by Sylvie Weil
I started off by polishing the Sabbath cup and the silver tray until they shone like mirrors. And I must say, I was pleased by the reflection I saw: an oval face, pink cheeks, and a fine nose that isn’t red like some of my friends’ noses. My hair is curly, with long, thick braids divided by a straight part. I don’t have the blond braids of the ladies in the ballads, and my eyes are neither green nor periwinkle blue but more of a hazel brown. How I wish the silver tray were bigger! I have heard that rich ladies in castles have mirrors where they can admire themselves from head to toe!
Next came the laundry. What a bore! But I love the fresh scent of soap. My grandfather told me that in Germany, when he was a student, he saw women whiten their laundry by soaking it in dog dung for a day or two before washing it with soap. Every time I think of that, it makes me laugh. Maybe girls in Germany don’t only have to hatch eggs but must pick up dogs’ dung, too! So they are even worse off than I am!
I decided to sit and spin near the window, and despite my mother’s orders, I left the shutter open. Mazal, you do understand, don’t you? How could I spend the whole day in the dark with only a little lamp for company?
The courtyard is deserted. There is not a soul to be seen unless you count the cock and the two hens that the cat chases aimlessly from time to time. They make pathetic attempts to fly off, flapping their wings in a ridiculous fashion.
The wool runs between my fingers. It runs from my left hand to my right. The staff, wedged under my left arm, gets lighter as my spindle gets heavier. I will soon have finished all my work. Ten times, I have wondered what Muriel is doing today. Ten times, I have imagined I was rushing down the street, turning the corner, and running to Muriel’s without even stopping in front of the cake stall with its delicious baking smells of hot cakes and buns wafting in the air . . . without stopping at the old basket weaver’s. I don’t even pause at the apothecary’s to glance at the flasks filled with scorpions, vipers, and toads, or the tiny scales, perfect for weighing frogs’ hearts and grasshoppers’ eggs! My mother and I mostly use herbs and berries that we gather ourselves. We sometimes use bark from trees and fat from cows or chickens, but once or twice I have bought leeches from the apothecary. As I sit daydreaming, I imagine the hustle and bustle of the street. I hear the merchants hawking their wares, women laughing, and children playing. I hear the spice merchant enticing me with his, “Elvina, come in here a minute; smell this cinnamon. It comes all the way from the Holy Land. It’s the best remedy for tired eyes. It would be good for your grandfather, Solomon ben Isaac, who is not getting any younger, may the Lord protect him. Here, taste this ginger. Go on, do me a favor, take a few dried figs. A pretty girl like you, you’ll bring me good luck.”
I imagine the little donkey waiting patiently in front of the spice stall, and I see myself rubbing his ears as I eat the figs.
Mazal, who is sending me these daydreams? You, by any chance?
All I know is that I can’t resist the temptation any longer. Out I go! I barely hear old Zipporah shouting out, “Elvina, where are you going? What will I tell your mother?”
“Tell her I went to take Muriel the bracelet she lent me. She wants it back.”
My clogs clip-clop on the frost-hardened ground. Way up above my head, huge cotton-white clouds chase along, running much faster than I. Where are they going? When I see them race across the sky, I forget that I’m walking in the familiar narrow street of my hometown. I forget how bored I have been all afternoon. It’s as if the clouds are pulling me along after them. I feel as light and joyful as they are. On my wrist I feel Muriel’s bracelet. What an excellent excuse for escaping from the house!
VI
Elvina is out of breath from running. When she finally bangs on Muriel’s front door, she already knows that something is wrong. The street is deserted and deadly silent, yet it is the middle of the day. Elvina can’t believe her eyes. No old basket weaver, no freshly baked buns, no apothecary, and no little donkey! There is nothing, not even the sound of voices. Doors and shutters are locked, and those that are usually open to display wares are sealed tight. A few dogs scavenge through piles of rubbish, delighted that for once nobody is chasing them away.
Muriel opens the door. She looks astonished. “Didn’t they tell you not to go outside?” she asks.
“Yes, but I got bored. Look, I’ve brought you your bracelet.”
“How could you dare to leave home? Quick, come inside!”
As soon as Elvina enters, Muriel hastily bolts the door. She is with her cousins Bella, a plump dark girl of fourteen who thinks of nothing but her approaching wedding, and the twins Naomi and Rachel. The two ten-year-olds are exactly alike, with untidy wisps of curly hair escaping from their thick, dark braids. Their bright eyes sparkle with mischief, reflecting personalities to match. The four girls are busy embroidering belts and munching walnuts.
Elvina already regrets having come. “The men are all praying and fasting, and you are sitting here embroidering belts?”
“What else are we supposed to do?”
“For one thing, you could try reading this week’s portion of the Torah.”
Muriel gives Elvina a look that makes her blush with shame. Muriel hardly knows how to read, and her cousins, who live in a tiny village, know even less than she does. Elvina should be criticizing herself, not the other girls! What stopped her from taking out one of her father’s books this morning and reading a passage from the Bible or a psalm? That might have given her some comfort. It would have been better than running to her friend’s house and making spiteful remarks!
Muriel turns to her cousins. “What did I tell you? Elvina is not satisfied with her lot. She would rather be a boy and spend her life at school. When she was little, her Aunt Rachel would do her chores for her while ‘Lady Elvina’ learned to read and write. So now she’s oh-so-proud of herself! At the synagogue, she understands when they read in Hebrew. She doesn’t need to listen to the translation they read for poor ignorant folk like us. It’s obvious she looks down on us.”
“I don’t look down on you. It’s just that in my family women study. That’s all.”
Muriel is now so close to Elvina that their noses are almost touching. Her eyes narrow with anger. “You are proud, and you do look down on us. But you’ll never find a husband. That’s what my mother says.”
“That depends on what kind of husband, doesn’t it? I shall marry a learned man!”
“What you mean is, you won’t be like Bella, who is marrying a tradesman next summer!”
“I mean nothing of the sort!”
“And you won’t marry a furrier like my father, either!”
“That’s not what I mean!”
“Yes, it is!”
Rachel and Naomi are standing on each side of the warring friends, keeping the score.
“Watch out; they’re going to have a fight!”
“Like those two housewives I saw in the market the other day!”
Elvina looks first at one of the girls, then at the other. She sees the mischief glinting in their eyes. Suddenly laughing, she pulls their braids.
“Sorry to disappoint you, but we will not give you the pleasure of watching two girls scratching each other’s eyes out and pulling out clumps of hair.”
Muriel draws back, and then, in a voice dripping with honey, she meanly asks, “Where are your eggs? Have you broken them?”
The twins don’t give Elvina time to answer. They each take her by the hand.
Naomi says, “This winter my mother gave us each a package of eggs for the first time. It was dreadful. We didn’t dare run or even walk —”
Rachel interrupts, “But we had a brilliant idea. We put our eggs under Grandfather’s blankets. He never leaves his bed. Our mother was too busy to notice, and one morning, three weeks later, Grandfather started yelling! Guess what? His bed was full of chicks!”
Naomi pulls a face. “Did we get a beating!”
The twins’ sweet expressions inspire
Elvina to give Muriel a kiss. “Shall we make up?” Elvina asks.
At first Muriel turns away, but then she can’t help laughing along and kisses Elvina back. They have been friends forever, almost like sisters. They have quarreled and made up hundreds of times.
Elvina continues, “You guessed right. I did break my eggs, for a change. But tell me, what are Bella and the twins doing here?”
The twins are no longer laughing. In an instant, their faces seem shrunken, turning strained and pale. They huddle together and Rachel answers, “We were too scared in the village.”
“The Crusaders came to our place yesterday morning and stole all of our sheep. When my father begged them to leave us at least one ewe, they pushed him so hard he fell over, and then they insulted him,” Bella explains.
Naomi starts crying and Rachel joins her. Elvina takes them in her arms, strokes their tearstained cheeks, and dries their eyes with her sleeve.
“Couldn’t he fight back?” she asks Bella.
“Fight back? How? You think Jews can fight back? There are thousands of Crusaders. They camp in our barns, in the forest, in the fields, on the roads. If they only steal our sheep without killing us, we can count ourselves lucky! That’s what my father says.”
Muriel turns to Elvina. “The streets are deserted, as you have seen, but the houses are all bursting with people. The Jews in the countryside and the outskirts of Troyes are terrified. Last night Simonet brought his wife and daughters to our Uncle Nathan the tanner’s, just three doors from here.”
She adds quietly, “Bella saw Peter the Hermit as close as I see you now, didn’t you, Bella?”
Bella hesitates, and the twins reply for her, “She saw nothing at all. Tell the truth, Bella.”
“The truth is that our elder brother spoke to someone who did see him.”
Elvina is curious. “So what does he look like?”
“He looks like a donkey.”
“A donkey? Are you telling me the truth, Bella?”
“Yes. His face is thin and longer than most people’s. He has a filthy long gray beard, and he’s barefoot and ragged — like a beggar. And he rides a donkey.”
“Which looks exactly like him!” chorus the twins. They pause a second for effect, then cry, “And the donkey speaks as well as his master!”
The color has returned to their faces and their eyes are open wide, but whether in horror or in wonder it is hard to say. Probably both, thinks Elvina as she realizes how much she would like to have two little sisters like Rachel and Naomi, who change so easily from tears to laughter.
“What does the donkey say?” asks Elvina.
“That I can’t tell you,” replies Bella.
“We can!” the twins burst out. “He preaches, when his master is too tired to do it himself.”
Elvina laughs. “You are just children, and people have been telling you stories. In our world, animals don’t talk. In the Bible, there is a donkey that speaks to tell her master not to beat her. It is written that our Lord ‘opened’ her mouth. But you’ll say I’m being pretentious if I tell you about it.”
Naomi and Rachel draw close to Elvina. “Muriel and Bella said you were pretentious. We never did. Tell us the story of the donkey!” The twins look serious in a way Elvina has never noticed before. “Go on; tell us,” they beg. “We want to know.”
“It’s the story of Balaam’s she-ass,” Elvina begins. “She told Balaam that she had always been his faithful donkey and that he had ridden her every day since boyhood, so there was no need to beat her. You see, the Lord lent the donkey the power of speech to show Balaam that only He could decide whether a man or a beast should speak. Believe me, in our world here below, animals don’t speak.”
“How do you know? Maybe Peter the Hermit’s donkey can.”
Muriel comes to her young cousins’ rescue. “That’s what people are saying, Elvina. And it’s not only the children.”
Elvina looks thoughtful. “And this barefoot man riding a donkey is about to lead thousands of people to the Holy Land! It seems he promises them everything under the sun: forgiveness for their sins, eternal life —”
Muriel interrupts, “What if they start by burning down our homes? Have you thought of that?”
“Of course I have, just like you. But I’m not so worried, because I also think that my grandfather will find a way to avoid catastrophe. My grandfather knows everything.”
VII
Then I left Muriel and her cousins, I rushed home, with the sound of my clogs echoing through the empty streets. I didn’t stop to look right or left. I was in such a hurry that I didn’t even try to avoid the half-frozen puddles, whose dirty ice-cold water splashed me from head to toe.
At Muriel’s I had pretended to be brave, but now I was overpowered with fear, especially as I arrived at the corner of our street. What if I saw a whole troop of Crusaders right in front of our house? Would I be quick enough to run in the other direction before they saw me? And what if some of them were hiding in our courtyard? Would my Mazal trouble himself to rescue me? Had I gone out against his will? In that case, would he still watch over me and get me home safely?
I was also scared I would meet my father. How could I explain what I was doing in the deserted street? And I remembered what Bella had told me. What if those dreadful Crusaders came to our house? What if they hit my father and my grandfather as they had hit Bella’s father? It was too horrible even to imagine.
But I met nobody, neither Crusaders nor my father. I only saw an old idiot beggar who drags himself along as best he can, because his legs won’t carry him anymore. Still running, I shouted out to him, warning him to find shelter.
Once I was safely at home behind the barricaded door, I began to feel sad. I wondered if I really was too proud. What if Muriel was right? I am proud of belonging to a learned family, but her reproach had hurt me deeply. I had never heard anyone accuse my father or my grandfather of being proud, so who was I to act that way?
All this was going through my mind when I saw my grandfather crossing the courtyard. I rushed up to him and poured out my soul, telling him that I had gone to Muriel’s and had been terrified on the way home and even that I had broken my eggs and that my father was angry with me. “Did God put me on earth just to hatch eggs?” I sobbed.
In spite of all his worries, he took the time to comfort me by making fun of my silliness. He knows how to do this better than anyone.
“So,” he said. “It seems my granddaughter cannot put aside the thought of those broken eggs. Believe me, your father has forgotten all about it. He has other things to worry about.”
My grandfather took my hand, and we went into his house together. My grandmother welcomed us. She looked preoccupied and none too pleased. Zipporah must have told her that I had been out. Only my grandfather’s warning glance stopped her from scolding me. He asked her to serve us some spicy mulled wine and then sat down, or rather collapsed, onto a bench in the downstairs room. That was when I noticed how exhausted he was, but that didn’t prevent him from talking to me. He pulled his coat around himself and rubbed his hands together to warm them up. He spoke to me with affection and also seriously, as if I were not a stupid, insignificant little girl who, on top of everything else, was disobedient.
“When I was young, as you know, I studied in Germany at the famous academies of Mainz and Worms. How I loved studying! But even while I sat at my masters’ feet, I was often sad, because I realized that I would not be able to study forever. I had a family to feed back here in Troyes. I have never told anyone else, but I will tell you this: It was not without shedding tears that I left my masters and returned here to look after my house and my vineyard. I was brokenhearted. Right now, you see that I am old, and you think I’m wise, but I am still nagged by regret, because I never managed to go back to Germany to visit those learned men who taught me all I know.”
He smiled at me with his kindly, tired old grandfather smile. I don’t know why, but this smile brough
t tears to my eyes, tears of warm and sweet emotion. My grandfather pinched my cheek. “You see, at the bottom of our hearts, each one of us feels sadness for the things we have left undone. But for now, come with me. I need your help.”
My grandfather needed my help! I would have jumped for joy, had the serious circumstances allowed such behavior. I followed him into his study. As he handed me a fairly large sheet of parchment, he explained, “A Jewish woman had her village scribe write me to ask if she could order her non-Jewish servant to work in the fields on the Sabbath. She would like the servant to pick turnips, leeks, and other fruits and vegetables in order to prepare the meal for the end of the Sabbath. Could you reply for me? I have other letters to write.”
I sat down on a stool with a board on my knees to lean on. Next to me, on another stool, I placed an inkhorn. I started writing in Hebrew:
This letter comes to you from a very young and humble member of Solomon ben Isaac’s family. I have the honor of writing on his behalf and according to his instructions.
I wrote the characters in neat rows, thinking before each word, and I took so much pleasure in writing, that nothing else seemed to exist. I continued the letter:
The Law forbids you to ask your servant to work on the Sabbath, even if she is not Jewish. Your whole household has the right to rest on that day.
I had written this quite small and I still had some space left, so I added:
It is also forbidden to make your donkey, your ox, or your horse work, and you have to make sure they are well fed on their day of rest. In winter you must see that they have good, fresh hay; in the summer you should let them graze so that they can enjoy chewing the grass. Animals, too, are entitled to participate in the joy of the Sabbath.
I had wandered off the subject and lengthened the answer, so I was a little anxious when I showed my grandfather my letter. He read it slowly from beginning to end.
“I couldn’t have done better, Elvina. But it does look as if you are more interested in the animals than in the servant!”