The Forbidden Book, page 10
“Not in the synagogue,” said the woman, as if she were speaking to a rather dim child. “They’ve got her in the mortuary at the poorhouse behind, poor child, may we be spared such sorrows. But there’s no room in that alleyway, and anyway if there’s ever news to be heard you can hear it on Synagogue Street, everyone knows it. You’re new to Esrog?”
“Yes,” said Sorel. “I came for the wedding feast. To get the rebbe’s blessing, you know, because I’m a poor orphan.”
Adela gave her a look that made her think her tone hadn’t been quite right for what she was saying. Maybe it was because she was eating candy while she said it. She tried to surreptitiously lick the last of the sugar off her hand as she tucked the rest of the packet away for later.
“Well, God forbid it is Kalman’s daughter, that is, the rebbe’s daughter-in-law,” said the woman. She was still handing out candy to small, grubby-faced customers as she talked, and her God forbid didn’t sound any more sincere than Sorel’s poor orphan. “It’s a great blessing to the community to have that wedding.”
“Right,” said Sorel. “Because it means the Hasidim and the kahal aren’t rivals anymore. Isn’t that it?”
“That’s right. And because if they’re family, no one can spread those nasty rumors about Kalman Senderovich anymore! Not that any of us ever believed them.” She gave Sorel a sidelong, hopeful look.
Sorel resigned herself to yet another Esroger telling her stories about her father. “What nasty rumors?”
“That he had the rebbe’s father murdered years ago! Oh, it was a terrible time. A time of devils! There was a goat born in Kuritsev with three eyes that spring—my own mother saw it. I was just a young bride then.”
“I’m from Kuritsev,” said Adela. “I never heard of a three-eyed goat. Alter, come on, I want to get closer.”
She dragged Sorel away by the back of her coat, employing some impressive elbow jabs to clear them a path through the crowd toward the front of the synagogue. Sorel ducked her head and pulled her cap lower when she recognized the same lieutenant of the rebbe that she’d spoken to on her wedding day, the one who’d been annoyed to hear she’d gone missing.
Adela dragged her past a knot of skinny teenage Hasidim and wedged the two of them into a corner by the door to the women’s section. Even this close, the whispered consultation of the men in the doorway was impossible to catch—too many people were speaking on all sides. Sorel leaned forward and strained her ears and caught her own name.
“It is Kalman’s daughter,” she reported to Adela. “But that can’t be right!”
“Why not?” Adela asked. She was frowning into the crowd as if she’d just caught sight of something.
Sorel opened her mouth to explain that it was impossible for Kalman’s daughter to have drowned in the river—then stopped. She had no reasonable explanation for thinking so, unless she wanted to explain that she knew exactly where the body of Kalman’s daughter was located. And for some reason, she really did not want to give up that secret.
“I just … I don’t think it’s her,” she said, hearing the lack of confidence in her own voice. “I mean first of all, how could it have happened?”
“Isser, look,” said Adela. “That’s him, isn’t it?”
“What?” Sorel blinked, looking around. Adela was pointing, although subtly, with her hand held up to her chest as if she didn’t want to alert the person she’d seen. Sorel followed her gaze to the group of boys in hasidic gabardines. They all seemed to be gathered around one in particular, which Sorel hadn’t noticed before. One of his friends was patting him consolingly on the shoulder.
“What’s he doing here?” Sorel exclaimed, before she could stop herself.
She was standing barely twenty feet from her fiancé.
* * *
“IT’S HIM, ISN’T IT?” said Adela.
“Him who?” said Sorel, catching herself. “Isser isn’t here right now. I haven’t heard from him.”
Not even in her dreams, she realized now. Had he broken himself? Surely scaring Pavlikov hadn’t been all he wanted. He’d needed to find his body.
“The one whose father paid for Isser to take his place at school,” said Adela. At the same time that Sorel, looking again, realized something else and said,
“The hasid who looks like a weasel!”
He really did look a bit like a weasel, poor thing, once you considered that weasels’ dark shining eyes were quite sweet. He was a bit younger than Sorel, but he’d always seemed even younger than he was—not that they’d ever talked that much. Mainly because he seemed unable to speak to or look at her. She’d never gotten this good a look at his face, in fact, because he kept his eyes glued to his own toes whenever they were in a room together.
“His name’s Shulem-Yontif, poor bastard,” she said, and cursed herself again for speaking without thinking. “Uh, I think. Isser maybe mentioned it.”
“That’s right,” said Adela, not noticing the stumble. “Shulem-Yontif. He looks a bit …”
She trailed off.
“A bit of a shlimazl?” Sorel suggested. “Well, everyone’s saying his wife’s dead, aren’t they.”
Shulem-Yontif, indeed looked like he’d been crying, although Sorel couldn’t imagine why. It wasn’t as if he’d ever really had a conversation with her. And he couldn’t have been looking forward to performing the mitzvah of man and wife with her, surely. She’d been as unpleasant to him as she possibly could in their every interaction.
She almost felt bad about it now. With neither of their fathers standing by, he looked very young and innocent, and easy to knock over.
“He’s the rebbe’s son?” Adela asked. “I didn’t know that. We should talk to him.”
Sorel almost screamed that they definitely shouldn’t, but it was too late. Adela didn’t wait for anyone’s approval—or, for that matter, to consider whether a group of yeshiva boys in black coats would even speak to her in public. Sorel was forced to run after her.
“Adela, you can’t talk to him in public. I’ll get him.” She couldn’t be sure Shulem-Yontif wouldn’t recognize her, but she was sure she couldn’t convince Adela it wasn’t worth talking to him. “If you go in the alley and wait, I’ll bring him. He won’t talk to you with people watching.”
Adela huffed but stopped and turned toward the alley Sorel had pointed to. “Fine. Just don’t let him go without talking.”
This left Sorel alone with the problem of how to convince Shulem-Yontif to follow her into an alleyway instead of sticking around to hear whatever announcement the crowd was hoping for. She dithered for a moment and then decided that since she was a boy, she could be direct. No need for cleverness, just bully him. He looked like he’d easily submit to bullying.
She marched up to him and grabbed him by the arm. “Shulem-Yontif! I need to talk to you!”
The boys all goggled at her, wide-eyed.
“What?” said Shulem-Yontif. “Who? What?”
Sorel didn’t bother to explain. She just yanked him by the elbow until he gave in and followed her, leaving the rest of the group to stare after them. They pushed through the crowd easily enough but at the mouth of the narrow alley—nearly blocked by a rain barrel they’d have to squeeze past—Shulem-Yontif suddenly dug in his heels.
“Did Yoshke send you?” he squeaked. “I already talked to Yoshke! I don’t have anything more to say to him!”
“Yoshke did not send me,” said Sorel, adjusting her grip so she could push him ahead of her like a recalcitrant goat. They wrestled for a moment and then he gave up again, or rather he switched to a strategy of going limp in her arms, so that she had to drag him into the alley where Adela was waiting, half-hidden among strings of laundry that criss-crossed the small space.
Shulem-Yontif seemed to have expected a gang of armed men or fighting dogs. He breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of just one girl, but then an expression of confusion crossed his face.
“Guess what,” said Sorel, positioning herself at his back so he couldn’t slip away, and so he wouldn’t be looking at her face as Adela talked. “Yoshke lied to us. He’s talked to Shulem-Yontif already.”
“What did Yoshke talk to you about?” Adela asked.
“I told him everything!” said Shulem-Yontif, desperately. “I haven’t seen Isser! And he didn’t give the book back, he has it—and I don’t even know what he wanted it for, so don’t ask me!”
“Slow down,” said Adela. “I’m Adela, by the way. You’re Shulem-Yontif?”
“I don’t want to talk to you,” said Shulem-Yontif, who was looking anywhere but Adela’s face, even craning his neck around to try to look at Sorel. Sorel was rather enjoying the role of enforcer, folding her arms and glaring at him.
“We’re not going to hurt you,” said Adela. “I’m just a friend of Isser’s and I’m looking for him. I’m not a friend of Yoshke’s, either. Yoshke said he didn’t know who Isser’s Hasidic friend was, but that was a lie, wasn’t it? He knew it was you.”
“It’s a sin to speak to a woman in seclusion,” Shulem-Yontif mumbled.
“We aren’t in seclusion,” said Adela. “We’re in public, and Alter is here.”
Shulem-Yontif looked around at Sorel again. He did not seem reassured by her as a chaperone. Sorel felt an odd spark of a memory—sitting with Shulem-Yontif over a book, the two of them having a real conversation. It was accompanied by the same warmth of affection she’d briefly felt for Yoshke, through Isser.
So, he and Isser had been friends. The boy had strange taste.
“What’s this about a book?” she asked. “Yoshke asked you about a book?”
Shulem-Yontif wrung his hands, looking between them for a moment before heaving a sigh of resignation. “Yes, there was—he asked for a book from my father’s library. My father, do you know him?”
“Everyone knows your father’s the Esroger tzadik,” said Sorel, ignoring the fact that Adela clearly hadn’t known it a few minutes ago. “What book?”
“A book,” said Shulem-Yontif again, uselessly. “A, well, God forbid, a very illegal book. But a holy book! A holy book. Well, I’m not allowed to read it. You can’t read it unless you’re married, so I didn’t. But Isser needed it. He said he was just borrowing it! But he stole it! You should tell him I’m not his friend anymore.”
“We will if we find him,” said Sorel. Isser’s affection and her own grudging pity were knotted together in her chest and making her, strangely, want to throw Shulem-Yontif in a puddle. “When was this? And Yoshke asked for it, too? So Yoshke knew.”
Shulem-Yontif nodded.
“How did this happen?” Adela asked. “How did Isser even know your father had an illegal book?”
“Well, he knows he has a lot of illegal books,” said Shulem-Yontif. “He buys them—my father buys them from him. Often. So of course he knew. But Isser asked for this one, specifically, and he promised me he’d give it back before my father ever knew, only he didn’t, and I told him it had to be before my wedding because I’m supposed to go to the woods with my wife, I mean, to live with Kalman the lumber merchant, so I wouldn’t be there to put the book back. But the wedding didn’t even happen and now my wife is dead!”
This last sentence was on a rising pitch and volume, ending abruptly in a sob. He hid his face in his hands, wailing.
Adela looked like she wanted to reach out and comfort him but stopped herself. She gave Sorel a sharp look that Sorel did not understand.
“Maybe it isn’t your wife,” said Sorel, stiffly. “I mean, who’s even taken a good look at the body?”
This didn’t seem to help. Shulem-Yontif started chanting something in Hebrew—she thought it was a psalm.
“Why were you and Isser talking to each other to begin with?” she asked, trying to change the subject. “He’s not a hasid. Just because he sold books?”
“He’s been teaching me to read in Russian,” said Shulem-Yontif, in a small voice. “Don’t tell my father.”
“Really?” said Sorel, intrigued despite herself. This was a depth she had not expected from the rebbe’s obedient son.
“We read poetry,” said Shulem-Yontif, as if admitting to the greatest of sins. He was blushing furiously. Sorel wished Isser would wake up so she could talk to him—she suddenly had a lot of questions.
Shulem-Yontif went on, “I asked him to teach me. He was always coming by! And he’s so—well, he’s different. Can you please tell him to bring that book back?”
“Of course we will,” said Adela gently. “But can you think of anything else? Did Yoshke say anything about where Isser has been?”
Shulem-Yontif shook his head. “Just that he hasn’t been around and people are looking for him and Yoshke wanted the book. Which he shouldn’t even know about, by the way!” He lifted his head with a sudden spark of indignation. “It was meant to be a secret!”
“Isser’s bad at keeping promises,” said Adela. “I’m sorry he did that to you.”
Shulem-Yontif didn’t answer, but he looked as if he would have liked to thank her.
“You can go now,” said Sorel, stepping aside as much as she could in the narrow space. “If that’s really all you know.”
“Wait, no it isn’t,” said Adela. “What’s the book called, and what does it look like?”
“It’s called Sefer Dumah,” said Shulem-Yontif. “The Book of the Angel of Silence. And it’s just a book.” He held up his hands to indicate a smallish size. “Bound in red leather. There’s nothing on the cover and it’s tied shut with a ribbon. And it’s very old,” he added, wrinkling his nose. “It smells.”
“Thank you,” said Adela. “Now you can go. And we won’t share your secret if you don’t tell anyone you saw us, all right?”
“Promise,” said Shulem-Yontif, and squirmed past Sorel and the rain barrel to disappear into the crowd again.
“So?” said Sorel. Adela looked like she was thinking, her arms folded and eyebrows knit as she gazed at the mud where Shulem-Yontif had been standing.
“So,” said Adela, “now we know Isser had two secrets.”
CHAPTER
13
FROM THE WAY Shulem-Yontif talked about it, Isser had thought the book would be immediately recognizable as important, a weighty tome bound in leather, perhaps with embossed lettering. But it was nothing like that. It was barely thicker than the chapbooks he sold every day, block printed on cheap rag with fraying edges and charcoal-dust fingerprints on the cover. The one thing that stood out was that it reeked of camphor, making him gag when he inhaled too close to the pages.
“This is it?” he asked, weighing it in his hand again.
“That’s it,” said Shulem-Yontif.
“It’s so ordinary.” He didn’t know why he was disappointed. This would be much easier to carry, much easier to hide. He flipped it open and checked the binding. Three simple stitches. He already knew how he’d disguise it.
“Well,” said Shulem-Yontif, in a tone that told Isser he’d been planning out a narrative in his head. Shulem-Yontif, poor thing, had hardly any adventures in his life, but he was always dreaming of ways to make things sound adventurous. He must have been so thrilled when Isser handed him the real thing—an actual adventure with theft, intrigue, betrayal. Like something from a novel. “You see, my father showed it to me once in particular, so that I’d know that I’m never, ever to touch this book or read it, and certainly not learn anything from it.”
“He didn’t think telling you about the secret book would make you want to read it?” Isser asked. “I mean, couldn’t he just not tell you he had a forbidden book to begin with?”
Shulem-Yontif blinked, thrown off his rhythm by the interruption. “Why would he think that? I never disobey him.”
Isser shook his head. “God bless you, Shulem-Yontif.”
“Well, anyway, he keeps it in a box in his study, locked up. And he very rarely opens it. Only on holidays! I think. Not that I’m always there when he’s in his study, but I’ve seen him take it out on holidays. Always on Shavuot—so you have to bring it back by then. Promise?”
“Right,” said Isser. He was quite sure that by Shavuot the book would no longer be in his hands, one way or another, and he doubted he’d be here to face Shulem-Yontif’s disappointment.
“So what I had to do was get the key to the box, and sneak into his study, and open it, and do you know what I did then? I replaced it!” Shulem-Yontif beamed at him, delighted by this bit of improvisation, and Isser smiled weakly back. “I replaced it with one of your pamphlets. A story by Ayzik Meyer Dik.”
Isser opened his mouth to protest—one of my pamphlets?—but bit his tongue. Shulem-Yontif, poor thing, was doing his best.
Still, if the rebbe opened the box and found a bit of Yiddish social criticism in place of his sacred angel book … he would know. He’d know it was Isser, and he’d think Isser was laughing at him.
He couldn’t blame Shulem-Yontif for it. The boy had no head for disobedience, he wouldn’t understand.
“Thanks, Shuli,” Isser said, and tucked the Sefer Dumah into his vest. “You’re a mensch.”
* * *
BACK IN HIS ROOM over the stables, Isser stacked his kettle and saucepan in front of the door so that anyone trying to get in would cause a racket, covered the window with his coat, and set the lamp on the table.
The pungent camphor scent from the Sefer seemed to fill the whole cramped space when he laid it out in the light. It surprised him that it was printed at all—there must be other copies somewhere, or at least there must once have been copies, despite Shulem-Yontif’s insistence that it was the only one in the world. He didn’t recognize the letterforms, though. He thought someone might have stamped each page as a whole, from a single block, though he couldn’t think why they’d go through the trouble. He recognized on a few of the pages the smudged marks at the corners that you’d get from an improperly carved woodblock.
There was an illustration too, in the middle, but he couldn’t make any sense of it; it was just a tangle of shadows, lines that suggested a sense of movement as of wings or horses’ legs, something swift, but nothing definable. Was it the shape of the angel the text was meant to bind? He vaguely recalled that angels were supposed to be invisible, or you weren’t meant to look at them, like the kohanim giving a blessing in shul. He’d looked at them a few times, having no father to stop him and no holy fear to compensate. They were just barefoot old men to him. Angels, he thought, might be equally disappointing.
