Zaddik, page 27
“So, Prince,” said Napoleon, turning around triumphantly, “how do I look?”
Like a perfect idiot, though Czartoryski. “You look like a Jew,” he said.
“But a noble Jew, yes?”
“Of course.”
“A king of the Jews. Perhaps, when your rabbi, the one they call the Seer, sees me, he will proclaim me king of the Jews. What do you think the pope will think of that? What do you think your Alexander will think of that?”
At that moment Marie Waleska entered her bedroom, saw Napoleon, and burst out laughing. Sergeant Betrand slipped out of the room.
That part of Napoleon’s face that was not covered by black whiskers turned purple.
“My lord,” said Czartoryski, “I believe that you may attract more attention in that disguise than you would otherwise. People will wonder why I would be traveling with a Jew.”
“Then you should disguise yourself as I do,” said Napoleon, “and we would be two Jews.”
“But then,” said Czartoryski, horrified at the thought, “we could not be assured of safe conduct. What if we were stopped?”
“Enough!” said Napoleon. “I have decided to wear this disguise. You, Prince Czartoryski, you can do as you will. And you, Marie, I’m hungry. Fetch me some fruit and wine.”
“The way you stuff yourself, I’m surprised you don’t burst,” said Waleska. “You’re the fattest-looking Jew I’ve ever seen.”
Napoleon took two stiff, angry steps toward Waleska, his hand raised as if to strike her. She threw back her shoulders and lifted her head high as if to emphasize the difference in their heights. The little tyrant and his Amazon, though Czartoryski. This is farce, he thought, looking down at his boots, sheer farce. This is not Racine; it’s Molière.
“Don’t be embarrassed, Adam,” said Marie Waleska, pronouncing his name with a tenderness that surprised him and made him realize that she was still available to him. Did Napoleon also hear that note? A frightening thought.
“The emperor and I are beyond embarrassment,” she continued. “Aren’t we, mon empereur?”
Czartoryski, still looking down, heard Waleska leave. He looked up. Napoleon was standing over him.
“You see, Adam?” he began with that all-too-familiar whining note of complaint, and instantly Czartoryski knew that Napoleon was deaf to any subtleties in his mistress’s voice, even the subtleties of love. “You see how she treats me? With scorn. With contempt. This is how it is when great men fall. This is a theme for an epic poem, for an artist like Racine. But I will write a new last act, yes? I will crush them all, beginning with that sack of shit Talleyrand. And Alexander. I will force Alexander to kneel at your feet, Prince Czartoryski, and seat a Pole on a Polish throne. And then, you and I,” said Napoleon, reaching out and clasping Czartoryski’s hand, “we will humble the English. We will close the continent to them, and their shopkeepers will starve. We will take India from them. Like Alexander the Great, we will march east to India. Do you see?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Without markets, without ports, the English are helpless. There is no need to waste an army crossing the Channel. A Channel crossing is always hazardous. But it is not necessary. Instead, we starve them. That was always my intent, but Alexander was weak. Alexander let the priests and those drunken barons lead him around by the nose. If only he had listened to me.
“But all that is past, yes? We are beginning a new adventure. And the Jews will finance it. The Baron de Rothschild is behind me. And now this magician and his diamond. Do you believe in his magic, Adam, or do you just believe in his diamond?”
“I have seen both, my lord.”
“So you have said. So how can I insult him by not dressing as a Jew? You see? By wearing these clothes, I tell him that I am with him.”
“Yes. As you will. But we should be off, my lord.”
Marie Waleska returned carrying a silver platter piled high with pears and grapes. Behind her, her servant carried a bottle of claret.
“Of course,” said Napoleon. “But first we fortify ourselves. An army travels on its stomach, Czartoryski. Isn’t that so?”
“Yes, my lord,” said Czartoryski, watching the juice of a large pear splash onto Napoleon’s false beard. “That’s very well put.”
The Seer closed his eyes and felt his soul return to the study house. He let his head fall to his chest, and then he lifted it, opened his eyes, and saw an old man sitting on the bench in front of him, his coat covered with dust. The Seer leaned forward and tapped the stranger on the shoulder. The man turned around, and the Seer saw his tin-colored beard. The man smiled, showing broken teeth, and then put a finger to his lips, telling the Seer to remain silent. The man turned back around, and the Seer felt his soul again lifted from his body, this time as if someone were taking it on a journey. And this is what he saw and what he understood:
Czartoryski and Napoleon were entering the woods that lay between Warsaw and Lublin. With the sun setting, and night coming on, they would not be seeing many fellow travelers until they arrived at the inn where Czartoryski had decided they would spend the night. It was, Czartoryski knew, owned by a Jew. He must remind Napoleon to keep his mouth shut around the innkeeper, or he surely would be unmasked.
Napoleon had decided to leave Betrand behind with Waleska, and Czartoryski had seen that Marie was pleased to have the grizzled sergeant for company. She always did have a healthy appetite, thought Czartoryski, recalling their few times in bed together in the days before he had procured her for the French Caesar. Most vividly he remembered her flesh—how smooth it had been, like butter, but how alive. It responded to his every touch. He could run his finger across her sweetly rounded, down-covered belly as lightly as he could, yet there would be a red trail marking its passage—a trail that would vanish an instant later. Indeed, although she had told Czartoryski all about her many adventures with her husband’s stable boys—discussing their techniques in bed and comparing them, always unfavorably, with his own—she seemed to him forever virginal, a true Diana. A perfect mistress, thought Czartoryski. Never a wife.
As if he were afraid Napoleon could read his thoughts, Czartoryski turned in his saddle to check on the emperor, who was sitting easily and contentedly on his mount, that ridiculous black hat pressed firmly upon his balding head.
Napoleon nodded to Czartoryski. When Czartoryski turned back around, he spotted an old Jew with a tin-colored beard sitting in the dust by the side of the road. He wasn’t there a moment ago, thought Czartoryski. Where did he come from?
Czartoryski reined in his horse, and Napoleon came up to his side. The Jew sat where he was, smiling at them with brown, broken teeth.
“Ask him, Adam,” said Napoleon, “why he is sitting in the dust.”
“Why shouldn’t I sit in the dust?” the Jew responded in perfect French.
“How extraordinary,” exclaimed Napoleon. “You’re a French Jew?”
“As French as you,” said the Jew.
“Remarkable. Well,” Napoleon said, “I suppose there is no reason why you shouldn’t sit in the dust, but, on the other hand, why should you?”
“That is a deep question indeed, Rabbi,” said the Jew. “But I am too old and too tired to discuss Talmud with you.”
“He takes me for a rabbi,” Napoleon whispered to Czartoryski, enormously pleased.
“Where are you going, old man?” Czartoryski asked.
“Nowhere, obviously,” said the Jew.
“We can see that, my good man,” said Napoleon. “But before you sat down, you were, probably, going somewhere. Where was that?”
“Such wisdom!” exclaimed the old man. “Such a mind! You are perhaps a zaddik, Rabbi?”
“No, not at all,” said Napoleon, who had no idea what the old man was talking about.
“Such modesty!” said the Jew. “Such brilliance wrapped in such humbleness is truly pleasing to the Lord. Before I sat down in the dust, Rabbi, I was going, as I’m sure you are, to Lublin, to celebrate Simkhas Torah with the great Seer. But now I fear I am too weak to get there in time.”
“Nonsense,” said Napoleon. “You can travel with us. Adam, he will ride with you.”
“I do not think this is wise,” said Czartoryski.
“It is fate, Adam. Help the man onto your horse.”
As Czartoryski dismounted, Napoleon smiled and nodded at the old Jew. “What is your name, sir?” he asked.
“Yekl,” answered the old man, his red eyes glittering. “You can call me Yekl.”
And when the Seer’s soul returned once more to his body, he was alone.
Chapter 43 The Seer’s Sukkah
Lublin
Friday, October 15
IN THE SUKKAH, the Seer was crooning the “Song of Songs,” welcoming the Sabbath. Hirsh Leib had never heard it sung so sweetly.
O that he would kiss me with his lips. Indeed, your caresses are better than wine.
With Hirsh Leib at the Seer’s table were Rabbis David, Naftali, and Menachem Mendel. It was the first time the conspirators had assembled since last Tuesday.
He brings me to the house of wine, and looks at me with love. Sustain me with raisins, refresh me with apples, for I am lovesick.
The Seer’s head was thrown back, his eyes closed, as he sang in a soft baritone, his voice rising and falling. Hirsh Leib could imagine the angels in heaven listening, enthralled. He closed his eyes, leaned back in his chair, and inhaled the rich smells of the sukkah: the sweet scent of the beeswax candles, the sharp acid of the citrons hanging from the walls, and the piny tang of the fir branches that made the sukkah’s roof.
On my bed at night I sought him who my soul loves; I sought him, but I did not find him.
Hirsh Leib’s mind leapt to his home, back to Orlik. Would Soreh, his abandoned wife, be thinking of him as she lit the Sabbath candles? Would his two little ones be by her side? Were they safe?
Your lips, my bride, drip honey; honey and milk are under your tongue; the fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon. A garden enclosed is my sister, my bride, a spring enclosed, a fountain sealed.
Hirsh Leib saw his Soreh bending over the candles, her eyes closed as she recited the prayer in a low, musical voice, one of her mother’s pearly linens draped over her head, covering her long, beautiful red hair, hair down to her waist. He saw her tiny white hands, white like milk, white like the finest porcelain, hovering over the candles, cupping the Sabbath flames, bringing the orange tips of the candles close to her breasts as his girls stared up at their mother, their eyes the very models of his Soreh’s eyes, green eyes, as green as the sea. Then he saw her lying in his bed, her hair fanned over the pillow, her breasts, full, white as cream, white as pearl—always a surprise, every night, such large, womanly breasts on such a little girl…
I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had turned away, had gone; my soul failed when he spoke.
“No,” whispered Hirsh Leib as the Seer sang. He would never turn away from his beloved. What had he not learned from his Soreh? How to be a husband. How to be a man. Even Torah. Even kabbalah. His Soreh, he thought pridefully, was a scholar, as learned as any rabbi. How she loved her books. He had taught her. They would study during the Sabbath, and her eyes would get wide and her face would shine in the candlelight as she read the holy words. Afterward she would thank him. She would kiss the palms of his hands, the tips of his fingers, and tell him how he had opened her soul for her. “All the women talk about is their children, and shopping and cleaning, and the way other women raise their children, shop, and clean,” she would say. “Without you, I would have been just like them. My world would have been that small, that narrow.
“Come in to my soul, my love,” she would say. “You have opened it. You have made me more than a woman. Now take that woman part of me.”
How could he have left her for a moment, even to save the world?
Their last night together, Hirsh Leib had looked into her sea green eyes and said, “You know I’d die for you, my love. For you and the girls. I’d die for you.”
“That’s easy,” said Soreh. “Dying is easy. Live for us, my love. That’s what I want, all I want. Live for me.”
How beautiful are your steps in sandals, O Princess; the curves of your thighs are like ornaments made by an artist. Your chest is like a round goblet filled with wine; your body is like a heap of wheat set about with lilies.
Hirsh Leib imagined himself falling into Soreh’s arms once again, her arms encircling him, crushing him to her heavy breasts, fitting herself to him, her nipples pressed against his, her legs wrapped around his waist, her breath warm in his ear, sweet in his mouth.
He opened his eyes and looked at David of Lelov and Menachem Mendel. An hour before, in the Seer’s mikvah, he had seen their pale blue skin, their withered loins, as they’d walked haltingly down the stone steps to immerse themselves in the dark, chilly water. Have they ever known love? Hirsh Leib wondered. Their wives cannot be like my Soreh, so what does the “Song of Songs” mean to them? Do they think only of an abstract Sabbath bride and the love Israel has for the Holy One, blessed is He? How can they know the love of heaven if they don’t know love on earth?
Let us go early to the vineyards, to see whether the grapevine has budded, whether the vine blossoms have opened, if the pomegranates are in flower. There I will give my love to you. The love-plants yield their fragrance, and at our doors are all kinds of precious fruits, both new and old, which I have kept for you, my beloved.
Yes, Soreh had yielded everything to him. She had welcomed him into her secret garden, and he had picked her fruit. Why, then, was he still hungry? Why did he leave, time and again, to sit at the Yehudi’s feet, the Seer’s, always searching?
How can I find my true soul? thought Hirsh Leib. In Orlik, with Soreh, and here, in Lublin, in the Seer’s sukkah, surrounded by zaddikim welcoming the Shabbos, still my soul fails me.
Make haste, my beloved, be like a gazelle, or like a young deer, on the mountains of spice.
I will, Soreh, thought Hirsh Leib. I will.
The song was over; the Seer’s voice drifted away. As if by a signal, Khaye, the Seer’s wife, entered the sukkah. The Seer stood up and sang to her: “A good wife, who can find? She is worth far more than rubies.” After he finished, she smiled and poured wine from a silver pitcher into the kiddush cup. The Seer made the blessing and passed the goblet to Hirsh Leib.
Hirsh Leib looked into the cup, his mind, heart, and soul still in Orlik, still with Soreh. Suddenly the wine looked like blood, a deep ruby pool encircled by a lip of silver. Could it be? He looked up at the Seer, but the Seer had turned away. He looked around the table, but Naftali, David, and Menachem Mendel were all staring at their plates. Was this a trick? Hirsh Leib thought. Why have they given me a cup of blood? Or is this a sign that I will never see my Soreh again?
Grief filled his chest. No, that is impossible, he thought. Not to see Soreh again. That is too cruel.
My mind betrays me, Hirsh Leib thought, lifting the cup to his lips.
“Wine is injurious to him.”
“What did you say?” Hirsh Leib asked the Seer, putting down the cup.
“What?” said the Seer.
“I thought I heard you say something,” said Hirsh Leib, adding, “although you sounded very far away.”
“Nobody said anything, Hirsh Leib,” Rabbi David said, annoyed that the ceremony was being interrupted.
“Are you all right?” Naftali asked. “Perhaps,” he said gently, “you shouldn’t drink the wine right now.”
Hirsh Leib flushed with embarrassment, remembering how he had struck Naftali. The concern in Naftali’s voice enraged him. He picked up the kiddush cup, drained it in one swallow, and then, thrusting it toward the rebbetzin, said, “Here, it’s empty.”
Here, he thought, I’m empty.
At that moment Motl, the Seer’s young student and servant, entered the sukkah, his eyes wide.
“Excuse me, Rabbi,” he said to the Seer. “Count Czartoryski is here. I tried to stop him. I told him you couldn’t be interrupted, but he—”
Pushing Motl aside, Josep Czartoryski burst into the sukkah. The Seer and Hirsh Leib jumped to their feet.
“What could be so important, my lord,” demanded the Seer, “that you should come into our holy place and disturb our prayers?”
“Your lives?”
“What do you mean?” asked Hirsh Leib.
“Right now,” said Czartoryski, “there’s a mob gathering in the market square. It will soon be here. The people of Lublin are tired of your lawlessness, Rabbi. They’re tired of your people’s lies and blasphemies. They’ve gathered in the name of Christ to cleanse their city of your minions.”
David of Lelov began to pray, rocking back and forth on his chair. Menachem Mendel stood and backed up against the wall of the sukkah.
“Why are you telling us this?” asked Naftali.
He means to kill us all, though Hirsh Leib. He means to keep me from my Soreh’s side. Never to see her again. Never to see the children. Never to celebrate the Sabbath with my flesh-and-blood Sabbath bride, my beautiful, red-haired Sabbath bride.
“Go away,” Hirsh Leib said in a hoarse, croaking voice that sounded far off to his own ears. “You have no business here. Go away.”
“You’re a rude, impertinent fellow,” said Czartoryski. “I should let the mob have you.”
“It is your duty to the tsar and to God,” said the Seer, “to protect the Jews of Lublin.”
“Don’t lecture me on my duties, wizard,” said Czartoryski. “How dare you call upon the tsar’s protection even as you betray him. The Lord’s name,” he continued, crossing himself, “is foul in your mouth.
“But I’m a Christian, and as much as I despise your false religion, I don’t wish to see you all slaughtered. I’m prepared to quiet the mob and save your skins if you will turn over to me that diamond you intend to use to bribe the exiled French emperor, Napoleon. In return, not only will I save your lives now, I will also keep your treachery from Tsar Alexander.”
