Abruptly, Aaron turned to look at Wilton and his students. He turned with his whole torso, so no one in the room could miss the fact that he was looking them over.
Two of the male postgraduates looked back at Aaron uncertainly. Aaron answered with a Cheshire cat grin.
Dropping audibly back in his seat, he turned to Helen. “Bunch of weenies,” he said, loud.
The rare manuscripts room was silent.
Casually, as though the entire room weren’t listening, he added, “Speaking objectively, of course.”
She regarded him. “I assume that’s American for May the best team win?”
“No,” he said. “It’s not.”
She felt their eyes on her back: Wilton’s group, trying to sort out whether they’d just been mocked or invited into a joke. A faint smile formed on her lips.
It lived only a moment. Despite Aaron’s bravado, she knew more than he did. Jonathan Martin could cut off their access to the documents at any point. Aaron would have to make his way in this department. He shouldn’t burn bridges for her sake—a fact that surely would occur to him soon.
But here he was beside her, at least for the moment. “What’s the other document?” she asked him.
“You’re going to like this,” Aaron said. He pulled the second cushion closer. She saw there were dark half-moons under his eyes. He looked tired, and boyish, and honest. She couldn’t reconcile it with the Aaron Levy who had departed her office the day before—even then, even chagrined and defeated, he’d still had a self-righteous air. But now, for the first time since she’d met him, he looked cracked open—like a man who was out of ideas, and could only wait attentively for what might come next. When he spoke, his voice was quiet at its core, as though tempered by some setback larger than she herself could have inflicted.
“You know the Manuel HaLevy referred to in the cross-writing?” Aaron said to her quietly. “It sounds like there was a scandal involving his younger brother. Which is why the older brother came looking for him. And there are some interesting hints as to the nature of the scandal.”
She lingered one moment before turning her attention to the document. She realized she understood nothing about Aaron, except that for some reason he’d bent his neck and knelt beside her on the chopping block. Had he nowhere else to go?
Good God, they had something in common.
16
March 20, 1665
4 Nisan, 5425
London
To congregate long here might be folly. Yet the sun warmed the cobbles outside the synagogue with a boldness that seemed to captivate all of them—even Rivka, who lingered heavy-lidded at the rabbi’s elbow. Ester, too, lagged among the small crowd, drifting at the edge of a circle of older women.
Observed singly, the men and women milling on the street might have appeared English, albeit with some foreign ancestry. If their complexions were slightly shadowed or their faces cast in a strange mold, such differences were still readily overlooked in light of a man’s coiled English wig or a woman’s English dress. Yet though London’s Jews might go unremarked one by one, together they were recognizable in an instant: dark-lashed almond eyes, bent noses, mouths tipped downward at the corners with some old, bittersweet knowledge.
Were they safe?
They gathered, scattered, regathered. Birds on a rooftop.
A few women near Ester were trading news of far-flung family. Ester stood half-listening, blinking at the unaccustomed brightness. Only the esteemed Rabbi Sasportas seemed immune to the seduction of this day’s sun. It had become his habit to depart promptly after prayers and take his meal behind closed shutters—even now, he and his small retinue disappeared around the corner without a backward glance. Sasportas, with his heavy arched brows and ebony skullcap, the weighty pouches beneath his dark eyes, seemed to have expected a congregation that would reverently accept his authority—not politely praise his sermons, make rich gifts to the synagogue’s coffers, then climb into waiting carriages and go off to their business, throwing off the Sabbath despite whatever thunder Sasportas might fling at them in the following week’s sermon.
Ester listened dumbly to the women, whose talk had turned to the need for a new synagogue building—one with a proper women’s balcony. Today, as it did each week, the Sabbath respite found Ester unsteady on her feet, as though she’d just stepped off a ship with surf still ringing in her ears. All week a tide of housework rose about her, sliding her this way and that as she fought with breath and limb to stay afloat. Bread and meal, ale and fuel, mending thread and needle. A full partner now in domestic labor, Ester understood at last how much Rivka had spared her while she still scribed for the rabbi.
On wash mornings she was wakened by Rivka in darkness to set a buck-basket of linens soaking in lye, then work in the kitchen while dawn came and went. On market days she walked until her feet were numb. She could negotiate prices of coal in English now and even had come to understand the repartee of the vendors in the city’s marketplaces. But any more delicate thoughts scattered at the least interruption, and the books on the rabbi’s shelves might as well have been behind a locked door. She was a body, laboring. Even at night in her bed, when the tide of work had ebbed and her thoughts ought have convened, they failed her. Verses that had once played in her mind now vanished—a whorl of words, dipping and spinning, gone. Sleep, of all things, had overmatched her, closing on her like shutters of oak. Passing the rabbi in his study, she’d pause only to add wood to his fire or bring him his meal. In his accustomed chair he sat, the light of his face dimmed, attending to her tread as she neared and departed, as though listening for a signal that the wrong he had wrought had been undone. She did not linger. She returned to the kitchen and washed the salt out of a block of butter. She broke up and pounded cakes of sugar, set new-milled flour to dry. She heard from Rivka one morning of the death of Catherine da Costa Mendes, and then—in tandem with Rivka, their bodies folding and turning as one—wrung a torrent of water from a sheet, and set it over the basket to dry.
In the enticing sunlight now, Mary’s father, the olive-skinned and black-wigged Diego da Costa Mendes, stood conversing heartily among the men. He gave barely a glance to Mary, who stood among a cluster of beribboned girls. Mary herself gossiped gamely with her companions, yet something in her seemed newly tentative—in the snatches of conversation Ester overheard, Mary entered others’ witty exchanges like a house-breaker, her words landing with graceless haste. In truth, Ester had had little chance to speak with Mary directly since Catherine’s death. When Ester had carried Rivka’s offerings of food to the house of mourning, the da Costa Mendeses’ servants had accepted the gifts, but Mary herself had not emerged to converse—nor had she made any reply to Ester’s soft greetings in the ensuing weeks, beyond a brittle nod. And Ester knew better than to join Mary’s cluster of friends here outside the synagogue—the other girls had long made plain without words that Ester wasn’t welcome in their gatherings. Their eyes fled her silver hair, as though her apparent ineptitude in the area of marriage might be contagious.
All Ester knew now of Mary’s state was what was evident to everyone: whereas other widowers might worry over the welfare of a sole surviving child, Diego da Costa Mendes seemed to take no note of his daughter. There was little doubt he’d soon choose a young wife to bear him a new family. Only last week Ester had heard one of the synagogue’s matrons say there was a lady whom Diego da Costa Mendes courted in the countryside—indeed he’d traveled there twice in the scant weeks since Catherine’s death. “In the countryside, did you hear?” The matron’s voice had dropped to a disapproving whisper. “And Catherine of blessed memory suffering all those years in the London air, and he unwilling to leave.” The circle of women had shaken heads, yet said no more—for though there was little affection for the da Costa Mendes family, none wished their enmity.
Half dozing now at the verge of this cautious, all-judging circle, Ester caught fragments of the chatter of the nearby cluster of M
ary’s friends, their restless noise amplified by the stone wall beneath which they gossiped.
“It’s sheer obscenity,” said Emilia Valentia, her words gilded with delight as she played with one of her long brown curls. “So all say, and I’m certain it’s true.”
“And she attended?” said the tall, angular Cancio girl, and she led the others in a gust of laughter. The girls prolonged their merriment as though for an audience, their gazes flicking now and again across the narrow street, where several young men of the community stood in studiously casual poses of their own.
“Are you certain?” the Cancio girl continued more quietly, her surprise evidently genuine. “How could her father permit it?”
“But he accompanied her!” exclaimed Emilia. “Along with her mother! The entire family, together!”
Sarah Cancio, the heavyset matron beside Ester, had been attending to the girls’ conversation as well, and now she leaned out of the group of older women to nod approvingly to her daughter. “Theater is obscenity,” she called out briskly. Beneath her powder, streaked by sweat, she had an honest, impatient face. “A wretched influence for a girl, worse for her reputation. It was vile enough before they permitted women on the stage. Now who can say what audience of drunkards gathers there?”
The Cancio girl frowned and stepped deeper into the cluster of her friends, seeming to reconsider her own disapproval now that her mother had affirmed it. “Yet half London’s gentlemen go, Mother,” she protested. “And you say you wish me to marry well?”
Her mother gave a grim laugh. “You won’t find any among us to escort you to that cesspit. Let the Christians throw their souls to the dung heap with such entertainment.”
Firm nods among the other women concluded the matter: theater was not for the daughters of the synagogue.
As though at a signal, the gathering on the street at last began to disperse—the older women trading quick embraces; the girls offering hasty kisses on the lips and tidying one another’s curls one final time in parting. As her friends found their families and departed, Mary trailed behind, eyes trained on her father. Diego da Costa Mendes spoke on with his companions. His daughter, Ester saw, had become as invisible to him as his ailing wife once had been. Perhaps she’d always been so.
Pain flared, sudden and unbearable, on Mary’s face. Then, abruptly, her expression shut. Without warning, she turned.
“Why are you staring at me?” she charged Ester.
So accustomed had Ester grown to passing unremarked, she’d almost forgotten she herself was visible. She hesitated. Then said, “Because your father won’t pay you mind.”
For a moment Mary’s hands worked at the fabric of her bodice, as though searching for some other place to alight. It occurred to Ester that Mary might slap her.
Instead Mary’s hands alit, painfully tight—one, then the other—on Ester’s wrist. “We’ll go.”
“Go where?” Ester said. But as soon as she uttered the question, she read its answer in Mary’s defiant expression.
Two days later, Ester climbed into the coach to find Mary scanning the street through the coach’s window. Mary was dressed in a blue satin that showed her rosy skin and black brows to advantage, and she sat with stiff posture—her stays, Ester saw, had been tied tight as was now in fashion, and pinched her waist cruelly. On her bosom rested a small silver cross Ester had never before seen. Many of the congregation wore such adornments when they ventured about London, but Ester was certain Mary hadn’t worn such a thing while her mother lived. With a reflexive, agitated motion, Mary stroked the cross with a single finger, as though she were with each touch mustering courage to issue the world a dare that frightened her.
As Ester settled on the bench, Mary glanced past her. “What concern’s it to her if we go?” she muttered.
Following Mary’s gaze to a high window of the rabbi’s house, Ester saw Rivka’s shadowed form there, watching.
“She allowed me the day free of work,” Ester said. “So I might accompany you.”
Still staring at the form in the window, Mary cupped the cross in her palm. “You speak as though she’s done me a charity.”
“The demands of the house are a greater burden on Rivka without help,” Ester said.
Mary snorted. “I’m raising up a member of her household. I’m not the one in need of her charity.” She glanced at Ester. “Or anyone’s!”
The carriage began to move. Ester said nothing.
“And if you think this such frivolity, why are you here?”
The street slid slowly past the carriage’s window. Not knowing whether she meant to be kind or cruel, Ester heard herself say, “Because of your mother.”
“What about my mother?” Mary shot back.
Ester hesitated, then spoke the words as gently as she could. “Your mother had a dream. She told me of it. She asked me to watch over you.”
Mary’s expression froze. “I don’t believe you,” she said.
Blinking, she turned to the driver—a sallow-faced, taciturn man. “Faster!” He chirruped to the horse and they lurched forward, down the narrow street and on toward Westminster.
Mary’s words came quickly. “If my mother had known your mother was born out of wedlock, she’d not have allowed you with me.”
It was the sole mention Mary had ever made of their long-ago conversation at the dressmaker’s, and Ester knew the words were meant to wound—yet she registered, too, the other message they carried: that Mary had kept Ester’s secret, even from her mother.
“Your mother welcomed me,” Ester said, “even though she knew I’d no prospects.”
“That’s right,” snapped Mary, “you’ve no prospects.”
Ester said nothing.
A moment later, Mary let a hand flutter in mute apology. She said, not unkindly, “You could marry, I suppose.” The notion seemed to give her energy. She turned to face Ester. “It’s not impossible, you know, even with no dowry. You could care for an older husband. Or even perhaps have children, and if the husband is wealthy enough you might have servants while you directed the household. You could forget everything that came before your wedding day—that would be a life. Imagine it!”
The carriage crawled on along the street. Ester imagined it.
When Mary spoke again, her voice was soft. “How did she think you could help me?”
“I don’t know,” Ester said.
They watched the city pass. Mary gave a sudden snort. “By escorting me to obscene comedies?” She laughed then, a crazy, dark laugh. With a pang Ester recognized it: the laugh of a grieving girl, who would pull a house down on her own head to see it fall.
Even before they entered the broad carved doors of the theater, the sour smell of the assembled audience reached them. With a white handkerchief wrapped around her hand, Mary fingered the necessary coins with difficulty and passed them into the dirty palm of the fat-faced fare collector, who winked at Mary before taking the money. “Don’t see many like you pay to watch from there,” he leered as she passed. Mary retorted with a bright smile, behind which Ester saw a flicker of worry.
They were late—the entertainments were underway, the crowd pressed forward, and as Ester followed Mary into the throng, she saw that in her bravado Mary had purchased entry to the pit, among the roughest crowd. But there was no time to question Mary’s choice, or how far she’d carry it. At the front of the theater the rope-dancers had begun their midair ballet: two sturdy men, faces blank with concentration, working their way in and out of the shadows over the stage. Ester had seen rope-dancers in Amsterdam, yet those had clowned and gibed as they worked. These men were solemn, even menacing, tumbling in slow, smooth spirals high above the crowd like priests of some silent and powerful religion. Over the thin accompaniment of a flute and a toneless drumbeat, the creaking of their ropes was audible. Their bodies furled and unfurled, a somber rite sculpted in air.
She pressed forward, trying to catch Mary—but Mary was piloting herself to the front of
the throng, threading between the backless green benches, undaunted by the smell of open piss-pots. Bodies pushed back or gave way as Ester forged ahead to keep pace. She didn’t dare look about her, but kept her chin tipped up and followed the flight above the stage. Underfoot, the crunch of oyster shells, the slick of unseen puddles. Few seemed inclined to sit—some stood on benches, many in aisles. Men jostled about them—one blindly cuffed Ester as she passed and then was hugged about his neck by a companion who shouted in his ear, “Can’t tell the difference between man and wench? You need to feel for the soft bits, sirrah!” and then men on all sides let out shouts of laughter as Ester shoved blindly forward. She hurried after Mary, calling her name fruitlessly in a sharp whisper, and reached the edge of the stage an instant after her.
They stood catching their breath at the front of the pit. In the throng pressed about them, there was only a scattering of women, and it was no difficult thing to glean their livelihood from their attire. Above, in the dim and distant galleries, well-dressed ladies sat beside well-dressed gentlemen; a few had been so bold as to lift their masks to peer more closely at the rope-dancers. Ester lowered her gaze from the galleries just in time to see an orange go sailing through the air, launched by some unseen hand in the pit. It barely grazed the rope of the dancer it had been aimed for, but his body flinched from it like a mussel contracting into its shell, and for a moment he swung wide, fighting for control, his shadow looming and shrinking against the theater’s wall like a man swaying on a gallows. Looming, shrinking, looming, before regaining at last his slow deliberate dance.
Beside Ester, Mary watched as in a trance.
With a dull beat from the unseen drum and an abrupt spin downward, both dancers hit the stage feet first, bowed with abrupt violence, and disappeared behind the proscenium. At this signal, costumed players swarmed the stage and shouted in unison—“And now let us all praise honest men!”
“An honest man indeed am I,” intoned an actor from the center of the throng.
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