by Robert Mayer
“Doctor Weitz! Shame on you! That would hardly be seemly — to buy beer for younger men.” She grinned, hoped her new teeth were straight. “The sailors buy for me. ‘Another chilled for Madame R.,’ they shout.”
“They know who you are?”
“Of course. I suppose I remind them of their mothers. Or — I’ll say it first, Doctor — of their grandmothers.” Feeling a breeze through the window, she pulled her sleeve cuffs down from her elbows to her wrists. “No doubt I’m the only woman in the River View who won’t give them disease.”
“The River Tavern. And you — do you tell them stories?”
She waved a shaky hand. “What would seamen want with an old lady’s memories? I have wonderful memories, of course. Mostly of Meyer. Of how together we lived our dream, by seeing the walls come down. Not by our hands, of course, but with gelt. The French army helped, when they invaded Frankfurt. Their cannons destroyed a third of the Judengasse. The Council had no choice but to let those Jews without homes move into the city. The French already had given equality to their Jews, by the way, after their revolution. After they beheaded . . .but never mind that. The Frankfurt Council was not in a hurry to open the lane, until Meyer raised for them 290,000 gulden. A lot of money. A tax that was a bribe. No matter. It also helped ease the laws for the Jews. More than anything, that crowned Meyer’s life. But the seamen at the tavern don’t care about such things, and the journalists already know.”
“The journalists?”
“They shall be here later. Today is my birthday. For some reason they keep track. Ninety-six, if I don’t lie.”
“I didn’t know. Mazel tov!”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
“And they will ask you why you still live in the lane, I suppose. When your five sons own palaces and banks not only in Frankfurt but in London, Paris, Vienna, Naples. When the Rothschilds are richer than kings. The richest family in the world. When kings try to borrow money to make war, it’s your sons who decide if there will be a war.”
“It’s true. One by one in his little countinghouse Meyer taught each of them the business of banking. When they came of age he sent them abroad, to blanket Europe with their influence.”
“But once again you will not tell the journalists why you still live here, with all that wealth available? The very last resident of the Judengasse?”
“A soul must have secrets, or it is no longer a soul.”
“Will you tell me? There are healthier places to live, you know. Cleaner air to breathe than here among these warehouses. Surely your sons have invited you.”
“I’m old-fashioned, Doctor. I remain loyal to my husband.”
“I know he’s buried in the cemetery here, but . . .”
“For thirty-six years already. As I said, Meyer taught our sons to make money, and sent them out to the Promised Lands. But he never went himself, not even after he opened up the gates. He stayed here. But it’s more than that. It’s the Judengasse itself. Someone needs to remember. People from all over the world come here to visit Madame Rothschild, as they call me. Not long ago that nice writer from Denmark, Herr Anderson, came. Would they visit me someplace else? By remaining here, I keep the memory of the Judengasse alive. Someone needs to.”
The Doctor could think of no reply. There was a moment of silence.
“So. About your aches and pains. What hurts when you stand too long? Your muscles? Your joints? Your back, perhaps?”
“You name it, I feel it. Also when I sit too long.”
“I see.”
“Also when I lie down too long.” She smiled shyly at him. “That’s three of a kind. Too bad I’m not playing poker.”
“In that case, I won’t be poking you,” the Doctor said. “I could poke here, poke there, ask you where it hurts. But you say it hurts everywhere, so poking wouldn’t tell me a thing. I doubt it’s anything treatable — muscles, bones, joints, they all wear out with age.”
The Doctor pulled a silver watch on a chain from his pocket. “I must move along, I have another patient to see a few streets away.” He stood, gripped his leather bag, took his hat in his hand. Guttle followed him to the top of the stairs. He took one step down and turned to her. “You should have a very happy birthday, Madame. Eat a piece of cake for me. As for the aches and pains, I’m sorry I can’t help you. I can’t make you any younger.”
Guttle shook her head, her wry smile peeking out again from her wrinkled face. “You misunderstand, Doctor,” she said. “It’s older I want to become.”
The Doctor grinned, then said, “If it won’t offend you, Madame, there is one question I’ve been wanting to ask.”
“Well, speak up. At my age I don’t offend.”
“The story goes that your husband made his first fortune by investing funds for nearby Princes — profits they obtained by selling peasants to fight in foreign wars. That was the seed for the magnificent wealth of your family. The story goes that you were against Meyer’s making money that way.”
“It’s true. It was the worst fight we ever had. So, what is it you want to know?”
“After all these years, does that still bother you?”
“Such a question,” Guttle said. “I still live here, do I not?”
Author’s Note
Many sources contributed to the factual foundation upon which this novel is built. Two in particular must be acknowledged: the biographies Founder, by Amos Elon, and The House of Rothschild, by Niall Ferguson. For anyone seeking further factual information, Elon is stronger on daily life in the Judengasse, Ferguson on the detailed financial history of the Rothschilds.
Though this book is a work of fiction, many of the characters, notably Guttle Schnapper and Meyer Rothschild, were real people. Others, and many of the scenes, are wholly imaginary. Lives and incidents in the Judengasse may have unrolled as portrayed, but, to quote Ira Gershwin on the Bible, it ain’t necessarily so.
Since completing the manuscript, I frequently have heard a complaint from the cherub Leo, usually around four in the morning. “Why did you end where you did?” he asks. “There’s a lot more to the story.” Whereupon the angel Yetta invariably reassures me. “You told the important parts. The rest concerns only money.”
If the mingling of history and fiction needs any defense, I rely on the words of the Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel, who wrote — attributing the concept to the Baal Shem Tov — “The real and the imagined, one like the other, are part of history; one is its shell, the other its core.”
—Robert Mayer
February 22, 2010