The Forbidden Book, page 17
All he came up with was a scrap of paper with a note in Yiddish. Ostap and Borysko hadn’t bothered with it because they couldn’t read it and they’d been in a hurry. It didn’t say much anyway. Just: Adela. Talk to Old Rukhele.
“Rukhele the klogerin,” said Sorel-Isser, when Sam read it aloud. “She’s the one who told me what the book is. She lives in the river bottom and begs around the Gravediggers’ Shul. I buy her a hot meal, sometimes.”
“The old witch,” grumbled Ostap.
CHAPTER
22
THEY WRAPPED THE BODY in Sorel-Isser and Adela’s blankets and carried him with them to the river, taking turns. Ostap knew where a smuggler’s boat was hidden—smugglers his brother took bribes from. They took the boat across to the Jewish Quarter, near Yoshke’s boat shed. Yoshke was not at home, and they left the body there with Ostap as a reluctant guardian while Sorel-Isser, Adela, and Sam made their way to the Gravediggers’ Shul to see if Old Rukhele could be found there. Sorel could feel Isser’s soul curled up next to hers in bruised and grieving silence. She wanted to say something to him, but there was nothing that would make it better.
Kalman had not intended for him to die, but he had. Her father—their father. It was a thing that could not be changed. There would be no putting soul and body back together. They kept seeing the hand, his softly curled fingers, pale and discolored, cold as ice. His body was already changing, dust to dust.
It was a relief that he was still there at all, that finding the body hadn’t torn them apart. But only barely.
Adela jostled them with her shoulder, drawing them out of their reverie, and laced her fingers through theirs. Her hand was warm, almost hot, and her grip reassuringly heavy. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t need to.
At the Gravediggers’ Shul, the men were praying the morning service. There was a samovar on the stove at the side, brewing strong tea, and next to this were huddled a couple of elderly beggars, waiting for their cup of tea with sugar and a bit of a raisin bun, which accompanied the gossip after the regular minyan. One of the beggars, to Sorel-Isser’s relief, was Old Rukhele. Sorel-Isser pointed her out to Adela and the two of them approached her quietly, while Sam stood leaning in the doorway, watching the prayer service with his arms folded.
“Grandmother?” Adela murmured, with a gentle touch to Rukhele’s elbow. “I wonder if you could help me with something? My name is Adela. Did Isser tell you about me?”
“Isser …” Rukhele thought for a moment. “Srulka from the print shop, isn’t it? He told me he had a message for an Adela, if anything happened to him. It’s in your usual hiding place—that’s the message.”
Adela frowned. “But I checked the usual hiding place. The rafters in your room,” she added, to Sorel-Isser. “That would be the usual place, wouldn’t it?”
“Not in my room,” said Isser. “I couldn’t stand having it in my room.”
“Not in your room,” Rukhele agreed. “Here. It’s safer, in a shul. A holy place, no?”
All but the old woman glanced upward. The Gravediggers’ Shul was squat and humble, with a post-and-beam roof that reminded Sorel of the hayloft in the stables.
The rafters were not so far from the women’s gallery. An agile person could have climbed into them at some point while the shul was empty and tucked a small package between the beams.
“You made it difficult for yourself, didn’t you,” said Adela, crossing her arms and giving Sorel-Isser an exaggerated frown. “Couldn’t have kept it in your own roof?”
“It stank, and it gave me nightmares,” Isser hissed. “I didn’t want it watching me while I slept. I felt dybbuk-ridden whenever I touched it.”
Adela raised an ironic eyebrow. Isser made a face at her, and they had to look away from each other to stop a hysterical laugh from bubbling up. The men were still praying their service.
“Thank you, grandmother,” Adela whispered, pressing a coin into Old Rukhele’s hand. “Be healthy.”
They moved away from the old woman and her companion, but before they could return to Sam in the doorway, Adela stopped Sorel-Isser with a hand on their elbow and whispered in their ear, “What do we do once we have it?”
“I meant to find someone I could ask to help me read it,” Isser explained. “If I hadn’t—” He waved a hand, brushing away the unsayable. “If I’d had the time. Someone who reads the Holy Language. The only person I know well is Shulem-Yontif, and well, I didn’t want to ask so much of him. He’d already stolen it for me. And I was in trouble.”
“I don’t know that we should just tell Sam we know where it’s hidden,” said Adela, glancing in his direction. “I mean, if he knows where it is, what stops him from taking it and doing what he likes with it and wasting all your effort?”
Sorel-Isser bit their thumbnail, thinking. “I have an idea. We can distract him and get ourselves a religious scholar at the same time. Two birds in one net.”
Pretending Rukhele hadn’t told them the book was in the Gravediggers’ Shul, they reconvened outside in the street.
“She knows where the book is, but we need Shulem-Yontif’s help to get it,” Sorel-Isser explained to Sam. “You should go back to Kalman’s estate and get him. We’ll meet you at the rebbe’s house.”
“Why am I the one going to get Shulem-Yontif?” Sam asked. “I don’t even know him.”
“You’re not human, are you? So your feet don’t hurt.”
“And you can run on all fours,” Adela added. “Faster that way.”
“Shulem-Yontif’s about fifteen years old with black hair and black eyes, and he always looks like he wants to apologize for something,” said Sorel-Isser. “He’s not exactly difficult to spot. He’s the rebbe’s son, he’ll be well-dressed.”
Sam looked for a moment like he wanted to argue, then the blandly cheerful look slid back over his face. It somehow felt just as dangerous as the look of suspicion, and Sorel-Isser’s hand went to the knife in their belt.
But Sam just said, “All right, then. Since we have a bargain.”
Adela and Sorel-Isser sat on their heels until Sam was out of sight, and the men from the minyan started to filter out of the shul. The last to go were Rukhele and the other old beggar, fortified with the last dregs of hot tea from the samovar.
Once the shul was empty, they crept back inside and up the stairs to the women’s gallery. Because of Sorel’s height, it was easier for them to climb into the rafters than it had been for Isser the first time. His hands remembered where to hold on and reach into the joint between two beams to pull out the book, wrapped in oilcloth and bound into the covers of the tehillim whose pages he’d given to Kalman.
They sat on the floor of the women’s gallery to work out their plan.
“The problem with the story of the first Esroger Rebbe’s contract is, it was just the rebbe,” Isser explained to Sorel and Adela. “Reb Kalman is wrong about a lot of things, but he’s right that we can’t only do what the rebbe says. The rebbe thinks it’s bad luck to get too close to gentiles, when we live right on top of each other. We can’t do only what Reb Kalman wants, either. Reb Kalman wants the Jewish community to be respectable and law-abiding, but that means sweeping our real problems under the rug. And the lady—Agrat—she wants free rein within the city. But I don’t trust her either.”
“So what we need is a new contract,” said Adela. “An agreement between the angels and the city that works for everyone. So the city can grow and change, without falling to disaster.”
It was a lot to ask.
But all three of them were used to wishing the world looked different.
* * *
SAM AND SHULEM-YONTIF met them outside the rebbe’s house, in the wealthier Jewish district near the Great Synagogue, though the rebbe himself rarely deigned to set foot in that Enlightened establishment. He conducted services and gave audiences to his court in his own sitting room, which was as big as a ballroom.
They left Sam outside as lookout while they pretended to look for the book hidden in the most unexpected of places—the rebbe’s study, where it should have been all along. Sorel-Isser checked the box where it should have been hidden and removed the stories by Ayzik Mayer Dik while Adela explained the plan to Shulem-Yontif.
“We want to rewrite this contract with the Angels of Death, but none of us know the loshn koydesh.”
Shulem-Yontif looked stricken. Adela was offering him the book, but he held up his hands, shaking his head.
“I can’t read that! Papa said I mustn’t. It’s dangerous.”
“Not reading it is more dangerous,” said Adela. “Isser died for this. Did you know?”
This was the wrong thing to say, as it sent Shulem-Yontif into a fit of tears and handwringing over his own complicity in Isser’s death, and the fact that theft was a sin, and some other incoherent troubles.
“It’s fine,” Sorel-Isser told him. Isser put their arm around his shoulder, over Sorel’s objections. It’s not like he knows it’s you, Alter. “It wasn’t your fault, Shuli. It’s all right. You can make it up to him by helping us with this. You’ll be a hero—Esrog’s new tzadik.”
“Not that anyone’s going to know you’re the tzadik,” said Adela unhelpfully. “We’re keeping all this a secret.”
“A secret mitzvah is more powerful anyway,” said Isser.
This argument, or either Isser’s gently encouraging tone, had the desired effect, and at last Shulem-Yontif sat down in his father’s chair to read over the Sefer Dumah. After a moment he laughed, lightheartedly.
“Oh, but this is simple! It’s only a lot of angels’ names and then very straightforward. It says the angels will protect the Jewish community of Esrog and never transgress the boundary laid out by my great-grandfather—that’s the eruv, I think. They can only collect the souls of the dead in their right time, from the cemetery.”
“And in return they get what?” Sorel asked.
“They don’t really get anything,” said Shulem-Yontif. “It’s just that my great-grandfather was so very strong and righteous. But it must be difficult to keep an angel from breaking into the city, don’t you think? No wonder Papa is so tired all the time.”
“That seems a little unfair,” said Adela. “I thought it would have a payment.”
“It is the Angel of Death we’re talking about,” said Shulem-Yontif uncertainly. “He is evil. Or it’s two angels, there’s two in here—Kaftziel and Dumiel, and a lot of other names, but those are the signatories, so I think the other names are just their own names, or epithets, you know. Are you sure it wouldn’t be better for Papa to explain all of this? I don’t know very much about angels. Only here it says Agrat bat Machlat, also—do you know that story? Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa gave her Wednesday and Friday nights to cavort with her demons. That’s why it’s so unlucky to go out alone after dark. But here in this book, she’s the angel Dumiel.”
“She said the Esroger Rebbe stole her legal right,” said Isser. “She’s not allowed in the city any day at all.”
“Then we have bargaining power,” Adela pointed out. “We can give her back something she thinks she was supposed to have.”
Except Sam also thinks there’s something he’s supposed to have, Sorel reminded Isser, and that’s you. But I have an idea about that.
CHAPTER
23
THEY BROUGHT THE BOOK back to the cemetery, where Agrat bat Machlat was allowed to come and collect her souls and where Rukhele had warned Isser not to bring it, lest he summon the angel and her anger. Shulem-Yontif tagged along, reluctantly, as a representative of the Hasidim and the rebbe’s bloodline, looking all the while as if he might bolt like a rabbit. To Sorel’s great aggravation Isser kept giving him reassuring pats on the back or shoulder.
You’re leading him on, you idiot, she told him.
He doesn’t know it’s me, either! And he’s frightened. Be nice.
Despite Sorel’s plans and the ease with which they were able to share their body now, they were not fully in agreement.
It didn’t take Agrat or Dumiel long to respond to the call, simple as it was. They had been standing among the gravestones for hardly two breaths before they heard the chime of harness bells and a black horse emerged from the forest, picking its way between fallen branches with the lady on its back. Looking at her now next to Sam, Sorel-Isser could see the resemblance. They had the same bottomless eyes.
“You’ve brought me my book,” she said sweetly. “How wonderful. You didn’t have to invite Kaftziel, you know.”
“My name is on the contract,” said Sam. His voice was mild enough, but he’d shifted his weight a little as she approached, squaring up as if preparing to fight. “I intend to make sure you keep to your appointed boundaries, and don’t get carried away spreading a plague, or flooding the river bottoms, or, God forbid, spreading libels against the Jews.”
Agrat sniffed delicately and slid off her horse. She was wearing little embroidered slippers, not unlike the ones Sorel had thrown away on the night of her wedding. The angel stepped carefully between the weeds to keep her feet dry, like a cat. “The Esroger Rebbe stole my rights! Is it so unreasonable for me to want a little revenge? You’d like to take a bit of revenge, wouldn’t you, Soreh bas Kalman? And you, Isser ben Yakov … you’ve been mistreated, yourself. Wouldn’t you like to see them suffer, just a little? The ones who’ve been your enemies, who’ve taken power from you and given you nothing in return? Who haven’t loved you as you have loved them?”
This last she seemed to direct to all of them, even Shulem-Yontif, who shrank back when her eyes swept over him.
“Let my brother have his righteous posturing,” Agrat said, brushing her hand down Sorel-Isser’s cheek. “He’s powerless. You have his dagger—what can he do without it? Bark like a dog, only. He doesn’t mind being constrained. He’s lazy. He likes to watch and wait until the very last moment and never try to change things on his own. Not like us, no? Not like you. Let’s see it, then. Let’s bury it.”
“We’re not going to destroy the contract,” said Sorel.
Agrat stepped back as if she’d been burned. “What?”
“I don’t want revenge. I don’t want to see anyone suffer. I just want to be free. And I understand why you want that, too. It must be boring, never getting to see what’s happening in the city, shut up in your own manor house with no interesting company. But that doesn’t mean you have to destroy everything. We’ll give you back your Wednesday nights and your Fridays. The rebbe never should have taken those from you. But you’re not allowed to take revenge on Esrog for what a rebbe did who isn’t even here anymore.”
The sweetness melted off Agrat’s face. “I don’t have to agree to your terms. I could just take that book from you now and kill you all. No one would even miss you! You’re already dead.”
With a low growl, Sam, dog-shaped, stepped in between them. Agrat glared at him, teeth bared, and for a moment, Sorel-Isser thought she would leap on him and tear at him with her bare hands and teeth. But then she relaxed her shoulders, with a visible effort, and met their eyes again.
“I have been very patient,” she said. “I have waited. I have kept to the terms. But time and again, I have not received what I have been promised. The Esroger Rebbe promised that if I signed that contract, Esrog would be a city of miracles and the whole world would pass by my door. Where are the miracles? No one walks this road now but beggars. I will not agree to a contract without payment.”
Sam growled again, and Sorel-Isser laid a hand on his shoulder, calming. “We have an offer of payment, actually. How would you like to have the life of the princess of Esrog, Reb Kalman’s daughter?”
Agrat blinked and tilted her head.
“The girl’s drowned,” Sorel went on. “It would be a miracle if she returned, wouldn’t it? And if you were Kalman’s daughter, an ordinary girl, the rebbe’s contract wouldn’t stop you from going anywhere at all. I’ll give you everything. All of it. My place in my father’s house, my name, my inheritance. You get to be human, for one lifetime. There’s no better position to annoy the rebbe from. I was supposed to be his daughter-in-law, though that’s not going to happen anymore. His son is running away to Odessa—there’s your revenge.”
“What are you doing?” Adela whispered from behind them.
“There’s just one more stipulation, if you agree to that,” said Sorel. “You have to let Isser stay with me. Both of you.” This was directed to Sam, who’d glanced over his shoulder at them. “We’re giving you everything else you want in this contract. Just let him stay.”
EPILOGUE
THE SMALL GRAVEYARD on the edge of Kalman Senderovich’s estate was usually choked with brambles, but it had been cleaned up to bury Sorel Kalmans. Until the girl reappeared from the forest, disoriented and chilled, claiming she’d been afflicted by a dybbuk on the night before her wedding and run in a panic, scarcely knowing where she was, surviving on forest berries and roots for days all alone. When the coffin was dug up, it was found to be empty, only a few handfuls of damp clay in the bottom, as if the drowned body had simply gotten up and walked away.
The miracle was imputed to the holiness of the Esroger Rebbe. It was, in its way, not even surprising.
The brambles were already growing back when Alter-Yisrael, Adela, and Sam brought the body that had once been Isser to lie in the false Sorel’s grave. Rumor had it that Kalman and his daughter were moving into the city itself, that the half-mad girl refused to step foot again onto the land where she’d fallen victim to the demon. Kalman Senderovich was going into the business of cutting railway ties, which was better conducted from the northwestern side of Esrog, far from the river.
Soon enough the whole estate would be eaten by the forest. No one would ever know that the empty space in the graveyard had been filled after all.
