The Origin of Sorrow

by Robert Mayer

  Guttle stepped closer to Yussel and whispered, loud enough for Georgi to hear, “What do you think happened up there?”

  “They had a window unboarded. Overlooking the park and the city.”

  “But they must have known the police were coming.”

  Yussel did not reply, turning instead to a partial bookshelf. He bent to insert a dowel.

  “You knew about the window,” Guttle said. “You must have told them to leave the boards off. So the officers would focus on that, and not on Georgi. I’ll bet you’ re going to reimburse them for the fine.”

  Yussel continued working, inserting a second dowel, tapping it in softly with a wooden mallet, saying nothing.

  “The boss must like your work,” Guttle said to Georgi. The boy grinned.

  “I guess I’m not needed here,” Guttle said. She stepped outside. The officers were passing the synagogue, moving into the south end. Licht the cobbler and Marcus the moneylender were still across the way, watching them. Guttle grew agitated. The boy would not be safe until the Constables were gone

  She was too impatient to wait. She needed to confront the issue. Crossing the ditch on a shaky board, she approached the men. “There was no problem about the boy,” she told him.

  “This time,” the moneylender said.

  “Do you still plan to turn him in?”

  Jacob Marcus looked away, stared down the lane. His eyes would not meet hers. “I’ve heard that good Jews don’t do that.”

  Guttle remained expressionless, though her eyes smiled.

  “Besides,” the shoemaker Licht said, “the bastards ruined my hat.”

  36

  In mid-December, a short letter arrived from America, from Eva Hess, the rag-picker’s wife. Guttle read it to Doctor Kirsch in her office at the hospital.

  “November, 1775

  “Dearest Friends. You may have heard in the newspapers that the terrible smallpox to America has come. Here is called God’s Country, but the pox has come regardless of God. Many people die, including some in the army. This short letter is to let you know not to worry about us, that Ephraim and me are fine. We both had the pox a little bit as children in the lane, and newspapers here say if you had it once you cannot again. We worry for our children, of course, but the pox has thus far not been bad in New York. We pray it does not come to Europe or the Judengasse. Ephraim is with the troops of General Washington, he has not been injured. We think of you often with much feeling. Eva Hess.”

  Rebecca frowned behind her desk. “I’d heard that the pox was there.”

  “Is it true what she says? That if you had it once you can’t get it again?”

  “It seems to be true. We don’t know why. It would be nice if we could give everyone a very small case. Then no one would die if it comes back.”

  “Could you do that?”

  “If we tried, we might start an epidemic.”

  “What I came to ask you is, should I post the letter in the community room? I do with all their letters, but I don’t want to frighten people.”

  “Certainly, post it. If the pox comes — and it very well may not — denying it won’t do any good. Knowledge is always better than ignorance.”

  “You truly believe that?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then let’s start a heder for girls,” Guttle blurted

  “Us? Here? Would the Chief Rabbi approve?”

  “Most likely not.”

  “Would Meyer approve?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  The Doctor stood and lifted a notebook from her desk. “I have patients to see. That’s an interesting idea, Guttle, but it raises a dozen questions. Let’s discuss it when I have more time.”

  “You’ll think about it?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Walking to the synagogue to tack up the letter, Guttle had to pause to battle a moment of dizziness. The cupola seemed to swirl above her. What had she done? The idea of a heder for girls had leaped into her brain on the instant. Why had she spoken it? She with a baby due in April.

  Still, she had begun teaching Schönche to read. Why not teach other girls as well? She paused again when she felt a flutter, a gentle kick, in her womb. Little Leah — she was convinced that, after two boys, it would be a girl this time — little Leah was ready to enroll.

  17 December

  For weeks now, something has been wrong with Mama. At times she does not remember things. Or starts conversations in the middle. Today as we walked together to the market to buy onions and potatoes, she startled me with what she said. “I had a friend named Sophie,” she began. “We were like sisters. She wanted to marry a handsome young man with good prospects, Wolf Schnapper. But his father did not care for her; she came from a poor family. He wanted to betroth Wolf to me instead. When my father agreed, Sophie’s heart was broken. She pushed me from her life. She never spoke to me again, not one word. Later she was married to someone else, I forget his name. I wonder what happened to Sophie. I wonder where she is. Do you know, Guttle?”

  “I don’t know, Mama,” I lied.

  How could I have explained? I was too astonished to think.

  “To have a friend who acts as if you are dead, that is a terrible thing,” Mama said.

  Late in the afternoon I stood by the north gate, waiting for Papa to return from court. When he did, I pulled him aside and told him what Mama had said. I asked it if was true — that long ago, he, or his father, had rejected the hand of Sophie Marcus. I had never heard that before, I didn’t know if Mama in some deluded way was making it up.

  Papa admitted it was true. “When Sophie wanted so desperately for her son to marry you, I wondered if there was a connection,” Papa said. “Some need to undo the past. But the mind is too complex to figure out. What did it matter, after all? It was Meyer you wanted.”

  As I watched him hurry up the stairs to Mama, my inner world turned upside down. For the first time, I understood why poor Sophie Marcus views us Schnappers as the devil’s handmaidens.

  December turned cold as Hanukah approached. Menorahs appeared in a window of every apartment, a single candle burning, plus the shamash candle on top, honoring the miracle of the one-day flask of purified oil in the temple in Jerusalem that had burned for eight days.

  “I’m not happy,” Dvorah told her husband.

  “I know,” Lev said. “But it’s been more than a year since the baby died. We have to get on with our lives. In bed and everywhere.”

  Two candles, side by side, like flaming lovers, glowed in the windows. Candles honoring the Maccabees, who rescued the temple from the Syrians. “I hate being locked in the lane,” Dvorah said.

  “Who doesn’t? But it’s a fact of life.” He lifted his yarmulke, ran his hand through his hair. ”There’s not much we can do about it.” He rolled the muscles of his back, still tight from a surgery he had performed that day.

  Three candles cast a brighter light. Illuminating the hatred of the Syrians, who had made Judaism a crime, punishable by death. “I’m serious,” Dvorah said. “I have to get away from here, or I’ll go mad.”

  “Perhaps you need a journey. We’ll get permission for you to leave. Go for a week to Belgium, or France. Two weeks, even. Take Guttle, or Brendel. The grandmothers can watch the children.”

  Four candles burning. Revealing that the enemy had sacrificed swine in the sacred temple. The twins, David and Ruth, six years old, placed the menorah on the floor and jumped over the burning candles, an ancient Hanukah game, and laughed. Hanukah half gone, and Dvorah still twisted like the flames. “I want a divorce,” she said.

  “What! I never heard such nonsense! I know I’ve been busy at the hospital, but I love you, Dvorah. You’ve got David and Ruthie to raise. Why should you want a divorce? Why would I give you one?”

  Five candles and one on top cast a light as bright as a lamp. In the lane, a light snow began to fall, the flakes glowing orange outside the window panes. “I’m in love with someone else.”
/>   “I don’t believe you! With whom?”

  “His name doesn’t matter.”

  “Is that so? Well, you had better fall out of love. And quickly, if you know what’s good for you.”

  The flames bent in their direction, as if the better to hear. So, too, did ears behind the apartment walls.

  “I won’t fall out of love. To you, Lev, everything is simple. Life is not so simple. Listen to what I’m saying.” She hesitated, then plunged on; it was the only thing he would understand. “I’ve been sleeping with him.”

  Lev’s face reddened. “You what!” He grabbed a sharp knife from the table. He was shouting now. “Tell me who it is! I’ll kill him!”

  She stared at him, not moving.

  He looked at the knife in his hand, as if uncertain how it had gotten there. He looked at her. “It’s you I should kill! Or scar that pretty face of yours! Keep you out of trouble.”

  Dvorah didn’t flinch. She knew her husband better than that. She was not afraid. “I want you to give me a divorce. I want to leave the lane and marry him.”

  “Leave the lane? Then he’s not Jewish?” Saliva was spluttering Lev’s beard. “Mixed marriage is forbidden! You would have to convert!”

  “I’m planning to,” she said, calmly.

  “You really have gone meshuganah!” Again he looked at the knife in his hand, as if it were a stranger. He tossed it onto the table. “Attacking Mendelssohn with some stupid book, now this! You’ve been shtupping some goy behind my back? Sure, I’ll give you a divorce. Why don’t you leave right now? I should throw you down the stairs, without another word.”

  “But you won’t.”

  Six candles in a row. The Doctor’s hand shook as he lighted them in front of the twins, and said the Hanukah prayer. The children spun a dreidl. Spinning, spinning, slanting crazily on the slatted wooden floor, it clattered to a stop with the letter nun showing — no one wins.

  “Is something wrong, Papa?” Ruthie asked. “I heard you and Mama shouting.”

  “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

  When the twins were asleep, he asked her, “So, when are you leaving, Jezebel?”

  “At the end of the week. So David won’t miss heder.”

  “David? What does David have to do with this?”

  “I’m taking the twins with me, of course. They need their mother.”

  “Like they need a viper, they need their mother! Over my dead body you’ll take the children, and turn them into goys. David loves to learn. He might be a Rabbi some day. You worry about him missing heder, but you plan to take him to a church? Your mind is gone, Dvorah!”

  “You know you can’t raise them alone. Think about it.”

  A candle for every day of the week. Room left for only one more. The lane was bright with them, so pretty. Lev had sent the children to their grandmother Hannah’s for the night.

  “I have a compromise,” Dvorah said. “We can be friendly about this. I’ll only take Ruth. You can bring up David however you want.”

  “You’re a regular King Solomon! If you go, David and Ruthie will lose their mother. Now you want them to lose each other as well? The other half of themselves? You’ve turned into a whore, Dvorah, and a selfish one at that. Go open your legs for your goy, see if I care. Don’t forget to pocket his money, I’m sure he’s rich.”

  Now Dvorah began to shout. “Don’t point fingers, I always was your whore! You didn’t want me for anything else! You didn’t think I was good for anything else! It’s time I had some love in my life!”

  “Love? Don’t fool yourself, Dvorah. This is not about love. This is your passage out of the lane. Behind those breasts you have no heart. You’re weak. You can’t deal with life. That’s fine. But the twins stay with me, or no divorce. And don’t expect to come visit them. I doubt you’ll be very welcome in the lane. You know what they’ll call you? The Jewish shiksa whore!”

  The flickering candles sputtered and died, sending to heaven eight twists of smoke, the smell of wax. No matter, tomorrow evening there would be nine, a full cheerful lineup, in every home in the lane. But first, in the daylight, there was talk.

  —You heard?

  —The walls are thin, who didn’t hear? Who doesn’t know someone who heard?

  — So what do you think?

  —What’s to think? The Jewish shiksa whore!”

  Perhaps it was not exactly that way, the days of Hanukah, a detail different here or there, but that is how, each year after that, Lev Berkov would remember it, as he lit the candles, while David and Ruthie watched, and the flames burned holes in his heart.

  The candles, eight days worth, all forty-four of them, were gone. The menorahs soon would be put away for another year. Dvorah Berkov, nee Schlicter, soon to be Dvorah von Brunwald, stood inside the gate, hugging her children goodbye. Her mother was there, too, and her sisters. Tears were on every cheek except Dvorah’s. A satchel was at her side, she would send for the rest of her things later on. She would write.

  She needed to leave, not to prolong this, Paul was waiting with his carriage by the town square. But she couldn’t step through the open gate. Not yet. Her eyes looked toward the Hinterpfann, or rather towards the alley that led to the Hinterpfann. No one appeared.

  With a sudden, hopeful thought, she looked towards the Owl. Towards the third floor window of Guttle’s old room. Between the curtains she saw her friend, watching.

  Guttle did not stir. Guttle did not come running down the stairs to embrace her, to shed a tear together. Guttle did not wave goodbye.

  Dvorah decided not to wave, either. She hugged her children one last time, and carried her satchel through the gate.

  When Dvorah was out of sight, past the slaughterhouse, past the Zig-Zig Stables, past the herring shop, into the Gentile world, Guttle sat on the bed she used to share with Avra. She had come here to watch through the window as Dvorah left; she had not been able to stop herself from seeking this pain.

  She wondered at the changes wrought by time and love. Now she sleeps in Meyer’s bed, Avra sleeps with Hiram, this same straw mattress belongs to Amelia, whom Izzy hopes to wed in five years, when he reaches marrying age — though her father might have other ideas. But she could not separate her mind long from Dvorah. Everything her friend had done was terrible, was sinful, was against the will of Yahweh: indulging in an adulterous affair, divorcing her husband, abandoning her children, abandoning her God. Of the latter two she was not sure which was worse. Her reason told her that the worse was to abandon almighty Yahweh, creator of the universe, giver of the laws, instructor of the patriarchs. Her heart told her that one’s children should come before everything.

  Yet look what Dvorah had obtained in return, Guttle thought, standing, peering at the gate through which her friend had left. She had achieved what Guttle had dreamed of since she was a child, what still she craved in the core of her being. By piling sin upon sin upon sin upon sin, Dvorah had escaped from the lane.

  37

  The winter had been harsher than usual, with low temperatures and frequent snows that turned the outlying roads into ice-filled ruts, treacherous for the thin legs and fragile ankles of the horses. Meyer had remained close to home, doing most of his business by post, and even that had been slowed by the storms, the post messengers no more eager than anyone to be trapped in a blizzard. So when the first Friday in March dawned unexpectedly mild, offering a foretaste of spring, Meyer was restless. After morning services, he kissed Guttle’s cheek and belly — she was in her seventh month — rented a mare from Ziggy Zigmund and set off for the palace at Hesse-Hanau. He had no pending business with the Crown Prince, but he did not like many months to pass between visits to Carl Buderus in the treasury office. That young man, Meyer had sensed for some time, could be his gateway to future wealth.

  The door to Buderus’s office was open when Meyer knocked on it. Looking up from his desk, at which he’d been writing, Buderus welcomed him without standing, and motioned him to a chair. “Me
yer Rothschild, what a coincidence. I was just writing to you. Now you’ve saved me the trouble.”

  “I was in the vicinity . . .”

  “That’s good luck, then.” Buderus, whose serious demeanor was in constant warfare with his flaming hair, sipped from a cup of steaming coffee. Meyer had skipped breakfast in his restlessness and after his ride would have welcomed a cup of refreshment, but the treasury man did not offer. Doing business with a Jew, even being friendly, was no problem for Buderus, but hospitality, Meyer knew, was too much to expect.

  “I’ll explain what has occurred,” Buderus said, setting down his cup and wiping his lips with a napkin. “You may recall that some time ago — in September, I believe it was — you and I encountered regiment recruiters on the road to Frankfurt.”

  “I remember well.”

  “We have received notification that the first payment for the recruits has left England. It should arrive within the month — a nice, round one hundred thousand gulden. With King George struggling to outfit his troops, the notes are not payable until August. The Crown Prince wishes to discount them, and invest the money at once, to maximize his profits.”

  “Of course.”

  “How does this involve a coin dealer from the Judengasse, you may well wonder.”

  Meyer remained silent, concealing the elation that was budding in his chest like the scent of spring.

  “Yesterday, Wilhelm gave me the names of three bankers with whom he planned to divide the business — one here in Hanau, two in Frankfurt. He has summoned them to meet here at eleven in the morning of Tuesday next, to offer the terms. They will be the standard. The six-month notes will be discounted at ten percent. Profits on the ninety percent that is invested shall go to the banker at an additional ten percent. I know you are not a banker as such, but I assume that you understand.”

  “It is quite clear,” Meyer said.

  “I thought it would be. As Wilhelm spoke, I recalled our encounter with the recruiters. I suggested to His Serenity that he divide the business four ways, assigning one fourth to you, if you are interested.”