The Origin of Sorrow

by Robert Mayer

  “Tired, but happy.”

  Her chest swelled with contentment at the notion that he was happy being with her.

  “My new physician finally arrived. That should make things easier.”

  “What’s his name? Do you like him?”

  “Not ‘him.’ Her. Doctor Rebecca Kirsch.”

  Dvorah’s hand began shaking on the kettle.

  “She seems quite nice,” the Doctor said.

  “A female Doctor? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  “They’re becoming more common. Especially Jewish ones.”

  “And her husband, is he nice, too?”

  “Doctor Kirsch isn’t married. She’s fresh out of medical school. Which is what I wanted. She’ll know the latest techniques.”

  Dvorah thought of Guttle. Guttle would know how to respond to that double-edged remark. She wanted to cry. How could she hope to compete with a lady Doctor? She wanted to ask if this Rebecca was pretty, but she didn’t dare.

  “The lane is so crowded, where will she live?”

  “In my father’s old room, for now.”

  Her despair was complete. She hated this person already.

  “I can’t wait to meet her.” Her voice was weak. She hoped it sounded sincere.

  “Good, because she wants to meet you, too.”

  “Me? How does she even know I exist?”

  An elderly Christian man was taking a mug of water. He asked if he might have one for his wife as well. Dvorah handed him a second cup, asking him to be sure to return them.

  “I told her about you. She was concerned that all the hospital assistants are men. She said she wants a female helper, to work with female patients.”

  I told her about you.

  “That makes sense.” Trying to strengthen her voice.

  “I told her about your idea for the Fair. She said it was forward looking. She wants to talk to you about working with her, if you’re interested.”

  Your idea for the Fair.

  “How could this Rebecca go to medical school? Women can’t go to university.”

  “Neither can Jewish men.” He poured water into several mugs. “The Gentiles don’t think much of doctors. We’re like butchers, or astrologers, compared to the academics, the philosophers. So medical school is permitted.”

  “Do you think she’d really hire me?”

  So I can see you every day . . .

  “I don’t see why not.”

  On the bandstand the musicians swung from a military march into a zesty polka. People began to clap in time to the music. Gentiles began to dance in the aisles between the stalls, fat ladies with wobbling flesh, red-faced men perspiring, smiling girls with pigtails holding hands with grim-faced boys. Watching them, Dvorah found her hips swaying to the music. She noticed that Lev didn’t seem to hear it at all.

  The lane this day resembled a long, narrow home for orphans, alive with a myriad of young children running about scattershot, and no adults visible. All the shops were closed, their owners either doing business at the Fair or accepting that few customers would come to the Judengasse while the Fair was on. The shops were closed every Sabbath, but that was different; on the Sabbath, men, women and children would be walking in the lane after schul in their best clothes, or standing about exchanging jokes and gossip, looking forward to the evening when a few of the men might bring out their fiddles and start a dance. But today the men were not to be seen, most of the women were indoors cleaning or cooking, only small children were palpable, running races alongside the ditch, happy to have room to play without tripping over the legs of grown-ups. The bakery, the hospital, the synagogue and the schools were open as usual, but that was all.

  When Izzy Kracauer, who had been doing research in the yeshiva, left to walk home for lunch, a line of young girls — the boys were in heder — formed behind him in single file, and began to mimic his Schul-Klopper stride, each of them knocking in the air with an imaginary hammer as they walked. Izzy stopped and turned to them; they had never done that before.

  “What game is this?” he asked.

  “Pied Piper of Hamelin,” several girls shouted in unison.

  The little ones never had been drawn to Solomon Gruen. The deaf mute many found frightening. But young Izzy, with his pale freckles and unkempt blond hair, they had bashfully adored ever since he became Schul-Klopper and started knocking importantly on their doors, like a passing Prince who could make their fathers jump.

  “Who thought of it?” Izzy asked.

  Several of the girls, each about seven years old, responded, “We did.” Amelia Schnapper, Guttle’s young sister, explained, “My Papa told me the story last night.”

  “Well, if you say I’m the Pied Piper, I guess I am,” Izzy said, and as he turned and continued walking home he raised his hands to his mouth and played an imaginary flute, making musical piping sounds. The delighted girls fell in behind him and followed him to his door.

  When Izzy came out again after eating his lunch, Amelia and the other girls were waiting. They lined up like baby geese following their mother, and marched and klopped and piped him to the yeshiva.

  Inside, he told Rabbi Simcha what had happened. “How did this make you feel?” the Rabbi asked.

  “It seems silly, but it made me happy. It made me want to laugh.”

  The Rabbi squeezed Izzy’s shoulder. “After faith in Yahweh,” he said, “fresh-scrubbed little faces are the answer to the past.”

  In the first house by the north gate, Hiram was bored. He had smiled broadly at Izzy’s little parade, but when it had gone there was nothing worth watching. His parents were asleep in the heat. Hours remained before he would have to knock on doors for the evening service; first the men had to return from the Fair. He stretched out on his bed to nap.

  His brother, however, was restless. Hersch left the apartment to find distraction. There were only the children running about; he did not care much for them. He walked to the south gate, where he could smell the river. He could imagine the moorings crowded with the small sailboats of wealthy merchants or nobles who had sailed up the Rhine or down the Main to the Fair, and with large sloops unloading still more goods. This made him only more agitated. Seeking peace, he walked to the Hinterpfann, and entered the familiar office where he had been working for Meyer Amschel for nearly six months.

  The door was unlocked, it always was; Rothschild was a trusting man. The desk was clear. Most of the coins were at the Fair. Most of the cloth was at the Fair. He sat, pounded his hand on the desk. It was he who should be at the Fair.

  He looked at the wooden chest against the wall. He knew what was in it, had seen its contents many times when Rothschild put pouches of money in or took them out. He knew the chest, too, never was locked.

  There was no harm in lifting the lid. Just to look.

  He was surprised. The level of the money was half what it had been a few days before; some of it must have been taken to the Fair, to use for money changing. He gazed at the pouches of cloth and leather. If one pouch were to disappear, would anyone notice? Rothschild rarely wrote anything down. There were no records of what was in the chest, except in Rothschild’s head. How could anyone be sure if one pouch disappeared?

  The bastard owed him something for stealing this week of his life.

  He’d checked this morning in the mattress of his father’s bed; he checked every few weeks. The pouch with a hundred gulden still was there. His plan was to have three hundred before he fled this place, set out on his own, or with Hiram if Hiram wanted to come, took a coach to some city far away that had no Jew laws. Find women. Live like a real person. If he took another hundred now he’d be more than half way. Maybe he didn’t even need three hundred, maybe two hundred fifty would be enough. Especially if Hiram didn’t come. He could start some kind of business. After fucking himself silly he could find a wife beyond the meager choice of Judengasse girls, who were either too fat or too arrogant. No more sweeping out the synagogue, no more diggin
g graves, no more carting packages for Rothschild.

  He stared at the chest. In a few days, after some of the profits from the Fair were dumped in, it would be nearly full; a single bag removed from near the bottom would never be missed. He needed to wait, just a little; there was no sense in being stupid. He closed the lid of the chest and went outside. At the end of the alley he encountered the busybody Sophie Marcus, who seemed to prowl everywhere in the lane, as if there were six of her. He was glad he had not stolen the money just now, with her as a witness.

  “So, how was the goyishe Fair?” Sophie asked.

  Was she innocent of his situation, and being pleasant, or was she being spiteful? With Frau Marcus he never knew. He walked by without responding.

  “Look at him, he wants to be deaf as his brother.”

  Her words trailed after him like a curse.

  At night, after the Fair had closed for the day, explosions of fireworks splattered the dark sky. From the Judengasse they could be heard, like rolling thunder, but not seen. More muted fireworks were touched off in the Schnapper household, when Guttle told her father, “Sophie Marcus is telling lies about you.”

  “Lies?”

  “She told Meyer you are negotiating with her husband to arrange my marriage.”

  “I wouldn’t use the word negotiating.”

  “You what? Papa!”

  “Jacob Marcus came to me the other day, to discuss the subject.”

  “You sent him away, of course!”

  “I did not send him away, of course.”

  “Are you trying to make me cry? What are you saying?”

  “Jacob is an influential man. He lends money to influential men, both in and outside of the lane. You do not just send him away.”

  “So what did you tell him?”

  “That I will think about it.”

  She approached her father, put her hand on his vest. “But you won’t. Right, Papa?”

  He lifted her hand and kissed it. “But I will.”

  “To drive me meshuganah?”

  “To be true to my word. There are some good points to the idea.”

  “But I don’t love him! I love Meyer.”

  “We’re not talking about love. We’re talking about marriage.”

  “Papa! What good points?”

  “He’s a religious young man. He would be good to you. He already has an inheritance.”

  “I don’t care about his inheritance! What else?”

  “You want more? I’ll tell you. Having Jacob Marcus in the family wouldn’t be bad.”

  Guttle stared at her father, her eyes growing wild.

  “There are no good points!”

  Shaking her head wildly, she ran from the room, down the stairs, across the lane, in search of Meyer

  15

  On the second day of the Fair the gallows appeared. The chairs of the band had been moved to the front of the platform. Behind them, workmen had toiled during the night to erect a tall gibbet. The noose at the end of the rope could be seen dangling inside an iron cage that was taller and wider than a man. Here, posters around the square proclaimed, at three by the clock this very afternoon, a heinous Jew highwayman would be hanged by the neck until dead, as a warning to all others who would disrupt lawful travel to and from the city.

  The noose seemed to hang over the heads of all the Jewish merchants. They didn’t condone thievery, being easy targets themselves, but a public hanging seemed a relic of ancient times. Of stonings. Of burnings.

  The performers leaped into the spirit of the day. As the acrobats climbed three high, the fellow on top would suddenly drop his head to the side, as if his neck had been snapped by a rope. Adults cheered, children laughed. A troupe of performing players created a human carriage pulled by two horses, with a handsome nobleman riding; a thief skulked up to rob the nobleman; the thief wore a yarmulke and had a long gray beard. Jesters ran about holding ropes, pretended to hang one another, and fell to the cobbles as if dead. People raised steins of beer and shouted their approval.

  “It’s madness,” Meyer muttered. “They’ll soon hang a man for stealing five gulden — and we’ve got a murderer walking free.”

  Guttle, tilting her head, squinted at him, certain she had not heard correctly. “What did you say?”

  “Nothing, nothing.” He clenched his teeth. “It’s just the heat, I misspoke.” He wiped his perspiring face with his handkerchief. He wanted to wipe away the words, but they hung in the humid air like a spider’s web. He began to organize the unsold coins.

  “You didn’t misspeak. Tell me.”

  He saw a hint of hurt in her face. “I can’t, I gave my pledge.”

  “You don’t trust me?”

  “Guttle, Guttle. I’ll tell you what I know. It’s not much. You must not repeat it.”

  “I promise.” She touched his sleeve as if it were a sacred thing. “On the Torah.”

  “Listen, and then forget. When Lev Berkov and I joined the Judengasse Council — maybe a month after — he took me aside. He said he had a dilemma, he needed to confide in someone. A murder had been committed in the lane, he told me, and the Chief Rabbi was keeping it secret.”

  “That’s not possible! Nobody in the lane could murder. We don’t even have police. Besides, nobody’s missing.”

  “He wouldn’t say who it was. Someone whose death appeared natural. Neither Berkov or the Rabbi had any idea who the murderer was, or what the reason might be. They didn’t want to bring in the Frankfurt police and have them beating people. So the Rabbi determined they should keep quiet, so as not to cause alarm. Berkov kept wondering whether to bring it before the council. He wanted my advice, it was keeping him awake at night.”

  “That’s awful! And you told him?”

  “It was his decision. I had no idea what he should do.”

  “He kept it to himself?”

  “He never told the council, that’s all I know.”

  “Who passed away around that time? Only Doctor Berkov’s own father. And the Schul-Klopper. They think somebody killed Herr Gruen? That can’t be, I don’t believe it.”

  “I’m not sure I believe it myself.”

  A customer was approaching.

  “But now you’ve forgotten the whole thing.”

  “On the Torah,” Guttle said.

  She stepped away from the stall. Sour thoughts blew through her mind like a curdling wind: Viktor Marcus got rich from his uncle’s death!

  Viktor wouldn’t do such a thing.

  But what if he did? He still wants to marry me!

  She is wearing only a cotton chemise. Sticks and branches are piled around her, up to her knees. A priest is about to light the faggots into flames. She sings an aria.

  Could he have killed for me?

  I know it cannot be;

  You do not take a life

  To help you gain a wife.

  It hurts my anxious head,

  It makes my stomach ill,

  That I might share a bed

  With someone who could kill.

  Would Viktor be so rash

  To slay his kin for cash

  So Papa would say yes

  On seeing his largesse?

  (She looks at the flaming pyre, beginning to feel the heat.)

  If my virginity

  Did make him yearn for it

  Am I then murder’s cause?

  And must I burn for it?

  My legs my arms my hair

  The torchlight of the Fair?

  Or will they stretch my neck?

  The thought of gallows galls;

  A piece of heaven dies

  Each time a virgin falls.

  If I did lead him on

  As though it were a game

  I’ll hang my head myself

  —but just in shame.

  So do not weep for me,

  All life’s a trial or three.

  Except, a man was slain!

  — That’s still a mystery.

  “You
look pale,” Meyer said. “I think you should go home before the hanging.”

  Yussel suggested the same to Hannah Schlicter. Hannah suggested it to Dvorah. None of the women left.

  Guttle’s father had not rented a booth. He was roaming the Fair, renewing acquaintances with bankers and other Court Jews. He had just come to visit with Guttle at Meyer’s stall when from behind them a roar went up. They heard the rumble of a carriage on the cobbles; thinking some royalty had arrived, they turned — and saw two white horses pulling a cart in which four Constables sat with ready muskets, surrounding a prisoner who was standing tall, though his arms and legs were in chains.

  “They’ll go around three times, I think,’ Wolf Schnapper said. “For their Son, their Father and their Holy Ghost.”

  He moved nearer to the roadway where the cart would pass if it came around again. Guttle and Meyer followed. The cabinet maker on one side, the rag dealer on the other, did the same. Everyone was curious to see the condemned man, horrible though the sentence might be.

  They followed the progress of the cart by the cheers as it circled the Fair. Some people were hurling epithets at the prisoner, others were hurling rotten fruit they had brought for the occasion. The four Constables tried to tuck in their heads like turtles to avoid being hit, but were struck in the back of their gray uniforms nonetheless, more often than the lone prisoner. Perhaps this was a chance for the commoners of Frankfurt to vent their anger at the Polizei as well. One tomato did strike the prisoner’s temple, and hung on the collar of his shirt, like a mark of blood.

  The carriage came around a second time. As the Jewish merchants stood silently, Guttle’s father focused his eyes on the manacled man: the thick arms, the tanned face, a yarmulke pinned to his dark, curly hair. The judge had permitted the yarmulke, he assumed, perhaps even ordered it, to emphasize that the condemned was a Jew.