The Library Paradox

by Catherine Shaw

  Rivka pressed her hand to her heart nervously, reading the telegram over his shoulder. ‘But David,’ she said, ‘doesn’t it seem strange that a rebbe from some little shtetl in Poland would be in contact with the chief rabbi of France?’

  ‘I think it must be the same man,’ he said. ‘He may come from a little shtetl, but according to what Ephraim has heard about him, he is considered to be one of the most learned rebbes of his generation; “his fame has travelled far and wide”, as they express it here. He studied both in yeshiva, the school for the study of the Talmud, and in a regular Polish gymnasium, obtaining the highest honours in both. They say he speaks seven languages. I can very well imagine him never leaving his own tiny community, whether in Poland or here, but corresponding with well-known personalities all over the world. That is important for you, Vanessa,’ he added, turning to me, ‘because it means that he will have studied English. He may not speak it too well, because he would not have much daily opportunity to speak it, even here in London, as strange as that may seem. But it solves one of our problems for this afternoon. If you get to speak to him at all, you won’t need a translator.’

  ‘If only this turns out to be the proof that Jonathan is telling the truth,’ said Rivka, taking the telegram from David and clutching it. ‘And what about Uncle Baruch? What happened yesterday, Vanessa? Were you able to see him? Were you able to ask him anything?’ She sounded nervous and I hastened to reassure her.

  ‘Yes, I was. And Rivka, he said that he never asked Jonathan to see the professor, and never would have. I made him understand what had happened and he said he would have rather died. And then he lost consciousness.’

  ‘What can it all mean?’ she said wonderingly, as though not daring to be hopeful.

  ‘I sincerely hope and believe that it means Jonathan – is in the clear,’ I said, hesitating a little crossly as I remembered his annoying refusal to tell me the whole truth, but completing my sentence anyway, out of kindness. ‘At any rate, the rabbi holds the crucial piece of evidence, and we must find out exactly what he knows today, for Jonathan is to appear before the magistrate tomorrow morning, and he must not be committed to trial. It is too dangerous; juries are too unpredictable, and even at the very best, a trial means many days of painful accusations and public revelations.’

  ‘No – anything but that!’ said Rivka.

  ‘Well, then let us decide how I am to approach and talk to this rabbi, and what I am to say.’

  ‘Yes, we must think,’ said David. ‘I’ve already told you why it will be difficult. It would be simply unthinkable for you, a strange woman – and you are obviously a stranger and an Englishwoman here, even if we do cover up your hair – to simply go up and speak to him. First of all, he will certainly not be alone, but surrounded by devoted members of his family and the students and disciples you saw. The trouble is that even if you do get into the room and approach him, chances are they will treat you more or less in the same way they treated Ephraim the other day, before you ever get a chance to say a word.’

  ‘But Ephraim provoked them,’ I said. ‘If I were to speak calmly and tell them that I have something important to say to the rabbi, would they not behave more reasonably?’

  ‘Vanessa – no! You, an unknown woman pushing your way into their group would be perceived as far more offensive and provoking than Ephraim’s silly words.’

  ‘But you said that for today’s festival there will be all kinds of people going in and out of the house. That means women as well as men, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Doors will stand open today for the mummers and players going from house to house, and the people watching them. That will certainly help, as it means that you will probably be able to enter the rebbe’s house, and slip into the part of the room reserved for the women. But what then?’

  ‘Could I give him a written message, perhaps? Asking to speak with him alone?’

  ‘Vanessa, you really are naive! I keep telling you that the rebbe would not go anywhere, alone, with you or any other woman, except for his own wife, of course. Not even into the next room. In fact, he would not so much as look at you directly.’

  ‘Bother being a mere woman! I simply must speak to him, come what may!’ I cried impatiently.

  Unexpectedly, David burst out laughing at my words. ‘I never heard the Bible so aptly paraphrased,’ he said. ‘That’s just what Esther said, in a nutshell!’ Suddenly, he stopped laughing and stared at me. ‘Why, of course,’ he said. ‘It’s so simple. What you should do is go to the rebbe’s house disguised as Esther.’

  ‘Disguised? Is it all right for her to wear a costume?’ said Rivka quickly. ‘The men here usually do, but the women?’

  ‘Well, now that you ask me, it is true that one does not see many women in disguise, though little girls certainly do it,’ answered David thoughtfully. ‘Yet there are some, I am sure of it. It must be all right. Let me just check something,’ and he went to the shelf containing books in Hebrew and lifted down one or two heavy volumes, through which he shuffled rapidly.

  ‘Mateh Mosheh 1014, Yehudah Mintz says that women may disguise if they do not take the guise of men,’ he announced after a few minutes. ‘And look – here in Hagim uMo’adim, Maimon writes that women may even disguise as men, and men as women, if it is purely for the purpose of entertainment.’

  ‘Then it must be all right,’ said Rivka.

  ‘But who is this Esther I am to disguise as?’ I said curiously.

  ‘Esther? Don’t you know who Esther is? Oh, how stupid I am! You don’t know what the Purim festival is, do you? It’s the festival commemorating the death of Haman; it’s in the Bible.’

  ‘Oh – you mean the Book of Esther!’ I exclaimed. ‘Of course, I should have realised it when you mentioned the Bible.’

  ‘Disguised as Esther, you can pretend to be a player, and stand up and tell a tale! People will be running all over the streets in disguise today, dressed up as Vashti or Esther in old silks and veils, or wearing crowns as Ahasuerus, or three-cornered hats like Haman, or even just dressing up as clowns with jangling bells and playing instruments and singing wild songs – sometimes they even dress as Hassidim – those who are not actually Hassidim, I mean – and rush about making fun of them, imitating their wild ways, the way they rock back and forth when they pray, and go into trances. Players in groups go into the houses and sing songs, or make music, or act out the Purim play itself. Dressed as Esther and wearing a veil, you could simply stand up and speak out like a performer. It would have to be English, of course, but that may be just as well. It may prevent some of the students from realising what’s going on. Rivka – can we disguise Vanessa as Esther?’

  ‘I would have to borrow some things,’ she said, looking me over. ‘Let me run over to Sheyne’s, her husband is the rag-and-bone man, she has a lot of old robes and dresses and things.’

  She hurried out, the baby bouncing on her arm. Little Samuel followed her quickly, clinging to her skirt.

  ‘I will need to think about what to say and how to say it, if I am to make myself clearly understood by the rabbi, but not by the people around him,’ I said thoughtfully, visualising myself standing in front of the rabbi and a roomful of people, disguised as a veiled queen. ‘This is even stranger than yesterday, when I had to communicate with Baruch Gad in code. I seem to be doing this every day now. Well, what would Esther say?’

  ‘If I perish, I perish!’ he quoted. ‘Those are her most famous words. How well do you know the Esther scroll?’

  ‘Scroll?’ I said.

  ‘I mean the book in the Bible,’ he said. ‘We have it printed out on separate scrolls for this festival. Rivka has one in English, somewhere, I know she does. She does not read much in Hebrew yet, except for the basic women’s prayers. She is putting her best efforts into learning Yiddish.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, as he scrabbled about in the heap of books again, and dug out what he wanted from underneath the tomes he had just put back. ‘Well, Esther is
not one of the books in the Bible I know well. We Christians seem to greatly prefer Job, for some reason.’

  ‘I can imagine. Well, here it is, read it, so you can see what it was like to be Esther,’ he said. ‘It is not long.’

  The quaint scroll was written out in many columns along a long, thin rectangle of paper which was all rolled up on a wooden rod attached to one of the short sides of the rectangle. The other short side was attached to a second wooden rod, around which one continuously rolled the part of the scroll one had just read.

  ‘What an intelligent system,’ I observed, after getting used to the motion.

  ‘All books were this way in antiquity,’ said David. ‘The sewn parchment codex – that’s a book with pages – was invented by the Romans. Caudex is the trunk of a tree, you know, and the pages were called “leaves”, as they still are. They found it took up less space, and you could write on both sides of the parchment.’

  ‘Well, I like this method,’ I said, beginning to read the sacred text and rolling it up progressively as I went.

  Now it came to pass in the days of Ahasuerus … in the third year of his reign, he made a feast unto all his princes and his servants … he shewed the riches of his glorious kingdom and the honour of his excellent majesty many days … white, green and blue hangings … pillars of marble … drink in vessels of gold … On the seventh day the king commanded the seven chamberlains to bring Vashti the queen before the king with the crown royal, to shew the people and the princes her beauty: for she was fair to look on. But the queen Vashti refused to come at the king’s commandment by his chamberlains: therefore was the king very wroth, and his anger burned in him … The wise man Memucan said … Vashti the queen hath not done wrong to the king only, but also to all the princes and to all the people that are in all the provinces of the king Ahasuerus. For this deed of the queen shall come abroad unto all women, so that they shall despise their husbands in their eyes, when it shall be reported: the king Ahasuerus commanded Vashti the queen to be brought in before him, but she came not. Likewise shall the ladies of Persia and Media say this day unto all the king’s princes, which have heard of the deed of the queen. Thus shall there arise too much contempt and wrath.

  ‘Well, well,’ I thought. ‘This sounds like quite a familiar story.’ Some words of Shakespeare’s came into my mind:

  Biondello: Sir, my mistress sends you word

  That she is busy and she cannot come.

  Petruchio: How! She’s busy, and she cannot come!

  Is that an answer?

  The Taming of the Shrew is a play for which I have always entertained a sincere and spontaneous dislike, in spite of a sneaking conviction that Shakespeare wrote the entire thing with his tongue in his cheek. The same cannot be said of the Bible, I suppose, yet it contains its own form of humour. Vashti humiliates the king, and instead of hushing it up quietly, he makes a tremendous song and dance about it, with the result that every woman in the world for all of the countless following generations knows exactly what Vashti did and feels an irrepressible sympathy for her. Well, I expect that Vashti had to pay the price of her independence, as women always have had to from the dawn of time. Memucan continues his lecture:

  If it please the king, let there go a royal commandment from him … that Vashti come no more before king Ahasuerus; and let the king give her royal estate unto another that is better than she.

  Ha, my mind thought, running irresistibly upon its own track as I read. Good riddance. She probably found him repulsive. ‘Better than she’, indeed. More docile, or more slavish, you mean. Ahasuerus, meanwhile, continued to behave in unsurprising ways for a biblical king.

  Let there be fair young virgins sought for the king … gather together all the fair young virgins … and let the maiden which pleaseth the king be queen instead of Vashti … Now in Shushan the palace there was a certain Jew, whose name was Mordecai … and he brought up Esther, his uncle’s daughter, for she had neither father nor mother, and the maid was fair and beautiful … So it came to pass, when the king’s commandment and his decree was heard, and when many maidens were gathered together unto Shushan the palace … that Esther was brought also unto the king’s house … and the maiden pleased him, and she obtained kindness of him. Esther had not shewed her people nor her kindred: for Mordecai had charged her that she should not show it … the king loved Esther above all the women, and she obtained grace and favour in his sight more than all the virgins; so that he set the royal crown upon her head, and made her queen instead of Vashti.

  This is followed by more typical behaviour by Ahasuerus: Mordecai discovers a plot against the king to which he responds by immediately hanging the conspirators from a tree, after which he proceeds to honour and promote Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite to the highest position in the land and promise him anything he wants. And what does Haman want?

  And all the king’s servants, that were in the king’s gate, bowed, and reverenced Haman: for the king had so commanded concerning him. But Mordecai bowed not, nor did him reverence … And when Haman saw that Mordecai bowed not, nor did him reverence, then was Haman full of wrath. And he thought scorn to lay hands on Mordecai alone, for they had shewed him the people of Mordecai: wherefore Haman sought to destroy all the Jews that were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus …

  Wonderful, I thought to myself sourly. Has anything changed since?

  Mordecai gave the copy of the writing of the decree that was given to destroy the Jews, to show it unto Esther, to charge her that she should go in unto the king, to make supplication unto him, and to make request before him for her people … Esther spake, saying … All the king’s servants, and the people of the king’s provinces, do know, that whosoever, whether man or woman, shall come unto the king into the inner court, who is not called, there is one law of his to put him to death, except such to whom the king shall hold out the golden sceptre, that he may live … Then Mordecai commanded to answer Esther, Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king’s house, more than all the Jews … Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this? Then Esther bade them return Mordecai this answer … So will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish.

  Fortunately, Esther succeeded in approaching the king without perishing.

  Then said the king unto her, What wilt thou, queen Esther? and what is thy request? it shall be even given thee to the half of the kingdom. And Esther answered, If it seem good unto the king, let the king and Haman come this day unto the banquet that I have prepared for him.

  A banquet? My detective instincts stirred. Was Haman to fall suddenly and strangely dead after drinking from a bejewelled goblet? No, I reminded myself sternly. This was not Arabian Nights.

  Haman was delighted at the invitation, to be sure, but he could not get over Mordecai’s lack of respect. His wife consoled him with the following suggestion:

  Let a gallows be made of fifty cubits high, and tomorrow speak thou unto the king that Mordecai may be hanged thereon: then go thou in merrily with the king unto the banquet. And the thing pleased Haman, and he caused the gallows to be made.

  In the meantime, however, the king learnt of Mordecai’s good deeds on his behalf and asked Haman’s advice on how to honour such a one, but without naming him:

  Haman came in. And the king said unto him, What shall be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour? Now Haman thought in his heart, To whom would the king delight to do honour more than to myself? And Haman answered the king, For the man whom the king delighteth to honour, let the royal apparel be brought, and the horse that the king rideth upon, and the crown royal which is set upon his head: and let this apparel and horse be delivered to the hand of one of the king’s most noble princes, that they may array the man withal whom the king delighteth to honour, and bring him on horseback through the street of the city, and proclaim before him, Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honour. The
n the king said to Haman, Make haste, and take the apparel and the horse, as thou hast said, and do even to Mordecai the Jew, that sitteth at the king’s gate.

  Once again the notion of murder flitted through my mind. But no. Haman obeyed the king and promenaded Mordecai safely through the streets of the city, returning home, needless to say, in a foul mood, ‘mourning and having his head covered’, to be precise.

  So the king and Haman came to banquet with Esther the queen. And the king said again unto Esther on the second day at the banquet of wine, What is thy petition, queen Esther? and it shall be granted thee: and what is thy request? and it shall be performed, even to the half of the kingdom. Then Esther the queen answered and said, If I have found favour in thy sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request: For we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. Then the king Ahasuerus answered and said unto Esther the queen, Who is he, and where is he, that durst presume in his heart to do so? And Esther said, The adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman. Then Haman was afraid before the king and the queen.

  So should I be in his place, indeed.

  And the king arising from the banquet of wine in his wrath went into the palace garden: and Haman stood up to make request for his life to Esther the queen; for he saw that there was evil determined against him by the king. Then the king returned out of the palace garden into the place of the banquet of wine; and Haman was fallen upon the bed whereon Esther was. Then said the king, Will he force the queen also before me in the house? As the word went out of the king’s mouth, they covered Haman’s face. And Harbonah, one of the chamberlains, said before the king, Behold also, the gallows fifty cubits high, which Haman had made for Mordecai, who had spoken good for the king, standeth in the house of Haman. Then the king said, Hang him thereon. So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then was the king’s wrath pacified.