“My Lord, it’s ready,” Kazimierz says, all his attention on his dish, laying the best little pieces of meat on their tin plate. Jacob reaches for it with his hands, without showing any particular interest. Kazimierz looks at the meat with reserve.
“I don’t know if I’m all that convinced about this pig meat,” he says. “It’s different somehow, kind of loose.”
Then someone knocks at the door. The men exchange nervous glances.
“Who is it?” asks Kazimierz.
“It’s me, Roch.”
“Come on in,” Jacob says, with his mouth full.
The veteran’s head peeks in through the doorway.
“Today is Good Friday. Have you men gone mad? Roasting meat? You can smell it all over the monastery. It’s disgusting.”
Kazimierz throws a cloth over the plate with the pieces of meat.
“Give him something, make him go,” Jacob says quietly, and goes back to scraping at the wall.
But Kazimierz, frightened, explains:
“How were we supposed to know what to eat on Good Friday? We’ve never had a Good Friday before in our new religion, maybe someone could enlighten us about it.”
“Right you are,” says Roch. “It’s not your fault. You can’t eat meat until Sunday. Tomorrow you’re supposed to have eggs to be blessed. The monks might invite you to breakfast, in fact. They invite us every year.”
When Kazimierz prepares to put out his candle and go to sleep, he first takes the flame over to the wall. He sees a single inscription in Hebrew and is surprised by it. For it is written: ladybug, parat moshe rabenu. He looks at it, his surprise not wearing off, then shrugs and blows the candle out.
A letter in Polish
Hana gets a letter from her husband she can’t read. It is in Polish. Nahman, or Jakubowski, is the one who reads it. He reads it and starts crying. They all look at him in astonishment—Hana and Matuszewski, who’s there, too, with Wittel. The sight of Jakubowski crying over this letter makes them feel something like revulsion. Jakubowski has aged—Jacob’s imprisonment has completely wiped him out. Not to mention the fact that they all view him as a traitor, even though everyone had their part in it, at least a little. The hair on the top of Jakubowski’s head has thinned lately, and freckled pink skin peeps out from underneath. Now a sob shakes his back.
Do not worry about me, I am in the good hands of the Pauline Fathers, and I want for nothing. If I could, however, kindly request: warm wraps for my feet [Jakubowski starts crying here, at the mention of the wraps] as well as a few sets of warm underwear, wool if possible, and a woolen ?upan, if possible two, that I might have a spare. Some sort of fur to spread over my bed. Kazimierz could use a set of dishes and a cooking pot as well as utensils at your discretion. I would further request any book written in the Polish language, that I might study. As well as paper, ink, and pens . . .
On the letter is the monastery’s seal.
It is read many times, and in the end they copy it, and Jakubowski takes it to the Wo?owskis and Krysiński. And soon everyone in Warsaw knows it, the whole machna, the whole company. The letter also travels to Kamieniec, to Mrs. Kossakowska, and, in secret, it makes its way from Nahman Jakubowski to Moliwda (who reads it secretly, smoking). Thus this wonderful news reaches everyone, that Jacob, the Lord, is alive. That the worst has not happened, and now all those months they suffered in uncertainty seem like months of breathlessness and silence. A fresh wind has blown in, and since all of this happens around Easter, they celebrate it like a resurrection. Yes, the Lord has risen, come back from the darkness like a light that merely dove down into the dark water, but that has now come back up to the surface.
A visit to the monastery
Shlomo Shorr, now Franciszek Wo?owski, heads hurriedly to Cz?stochowa, hoping to get there before the others. It is the start of May. In just a few days, the fields have all turned green, and across those sheets of green splash yellow drops of sow thistle. He rides on horseback, only by day, and only on the main highways. He is dressed modestly—you can’t even really tell whether his attire is Christian or Jewish. He has shaved, but he’s left his hair longer, and he puts it back now in a small braid. He wears a black frock coat of Dutch cloth, and trousers that come just past his knees, and riding boots. His head cannot be bare, regardless of the good, warm weather, so he has covered it in a sheepskin hat.
Just before he reaches Cz?stochowa, he runs into a familiar figure on the road: a young man, really just a boy still, traveling on foot down the very edge of the road, a bundle over his shoulder. With a stick he slashes the yellow tops of the blooming sow thistle. His clothes are rather unbecoming. Shlomo Wo?owski recognizes in astonishment Kazimierz, Jacob’s cook.
“What are you doing here, Kazimierz? Shouldn’t you be at your master’s table, is it not time for lunch?”
The boy stops dead for a moment. When he recognizes Franciszek, he rushes to him and greets him effusively.
“I’m not going back there,” he says after a moment. “It’s prison.”
“Did you not know you two were going to prison?”
“But me? Why would I be there? Why would I voluntarily imprison myself, that’s what I don’t understand. The Lord has his moods, several times he’s beaten me, recently he kept grabbing me by the hair. Sometimes he doesn’t eat anything, and other times he gets a craving for some special dish. And—” he starts, but he breaks off. Shlomo Wo?owski can guess what Kazimierz isn’t saying, and he doesn’t follow up. He knows he has to tread lightly here.
He dismounts and sits on the grass under a tree that has already put out some little leaves. He produces some hard cheese, bread, and a bottle of wine. Kazimierz looks covetously at the latter. He is thirsty and hungry. As they eat, both turn their gaze toward the city of Cz?stochowa. In the warm spring air the sound of the monastery’s bells floats over to them. Shlomo Wo?owski starts to get impatient.
“Tell me, what’s it like there? Will I get in to see him?”
“He’s not allowed to see anyone.”
“But if I pay, who do I give the money to?”
Kazimierz thinks a long while, as though savoring the fact that he is in possession of such valuable information.
“None of the brothers will take a bribe . . . The old soldiers would, but they don’t really have that kind of power.”
“I would like to chat with him, even if it’s just through a window. Do you think I could do that? Does he have a window that faces onto the outside of the building?”
Kazimierz, in silence, considers the monastery’s windows.
“I think you would be able to do that through a window. But even so, they’d have to let you into the monastery.”
“I’ll get into the monastery myself, as a pilgrim.”
“So you will. Then you go, brother, to those old soldiers. Talk with Roch. Buy him tobacco and vodka. If they think you’ll be a generous friend to them, they’ll help.”
Shlomo Wo?owski looks at Kazimierz’s linen bag.
“What do you have there?”
“The Lord’s letters, brother.”