“Ester.” The rabbi half rose from his seat; she stood hurriedly, poised to support him should he fall. “A herem sets none free,” he said. “It separates a person from the congregation, and so bans him from all that is commanded of a Jew, and from all that consoles us together even as it consoled us at Sinai. Such isolation, Ester. What sort of life is possible—with no ground beneath one’s feet except the logic of one’s own mind?”
His cheeks were pink with agitation. She’d never seen him so disturbed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t intend to—”
“Baruch de Spinoza erred, may God forgive him.” The rabbi’s words fell heavily. “He suffers for it even if he fathoms not his own suffering. To live without faith is to live a death. I could not make him see.” He held to his chair with one hand for a moment, then relinquished this struggle and sank back on its cushion. “I weep for him still,” he said. “And will regret always that I failed him.”
“Yet he lives,” she said. “He’s . . .” She hesitated. “Wheresoever he is, he must still thank you in his heart for serving as his teacher.”
But the rabbi shook his head. His breathing was ragged; he waited until it slowed. “To us, he is dead. And even in himself he surely feels this grief. The youth we entrusted with the light of the sages’ wisdom is no more.”
The fire crackled behind him; his breathing grew quiet. The patches of color that had flared so briefly on his cheeks were gone.
He said, “You were the two best pupils I taught.”
She stared.
“Even as a child,” he said, “you showed a gift I’d perceived in only one other student. Yours was of a different flavor—your mind a straight path, his a labyrinth. But you were alike in so much. I have thought it often, Ester. It is my lot in life to share the light of learning with all who come to me, yet it has also been my fate to see the greatest gifts spilled into dust: one keen and vibrant intelligence lost on an apostate I could not call back from his errors, the other on a woman who can never make full use of such gifts. God has provided for me that I teach His words, and this must be honor enough. It is not for me to determine which of the seeds I plant will blossom, and which lie fallow, or even bear ill.”
His face was clouded. “Ester, do not make the error of mistaking death for life.”
She could not guess what he knew.
“Write for me,” he said.
19
March 18, 2001
London
She set the water to boil, tidied the kitchen until the kettle sounded, and, while the tea steeped, changed out of her nightdress. Taking the first sips of steaming tea at her kitchen table, she located the new edition of Early Modern Quarterly in the small pile of bills and advertisements that had arrived in yesterday’s post. Before opening the journal she set down her tea, slowly, both hands required to steady the cup. For a moment she surveyed her kitchen: the spotless counters, the white curtains, the low glow of her shaded lamp. The geranium in its pot on the sill.
How much longer?
Forever, she answered. She’d live here in this flat, managing on her own, until the end. She certainly wouldn’t be making any preemptive move into one of those dreadful facilities, despite Dr. Hammond’s urging that she soon arrange for what he liked to call “eventualities.” And if the prospect of a lingering decline, alone in the grip of Parkinson’s, sometimes terrified her? Well, she could choose—couldn’t she?—not to dwell on that thought.
At present, work occupied her days. All winter, as though adhering to a pact of silence regarding Wilton’s upcoming publication, she and Aaron had convened in the rare manuscripts room each time the Patricias released a new batch of documents. In the interludes between, when other long-deferred projects demanded the services of the conservation lab, they revisited translations and did archival research. They’d found no further evidence of Thomas Farrow, and nothing to corroborate any link between Farrow and Ester Velasquez. If Aaron hadn’t transcribed that document before ripping it, Helen would have thought they’d hallucinated it. Still, they’d labored together without either acknowledging the increasing likelihood that all was likely to be snatched from them despite their efforts.
A satisfactory approach to life, Helen thought. Dr. Hammond ought take note.
She set down the tea, opened the journal, and found the table of contents.
It took a moment for her mind to register what she saw there. Publication on such short notice was practically unheard of. She’d expected to see the article in the summer at the earliest. With a pang she realized it: the editor must have held space for something by Wilton, at Jonathan Martin’s request, from the moment the Richmond papers were purchased.
There was no justification for the anguish she felt at the sight of the words.
Sabbatean Florence and a Female Scribe: A Startling Find Beneath a London Stair
She tried to read, but could not force her eyes to make an orderly progression down the page. Phrases struck her eyes at random. The type seemed to enlarge in places, the over-bright letters striking her eyes—then shrink into inscrutability in others, as though the words were molten and in motion. Only after she’d turned through the pages of the article twice was she able to read from beginning to end, the text cooling into legible sentences and dreadful, orderly paragraphs.
The existence of a female copyist shows our established understanding of Sephardic customs of the era to be incomplete. While we still lack evidence of any further violations of the dictates of the Amsterdam rabbinic authorities within the early London community, it would seem that prior to the consolidation of the authority of the Mahamad in London, there was a period when authority was sufficiently diffuse for one young woman to be permitted to scribe, for a brief time, for a rabbi. (As previously indicated, technical matters related to the conservation process have thus far precluded the examination of the last few documents; should additions or emendations prove necessary once the remaining papers have been made available, these will be presented as soon as feasible in a future paper.)
This Jewish female scribe’s atypical employment is surely an interesting historical anomaly, one worthy of deeper research. Yet the words of the scholar whose thoughts she transcribed comprise the most significant revelation to emerge thus far in the cache of documents. The extent of the Florentine Sabbatean crisis, unearthed for the first time in these papers, is news of scholarly importance, with ramifications for the understanding of that community’s role in the larger Jewish history of the region. While the absence of prior information about such a significant Sabbatean upheaval in Florence may at first appear puzzling, that absence can be explained by several factors, which deserve brief mention here.
Helen read the whole, scouring each argument for flaws, finding none. The reasoning was lucid, forceful. Wilton laid out the major points more clearly, she had to acknowledge, than she herself might have. He possessed a certain flair, knew how to take the dry medium of a scholarly article and shape it into story. He’d even included a humane discussion of the letter about the homosexuality and exile of a young Jewish man. Aaron Levy would take that one personally—he’d translated that letter only last week, and had foolishly hoped that Wilton’s team wouldn’t include it in their article. But no. Wilton had jumped every fence, claiming the entire course his own.