The Origin of Sorrow (7 page)

At first, Hersch welcomed the birth of his brother. He accepted with his usual smiles the attention the new baby required. Unlike most children his age, Hersch was patient. He was awaiting the day when he and his brother could romp together, could wrestle, could run, shouting, up and down the stairs and along the lane, could share secrets. What a good boy Hersch was, the neighbors said. Until one day, when he was four years old, or five, he changed. He began hitting his little brother, shoving him across the floor. His smiles were replaced by wails of anguish. When Yetta sat him down and sought an explanation, his words erupted through wrenching sobs. Hiram wouldn’t play with him. Hiram wouldn’t listen to him, wouldn’t speak to him. Yetta thought they had explained the situation to him long ago, to prepare him for this. But clearly they had not done a good job. Now, as his mother tried to calm him, and stroked his hair, he understood for the first time that Hiram would never change: would never listen, would never speak. It was as if he had no brother at all. It was worse than having no brother at all.

Inconsolable, Hersch became uncontrollable. He became like an animal, people said. He would run from the house at night and hide. He would scream for no reason, embarrassing Leo and Yetta, irritating the neighbors. At heder, when he started there, he would suddenly shove his books to the floor and run from the room. Often the place they found him hiding was the cemetery. He was always in the oldest section, where the lettering on the tombstones had been worn flat across the centuries by wind and rain that sometimes whipped across the river below and swirled inside the gate. The cemetery, too, was the one place where the sun wasn’t blocked by gabled houses. Perhaps here, hugging himself, he was finding warmth. The parents encouraged the brothers to be friends. But when little Hiram tried to hug his big brother, or kiss him on the cheek, Hersch pushed him away. The other children shunned the silent boy altogether.

The Rabbis saw this from afar and pitied the Liebmanns. Hersch, that precious little boy, once always smiling, became known as the wild one. The deaf mute — no one seemed to know his name — was assumed to be mentally slow.

In time, however, as the boys grew older, their relationship changed. Hersch began to understand and accept that Hiram’s shortcomings were beyond his or anyone’s control. He began to reach out. Alone together in the small bedroom they shared, they began to communicate. Hiram did not go to heder because of his deafness; he could neither read nor write. But little by little the boys worked out simple hand motions with which to converse. Hersch did not understand that his former rage at his brother’s infirmities had been misplaced love. Hiram seemed to have known it all along.

The changes at first were hardly noticed in the lane. But now the two strong young men who looked so much alike were as close to one another as any brothers in the Judengasse. The aging of their parents, who were nearing seventy, was bringing them even closer.

Yetta squeezed her handkerchief into her hand. “How could he think such a stupid thing? To be the Schul-Klopper?”

“When you think about it, Mama, it’s not so stupid. He’s got strong legs. He’s got strong arms. He could knock on doors as well as anyone. He wouldn’t have to speak, he wouldn’t have to hear. It’s a job where those things don’t matter.”

“But he’s so shy. He’s frightened of people.”

“That’s the point. All those hours he looks out the window, thinking, timing things. Timing even the Schul-Klopper. But separate from everyone, except me and you and Papa. He must have realized he would be perfectly able to knock on doors with a hammer. And that if he were the Schul-Klopper, he would earn respect. He would be serving the lane. People would give him glasses of milk, of tea. Who knows, maybe some pretty girl would give him a glass of juice. I don’t know for sure what he’s thinking. But he wouldn’t be useless anymore, the way he sees himself now. The way everyone sees him. And he would bring home a few kreuzer each week to help you and Papa. That would make him proud.”

Yetta turned to the wall. Her shoulders began to shake like a cart on cobbles. When she turned back, her handkerchief was translucent. “It‘s a good idea,” she said.

“It’s a wonderful idea. But it’s not going to happen.”

“Why not? Anything is possible.”

She pressed her wet handkerchief to her quivering lips. The image of a new life for her youngest danced in front of her eyes like sunlight.

“Mama, if we never thought of it, why would the Chief Rabbi think of it?”

“Because he’s the Chief Rabbi! Who knows, maybe Yahweh will give him a nudge.”

Hersch put his arms around his mother. She was so thin; she really must eat more.

“Mama, don’t you go off that way, too. Hiram’s going to be very upset. We’ll have to comfort him. So don’t you start expecting a miracle. If Yahweh cared a chicken liver about Hiram, He wouldn’t have made him deaf and dumb.”

The words were like a slap. But Yetta knew he was right. She leaned her cheek for a moment against Hersch’s sturdy chest. If only the lane knew what a good son he had become.

“I’d better go to your father,” she said, disengaging herself. “See if he feels well enough to go to the funeral.”

Guttle stared into the candle flames. They were the eyes of God. That’s why you lighted two each Sabbath Eve — to invite His eyes into your home. To let Him observe closely. To show Him you were not ashamed.

This was not what the Rabbis said. The Rabbis said the candles symbolized the joy and lightness of the day that was beginning. Guttle believed they were more than that.

In the flames there was yellow and orange, blue and white. There were curves and points, and an inner shape that echoed the outer — just like the human eye, made in His image. There was a reaching and a settling back, a stretching and a shriveling. The candle flames did not crackle and devour, like the flames in the woodstove. They did not heat water or cook meat or warm the room. They accomplished nothing useful you could specify.

Stare into them long enough and they stayed with you. When you looked away the flames remained in your eyes and on the candles, both. Only the eyes of Yahweh could do that.

Here was the difficulty. Try as you might, you could not see with them. Eyes open or eyes closed, you saw nothing but flame. To see with His eyes was forbidden.

Guttle turned away from the candles. She closed her eyes and saw flames still. Quietly she breathed, waiting for them to disappear. She murmured a small prayer in the darkening — that Jacob Marcus would not approach her Papa this night to arrange her marriage to his son.

Madame Guttle, the famed Viennese chanteuse, is on stage in Paris, at the Comedie Francais. She raises her bright orange skirt — and reveals that beneath it she is wearing men’s breeches. The audience, which includes King Louis XV and his grandson the Dauphin, roars with laughter

Holding a candle, she begins to sing, in a coquettish coloratura voice:

If I’d been born a man

I’d be a scholar,

I’d learn a dozen tongues

In which to holler,

In which to pledge my love

To my sweet bride-to-be.

If I’d been born a man —

(She lifts her skirt to reveal the breeches)

Would I choose me?

(She lowers her skirt)

I learned to cook and sew,

But I would rather read.

The thing I do not know

Is how to plant a seed

That in nine months will grow

To look the same as he.

If I‘d been born a man—

(She shows her breeches — then the skirt again)

Would I choose me?

If I’d been born a man

I’d teach the girls to love,

But I am just a girl

And so by God above

I am not ready yet

To bare my private parts

Until I teach myself

(She plunges a hand deep under her skirt)

The manly arts!

The audience roars with laughter; the people clap and cheer. Madame Guttle is about to blow out her candle when she hears a female voice from stage right . . .

“
Guttle, what are you doing? We’ll be late for schul!”

6

The cupola atop the synagogue, much higher than the ghetto walls, was flashing refractions of the descending sun. Guttle admired its beauty most at moments like that. She envisioned the cupola as a beacon, reminding Yahweh not to forget His children who were locked behind the walls.

The synagogue was the largest structure in the Judengasse. Situated on the east side of the lane, half way between the north and south gates, it exceeded the width of sixteen houses. Front to back it extended from the cobbled lane three quarters of the way to the ghetto wall. Attached to the rear were the chamber of the Judengasse Council and the rooms of the yeshiva. Large as it was, however, Guttle knew it could not contain the crowd of men, women and children, all dressed in their Sabbath best, who were moving toward it like an incoming tide for the Schul-Klopper’s funeral.

Inside the temple, the Aron Kodesh, the holy ark, stood two stories high against the eastern wall. It held twelve Torah scrolls, each one clothed in an embroidered velvet cover of white or blue or maroon. Sparkling gold and silver threads wove Hebrew letters into bright designs. Engraved gold or silver plates hung from the polished wooden handles, like jewels around the necks of queens. Further attempts, when they flashed in the lamplight, Guttle thought, to catch the eye of Elohim. Two of the Torahs, on the top shelf, were so fragile they were kept behind glass; they were two of the three original Torahs belonging to the synagogue, dating back centuries. The third had disappeared long ago.

Females were permitted, if not encouraged, to attend services, but they had to keep to themselves. They had to stand in the rear. Guttle had mixed feelings about this arrangement. Sometimes she accepted with equanimity the assurance of the Rabbis that this was what the Talmud prescribed. At other times she chafed that she could not sit in front with the men.

As the hour for the funeral neared, Guttle watched them enter the schul. All wore black coats or cloaks, and black yarmulkes. The regulars, who attended services every day, or at least every Sabbath, filled the specific seats they had come to think of as reserved for them. Each became silent, grim, as he saw on the platform the plain spruce coffin, resting on velvet. It was not far from where they sat. They could see the grain of the wood.

As the men straightened their talises and took their seats, the women, wearing muted dresses of black or gray or brown, and simple hats, gathered in the rear. But as more and more men crowded in, and all of the seats became filled, late-arriving men had to stand in the back. Because the genders could not mingle, this forced the women out through the wide doors into the street. Rabbi Simcha, assaying the situation, whispered into the ear of the Chief Rabbi. At once Rabbi Eleazar ordered that the doors be kept open, so women and children might follow the proceedings as best they could from the lane.

The service began with late afternoon prayers. This was standard, and since most of the women could not hear anyway, some of them began to talk among themselves while waiting for the funeral. Children began to play quietly on the cobbles. As Guttle tried to listen to the prayers, a group of her friends pulled her away from the door, eager to tease her with the latest gossip. Among them were her sister Avra, Dvorah Schlicter, and Sara Greinz, who worked at the bakery.

“So,” Dvorah asked Guttle, “when will you be stepping out with the handsome Doctor?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t be coy, Guttle.” Dvorah tucked under her mob cap a lock of auburn curls that had crept out. “Sara told us all about it. How Lev Berkov came to the bakery to speak to you. And took you into the lane where no one could hear. And when you came back he had his arm around you, and a big smile on his face.”

“You told them that?” Guttle asked Sara.

“It’s the truth, isn’t it?” Sara had a narrow face, pale brown hair, and what Guttle felt was a whiny disposition not unlike Avra’s.

“You want to know what we talked about?” Guttle asked. “We talked about spilled milk.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Avra asked.

“I have no idea,” Guttle said. “I won’t be ‘stepping out’ with the Doctor any time soon. He never said anything like that.”

“That’s too bad, then,” Sara said. “Maybe he’s just trying to make someone else jealous. Which won’t work, of course. But at least it will make the coffin maker happy.”

“The coffin maker?” Dvorah asked. “What’s he got to do with Guttle?”

“You don’t know? You should see the way he looks at her whenever she’s at the bakery. He can’t take his eyes off her.”

Guttle decided she must be talking with Izzy too much, because for an instant she wondered if girls had gossiped this way in ancient Egypt, while they worked as slaves, or in Babylon. Probably they had. In Sodom and Gomorra for sure.

“Where do you get these ideas, Sara?” she said.

Dvorah fussed with her cap again. She loved her bright auburn curls. She was going to hate losing them some day. She did not want to go through life wearing a wig, or with her hair always covered, as custom required of married women. It was supposed to keep other men from wanting her. But would some future husband still want her? Eighteen months older than Guttle, Dvorah nonetheless often followed her lead, had painfully taught herself to read German, for instance, after Guttle had learned the language with ease.

“The coffin maker has never even spoken to me,” Guttle said.

“The truth is,” Avra put in, “my sister is already betrothed. To Isidor Kracauer.”

“Avra, Izzy is fourteen. By the time he’s old enough to marry, I’ll be an old maid.”

“If not Izzy, then it’s the Cantor. Everyone knows he’s after you.”

“Who told you such a thing?”

“What you should do,” Dvorah said, “is marry a rich old banker. Then, when he dies, Izzy can take his place.”

“Think what nonsense you’re talking,” Guttle said. “You know that my father will arrange my marriage. Just as yours will arrange yours.” As soon as she spoke she wanted to snatch back the words. Dvorah’s father had died two years before. He’d been stabbed to death when he resisted highwaymen on the road to Wiesbaden.

“Doesn’t matter,” Dvorah said. “You’ve got your father wrapped around your finger like a piece of string. He’ll let you marry whomever you want.”

She wondered where Dvorah got such ideas. Maybe it was from missing — from idealizing — the father she no longer had. “You don’t know my Papa,” she said.

She squeezed Dvorah’s hand. Her friend squeezed back. The slip of the tongue seemed to have been forgiven. “Now, if you ladies will excuse me,” Guttle said, “I came to attend a funeral. And that’s where I’m going.”

“After all, I did find the body,” Avra mimicked, in a flamboyant voice. She tried to imitate her older sister’s walk. The others did not smile. Avra wished she were with her own friends.

Pulling her cloak tighter around her shoulders, Guttle stepped closer to the temple. Politely but firmly she threaded her way through the crowd of women. The required space of three feet remained between the first row of women and the last row of men. She could hear the rich voice of the Cantor flowing out over the assemblage like liquid velvet. His robust tones from afar could make her tingle in a way that his presence could not.

Perhaps because of the Sabbath wine she had imbibed at dinner, Guttle edged closer to the men. Her mother grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

When Rabbi Simcha completed the mincha service, his pink scar throbbing, the Chief Rabbi approached the lectern. To those who could see him he presented an intimidating image, with his stern features, his full gray beard, his tall black hat, his thick hands. A thunderous speaker, he let the silence stretch on, looking about, nodding to some of the men he knew well, among them the banker Kaspar Reis and the Court Factor Wolf Schnapper, the butcher Otto Kracauer, the cabinet maker Yussel Kahn seated beside his good friend, that young fellow — the Rabbi couldn’t recall his name — who had started a coin business.

“My dear friends,” Rabbi Eleazar began. “We have come together, as we do each week, to celebrate the joyous Sabbath, a respite from work and from earthly cares. But today we have also come to lay to rest one of our dearest friends, one of this congregation’s most loyal members. Solomon Gruen. Our beloved Schul-Klopper.

“Solomon had a long life” — here the Rabbi stared at Doctor Berkov, as if daring him to disagree — “but I always believed he would be the one who would bury me. He was never sick. He was never late on his rounds. For a Schul-Klopper, there can be no higher praise.

“Some may mourn that our friend left no family here to mourn for him. He chose never to marry, he had no children. ‘The Judengasse is crowded enough,’ he used to say. Whether that was his real reason for abstaining from raising a family of his own I do not know. But perhaps he saw a more accurate picture than the rest of us. Because Solomon Gruen did have a family. A large one. Every one of us living here in the lane was part of it. He could never pass a little boy without patting his head, or a little girl without pinching her cheek. Or a grown-up without a wave and a smile. So we say farewell to him today not merely as the shammus of the synagogue, not merely as the Schul-Klopper, but as a father, a grandfather, a son, a brother, to us all. Look around you — not only here inside the schul but out in the street. I dare say that almost every person in the Judengasse who is not an invalid or an infant has come to bid him shalom.

“Those of you inside can see resting on his coffin the beautiful hammer that he wielded so diligently for all those years, until this very morning. Why, you might ask, do we not put the hammer in his casket, and bury it clasped in his hand, where it fit so perfectly? I will tell you why. The Lord told Moses, when He gave him the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, that we shall not worship golden idols. That we shall worship no other god before Him. To place the hammer in Solomon’s coffin would be to make of it a golden idol. Naked we came into this world, the Torah says, and naked shall we leave it. The carpenter must leave his tools behind, the butcher his knife, the teacher his books. But there is another reason we leave his hammer outside the coffin. Because his sacred task must not go unfilled, not for a single day. Because we must pass the hammer along at once to the next Schul-Klopper.

“This I shall not do now — not before Solomon is laid to rest — that would be an insult to his memory — but afterward, when we return here for the Sabbath service. It will not be the very same hammer, because the new Schul-Klopper must have an identity of his own. This afternoon I asked our fine cabinet maker, Yussel Kahn, to carve a new hammer. He did a beautiful job.” The Rabbi held up the new hammer, which had been out of sight on the shelf of his lectern. “You will all get to admire it soon enough, when the new Schul-Klopper awakens you. You may even want to hit him with it.”

Some men in the congregation laughed. Others fought to stifle smiles.

“It’s all right to laugh,” the Rabbi said. “No one in the Judengasse loved a good joke better than Solomon Gruen.

“But now the difficult time has come, before the sun sets over the cemetery, to lay him to rest. I have asked to serve as head pallbearer Hersch Liebmann, in whom Solomon put so much faith when he made him the shammus’s assistant, and who responded so well. The others whom Rabbi Simcha has spoken with can approach the platform now. The rest of you please wait outside. In just a moment we shall carry the coffin out to lead the way.

“To Solomon Gruen, here in the schul he loved so well, I say one final shalom aleichem. Peace be upon him.”

Slowly the men began to file into the street, first those standing at the rear, then those who had been seated. One among them, moving within the muted shuffle, was conscious of a disturbing feeling. He could not recall ever seeing Solomon Gruen pat the head of a little boy, or pinch the cheek of a little girl. Doctor Lev Berkov had the sensation that the Chief Rabbi, for reasons of his own, was making the deceased more beloved than he was.

In the street, with Sabbath lights from the windows gilding the cobblestones, Guttle watched most of the women and older girls drift toward their homes with young children in tow. It was time to put them to bed; they didn’t need to see the burial. Some of the men did the same. There would not be enough room for everyone at the cemetery; they would take a short break before returning to the temple for the evening service. Others remained in their seats, choosing to study their prayer books until the cortege returned.

The procession was led by the six pallbearers carrying the coffin braced against their shoulders. Behind the coffin walked all eight Rabbis of the Judengasse. After them came the dozen men who belonged to the Hevra Kadisha, the Holy Brotherhood. Isidor, watching them pass, could not imagine why anyone would want to be a member. What they did was take care of men who were close to death (women had their own sisterhood) and then prepare the bodies for burial — washing the body, dressing it in a burial shroud; no doubt they had done so that very afternoon with the body in the coffin. Izzy shuddered as they passed. Membership was considered a high honor — so much so that often it was inherited, passed on from father to son among the wealthy. For the first time in his life, Izzy was glad his father was only a butcher.

Those men who wanted to walk to the cemetery came next. A few women, including Guttle, trailed behind. She felt an obligation, having discovered the body. As she walked, she was aware of a gurgling sound emanating from the sewer ditch, accompanying the funeral cortege. Those women who had gone home were hurrying to empty wash basins, dishwater tubs and chamber pots before the Sabbath began.

A loud wailing from the front of the knot of walking women pierced the night air. Guttle saw that the woman keening was Sophie Marcus, the Cantor’s mother, the Schul-Klopper’s sister. She was surprised; she’d heard that Frau Marcus had not gotten along with her brother, that they rarely spoke. As two women rushed to support the bereaved by her elbows, Guttle thought: perhaps she’s the kind of woman who needs attention. And then she thought: her brother is dead, I’m being unkind.

When the procession turned right, through the cemetery gate, a last streak of yellow sky was visible above the wall. It left in deep shade the inscribed faces of the chipped and weathered stones, the oldest of which dated to the Christian year 1234. In the Jewish cemetery in Mainz, thirty kilometres away, Guttle had heard from her father, there were stones from the year 1000.

The procession wended its way along the narrow dirt paths amid clusters of stones, to the place among the deceased Beckers where Hersch and Hiram Liebmann had dug the grave not long before. The pallbearers lowered the coffin onto two leather straps. Holding the ends of these, they lowered the coffin further, into the grave.