by Robert Mayer
“You weren’t boring me.” As she sat she had her back to him. “Special couriers.”
“What did you say?”
“Special couriers. If you don’t want to wait for the newspapers, you could pay couriers in each town to ride here with the latest exchange rates. You’d have them ahead of anyone else.”
Meyer tapped her temple lightly with his curled index finger. “You’ve got a head for business. I’ve been thinking about that very idea. Set up a relay system of our own couriers. Perhaps in time for next year’s Fair. Depending on what it would cost.”
She pulled up the sleeve on her right hand, to protect her lace cuffs. She lifted a quill and dipped it in the ink. “Shall we begin?”
Meyer became flustered. She seemed impatient to be done and leave his company. He did not know why. Clearly she had worn a special blouse to come see him. And her hair down over her shoulders, freshly washed and lustrous in the lamplight. Maybe she was going to see someone more important afterwards. Viktor Marcus, perhaps. He’d noticed the Cantor’s eyes undressing her at every opportunity.
He did not like the thought. He could not help focusing on her shapely wrist with its small wrist bone. He picked up his scrawled notes and began to dictate the letter slowly, while Guttle wrote.
“It has been my particular and high fortune to make several deliveries to Your Lofty Princely Serenity … ”
Guttle turned to look at him. “Your Lofty Princely Serenity?”
“Just write, bitte. I know what I’m doing.”
She shrugged, returned to her writing as he continued.
“ … to Your Highest gracious satisfaction. I now stand ready to exert all my energies and my entire fortune to serve Your Lofty Princely Serenity … “
She looked at him again. “More lofty serenity? Isn’t that a bit obsequious?”
“You don’t know these nobles, Guttle. They thrive on obsequious. Write, bitte.”
“ … whenever in the future it shall please You to Command me. A special and powerful incentive to this end would be given me if Your Lofty Princely Serenity … ”
This time she set down her quill in protest, and turned. “How lofty do you plan to make him?”
“Lofty enough so he can look down from his high perch and see a Jewish supplicant. Which is how he sees the world. Which, unfortunately, is how the world is.”
She frowned, but resumed writing, dipping her quill carefully into the ink.
“ … deigned to grace me with an appointment as Court Factor.”
She inhaled sharply, bit back a smile. And kept writing.
“I make bold to raise this request in the conviction that by so doing I am not giving any trouble.”
He finished with the necessary salutations, leaned over her and signed the document. Carefully she wiped the quills on a bit of cloth. She stood to stretch her muscles.
“That’s exciting, Meyer Amschel. Do you think he’ll do it?”
“We’ll have to wait and see.”
“Is that like being a Court Jew, like my father?”
“Not exactly. But it’s the first step. Wilhelm has bought a number of antique coins from me. He’ll inherit a huge fortune from his father some day. He’ll need someone who knows how to invest that money.”
“He doesn’t mind that you’re a Jew?”
“Most of the Princes don’t seem to. They know we’re good at business.”
Pulling down her sleeve, she looked at him, hesitated. She seemed to be struggling with something within herself. He saw this, and waited. Finally, she spoke. “Meyer Amschel, can I ask you something I shouldn’t?”
Meyer tried to clear his throat. It remained dry. “If you shouldn’t ask me, maybe you shouldn’t ask me.”
She looked at the floor — it could use a sweeping — then at him again. “But I want to.”
“Then I imagine you’re going to.”
“I suppose I am. Are you planning to ask my father something any time soon?”
He frowned. So that’s why she seemed irritable. He went to the counter and poured water into a glass from a pitcher. He drank. It wasn’t very cold. Nothing remained cold in this heat.
“Guttle, that’s not the way it works. You know that. With my father dead, your father has to come to me.” He’d been about to say, “with an offer.” He swallowed those words in time.
“But how will he get the idea?”
“Oh, he’s already got the idea.”
“But when? Maybe I should ask him.”
“Don’t do that, Guttle. Be patient. Your father needs to know he’s in control. That he makes the choice. Besides … ” He paused.
“Besides what?”
“Be patient till the Fair is over. If the Prince makes me a Court Agent … ”
“Then my father will be impressed by your prospects!”
“Let’s just say it wouldn’t hurt.”
“You’re a sly one, Meyer Rothschild.” She came to him and put her arms around his waist and rested her head on his chest.
“Is that bad? Being sly?”
“I like sly,” she murmured.
He nuzzled his nose into her hair. The fragrance, the pliancy, offered sweet promise.
Footsteps resounded on the stairs. Guttle pulled away.
The doorway was dark. The footsteps grew louder. The boards creaked, the rope squealed. She thought of fairy Gentiles told their children. Of hungry giants coming up the stairs. Which she’d been forbidden by her mother to repeat. Which she used to tell Avra in their bed at night till Avra peed from fright. Which Avra no doubt was telling the little ones.
A sweating figure filled the doorway. It was only Kalman, seeking a drink of water.
Guttle had been holding her breath. She turned to Meyer. His face was a comfort. “How long will it take for the Prince to receive the letter?” She could tell he had been watching her.
“It’s hard to say. You can never predict the post.”
Mischief lit her eyes. With splayed fingers she lifted her dark locks high above her head, with all that did to stretch taut her torso, her blouse, and she said, with the most charming air of innocence she could muster, “Maybe you could send a courier.”
14
Five September, the first morning of the Fair, Guttle rose early, as did most of the Judengasse. The merchants and their helpers who would be transporting goods on pushcarts or hired horse carts lined up inside the north gate while the sky still was dark, to move their merchandise before the heat became an extra burden. The line strung back along the cobbles as far as the bakery. Pressed against the gate and flanking the lines were hundreds of women and children and dozens of men who would not be going, who were there to watch the others leave and wave goodbye to them, as if they were setting off on a journey to another world. Which they were.
Peering through the gate, Guttle saw the night Constable salute his replacements by clapping his right hand crisply to his chest. Four Constables had arrived along with Kapitän Klaus. When dawn brightened the sky, the Kapitän pulled out his keys and unlocked the gate. The four Constables stood two on each side to check passes as the line began to creep slowly forward. No one without a pass to the Fair could move through the gate today.
In the borning half-light the line emerged like a procession of statues that had been there forever. Twenty metres back Guttle discerned the rag dealer Ephraim Hess beside a pushcart piled high with used clothing and fabrics. Near him his wife was holding their baby. As the line began to move Eva wrapped the infant in a thin blanket and placed him among the fabrics, and covered him with a dark dress. Clearly the woman was afraid the Constables would want to see a pass for the child. Guttle couldn’t believe they would — but what if the baby began to cry as they passed the Constables? Then the couple surely would appear guilty — of something.
Not far behind them, Hannah Schlicter was piling her new dresses on the cart of the cabinet maker. Guttle walked down the line to greet them. The dresses dwarfed the smal
l wooden models of desks and cabinets that Yussel Kahn would show at the Fair.
“Where’s Meyer?” Yussel asked.
“In schul. He wouldn’t skip morning services. But we have only his coins to carry, and a few small statues. We’ll have plenty of time.”
“I’ve seen his few small statues. A Greek head. A Roman. An Etruscan.”
“He’s been learning about ancient sculpture. You brought him the books.”
The brightening sky washed the dusty cobbles with gray light. Guttle noticed a hand in a white sleeve waving at her. It was Dvorah. She hurried to greet her friend.
“My, don’t you look nice,” she said, taking in Dvorah’s long white dress with lace at the collar, her auburn curls tumbling from beneath a white cap.
“I like your dress,” Dvorah said.
When Guttle’s mother Emmie heard Guttle would be going to the Fair she’d bought two yards of yellow cotton fabric. She’d fashioned a dress with white lace at the cuffs and a squared off neckline that would keep her throat cool, a style currently favored by the court ladies, her father had reported. Her mother had sewn scraps of yellow ribbon to an old white hat to complete the outfit.
“It’s the latest fashion somewhere,” Guttle said. She looked over Dvorah’s hospital cart, which was laden with pitchers of water, jars of salt, ointments to protect against the sun. “I’m so glad this worked out for you.”
“Isn’t it exciting? I have to confess, Lev still thinks it was my idea.”
“Lev? So it’s Lev already, is it? You can let him think that, if you want. It makes no difference to me.”
The line of carts was moving more easily. “Go find Izzy, he was looking for you,” Dvorah said as she began to push her cart. “He seemed kind of sad.”
“Because he’s not going to the Fair?
“I think it was more than that.”
They hugged briefly, and Guttle wandered off. The line alongside the ditch seemed to have gotten longer, not shorter. Izzy would be in schul, she thought, but she found him standing in the doorway of his house, idly watching the line move past. He did indeed look morose.
“What’s wrong, Isidor?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t say ‘nothing.’ You were looking for me.”
The pushcarts creaked on the cobbles. Outside the gate, drivers with horse carts were yelling out their services. Special rates to the Fair, they shouted. The smell of horse manure drifted through the gate. Chickens in the slaughterhouse were clucking wildly at the bustle outside. Small children were beginning to cry, some to scream, as they saw both parents leaving through the gate with piles of goods, as if they would not be coming back. The little ones were left in the care of aunts, or neighbors.
“It’s Hiram,” Izzy said, over the noise.
“What’s wrong with him? He’s up there now, timing this little parade. I can see his hands in the window.”
“He’s worried about his brother.”
“What’s wrong with his brother? Can we get to the point? Meyer will be along any minute.”
“Hersch has been acting wild. Breaking things. Yelling at his parents.” Izzy hesitated. “Hiram thinks it’s because of you.”
“Me. What did … Oh.”
“He expected to go to the Fair. He thinks Meyer chose you because … you know.”
“I don’t know! Besides, what’s to be done? Meyer is the boss. He can choose whomever he likes.”
“Yes.”
“Well, Hersch will have to live with it. Meyer is paying him even though he doesn’t have to work. That should make him happy. Look, the men are coming from schul. I have to go. I’ll bring you something from the Fair. What would you like?”
“I don’t need anything.”
“I’ll see what they have.”
“Maybe … maybe just a flower, to go with the other one.”
“What other one?”
She had never been to his room. She didn’t know.
“Just a flower.”
His voice dropped as she backed away, turned, moved off, looked back and waved to him as she hurried to meet Meyer. “Your dress is pretty,” Izzy said, but she was far down the lane by then.
Upset with herself , Guttle thought: Izzy acts as if he’s lost me. Viktor and his family despise me. Now Hersch does, too. I’m building quite a reputation.
When Meyer appeared, looking flustered, he apologized for being detained.
“Something is wrong,” Guttle said.
“Not really.”
“Meyer, don’t lie. Your face shows everything.”
“It’s just the Cantor. His mother took me aside after services. She warned me to keep away from you. She said you and Viktor were as good as spoken for.”
“She’s a bit meshuganah.”
“Of course.”
“Did you tell her so?”
“What good would that have done? I just walked away.”
“You said nothing?” Fury flushed Guttle’s face.
“Look, everyone’s gone,” Meyer said. “Forget about Viktor. Let’s go to the Fair.”
She turned and stalked towards the gate ahead of him, more upset with Meyer than she had ever been, her mind spinning a cloth of it’s own.
Madame Guttle, the Viennese chanteuse, has returned to the stage of the Comedie Francais for another song. She is barefoot, wearing a white cotton dress. As the cheers and applause fade, she sings, in a mock-plaintive voice.
He says we must wait until after the Fair,
But what if by then I am no longer there?
What if Viktor and I are already a pair?
What’s a poor girl to do?
What’s love got to do with being court agents
Or visiting Fairs and similar pageants?
Why can’t he see that I’m losing my patience?
What’s a young lady to do?
If I were a shiksa I’d go be a nun,
But to tell you the truth I’d rather have fun;
It’s time my real life had already begun;
What’s a shy maiden to do?
The Cantor my dowry just wants to be paid;
With Meyer my future is always delayed;
I’m a pretty young girl who just wants to get laid!
Can’t anyone help me? Can you?
“What are you smiling about?” Meyer asked, catching up with her.
“Nothing,” Guttle said. “Just … nothing.”
A carousel of whirling colors stunned her as they rounded the corner into the Town Square. Strings of red and yellow pennants, hanging on every building, were flapping lazily in a mild breeze. Acrobats in green and orange costumes leapt upon one another’s shoulders, building human castles against the bluing sky. Jugglers were keeping fountains of yellow balls aloft, and scary plumes of unsheathed knives that glinted silver, like warnings. Jesters in multicolored, striped outfits and pointy collars with bells on them ran to and fro, teasing the crowds that waited behind barricades. Musicians in blue uniforms, mostly red-faced men blowing brass horns, perched on chairs at the rear of a bandstand, playing marching tunes beneath flags of the Independent City of Frankfurt and the Holy Roman Empire. Cure mongers were hanging banners on their stalls heralding the latest elixirs for ague, plague, gout, boils, cramps, constipation, hangover, toothache, earache, headache and pox, only five kreuzer each; the bottles all looked the same. Everywhere Guttle turned were bright hues — red, blues, yellows, greens, purples, in the costumes of the jugglers and acrobats, in pennants that flew over many stalls. And everywhere she looked there were Gentiles — more Gentiles than she had seen in her life: hatless, clean-shaven men, some wearing powdered wigs. The women would arrive later, she assumed, to shop.
Threading among the stalls of fabrics, dolls, jewelry, ceramics, spices, coffees, teas, cut flowers and all manner of handiworks, she saw a fat organ grinder whose monkey was wearing a black coat, a black hat and a long gray beard. Judging by the train of laughter that followed him, the Jewish
monkey already was a favorite. He was picking up lots of coins. She admired the skill of the jugglers, and found her eager body throbbing to the music; in the lane, when there was music at all, it was mostly fiddles. But it was the fantasia of bright colors that made her eyes sparkle. Of all the deprivations of the Judengasse, she realized, perhaps the least remarked upon was the absence of these brilliant hues, which seemed to speak to the spirit without need for words.
“Meyer, I never imagined anything like this,” she told him, her anger forgotten. “Even my dreams are drab compared to this.”
“Now you know why you’re here,” he answered. “It would mean nothing to Hersch.”
The stalls were wood frames covered on the top and three sides with white linen to deflect the sun, and lined with wooden shelves for the display of merchandise. The three hundred and fifty stalls had been positioned by city workers in concentric squares out from the bandstand. Jewish merchants were restricted to the last three rows on the side nearest the Judengasse. They didn’t mind. When the fairgoers were admitted from the five streets that fed into the square — where they already were waiting impatiently behind the barricades and the Constables — the stalls in the rear were the first they would encounter. The moneychangers, especially, knew this gave them an advantage. Out-of-towners would be anxious to exchange for the proper coins.
Meyer had chosen a stall between those of the cabinet maker and the rag dealer; he liked to be out of earshot of other dealers in coins and money. Each stall was allotted only one chair; Guttle sat on theirs amid her flounced yellow skirt while Meyer opened his display cases of coins and medallions. Cheaper coins he dumped onto a tray so visitors could rummage among them; the sense of touch, he knew, often brokered a sale. For money changing he had two metal boxes. One was filled with the kreuzers and gulden that Guttle would dispense after Meyer determined the rate of exchange. The other box, empty now, soon would clank with coins of the surrounding principalities. His letters of credit were tucked in his pocket. On the front shelf he set the three antique heads, placed to attract attention as well as to sell.