The day before they leave for Warsaw, Jacob requests that the men and women who have been chosen gather together. They wait for him for about an hour. He comes dressed in the Turkish fashion, Hana with him, elegant and formal. The group moves quickly toward the High Castle, curious passersby taking them in. Jacob rushes ahead, taking great steps and leaning forward, so that old Reb Mordke really has to exert himself in order to keep up; he winds up bringing up the rear, Hershel with him. Hana makes no complaint about ruining her embroidered silk slippers—she stays a step behind her husband, lifting the hem of her long coat and watching where she sets down her feet. She knows that Jacob knows what he is doing.
It is a strange day. The air is soft and smooth, as if they were traveling in muslin hung from a clothesline. It smells oddly disquieting, sweet and rotten, like something that has been forgotten and is now covered in mold. Some of them are wearing little masks over their faces, but the higher they climb, the more inclined they are to remove them.
Everyone understands that the plague is part of the war, that their enemies have attacked them with it. Those whose faith is not strong enough will die. Those who believe fervently in Jacob will never die, unless they start to doubt. Once they are well out of town, they slow down and begin to converse, particularly those who trail at the back. They chat, some stopping to pick up sticks to lean on, speaking more and more boldly the farther they go, the higher they climb, confident that no spies will make it up here, no eavesdroppers, no inquisitive secretaries, catechists, or mercenaries sent by nobles. They say:
“Moliwda and old Lady Kossakowska are going to try and get an audience in Warsaw with the king . . .”
“May God see fit to guide them in it . . .”
“If that happens, we’ll get our noble titles for sure . . .”
“But we’re going to ask for land, for royal land, not land belonging to nobles . . .”
“Mrs. Kossakowska doesn’t know about that just yet . . .”
“We don’t want to burn any bridges, but how would she hear about it . . .”
“The king will give us land. The king’s lands are better than the land belonging to nobles and the church. But can we count on it?”
“Who is this king?”
“The king is honorable, and the royal word is good as gold . . .”
“It’ll be land in Busk . . .”
“In Satanów . . .”
“Rohatyn is ours . . .”
“Anywhere would be good, just so long as it’s . . .”
From the top of the hill they can see the whole city; by now, the trees are almost fully red and yellow, as if some vast hand had lit the earth on fire. The light is golden, honeyed, heavy, and it flows in slow waves from top to bottom, covering the gilded roofs of Lwów. And yet the city itself, seen from above, looks like a scab, a person’s itchy scar. From a distance, you can’t hear all the commotion and the city seems innocent, yet that is precisely where they’re burying the dead right now, washing the contaminated pavement with buckets of water. Suddenly the wind brings them the smell of woodsmoke; Jacob is quiet, and they stand this way awhile, no one bold enough to speak.
Then Jacob does a strange thing:
He drives a knife into the ground and raises his face to the sky, and they all join him in looking upward. A V formation of cranes flying over their heads loses its shape, the birds collide and start to circle high above them, chaotically. It is a sorry thing to behold. Hayah covers her face. They turn to Jacob, stunned and aghast.
“Now look,” he says, and extracts the knife from the ground.
For a moment, the cranes continue to orbit in the same disorderly fashion, but then they get back into a formation that soon makes a large circle, then a larger circle, and then they move on, making their way south.
Jacob says:
“What this means is, if you forget who I am and who you are, woe is you.”
He tells them to make a fire, and then, as they stand around it, without any strangers’ eyes on them, without spies, they all begin to talk at once, speaking over one another. They get their new names mixed up. When Shlomo addresses Nahman by his old name, Jacob punches him in the shoulder. Those old Jewish names cannot exist for them any longer, now there are only these Christian names—let none get them wrong any longer.
“Who are you?” Jacob asks Hayim of Warsaw, who is standing next to him.
“Mateusz Matuszewski,” answers Hayim, abjectly.
“And that’s his wife, Eva. There is no Wittel anymore,” Nahman Jakubowski pipes up, unsolicited.
Jacob has everyone repeat their new names several times—several times the new names progress around the circle.
The men are in their thirties, in the prime of their lives, and they are well-dressed, their coats lined with felt or fur. Their faces are bearded, fur hats on their heads, though it is some distance to winter still. The women are in caps, like burgher women, and some, like Hana, wear colorful turbans on their heads. A person watching them from off to the side, like a spy, would have no idea for what purpose this group had gathered here at the top of this hill, above the city of Lwów, nor why they are now repeating names over and over.
Jacob walks among them, with a thick walking stick he’s grabbed off the ground. He splits them into two groups. In the first one is Reb Mordke, now called Peter the Elder, as the eldest among them, then there’s Hershel, Jacob’s second favorite, now called Jan. Next is Nahman, now called Piotr Jakubowski, and Hayim of Busk, now Pawe? Paw?owski. The Lord also puts in this group Itzak Minkowicer, now called Tadeusz Minkowiecki, as well as Yeruhim Lipmanowicz, now known as Dembowski. All of them will travel tomorrow with Jacob to Warsaw.
During their absence, Hana and the children will be placed in the care of Mrs. Kossakowska. He’ll send the horses tomorrow. Leybko Hirsh of Satanów—now Joseph Zwierzchowski—and his wife, Hava, will go with them. They received their last name from the priest who baptized them; it is hard to pronounce. Jacob Szymonowicz, now known as Szymanowski, will also stay behind, as well as both Shorrs, now Wo?owski, and Reb Schayes, who is still Rabinowicz since he hasn’t yet been baptized.
The groups look each other over for a moment, then Jacob orders them to shake out their pockets in search of coins. He takes one coin from each of them, choosing only the big gold ducats, until he has twelve. He arranges them carefully in a pile on the ground, in the dried-out grass. Then he stomps on the coins with his boot, smashing them into the ground. He picks them up again and stomps on them again—as everyone watches in silence, holding their breath. What does this mean? What is he trying to tell them? Then he tells them each to go up and take a turn stepping on the coins, grinding them into the earth.
In the evening, Jacob goes to Franciszek, formerly Shlomo, to make his excuses for not having chosen him or his brothers to make the journey to Warsaw.
“But why?” says Franciszek. “We do business in Warsaw, we could have helped considerably. I have a completely different standing now, as a nobleman and a Catholic. And I have a good head on my shoulders.”
“This title of yours means nothing for me. What did you pay for it?” Jacob asks, spiteful.