“Let me see.”
The boy obediently pulls out four letters. He sees the carefully folded pages with the seal Jacob had made in Warsaw. The addressees are written out in beautiful penmanship, with many flourishes.
“Who writes for him in Polish?”
“Brother Grzegorz, one of the younger ones. He is teaching him to write and speak.”
One of the letters is to Josepha Scholastica Frank, otherwise known as Hana, and then there’s one to Yeruhim Dembowski—that’s the thickest one—and a third to Katarzyna Kossakowska and a fourth to Antoni Moliwda-Kossakowski.
“Nothing for me,” Shlomo says, in a tone that neither asks nor affirms.
Then Wo?owski learns many more disturbing things. That for the whole month of February Jacob did not get out of bed, and when the terrible frosts set in, and they couldn’t quite heat their chamber, he fell ill and had a terrible fever, so that one of the monks would come to treat him and let his blood. Kazimierz repeats the same thing several times: that he feared the Lord would die, and he would be the only one to be there with him when he died. Then through all of March, Jacob was weak, and Kazimierz fed him only chicken broth. For the chickens, he was permitted to walk to Cz?stochowa, to Shmul’s store, and he spent all the money for the Lord’s board and had to put in some of his own. The brothers don’t bother themselves much with the prisoner. Just one of them, Brother Marcin, who is painting the inside of the church, talks to him, but the Lord still barely understands it. The Lord spends a great deal of time in the chapel. He also lies facedown with his arms outspread before the holy picture when they haven’t let in the pilgrims yet, meaning at night, so that he sleeps during the day. According to Kazimierz, in that damp and without sunlight, Jacob won’t last much longer. And there’s something else—he’s become extremely wrathful. Kazimierz has also heard him talking to himself.
“Well, who’s he supposed to talk to? Certainly not you,” mutters Shlomo Wo?owski under his breath.
Wo?owski tries to arrange a visit with Jacob. He has rented a room in town with a Christian who looks at him suspiciously, but, paid well, doesn’t ask too many questions. Every day he goes to the monastery and waits for an audience with the prior. When he finally gets one after five days, the prior only allows him to give him a package for Jacob, and only after it’s been searched. If there are letters, they must be in Polish or Latin, and they are censored by the prior. Those are his orders. No visits have been envisioned. The audience lasts but a moment.
Finally, Roch, having been bribed, leads Wo?owski at night through the walls into the monastery, where everyone’s asleep. He tells him to stand beneath the little opening in the wall, whence comes a faint glow of light. Roch, meanwhile, goes on inside, and after a moment, Jacob’s head appears at the window. Wo?owski sees him hazily.
“Shlomo?” asks the Lord.
“Yes, it is me.”
“What news do you have for me? I received the package.”
Wo?owski has so much to say he doesn’t know where to begin.
“We’re all of us in Warsaw. Your wife is still with that woman, outside Warsaw in Koby?ka—she’s been baptized now.”
“How are the children?”
“Good, healthy. Just sad, like the rest of us.”
“Is that why you all put me in here?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why hasn’t my wife been writing to me?”
“They can’t write you everything . . . Those letters are read along the way. Here and in Warsaw. Not to mention that now Yeruhim Dembowski is trying to pass himself off as our leader. And his brother Jan. They want to rule us and give us all our orders.”
“I write in my letters what you are supposed to be doing.”
“But that’s not enough, you have to designate a deputy.”
“But I’m right here, and I can tell you myself.”
“That won’t do. There has to be someone—”
“Who has the money?” asks Jacob.
“Osman Czerniawski has some of it, deposited, and some of it is with my brother, Jan.”
“Have Matuszewski join him—they can be in charge together.”
“Appoint me as your deputy. You know me well and know I have the strength and the mind for it.”
Jacob says nothing. Then he asks:
“Who betrayed me?”
“Out of stupidity we all let ourselves be drawn in, but we all wished you the best. I never said a word against you.”
“You’re all cowards. I should spit on all of you.”
“Spit,” says Shlomo quietly. “Nahman Jakubowski talked the most. He betrayed you, and he was your closest confidant. But you knew he was weak—good at disputation, maybe, but for such things, weak. He is the traitor. The coward. The weasel.”
“A weasel is an intelligent animal, it knows what it’s doing. Tell him I will never lay eyes on him again.”
Shlomo Wo?owski gathers all his strength.
“Write a letter for me saying how I’ll fill in for you until you get out. I’ll keep them all in line. For now we’ve been gathering at Yeruhim’s. He’s doing business, employing our people. There are a lot of ours in Koby?ka, on Bishop Za?uski’s property, but we’re all of us impoverished and on our own. We weep over you every day, Jacob.”
“Weep, then. Try to get to the king through Moliwda.”
“He’s stuck in ?owiczu with the primate.”
“Then try and get to the primate!”
“Moliwda isn’t with us anymore. He’s had it with us. He’s out.”
Jacob is silent for a while.
“And you?”
“And I’m in Warsaw, where my business is going well. Everybody wants to be in Warsaw, you can give the children a good education there. Your Avacha has two tutors, thanks to Kossakowska. She’s learning French. We want to take her in to live with us, Marianna and I.”
Somewhere in the next courtyard a light appears, and Roch comes back and grabs Wo?owski by his black frock coat and pushes him toward the gate.
“That’s it. Done.”
“I’ll wait until tomorrow evening. Write a letter to everyone, and I’ll take it to them straightaway. Roch will give it to me. Write it in our language. Designate me as your substitute. You trust me.”