The Weight of Ink

by Rachel Kadish

  Beneath that line, a list of three names, the first two with tick-marks next to them.

  Van den Enden

  Hobbes

  de Spinoza

  Helen turned from the page to Aaron.

  “Thomas Farrow,” he said, “might or might not be a minor philosopher who corresponded with some of the greats. There’s a grad student in the U.S. who thinks Farrow’s been shorted by history.” His heart was beating foolishly. “Do you think it’s possible—”

  He didn’t want to finish the sentence.

  Helen was silent a minute. Then she nodded.

  Together, as though they’d choreographed it, they looked over at Wilton’s table. For the moment, at least, this document was theirs.

  Aaron took out a pad and paper, and began writing swiftly. Helen saw that he was transcribing the page before them, laying out each letter identically on his notepad.

  When he’d finished, he set down the pencil and closed his eyes. Then he reached, blind, toward the cushion, and felt for the document with both hands.

  She started forward in her seat. “What—”

  He opened his eyes, took aim, pinched the lower edge of the page, and before her outreached hand could stop him he’d stood and in the same instant he’d torn the paper—a two-inch gash up the bottom left side of the page, far from the inked words.

  She couldn’t put it together in her mind, as though she’d witnessed an act of violence done on a living body. “Aaron?”

  Aaron had thrown up his hands. When he called for Patricia, it was in a voice so contrite that Helen could have believed it genuine.

  “I’m never going to forgive myself,” he said as Patricia approached. “I’m so sorry. I’m”—he raised his palms: words failed.

  Patricia’s eyes found the torn document.

  Aaron held out the zipper on his sweater, he zipped it up and down as he spoke as though to demonstrate its unruliness. “It caught on the paper as I was standing up,” he said. “I must have leaned forward and the page caught, and then the string weights were holding it down so it ripped as I stood. I’ll never wear anything like this again, I had no idea that could happen. I am so, so sorry.”

  On the other side of the room, Wilton’s team looked up. As Aaron went on with his abject litany, one of Wilton’s postgraduates turned to his mates with a condescending grimace that said Bumbling git. But Wilton himself, with the charitable air of someone focused on a greater prize than humiliating an already-bested competitor, merely lofted his eyebrows and returned to his work.

  The longer Patricia was silent, the harder Aaron seemed to try to fill the silence with apologies. But Helen could see Patricia’s face—and she observed, to her surprise, that Patricia wasn’t unmoved. Having seen that the damage was minor and didn’t affect the inked portion of the page, Patricia seemed satisfied by Aaron’s contrition. What’s more, she looked impressed that he’d finally seen the worth of the physical manuscripts.

  “Perhaps,” said Patricia at last, “we need to add another rule to our protocols here.” She sniffed. “Though the rules have never seemed to constrain you.”

  “I’ll write the sign for you myself,” Aaron said. “No Zippers in the Rare Manuscripts Room. I’ll police everyone. I’m serious. I’ll make this a buttons-and-Velcro-only zone.” Helen could almost believe his anguish as he reached a futile hand toward the torn document and said, “Can it be repaired?”

  Patricia shook her head. “That’s for Patricia to decide upstairs.” She regarded Aaron. “Conservation Patricia. With her laser-beam eyes.”

  He accepted the rebuke in silence. “I hope it won’t be too much labor for her,” he said. “I know she’s already busy with other documents, and doesn’t have time to jump every time a student does something unbelievably clumsy. Please do send her my sincere apologies.”

  And Helen saw. “I think we’re through for the day,” she said to Patricia. And then, surprising herself, she stood and gave Aaron’s shoulder a single, awkward pat. “I suspect we’ll need to settle our nerves before continuing.”

  Patricia took the document and left for the conservation lab. Helen heard the door of the lift slide open, then shut.

  Aaron was packing his bag. When he turned back to Helen, he wasn’t wearing the cocky expression she’d expected. He looked unnerved. “It hurt to do that,” he said quietly. “More than I expected.”

  Helen’s hair had escaped its barrette and the gray strands striped her vision. “You’re bloody brilliant,” she said.

  A smile broke slowly over his face. And the haggard mien she’d noticed in him recently—the look that made her think perhaps Aaron Levy might understand something of life after all—vanished under the onslaught of his grin, as it can only in the still-young.

  “That!” he cried, so loudly she startled. “That was it!” Slowly he clapped his hands—big, emphatic, hollow claps that would have brought Patricia running, had she not been occupied bearing her wounded up to the conservation lab.

  Helen couldn’t mask her embarrassment. Even Wilton had lifted his leonine head and was watching now. “What?” she snapped.

  “A compliment.” Aaron stood opposite her, addressing her with a beatific expression. “I knew you’d get the hang of it.”

  18

  April 10, 1665

  To Benedictus de Spinoza,

  My name will surely be unknown to you. Yet it is my wish to enter into an exchange with you, out of respect for your philosophy. I am in hope that you will entertain a correspondence with one writing from afar, for as you must know there are those who hunger to understand truth even though they be scattered to all points of the compass.

  I have read your text Principia Philosophiae Cartesianae and admire it. You establish a firmament of clarity in its pages.

  Yet I feel in those pages the weight of much you do not say. Your sentences hold back thoughts as a stone wall might hold back a hillside—only for a time, as the earth grows ever heavier under the saturating rains, and soil and rock must, come what may, unprison themselves.

  It has reached me that you assert in private speech that God is nature. If this be so, then as man in all his varieties is encompassed within nature, it must also be that God does not choose any one thing or person to hate or love, as so many claim, but rather is equally present in each member of creation. Therefore God does not enter into any contest between peoples.

  This must be correct, by my thinking. Yet it would relieve my spirit to know that another spirit argues this in cool reason.

  I wish to understand more plainly, as well, what you mean when you speak of God—for here again, the words of yours that have reached me promise much, yet hold back much as well.

  It has long been my wish to converse with you. Yet my own lack of practice in the foment of philosophical conversation bade me approach your friend Van den Enden before writing to you, in the hope that through exchange with him I might learn the manner of speech and argument you employ with one another, and address you as one less untutored. Yet Van den Enden does not engage my correspondence. It is my hope you will choose otherwise.

  I await your response and will then say more.

  Thomas Farrow

  April 11, 1665

  20 Nisan, 5425

  To my beloved pupil Daniel,

  Your silence troubles me, and so I write again, though perhaps you may not welcome this intrusion. Yet I remain in great alarm over your words. I fear what the Jews of Florence will do in service of Sabbatai Zevi, yet I fear still more what they will do after he is revealed as an imposter. I have seen what the raising and dashing of hope wreaks upon the spirit of a community, the shame and divisions it sows. Sabbatai Zevi will not leave your Florence as it was, just as a fire does not pass through a stand of trees and leave them living.

  Please inform me whether my letters have found you, even should they have proven of no use to you. I fear for your safety in this mysterious upheaving world. In my infirmity I am able to carry but
few of the duties I would assume were I whole, yet this one duty I carry with all my heart: my love for my pupils, who are sparks of light in this dark world. So I beg your forgiveness for this demand of mine to know your welfare, yet I will not rest until I hear word that you are well.

  Rabbi HaCoen Mendes

  א

  April 29, 1665

  To Benedictus de Spinoza, whose thoughts I hold in esteem,

  You remain silent, as though my request for conversation hid thorns. Yet you know well, with a knowledge that lives in your very name, that even a thorn can bring welcome truths. If my thoughts are phrased other than is the custom among men of your circles, then I ask you to turn deaf to the defects of my speech, for an infirmity of the body has long barred me from easy exchange with other philosophes where I might learn gentler habits. I seek nothing more than an answer to what troubles me, as do all sick men and all thinkers. Perhaps it will aid your trust in me to know I have made the acquaintance in London of your former teacher, the Jew Moseh HaCoen Mendes. I think him an admirable and wise man, despite his adherence to beliefs I cannot share. He speaks gently of you, and praises your intelligence.

  I wish to discuss with you my prior questions, and add to them these: What is the nature of man’s obligation to the conventions of his society? If those conventions be in error—as must occur, for the conventions of one society contradict the conventions of another and all cannot be correct—then is a man permitted or even required to act upon his own renegade definition of virtue? Finally, what obligation does one human soul bear to another, in such a broken world as this?

  Bacon would have us design a House of Solomon in which philosophers might continuously share their notions . . . for every notion must be tested against the evidence of nature and the reasonings of other thinkers—and if it be barren then let it be set at naught. My thought requires discourse with yours. Is it too bold to hope that you might venture to refine your philosophy through discourse with one like-minded, even if the end of such exchange is the disproof of all I essay? A question unanswerable unless engaged.

  Thomas Farrow

  April 30, 1665

  15 Iyyar, 5425

  To Daniel, or if I may call you Son,

  It is a comfort to hear the words of your letter and to know that you live. I feared, I will now confess, that you had succumbed to some sickness like that which lately shadows this London, which the people here dread so greatly that they begin to shun certain parishes of the city, even to the point of diminishing their useful labors and thus their livelihoods.

  I am gladdened greatly to learn that my words have proven helpful to you in your disputations in Florence. Nor am I surprised by your request that I further explain how to use the words of Jeremiah and Isaiah to demonstrate the true portents of the Messiah. You were ever an attentive student and I see you remember well how I counseled against the misinterpretation of these passages. This labor will take some weeks, but as you believe it helpful in the loosening of Sabbatai Zevi’s grip on your congregation, I shall undertake it. In truth, the work will be a salve to the loneliness of my position. You might find it strange that even now my spirit still rebels. Yet when I hear the labors of this household I still at times do yearn to join my body to some useful labor, to see with my eyes and work with my limbs, for such lifts man’s spirits and in my youth did lift mine. Even an old man must guard against the evil impulses of rue and despair. So the acceptance of my infirmities must be a tribute to God, who in his mercy spared me while others more worthy perished, and left me the ability to labor with spirit and mind.

  I ask that you write to me often with such questions as trouble your community. In return, I offer you my honesty.

  Moseh HaCoen Mendes

  א

  May 19, 1665

  24 of Iyyar, 5425

  London

  Lightning, and then. Time only for a single thud of her heart. A great roar cracking over the city, sheets of water down the da Costa Mendeses’ window glass. Fury breaching the sky, striking her with childish terror. In each slow fracture, echoes—her brother’s hoarse cries, and her own, and her father’s silhouette as he disappeared up the fiery stair, calling.

  Her mother’s name amid a splintering of timbers.

  Beside her, the da Costa Mendeses’ silver candelabra, heat silently braiding upward from its three steady flames. Only lightning, she schooled herself. Only thunder, and only lightning. It would not strike here. It would set something else ablaze—a tree in a pasture somewhere, far outside the city walls. How cowardly, she told herself, to fear this when she feared nothing else—not sickness nor death. She stood stiffly, her body a raised fist against the heavens. “Strike me down,” she whispered, her lips to the cool rushing glass.

  The rain sluiced against the thick glass, obliterated the street. The world a gray wash.

  From the hall behind her came a murmur of laughter. Thomas and Mary had retreated to another room. Easing back from the window, she slipped her hand yet again into her pocket to feel its contents. Ten shillings in copper and lead tokens, and another five in royal coinage. A fair sum for standing here like a statue week after week during Diego da Costa Mendes’s multiplying absences from London, while Thomas and Mary made sport somewhere in the house. Yet the coins in her pocket were still a paltry amount when set against the growing need of the rabbi’s household.

  For little question remained that the rabbi had been forgotten: the disbursements sent by Mary’s father, which had become irregular after the arrival of Rabbi Sasportas, had by now ceased altogether. Perhaps Diego da Costa Mendes felt that Sasportas might be insulted by any show of support for another rabbi, even one of such humble repute as HaCoen Mendes. Or perhaps Diego had simply grown forgetful of the rabbi’s need for sustenance. Were Catherine alive, she’d have ensured regular payments were kept up—but Catherine was dead, and in her widower’s mind, other concerns were now foremost.

  There was grim humor, to be sure, in carrying Mary’s coins back to a household her father no longer sponsored. But Ester knew better than to tell Rivka the source of the money she handed over each week. It was a sign of Rivka’s growing worry over the household’s need that she never demanded Ester tell her more.

  But neither this mad dalliance of Mary’s, nor Ester’s absurd employment as paid companion, could last. A few more weeks, perhaps, and Thomas would tire of trying for Mary’s money. Her father would never permit the marriage.

  Restless, Ester surveyed the room. Laid carelessly face-down on the seat of a cushioned chair where she hadn’t noticed it earlier was a thick bound volume. She picked it up. Philosophical Transactions: Giving Some Accompt of the Present Undertakings, Studies, and Labours, of the Ingenious in Many Considerable Parts of the World.

  Never had she seen a publication of the Royal Society’s transactions, though of course she’d heard talk of them. Men at the synagogue made reference now and again to some discovery regarding the workings of nature, or some new-published study of the tides that would affect their ships. Eagerly now she lifted the frontispiece, a portrait of the king and a man the caption said was Francis Bacon, and turned the pages. “Physico Mathematic Experimental Reasoning.” “A Narrative Concerning the Success of Pendulum Watches at Sea for the Longitudes.” “An Experimental History of Cold.” “A Spot on One of the Belts of Jupiter.” “A recipe for mulberry cider contributed by the honorable Sir Thomas Williamson”—this last item being the sort any could see was included merely to gain the Society the goodwill and patronage of the titled fool who contributed it. If only she might air her own thoughts as easily as this cider-maker.

  This week had brought two more replies to Thomas Farrow’s missives. Each time the letter carrier’s knock sounded, Ester had been close by to answer, slipping the letters into her pocket until she’d leisure to read. Although she’d not yet received the reply she most hoped for, an exchange seemed to be beginning at last with Van den Enden, and with Lodewijk Meijer. Both their replies, to
be sure, were still cautious, demanding further information: “With whom have you studied this matter?” “Are you in agreement with Hobbes in questions of providence?” The brusque tone of her own letters, Ester was certain, had given rise to such chary answers. Yet it was impossible to discipline herself to speak otherwise. Even in Latin she’d no patience for sentences that simpered like a bent neck, and that required study to determine where lay the cloying ambition, where the hinted insult. Mine is by nature but a shadow of your more perceptive mind, and so I pray you forgive this query and understand it to be that of a mind that has not glimpsed the light yours has apprehended . . . she could not bring herself to indulge in such serpentine speech.

  Slowly she turned the pages of Philosophical Transactions. Like air, like water, such conversation belonged to these men of the Royal Society for the taking—while for the sake of her own halting correspondence she must deceive and betray, and labor for each flare of light to read by. And yet here were men parading their hypotheses and conclusions as though thoughts did not need to be clothed, but could walk about in the world naked and fearless. Her envy warred with her wonder over such folly—for should the king die, or should his fondness turn from one style of Christianity to another, these words lettered on the page might loft their authors’ heads on pikes.

  At a soft sound, she slapped the volume shut in her lap.

  Bescós stood, his eyes upon her—in her absorption in her reading she’d failed to note his entry. Slowly he finished drying himself, using a towel the servant Hannah had surely provided at the door. He rubbed the back of his neck. Then his dark hair, rain-slicked where the hat hadn’t covered it. The beard that trailed down his neck to the base of this throat.