A Conspiracy of Paper bw-1

by David Liss

  Many of the Jews of Iberian origin had long ago been robbed of the knowledge of their rituals, forced, during the time of the Inquisition, to convert to the Catholic faith. These so-called New Christians were sometimes sincere in their conversions, while others had continued to practice their religion in secret, but after a generation or two they often forgot why they secretly observed these now-obscure rituals. When these secret Jews fled Iberia for the Dutch states, as they began to do in the sixteenth century, many sought to regain Jewish knowledge. My father’s grandfather had been such a man, and he schooled himself in the Jewish traditions—even studying with the great Rabbi Manasseh ben Israel—and he raised his children to honor the Jewish traditions.

  I, too, had been raised with those traditions, but I had long since found them easier to ignore than to honor. For that reason I was not sure what I expected upon my return to the synagogue. Perhaps I had been making a point of expecting nothing, but I found myself somewhat comforted by the morning service. As when I was a boy, the presiding rabbi was David Nieto, grown much older than I remembered and looking fragile and thin, but still a venerable man who cut a striking presence with his enormous black wig and his wisp of a beard that covered but the tip of his chin.

  In Jewish worship, men and women seat themselves in different areas to shield the men from the distracting allure of female flesh. I always believed this custom a wise one, for I have never known Elias to attend church and not return with tales of fashionable ladies and their finery. In the Bevis Marks synagogue, the men sit downstairs in a series of pews that rest perpendicular to the rabbi’s pulpit. The women sit upstairs, where they are meant to be shielded from men’s sight by a latticed wooden partition. The latticing is such, however, that one can see, if not perfectly, glimpses of fair femininity through the gaps.

  The synagogue was crowded that morning—more crowded than I had remembered ever seeing it as a boy. There were perhaps three hundred men downstairs and close to a hundred women in the upper section. In addition to the worshipers, there was a pair of young English bucks who came in to observe the Jews at worship. These visits were not uncommon; I recalled having seen curiosity-seekers many times as a boy, and they generally behaved themselves reasonably well, though it was not uncommon for these men to find themselves restless when confronted with hours of Hebrew liturgy. Indeed, visitors rarely hid their perplexity with a service conducted almost entirely in a foreign language and in which men appear to engage in private contemplation as much as group worship. For my own part, I found myself struggling very little with the Hebrew of the prayer book, for I had read these prayers so often when I was a boy that they remained still firmly etched within my memory, and speaking them again made me happy in a way I would not have anticipated. I felt a kind of comfortable pleasure at having a prayer shawl, borrowed from my uncle, cast about me, and I saw him offer numerous approving glances in my direction throughout the long service. I could only hope that he was less observant of the frequent glances I cast upward toward the ladies’ section, where I could discern the beautiful if obstructed face of Miriam through the latticing. Indeed, there was something compelling about catching this anatomized view of her—now her eye, now her mouth, now her hand. The eye was in particular gratifying, for I could not but be pleased that it was cast in my direction as often as it was cast upon her prayer book.

  After the conclusion of the service, Miriam and my aunt returned directly to the house, while I remained in the synagogue’s courtyard with my uncle. He engaged in chatter with men throughout the community, while I looked on, pretending to take an interest in discussions about who had moved into and out of the neighborhood. As I stood there, I heard my name called out, and I spun around to face a handsomely dressed man whose face, disfigured from far too many beatings and blade wounds, I instantly recognized. It was Abraham Mendes, Jonathan Wild’s man.

  I have rarely been more astonished to see anyone in my life, and I only stared.

  Mendes took some small delight in my confusion. He grinned at me like an impish child. “It is a pleasure to see you once more, Mr. Weaver,” he said, with an exaggerated bow.

  “What are you doing here, Mendes?” I sputtered. “How dare you follow me here.”

  He laughed. Not contemptuously, but out of genuine amusement. Indeed, there was something unaccountably charming about his ugly face. “I follow you, sir? You must think your business most interesting to suspect such a thing. I am here only to attend services for the Sabbath, and upon seeing an old acquaintance, I thought it incumbent upon me to greet you.”

  “Am I to believe you are here only to attend the service?” I asked. “I find that incredible.”

  “I might say the same of you.” He grinned. “But you may ask around if you misbelieve me. I once again reside in Dukes Place, and have done so for several years now. And though I may not come here every Sabbath, I come often enough. It is your presence that is something of an anomaly.” He leaned forward. “Do you follow me?” he asked in a stage whisper.

  I could not help but laugh. “I am astonished, Mendes. You have utterly surprised me.”

  He bowed, just as my uncle turned to me. “Shall we return home, Benjamin.” He bowed briefly to my companion. “Shabbat shalom, Mr. Mendes,” he said, offering the traditional Sabbath greeting to this villain.

  “And to you, Mr. Lienzo.” Mendes grinned at me again. “Shabbat shalom, Mr. Weaver,” he said before making his way out of the crowd.

  My uncle and I took a few steps before I spoke. “How is it you know Mendes?” I asked.

  “There are not so many Jews in Dukes Place that one cannot know them all. I often see him about the synagogue. Not a devout man, I suppose, but fairly regular in his attendance—and in London that is something in itself.”

  “But do you know what he is?” I pressed on.

  My uncle had to speak more loudly than he liked, for a man selling pork pies had wandered toward the crowd exiting the synagogue to amuse himself by crying out his wares to the Jews. “Of course. Not everyone does. Ask most men, and they will tell you he works as a butler for some great man or other. But in my trade, you know, sometimes I may get a shipment of something or other that is not precisely legal to own, and if I have no buyer, Mr. Mendes can frequently offer me a fair price on behalf of his employer.”

  I could not believe what I heard. “Do you mean to say, Uncle, that you do business with Jonathan Wild?” I all but hissed the name and spoke it so quietly that it took my uncle a moment to understood what I said.

  He lifted his shoulders in a gesture of defeat. “This is London, Benjamin. If I wish to sell a certain kind of goods, I do not always have a choice of buyers, and Mr. Mendes has offered me assistance more than once. I have had no dealings personally with this Wild, and I am anxious to keep my distance from him, but Mendes has shown himself a capable factor.”

  “Surely you are not unaware of the risks of having even indirect dealings with Wild,” I nearly whispered.

  “Mr. Mendes likes to say that in certain kinds of trade, one cannot but deal with Wild. I have found that to be true enough. Certainly I have heard that Wild is a dangerous man,” he said, “but I trust Wild knows that I too, in my own way, can be dangerous.”

  My uncle smiled not at all when he said these words.

  WE RETURNED TO THE house for a luncheon of bread, cold meat, and ginger cakes, all of which had been prepared the day before. Miriam and my aunt served the food themselves, and when we were finished they placed the dishes in the kitchen for the servants to tend to after sunset.

  I retired to the sitting room with Miriam, and I was somewhat surprised not to find myself followed by either uncle or aunt. Miriam looked radiant that day, wearing a striking indigo gown, offset with an ivory petticoat.

  I asked Miriam if she would join me in a glass of wine. She politely declined and instead sat in an armchair, turning to a volume of Mr. Pope’s Iliad, of which I had often heard but had never inquired into. I poured mysel
f a glass of Madeira from a handsome crystal decanter and, feigning a meditative mood, I sat across from her to watch the expression on her face as she made her way through the work. It was not my intention to stare, for I am a man not entirely unschooled in the social graces, but I found myself entranced as I watched her dark eyes follow the words across the page, her red lips pursed in appreciation.

  Perhaps seeing that I regarded nothing but her at the moment, Miriam set her book aside, carefully marking her place with a small strip of cloth. She picked up a newspaper lying about and began leafing through it with an affectedly breezy air. “You have made your uncle very happy by coming here today,” she said, without looking at me. “It was all he could speak of at breakfast.”

  “I am astonished,” I said. “Frankly, I suspected he cared for me not at all.”

  “Oh, he values family loyalty tremendously, you know. I rather think he has taken a fancy to the idea of reforming you. By that he means, I suppose, having you move to Dukes Place, attend the synagogue with some regularity, and setting you up with responsibilities in his trade.” She was silent for a moment. She turned the page. At last she looked up at me, her face an inscrutably stoic mask. “He told me that you remind him of Aaron.”

  I dared show neither contempt nor disagreement to Aaron’s widow. “He told me the same thing.”

  “I can see perhaps some family resemblance in the physiognomy, but you strike me as men of different character.”

  “I believe I would agree with you.”

  There was another pause, one of the many moments of awkward silence that punctuated our conversation. Neither of us knew what to say. At last she had a new topic. “Do you ever attend dances and balls and such?” It was a casual question, or, perhaps, a question aiming to be casual. She spoke slowly and without looking up.

  “I am afraid I tend to feel uncomfortable at such gatherings,” I told her.

  Her smile suggested that we shared a secret. “Your uncle believes London society is not for refined Jewish ladies.”

  I could not understand what she wished to tell me. “My uncle’s opinion may be a very just one,” I said, “but if you do not wish to adhere to it, I do not see what hold he has on you. You are of age and I presume of independent means.”

  “But I have chosen to remain under the protection of his household,” she said quietly.

  I wished to understand her meaning. For a widow of her standing, accustomed as she was to fine clothes and food and furnishings, to set herself up in her own household would prove an expensive endeavor. I knew not what money Aaron had settled upon Miriam; her fortune had become his at the time of their marriage, and I could not guess how much he might have left to my uncle or gambled away or wasted on a failed business dealing, or lost in any of the other countless ways that men of London see their fortunes shrivel. Perhaps independence was not an option. If that was Miriam’s case, then she merely waited for the right suitor so she might pass out of the hands of her father-in-law and into those of a new husband.

  The idea of Miriam’s bind, the suggestion that she felt herself a prisoner in my uncle’s house, made me uneasy. “I am certain my uncle only has your best wishes in his heart,” I attempted. “Did you enjoy the amusements of town with your late husband?”

  “His trade with the East made it necessary that he be abroad for long periods of time,” she responded without emotion. “We spent only a few months in mutual company before he embarked for that voyage on which he was lost. But in that time, he showed himself, upon the issue of diversions, to be much of his father’s spirit.”

  In my discomfort I found myself digging my thumbnail into my index finger. Miriam had placed me in a difficult position, and I wagered that she was too clever not to know it. I sympathized with her for her confinement, and yet I could hardly disagree with the rules set forth by my uncle.

  “I can say from my own experience that London society is not always the most welcoming to members of our race. Can you imagine how you might feel were you to attend a tea garden, strike up a conversation with an amiable young lady, one you might wish for a friend, and then discover that she had nothing but the most contemptuous things to say on the topic of Jews?”

  “I should seek out a less illiberal friend,” she said with a dismissive wave of the hand, but I saw by the diminished sprightliness of her eyes that my question had not left her unaffected. “Do you know, Cousin, that I have changed my mind, and desire a glass of that wine.”

  “If I pour it for you,” I asked, “would that not be labor, thus breaking the Sabbath law?”

  “Do you then think of pouring wine for me as labor?” she inquired.

  “Madam, you have convinced me.” I stood and filled a glass, which I handed to her slowly, that I might watch her delicate fingers carefully avoiding all contact with my hand.

  “Tell me,” she said after taking a measured sip, “how does it feel to return to your family?”

  “Oh,” I said with an evasive laugh, “I do not feel myself to be returning so much as visiting.”

  “Your uncle said that you prayed with enthusiasm this morning.”

  I thought on how I had seen her watching me through the latticed gate. “Did you find my praying enthusiastic?” I inquired.

  Miriam did not understand me or pretended not to. “It should have been very enthusiastic indeed if I could have heard you in the ladies’ gallery.”

  “As I was feeling enthusiastic, I saw no reason the synagogue should not benefit from my mood.”

  “I find you flippant, Cousin,” she said with amusement rather than annoyance.

  “I hope you take it not amiss.”

  “May I ask you a question of a rather private nature?” she asked.

  “You may ask me what you like,” I told her, “so long as I may do the same.”

  My comment was perhaps a bit ungentlemanly, for she paused for a moment and appeared uncertain of how to continue. Finally she offered an expression that was not so much a smile as a thoughtful pressing together of her lips. “I shall call that a fair bargain. Your uncle, as you know, is a very traditional man. He seeks to shelter me from the world. I do not enjoy being cloistered, however, and so I try to learn as best I can.” She was silent for a moment, contemplating either my words or the wine. “I was never told of the reason for your break with your father.”

  I had rarely spoken of the details of my rupture with my family to anyone. Part of my desire to speak of it with Miriam had to do with a wish to form a bond of trust with her, but part of it was simply the need to speak about these matters. “My father had hopes that I would follow him into business, become a licensed broker like himself. Unlike my older brother, I was born here in England, which meant that I was a citizen and would be exempt from the alien taxes, and I would be able to own land. It made sense to my father that José should return to Amsterdam to manage family affairs there, and I should remain here. But I was not very skillful at doing what was expected of me as a child. I often found myself embroiled in street fights, as often as not with Gentile boys who had tormented us only because they misliked Jews. I cannot say why I was so inclined. Perhaps because I grew up without a mother’s affection. My father hated that I fought, for he feared notice. I always told him that I felt honor-bound to defend our race, but I felt an even greater thrill from striking the other boys.”

  I saw that I had Miriam’s full attention, and I basked in her gaze. Even now it is so very difficult for me to express why this woman captivated me instantly. She was beautiful, yes, but so are many women. She had a quick wit, but women of intelligence are not so rare as some unkind authors tell us. I sometimes believe that I thought she and I had so much in common, moving as we did, each in our own way, along the borders of what it meant to be both a Hebrew and a Briton. Perhaps that was why my story had arrested her attention so fully.

  “I always somehow felt that it was his fault I had no mother—you know how a child’s thoughts are so nonsensical,” I continue
d. “She died, as I am certain you know, of a wasting disease when I was still but an infant. From an early age, I sensed that my father made but a scurvy kind of parent, and I found myself almost seeking to incur his displeasure. He was a stern disciplinarian and anything other than perfection made him angry.”

  I paused briefly to sip from my glass, flattering myself that Miriam did not see the confusion telling my tale engendered in me.

  “One day, when I was fourteen, he had entrusted me to bring payment to a merchant to whom he owed a debt. I was at the age when he was just beginning to teach me the rudiments of the family concerns. He wished to see me a trader upon the Exchange, as he was, but I fear I had little aptitude for mathematics, and I had even less interest in business. Perhaps my father ought to have begun teaching me of these things earlier, but I think he had been hoping I would mature and grow interested of my own will. But I was only interested in running about on the streets making trouble and haunting the gaming houses.”

  “Yet he thought you mature enough then,” Miriam observed cautiously.

  “So it would seem,” I told her, though I had often wondered if he had only wanted to give me the opportunity to fail. “My father was determined to make me useful, and he often had me run errands. Such an errand was this payment he wished me to deliver. It was a five-hundred-pound negotiable note. I had never had so large a sum in my own hands before, and I thought it a golden opportunity. I believed that with so much money to stake, I might go to a gaming house and be sure to win—as though my luck would increase proportionate to the amount I wagered. My plan was that I should win an enormous amount of money, bring the merchant the principal and I would keep the interest. I had visited gaming houses before, and had generally come away fleeced, so I had no excuse for my optimism. I was merely young and enamored of the power of the money I had upon me. So I went to the house and cashed the note with the intention of exchanging the coin back for it on my way out. This story is predictable, I suppose; I piled loss upon loss until I had less than one hundred pounds left, and I could no longer trick myself into believing I might recover the original sum. I dared not think of returning to my father and telling him what had happened. He had many times disciplined me severely for returning late from errands—I could not even speculate how he would respond to this crime.”