“Why don’t you, then?” she’d retorted, heat spreading in her cheeks. She hadn’t meant to speak sharply, but her heart had jumped in her chest at Rivka’s question, her hands clenching the book as though her life depended on not easing her grip on it.
Rivka drew herself up with that pride she’d had about her lately, as she quietly but emphatically gave instructions to the household staff that was now hers to order. She said, “I am.”
“As am I,” retorted Ester, regretting her brusqueness even as she spoke. How strong, how admirable Rivka seemed to her now, as the older woman ticked her tongue against her teeth, then moved off on her rounds. All the sufferings they’d endured had left Rivka purified: a priestess of the house. Whereas even now, almost two years after their safe arrival, Ester felt as though she herself were poised midstep—one foot raised, uncertain, weary with the wish to set it down.
Pushing aside the book, she opened a drawer and retrieved the letter she’d begun writing. She hadn’t yet decided to whom she’d send it. Perhaps this time she’d write a page that was only for herself. Perhaps, she thought restlessly, she’d write something unspeakable, and burn it in the fire.
She read what she’d inked earlier in the morning: The universe is shaped by the desire for life. This is its only morality.
She believed it, but something now troubled her.
She’d desired John, hadn’t she? She’d gambled for his love. Yet in that first stunned season after the plague, when each passing day’s silence affirmed that John had forgotten her, she hadn’t pursued him. Perhaps if she had—if she’d shed pride, jettisoned all notion of the heart’s freedom and reminded John of his debt to her—she might yet have persuaded him, roused his pity, sued for his reluctant love and won it. And if she had?
Had John asked aught of her, through words or simply through silence, she could no longer have refused him—even had he required her to extinguish her learning for the tending of house and children; even at the cost of becoming a spirit shuttered from thought. She’d never learned to measure out love: give so much, withhold so much. She’d known it even in London, when she threw down the gauntlet of her own body: come with me in love.
How bold she’d been. She could not regret it.
Nowhere in the known world, it seemed to her, could she live as she’d been created: at once a creature of body and of mind. It was a precept so universal as to seem a law of nature: one aspect of a woman’s existence must dominate the other. And a woman like Ester must choose, always, between desires: between fealty to her own self, or to the lives she might bring forth and nurture.
Some months ago, she’d written to him at last. Alvaro, knowing nothing of what the name John Tilman might mean to her, had repeated to her a tale of a well-liked magistrate, married and settled in Coventry, to whom petitioners now flocked instead of to the father, for the son was the more merciful, even tolerating views that elsewhere incurred harsh punishments.
Her own letter had said but little: she hoped John was well. She wished him health and peace.
Ester, his reply had begun.
I am much gladdened to know you’re well, for your wellness in this world matters greatly. I live now as a magistrate in Coventry. My father grows old and I ease his burdens from him, as is his due. My wife, Isabelle, is a good woman and much patient with the demands of my profession. We are blessed now with a child, a girl named Judith.
During my years in London I leaned as far as a man may lean into a void of newness before he recalls his obligation to remain who he is. I am not a bold man, Ester, except in my own wish to be so.
I do not forget my failures, or your courage that teaches me still, and remains a standard against which I judge much, not least myself.
She’d read the letter until she knew it by heart, before setting it aside.
How fearsome a thing was love. She’d welcomed it, all the same.
She stared now at the words she’d already set to paper. Yes, the universe was driven by the desire for life. But the question remained . . . whose? Perhaps, it seemed now to Ester, the forcing of a woman’s choice was itself against nature.
She lifted her quill and wrote.
Yet sacrifice of the self is everywhere viewed as the highest calling, and the more so for a woman, who must give every element of her life to others. Kindness is at all times counseled to women, who are called unnatural if not kind.
Yet how can a kindness that blights the life of even one—though it benefit others—be called good? Is it in fact kindness to sever oneself from one’s own desires? Mustn’t the imperative to protect all life encompass—even for a woman—her own?
Then must we abandon our accustomed notion of a woman’s kindness, and forge a new one.
A light breeze from the window, and the candle’s flame shrank to a tiny globe, then vanished. A thin line of smoke rose, a perfectly straight line. She watched it waver and break, and the sorrow of its dissipation so gripped her that at the creak of a nearby floorboard she let out a cry.
Alvaro stood in the doorway, laughing. “Rebuke me then, will you? When I’ve come to set you free?”
She said nothing, only crossed her hands primly over the even lines of her writing. An old habit: hiding the page before her.
“Today,” he sang softly.
“You’ve gone mad,” she said, thinking as she said it that she almost believed it.
“Please,” he said. But seeing he wouldn’t extract her so easily, he stepped deeper into the room to address her. “Tell me, what new invisible guests are we housing within these walls now? Thomas Farrow philosophizes no more, you’ve at last let the poor man die a decent death. Now who takes his place? Which of your invisible minions will be issuing letters from the HaLevy household this season?”
She couldn’t help a small smile. “Bertram Clarke.”
Alvaro, his white shirt open at the neck and tucked loosely into his breeches, was nearing her writing table, his amused expression deepening. Instinctively, she pulled the book over her half-written page. Her hand closed, protective, on the ink bottle.
He sat on her writing table. “Shan’t we make him Sir Bertram?” he whispered, looking grave. “He might secure a more rapid reply.”
She moved as though to shoo him off—but Alvaro’s eyes were, ever, a pup’s. “Perhaps,” she whispered. “If he earns it.”
Alvaro laughed. Then his gaze rose to her window: a reflex. She knew who he looked for, of course—she was as familiar with the comings and goings of his visitor as he was with the phantom philosophers under whose names she wrote—her spirits of the air, as Alvaro called them.
How painful it had been to begin telling the truth. The morning when she’d first confessed to Alvaro, her jaw had clenched so she could barely speak. Lying had become her clothing—without it she’d freeze.
Yet she’d decided that this new life must be birthed without lies. Rivka knew the truth—and Alvaro must as well. Nakedness was the least of all she owed him.
He’d surprised her with the delight with which he’d received her confession—his bemused This explains matters! so genuine she’d let go her grip on the armrest of her chair and breathed what felt like the first breath she’d drawn in years. Indeed, he’d so startled her with his happy exclamations over her halting account of her correspondences that she didn’t know whether to disapprove—for didn’t he understand the wrong she’d done to the rabbi? Shouldn’t he despise her?