“And? Was he there? Did he make an appearance?” Gitla asks him from the doorway, as if indifferent, as if asking about the chimney sweep who was supposed to come and clean the stove. Asher knows this person is still in some sense living in his home, although Gitla barely ever mentions him. And it is not just a matter of the child, Samuel, her son. Jacob Frank is like a small plant that vegetates in the kitchen, on the windowsill, and that Gitla is constantly watering. Asher considers that this is something people who have been abandoned do. Until eventually the plant withers and dies.
He peers into the room where, on the floor, on a worn carpet, little Samuel is playing. Gitla is pregnant, which is why she is so irritable. Gitla did not want the child, but she had found it difficult to ward off a second pregnancy. She has read somewhere that in France they make little sheepskin hoods for the male member, and then all of the semen is kept inside that hood, so it does not leave the woman with child. She would like to have such hoodlets herself, and to hand them out to all the women at the weekly market, that they might give them to their husbands and stop getting pregnant. Misery results from all this disorderly proliferation, multiplication, just like with worms on rotting meat, she says often, puttering around the house with her belly showing already, which is sad and funny at the same time. There are too many people, the cities are smelly and dirty, there’s too little clean water, she repeats. Her lovely face is distorted by a grimace of disgust. And these women, eternally swollen, eternally pregnant, lying in childbed or breastfeeding. There would not be all this misery amongst the Jews if Jewish women were not always getting pregnant. What do people want with so many children?
When she speaks, Gitla gesticulates, her thick black hair, cut to her shoulders, also moving in violent jerks. She walks around the house with her head bare. Asher looks lovingly at her. He thinks that if something were ever to happen to her or to Samuel, he would die.
“Is it really for this,” Gitla often repeats, “that a woman’s body gives away its finest substances—to create within it a future person who will only die anyway, so that all will turn out to have been for naught? How poorly thought-out it is. There cannot be a logic to it—not practical, nor any other kind.”
Since Asher Rubin loves Gitla, he listens to her attentively and tries to understand what she is saying. Slowly he begins to share her view. Each year he silently commemorates the blessed day she showed up at his house.
He is sitting on the sofa, Samuel playing around his legs, busy with two wheels connected by an axle that Asher made for him. On Gitla’s now ample belly lies a book—perhaps it is pressing too hard on her? Asher goes over, picks it up, and lays it down next to her, but Gitla instantly puts it back on her belly.
“I saw some people from Rohatyn I know,” says Asher.
“They must have aged,” answers Gitla, looking out the open window.
“They were all depressed. It will end badly. When are you going to start leaving the house again?”
“I don’t know,” says Gitla. “When I give birth.”
“This whole disputation is not for the people. They’re just trading supposed wisdoms. They read out whole pages from books, then translate them, and it takes a long time, and everybody gets bored. No one understands what’s going on.”
Gitla sets the book down on the sofa and straightens her back.
“I’d eat some nuts,” she says, and then, suddenly, she takes Asher’s face in both her hands and looks him in the eyes: “Asher . . . ,” she begins, and doesn’t finish.
The seventh point of the disputation
It is Monday, September 10, 1759, the Jewish year 5519, the 18th day of the month of Elul. People are slowly gathering, milling around in front of the cathedral—it’s going to be a hot one again. Peasants are selling small, sweet Hungarian plums and Wallachian nuts. You can also buy quartered watermelons laid out on big leaves.
The participants in the disputation come in through the side entrance and take their places, although today there are more of all of them, as even the Frankists have come in a sizable group, surrounding their beloved Frank, who has deigned to appear, like bees surrounding their queen. Rabbis from nearby kahalim have shown up, too, and distinguished Jewish scholars, and Rapaport himself, hunched over, as usual in a long coat that will be too hot. At the same time, the curious are let into the cathedral, those who purchased tickets, but soon there will not be enough space for them, either. Latecomers will have to stand in the vestibule, where they will hear little of what is going on inside.
At two o’clock, Father Mikulski calls them all to order and asks the Contra-Talmudists to furnish the evidence for their seventh thesis. He is nervous, and as he spreads out his papers in front of him, his hands can be seen to shake. Glancing at the written text, he begins his remarks; at first, they are clumsily delivered, as he stutters and repeats himself, but soon he finds his rhythm:
“The thirst for Christian blood amongst the Talmudist population, not only in the Kingdom of Poland but also in other countries, is a known fact, for there are many histories, in foreign nations as well as here in Poland and in Lithuania, of Talmudists mercilessly shedding innocent Christian blood and being sentenced to death for this godless act. Yet they have always stubbornly denied it, wanting to clear themselves before the world, alleging that they are the innocent ones, baselessly accused by Christians.”
His voice breaks, out of nervousness, and he has to have a sip of water, but then he goes on:
“We, however, taking as our witness an all-seeing God to come, who will judge the living and the dead—and not out of spite or in retaliation, but out of love for the holy faith—we let the whole world know of those Talmudists’ acts, and we will be adjudicating this matter today.”
A murmur passes through the cramped and undulating crowd. Now Krysa repeats the same thing in Hebrew, and this time, the small group of rabbis erupts. One of them—it looks like the rabbi of Satanów—gets up and starts to go over to the other side, but the others restrain and quiet him.
And now how it goes is Krysa speaks, and then Moliwda, in his role as interpreter, clarifying everything, though none of what they say is clear at all:
“A book of the Talmud, known as the Orah Hayyim Maginei Aretz, which means ‘Path of the Living, Defense of the Earth,’ the author of which is Rabbi David, says: ‘Mitsvah lehazer aharyain adom,’ which means: ‘Have (the rabbi) try to get red wine, a blood memento.’ The very same author then adds: ‘Od remez le-adom zekher le-dam she Hayah paroh shohet bnei Yisrael,’ in other words, ‘And I’m giving you a hint about the reason for the red blood memento, it’s because the Pharaoh slaughtered the children of the Israelites.’ And then this sentence follows: ‘Veha-Yehudim nimne’u mi-lakahat yain adom mipnei alilot shikriyym.’ Or: ‘And now the consumption of red wine has been forsaken, for there are false attacks.’”
Once more the rabbi of Satanów stands and shouts something, but no one translates for him, so no one listens. He is shushed by Father Mikulski: