The Origin of Sorrow

by Robert Mayer

  One possible thief came readily to mind. Hersch Liebmann. He’d had plenty of access, especially when they were at the Fair; he’d been angry at Meyer; he had quit his job right after.

  Meyer realized he was still wearing his coat, his vest. He took them off and hung them properly, and felt his stomach rumble; he had not eaten since breakfast, he hadn’t taken time to seek a kosher lunch in Worms. Now it was night and he felt not hunger but nausea. The notion of Hersch as a thief was eating his insides. To make such an accusation would be a serious affair. But a hundred missing gulden could not be ignored.

  He went up the stairs and stretched out on his bed in his clothing — and sat up abruptly. If Hersch had taken this money, he might well have stolen from the synagogue when he worked there! What was it the stricken Leo Liebmann had been murmuring? Something about money. Money and rabbits. Meyer felt cold sweat form on his forehead.

  There was little room upstairs to pace. Knowing he would not sleep, Meyer lit a candle in a lantern and carried it down to the lane. The night was dark, the lamps in most apartments had been extinguished for the night. The temperature had dropped sharply during the past few hours, the first hint of winter was in the air, but he did not go back for a coat. Lighting his way with the lantern, he walked slowly south, as far as the synagogue, crossed the ditch to the hospital, where lamps glowed faintly inside. Was Lev Berkov there? Perhaps he should go in and speak with him.

  He decided not to. He began to walk back. Unwelcome new connections were splicing in his brain. If … then . . .

  The ultimate thought was hardly tolerable.

  Up ahead his love was asleep in her third-floor bed. He recalled his first time, in Hanover, when he was sixteen. A widowed dressmaker across from the bank had taken a liking to him, shy though he was, and had shown him once and then repeatedly the pleasures of the night. When he left Hanover two years later he had learned to enjoy more things than coins. But here in the lane such pleasures, unless you were married, were frowned upon; one learned to abstain. Until the desire in the loins became too severe, began to interfere with study, with work, with sleep, and then you either sought relief by yourself, and felt guilty afterward, or went to the whore-strewn streets near the town square and found unsatisfactory pleasure in the daylight of a ragged hotel. By setting the marriage age for men at twenty-five, the Frankfurt Council seemed to think that Jews did not have urges. More likely, they didn’t care.

  “Meyer! Is that you? What are you doing out so late?”

  The words were Guttle’s, half whispered, half spoken, from her window above. “I can’t sleep either. Wait, I’m coming down.”

  She emerged from the Owl a few moments later, tying a burgundy robe over her ivory sleeping gown. Her feet were bare, she realized when they touched the cold cobbles.

  “You’ll get a chill,” Meyer said.

  “I’m fine. There’s money missing, that’s why you’re pacing so late.”

  They began to walk, slowly, Meyer holding the lantern that swung its pale light over the cobbles like a pendulum. “There’s one likely thief,” he said.

  “I know. That’s why I couldn’t sleep. It would be a terrible thing to accuse him, Meyer Amschel. My mother is close with Yetta, helps with her marketing. Izzy dotes on Hiram. And with poor Leo in the hospital … ”

  “If he took the money, how can I not accuse him?”

  “You don’t know for sure.”

  “If the money is where I think it is, we’ll know very soon.”

  “Hersch Liebmann a thief? It makes me want to cry.”

  “It’s worse than that, Guttle.”

  “How can it be worse?”

  Meyer pondered whether to tell her. He needed to confide in someone. Who better than his betrothed?

  “He may also be a murderer.”

  “Meyer, what are you saying!”

  “When the Schul-Klopper was killed, money was found missing from the schul. The Council kept that secret. If Solomon Gruen had caught Hersch stealing … then Hersch stood to lose everything.”

  “I don’t believe that! Do you have proof? The punishment for murder is death. The Torah says so.”

  “I know.”

  Frightened, she threw her arms around him for comfort. He held her close. Their chests pressed together, he sensed a softness to her that he had not known before. Under her robe, her gown, were no stays, no corset. The blood began to stir his every organ. He withdrew his hand from her back, placed his palm against her breast. He thought he might swoon at the pliancy, at her nipple straining to meet him in the cold. She gasped. She did not remove his hand. Till feeling him growing against her thigh she pulled away. Both were breathing rapidly.

  “I can’t absorb this. You’re wrong. I have to go back.”

  She dispelled a moment of tension between them by placing her bare feet on the tops of his shoes, her arms around his neck. Saying, “Walk me to the door.”

  They were not far from the Owl. He walked her there that playful way. Hersch Liebmann forgotten for the moment, she kissed him lightly on the lips, and went inside.

  Meyer remained in the lane till his breath and his heartbeat slowed. August the twenty-ninth was still ten months away — her father’s sadistic revenge for his extracting so large a dowry.

  23

  For two days Meyer debated within himself. Except for Guttle, he did not want to influence anyone’s fate but his own. Since he was twelve years old, since his parents died, he’d been determined to create his own destiny, no matter how much work it took, no matter how much patience. Hersch Liebmann’s future was not his concern. But if Hersch were indeed a thief — or worse — must this not be brought to the attention of the people?

  He himself would not be robbed again. For the first time, though he did not like doing so, he had begun to lock the door to his office. Soon he would buy a strongbox for his coins, with a padlock of its own. If a thief were allowed to roam free, everyone in the lane would have to begin locking their doors, hiding their treasures. An oasis of morality, as he used to view the lane, would become a prison of suspicion. He could confront Hersch privately and demand the return of his money. But if he brought no charges, he would leave his unknowing friends and neighbors as Hersch’s future victims.

  He tested an idea on Guttle as she sat working at his desk. “The moral delinquency of stealing from your employer, of stealing from your synagogue, is betrayal. The basis of all civilization is trust. Precisely because the Gentile world cannot be trusted, we must retain our trust in one another within the walls.”

  She said nothing. He did not expect a response, just ears to listen.

  “And that just refers to the stealing. What about the murder of Solomon Gruen? I don’t want to be responsible for the taking of another man’s life. That should be left to Elohim. But if Hersch murdered the Schul-Klopper, as logic suggests, how can I remain silent?”

  “I don’t know what you should do,” Guttle said. “How could we face the Liebmanns if you brought such charges? The tension in the lane would be terrible.”

  “That’s true. But our faith is based on the law. And the law is based on justice.”

  Over and over these thoughts twisted in his brain. Guttle worked quietly, preparing a set of ledgers for his business, not interrupting him as he pretended to study coins, climbed the stairs to his bedroom, prowled down again, up again. Until he came rushing down the stairs, waving a book, and said, “Look at this!”

  “What is it?”

  “In the Talmud. Look. The punishment for murder is death, we know that. But there’s an exception. The exception is if there were no eyewitnesses to the murder. Then the punishment is not death, it’s incarceration for life.”

  “No one saw the Schul-Klopper killed!”

  “Exactly. Lev Berkov asked all the neighbors back then. No one saw. Not even Hiram from his window, if he’s telling the truth. So Hersch would not be on trial for his life.”

  “But, incarceration? We have no jai
l. Where would he be kept?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose the council would have to decide. To build a small jail, maybe near the cemetery. Or perhaps to pay for a cell and his bread and water in the Frankfurt jail. That’s what the Talmud specifies. A diet of bread and water.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “Not so awful as killing another man. Not so awful as being hanged.”

  The discovery resolved Meyer’s doubts. He would take at least the first step. “Is your father at home?”

  “I think he is. Why my father?”

  “As presiding Chairman of the council, he’s the one who can authorize a search by the fire captain. To look for the missing gulden where I think they’re hidden — in the mattress of Leo Liebmann’s bed.”

  “Why do you think it’s there?”

  “First the synagogue’s gulden, now mine — money breeding like rabbits. In the straw.”

  “You’ll have to explain that,” Guttle said.

  In the early years of the century, parts of the Judengasse had been destroyed three different times by fire. Since then, in the absence of a constabulary, the captain of the fire brigade had become the supreme civil authority, reporting directly to the council. But never before in his ten years as captain, Joshua Lamb mused as he climbed the stairs, had he been called upon to search an apartment for other than fire violations, such as a woodstove installed too close to a wall. He hoped he would find nothing today — but his job would be validated if he found what he’d been told to seek.

  “What’s this?” Yetta Liebmann asked as the fire captain handed her a sheet of paper.

  “Authorization from the council Chairman to search your husband’s bed.”

  “To search my husband’s bed? You won’t find my husband in it.”

  “I’m not looking for Leo, Missus. I just need to look in his mattress. If you’ll excuse me, is that the bedroom through there?”

  “Bed bugs you’re looking for? Lice? I didn’t know they started fires. Keeping things clean, I do the best I can.”

  A door opened and Hersch and Hiram emerged from their room. “What’s going on, ” Hersch asked.

  “This is the fire captain. He wants to search your father’s bed for bugs.”

  “Not for bugs. Now, if you’ll just let me look.”

  He stepped toward the open door of the bedroom. Hersch moved in front of him, blocking his way. “I think you should leave,” Hersch said.

  His mother handed him the paper the fire captain had brought. “Let him look,” she said. “Only straw he’ll find in the mattress. We’re a poor family, Herr Fire Captain, we can’t afford feathers.”

  Hersch continued blocking the way. “Are you planning to fight me?” the captain asked. “You have muscles, but I have training. I’d hurt you for sure. In front of your mother. She doesn’t need that.”

  Hersch looked at the captain’s determined face, his trim form, and at his mother. He was not afraid, he had suspected that some day they might come. It was as if a part of him wanted them to come — a desire he did not understand. Through his mind flashed the times when as a little boy he’d run away from heder and hidden in the cemetery; it had been cold among the stones, he had wanted to be found — that much he understood. “You’re just doing it for attention,” his mother used to tell him — but he did not recall, afterwards, getting more attention.

  He stepped aside and let the captain pass. It would be stupid to want to get caught now, he thought. He had plans. But now only Yahweh could save him.

  Frau Liebmann followed Joshua Lamb, a black yarmulke atop his ginger hair, into the bedroom. He approached the bed, where the sheet and blanket were folded neatly on top. Circling the bed, he examined the gray cotton mattress cover. On the first two sides he checked he saw nothing amiss. On the side nearest the wall, he found a hole in the cloth. It was the size of a fist. He knelt beside it, inserted his hand through the hole, felt around in the straw.

  “Moths we sometimes have,” Frau Liebmann said.

  He pulled out a small leather pouch, then another. Standing, he showed them to Frau Liebmann, and clinked the coins within. “Wealthy moths,” he said. He crossed to the kitchen, where Hersch and Hiram were waiting, and he showed the pouches to them. “When your father saw them, the knowledge his son was a thief caused a seizure. He’s the one who gave you up.”

  The captain turned to leave with the pouches. Hersch reached for an iron pan, lifted it high, as if to slam it into the back of the captain’s head. “Don’t!” Frau Liebmann shrieked, just as Hiram grabbed his brother’s arm and pulled it down. Hersch had hesitated just an instant. They all knew he would not have struck the blow. The captain’s footsteps echoed on the stairs.

  “What have you done?” Yetta asked, looking at her sons.

  The clang of the heavy pan made their ears ring as Hersch slammed it onto the iron stove.

  When the charges were announced, the word marched up and down the lane like the boots of barbarians. The foulest word in the language. Murder! Of Jew against Jew? Not possible! Yet it stuck to the skin like soot.

  —Nobody was killed, how can there be murder?

  —The Schul-Klopper.

  —What, young Izzy? I saw him yesterday.

  —No, the real Schul-Klopper. Solomon Gruen.

  —A heart attack, they said. Not murder.

  —Who said?

  —We assumed.

  — ‘Murder without a witness.’

  — How can you charge murder without a witness?

  — Meyer Rothschild, the coin dealer at the north end.

  —The one whose betrothed stopped the horse?

  — Hersch Liebmann worked for him.

  —The deaf mute?

  —His brother.

  —Oy vey, a wild one he used to be. But why murder? For what purpose? A murderer in the lane, it makes my hands shake.

  —Probably he’s innocent, don’t get indigestion. So, did you see where Doctor Berkov got married yesterday?

  — I didn’t see, I heard. It rained, they had to go inside. Nobody saw.

  —The bride looked beautiful, they say.

  —Who says?

  —Somebody who saw.

  —I thought nobody saw.

  —So they say. Too bad they spilled red wine on her dress. Right after he broke the glass.

  —Who spilled?

  —A dancer who fell. It’s too bad. A bride should not wear red, it brings trouble.

  —I beg to differ. If she had worn red, the wine wouldn’t show.

  —How could she know?

  —Know not to wear red? She knew not to wear red. She wore white.

  —It was ivory.

  —It was white. I know somebody who knows the mother.

  —What has the mother to do with it?

  —She made the dress.

  —I suppose she saw the murder, too.

  —Nobody saw the murder. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.

  —For what reason would there be a murder?

  —To cover up the stealing, they say.

  —Somebody saw stealing?

  —Nobody saw.

  —So what’s to cover up?

  —Would Rothschild lie?

  —But if he didn’t see . . .

  The lane was ulcerous with it. The accused walked about freely, they had no place to lock him up, and if he ran before the trial, good riddance. Where could he run to? To Berlin, to Hanover? A long run. He walked like a ghost of flesh, passersby avoiding his eyes. But they were extra pleasant to his brother, to show they held no bad feelings toward the Liebmanns. Guttle wary each day as she crossed from Meyer’s office to the Owl. Hersch standing in front of his door, three metres away, glaring at her. Nothing to fear, she’d known him all her life. Frau Liebmann not speaking to her on the way to the hospital. Where Leo Liebmann heard the gossip, if he could hear. No talk of money, rabbits. No speech at all. Comatose, staring at the ceiling.

  “The people seem very tense,
” Doctor Kirsch said to Doctor Berkov.

  “They do,” Doctor Berkov said to Doctor Kirsch.

  Not me, the former Dvorah Schlicter, the new Frau Berkov, said to herself, sighing contentedly from the night before.

  November became December. No one was thinking of Hanukah.

  —That’s him, over there!

  —Don’t look!

  —He used to sweep the schul.

  —He used to dig the graves.

  —Still does. Look at his thick hands.

  —Don’t look!

  —They could easily strangle someone.

  —Poison. It was poison, they say.

  The frightening word swirled like dead leaves in the winter wind.

  —Poison that can kill?

  —If it couldn’t kill, how would it be murder?

  The notion of one Jew taking another’s life — this was too much to comprehend. If only spring would come, and all of this were gone, life would be good again in the Judengasse.

  Guttle awoke from her dream just as she fed the ratbane to Frau Marcus. Her heartbeat was too fast, her forehead was cold with sweat. The perspiration spread to her thighs, to under her arms. She shivered as a cold wind rattled the window. Avra’s even breathing beside her was the only peace in the room. Unable to sleep, she turned on her side, thinking about the dream, obsessing about it. How could she do such a thing, even in a dream? She became even more agitated when deep into the night she decided what it had meant, the message it had conveyed. She could not lie still. She needed to warn Meyer. At first light she slipped into her robe, and when she heard knocking in the lane she hurried downstairs, ran barefoot across the cobbles, almost ran into Hiram Liebmann, the Schul-Klopper’s helper, as he emerged from the alley to the Hinterpfann. Hiram looked at her with eyes both pained and cold. Ignoring him, Guttle hurried past and pounded on the door until Meyer, saying, “I heard you already,” opened it, barefoot in his sleep shirt, blinking sleepy eyes.

  “I thought you were the Schul-Klopper.”