Judah the Pious

by Francine Prose

  “Two months after Judah ben Simon left his home for the second time, Rachel Anna awoke one morning to find her mother-in-law dead on the kitchen floor. One look at Hannah Polikov’s face enabled the young woman to determine the cause of death. Trembling with fear, she rocked her baby to sleep in the attic room, then watched beside the body until she had summoned enough courage to inform the neighbors.

  But the village elders who came to arrange the widow’s funeral were quick to assure the grieving daughter-in-law that her panic had been unfounded. “A simple case of heart attack and brain fever,” the mayor declared grimly.

  “All those miraculous carryings-on finally proved too much for her,” added the Rabbi Joseph Joshua, who was still smarting from the sting of his defeat before the Cracower court. “It is not uncommon for the Lord to punish evil sinners by striking down their loved ones.”

  “Nonsense!” snapped Rachel Anna. “You know the meaning of those boils, those swellings, those fiery sores!”

  “God’s will be done,” mumbled the elders, and rushed out into the street, where, strangely ill-at-ease in each other’s company, they soon parted ways. For the truth was that every one of them had recognized the plague’s hideous signature, tattooed on the dead woman’s forehead. But their memories of the last outbreak—which, after thirty years, still haunted their grisliest nightmares, would not allow them to admit that another epidemic had begun. Therefore they tried desperately to convince themselves that Hannah had really died of brain fever, and labored to suppress the rumors which had already begun to surround the widow’s sudden death.

  At first, their efforts succeeded in calming the terrified villagers, who drew comfort from a superstitious notion that the pestilence might somehow be rendered powerless by the elders’ refusal to acknowledge its presence. Yet this faith vanished when it became apparent that the town council planned to invoke an obscure technicality of birth and residence, which would prohibit Hannah Polikov from being buried near her husband—in the public cemetery in which she had rested once before.

  Thus, all things conspired to make Hannah’s funeral an unusually tense and somber event. Obliged to honor the memory of a woman who had twice played such a wondrous role in local gossip, everyone in town trooped out to the barren Pauper’s Field. But the atmosphere was so grim that no one referred to Hannah’s more joyous past, nor did anyone think to compare this burial with its lucky predecessor. Indeed, there was no mention of better, bygone days during the course of the ceremony, nor were there any of the sighs, sniffles, tears, downcast looks and involuntary smiles of relief which normally accompany the burial of a well-known citizen.

  Instead, there was nothing but strain, worry, and icy preoccupation until the very end of the service, when the dirt was being tossed on the coffin. Then, as several mourners—like theatergoers who habitually exit five minutes before a performance’s end—rushed over to offer their half-distracted condolences, Rachel Anna turned on them in fury. “Save your sympathy!” she cried in a clear, ringing voice. “Go home and make ready, for Hannah Polikov has become the first victim of the black plague.”

  Now this was the first time that the word “plague” had been spoken aloud in public; the mere sound of it was enough to make each citizen imagine himself surrounded by a crowd of dying human bodies. Immediately, pandemonium broke out—and, for the second time, the scholar’s wife was totally erased from the memories of living men.

  “If Judah the Pious had been present at this scene,” chuckled the Rabbi Eliezer, “he would surely have interpreted it as another instance of divine intervention. ‘Once again,’ he might have said, ‘the Lord is finding it advisable to divert the spirits’ attention from Hannah Polikov—to prevent them, in this case, from hindering her soul as it leaps toward heaven.’ But, by then, the panic-stricken townspeople would never have accepted such a warm and benevolent vision of God’s plan, not even though it had come from the greatest mind in Europe.

  For, that very afternoon, just as he had finished quieting his neighbors and convincing them to return home, Rabbi Joseph Joshua felt the telltale soreness in his groin and armpits. He died the next morning, and was followed into the earth by three other victims. After these first burials, when it was announced that mass cremations would begin, old women wept all night, bemoaning the fact that their grandchildren would now come to know that terrible, burning smell, wafting in from the Pauper’s Field.

  At the start of the plague, the streets were ominously quiet. No one strolled or chatted in the alleys; no one lounged in the doorways. The shutters remained closed at all hours, keeping out the harmful light, muffling the groans, sobs, and cries. But, when ten heaped-up corpses went down the main road with no living company but that of the terrified waggoner, a time of general panic began. During these frantic weeks, men mumbled the same prayers, chanted the same incantations, and danced the same devil dances which their fathers had done thirty years before; almost instinctively, they burned the same incense which, for centuries, had proved worthless as a disinfectant.

  There were the same public accusations of witchcraft, and the same private hurry to ask the alleged witches for help; every opinion on the epidemic’s cause and cure was heard and evaluated. Prominent citizens jotted down the babblings of madmen and infants, and studied them for secret meanings. The apothecary’s wife discovered that her long-ignored tea leaves were suddenly in great demand, and, with a grim face, interpreted their pattern as a prophecy of the town’s imminent devastation; shortly thereafter, she herself succumbed to a mild case of the disease which no one expected to prove fatal. In the desperate search for help, every eccentric monk and wizened hag in the entire area was consulted, until the residents of neighboring districts closed their borders.

  Finally, when everything else had failed, it was suggested that someone approach the filthy old charlatan who had been haunting the north-south highway for six months, whose sporadic attempts to sell herbs had met with ridicule because of his outlandish and disreputable appearance.

  Forty minutes later, Jeremiah Vinograd strutted down the deserted main street. Entering the market place, he leaped up on a deserted counter, and began to shout so loud that he was soon surrounded by all the villagers brave enough to venture out.

  “Ladies and gentlemen!” the mountebank cried. “In all the world, you could not have found a physician better suited to your needs. For I alone am Simon Magus the Samaritan, sole possessor of the only guaranteed remedy for the black death, the bubonic plague, the nightmare pestilence—”

  “Tell it to us!” shrieked the townspeople, who had never heard anyone make such an astounding claim.

  “Do you imagine that I give my secrets away for free?” asked the herbalist. “No, kind sirs, I must remind you that my livelihood depends on such things. However, in keeping with my regular policy of ‘great wonders at low prices,’ I am asking only one thin silver coin for every man, woman and child in your fair town. Should you decide not to implement my remedy, I will cheerfully refund your money. Should my plan prove ineffective, I will repay this sum a thousandfold.”

  “Ah,” murmured his listeners, almost in unison, “a claim like that could only be made by a man who has never failed.”

  “Precisely!” declared Jeremiah Vinograd.

  “Then you have succeeded in eliminating the plague?” inquired an eager young woman.

  “Unfortunately,” the mountebank replied, “my system has never been tested. For it involves a certain calculated risk, which no one has ever had the courage to undertake.”

  The mayor glanced around to gauge his constituents’ mood, then stepped forward. “Do you really expect us to pay good money for some harebrained scheme of yours,” he demanded, “some foolish, private theory which has never been tried?”

  “No, I do not,” answered Jeremiah Vinograd. “Rather, I expect you to meet the same fate as all those other unfortunates, who—like you—suffered from the fatal combination of pestilence and pride.” And, with
these words, the mountebank swung the corners of his cloak in a manner which clearly indicated his readiness to jump down from the counter and abandon his audience to the merciless scourge.

  In the uproar which greeted this gesture, someone proposed that Simon Magus be tortured into revealing his secret; an impatient young man even offered to gather the coals and brands required for his execution. But the majority of citizens had no desire to injure a master of the demonic arts, a wizard who appeared to offer their last defense against death. Therefore, after a long, hesitant silence, the people voiced their willingness to pay the old man’s bill.

  “A wise decision!” said the mountebank. “And now, I will commence my treatment by reminding you that the sooner I receive my payment, the sooner your relatives stop dying.”

  At six o’clock that evening, Jeremiah Vinograd was sitting on the same countertop when the mayor tossed a heavy bag full of coins at his feet. “Thank you,” nodded the herbalist, climbing back onto the platform, “thank you for the generosity which you will never regret. For, without any further delay, Simon Magus of Samaria will reveal to you his marvelous cure for the bubonic plague—the remedy which was taught him, in the course of a dream, by the renowned Sybil of Damascus.”

  Still facing his dumbfounded audience, Simon Magus slowly rotated his body, extending his arm to include the entire town. “Burn it down,” he commanded, in a dark, meaningful whisper.

  The angry scream of an old woman shattered the ensuing silence. “Burn down our village!” she cried incredulously. “‘Calculated risk’ is hardly the term for these crazy ravings!”

  “On the contrary,” smiled the mountebank. “My plan is based on an eminently sane and logical principle. For, according to the blessed Sybil, epidemics only occur in villages which have been built on unlucky ground.”

  “But the pestilence strikes everywhere,” protested a schoolboy.

  “Every place becomes unlucky sooner or later,” replied Jeremiah Vinograd. “That is how the wheel of Fortune turns. But, before I become sidetracked on the subject of that powerful wheel, let me give you one last word of wisdom.

  “Rebuild your homes on that high, sandy rise, on which I have camped for the past few months. For it impresses me as the only lucky place in the whole neighborhood, the only location which may be able to save you from contagion.”

  “Now you are truly betraying your lunacy!” shouted the mayor. “How can you even suggest that we destroy our lovely homes and relocate on that desolate land, which can support nothing but wild grass? How can you advise us to live on that rocky soil, which cannot even satisfy the simple needs of a rose bush or a flea. I am afraid that your ‘cure’ is really too absurd. As one gentleman of honor to another, I must ask you to refund my neighbors’ hard-earned money.”

  “As you wish,” murmured Jeremiah Vinograd. “When you are all dead, I can return and fill my pockets with as much silver as they can hold.”

  Of course, the sack of coins remained with the herbalist. Four days later, a young father witnessed the cremation of his infant son, then went home, ushered his wife out into the street, and tossed the first torch in through his front window.

  Within a week, Jeremiah Vinograd’s cure had already begun to produce dramatic results. The families which pitched their tents on the dry hillside developed no new cases of the plague; nothing more was heard from the few stubborn neighbors who refused to abandon their homes. Finally, the survivors revisited the dank, corpse-littered streets of the abandoned city, and obliterated all traces of their old community. Then, when they had sent Jeremiah Vinograd on his way with all the proper honors, gifts, and praises, they returned to the side of the north-south highway to begin rebuilding their lives on lucky ground.

  Slinging the heavy moneybag over his shoulder, Jeremiah Vinograd walked out through the cemetery and into the woods. After a brief search, he discovered Rachel Anna and her child, huddling in the ruins of a ramshackle wooden shelter.

  “You must be the famed and lovely Rachel Anna,” the herbalist declared gallantly.

  Tightening her cloak around the shivering infant, the young woman glared up at him. “And you are Jeremiah Vinograd,” she whispered furiously.

  “I am Simon Magus the Samaritan and none other,” replied the mountebank, “though I would dearly love to be that fortunate gentleman for whom you mistake me, whose name alone can elicit such powerful emotions from your heart.”

  “Jeremiah Vinograd,” she repeated, in a voice which shook with hatred. “You are a liar and a fraud.”

  “You have managed to penetrate my latest and greatest disguise,” declared the herbalist. “Your intelligence must surpass your extraordinary beauty. Yes,” he admitted, with an acquiescent shrug, “Jeremiah Vinograd is one of my many names. But I am most definitely not a liar or a fraud. After all, did I not save your neighbors from the ghastly black death?”

  “I suppose you did,” she nodded reluctantly. “But you are still a monstrous villain, whose irrational malice has succeeded in destroying Judah ben Simon, his wife, and even his helpless child. You knew that I would be unable to rebuild a house for myself, that no one would offer to help me; you knew that I would be forced to seek shelter in the forest at the start of winter. And yet you pressed on with your senseless, fiendish plot to ruin our family.”

  “You misjudge me, Madam,” protested the old man. “Your stupid husband brought on his own misery, though I did everything in my power to help him. First, I sent him off to Danzig in the hope that crazy Boris Silentius might teach him a lesson. Then, when it became clear that he intended to persist in his folly, I taught him a trade which would keep him from starving.

  “And as for you, Rachel Anna—only an idiot or a lunatic could want to hurt such a lovely woman; by now it should be apparent that I am neither of these. Could a fool have rescued you from the plague, as I did? Would a madman have the common sense to advise you against remaining here, awaiting a husband who may never return?

  “No, my dear lady, I have no desire to harm you. Indeed, I am so concerned with your happiness and well-being that I am about to make you a remarkable offer: why not wander the country with me, as part of my act? I am a rich man now, I can afford an assistant. And my audience will doubtless appreciate the brilliantly allusive symbolism of your presence, for everyone knows that Simon Magus did not travel alone.”

  “Simon Magus roamed the world with Helena, his whore,” whispered Rachel Anna, shutting her eyes in sudden recognition. “So you expected me to come with you all along?”

  “You need not complicate matters with your coarse language,” replied the mountebank, ignoring her question. “I am inviting you to be my helper, my fellow showman, my business partner, and nothing more.”

  “Then what will my duties be?” asked the surprised young woman.

  “You will have no duties,” smiled Jeremiah Vinograd. “Only pleasures—the simple joys which are the thespian’s constant companion. You will have the satisfaction of a gracefully executed pirouette, of a song sung on key; you will know the pride of seeing tears roll down your listeners’ cheeks when you tell them how my miraculous plague cure pulled your community from the jaws of death. What could be easier? In fact, it would not surprise me if you turned out to have a natural talent for such things.”

  Suddenly, the old man noticed the squirming lump beneath Rachel Anna’s cape, and, struck by a fresh and entrancing notion, he smiled. “For the benefit of those who are not sufficiently overwhelmed by your story, we will exhibit the leprous Baby Lazarus, whose hideous disease—a lumpy creation of flour and water—will be instantly and painlessly washed away by the aqueous medicine in my magic vial.”

  The herbalist paused, his eyes gleaming with visions of untold wealth. “Rachel Anna,” he said, “we cannot fail to make a fortune. So come now, what do you say to the idea of food, clothing, shelter, and all the luxuries you desire?”

  “I have no choice,” sighed Rachel Anna. “If I stay here in the wilderne
ss, my baby will surely die before the winter ends.”

  “Exactly,” boomed the mountebank jovially, and helped the young mother to her feet.

  And so it happened that Rachel Anna came to practice the charlatan’s trade with Jeremiah Vinograd. Soon their partnership was working smoothly. Though dazed into numbness by the sudden changes in her life, the woman was nevertheless pleased by the respectful, almost formal courtesy with which the herbalist treated her, and by the kindness which he bestowed on her baby.

  “Simon Magus” was positively delighted by the huge audiences which flocked around to stare at the beautiful hair and eyes of his “Helena of Tyre.” He enjoyed the tears of gladness which flowed over the recovery of the leprous Baby Lazarus, and basked in the murmurs of awe which greeted his assistant’s description of her neighbors’ salvation. But, most of all, he loved the endless rain of coins which showered at his feet, which could buy him gold rings, fur pillows, a painted wagon and embroidered robes without depleting his ever-deepening pool of silver.

  Indeed, Jeremiah Vinograd’s fortune seemed to be improving each day. For several weeks after his meeting with Judah ben Simon, he noticed that Rachel Anna’s listeners appeared doubly moved by the trembling voice in which she told her tale of suffering, doubly inclined to recall their own miseries, and to buy the medicines necessary for their cure.

  For the truth was that his assistant had become so bored and familiar with the lines of her act that she could repeat them mechanically, automatically, while her mind ranged elsewhere; eventually, out of confused, half-conscious motives of her own, she began to concentrate all her mourning for Judah ben Simon and Hannah Polikov into the few hours each day during which she performed.

  Thus, it was this genuine sorrow, glimpsed through the tired sentences of Rachel Anna’s monologue, which brought her audience so low that they could think of nothing but their own bouts of melancholia; and it was the grief which the abandoned wife felt as she recalled the conversation in the Prince Zarembka’s estate which invariably convinced her listeners that only a good purgative could save them from the deadly sin of despair.