Joheved raised herself on her elbows. “Meir! What are you doing?”
“Just let me pleasure you.” He began stroking the inside of her thighs as she fell back.
With her legs spread wide before him, Meir gently massaged her lower lips, bending closer so his tongue could reach that sensitive spot his fingers had so recently caressed. Eliezer said that it might be difficult to find, but Joheved’s sudden squeals made it clear that Meir had found his goal.
Careful not to overstimulate her, he varied his technique. Circling with his tongue, moving from side to side, strongly and then more gently, he listened as Joheved gasped and moaned, trying to ascertain what she enjoyed the most. All the while his fingers were busy inside her damp passage, probing its depths, as his senses reveled in her intimate flavor and aroma.
For her part, Joheved was helpless to do anything except revel in the spiraling delight Meir’s mouth was creating. Who could have imagined that her body was capable of such feelings? Ripples of exquisite sensation passed through her as Meir modified his efforts. Just when she thought she was going to explode with passion, he would pause and begin something new. She desperately wanted both the ultimate climax and for him to never stop.
Meir sensed that her release was near. Her secret place had grown round and hard, like a pearl, under his lashing tongue. Her lower lips were swollen and full, much like her nipples after he’d fondled them. He pressed his hand hard against the muscles inside her womb, waiting for her contractions.
Abruptly Joheved’s cries reached a crescendo, as wave after wave of the ecstasy coursed through her. Mindless with rapture, she grabbed Meir’s arms and squeezed them convulsively, while he forced his mouth to remain in position, leaning back only after she finally jerked her body away.
When Meir opened his eyes, he was glad they had forgotten to extinguish the lamp. He gazed in awe at Joheved’s most private parts, glistening and plump like segments of apple dripping with honey. He’d never seen anything so erotic and exciting, and his loins responded immediately. He began lightly caressing her thighs, then kissing her flesh closer and closer to the crease where her leg met her torso.
Joheved lay exhausted, her heart pounding, focused on the receding spasms of pleasure. She was sure she wouldn’t be able to move for hours. Her breasts and ervah were still pulsing when she felt Meir’s lips on her leg, so gentle at first that she might have imagined it. But as the sensation moved up her thigh, her desire flared so intensely that before she knew it she’d dragged Meir up on top of her.
More delights awaited her. Meir had barely entered before she was at the zenith once again, urging him to move faster and deeper. As she reached a new climax, he found that, for the first time, he was able to restrain himself while her womb convulsed around him. When he began moving within her again, he allowed himself to fully savor the sensation, confident that when his passion was about to overwhelm him, his vigorous thrusts would force Joheved to emit her seed as well.
Finally it was over and Joheved lay limp in his arms, her heart beating wildly and her body damp with sweat. How was it possible that after twenty years of marriage, they should discover something so new and wonderful?
She somehow found the strength to reach over and brush his lips with hers. “Merci beaucoup. That was magnificent.”
Meir chuckled and replied, “My pleasure.”
As Rachel forecast, when Eliezer returned to Troyes for the Cold Fair, he brought back sufficient grain profits to more than offset Salomon’s dismal vintage.
“I was lucky to get out of Mayence without injury,” he told her that night. “Wheat was so scarce that we could name our price, but buyers resented having to pay that much for it.”
“They should have been grateful you had any wheat at all. If not for your shipments, the famine would have been worse.”
“Most didn’t see it that way. They were angry that we took advantage of their suffering to make more money.”
Rachel’s curls shook with exasperation. “They probably think you should have donated the wheat out of charity, never mind all your trouble and expense procuring it.”
“Logic had nothing to do with it,” he replied. “There was such rancor over Jews profiteering while ‘good Christians’ went hungry that I came through Worms on my way back from Prague rather than face anyone in Mayence again.”
“The bishop was probably charging just as much for his wheat.”
“Of course he was, but nobody’s going to complain about the bishop—at least not out loud.”
When Rachel remained silent, Eliezer saw his chance to say what he’d been thinking about the entire ride home. He pulled her close and dropped his voice seductively. “Belle, I hate being away from you. Come with me to Toledo.”
Rachel’s heart leapt with joy. “What about the children?”
“Shemiah should remain to continue his studies, but we can bring little Rivka if you’d like.”
Rachel thought back to their early journeys, how inhibited she’d felt with Shemiah sharing their room and often occupying their bed. And yet the one season she’d left Shemiah with Eliezer’s mother, he hadn’t recognized her when they returned.
“I don’t know,” she said slowly.
“You’ll only be gone a few months.” He pulled her close. “Let Miriam take care of your clients and help in the vineyard. After all, you shouldered her responsibilities last summer while she was in Paris.”
“I didn’t mean I don’t know about going with you.” She gazed up at him and smiled. “I miss you so much when we’re separated; I just don’t know whether we should take Rivka or not.”
“You can decide that when it’s time to leave.” He bent down to kiss her.
But Rachel had already made up her mind. If she weren’t enceinte by the end of Hanukkah, she would leave her daughter with Miriam and accompany her husband the following week when the Cold Fair closed. Little Rivka was almost four years old; she wouldn’t forget her mother so easily.
To avoid the Evil Eye, Rachel divulged her plans to Miriam alone.
“Of course your children will stay with me. Alvina would be lost without Rivka to play with,” Miriam said. “While you’re away, I can begin teaching her how to read and write.”
Rachel threw her arms around Miriam. “Merci, you are the most wonderful sister.” Though they were alone, she lowered her voice and added, “Maybe Adam’s curse won’t reach as far away as Toledo, and I’ll get pregnant.”
Miriam smiled conspiratorially. “It’s either broken or it didn’t reach to Ramerupt. Joheved’s expecting another child this summer,” she whispered.
“So that’s why she goes to bed early rather than study Talmud with us,” Rachel said. “But are you sure? I thought her flowers had stopped.”
“I’m a midwife; I can tell. But just to be safe, don’t speak of it to anyone, please.”
Meir knew very well that his wife was with child. When Joheved greeted the first week of Troyes Cold Fair by throwing up each morning and then eating a hearty disner, he calculated that their new son should arrive shortly after Shavuot.
Of course they would have a son. Joheved had emitted her seed first every time. And if, as the Talmud taught, a child’s quality reflected the quality of the act that conceived him, this boy would surely grow to be a talmid chacham. But Meir said nothing of this, keeping the blissful knowledge inside, where it warmed him better than any hearth during those chilly autumn days.
Each night, as she kindled another wick in their Hanukkah menorah, Rachel grew increasingly uneasy about going to Toledo. Eight years had passed, but she recalled her previous visit well. Isolated at home like the Sephardic women, her only companion had been little Shemiah. True, Eliezer shared her bed at night, which was a mighty consolation, and she had no nagging anxieties about his safety in some faraway place. The price she would pay for enjoying those pleasures this time would be her constant worries about Papa and Mama’s health, no Talmud study with her sisters, and mis
sing her children for six months.
But when her flowers arrived the day before their departure, Rachel put her concerns aside and packed her things. That night she slept with little Rivka, holding her daughter securely in her arms, and the next morning at dawn she was overcome with guilt at her daughter’s tears and wails of protest as she and Eliezer joined a band of Jewish merchants heading southwest.
Their caravan was enlarged by pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela, which gave Rachel the company of enough women that she no longer felt like an oddity. They had just passed through the Pyrenees, thankfully without experiencing a blizzard, when she realized that her seven clean days were finished. But it was too cold for her to immerse in the local rivers, so she and Eliezer abandoned the others and made for Saragossa. The large Jewish community there was sure to have a mikvah.
Luxuriating in the sumptuous bathhouse that housed the mikvah, while a masseuse kneaded the muscles that ached from too many long days on horseback, Rachel began to anticipate her six months in Sepharad. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad after all. Papa had given her a copy of Tractate Nedarim, one of the few he hadn’t written a commentary on, with instructions to go through each page and jot down anything he ought to address. Surely that would keep her occupied during the day.
The Jewish Quarter was overflowing with refugees fleeing Berber attacks in the south, but Eliezer’s old host Dunash still had space in his house, located just off Calle del Ángel, the main thoroughfare. Like other homes in Toledo, the whitewashed walls facing the street had no windows, and the entry door opened into a hallway that immediately turned right, thus presenting any curious passersby with a blank wall.
Standing in the tiled entry hall, Rachel knew that the austere exterior was a facade, and that the interior rooms would open onto a central courtyard. But Dunash’s beautiful patio was quite unlike Papa’s utilitarian outdoor space in Troyes. Its walls were covered with flowering vines, and a path wandered among bushes and fruit trees to the well in the center, which fed a fountain surrounded by a shallow pool. Benches sat scattered along the path, and Rachel imagined herself studying Tractate Nedarim on one of them, while the fountain gurgled pleasantly in the background.
She held her breath, waiting to see their chambers, hoping there would at least be a view of the garden. The apartment was small, just two rooms off one of the lesser salons. The tiny bedroom had no windows, but the sitting room did open onto the courtyard. Rachel sighed with relief; they could enter and exit their quarters without walking through the main house.
The next few days were heavenly. Daily downpours, for February was the height of Toledo’s rainy season, prevented her from studying outside, but Eliezer arrived home shortly after sunset, and they spent much of the long nights in bed. But that was one of the few things they did together. Except on Shabbat, men and women dined separately, and at synagogue they entered through different doors. Once inside, the women’s pews were hidden behind a wall with only a small grill looking into the sanctuary.
On their first Shabbat in Toledo, the afternoon skies cleared sufficiently that Eliezer took her to see one of the town’s most prized sites, al-Zarqālī’s water clock. Located in a wide plaza on the waterfront, the clock was fashioned out of marble and decorated with life-sized paintings of men and elephants. Rachel had to admit that it looked impressive shining in the sunlight.
“See those two basins?” Eliezer pointed to the large vessels, which were marked with many parallel lines. “Al-Zarqālī designed the clock so they fill and empty according to the waxing or waning of the moon.”
“So?” Rachel saw nothing extraordinary happening.
“Pipes underneath the plaza lead to the river. At the moment the new moon appears on the horizon, water flows into the empty basins at a rate carefully calculated so that at dawn each basin contains one-fourth of a seventh part, and at sunset one-half a seventh part of the water required to fill them. The water continues to flow in this manner until a week has passed.” He paused and looked at her questioningly.
“At which time both basins will be half full,” Rachel said in awe, realizing that the clock’s unseen mechanism was actually more impressive than its appearance.
“Over the next seven days and nights, this process continues until the two basins fill completely when the moon is at its fullest.” Eliezer’s voice became more animated. “Then on the fifteenth night of the month, just as the moon wanes, the basins begin to lose one-half of a seventh part of their water each day until . . .”
Rachel continued, “Until they are half empty on the twenty-first of the month and completely empty when the moon reaches her twenty-ninth night.”
Eliezer led her to another, smaller, device nearby. “And this clock, by means of cleverly designed valves and pumps, fills and empties over the course of a day, so that by comparing the water level to the marks painted on it, we can see what hour it is.” He pointed to the vessels, which were almost empty. “See, we have slightly more than two hours left until sunset.”
“And only five more days until the full moon,” Rachel added. She stopped and stared at Eliezer. Her flowers, which usually came on the tenth of the month, hadn’t arrived.
She said nothing of this and asked instead, “These water clocks are remarkable devices, but why were they made?”
Eliezer, thinking she’d asked how they were made, began explaining, “The clock is constructed so that water drips out at a constant rate, and its mechanism is then calibrated so that it measures how much time has passed.”
“I realize that.” She cut him off. “What I want to know is why someone would go to all this effort to tell what hour it is when we can just wait for the church bells to chime.”
“But they only chime every three hours.”
“Why do I need to know when it’s one hour past noon?” She glanced over at the clock’s display. “Or two hours until sunset? And if for some reason I did, what’s wrong with using a sundial?”
As if in reply, the sun disappeared behind a cloud and Eliezer looked at her triumphantly. “With a water clock you can tell the hour even on a cloudy day or at night.”
Rachel still didn’t see any great urgency to know the time so precisely, but clearly Eliezer thought this was important. “But why create the big one? Surely they have calendars here.”
“The Saracens declare a new month when they see the new moon, but if it’s overcast, they can rely on al-Zarqālī’s water clock.” The clouds were darkening precipitously, so he took her arm, adding, “We’d better head back.”
She tried to remember how they’d reached the plaza, and though she recognized the landmarks they passed, the twisting, mazelike streets thwarted her efforts. The only route she could negotiate on her own was the short distance from the main road to their lodgings. How long would she have to live in Toledo before she wouldn’t feel so lost?
Raindrops began splattering on the cobblestones, causing Eliezer to increase their pace. But Rachel’s mind was still in the plaza. “Why do you care so much what time it is?”
“For those of us studying at al-Zarqālī’s observatory, charting how stars move, we must have the ability to measure time precisely. We have clocks there that are accurate to the smallest portion of an hour.”
For a moment Rachel was too shocked to speak. “You’re studying astronomy? What happened to your Talmud studies?”
“Here in Sepharad, Talmud expertise is not sufficient for a man to be considered learned,” he defended himself. “Unless a man also knows philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy, the Spaniards judge him ignorant.”
“But everything a man needs to know is in the Talmud; secular subjects take time away from Torah study.” What have these people done to my husband, replacing his Torah knowledge with astronomy?
Eliezer shook his head. “Non, in the seventh chapter of Tractate Shabbat, Rabbi Shimon ben Pazzi said in the name of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi: He who knows how to calculate the solstices and planetary motions,
but does not, of him it is written: They regard not the work of the Eternal, neither have they considered the work of His hands. Rabbi Samuel ben Nahmani said in the name of Rabbi Yohanan: Where do we know that it is a mitzvah for a person to calculate the solstices and planetary motions? Because it is written: For this is wisdom and understanding in the sight of the people. And what wisdom and understanding is in the sight of the people? It is the science of calculating the solstices and planetary motions.”
But Rachel only saw Eliezer’s Torah knowledge draining away, like the water in al-Zarqālī’s clock, to be replaced with foreign philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy.
Eliezer could tell that she was unconvinced. “Belle, I’m not giving up Talmud. As Rabbi Elazar ben Chisma said in Pirke Avot:The laws of bird offerings and niddah are essential halachah. Astronomy and geometry are the spices of wisdom.
Torah is like bread—you must have it. But people like me need spices with their bread.”
“Yet if you only eat spices, you will starve.”
Their argument came to an abrupt halt when the skies opened and they had to race home to escape the downpour. Even so, their clothes were soaked when they got indoors, and after quickly disrobing, conversation gave way to a more pleasant way to pass what remained of the stormy afternoon.
Rachel attempted to explore her surroundings the next day, but twice she had to pay a boy on the street to return her to Calle del Ángel. After accidentally venturing onto streets where women weren’t welcome, she discovered that the best way to escape her neighborhood was to attend funerals. Death, regretfully, made no distinction between men and women.
The Jewish cemetery was located outside the city, and consequently most funerals proceeded along Calle del Ángel on their way to Jews’ Gate, Toledo’s northernmost exit. Rachel could hear the wailing and chanting of psalms as a funeral party drew near, enabling her to throw on a black cloak and follow them. Then, when the rite was finished, it was a simple matter to join someone heading back in her direction.
Rashi's Daughters, Book III: Rachel Page 22