Guttle moved a few steps nearer. “I’m just looking at the sky.” She felt her voice trembling. “And listening to the river.”

His eyes were adjusting to her form, her face. “Ah, the schön madchen. Listening to the river. It’s the free beetles girl — isn’t it?”

In the dark, the guard seemed older, more intimidating. But it was not the new Constable. “You were at the north gate this morning, Herr Kapitän?”

“Double duty for the leader. We’re short an officer. So tell me, what does the river say when you listen?”

“It’s just … beautiful. The sounds it makes.” She still felt confused, half asleep.

The Kapitän said nothing for a time. She was about to turn and walk away. She was not certain if she had his permission to go.

He spoke again. “There’s a new walk by the river. Have you seen it?”

“I’ve heard of the promenade. I’ve never seen it. It’s forbidden.”

“Ach, yes. It’s forbidden.” His voice was softer. She was surprised by this conversation. He must be bored. “But if you walked on it alone, in the dark, who would know? Who would tell?” She saw the silhouette of his head move, as if he were looking about. He turned back to face her. “You could walk on it now, if you desired. See the river up close. Hear those sounds.”

“You forget something, Herr Kapitän. A small matter of the gate.”

“You people make me laugh. You, too, are forgetting something. A small matter of the key.” He jiggled musically a ring of keys hooked to his dark coat.

She could scarcely believe what he was offering. Anticipation battled with fear in her voice. “You would do that? You would let me out to look at the river? I would come back, I promise. Of course I would come back, where else would I go? I wouldn’t be gone long. Ten minutes. Maybe fifteen, if that‘s all right.”

Another adventure offered on one of the strangest days of her life! She moved closer to the gate. The Kapitän jiggled his keys in the dark. She waited for him to turn the lock. Her thumping heart blotted the river sounds. Why was he being so nice? The new young guard, maybe, but not the Kapitän. Was this a new, gentler policy, ordered by the Empress herself?

“There is one thing we have not yet discussed,” the Kapitän said.

“What is that?”

“The barter.”

“The barter? What does that mean, the barter?”

“The barter. The trade. The exchange. If I unlock the gate, what will you do for me?”

For a moment she did not understand. What could she possibly do for him? Then his words hit her like a leather strap across her face. Her eyes smarted.

“Come, I don’t hear an answer. Should I suggest some ideas, from which you could choose?”

She was not hearing him any more. She heard instead the lapping of the river. The river Main was laughing at her. Horrified, she took one, two, three steps backward. She turned and began to run, first slowly, then faster. Ran as hard as she could for the length of a dozen dark houses before she felt it was safe to slow down, short of breath, ankle throbbing with a heartbeat of its own. She did not want to attract attention. She did not want to have to explain why she was running. Someone was walking towards her. She slipped into the synagogue to hide.

The angel of sleep was late in arriving at the Judengasse that night. In the small front bedroom above his workshop, the cabinet maker Yussel Kahn could not fall asleep for the blood that was dancing in his veins. He had seen her twice that evening. He had seen her standing by the grave in the fading light, her face as smooth as polished cherry. He had seen her in the temple, that marvelous tense moment when she violated the sanctum of the men, rushed in to hug that boy and kiss him and the collective face of the Judengasse dropped in astonishment. She looking at the men in defiance for just a moment, as if daring them to throw her out. Then rushing out flustered. It was just the kind of thing his dear Lainie might have done. He lay awake, at first happy to think of the Schnapper girl, then increasingly disturbed. The Judengasse was such a small place. He must find a way to overcome this obsession. Perhaps he ought to confess it to someone. Perhaps speaking of it would ease the pain.

The coin dealer Meyer Amschel Rothschild also had difficulty falling asleep. He kept glancing in the dark at the bag of treasures on his dressing table. He wanted to study the Mesopotamian again. But handling money on the Sabbath was forbidden. Instead he lay awake composing in his head the letter he would write when the Sabbath ended, the letter to Crown Prince Wilhelm of Hesse-Hanau. Frankfurt was one of fifty-one self-governing towns in the so-called Holy Roman Empire, but there were also 94 Kings and Princes, and Crown Prince Wilhelm was among the most influential. The letter would have to be worded carefully: just the right amount of assertiveness that would be expected from a knowledgeable coin dealer; just the right amount of obsequiousness that would be expected from a Jew. He also would have to find someone to whom to dictate it. His handwriting in Judendeutsch, the mixed language of the lane, written in Hebrew letters, was clear enough. But his German writing was not. He thought of the Court Factor Schnapper, whom he’d run into at the bridge. Schnapper must have a secretary; perhaps for a few kreuzer the secretary would ink his letter to the Prince.

For the rag dealer Ephraim Hess and his young wife, Eva, sleeplessness was to be expected. A hungry infant — Solomon the Poet, Solomon the King — just twelve hours old, was nestled between them on their narrow bed. Eva fed him whenever he cried, and burped him when necessary, and wondered if her slim body would produce enough milk for the next two years. The proud father looked at his unplanned but already loved son, and nuzzled the soft pate to inhale the newborn smell, and wondered if he could wrest enough freedom from the uncaring world to give his son a finer place in which to grow, a place unfettered by walls and gates.

Isidor Kracauer was tormented the most by his inability to fall asleep. The events of the day were sailing through his brain on wind-blown seas. The dead body, the praise for his history study. Then, of all things, being named Schul-Klopper, and shammus! Not to mention the hug and kiss from Guttle in front of all the men. How was he to fall sleep? He had to, he absolutely had to, because he needed to be up at dawn, out in the lane knocking on doors. Solomon Gruen had never been late, the Chief Rabbi had said. So Izzy dared not be late. He had to fall asleep, quickly, so he would wake up in time. He had to. This refrain kept clicking in his brain like a metronome, kept him twisting and turning until the middle of the night. And made it predictable that on his first morning as Schul-Klopper, Izzy the Wise would oversleep. This was not unusual; nobody had ever called him Izzy the Early Bird.

In contrast, Hiram Liebmann was awake as always to see the first hint of gray in the morning sky. While his brother slept beside him, he moved to the window with his pocket watch and his image book. It was the Sabbath, he was not supposed to write on Saturday. He did not understand why. If you couldn’t hear and you couldn’t speak, he’d decided long ago, Yahweh had used up all the restrictions to which He was entitled. Hiram looked at his watch. It was time for the new Schul-Klopper to be off on his rounds. He should be knocking on the door downstairs at any moment. But there was no sign of the boy. Hiram was not surprised. The boy was never out early. He pulled on his clothes, making sure to put his largest handkerchief in his pocket. Quietly he went down the stairs. He walked three doors over to the Kracauer house. Hesitating only briefly, he pounded on the door with his fist.

Otto Kracauer and his wife slept upstairs in a small front bedroom on the top floor. Pounding downstairs woke the butcher. It’s the Schul-Klopper, he thought. He got out of bed, crossed the narrow hallway and knocked on the door of the boys’ room. “Time to get up, the Schul-Klopper just knocked,” he said, opening the bedroom door.

The oldest boy, Aaron, sat up in his bed, rubbing his eyes. The next boy, Eli, did the same. Both turned sleepily toward Izzy, who was still asleep. Eli shook Izzy’s shoulder to wake him. “It’s the Schul-Klopper,” he said.

The father, who had turned into the hallway, stopped. He rushed back to the room. He and Aaron and Eli all blurted the same words at the same time. “The Schul-Klopper? Izzy’s the Schul-Klopper!”

“Get him up!” the butcher ordered.

“Who knocked?” his wife asked over his shoulder as she pulled on her robe.

Awakening, Izzy took a moment to assess the situation. All at once he understood. He jumped out of bed, striking his head on the low slanted ceiling. He threw off his nightshirt and pulled on his clothes.

“What time is it? Where’s my hammer?”

“You don’t have a hammer yet,” Aaron said. “Today you use your fist.”

He pulled on his shoes. Eli threw him a yarmulke. Izzy caught it and bounded out of the room toward the stairs. “See you at the synagogue,” he said.

Leaping down two steps at a time, he burst out the front door, not seeing Hiram Liebmann standing beside it. He scurried across the cobbles, jumped over the sewage ditch, knocked hard on the door of the first house on the east side. He knocked on the door of the next house. And the next. And the next.

He stopped. He looked across the lane. He was already at the fifth house. He had not knocked on any doors on the other side. He crossed the cobbles, jumped the ditch, knocked on the first house, which was the Liebmanns, the second, which was the Kravitzes, the third, which was the Schnappers, the fourth, which was his own. He stopped again. If he kept going on this side, he would omit houses across the lane. If he kept crossing and recrossing the lane, the Sabbath service would be half over before he reached the south gate. Maybe he should run all the way down this side, knocking on doors. But then he would have to run all the way back from the south gate to awaken the men who were just across the lane.

How had the real Schul-Klopper done it? He didn’t know. He’d always been asleep when the Schul-Klopper knocked.

Izzy was near to panic when he noticed the deaf mute standing beside his door, watching. Hiram motioned for Izzy to come closer. Izzy needed to ask someone what to do, but he could not ask Hiram Liebmann, who couldn’t hear, and wouldn’t know.

Hiram tapped Izzy on the chest. He pointed across the lane. He made a sweeping motion, pointing with his forefinger toward all the houses on the east side. He tapped himself on the chest. He made the same sweeping motion toward all the houses on the west side.

“You’ll help me?” Izzy said. “You’ll do this side while I do that side?” He was repeating Hiram’s motions as he spoke.

Hiram nodded. “You’ve got a deal,” Izzy said. He clapped Hiram on the upper arm, and hurried across the lane. He knocked on the door of the fifth house, the sixth, the seventh, with his bare fist. Hiram withdrew his large handkerchief from his trouser pocket. Carefully he wrapped it around his right fist. With his left hand he pulled out his watch. There was no need to run, there would be plenty of time now. He slipped the watch back into his pocket. He began to walk along the cobbles, knocking firmly on every door, front house and rear.

Izzy, in his haste and panic, forgot about the houses in the rear. He was too worried the job might be taken away on his first day. Everyone would laugh at him, and call him sleepyhead.

So it was that men on the east side of the lane, especially early risers such as the cabinet maker, were happy to greet the new Schul-Klopper and wish him well. While men on the west side of the lane were surprised to find pounding on their doors not the new Schul-Klopper but the deaf mute. With good reason, they did not ask him questions. But any number of them mentioned it to Rabbi Simcha as he greeted them at the schul. The Rabbi told them he had no idea why this was so, but that he would surely find out.

When they had reached the south gate, their task complete, and they turned to walk back to the synagogue, Hiram Liebmann was filled with gratification by the service he had performed. No matter that he was not pious himself; he had done something useful for the people. Izzy Kracauer was less than satisfied. He was, in fact, in pain. The knuckles on both his hands were bleeding, scraped and splintered from knocking hard on all those doors. The sides of his hands was bruised and turning purple. He had knocked with them after the pain in his knuckles became too great. He showed his hands, hanging limp as cabbage leaves, to Hiram. Hiram held out his own; they were not bloodied, not bruised. He pulled out his handkerchief, wrapped it around his fist, showed it to Isidor. The boy placed the flat of an aching hand to his forehead. He winced at the pain in his knuckles. “Izzy the Dummkopf,” he said.