The Origin of Sorrow

by Robert Mayer

  The fish weren’t biting. Hersch, feeling lazy, didn’t care. He’d eaten a large breakfast of eggs stolen from a nearby chicken coop, and for dinner he could always approach the cooking fire of one band of thieves or another. His shoulders, arms and chest had grown thick enough, the blade in his boot was sharp enough, his willingness to use it notorious enough, that he was welcome to share a meal wherever he chose. He had learned quickly that for a Jew to survive in the wild he needed to be twice as mean as a Christian. In the early years several men had tested his Jewish mettle. No one had done so twice. Reputation was everything among thieves, just as it was in the ghetto; that was why he had not returned home when his fourteen years of exile had ended a year ago. In the lane he still would be looked down upon as a thief; here he was honored for it. In the ghetto he still would be suspected of murder, no matter that a jury had cleared him; here the rumor enhanced his safety.

  He would have liked to visit his mother, but Yetta would be eighty-eight years old; most likely she was long dead. He had heard tales of a popular deaf mute artist called Lieb; he could not picture his brother as a painter, but he had not been eager to go and see. There would be questions of what he, Hersch, had been doing all these years. He was forty years old; he was not about to defend his life to bearded old men.

  Pulling his fishing line from the river, he wrapped it around the pole. The fish would bite better at dawn, he knew, but he did not care to rise at dawn; in the real world there were no morning services. Although, out of habit, he still kept his head covered at all times — not with a yarmulke, but with a red cloth cap that was serviceable against sun and rain. He’d bought the cap from a shopkeeper in Göttingen, who told him they were popular among the working men of France.

  In a linden across the river, a pale green woodpecker, with a cap as red as his, was tapping noisily. Hersch adjusted his own cap to fit more snugly, and as he climbed a worn path through the brush toward the castle, he reflected with contentment on his life as Helmut Mann: he rode on horseback far and wide under the German sky, stealing a new mount whenever his horse stepped into a rut or a gopher hole and went lame; he slept under the stars, or in a cliffside cave, or in an abandoned castle of his choosing; when he was short of coins he stopped a coach, or a solitary rider, and often did not have to rob again for weeks; he had not dug a grave in fifteen years — not since the snowy day he’d dug his father’s.

  “That you?” A thin, womanly voice rose from within the bushes.

  Leni. A whore who’d taken a liking to him a month back, and had stolen a mare from in front of a bridle shop and followed him into the hills. Not a real beauty, not enough meat on her bones, hair mousy brown instead of the blondes he preferred, but for now she suited him. Saved his weekly trip into some snide town. In return he made sure she was fed.

  “Any news?” he said into the brush.

  Leni emerged from the bushes, finished with her business, adjusting her faded dress, once-dark gray, dotted with yellow buttercups. “Fellow come in from Kassel a while ago. Says the Landgrave ain’t dead yet.”

  “It’s just a matter of time.”

  “What’s it to you if the Landgrave dies?”

  “I told you already.” Leni wasn’t as smart as the girls in the lane, though she had other attributes. “When the old man dies, the nobles and the traders will be rushing in like grasshoppers for his funeral. And for the crowning of his fat son Wilhelm. Licking royal ass. Then they’ll have to ride home again. Easy pickings, coming and going.”

  “What if you get caught? What will happen to me?”

  You’ll go back to whoring, he thought, which you will do any day now, regardless. But he didn’t say it. “Never been caught yet. Why start now?”

  He turned her around and gently pushed her up the narrow dirt path, following an arm’s length behind. Leafless branches grabbed their clothing like needy beggars, and had to be dislodged from shirt and skirt.

  “Fellow rode up a while ago, looking for you,” she said. “Had a big black horse, a fancy sword on his saddle.”

  “Who was it? Turn around and look at me when you talk.”

  But he already knew who it was.

  She turned to him, squinting into the late afternoon sun. “Said his name was Klaus. Said he’s your partner. I thought I’m your partner.”

  “It’s different.”

  More reliable than sunrise, Hersch thought. Klaus Fettmilch never is late when the pickings are easy. Word must have flown like a crow from here to Hanau, from Göttingen to Wiesenbad, from the highest hills to the river valleys. Prince Friedrich, the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, had a stroke. His Excellency is expected to die.

  Leni giggled, dirty fingers covering her mouth.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “It’s different, you said. I sure do hope it’s different.”

  “Your mind is filth.” He took her by the shoulders, turned her around, shoved her again towards the castle. Gently. She stumbled nonetheless before righting herself by grabbing hold of a bush from which the buds of purple berries grew.

  “What’s so special with you and this Klaus?” she asked, looking over her shoulder.

  “We’ve got history.”

  The air suddenly chilled as they entered the shadow of the castle tower. They scrambled down a wall of rust-colored earth into a dry moat. Chunks of castle stone littered the bottom; the moat had not been filled with water in three hundred years.

  Leni brushed soil from her dress. “What kinda history?”

  “Let’s go find him.”

  But they did not find him.

  Riesenburg meant Giant Castle to the literal, who saw its tower soaring impossibly high into the sky since the twelfth century, and Castle of Giants to the superstitious serfs in the valley, who were convinced that mere humans could not have raised a stone fortress so high. Lord Adolph Rumpf, who built the castle and owned the serfs, assuring them that not only could they gather within the castle walls in the event of a barbarian attack, but that the unseen giants would help to defend the castle. For three centuries the enclosed stone structure was home to Lord Rumpf and his descendants, to servants, administrators of the fields and taxes, horses, soldiers, chickens, pigs and other livestock, for each of the four outer walls was nearly a thousand metres long. Neither the barbarians nor anyone else ever attacked, and in the year 1462, even as the Jews of Frankfurt were being walled into the Judengasse, the Rumpf descendants ceded their property to the Landgrave and his new state of Hesse and moved to a warmer and sunnier chateau they built on the Rhine.

  The castle stood untouched for two hundred years. Then the former serfs — now called peasants — having not seen a giant in the vicinity for generations, began to vandalize the walls and turrets and doors for wood and stone with which to build sturdier huts of their own. The drawbridge over the dry moat was torn away, as were the great doors and much of the surrounding walls. Only in recent years had the remains of the castle been put to use again, as a gathering place for highwaymen. Here the thieves in the region slept easily between robberies. No police forces existed in the open lands, and should Constables from Hesse-Kassel, twenty kilometres to the north, or Hesse-Hanau, a hundred and fifty kilometres, to the south, or even the Landgrave’s personal troops, try to march against them, the highwaymen could easily hold out in the two hundred fortified rooms still standing, until the officers of the law became tired, or hungry, and went home.

  Decaying castles scattered all along the river Fulda had fallen into similar disrepair and disrepute, and Hersch Liebmann, alias Helmut Mann, from time to time had taken his ease in many of their cold and mournful, windowless stone-floored rooms. At the moment, Riesenburg suited Hersch’s purposes best. It was the nearest castle to Hesse-Kassel, and only two kilometres from the north-south road leading in and out of that city.

  The castle remains were so vast, with their rooms and half rooms, their walls and half walls, their shadows and half shadows, that Hersch Liebmann and Klaus Fettmil
ch did not find one another that night. Made generous by a full purse, Hersch tossed a coin to a couple of thieves roasting a rabbit over a fire in the dry moat, and he and Leni were invited to partake. Afterward, the two of them bedded down on saddle blankets in the castle keep, in a large room that once had been the chambers of a lord.

  Rebecca and Simcha were lying together in a new feather bed they had purchased. She was looking at the ceiling, its wooden planks, a dark knot in one board shaped like the head of a horse. Her chest filled with remembered uncertainty, and she shuddered. The night was mild, only a thin sheet covered them. The lamps were off, a ghostly light from the moon, creeping in through the window, gave the many folds of the sheet a blue-white dimension.

  “Are you tired, Simcha? Can I talk?”

  His eyes were closed, but he seemed alert. “You can talk any time.”

  She found his hand, took it in hers. For comfort, or to better monitor his reaction — she was not sure.

  “That day in the cemetery, when you asked me to marry you, you said something we both let pass. You said anyone who comes to live in the Judengasse voluntarily must be running away from something.”

  “Or hiding. Yes.”

  “You were speaking of yourself?”

  “I was including myself.”

  “It’s true of me as well.”

  “I know. I don’t know what, or who, but I’ve always believed there was something.”

  Opening his eyes, he turned on his side to look at her, the new Rebecca, her black hair cropped short to fit under the caps and hats she had decided to wear in public instead of a sheitl — white caps while she was at work, large straw hats to complement her dresses on the Sabbath. They both felt the requirement in the Talmud for women to hide their hair was pointless, but they had agreed that as the wife of the Chief Rabbi she must follow the ancient tradition; if she wanted to break with the past, she should save her rebellions for more important matters.

  “For you to stay here this long,” he said, “to deny all men your beauty for fifteen years — it could not have been just your work.”

  “I’ve never told anyone what happened. I want to tell you, but I’m also hesitant. I want to keep your respect.”

  The room darkened from blue-white to gray as a cloud covered the moon. From the forbidden park beyond the wall they heard a dog’s lonely howl.

  “Somebody famous — whom I can’t recall, that’s how famous he was — wrote that ‘the past is prologue.’ Anything that brought you to me cannot be so bad.”

  She squeezed his hand for a moment. The room lightened to ghostly, the horse-head knot blinked at her memory.

  “I was sixteen. I met a boy.” She felt Simcha skip a breath, but she went on. “His name was Lucas. We met at a synagogue dance, while he was visiting a cousin on our street. He had the deepest brown eyes, the longest lashes, the smoothest skin, the … ” She covered her eyes with her hand as his fingers tensed “I’m sorry, Emil.” She twisted her body violently, pressed her face into his neck. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Go on with your story.”

  “You know that I belong to you now.”

  “Yes.”

  She touched his beard. This close, the graying hairs were a blur.

  “We began to spend time together. We fell in love. When we were eighteen, he wanted us to marry. I had won admittance to Göttingen, which was difficult for girls. And for Jews. I told him I wanted to go to medical school, that we could marry afterward. He was very smart, interested in ideas. I suggested he come with me, study philosophy. We could be together until we received our degrees, then return to Berlin and marry. My father knew some of the faculty, and he managed to get Luke a late admission.

  “He lived across the city. The day we were to leave for Göttingen, with our trunks of clothing, we were to meet at the coach station. It would be a long ride, with two nights spent at inns. My father took me to the coach house in his carriage. The morning skies were gray, I remember, and as we neared the station a light rain began to fall. We were early. Father and his driver put my heavy trunk in the waiting coach. I watched from a bench on a covered porch as four gray horses, each a different shade, were watered, and hitched to the coach. Every twenty miles we would stop at a post station to get fresh horses, the driver said. On the second day we would get a new coachman as well. I had never been far from Berlin, I was interested in what he was saying. Then I looked at my watch. It was almost time for the coach to leave. My heart started racing. Lucas had not yet arrived.”

  She looked at Simcha. He was listening intently, though saying nothing.

  “Two other passengers had appeared, two merchants, or bankers, in black coats and white stockings, with white lace jabots at their necks. They, too, would be traveling to Göttingen. I left the bench and stood at the edge of the platform and peered down the road. The rain was heavier now. There was no sign of Lucas. I grabbed my father’s arm, asked where Lucas was. He had no idea, of course.

  “I saw one of the merchants look at his watch. I hurried inside to the driver, told him that my betrothed — I exaggerated, we were not officially betrothed — I told him my betrothed was coming as well, had bought a ticket, and would be along any moment. Checking his own watch, the driver said he could delay the departure five minutes, no more. That was a rule of the company, he said. In Berlin they are very punctual.

  “I ran outside. I was becoming frantic. I ran a down the road in the rain, as if that would make Lucas appear. I was not thinking clearly, as you might imagine. I was wearing a large straw hat, bright yellow, tied under my chin with a green ribbon, and the rain rolled off it, wetting mostly my shoulders, and the hem of my dress. It was a white dress, the hem turning dark in the rain, just as my life was, I remember thinking. I climbed back onto the platform and asked my father, Where is he? Where is he? How was my father to know?

  “The five minutes passed. The driver must have taken pity on me, because he stalled, adjusting the reins and bridles, checking the large wooden wheels, for another five minutes. I told my father I would not leave without Lucas. Father pointed out that I was due at the university in two days, that no other coach would leave today. One of the merchants overheard, and approached us. He was not a merchant at all, but a professor at Göttingen, going back for the new term. Rather than risk losing my place in the medical school, he told me, I must go, and tell them that my friend had been delayed, and would be arriving late. I didn’t want to leave without him, but it made sense. Papa promised to wait at the coach station for another hour. When Lucas arrived, Papa would tell him to hire a fast horse and catch up with the coach down the road — certainly at the first post exchange. His trunk could be sent on later. I had no choice but to climb into the coach with the professor. We left without Lucas.”

  Rebecca’s mouth was dry, she was not used to talking so much.

  “And he didn’t come?” Simcha asked. “He didn’t overtake you on the road?”

  Silent, remembering, Rebecca under the sheet moved her fingers among the hairs on her husband’s abdomen. Finally she said, “I never saw him again.”

  Simcha closed his eyes, leaving the words hanging in the blue, attempting something he had learned from Rabbi Eleazar: trying to put himself into her body, her mind, at that time, trying feel what she must have felt. He stroked her hand.

  “Those two nights at the coach house inns, I paced the floor, crying, afraid to sleep. I had no idea what had happened to him. Instead I slept as we rode, my head on the shoulder of the professor. At Göttingen, I moved as in a gypsy’s trance. Every day I expected him to appear. Or at least to receive a letter, explaining. Every day was a disappointment. How I got through my studies I don’t know. Some days I was furious with him. How could he abandon me like that? What had I done to him? Then I would be furious at myself for feeling that way — of course he would not abandon me. We loved one another. Something terrible must have happened to him that morning. Perhaps he had been waylaid by highwaymen, wh
o stole his trunk and broke his skull. Or shot him, and left him in a forest. Then I would get into a rage at myself. Because it was my fault.”

  Simcha heard her despair. It was as if the young man’s disappearance had happened yesterday. “Becca, Becca, how could it be your fault?”

  “Because Lucas did not want to go.”

  “To the university?”

  “He wanted to be a merchant, like his father. Import valuable antiques. From China. From India. From Persia. Make money for us, so we could be comfortable when we married. I told him that money was not important to me, that at the university we could be together.”

  “That didn’t make you responsible for whatever happened.”

  “It did. If he was waylaid on the way to the coach — he would not have been there if I had not convinced him. If he fled on a ship, to China, to India — then I had been overbearing, had driven him away. For three months I wrestled with those thoughts, every night.”

  “Three months?”

  “Then I received a letter.”

  Simcha took a deep breath, let it out silently, and waited.

  “It was a complete rejection of me. Of everything about me. He never wanted to be a philosopher, he wrote. He never wanted to study at the university. He wanted to go to sea as a merchant. He didn’t want a Doctor for a wife. He wanted a real woman, not a walking brain. A woman who would open her legs — he actually wrote that — and bear his children and raise them while he was off traveling.”

  She stopped, wiping tears from her cheeks, tears hot with memory.

  “He was a fool,” Simcha said softly.

  “He wasn’t a fool. He was honest. He had come to hate me for what I had done to him.”