The Fifth Servant (67 page)

           
I held the pane up to the light and looked through it. Langweil had done himself proud, painting directly on the glass in vivid bloodred and green colors. It was an illustration of the passage from
Bamidbor
in which Korakh revolts against Moses and Aaron, and the earth splits open and swallows all of the rebellious tribesmen
and
their house holds as well.

           
In Langweil’s nightmarish expression of it, the sky was split by a bolt of lightning that turned into a jagged rift in the earth as mountains toppled and panic-stricken Israelites plummeted headfirst into the eternal darkness of the abyss like so many faceless insects.

           
Gans was sweating and straining.

           
“What’s wrong?” I asked.

           
“I guess I haven’t used this in a while. I’m having a hard time focusing.”

           
“You want me to try?”

           
“Are you familiar with the science of optics?”

           
“Not very.”

           
“Then forget it.”

           
Out in the street, Yosele kept lumbering toward us in his heavy boots, holding his arms out in front of him for balance. His unsteady gait made his appearance that much more convincing, and kept the Christians at bay.

           
But there were still a few men down there whose hearts must have been as cold as iron, or else their hatred was stronger than their fear, because they kept sowing mayhem even while facing this unnatural being who had been created by the manipulation of the hidden powers of the secret names of God. Nothing distracted them or swayed them as they went on their rampage, breaking open windows and tossing in burning sods, then kicking open doors and setting fire to the tapestries hanging in the hallways.

           
The mud on Yosele’s forehead was starting to crack and peel, and even from this distance I could tell by the bewildered look on his face that he didn’t understand why anyone would hate him or want to hurt him.

           
“Remember when Christians fought each other?” said Rabbi Gans, still struggling with the lenses.

           
“Yeah, those were the days.”

           
“Got it! Hand me the slide!”

           
I did as he asked, and Rabbi Gans slid the glass into a slot and pointed the brass cylinder at the crooked houses across the street. But the colors were all blurry and diffuse. The image was out of focus.

           
“Damn!” said Gans, burning his hand on the cylinder as he tried to adjust the lenses.

           
Well, it’s only physical pain,
I thought.
How much could it hurt?

           
I grabbed the cylinder and ignored the searing pain as I rotated the lens, just as I had seen Rabbi Gans doing. The colors became even more washed out and shapeless.

           
“The other way! The other way!” he said.

           
“All right!” I said. Only it came out sounding more like
Aaaargh!

           
There was a heavy thud, and wood splintered.

           
Someone was kicking in the door downstairs. I looked down. Two mercenaries stood on the threshold, throwing their weight against the door. One had the curly black mustache and pointy beard of a Barbary corsair, the other was big enough to break a pig’s back with his bare hands. The big one looked up and shook his Hussite thrasher at us.

           
I kept turning, despite the painful blistering, until the image became a little sharper, and Yosele stepped right into the beam of light so that his face turned red then green then red again, and the Christians pouring through the damaged Pinkas Gate slowed their pace for a few precious seconds.

           
The mercenary with the pointy beard shouted, “Time’s up, Jews! Bring forth your evidence!”

           
“Turn it on them!” said Gans.

           
“No, the other way!”

           
“What? Are you nuts?”

           
“Just do it!” We struggled at cross purposes with the heavy lantern as the door gave way below.

           
We finally managed to point the lantern up the street so that the translucent image appeared on the jagged walls behind Yosele like a giant vision descending from the clouds. But the pale blobs of color were even more fuzzy and washed-out than before.

           
“I told you—!” said Gans.

           
The lantern was balanced awkwardly on the sill, with my right arm supporting most of its weight, so I snaked my other arm around inside my shirtsleeve trying to get the coarse cloth to bunch up so I could grab some of it with my free hand.

           
“Damn these Christian clothes!” My long Jewish cloak would have been perfect for this job, but at the moment it felt like this short tunic was conspiring against me.

           
I finally gathered enough fabric to grab the cylinder without losing any more skin and turned the lens the
correct
way until the image came into closer focus, big and frightful against the distant walls. But the glass was so hot that the image started to bubble and melt, really making it look like Doomsday had come and our last moments were upon us.

           
A group of Jews was gathering on the corner of Pinkasgasse where it meets up with Broad Street, Belelesgasse, and Narrow Lane. And through the smoke, I saw the vague outline of weapons swaying in the breeze like wild barley.

           
“Is it supposed to get this hot?” I asked.

           
“Do you know how many candles I had to use to get this thing to shine in daylight?"

           
The two mercenaries stormed up the stairs, the big one wielding the thrasher and a battle-scarred sword that still looked sharp enough to cut both of us to ribbons.

           
“The game stops here, Jews,” said the one with the curly mustache, and his hand went swishing under his cloak and came out holding a German wheel-lock pistol in one smooth motion.

           
In fact, it was one of the smoothest motions I’d ever seen.

CHAPTER 35

           
ERIKA WAS SWEEPING THE BACK hall when she noticed something sparkle on the floor amid the tracked-in dirt and dust from the street. It was a tiny strand of silver thread, too small to be of any real value, but it gave her an excuse to set down the broom and seek a moment of the master’s time.

           
She scurried toward the master’s counting room holding the fine thread between her thumb and forefinger. She made herself slow down so she could lift the hem of her apron with one hand and practice entering a room like a true lady. She straightened her back just as she had seen her mistress do, and took a few paces, but the steps felt stiff and awkward. No matter. Once she had a pair of real ladies’ shoes, she was sure that gracefulness would follow.

           
But the master already had some visitors. So early in the morning on Easter Sunday? How strange.

           
Where was the master’s wife? Probably out distributing bread and wine to the Jews.

           
She listened through the crack in the servant’s door.

           
“—that scrawny female with the stringy hair?” said one of the visitors. “She’s nothing but a rag mop with lips.”

           
“True—but oh, what lips,
what lips
,” said Kopecky. And they all laughed.

           
Erika peeked through the keyhole and saw the two horse men, whose names were Big Klaus and Gottschalk, seated before the master’s chair. Big Klaus was toying with a padlock, idly spinning it around with his fingers.

           
“So, my ferrets,” said Kopecky. “What have you ferreted out for me?”

           
“This,” said Gottschalk, reaching into a sack and pulling out an earthenware jar.

           
“What’s
this
?”

           
“Smell it.” Gottschalk pulled the cork out of the jar and passed it under the master’s nose. The master wrinkled his nose and turned away.

           
“
Blecch
. Where’d you get it?”

           
“From across the river.”

           
“Not from
my
place—!”

           
Erika heard footsteps. She straightened up and pretended to brush some lint off her skirt as the laundress passed by with a “caught-you-spying” look on her face. As soon as the laundress was out of sight, Erika pressed her ear to the door once again.

           
“Did anybody see you?” said Kopecky.

           
“Relax, it’s all been taken care of,” said Gottschalk. “Which reminds me—”

           
“Yes, yes, of course.”

           
Erika heard the muffled jangling of a purse full of coins.

           
“Where’s the rest of the money?”

           
“You’ll get the rest after it’s done,” said Kopecky.

           
“How do we know you’ll be here?”

           
“You have my word on it as a man of business.”

           
Big Klaus laughed.

           
“So this erases your debts to the Jews
and
gets your business rivals expelled at the same time,” said Gottschalk. “Just like the tailor who killed seven flies with one stroke.”

           
“Serves ’em right for selling their meat during the holiest week of the year,” said Big Klaus.

           
“How’d you ever convince that Janek fellow to go along with this, anyway?” said Gottschalk.

           
“I told him that he’d be able to use my distribution system to expand his markets.”

           
“We should do ’em a favor and send ’em all to heaven,” said Big Klaus.

           
“Shouldn’t you be going, gentlemen?” said Kopecky.

           
“You just make sure you have the rest of our money when we get back.”

           
The burly men showed themselves out with a heavy tread and much clanking of metal, then Kopecky turned to his desk to look over his account books. He skimmed through the pages, searching for some detail or other. Finally, he smacked his palm with his fist and let out an oath. Perhaps the cook had put too much mustard in his beef-and-calf’s-foot pie, for it was well known that such foods were highly choleric.

           
Perhaps she should have waited for her master’s humor to lighten, but she simply couldn’t wait any longer.

           
She burst into the master’s counting room unannounced.

           
“What do
you
want?” said Kopecky, irritably.

           
Oh, dear. He
was
too choleric (too much yellow bile), but she knew how to put him at his ease.

           
“I found this silver thread in the hall, Janoš darling. It looks like one of yours.”

           
He looked at her is if she were speaking the language of the Turks.

           
“What did you say?”

           
She started to explain herself, but he cut her off:

           
“How dare you suggest such a thing? And on Easter Sunday, of all days! What kind of woman are you?”

           
But that wasn’t what she wanted at all. She told him quite tenderly how it was the custom in Germany to enter into marriage by means of “consummation,” and when his brow unfurrowed, she knew that he wasn’t angry anymore, and that all she had to do was make him understand that they were now legally married, and that it would be a simple matter to annul his previous marriage to that Jew lover, and then everything would be all right. His smile was already brightening the room, then his jaw opened wide, and then something absolutely horrible happened: He laughed at her.

           
“Oh, I get it,” he said, laughing so hard that tears were forming in the corners of his eyes. “Why, I don’t know what to say.”

           
He was laughing so hard he could barely breathe. “I’m speechless. You really are serious, aren’t you?”