“Her Ladyship, my wife, is a veritable institution unto herself. The envy of the royal secretariat,” he says delightedly. “She is even an expert in my blood relations, making great endeavors on behalf of my kin.”
Mrs. Kossakowska shoots him a murderous look. Moliwda knows that despite appearances, it is a happy marriage. Meaning: They each do their own thing.
The castellan lights his pipe and turns to his distant cousin:
“Why is it you are so concerned with these people?”
“Because they’ve struck a chord with me,” answers Moliwda after a moment’s consideration. “Right here,” he says, and bangs his chest, as though wishing to assure the castellan that he does, in fact, have a heart there. “I feel a real connection with them. They are honest and good, and their intentions are honest and good . . .”
“Jews who are honest and good,” says Mrs. Kossakowska with a smirk. “Are they paying you?”
“I’m not doing it for the money.”
“There wouldn’t be anything wrong with doing it for the money . . .”
“It isn’t about money,” he repeats. Then he adds: “Although they are paying me.”
Katarzyna Kossakowska leans back in her chair and stretches out her legs in front of her.
“Ah, I understand, for fame, to make a name for yourself, like the bishop, may he rest in peace. You’re thinking of your career.”
“I don’t care about my career, you know that already. Had I wanted a career, I would have kept the position I had when I was young, thanks to my uncle, in the royal chancellery. By now I would be a minister.”
“Pass me the pipe, please,” Mrs. Kossakowska says to her husband, and extends an expectant hand. “You’re hotheaded, cousin. So to whom am I to write? And what am I to entreat them to do? Perhaps you could introduce me to this Frank of theirs?”
“He is in the Turkish country now, as they wished to kill him here.”
“Who wished to kill him here? We are, after all, known for our national tolerance.”
“His own kind. They were persecuted by their own. Their own, meaning the other Jews.”
“But normally they stick together,” Mrs. Kossakowska says, confused; now she fills the pipe, taking tobacco from an embroidered leather pouch.
“Not this time. These Shabbitarians believe in the necessity of getting out from under the Jewish faith. The greater part of the Jews converted to Islam in Turkey for this reason. While the Jews in the Catholic lands would like to convert to the local faith. For any Orthodox Jew, of course, leaving the faith like this is a fate worse than death.”
“But why would they want to join the Church?” asks the castellan, intrigued by this bizarre behavior. “Things have been crystal clear till now. Jews are Jews. They go to synagogue. Catholics are Catholics, who worship in a cathedral, and the Ruthenians have their Orthodox churches—to each his own.”
The vision of such upheaval is not to the castellan’s liking.
“Their first Messiah says it is necessary to collect what is good from every creed.”
“Well, he’s right about that,” Mrs. Kossakowska jumps in.
“What do you mean, first Messiah? Was there a second? Who’s the second?” asks Kossakowski.
Moliwda explains, but reluctantly, as though knowing that no matter what he says, the castellan will immediately forget it anyway.
“Some say there will be three Messiahs. One has already come—that was Sabbatai Tzvi. After him came Baruchiah . . .”
“I haven’t heard of any of this . . .”
“And the third will be here soon and will deliver them from all their suffering.”
“Why are they suffering so much?” asks the castellan.
“Well, they are hardly prospering. That you can see for yourself. I see it, too—people are living in poverty and humiliation and they are seeking a way out before they are all turned into animals. The religion of the Jews is close to ours, just like the Muslim religion, they’re all the same little pieces of the puzzle, you just have to know how to put them all together. They are assiduous in their religion. They seek God with their hearts, they fight for Him, not like us, with our Hail Marys and our prostration.”
Mrs. Kossakowska sighs.
“It’s our peasants who should be waiting for the Messiah . . . Oh, how we need new manifestations of the Christian spirit! Who still prays assiduously?”
Moliwda hits his poetic stride now; this is an art he has almost perfected.
“It’s really more connected with resistance, with rebellion. The butterfly that rises to the sky in the morning is not a reformed, renegade, or renewed chrysalis. It’s still the same creation, just raised to the second power of its life. It’s a transformed chrysalis. The Christian spirit is flexible, mobile, and omnipresent . . . And it does us a world of good, once we accept it.”
“Well, well, you’re quite the preacher, cousin,” Mrs. Kossakowska says, her words dripping with sarcasm.
Moliwda is toying with the buttons on his ?upan, which is brand-new, brown wool, with a red silk lining. He bought it with the money Nahman paid him. But it wasn’t enough to cover everything—the buttons are made out of cheap agate, cold to the touch.
“There is an old prophecy that everyone now says comes from the most distant of ancestors, from a long, long time ago.”
“I’m always eager to hear a good prophecy.” Mrs. Kossakowska breathes in smoke with evident pleasure and turns to face Moliwda. When she smiles, she becomes beautiful. “It shall be so, or it shall not be so. Red sky at night, sailors delight. Red sky in morning, sailors take warning,” she says, and laughs. Her husband giggles, too, so they must share a sense of humor—at least they have that in common.
Moliwda smiles and goes on:
“That in Poland shall be born a man of the Jewish nation who will give up his religion and accept the Christian faith and bring along with him many other Jews. It is said that this will be a sign of the approach of Judgment Day in Poland.”
Mrs. Kossakowska’s face becomes grave.
“And you believe that, Antoni Kossakowski? Judgment Day? Judgment Day is upon us anyway—no one agrees with anyone else, everyone is at war with everyone, the king is in Dresden, caring very little indeed for the problems of his kingdom . . .”
“If you would be so kind as to write to this and that important personage”—Moliwda points to the pile of letters carefully folded and sealed by Agnieszka’s slender fingers—“in support of these poor people who are joining with us in this way, we would be the first in Europe. Never has there been such a mass conversion anywhere. They would talk of us at all the royal courts.”
“I have no influence over the king—my reach does not extend that far, I’m afraid!” cries an affronted Mrs. Kossakowska. Then she says calmly: “People say they are approaching the church as they are because they are seeking to gain something from it—that they want to make a profit off it—that they want, as neophytes, to come and live among us. And as neophytes that can immediately get titles, so long as they can put up the cash.”