Zaddik, page 23
“Yes, Hirsh Leib, go with Naftali,” said the Seer. “But first, Naftali, we need a moment alone with our friend. Then he will join you.”
Naftali left the room, and Hirsh Leib was alone with his teacher.
“You will come with me tonight, my friend, to meet with Prince Czartoryski,” said the Seer. “Tonight we will give him the diamond to give to Napoleon.”
The Seer reached into the folds of his flowing silk robe and removed the jewel.
Again Hirsh Leib stared at it in wonder. It was the size of a goose’s egg, and it seemed as if the light from all the candles in the room were flickering inside it, multiplied a hundred times. And each tiny point of light was surrounded by a minute rainbow. Hirsh Leib could not tear his eyes away from it.
“We must bring Napoleon to us,” said the Seer. “He must come here, to Lublin, on erev Simkhas Torah. He must stand before the Torah and let the strength of the Lord enter his limbs. He must enter into a covenant with Israel, leading us out of Poland like a new Moses, opening to us the Holy Land. This diamond is the bait that will hook him. And if he is truly the one, then I will give him the stone, and it, along with our prayers and the Holy One’s right arm, will purchase for him the victory that will be our redemption.
“This I share with you, Hirsh Leib, and with you alone. You are the strongest. Tonight, when I go to meet Czartoryski, your strength will be by our side.”
Hirsh Leib looked up into the Seer’s face, and despite the Seer’s words, he saw uncertainty, sorrow, and even fear there, a fear he felt reflected and magnified in his own soul even as the diamond reflected and magnified the light of the candles.
“If?” asked Hirsh Leib. “If he is the one? You have not seen it?”
“I have seen both victory and defeat. I have seen the desert bloom, and I have seen the desert blasted. Always, I have seen death. I have seen such terrible things, Hirsh Leib, that I cannot speak of them.”
“How can we do this, then?” asked Hirsh Leib. “How can we take such a terrible step if we are not sure?”
“We leap into the darkness,” answered the Seer, “because the fire rages at our back.”
Chapter 37 Berel’s Tavern
Lublin
Wednesday, October 13
LATER, AS HE SAT in Berel’s tavern listening to Naftali and Bunem argue about whether what was happening at the Congress of Vienna was good or bad for the Jews, Hirsh Leib kept thinking about Prince Czartoryski’s gloves.
They had been, Hirsh Leib was sure, pigskin. And when he had handed the Seer’s diamond to the prince, and his hand had touched the nobleman’s glove, it seemed to him as if it were covered with butter, it was so smooth and soft. For a moment, before Czartoryski returned it to him, the stone had rested in the aristocrat’s palm, catching the moonlight, and Hirsh Leib had shuddered thinking of this jewel, upon which rode so many of their holy plans, sitting on the skin of a pig covering the hand of a Christian prince.
Why hadn’t the stone fled from the touch of pig? Hirsh Leib thought now. Wasn’t it a Jewish stone? Soft pigskin covering the hands of a Polish pig. And my hands, too, are unclean. I am unclean.
I’m drunk, Hirsh Leib realized. I’m drunk again.
Rabbi Bunem, ripping off a hunk of brown bread from the loaf on their table, was saying that the Austrian Metternich was good for the Jews because he would keep Poland tied to Russia, and the tsar was better than the Polish poretsim, who were all bloodthirsty drunkards.
Rabbi Naftali, stuffing a slice of herring into his mouth, said that Metternich, and Talleyrand, too, were part of the old order, and that the men meeting in Vienna to divide up Europe were trying to turn back the clock and undo the French Revolution. And that this was terrible for the Jews.
“Don’t be so naive, Naftali,” said Bunem. “Unlike you, I have seen the world. I have walked the streets of Paris. You think the French care about the Jews? You think their revolution was about the Jews? Napoleon used the Jews, and”—Bunem lowered his voice—“he is still using them, as you know very well.”
What are they saying? thought Hirsh Leib, staring into the amber brandy in his glass and then closing his burning eyes. If they had only seen what I have seen tonight, he thought, they would realize that the noise of their silly argument is about to be drowned out by the trumpets of the Lord.
Hirsh Leib and Rebbe Yitzhak had stood silently shivering under the cold stars on the Seer’s hill, watching Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, his long blond hair flowing down his back, lead his horse through the brush. When the prince reached the rebbe and his disciple, Hirsh Leib took the reins of Czartoryski’s horse from his hands.
The Seer had prepared Hirsh Leib for this meeting. He had told him that Prince Adam was a friend to the Jews. Or, at least, as good a friend as the Jews could expect. He also told Hirsh Leib about the prince’s brother, Count Josep, who hated the Jews and was always stirring up the peasants against them.
Several years ago, the Seer told Hirsh Leib, at the prince’s son’s baptism, Adam had told his brother the story of how the Maggid of Koznitz had helped him. Adam had been married to the Princess Grushinka for six years, and they had had no children. Adam had gone to the priests, gone to the physicians, and finally, in desperation, he had asked the Seer of Lublin what to do. The Seer told him to visit Rabbi Israel, the Maggid, who, the Seer said, was a wonder worker.
So Czartoryski rode all day and all night and arrived in Koznitz to meet the Maggid, a tiny, feeble-looking man who, from birth, was so sickly and weak that he spent most of his life in bed, wrapped in warm rabbit skins, rising only to pray.
The prince told the Maggid of his wife’s barrenness, and in a small, almost inaudible whisper, the Maggid agreed to pray for him, assuring him that when he returned to Lublin, his wife would conceive. And here, Czartoryski had said to his brother, holding up his infant son, still dripping from the holy water of the baptismal font, is the fruit.
Josep, whose own strapping four-year-old son—already something of a bully like his father—was standing by his side, proposed a bet. “Let’s go see this Jew, this so-called holy man,” he had said, “and I’ll show you he doesn’t know apples from fish. If I’m right, you will give me your best hunting falcon.”
“And what if you’re wrong? What will you give me?” Adam had asked.
“I’ll name my next son Adam.”
So, said the Seer, they rode to Koznitz together, and Josep said to the Maggid, “Oh, holy Jew, I beg you. My son is sick; I fear he is dying. Please pray for him.”
The Maggid said nothing, only closed his eyes. “Please,” said Josep, winking at his brother, “please pray for my son.”
The Maggid opened his eyes. “Go,” he whispered sadly. “There’s nothing I can do. Go quickly. Perhaps you will be in time to see your son while he still breathes.”
The two brothers left, and all the way back Josep teased Adam and mocked the Maggid. But when they returned to the castle in the morning, Josep’s son was dead. He had fallen off his horse and broken his neck.
From that time on, the Seer said, Josep had hated the Jews with a black, never-flagging passion.
Now Prince Adam Czartoryski addressed the Seer of Lublin. “Only for you would I come out so late on such a night, Rabbi,” said Czartoryski. “You are well, I trust?”
“Yes, thank the Lord. And you also?”
“Very well.”
“And your wife and son?”
“Yes, well, thank God.”
“The Lord be praised.”
“Yes. Well, Rabbi,” said Czartoryski, “Lublin is certainly stuffed with your followers. I think tonight there are more Jews sleeping in Lublin than in any city in Poland. You must be pleased.”
“It is the will of the Lord.”
“Of course. Well, Rabbi,” Czartoryski said jocularly, “what are these affairs of state you wish to discuss, and why must we discuss them here, now, like conspirators?”
“You once told me, my lord, of your respect for the French emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte,” said the Seer. “Do you respect him still?”
“No,” Czartoryski said gravely. “He went mad. Anyway, Bonaparte is finished. He will die on that rock the English have sent him to.”
Said the Seer, “Napoleon is in Warsaw.”
“Nonsense.”
“It is true.”
“Some Jewish magic tells you this?” asked Czartoryski.
“The rabbi of Warsaw tells me this,” said the Seer. “Napoleon is with his mistress, Countess Marie Waleska. He travels freely now. In disguise, of course.”
Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski folded his arms across his chest. He thought the Jews a strange, somewhat repellent people, but he did not hate them. As far as he was concerned, the best of them were better company than most of the vain, foolish noblemen he spent much of his time avoiding; their rabbis were more trustworthy and probably more pious than most of the priests he knew, and the poorest, humblest Jew in Lublin was far more sophisticated than any of his peasants. The Jews, at least, could read. And they bathed from time to time.
Tsar Alexander, Czartoryski knew from their many conversations, felt the same way. The Jews, he often said, paid their taxes; they facilitated trade by providing loans to Christian merchants at reasonable rates of interest. Didn’t Alexander himself keep a Jewish physician? Of course he did.
But Czartoryski knew that the tsar’s relatively benign attitude toward the Jews was changing because of Napoleon. The last time Czartoryski had visited the tsar, meeting him in his summer palace on the Black Sea, Alexander had been fretting about Napoleon, exiled to Elba only a few months before. At one time Alexander had been enthralled by the French emperor. But with Napoleon’s renegade minister, the clubfooted Talleyrand, whispering in one ear and the Russian Orthodox priests whispering in the other, Alexander had come to believe that, if not the anti-Christ himself, Napoleon was certainly an enemy of Christianity. And, of course, Alexander could never forgive Napoleon for burning Moscow, forgetting that it was he himself who had given the order to put the holy city to the torch.
Now the tsar was saying that the Jews, especially the Rothschilds, were secretly financing a new Bonaparte adventure, preparing to return him to his throne in Paris. Didn’t Napoleon in 1799 call upon the Jews to help him in his wars against the Turk? In 1806 didn’t Napoleon give the Jews of France a year’s grace in the payment of all their debts to their landlords? And hadn’t the Jews in return declared France a homeland, promising to defend it unto the death?
For God’s sake, the tsar had raged, that fat, arrogant, dwarfish Corsican who dared call himself an emperor gave the Prussian Jews all the rights of citizenship just six years ago.
Prince Czartoryski himself had mixed feelings about Napoleon. Years ago, when Czartoryski met the first consul, he had been bowled over by Bonaparte’s energy and vision. This man, Czartoryski had thought, must be followed. And in the ensuing years Bonaparte had teased Czartoryski over and over again with the promise of his support for Polish independence. But then he would conclude another pact with Alexander, and the subject of Poland would be forgotten.
Now Czartoryski thought of Napoleon as a glorious ruin—a missed opportunity—and, unlike the tsar, he did not think the emperor would ever return from Elba.
Until this moment. What was this Jew saying? Bonaparte in Warsaw? Less than 150 kilometers away?
Czartoryski knew, of course, how infatuated Napoleon had been with Marie Waleska when Czartoryski had introduced her to him in Warsaw seven years ago, after Bonaparte had taken most of Poland from the tsar. Indeed, Czartoryski had coached the eighteen-year-old Countess on how to flatter her French conqueror. Czartoryski had told her that she could be the Polish Esther. As Esther had saved the Jews from Haman by seducing King Ahasuerus, Marie could take Bonaparte into her bed and convince him to grant Poland its freedom.
I underestimated him, Czartoryski recalled now. Yes, Marie had bewitched him. How could she not? Even today she is known as the most beautiful woman in Poland. And seven years ago she seemed a goddess come to earth, her hair the color of the sun, her skin the color of the dawn. Yes, she took Napoleon to her bed and bore him a son. But the French emperor had not allowed his pleasures to interfere with his politics.
And that must still be the case, thought Czartoryski. If Bonaparte is in Warsaw, it is not just to lie in Marie Waleska’s lovely white arms.
“Even if what you say is true, Rabbi,” said Czartoryski, “why are you telling me?”
“Because I know that you are a patriot, my lord,” said the Seer, “and today Poland’s future is in the hands of the Austrians and the tsar. And you know that they will never grant Poland its freedom.”
“So? What is this to you, Rabbi?” asked Czartoryski.
“I am telling you, my lord,” the Seer said, “that Napoleon has returned. He is gathering strength. A man who would help him now will reap a rich reward for his country.”
“You are speaking treason, Rabbi. You should not involve yourself in such matters, in politics. You forget yourself. Go back to your temple, go back to your prayers, and I will forget this conversation. This world is not your world. If you play in this world without armies, without power, you and all your people will be crushed.”
“I have the power of the Lord, blessed be His name,” said the Seer. “What armies are as great as His? What power greater? And the Lord gave me this”—the Seer brought out the diamond from beneath his cloak—“to bring Napoleon here to Lublin. Reb Leib,” said the Seer, “give the stone to the prince.”
Hirsh Leib took the diamond from Rebbe Yitzhak and handed it to Prince Czartoryski, his hand brushing the prince’s yellow pigskin glove.
“I beg you,” said the Seer, “go to Warsaw. Go to Napoleon. Tell him of this treasure. Tell him it is his if he will come to Lublin to receive it from my hand. In six days, when we remove the Torahs from the synagogue and take them into the streets, if he will meet me by the steps of the great shul, the diamond will be his. Tell him that the Jews bless his endeavors, and that the God of the Jews blesses him also. Poland, Prince Czartoryski, I leave to you.”
Prince Adam Czartoryski stared at the diamond in his hand. Could such a stone be real? He had never seen its match, not even among all the treasures of Moscow and Paris. Even in the darkness it seemed to shine, gathering the light of the moon and stars. And this jewel belonged to a Jew in his own town of Lublin?
“Where did you come by this stone, Rabbi?” Czartoryski asked sternly.
“It was a gift of the Lord’s, blessed be He,” said the Seer. “As your son was a gift. And as your country’s freedom will be a gift.”
Czartoryski thought of Alexander, flush with his victory over Napoleon, and how when Czartoryski had tried to bring up the restoration of the grand duchy of Warsaw, Alexander had brushed the subject aside. Later, the tsar had said to Czartoryski, we’ll discuss it later. And then, last June, in Vienna, Alexander’s representatives had agreed to divide up Poland with Austria and Prussia. What the rabbi had said was true: Poland would never receive justice from the hands of the men in Vienna.
“Will you do this, Prince Adam Czartoryski?” demanded the Seer.
***
“Hirsh Leib, Hirsh Leib,” said Bunem, shaking him. “Do you find our conversation so boring that you have fallen asleep, or have you had too much brandy?”
Hirsh Leib opened his eyes. The stars above the Seer’s Hill were replaced by the smoking candles of Berel’s tavern.
“You are a fool, apothecary,” Hirsh Leib said angrily. “And you, too, Naftali, a fool. You babble about Metternich and Talleyrand and Vienna and Moscow. We are the center of the world right now. Lublin is the center of the world. And this is where God’s plan is being formed. Right here in holy Lublin. Not in Vienna or Moscow or Warsaw, where the Christians roast pigs and have orgies and sleep with their mistresses.”
“Our friend is drunk,” said Rabbi Bunem. “We’ll take him to my home, Naftali. We’re going home, Reb Leib.”
“I’ll have another brandy,” Hirsh Leib said.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, my friend,” said Naftali.
“You don’t think, you don’t think,” Hirsh Leib said scornfully. “You want to go home? Go home. You too, Bunem. Both of you, go home. Sleep. Sleep while the world spins. Sleep while the pigs fornicate. I’ll have a brandy with our brother Berel, an honest Jew, a learned Jew. Berel,” Hirsh Leib shouted to the tavernkeeper, who was sitting slumped over by the door. “Wake up, Berel. In the name of the Holy One, wake up. Have a last brandy with Hirsh Leib of Orlik.”
Hirsh Leib threw off the hands of his friends and staggered over to Berel, shaking him violently. As Berel blinked awake, sputtering, Goldeh, his wife, came down the stairs from their rooms above the tavern.
“Shame, shame on you,” shouted Goldeh, a stout, red-faced woman. “What are you doing? Go home, you crazy men. Go home to your wives and children and leave us in peace.”
“Hirsh Leib,” said Naftali, pulling him from behind. “Please, let’s go away from here.”
Hirsh Leib spun around and struck Naftali across the face with the back of his hand. Naftali fell in a heap to the tavern’s floor.
“You murderer!” Goldeh screamed. “You crazy drunkard! Look what you’ve done. You murderer.”
Hirsh Leib looked down at his friend in horror. He closed his eyes and saw, quite vividly, a small boy, a black-skinned boy, lying on the ground, bleeding. A man was standing over him, rocking and weeping. Hirsh Leib felt the man’s sobs in his own chest, as if it were he himself who was crying. Hirsh Leib opened his eyes.
Naftali rolled over onto his knees, his head hanging. Then he vomited bread, brandy, and herring. Bunem kneeled down next to Naftali and stroked his head.
“He’s all right,” said Bunem, looking up at Hirsh Leib. “Go home. Go home, Hirsh Leib, and for the sake of heaven ask God to give you rest from the Evil Impulse.”
