The good people of Worms rose excitedly to their feet at the sight of the three Ishmaelites, summoned to the synagogue from their several lodgings, being taken one by one behind the curtain. While the whole congregation devoutly muttered the time-honored blessing to the Creator of all manner of folk on seeing the young black man passing through their midst, Mistress Esther-Minna slipped in by a side entrance. Master Levitas, after a momentary pang of remorse for allowing Rabbi Elbaz to fill the small space of the courtroom with these gentile servants, still believed that he had behaved correctly, for it was a long time since his older sister had seemed so comely and attractive as on that Saturday evening, standing beside the holy ark with her hair bound up in a fine silken snood. Not only had sleeping in her former marital bed soothed away the effects of the hardships of the journey and her anger at the southern visitors who had burst into her life, but the pleasant prayers that had filled the dank marshy air of her native land had smoothed her wrinkles and put life back into her pink cheeks and her blue eyes, which now smiled amiably into the blushing face of the arbiter, who remembered only too well how a score of years earlier her dear departed parents had forbidden her betrothal to him.
Again, as in the dark hall of the winery, Master Levitas served as master of ceremonies. First he invited the principal complainant, Ben Attar, to set forth the complaint that had traveled so stubbornly from the furthermost Maghreb. Since on this occasion the defendant could not serve as interpreter, since Abulafia’s business trips had never brought him this far and so he had never learned the local language, Master Levitas had no choice but to concede that Rabbi Elbaz should translate from the language of the Ishmaelites to that of the Israelites and back again, aware though he was that the quick-witted rabbi would exploit every opportunity to reinforce and adorn the words as they made their roundabout way from language to language.
But when Ben Attar opened his mouth and began to utter his first words, those present were astounded, and even the interpreter-rabbi was surprised. Instead of the jeremiad that they had already heard in the winery near Paris, about the pain of a Muslim partner, and the sadness of lost merchandise, and the treachery of a rejecting partner, who had sought the pretext of the sages in order to augment his own profit, the stubborn merchant suddenly stepped backward, as though the twelve days of additional overland journey from the Seine to the Rhine had never taken place. And as though the second hearing were merely a direct continuation of the first one, he now sought to address the harsh and piercing argument put forward by Mistress Esther-Minna, his adversary’s real wife, in the dark hall of the winery at Villa Le Juif—that it was not the shame and disgrace of the bewitchment and curse issuing from her womb that had made Abulafia’s wretched first wife bind her hands and feet with colored ribbons to help the waves of the sea do their work, but only the veiled threat of taking a second wife, the selfsame threat that was now seeking the full approbation of a holy congregation.
Despite his lack of experience, Joseph son of Kalonymos managed to understand, by means of the circuitous and excitable yet detailed translation of Rabbi Elbaz, that this swarthy, sturdy complainant, the partner who had come from the end of the world, wished to reopen the whole case from the start. At the price of revealing an old secret, he would defend not only his own dual marriage but dual marriage in general, which had come under assault from the new wife, who, arrogantly and uninvited, had belatedly adopted the cause of a wife who had taken her own life, with the aim of avenging her. To general surprise, it suddenly became clear that Ben Attar’s decision to agree to the journey to confront a further tribunal in the Rhineland had been the result not of Abulafia’s desperation nor of the rabbi’s desire to repeat his wonderful speech, but first and foremost of a desire to refute, in the midst of her native town, the slander that the new wife had uttered before the gathering in the winery at Villa Le Juif.
For who better than Ben Attar could testify to the sinful woman’s true motive? On the same bitter day on which Abulafia’s poor first wife had come to Ben Attar’s shop to entrust her baby to Abulafia so that she might be free to search the stalls of the nomads for an amulet that would bring her blessing or comfort, she had not, as all believed, gone straight from the gate of the city to the seashore with the elephant’s-tail fishhook she had bought, but had first returned to Ben Attar’s shop to take her baby away. On discovering that even during such a short absence, Abulafia, the father, had been unable to remain close to his daughter and had left her alone among the bolts of cloth on the pretext that he was required at Ben Ghiyyat’s for afternoon prayers, she was assailed with such profound despair and melancholy that, unable to restrain herself, she had drawn her veil off her face to mop up her tears before Ben Attar, the beloved uncle. Indeed, not only was that beautiful young woman not afraid that her husband might take a second wife, but on the contrary, in those last hours she had even offered herself as a second wife for Ben Attar, to make it easier for her husband to part from her for fear that she would give birth to another bewitched demon. But Ben Attar knew only too well that Abulafia’s love would never leave her, which was why he gently declined her strange suggestion. To set her mind at rest, he offered to keep an eye on her accursed daughter until her husband returned from prayers, while she returned to the market and tried to find a better amulet. How could he have imagined that instead of going to the market she would go straight to the city gate, to seek solace among the waves of the sea?
The North African’s last words fell to the floor of the synagogue and turned into little snakes. Not only the woman who had issued the repudiation but Master Levitas, her wise brother, now took a step back. Only Abulafia, who was now, in the depths of the marshy Rhineland, hearing for the first time in his life the terrible story of his previous wife, remained rooted to the spot as though paralyzed, and his lips turned very pale. The confused arbiter, not knowing if he had understood correctly what had been said, was only too aware of the new silence that the complainant had occasioned in the small law court. He rose helplessly from his seat and tried to approach the curtain, as though to ascertain the opinion of the public, but Rabbi Elbaz frustrated his intentions and gently yet respectfully hurried to restore the confidence of the bewildered man, whom he still considered the right man for the job.
At the little rabbi’s poetic touch, Joseph son of Kalonymos did indeed reconsider and resumed his seat, and his reddish eyes, which had previously been too timid to look at the woman who had been refused him, now watched her distress in the face of the silence that had overcome her husband. Rabbi Elbaz resolved to exploit this silence at once to move the judge’s mind in a different and original direction. Even though he felt a strong urge to repeat the wonderful speech he had made in the winery, in the presence of that thick-bearded courier from the Land of Israel, whose absence now pained him acutely, he knew that the prayer house of a devout congregation might not be the right place to argue in the name of an obdurate man who could sustain the image of a second wife in such a way that no edict of the sages could eradicate it. Therefore he changed tack and set his sails for a distant destination, to reach which he now brought in the two Ishmaelites and the black pagan, who had been standing silently and uncomprehendingly before the shrine of the Jews’ god.
If there were Jews, the rabbi mused to himself, as firm in their faith as those who were silently standing behind the curtain, who were so strong-minded that they could banish from their imagination the very tips of a second wife’s toes, this was apparently so only because they were eager to give a more honored place to the image of the dear redeemer, the king messiah, who did not need a millennium to come to his Jews, but only greater respect for the commandments. See you, the rabbi began excitedly, developing a new thought, apparently addressed to the startled judge who was sitting facing him but plainly, by the loudness of his voice, intended to be heard beyond the curtain, by a gathering that was holding its breath to catch every syllable, my lords and masters, members of this holy congregation, soon
we shall all return to the Beloved Land, to the land flowing with milk and honey, which has neither bubbling marshes nor croaking frogs but pure streams of water and the song of nightingales. There in the last days which are nigh shall be gathered in not only distant Jews like yourselves but also, as is written and promised, all the inhabitants of the world, gentiles thirsty for the word of God. And first of all, naturally, the nearest neighbors, Ishmaelites and Mohammedans, who to find favor with the elect, the redeemed Jews, who cherish one woman above all others as though she were God himself, are likely to hurry and cast forth from their homes their redundant second, third, and fourth wives.
At this point the rabbi turned to the three sturdy seafarers, whose appearance had not been improved by the black cloaks and pointed hats in which the local Jews had dressed them; their spirit had not been quelled, and they merely seemed wilder. In a voice that contained a hint of protest, he asked, and immediately answered his own question, Is it fitting that we should tarnish the bliss of redemption with the sorrow, pain, and offense of so many Ishmaelite women, who will suddenly be inconsolably alone? How can we persuade good neighbors who long to share in our redemption not to go berserk or change their nature, if we do not show them that there are pure, good Jews who have two wives, whose orthodoxy and righteousness do not defend on the thoughts of others?
Then the reddish curtain stirred slightly, and the Elbaz child, who had heard his father’s loud voice from afar, cautiously drew back a flap and silently entered the space of the court and stood between his host, Joseph son of Kalonymos, and his sire, as though he had come to reconcile them with a compromise. Rabbi Elbaz stared in astonishment at his son, who had now tipped his little pointed hat at a new and rakish angle. And he looked back at the arbiter, who was smiling slightly at the sight of the boy. Well, Rabbi Elbaz said to himself hopefully, maybe this is just the moment to stop talking, so as to draw from the heart of this German judge’s smile a civilized, tolerant verdict that will allow the natural partnership to continue by virtue both of former brotherhood and of future redemption.
In truth, the slight smile that appeared on Joseph son of Kalnymos’s face at the sight of the rabbi’s son testified clearly that his nervousness and distress were being soothed and that the new role that had been placed upon him not only no longer frightened him but even pleased him. It was obvious that he understood that if Abulafia persisted in his silence and did not rise to defend himself, he himself would be compelled to pronounce, despite his own inclinations, a simple, rational decision that could not be different from the one reached in the winery near Paris. A new course was indicated. He instructed Master Levitas to fetch Ben Attar’s two wives, the first and the second, to be examined privily as witnesses.
PART THREE
The Journey Back, or the Only Wife
1.
In the beginning of the winter of that year, in the middle of the month of Shevat, a few days after the year of the millennium embraced Christian Europe in its reality, Joseph son of Kalonymos fell ill, and a short while later he departed this life. His wife, who was now left a widow for the second time, repeated to all those who came to comfort her, with a persistence that was almost disrespectful to the deceased, that evil had entered her home at the moment of weak-mindedness when her husband allowed himself to be persuaded by that strange foreign rabbi to serve as arbiter in the accursed case of dual matrimony that came up from the south. From that day he had definitely lost his peace of mind and his spirit was disturbed, and even long weeks after the parties to the dispute had left Worms and the land of Ashkenaz he still walked around looking as though he had been struck by a wondrous nightmare, until heaven took pity on his soul.
Did he regret his decision? Or did he consider that he had gone too far to please the woman he had been denied, whose appearance before him as a suitor at the mercy of his kindness had aroused such conflicting emotions in his breast that he had been unable to control them? His despairing widow was unable to answer such questions, for he had never told her, or indeed others, what had really happened during his private examination of the two North African women, and in fact he himself may not have been certain until the day of his death that he had understood rightly what he believed they had said.
Indeed, after Rabbi Elbaz, supported on either side by burly Ishmaelites and a black slave, had tried to discourage Joseph son of Kalonymos with a gloomy vision of a messianic age packed with abandoned, dejected Ishmaelite women, the alarmed judge had tried once more to communicate with the assembly on the other side of the curtain, so as to gauge its reaction and know what to do and say. But when the rabbi’s son entered in his new cloak and hat, looking, despite his dark complexion, like a long-established child of Worms, Joseph son of Kalonymos suddenly understood that he had no need to seek beyond the curtain but that he could draw strength from deep inside himself. From that moment his self-confidence increased, to the point that his curiosity to see the two wives with his own eyes became a real, urgent duty.
A duty first and foremost toward Mistress Esther-Minna, who stood before him radiating the beauty of her anxiety. Although he did not know whether it was her parents alone or she too who had rejected the match with him, he recognized that he did not have the right to brush aside her distress, which had been considerably aggravated by the continued silence of her young husband, who may have tried to circumvent the legal ruling by an elusive deception. Therefore, as an impartial judge, he felt it was his duty to offer an opportunity to the repudiating wife who had returned to seek justice in her native town. He did not mean to favor the love of his youth, but neither did he wish to be a stranger to the beautiful, delicate face, whose transparent pallor crushed his heart. At last he asked Master Levitas to take her outside with all the others and bring the merchant’s two wives into the little courtroom, heated by the warmth of the large candles, to be questioned as witnesses.
It appeared that this was the moment the women of the community of Worms had been waiting for, for in an instant the two wives, who had been held in strange seclusion ever since they had emerged from the wagon in a state of near-collapse, had finally been fetched from two different streets and brought to the synagogue. Ben Attar’s heart was embittered at the sight of his wives, wrapped in coarse black cloaks, their faces uncovered and bare of kohl, jewelry, or any adornment, as though the local women had deliberately decided to remove the enchanting decoration that distinguished one wife from the other and to expose them as far as possible in their stark femininity, so as to mock their duality. But as the distraught Ben Attar hastened toward his wives, the women of Worms boldly blocked his way and did not let him approach, as though his purpose were to subvert their testimony rather than simply to comfort them.
Without a single word having been said to them, the pair were led behind the curtain into the cleared courtroom and were stood side by side before the judge, who was shaken by such excitement at this double vision standing exposed before him that it was all he could do to prevent himself from fleeing for his life into the bosom of the wise congregation, which even behind the drawn curtain continued to follow all his movements. Since he did not know whether the prohibition of intimacy between a man and another’s wife applied also in the case of a pair of wives, he told the Elbaz child to remain, with the additional purpose of serving as interpreter.
Although it was hard to conduct a private interrogation without a common language, Joseph son of Kalonymos was determined to dispense with the overabundant services of Elbaz, fearing that the clever rabbi would distort and improve the women’s replies and the accuracy of the investigation would be undermined. He preferred to make do with the little unskilled interpreter, who would translate simple questions and answers faithfully, even if not precisely or completely, from the Hebrew of the prayerbook to the Arabic of the marketplace and back again. Moreover, it might be supposed that after their long journey in each other’s company, the women and the child had got to know each other, and he would be able, by means o
f gestures and expressions, to exact from the frightened pair who stood all alone before him the incriminating testimony that would compensate for Abulafia’s obstinate silence.
Even though the prayer leader of the synagogue of Worms had never before interrogated witnesses, he had learned from Tractate Sanhedrin and from the words of others that everyone must first be warmed and softened, so that the outer husk may be easily peeled off and the pale kernel exposed. Therefore, in warmly conciliatory tones, he extracted from each of the women her name, and then proceeded to ask for the names of their fathers and mothers, their brothers and sisters, their sons and daughters, their uncles and aunts. He made no distinction between the names of the living and of the dead, or between those of near and remote kin. Soon the courtroom in Worms was filled with a small Mediterranean congregation, which mirrored and contrasted with the German congregation audible behind the curtain.
Not content with names alone, Joseph son of Kalonymos wished to know the age of each one named, and this was harder, because the accurate reckoning of years is always shrouded in mist, and the long voyage followed by the considerable overland journey had only served to thicken it. Indeed, so confused had the time of the one wife become with that of the other that it might have seemed at one point as though the first wife were younger than the second, had not the little interpreter succeeded in putting the record straight and enabled the curious northern judge to enter, by means of a fragile bridge of half-forgotten Hebrew and the gesticulations of an excited child, into the interiors of two separate houses on the African coast of the Mediterranean Sea, with their pots and pans, beds and bedclothes, and to seek beyond the scent of flowers, the exuberant spices, and the throngs of children the secret of the shame and reproach of enforced duplication.
A Journey to the End of the Millennium Page 26