She returned from the dressmaker as though fleeing a storm. The door of the rabbi’s house closed heavily behind her; she pressed it shut as though buttressing it against a wind. All her senses were rushing.
A low fire burned in the hearth. The rabbi was asleep in his chair. At length, the pounding of her heart relented.
On the table beside the door was a sealed letter, delivered in her absence and left there no doubt by Rivka for her to read to the rabbi.
She took the small knife from the drawer and cut it open, and read the message penned in a cramped hand.
To the Rabbi HaCoen Mendes of London,
With the blessings of G-d I greet you. I, being a cousin of the late mother of Catherine da Costa, and so not unfamiliar with the better families of London’s Jews, though my own meager widow’s means permit me only a modest living here in the country, write to you with esteem and with a proposal that will delight you. In conversing with a member of your congregation at a gathering in which I was most graciously included, I overheard a tendency toward warmth in discussing a member of your household. To speak plainly: I suspect there may be fertile ground for a possible match between your charge, the orphan girl Ester Velasquez, and a young man of this London congregation. You will understand, of course, the boon to the Velasquez girl, whom I am told lacks even a dowry. Through this marriage she might enter into a life as a mother in Israel. Although the match be unlikely due to her poor means, I urge you to consider engaging my services, and as swiftly as you may, so that the young man not lose his interest, and in turn I will bend all my notable efforts to its success. The young man of whom I speak naturally wishes discretion—it seemed to me he was surprised by my offer of intervention in the matter, though perhaps it pleased him as well. May I then pursue this matter, and come to call when I am next able to journey to London? My fee for the match would be within bounds of what is properly accepted, though surely such a gift as a marriage for such a girl lacking prospects is without price.
Awaiting your reply with esteem,
Isabella Mendoza
She held the letter. A feeling like ice spread in her chest. Could a stranger so easily unmake Ester’s life—marrying her for a fee to a faceless youth, and in one stroke parting her forever from the rabbi and his quiet fireside, from her books?
The thought grew until it filled her: not yet.
The rabbi was stirring. As though able to sense his least motion from afar, Rivka entered from the kitchen and knelt at the fire, adding wood and stoking it high. Ester set down the letter.
At the rabbi’s quiet call, she answered, “Here I am.”
He beckoned her to a seat by the fire. For a long while, then, the rabbi sipped the tea Rivka brought. She waited for him to ask about the letter; then, as the moments passed, she realized he did not know any had been delivered.
The fire crackled. Rivka had piled the wood high, as though to supply all the warmth the rabbi’s meager body could not. For a long, silent time Ester sat opposite the rabbi near the blaze, until the heat made her eyes ache. Did his eyes, she wondered, suffer from the heat of the flames as did hers—or had the iron that extinguished them robbed them not only of sight, but of all sense of pain? And if he’d become insensible to pain, was he also deadened to desire for all that he could no longer have?
A snap from the fire assaulted her.
The rabbi spoke softly, without moving. “I believe,” he said, “that these stone walls are safe from fire.”
Even blind, he’d felt her startle.
“Let us read,” she said, more briskly than she intended.
Hadn’t she struggled only hours ago to find words for her gratitude to the rabbi? Now vexation propelled her into motion. She stood, crossed to the table, and took up a thin volume, a commentary on Jonah that she and the rabbi had begun discussing some days earlier.
“Something troubles you,” he said.
She could barely persuade her voice to sound. “No,” she said quietly.
The rabbi fell silent. Then he said, “I believe my mind is too dull this afternoon to read commentary.”
She laid the book down.
“Perhaps,” he said, “we ought to sit and recite psalms.”
A physick he was prescribing for her, not for himself. Her throat constricted with feelings she’d no name for.
“The words of prayer are like birds, Ester,” he said gently. “They soar.”
She did not believe prayers were like birds. Birds could fly out of a burning house. If prayer had flown, then her father would still live—perhaps, through her father’s devotions, even her mother would have survived—even rageful, bewildered, bereft Constantina. If prayer had flown, Isaac would not be dead.
Before she knew what she was saying, she turned to the rabbi. “What do you see,” she said, “behind the lids of your eyes?”
For the first time there was unease beneath his silence. She felt a hard, thin satisfaction she was ashamed of.
“I shall not, at this moment, answer this question,” he said. “But I will tell you what I learned after I lost my sight, in the first days as I came to understand how much of the world was now banned from me—for my hands would never again turn the pages of a book, nor be stained with the sweet, grave weight of ink, a thing I had loved since first memory. I walked through rooms that had once been familiar, my arms outstretched, and was fouled and thwarted by every obstacle in my path. What I learned then, Ester, is a thing that I have been learning ever since.”
She stood rooted by shame, dreading his words.
“The distances between things are vast,” he said. “They are vast.”
His blind eyes were turned toward the fire.
“Ester,” he said. “Do not rue your lack of freedom.”
Had he read her thoughts? That morning after Rivka had confronted her, she’d searched the drawer in the rabbi’s study, hoping to find even a single candle rolling inside. But Rivka had left not even a rushlight.
“You learn as no other women do,” the rabbi said, “yet you wish for more. Your mind is eager, Ester—and though all Amsterdam should disagree, I will say this eagerness is given to you by the divine. But it must have limits. Sometimes a soul must content itself, purify itself and burn inside itself, without receiving all it desires.” He turned to her, and she felt his attention, penetrating and sober. “The Jews of London, Ester, do not want me. They believe I come to scold them about the traditions they’ve disdained. Soon they’ll acquire what they wish: a respected rabbi for their synagogue, one who offers grandeur and a reminder of our tradition’s glory. Under such a rabbi they’ll return in their hearts, slowly but after a time fully, to the tradition. But they do not wish to be guided by one such as I.” ?The rabbi was still turned toward Ester, his face white in the firelight. “I will do what’s mine to do,” he said. “I will be their servant for as long as they tolerate my presence. It is not my place to argue for a grander welcome for my learning.”
“But you deserve their respect,” said Ester fiercely. “They ought be assembled before your door, awaiting the chance to study with you, entreating you to deliver sermons. You’re a scholar who endured torture for the sake of your faith—and they persist in wearing crosses in the streets of a city where they need fear no Inquisition.” All her love of the rabbi rose in her, hardening instantly to a wish to fight on his behalf. “What right have they to disdain a martyr?”
He flinched at the word. After a long moment he said, “I was no martyr.”
“What I mean is—”
“I begged,” he said.