by Robert Mayer
“Do not misunderstand — the boys and girls will not share a classroom. They will not even be in the school at the same time. The plan is that three days a week the school would be for boys, and the other three days for girls.”
“What about heder?” a voice called out.
“I am getting to that. While girls could enroll at any age after seven years, boys would first have to complete their heder studies. This will ensure that for the boys, religious education will take precedence. They will have to complete that before moving on to secular studies. And for both boys and girls, of course, the school would be voluntary.”
“Secular study goes against Jewish law!” someone shouted.
Guttle turned to the Chief Rabbi. He approached the lectern and told them of his view — that because all of creation is the work of Yahweh, no realm of study could be sinful.
“You haven’t answered the main point.” Another voice from the crowd. “The Bible says not to teach girls.”
Simcha nodded, waited for quiet. “Those of you who attended the school meeting some weeks ago heard a spirited debate about that. While the Talmud says that fathers must teach their sons, it does not explicitly forbid the teaching of girls. I lean toward the belief that girls, too, have minds. Perhaps because I married a brilliant one.”
“We hope you’ve married her body, too,” someone yelled, sending laughter circling the tiers.
Guttle straightened her hat, purple with a matching feather, and gripped the lectern. Her hands were sweating, and her scalp beneath her sheitl. Her back had begun to ache from standing so long with her protruding belly. Her mind flashed for an instant to her wedding day, to Dvorah more than eight months pregnant standing beside her. Dvorah whom Meyer had seen at Hesse-Kassel. Whom she would never see again. Dvorah, who ought to be here in the crowd.
“I have one important question for the Chief Rabbi to address,” she told them, “a question that I know is on many of your minds: how can we be sure that a rebuilt school will not be burned again?”
An emotional leaning forward in the tiers. This they very much wanted to hear. Simcha was smiling, nodding, as Guttle stepped down from the podium and returned to her seat beside Meyer, who gripped her hand in support.
“I will be happy to respond,” Simcha said. “To do so, I would like two men to join me up here.” He motioned to the chairs below. Hiram Liebmann and Isidor Kracauer climbed agilely onto the podium, and stood one on each side of the Rabbi.
“This idea was brought to me by Frau Rothschild, who is too modest to explain it. So I shall do so. It begins with the Torah. As everything does. We all know that the Five Books of Moses, which make up the Torah, are the sacred word of Adonai; that each of the fifty-two sections we read, one each week, is sacred. We lost a magnificent Torah in the fire, a scroll bequeathed to us by our forebears in the Judengasse in the year 1492. I have decided to replace that scroll by one that will be a special treasure for us all.
“As you know, each Torah must be written by hand. I have asked Hiram Liebmann here, the finest artist the Judengasse has known, to put his delicate hand to the task of transcribing a new Torah. I am happy to say that he has agreed.”
“It’s a mitzvah!” some yelled.
“Yes, it will be a wonderful mitzvah,” Simcha continued. “But I am not ashamed to say, and I know Hiram will not be embarrassed if I point out, that he is not the most studious man in the lane regarding the Torah, nor is his attendance at schul exemplary. But the Torah must be penned with the heart, not just the hand. What to do? I have written to the Chief Rabbi at Furth to see if he would permit our Isidor Kracauer, his rabbinical student, to return to the lane and sit beside Hiram, and work with him every day on the meaning of each word, of each character, as Hiram writes. The Rabbi of Furth responded that if Izzy were to spend a year explaining to Hiram every nuance of the words he is writing — a year is how long it normally takes for a scroll to be created — then at the end of that year Isidor would be even more qualified to be a Rabbi than if he finished his studies at Furth. With that glad news, I wrote to Isidor. He has returned to the lane, as you can see. These two fine young men — whom you will recall once shared the Schul-Klopper’s job — together will create for us a magnificent scroll.”
Hearing a murmur run through the crowd, Simcha said: “I know, you wonder what this has to do with the fire. I am coming to that. We plan to have the carpenters build a small Aron Kodesh under the roof of the new school. It will be a cabinet of wood, not a coffin of lead. It will burn easily, should there be a fire.”
“I don’t understand,” a man cried out. “We can’t read from it up there. We can’t even see it up there.”
“Let me finish,” the Rabbi said. “When the scroll is completed, and the women of the lane have made a fine velvet case for it, and the jewelers of the lane have made a fitting gold crown, we each one of us will get to see and admire the scroll work, which I know will be magnificent. We each will get to kiss the Torah. Then we shall place it as I have described. But here is the difference between this Torah and the one we lost in the fire. The one that partially burned was a secret. But the future location of this new Torah I am making public now. Everyone will see where we are placing it. I am confident that no one in the lane — no Jew anywhere — would knowingly put a torch to a Torah, or to a building that contains a Torah. There can be no greater sin in the eyes of God.”
Nods of approval bent the heads of many, like a breeze humbling the heads of tulips.
“What about during the first year?” a man yelled.
“I’m glad you brought that up. Because the Torah will take a year to inscribe, I have instructed the carpenters to wait a year before constructing the school. During that time, we shall use this vacant space to celebrate our unity, with parties and dances. It was for this reason I asked Brendel Isaacs — Brendel Kahn — to form the Judengasse Orchestra. Personally, I do not find it gratuitous. The orchestra will entertain us at these parties and dances, just as, if there are no more questions, they shall entertain us now, as we celebrate the birth of a new school, and a new unity, upon the ashes of the old.”
“We have no unity!” someone cried out.
People turned to look. It was the shoemaker, Alexandre Licht.
“Bah!” he shouted, “Bah on your school for girls.”
With many eyes watching he descended from the second tier and strode across the wooden floor, past the lectern, out into the lane. Another man, then another, climbed down and followed him out of the meeting, as did several women. Another man, another, leaving in protest.
Guttle held her breath as they left. The Rabbi could think of no way to stop them.
A moment of expectant silence, the pause between lightning and thunder.
Then the exodus stopped. Only a few dozen had departed. Hundreds remained.
The Chief Rabbi held up his hand for their attention. “To tell you the truth,” he said, “I am glad that some of our friends have left. That they were not afraid to speak their minds with their feet. If ever all Jews agree on something, we will know the end of the world is upon us.”
Many in the crowd laughed, and began to applaud. Seizing the moment, Simcha waved his arm, and Brendel, seeing this, turned to the musicians and punched the air, and in an instant the Judengasse Gratuitous Orchestra filled the tiers with the opening notes of an old and lively tune.
Hesitant at first, one couple and then another moved onto the wooden floor. Those who were not dancing watched, chatted, laughed, applauded. The orchestra followed with a country dance, then a demure waltz.
After a deliberate pause, when the dance floor cleared, Brendel held up five fingers to her musicians, and they began a slow tune that gradually began to increase in tempo. It was the same challenge dance that Brendel and Rebecca had danced twice, once at Guttle’s wedding long ago, once in the Café on the evening of their betrothals.
The floor remained empty. Who could keep up with such music?
; The first to try was Schönche Rothschild. Stepping down from the second tier of seats, pulling off her shoes, she edged onto a corner of the boards and began to dance, slowly at first, listening intently to the music, trying to increase her speed. Itchy in her own seat, Leah Marcus, the shoemaker’s daughter, the Cantor’s wife, ran down three tiers and out onto the floor and began to challenge Schönche. Two metres apart, they danced, their feet flashing, their forms moving closer together. Delighted by Schönche’s courage, Guttle began to applaud. Many in the crowd joined in. The young women were not nearly as good as Brendel and Rebecca had been, but they would improve.
Seeing the two dancers slowing, their untrained legs growing weary, Brendel curtly silenced the orchestra. Schönche and Leah fell into one another’s arms, sweating, breathless. “Let’s practice that,” Leah managed to whisper. Schönche, too breathless to speak, could only nod.
Brendel pointed her baton across the dance floor. “What about the rebbetzin?”
Grinning, Rebecca waved her hands, palms outward, in front of her chest. “I’m too old for that,” she called out. “What about you?”
Brendel, too, grinned, and ran a hand across her slightly thickened middle, barely noticeable. “I’m too pregnant for that.”
Rebecca’s eyes widened. Those who heard checked with their neighbors to see if they had understood. They turned and whispered to those behind them. The news rose like perfume from the lowest tier to the highest. “Brendel and Yussel are pregnant!” People began to cheer. Some of the older women, who knew of Yussel’s sad history with babies, found tears moistening their cheeks.
The Chief Rabbi was watching from the podium. Rebecca turned to look at him. He smiled, shrugged, nodded, as if to say: if you want. Rebecca waved her hand to silence the crowd. Her motion went unnoticed by all but the trumpet player, who blasted a high C long and loud, bringing chatter to a halt. Rebecca moved to the center of the dance floor. “Since this seems to be a day for celebrating,” she said, blushing a bright red, “I am happy to announce that the Chief Rabbi and I also are pregnant.”
Consternation, uncertainty. Could this be a joke? They were so old! He was fifty-one! She was, what, thirty-nine? Old, yes, but not exactly Sarai and Abraham. Cheers erupted, and whistles, and clapping, louder even than for Brendel and Yussel. Brendel ran across the floor to Rebecca and the two women hugged. Simcha stepped down from the podium; he and Yussel embraced.
“A dance to celebrate,” someone yelled.
The Chief Rabbi huddled with Brendel, hummed a tune, moving his right hand in rhythm as if to demonstrate the music. Brendel called Arshel Cohen over. The lead fiddler said he knew it well. He returned to the orchestra, spoke to the other players. Brendel cleared the floor save for the Rabbi and her husband, turned to the orchestra, raised her baton and swung it down. Led by the fiddler, the orchestra began to play a Jewish folk tune from Vilna, the Rabbi’s place of birth, the city where he had grown up. Slowly the Rabbi, all in black, began to dance, and motioned to Yussel to join him.
“I don’t know what to do,” Yussel said.
“Just copy me.”
Simcha squatted, shot first one leg out in front of him, then the other. Yussel tried to do the same, and fell on his side. Righting himself, he tried again. This time he succeeded. As the music continued and the two prospective fathers danced, Guttle and Meyer, watching, linked arms. Yussel and Simcha were joined on the dance boards by the Cantor and the fire marshall, by a heder teacher and a pawnbroker, by men from all over the lane, squatting and kicking, throwing out their arms for balance, copying one another, falling, resuming — this peasant dance having existed dormant in the marrow of their bones — locking arms and walking like ducks, becoming red in the face, while their wives ringed the wooden floor or stood on the tiers to see better, and laughed, and clapped. The Gratuitous Orchestra improvised, and the tiers of onlookers rising toward the gray November sky applauded, and a hundred children in the lane, boys and girls together, tried to imitate the dancing men and careened to the cobbles, laughing, unhurt. Watching through the locked south gate, his musket at his side, even the Constable on duty smiled.
Overheated, perspiring, Rabbi Simcha sat, trying to catch his breath, wiping his face with his handkerchief. Amid the lilting music and the throbbing in his temples he thought he heard heavenly voices. “They’re happy!” he heard the cherub Leo exclaim. Whereupon the angel Yetta replied, “They’ll just have to live with it.”
Epilogue: A Birthday — 1848
Her hand quivering slightly — how she hated that — Guttle touched her cheek. Mrs. R. Never before that day among the ashes had he called her that. Later he would call her Mrs. R. or Guttle or Gutteleh, depending on his mood, though she could never calculate precisely which mood induced which endearment. On his part it was a rare inconsistency. The closest she could come to discerning a pattern, he used Mrs. R. was when he was optimistic about his future fortunes; to refine it even more, when he was optimistic with little visible reason. As if to say, “That is what the entire civilized world will know you as some day, my Gutteleh. Mrs. R.”
He was wrong about that. Nowadays the civilized world called her Madame Rothschild.
The dregs of her tea were cold. She stood and walked to the kitchen with her glass, and heard a knocking on the door downstairs. She did not put much stock in clocks — at her age, it mattered little what the time was, except when they were going to the opera and didn’t want to miss the beginning. Though often the proprietors would hold the curtain if the first mezzanine box on the right was not yet occupied. This was an embarrassment to her, but they insisted. Which is why, if she did not care to attend a performance, she made sure that someone sat in her seat. Preferably a woman. In that way she could create many “Madame Rothschilds” to be whispered about. One is never too old for games.
Another series of knocks on the door. Surely it was too early for her daughters to bring the cake. She went to the top of the stairs. “Who pounds on my door?”
“It’s Doctor Weitz.”
The Doctor? She had not summoned him. This would be an odd birthday visitor.
“Come up, Doctor, the door is not locked.”
She heard him enter the vestibule and climb the stairs. He was a young man, not forty yet, with ginger hair that reminded her of Yussel Kahn, peace be upon him.
“To what do I owe this visit?” she asked as the Doctor set his black leather bag on a table.
He removed his hat, revealing a white yarmulke underneath. His blue suit was the latest fashion among the young. “Your daughter Julie came to my office the other day. She . . .”
“Julie? What is wrong with her?
“It’s nothing, a minor ailment, don’t trouble yourself. But when I asked about you, she said you had been complaining about aches and pains. With a patient of your years, I thought I should stop by.”
“My years? Yes, I suppose I have years. I can tell mostly when I walk to the river. When you were young, Doctor, you and your sisters attended the River Academy, did you not?”
“I was there for one year, right after heder. Then it closed. I continued school in Frankfurt. What prompts your question?”
“No reason. I was just reliving memories.” She moved to a chair, eased herself into it. “Those aches and pains — also when I stand too long.” She adjusted the skirt of her green silk dress to a more graceful shape over her thick ankles.
“I was upset when the academy shut down,” the Doctor said. “I liked it. I still remember the myths and legends that building held. But too many Jews had moved from the lane. There weren’t enough students left.”
“To what legends are you referring?”
“The myth of the three heroes, mostly. We heard that before the academy was built, a school for girls stood on that spot. Someone who opposed the educating of girls set it afire. A fellow named Georgi ran into the flames, trying to save a Torah. Supposedly, he was burned to death.”
“You don’t believe tha
t happened?”
“The problem was, each time we heard the story there was a different hero. I still remember the names. Sometimes the fellow was Georgi Kremm. Other times it was Georgi ben Avram. Other times it was Georgi Pinsky. But none of them ever existed — the older boys checked in the birth books. It was a good story, though. We used to frighten the girls with tales of his ghost.”
She thought of Georgi’s grave in the cemetery. They had neglected to look there, among the Beckers.
“There was another good story,” the Doctor said. “We used to hear that under the roof there was a special Torah. Some woman’s idea of preventing another fire. Because no Jew would burn down a building knowing there was a Torah inside. It’s what caused the academy to survive, they used to say.”
“Aren’t all Torahs special?”
“This one supposedly had been hand lettered by the great artist Lieb. But because he wasn’t pious enough, he was tutored in every word, every letter, by the famous Rabbi I. Kracauer. In his younger days, of course. Before he became Chief Rabbi.”
“This, too, you boys didn’t believe?”
“Do you know what a Torah by Lieb would be worth today? Anyway, why do you ask about the academy?”
“I walked down there yesterday,” Guttle said. “I need my exercise, as you have told me.”
“You didn’t go in, I hope,” the Doctor said with a grin. “Do you mind if I sit?” He pulled a chair closer to her.
“Of course I went in. Why walk so far and not go in?”
“To the River Tavern? It’s a den of roughnecks. Foreign sailors. The dregs of humanity. People get killed in there.”
“But they serve good beer.”
“You drink beer there?”
“If I’m feeling well. They have good stories. I’ve always enjoyed good stories.”
“You buy a round of beers, and in exchange they tell you of their adventures?”