Behind him stands a group of people who follow him one by one up to the altar. Godparents in ornate ceremonial attire trade places with one another. A pipe organ plays, making the tall, beautifully vaulted cathedral ceiling seem even higher—somewhere up there, just past the steep arches, there is a heaven into which all those baptized will now be admitted. The tart scent of the tall yellow flowers that decorate the altar mixes with the incense into an exquisite scent, as if the finest Eastern perfume has been sprayed into the church.
Now come some well-dressed younger people, their hair cut at the chin like pageboys’—these are Jacob Frank’s nephews, Pawe?, Jan, and Antoni, and a fourth, son of Hayim of Jezierzany, now Ignacy Jezierzański, nervously crumples his hat in his hands. There is a moment’s silence when the organ pauses for the tired organist to page through his sheet music to get to the next song. For a moment, the papers’ rustling resounds around the church, otherwise so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Then the music bursts forth again, solemn and sad, and this is how Franciszek Wo?owski—until recently Shlomo Shorr, Elisha’s son—goes up to the altar with his own young son, seven-year-old Wojciech. And after him his father, the eldest of the Frankists, dignified, sixty-year-old Elisha Shorr, supported by his daughters-in-law, Rozalia and Ró?a; he has never fully recovered from being beaten. And after them goes Hayim Turczynek, now Kapliński, and Barbara, a Wallachian, who, aware of her own beauty, allows herself to be admired by curious eyes. It is clear to everyone that the people who bow their heads before the metropolitan’s damp fingers make up one big family that branches out in all directions, like a tree.
At least that is what Father Mikulski is thinking as he watches them, trying to glean proofs of blood relationship from their appearance and posture. Yes, they are baptizing a single giant family, a family that might be called Podolian-Wallachian-Turkish. Now, nicely dressed and taking things seriously, there is something new to them—a dignity, a confidence they didn’t have even yesterday when he saw them on the city’s streets. Suddenly he is frightened by this novel guise of theirs. Soon they will put out their hands for noble titles, since of course a Jew who converts has the right to such things. If he pays enough. The priest is overwhelmed by a doubt that verges on outright fear—that here they are letting in all these foreign, impenetrable faces, although their intentions are muddled, vague. It feels to him like the whole street is pouring into the cathedral now, and that they will keep going up to the altar, one by one, until evening, and that even then, there will be no end in sight.
It isn’t true that everyone is present. Nahman, for instance, is not. Instead, he is sitting with his little daughter, who has suddenly taken ill with diarrhea and a high fever. Wajge?e tries to force-feed her milk, but to no avail, and soon the features of her face start to sharpen, and on the morning of September 18, she dies, and Nahman says they have to keep it a secret. The next night they hold a hurried funeral.
Of Jacob Frank’s shaved beard, and the new face that emerges from underneath it
Hana Frank, who has just arrived from Ivanie to be baptized, does not recognize her husband. She stands before him and sees a face that seems newly born, with pale, delicate skin around the mouth, lighter than the skin on his forehead and cheeks, dark lips, the lower one slightly turned down, and a soft chin with a little indentation in the middle. Only now does Hana see the mole on the left side, under his right ear, like a birthmark. He smiles, and now his bright white teeth draw attention. He is a completely different man. Wittel, who shaved him, retreats with the washbasin full of foam.
“Say something,” Hana urges him. “I’ll know you by your voice.”
Jacob laughs loudly, tossing his head back as he does.
Hana is shocked. The Jacob who stands before her is a boy, a new person, practically naked, all of him there on the surface, defenseless. She touches him lightly with her hand, and her hand discovers the astonishing smoothness of that skin. Hana feels an obscure anxiety, unpleasant, and she cannot restrain a violent sob.
Faces should remain in hiding, in the shadows, she thinks, like deeds, like words.
21.
Of the plague that descends upon Lwów in the autumn of 1759
Not so long ago, people believed that the plague was brought about by an unfortunate constellation of the planets, thinks Asher, as he strips naked and wonders what he ought to do with his clothes. Throw them out? If they’ve absorbed any effluvia from the infected, he might well risk spreading it about the house. And nothing could be worse than introducing a plague into his own home.
The weather in Lwów has changed suddenly, going from hot and dry to warm and humid. Wherever there is even a little earth or rotting wood, mushrooms pop up. Fog hovers every morning in town like thick sour cream, undisturbed until people come out into the streets, when it begins to lift.
Today he pronounced four dead and made his rounds of the afflicted; he knows there will be more of them. They all have the same symptoms: diarrhea, stomachache, progressive weakening.
He recommends drinking large quantities of fresh water or—better yet—herbs brewed in boiling water, but since his patients are mostly camped out on the street, they have nowhere to heat water. The worst affected are the Jewish neophytes. They hurry to be baptized, believing that once that happens, they’ll never get sick and never die. Just today, Asher saw several patients like this, two of them children, every one of them with a Hippocratic face: sharpened features, sunken eyes, wrinkles. Life must have a certain mass to it, since when it ebbs, it makes a person’s body resemble a dried-out leaf. He went from the Halickie Przedmie?cie through the market square and saw the city closing in on itself, shutters battened down, streets emptied, and he thinks the market might not even take place now, unless some peasants come in from the country, not yet aware of the plague. Whoever is still healthy and has the means will leave Lwów.