Cathedral

by Ben Hopkins

  Yudl steps forwards, bows slightly to the Stranger, and takes the pergament. “The Duke writes in Hebrew?” The Stranger’s eyes shine, gently mocking. “No. The Duke writes in Latin. This is my rendering of the proclamation in the language of Ashkenaz.”

  The letters swim in Yudl’s eyes, a German written in the Holy Script, a strange and profane concatenation of syllables . . . in the name of . . . His Highness . . . Duke Boleslav . . .

  Yudl looks up from the extraordinary document. “And what are you to the Duke of Kalisz, Stranger?”

  The Stranger turns on his heels, and his cloak circles his polished boots. A showman. He smiles, showing his gaptoothed mouth. “I am a ‘locator.’ Charged by the Duke, at his shilling, to travel the river road of the Rhine, and find settlers for the bright new land. I hide nothing from you! True, I receive an emolument for every settling family that stays more than three years. But like you, dear Sir, I am driven in my chosen trade not only by the love of silver.”—“And what is this other thing that we are driven by, Stranger?”—“By the Love of our Fellow Man.”

  His clean, soft, supple hand reaches out, and with a gentle flourish, takes the scroll back from Yudl. He holds it outwards to the congregation, turning slowly, presenting it like a Torah Scroll, containing eternal promise.

  “I am driven by my wish that the Jews of Ashkenaz may find a true and lasting home until we are called back to Israel.” And he sings from the Book of Isaiah, and his voice is high and clear and fine. “And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.”

  And there are tears of rapture in the Stranger’s eyes as the Jews of Hagenburg whisper, “Amen.”

  

  And how did the legionaries of Emperor Titus lift their banners over the Temple Grounds? How did they raze the Temple’s walls, loot its treasures, burn its chambers? How did they slaughter the people of Jerusalem like animals, how did they massacre the thousands, and remain unpunished? Remain the Lords of this World?

  Is this not the successor of the Roman Empire in which we now live, is not our King called the Holy King of the Romans, is not the Church that lords above us the Church of Rome? And is this not the Age of Iron foretold in the Book of Daniel? “And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: as iron shall it break and crush all things”?

  Yudl stands on the edge of the Quay, staring at the Ehle’s drifting waters, his corrugated reflection ripples on the silver surface. Splash! An empty barrel rolls from a docking barge and into the swell. The porter boys shouting, the Quaymaster fishing for it with a hooked pole, but in vain. It floats out into the centre current, heading for the Rhine. I’ll take that off your wages, you dolt. It wasn’t my fault, sir, they didn’t bind it right. Don’t answer back. God willing it will get stuck at the Butchers’ Bridge downstream. Well, go and look . . .

  Words, scraps, recriminations, fluttering into Yudl’s distracted thoughts. I have to stop doing this. Drifting off, like an old man. He rubs his eyes, takes off his cap, scratches his scalp. Itchy all day. Around him the teeming life of the Market Quay, the overstuffed heart of Hagenburg.

  And yet by the river, the air is sweet. The damp winter wind coming from the distant Vogesen hills, still blanketed in snow. Yudl feels in the lining of his coat, pulls out a scrap of cloth that his wife that morning had sprinkled with rose water. He holds it to his nose. Ready.

  And he heads into the chaotic streets. Entering the labyrinth that surrounds the Cathedral Square, the stink begins. The stench of pissbowls and chamberpots, dung and refuse, scattered in piles, a soft, wet mass of filth underfoot. The smell of ripening and rotting human waste, clutching the throat.

  Yudl walks in the centre of the lanes, head down, clutching the scented cloth to his nose. In the streets of Kalisz, cleanliness and order such as you can only dream of in Hagenburg. The Stranger’s words, so enticing now. And in Yudl’s mind he is flying, like Habakkuk . . . the Angel of the Lord carrying him into the skies, holding him by the hair, borne by clean, mountain winds. The tangle and filth of Hagenburg far below, the tottering rooves of matted straw, a flight of crows passing over the City’s rising walls . . . and then he is soaring over the Rhine and the drifting barges, across the wooded hills of the Schwarzwald, East towards the rising sun, East towards the City of Prague where his Mother now lives, and onwards towards the bounteous, emerald plain of Kalisz . . .

  “Watch where you’re going!” In the Schmiedgassl, a serving girl bumps into his shoulder as she passes. And Yudl walks on, through the Inferno. Hammers pounding on horseshoes, beating out nails, links in chains. Red fiery sparks cascading from the blacksmiths’ workshops onto the road, hissing as they fall into the slush. Glimpses into the smithies, dark, smoke-blackened rooms, the smoulder of furnace and incandescent charcoal, ochre light on the smiths’ intent faces as their hammers sculpt the glowing iron.

  Yudl walks on. Isaiah again. And it shall come to pass, that instead of fragrance there shall be a stench . . . It seems every measure of ground is claimed and occupied, everywhere full. The walls of the houses crowd around the scuttling citizens, trapping in the evil smell. Here, away from the water and the wharf, the Vogesen’s freshening wind will never reach. Here the air is stagnant, sulphurous with the furnace fumes, brackish with human filth.

  In front of Yudl, the narrowness widens, the darkness lightens. His mind returns to the present day, to the tumult and miasma of Ashkenaz. The Cathedral Square opens, and there is once again light and air.

  But even here there is no respite from the wearying parade, the tattered pageant of Hagenburg. Performers, hawkers, beggars, preachers. A peasant girl with a basket of the first snowdrops and aconites, smiling. “Flowers, sir, for your lapel?” Yudl lets fall the rosewatered cloth, declines. “No thank you, madam.”—“Just a penny, sir. For your wife? A token?”—“No thank you, madam.”

  Regret. Maybe his wife would have liked a posy, a harbinger of Spring. “Excuse me, madam. A tuppence posy, why not?” “Yes, sir, a tuppence posy.” Her dirt-nailed fingers select a clutch of flowers. Placing the basket on the muddy, cobbled ground, she ties a ribbon around the stems.

  Yudl reaches into his cloak, discreetly he looks around. Is anyone watching? The gold for the journey is deep inside his shirt, strapped to his chest. He can feel it hard against his skin. Still there. His fingers tickle themselves into the pouch in the gabardine’s hem where his daily pennies are kept; old Hagenburg coin.

  Yudl thinks of the Flower Girl, kneeling in the grey dawn to pluck the flowers from the foothill woods, and trudging the brown-slushed roads to the City Gates. One of the thousands who flock to the city markets, whose livelihood is to scavenge the scraps that fall from the High Table of Hagenburg. Even in Yudl’s short lifetime, how has the City grown, how it has popped its buttons, sprung its overstuffed laces, swollen against its straining walls. And struggling to keep up with its gluttonous appetite, the city’s council and officials, registering, taxing, legislating, minting new coin to try and hold the flood of trade as it bursts its banks . . .

  And the Bishop? An absent, incompetent Overlord, terrified of the tumult that flows through the streets, huddling with his clerics and knights, leaving all in the hands of his Ministers. The Ministerial families Müllenheim, Zorn, Doroltzheimer, holding back the flood with their quills and statutes, the New Lawgivers of Hagenburg, their fiefdoms the Courts, the Councils, the Committees, the Mint.

  “Tuppence, sir?” Her hands proffering the clutch of flowers, white bells nodding, chiming. “Yes, of course.” His fingers tease out two old Hagenburg pennies. “Here you are, madam.”

  Clutching his posy, he walks on, skirting the Cathedral, the giant Temple of Hagenburg, its western end still muffled in scaffold. Slowly, achingly slowly, being remade; taller, cleaner, brighter, adorned with graceful, idolatrous statues and g
rimacing fiends. Gargoyles they call them. Gargoyles . . . gar . . . goyle, gargle, they gargle the rain.

  Rain? Today, low, bruised clouds, rolling, reforming, a gathering wind. The promise of a later storm.

  Around the Cathedral’s skirts, an Arcade of stalls and shops, selling icons, figures of their Saints, selling the Bishop’s wine, meat and crops. Episcopal produce, sold in the Cathedral’s shadow, exempt from the taxes that all other vendors must pay. The Council wants to tax the Bishop’s goods. The Bishop refuses. The Council insists. The Bishop threatens the Councillors with excommunication. The Council retreats, grumbling, plots revenge . . .

  To fill the financial gap, they raise the taxes on the Jews.

  We pay taxes to the Bishop of Rome.

  We pay taxes to the Emperor of Rome. The same Rome that destroyed our Temple.

  Grete Gerber, passing by, hands clutching her fine skirts, lifting them above the matted filth of the cobbles. Avoid. Turn. Lord, may she not see me.

  “Judah!” she calls. Her commanding voice. It could silence a gaggle of hissing geese.

  Smile. “Mistress Gerber! How are you, madam?”

  “Passing well,” she says with air and affectation. Beside her, the young bastard “Mayenz Manfred” and the widow Rosamunda Bartsch, her constant companions and familiars. “And you, have you thought any more about my offer?”

  “I wasn’t aware it was an offer.”—“My appeal.”—“I must be honest, my position is unchanged.”—“What can I do to change it?” She smiles coquettishly, hand on hip, a shade of the spirited girl she once must have been.

  Grete’s head swivels, searching the crowds. Is anyone watching? Listening? Hagenburg, now, is full of Spies. “Help us, Judah, and we can help you. A profit share. The spoils of war.”

  Yudl shakes his head, leans closer to her, speaks quietly, nearly a whisper. “They tell me the Bishop is sick again. I prefer the policy: wait and see. Maybe a fair wind will come, Frau Gerber.”—“I see only hail and rain.”—“Good things come to those who hope. I must go, I have business in the Judengasse. Good day, Mistress Gerber.”—“And to you,” she frowns, pleating up her skirts once more.

  And Yudl moves off, pressing the posy of flowers to his nose. And enters the Brüdergass, and the labyrinth once more.

  Will she ever cease? Milking me for money, silver for her Cause?

  Yudl turns, looking over his shoulder. Is anyone following me? Did anyone see us talking? The upper stories of the houses lean inwards, stretching out to entrap every inch of space, shadowing the lanes and hiding the streets from God’s judging eyes, from Sun and Moon. But where God cannot see, Others are watching.

  The City is taut, troubled. The two opposing sides study each other for signs of weakness or gathering strength. If Baron Volmar rides in from his Kronthal estate, as soon as he has passed through the Vogesen Gate, whispered word will be racing to the antechamber of the Bishop’s Palace. And if the Bishop’s Vassals descend from their distant townships to pay tribute to their overlord, then, speeding ahead of them on the Pilgrims’ Road, the Baron’s outriders, bearing the list of numbers and names.

  In the streets, watchers, informers, spies. Spies for the Bishop, spies for the ministerial families: for the Zorns, Müllenheims and Doroltzheims, spies for the Sternkammer nobles: for von Kronthal and von Rappoltstein, spies for the merchants, spies for the beggars, spies for the Jews. A penny here, a farthing there, crossed over their grimy palms, and the traffic of the day is for sale; who met with whom, who passed, who visited what tavern, and even the Baron’s valet bought two pounds of eels at the Fischmarkt could be a penny’s worth in the whispered currency of the times.

  And Grete Gerber, wealthy widow, is raising money on the quiet. In league with Baron Volmar and the City Families, with the Münzmeister’s Müllenheims and the Zorns and Doroltzheimers, she is matching merchant coin with noble and ministerial Gold. She wants her fingers on the “Rosheimer Fortune,” wants me to invest in Weapons, to arm the citizens. To buy a boatload of swords and spears from Magdeburg, crawling upriver from Cologne.

  Even if the war between Pope and Staufen has drifted South over the Alps to Naples and Sicily, even if Peace and Trade now once again sail the broad river road of the Rhine, Hagenburg remains drawn-daggered and teeth bared, the Bishop against his own Citizens. A coming storm. Invest, invest in gold. Florentine Florins. Not the Hagenburg penny, shilling and mark.

  Soon home. In safety, in the Judengasse. He looks again through the passing crowds. No one. Good. God willing, no one saw. His cloak, a simple woollen gabardine, black-dyed. His stockings white linen, his coat black worsted. No colour or flourish, nothing to call attention to him, no signal of his wealth. He passes amongst the living crowds, a modest ghost.

  

  The Rabbi is expecting him, already waiting in the small back room of the beth midrash. A storeroom for damaged books and parchments, a pile of bowls and spoons for communal meals, a broom leaning against a basin. A polstered chair, where the Rabbi sometimes sleeps. “Yudl, come in.”

  Yudl enters, closes the door behind him, bends to kiss the back of the Rabbi’s hand.

  Yudl sits on the proffered stool. “How are you, Yudl?”—“How should I be?” The Rabbi smiles. “Like a man with many blessings. Worried.”—“That’s exactly how I am, Rabbi.”—“Then tell me how is your family. Your wife?”—“Very well.”—“Your son, your daughter?”—“You see more of my son than I do. How is he doing?”—“A good student.”

  Yudl passes his hands across his face. “I have brought the money.” He reaches into his clothing to loosen the strap that fastens the purse to his chest. As he fumbles, Rabbi Menahem studies him, saying nothing. Yudl feels his gaze, probing. And knows that he sees inside him, at least part of the way inside.

  The swollen purse is now in Yudl’s hand, heavy with coin. “My word!” Menahem exhales. “You have brought half the Mint of Hagenburg.”

  Yudl nods. “I think we should pay our taxes early this year.”—“Who in the world pays their taxes early?”—“We do. When we are worried that if we wait, the price will rise again. And that these coins will no longer be pennies valent.”—Rabbi Menahem raises his hands. “Spare me further explanation.”—“I will.”—“I have no interest nor understanding in these matters.”—“I know.”—“Then I defer the matter to you.”

  Yudl eases the purse open, and pulls out two smaller pouches from within. “This is my donation to our poor.”—“Bless you.” The Rabbi’s hand reaches out, his eyes turn away and face the wall. Yudl places the pouch in the Rabbi’s hand. Without looking, Menahem places it inside the charity box on the shelf by his chair. His lips mutter a blessing. His eyes close. Then re-open, fix on Yudl.

  Yudl places the second pouch in the Rabbi’s hand. “And this is for the journey to Kalisz. My cousins will come tomorrow, stay Shabbat, and leave the following morning. May the road money come from your hand, not mine.”

  Rabbi Menahem nods sadly. His gaze mistens, dreaming of the journey. “I pray you are right about this, Yudl.”—“Is it better to know something, or not know something?”—“It is better to know something.”—“Then it is right for them to go. Then we will know if the Duchy of Kalisz is as he says.”—“It is a long way.”—“Our ancestors came further, from Israel to the Rhine.”—“They did. I often wonder why on earth, why?”

  The two men look at each other, smiling. “And now, Yudl, tell me what you are worrying about.”—“The Temple of Jerusalem.” The Rabbi’s eyes are still smiling. “Is that what you are worried about?”—“Emperor Titus destroyed our Temple and then made the Jews pay to build a new temple, to Jupiter, in Rome, did he not?”—“I believe so.”—“And, so to say, we pay the great-great grandchild of that tax to the present-day Holy Roman Emperor?”—“Yudl . . . ”—“And we just do this? The Jews of Israel resisted Rome.”—“And look what happened. Jerus
alem was destroyed.”

  Yudl fidgets nervously on his stool. He is looking at the floor, but can feel Rabbi Menahem’s concerned gaze examining him. “Yudl, your father was plagued by the same kind of thoughts.”—“I know. Aren’t we condemned to follow our Fathers?”

  The Rabbi sighs. Yudl looks up and meets his gaze. The Rabbi looks away. “With you I don’t know.”

  Rabbi Menahem spreads his hands. “Look at the Torah. Two nations are in thy womb. Jakob and Esau. The wombs of our Matriarchs gave birth to both our Ancestors and those of the other nations. Let us be at peace with our neighbours, and at peace with ourselves. You are Who You Are, Judah. And thanks to you and your acumen, our beth midrash has a new roof and new books, our taxes are paid on time and in full, the poor eat meat on the Sabbath. We thank you.”

  Silence stretches out between them. Through the closed door, the murmuration of the men reciting in the beth midrash, a gentle choir of singsong voices, falling and rising with the cadence of the Holy Word. Yudl takes off his cap, scratches his unruly scalp. “I am no longer so interested in my work. It feels . . . hollow. Like a show. Like the Easter Players who perform in front of the Cathedral.”—“I have never seen them.”—“Playacting. They play roles, pretend to be lovers, pretend to be angels.”—“God forbid.”—“And I, if I make a good sale, set up a winning deal. I play pleasure, make seem that I have joy in victory. But inside I no longer feel anything but weariness.”

  

  The Cathedral’s bell tolls, but there is still an hour before sunset. It tolls again, sustaining . . . fading from bronze to beaten silver, at the edge of hearing.

  The bell tolls again. A flock of starlings, startled by the bell, somersault, screeching, through the leaden sky.