Among the advantages of the state in which Yente has found herself is that she now understands the workings of the messianic machine. She sees the world from above—it is dark, faintly marked by sparks of light, each of them a home. A faltering glow in the western sky draws a red line under the world. A dark road winds, and beside it the river’s current gleams like steel. Along the road moves a vehicle, a tiny dot that can hardly be seen; a dull rattle spreads in waves through the dark, thick air as the cart goes over the little wooden bridge and on past the mill. The messianic machine is like that mill standing over the river. The dark water turns the great wheels evenly, without regard for the weather, slowly and systematically. The person by the wheels seems to have no significance; his movements are random and chaotic. The person flails; the machine works. The motion of the wheels transfers power to the stone gears that grind the grain. Everything that falls into them will be crushed into dust.
Getting out of captivity also requires tragic sacrifices. The Messiah must stoop as low as possible, down into those dispassionate mechanisms of the world where the sparks of holiness, scattered into the gloom, have been imprisoned. Where darkness and humiliation are greatest. The Messiah will gather the sparks of holiness, which means that he will leave behind him an even greater darkness. God has sent him down from on high to be abased, into the abyss of the world, where powerful serpents will mercilessly mock him, asking: “Where’s that God of yours now? What happened to him? And why won’t he give you a hand, you poor thing?” The Messiah must remain deaf to those vicious taunts, step on the snakes, commit the worst acts, forget who he is, become a simpleton and a fool, enter into all the false religions, be baptized and don a turban. He must annul all prohibitions and eliminate all commandments.
Yente’s father, who saw with his own eyes the First, that is, Sabbatai, brought the Messiah on his lips into their home and passed it on to his favorite daughter. The Messiah is something more than a figure and a person—it is something that flows in your blood, resides in your breath, it is the dearest and most precious human thought: that salvation exists. And that’s why you have to cultivate it like the most delicate plant, blow on it, water it with tears, put it in the sun during the day, move it into a warm room in the nighttime.
Of Jacob’s arrival, on a February night in 1760, in Cz?stochowa
They get on the Warsaw highway. The wheels of the carriage clatter over the slick cobblestones. The horses of the six armed men must pull forward and keep to the narrow road so as not to fall into the mud. Dusk approaches, and the last scraps of color fade into darkness, white murks into gray, gray becomes black, and black vanishes into the abyss that opens up before human eyes. It is everywhere, under every thing in the world.
The little town of Cz?stochowa is situated on the left side of the Warta River, facing the monastery on the hill. It is made up of some dozen little homes, low, unsightly, damp, set up around a rectangular marketplace and along several little streets. The market is almost empty, its uneven, undulating cobblestones thinly iced over so that they seem to be covered in a shiny glaze. Yesterday’s trade fair has left horse droppings, trampled hay, and litter not yet swept up. Most of the little houses have double doors protected by an iron bar, which means that business is conducted inside them, although it would be difficult to guess what sort.
They pass four women wrapped in plaid woolen shawls, from underneath which bright patches of aprons and bonnets stick out. A drunk man in a ragged peasant’s sukmana staggers by and grabs on to the beams of an empty stall. In the market square they turn right, onto the road that leads to the monastery. It is immediately visible when they emerge into the open: a tall tower, shooting straight up into the sky, alarming. Along the road, trees have been planted, and the lindens, now bare, accompany this shot of alarm like a soprano with a powerful bass.
Suddenly a ragged snippet of a song is heard—it is coming from a group of pilgrims making their way quickly toward the little town. At first this song sounds like mere clamor, background noise, but gradually words can be distinguished, women’s high-pitched voices echoed by the rumble of two or three men’s: “We escape into your care, O Holy Mother of God . . .”
These tardy pilgrims hurry past them, and the road is empty once again. The closer they come to the monastery, the more clearly they can see that it’s a fortress, a bastion holding fast to the hillside, squat and quadrangular. Behind the monastery, a bloodred strip of sky is suddenly revealed along the horizon.
Jacob had asked his escorts to unshackle him, and they did so as soon as they left Warsaw. Inside the small carriage, an officer holding the rank of captain sits with him. At first he stared at the prisoner fairly insistently, but Jacob did not return his gaze and looked instead out the little window, although they soon had to cover it on account of the wind. The officer tried to talk to him, but Jacob ignored him. In the end, the only hint of intimacy that has emerged between them is the puffs of smoke released from two pipes when the prisoner accepts the offer of tobacco.
The armed guards don’t know exactly who this prisoner might be, so they have tried to be particularly watchful just in case, although this man does not look like someone who would make a run for it. He is pale and probably ill—there are big dark circles under his eyes and a bruise on his cheek. He is weak, and unsteady on his feet. He coughs. When they stopped and he wanted to pee, his cook had to help him, holding him up by his shoulders. He sits huddled in the corner of the carriage, shivering. Kazimierz, who serves him not only as cook but as valet, is constantly putting the man’s fur cloak back onto his shoulders.
It is already dark when they pull into the monastery courtyard, which is entirely empty. Some old wretch opened the gate for them and then disappeared. The tired horses come to a stop, turning into bulky, steaming shadows. After some time, there is the sound of a door creaking, and then some voices, and the brothers appear, carrying torches, surprised and embarrassed, as if they have been caught doing something they weren’t supposed to. They lead Jacob and Kazimierz into an empty waiting room with two wooden benches in it, but only Jacob sits. They wait for a long time; they arrived in the middle of a service. From somewhere beyond the walls of the waiting room they can hear men’s voices singing. From time to time the sound bursts through the walls, then the voices fade and a silence falls, as if the singers were now hatching some sort of plot. Then another song starts up. This pattern repeats several times. The captain yawns. It smells of damp stone, mossy rock, and vaguely of incense—the odor of the monastery.