by Ben Hopkins
They turn to look at him. Their hungry eyes are sharp and cold.
Manfred remembers the Feast of Fools. After a skin of wine and in festival candlelight, the power of the People looked so fine, like gold, a blessed force that would tear the Sceptre from the undeserving hands of Kings. Here it seems different. Black gaping mouths, snow settling on their sackcloth hoods like shrouds, hearts full of cold disappointment, a short step away from Mutiny.
Manfred’s armour alone would keep them in food and wine for a fortnight.
“Come, I’ll help you dig,” says Manfred. No time for Lording it now. Time to get his hands dirty, like he used to before Fortune raised him on her Wheel. “Bertle, let’s warm up some wine. And spice it fine. These men deserve a good warm drink.”
When in Doubt, pour out the Wine.
ABOMINATION
(ANNO 5003. YUDL BEN YITZHAK II)
Keep not thy silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God.
For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult . . .
Do unto them as unto the Midianites; as to Sisera, as to Jabin:
make them as the stubble before the wind . . .
persecute them with thy tempest, and terrify them with thy storm . . .
Let them be put to shame, and perish:
That men may know that thou, whose name alone is YHVH,
art the most high over all the earth.
His Father told him: make fish glue. Go forth amongst the Gentiles and buy fish bones and bring them unto me. He told him, “Think of the Psalm keep not thy silence, O God, as you wander amongst them. I always do.”
Yudl must concentrate as he walks to the Fischmarkt. Normally, he never leaves the Judengasse. He only knows the one route that his father showed him; left here, straight on, here left again. The route is a red thread unravelled through the network of Hagenburg streets; a path of safety. On either side of it, lies the Labyrinth, lies the Unknown.
Yudl keeps his eyes fixed on his wooden-soled shoes as they march through the mud and cobbles. His eyes flick upwards when they have to, register the landmarks, keeping an eye out for possible trouble. And he realises the obvious truth. His Father has taught Yudl this route so that he can go in his stead. So that, from now on, Father never has to leave his Books.
But doesn’t Father go on journeys every day? When he opens a book, he spreads his wings, he floats into Eternity and resides there. His travelling companions are the Letters of the Alphabet, burning with fire, racing through the spheres like comets. His Father’s Soul sits in the curve of Beth as in a chariot, a chariot pulled by the horses of Vav and Zayin and Nun. Ahead, beckoning him to follow them, silent Ayin and Aleph, burning on the distant horizon, the imagined world of perfection. Isn’t reading itself a pilgrimage into the Eternal Mysteries, into the . . . ?
“Where am I?” asks Yudl to himself. “Oh Lord, where am I?”
He stops and looks around. He doesn’t recognise this street. The horrid Cross stands high above him over the gate to a building. Two monks pass through the gate; it must be a monastery. A monastery he has never seen before.
Looking back down the way he came, he sees a large wooden sign, carved: a feather quill and a pot of ink. The Schriwerstublgass! He has walked right past it!
Yudl retraces his steps. “Don’t get distracted and lose your way again,” he says to himself. “Concentrate.”
Yudl reads the Red Book whenever he can. It is his obsession. To wait for silence in the houses, in the courtyard. To steal upstairs . . .
. . . the angels must have cried to see it, ophanim and galgalim, the hosts, the spirits of Israel. The Talmud, burning, and the goyyim rejoicing at the fire . . .
His Father’s words. In the red leather book. The Book of Secrets. The Book of All Things That We Hide From Yudl.
In a square in Paris, they made a huge bonfire, and there they burned one thousand of our books. And think of this! The goyyim had first set the Talmud on trial, with judges and priests as prosecutors and Rabbis as defenders and they had found the Talmud guilty, and thrown it to the fire! And no one told Yudl about it. Not even a word. Not even in passing. “Yudl, collect our bread from the oven and by the way, did you hear? The Goyyim burned a thousand Talmuds in Paris.” Not even that.
But Frankfurt he had heard about. They couldn’t keep that quiet. Much as they tried, much as they whispered it to each other once the children were asleep. News like that finds its way to all ears, eventually. The Rabbi of Frankfurt and his pupils shot with bows and arrows. The Jews of the city hiding in a tower, and slaughtered to a man.
The Rabbi says, “Fear not . . . if they are planning such things here, the Strawhead Goy will warn us. He is our eyes and ears in the City, he has spies in the Rathaus and the Bishop’s Palace. He will warn us.”
Lord forbid, our lives are in the hands of He Who Has No Name.
In Frankfurt a Christian and a Jewess had a child. They found out the child had not been Baptised. And that’s when the trouble started.
Yudl stops. At the corner of Seilergass and Fleischmarkt. Something has come to his mind. The Gentiles’ Abomination.
Its dome can always be seen, towering above the sloping rooves, above the gable shutters, the chimneys. When he left the Judengasse, it was in front of him. But now it is behind his back. How can that be?
How can something that was in front of you end up behind you? Without walking past it?
Yudl shakes his head. This is confusing. Like everything else in his life. With the point of his shoes he tries to draw in the mud at the side of the road; geometric patterns like the Rabbi has shown him. The triangle in the circle, with all its sides the same. The Abomination in the centre of the circle, and Yudl’s trajectory . . . going . . . round . . .
“Move, boy, you’re in the way.”
A porter wants to push past with his handcart. Yudl steps aside, and the wheels of the cart dissect his circle, straight through the middle.
It’s true. He has walked in a semi-circle. The way his Father has shown him is not the quickest way. It is a route that avoids the Abomination. The Abomination that Yudl has never seen.
Yudl moves on. Everyone is looking at him. Strange little boy, drawing signs in the mud. At the corner of Metzgergass, he looks back to where he had been standing. A man and a woman are there, hands on hips, looking down at his diagram, shaking their heads.
Yudl moves on towards the nearby Fischmarkt. He thinks about the Jews of Frankfurt, the boys hiding with their Rabbi in the Beth Midrash, reciting the Shema Yisrael and praying that they will not be found. Then the pounding on the door, the breaking of the locks. The soldiers rush in . . .
And Yudl can think no more.
In his Father’s fantasies, all the Goyyim’s evils are avenged, the Jews’ exile is over, their sorrows are at an end. The day when we shall wear golden garments and the Edomites will serve us as kings, when their murderers shall be dashed against the wall, when the blood of martyrdom shall be revenged.
The Fischmarkt. His nose tells him he has arrived. He looks up from his mud-spattered shoes to the trestle tables laden with their silvery, slippery cargo, the water in the barrels wriggling and writhing.
First to the back of zum Creutze, the tavern nearby. His Father made a deal with the serving girl there. She keeps fishbones in a sack that hangs from the outhouse ceiling, where the cats can’t get at it; the customers’ leftovers.
He knocks at the tavern’s back door. An angry-looking cook opens. Red-rimmed piggy eyes glare at Yudl from above his three chins. “What do you want, boy?”—“Is Guda there?”—“I’ll get her.”
Guda comes, looking flustered. Her eyes look blank an instant, and then recognise Yudl. She pinches his cheek. “How are you, my treasure?”—“Thank you, I am well, Fräulein.”—“Such a polite boy. Come with me.”
In the outhouse, Guda rea
ches up with a hook on a pole to detach the hanging bag. Her gown pulls tight around her buttocks. Look away. Sinful thoughts begone. “A big bag this time, Yudl. What do you use the glue for anyway?”—“To make ink.”—“Ink? For books and that?”—“That’s right, Fräulein.”—“Well aren’t you a clever boy.”—“That’s for others to say, Fräulein.”—“Well I’m saying it. Give me tuppence ha’penny.”
At the fish market, Yudl selects a carp. “Not too big, not too small,” said his Mother that morning, “a middle-sized carp, Yudl.”—“But how should I know a middle-sized carp when I see one?”—“Yudl, find the biggest carp in the market, and then find the smallest. And then buy one that is right in between.”
The fishmonger pulls out the carp by the gills and gives him a sharp mallet-blow to the head.
Walking away from the fish market, he hears their voices before they are upon him. “It’s the Jew-Fish-Boy.”—“Didn’t we tell you never to come back again?”
Yudl looks up from his shoes to the three boys he met before, on his last Fish Glue adventure. “You did say that, sir, but nevertheless I must come.”—“He called you ‘sir.’”—“He’s making fun.”—“No, sir, I am being polite.”—“Who asked you to speak?”—“I don’t need to be asked to speak, sir, now let me past, please.”—“You’re not going anywhere, Jew boy, give us your money.”—“I would but I’ve just spent it all, sir.”—“Let’s baptise him! Grab his arms.”—“No. NO. NO!”
The bag of fishbones and the basket with the heavy carp fall to the ground. And Yudl is lifted into the air. He screams. The boys, laughing and shouting, drag him towards the jetty by the Ehle. “We’re going to make you a Christian, boy!”
Yudl screams and writhes like the carp in the barrel. He howls. The boys’ pace falters. Conscience seems to slow their steps. “He’s screaming, Fritzo.”—“Let him scream.” Yudl contorts, twists, bites at their grasping hands.
“He bit me! The bastard!”—“Let’s beat him!”—“Can he swim?”
“PUT HIM DOWN!”
A voice thunders from nearby. The boys’ hands fumble, falter, let go. Yudl slips heavily to the ground. Thud.
The voice comes again; “What are you doing?”—“Just having fun, sir.”—“Is that any way to have fun?”
Yudl’s face in the mud at the side of the road. The wind knocked out of him. He can’t move. More voices come. “They’re right to get him. He was drawing magic signs at the side of the road.”—“Magic signs? What nonsense is that?”—“Curses probably. They can do magic.”—“Magic? He’s just a boy. I know his family.”
Yudl has already recognised the voice.
Yudl looks up at his rescuer. A rosy-cheeked peasant face, long, slightly curly straw-blond hair, framed by a sable fur-trimmed hood. Emmerich Schäffer looks down at him, smiles. “What happened back there with those boys?”—“They were going to baptise me.”—“They can’t baptise you, Yudl.”—“They can’t?”—“For that they need a priest.”—“Oh.”—“Can you swim?”—“No.”—“They can drown you, which would be worse. Mind you, I can’t count the times I was thrown into the millrace back in my village.”
Emmerich leads Yudl through the market. Around them, butchers cry their wares, flies buzz, customers haggle. “You’re better than them, Yudl. Don’t forget it.”—“How do you know?”—“I know your uncle, I know your mother. They talk about you.”—“You know my mother?”—“Of course. We talk sometimes. I do investments for her. Zipporah is a fine lady. And she says you’re a clever boy.”—“She does? What does my father say?”
Emmerich smiles. Rueful. “I don’t speak with your father much. I don’t think he likes me. Come on.”
Strawhead Goy takes Yudl’s hand. Yudl likes this; the comforting touch of an adult palm, guiding, protecting. If only his Father ever held his hand.
“Not this way, sir.” Emmerich is turning down the Seilergass. “Not this way?”—“This is not the way my father taught me.”—“But it’s the quickest way home.”—“It’s not the way he taught me.”—“It’s all right, Yudl. I’ll show you a new way.”
Yudl smiles. The secrets of the Labyrinth will be opened to him, the streets of the Unknown City beyond the safety of his Father’s red thread. And he no longer has to keep his eyes on his shoes. He has protection now, from one of the magical Goyyim, to Whom the World belongs. He looks up at the three-storey buildings that lean into the narrow lane. Shutters, chimneys, pigeons flapping past through the narrow gap of sky. Coils of rope in workshop doorways. Ropemakers sitting on stools, rubbing their rough and calloused hands.
And then the lane opens up, and light pours in, and a huge Square folds out in front of him. A Square full of stalls and people. And there, squatting like Behemoth in the centre of the Square, the Abomination.
Yudl trembles to see it, its hugeness. It sits there, solid as the World, and asserts its power. Purplish sandstone rises higher than the tallest trees, topped by a half-seen dome. Statues adorn its high galleries, depictions of the Hanged One, the Hanged One’s Mother.
It is being built. Re-built. The new section, gleaming with fresh-cut stone, dwarfs the older construction and seems to swallow it up, like the Serpent devouring the Mouse in Yudl’s Bestiary. Enormous, grotesque, like a demon squatting on the idolatrous earth.
Yudl covers his eyes so as not to have to see the monstrosity. Emmerich looks down at him, and smiles. “Is it really that horrible?” Yudl says nothing. Emmerich chuckles. “I remember, when I was your age, I went with my brother to your schul.”—“You went to our schul?”—“We were looking for your uncle, to borrow money from him. I was scared, just like you. We saw inside . . . all the Jews swaying and chanting and reading out these strange words. It seemed like . . . devilry. But it’s not of course.”
They walk on, passing an oxen cart loaded with stone. Yudl likes the way they are talking, the openness of it, the guiding touch of Emmerich’s hand, his gentleness. Why is his Father so stern? So angry? “Are you going to Uncle Meir’s office, sir?”—“I am.”—“Can I come with you?”—“Why?”—“I like it there. I want to learn commerce.”—“Aren’t you meant to be a scholar?”—“Yes, but who needs another scholar? All we do is read.”—“It sounds like a good life to me.”—“Then why don’t you do it?”—“I have to earn a living.”—“And why doesn’t my father have to earn a living?”—“Your uncle and mother support him. He doesn’t need to earn a living. They work so that he can study. Everyone says what a great mind he has.”—“But no one likes him.”—“Yudl!”—“Even my mother doesn’t like him.”
Emmerich stops, lets go of Yudl’s hand. His eyes look worried, perplexed. He bends down to Yudl’s height. “What makes you say that, Yudl?”
Yudl shrugs. He cannot say.
“This is a bad thing to say. You know that, don’t you?”
Silence. They are back in the Schriwerstublgass, beneath the sign with the feathered quill and the pot of ink.
“Don’t listen to the gossipers, Yudl.”—“Which gossipers?”—“Any gossipers.”—“Which ones?”—“Any ones.”—“What do they say?”—“Forget it. Forget I mentioned it.”
Emmerich takes his hand again and they walk on.
His Father’s strange words come back to him.
The whisperers, the slanderers at the back of the beth midrash, who whet their tongues like swords.
They turn into the Judengasse. Uncle Meir is sitting out on the street outside his house. He’s brought a stool, leaned it against the wall and is catnapping contentedly in the spring sunshine. The River Bandits have been defeated, and Uncle Meir’s investments are growing like never before.
“What’s that smell?” he asks, without opening his eyes. “It’s the Fishbone Boy,” says Emmerich. “I saved him from some bullies in the marketplace.” Uncle Meir’s eyes ease open a crack, blink in the sunlight. “T
hank you, Emmerich.”—“Don’t send him out tomorrow. Best you all stay at home tomorrow. Keep Quiet.” Uncle Meir sighs. “Ah yes, the enthronement.”—“What’s an ‘enthronement’?” asks Yudl.
Emmerich’s hands reach out and reset the cap on Yudl’s rebellious head of flaxen hair. “The new Bishop. He sits down in the Cathedral and they give him . . . a crown and a sceptre. That kind of thing.”—“Who’s the new Bishop?”—“Heinrich von Stahlem.”—“And why should we not go out?”
Uncle Meir stretches, yawns, grudgingly waking from his sleep, “The Christians will be celebrating. They won’t want to see us walking around looking miserable.”—“And why should we be miserable?”—“What use to us is this new Bishop?”—“You wanted the other one to be chosen, didn’t you, the One Who Was Blinded?”—“We did.”—“Why?” Emmerich shrugs. “He understood . . . the world. How things are changing. Come on, I’ll take you to your mother. You can give her your carp.”—“No, I want to stay.”—“Run along, Yudl.”
They walk on. Yudl looks up at Emmerich. His kind face, his flaxen hair.
The whisperers, the slanderers at the back of the beth midrash, who whet their tongues like swords.
They stop outside his mother’s haberdashers. They can see her through the shutters, as she sits and waits for custom.
And then it comes, her face dawns alive from its reverie. Her coal eyes glow, and sunrise comes to her dusky cheeks. She smiles at Emmerich, a warm, beauteous smile. Her face tilts, looking at him from the corner of her eyes.
And then she notices Yudl, and her smile falters, fades.
She blushes.
Yudl begins to feel sick in his stomach.
The slanderers.