Now Kossakowska manages to obtain, without much trouble at all, permission for husband and wife to meet in Cz?stochowa. Everyone is busy with politics, with the selection of the next king. The prior of the monastery agrees to improve the conditions of Jacob’s confinement. In the early autumn, with great relief, Hana and Avacha and a sizable group of true believers depart the much-loathed Wojs?awice and set out for Cz?stochowa. Marianna Potocka is angry with both them and Katarzyna. As if it weren’t enough that the town was losing those other Jews, now these are abandoning the larch manor. They leave all the doors wide open, trash on the floor. Where they loaded up their carts there are still some muddy, trampled rags. The only real, lasting testaments to their presence here are the graves, slightly off to the side, under the big elm, marked only with a few haphazard birch crosses and a pile of stones. The grave of Rabbi Moshe of Podhajce, the great Kabbalist and maker of powerful amulets, is the only one that stands out from the rest, thanks to the white pebbles in which it was covered by his wife.
The party arrives in Cz?stochowa on the 8th of September, 1762. They walk past the walls of the monastery solemnly, beautifully attired, with bouquets of flowers, yellow and purple. The fortress’s crew and the monks are surprised to see them, looking as they do more like a wedding party than the exhausted pilgrims they normally receive. And on the 10th of September, Hana and her husband, whom she has not seen in nearly two years, have intercourse in broad daylight, with the knowledge of everyone in the retinue. This happens in the tower, in the officer’s room, the little windows of which have been carefully covered so that no one else is able to take part in this tikkun, this act that repairs the world. Yet they all feel their hearts fill with the hope that the worst has passed at last, and that now the time has come for them to move forward. A month later, there is an entry in Matuszewski’s hand in the chaotically kept chronicle that on the 8th of October (the Lord has had them definitively do away with the Jewish calendar), Hana and Jacob have conceived a son; this Matuszewski knows from the Lord Himself.
They have rented two homes on the Wieluńskie Przedmie?cie. The others squeeze into little rooms at inns, but they all stick together. Thus to the north of the monastery a kind of tiny settlement arises constituted solely of true believers, and now Jacob has fresh fruits and vegetables each day, and eggs and meat when he’s not fasting.
The little houses of the village come up almost to the fortress; there are even some of the youngsters, for instance clever Jan Wo?owski, who are able to climb the wall and pass things to the prisoner, particularly once a little something has been slipped to the old soldiers. Then the veterans doze off, leaning on their spears, or, complaining of the cold, simply vanish up under the roof, where they play dice. The company even managed, under cover of night, to attach a ring to the wall, thanks to which it is possible to hoist up bags with provisions. They have to be careful that none of the brothers notices this fixture. Lately the Lord has been requesting onions: so much has he weakened from being confined that now his gums bleed, and his teeth hurt. He also complains that his ear has been hurting, and that he has dizzy spells. Hana, with the consent of the monastery, gets to visit her husband once a day, but she often lingers so long she ends up spending the night. Others come, too, little pilgrimages making their way to the Lord. All of the pilgrims are dressed neatly, in the Christian fashion, in the urban fashion, humbly, the female pilgrims differing completely from the gaudy Cz?stochowa Jewish women with the turbans on their heads. The true believer women wear the linen bonnets of Polish townswomen, and although some of them are also wearing through the soles of their shoes, and their bonnets hide a matted plait under the dull lace, their heads are still held high.
Since the rules have been relaxed, the Lord has sent to Warsaw for women. Since none took part in his betrayal, women will be his guards. He also needs naarot, or young maids, for his Avacha—serving girls and teachers. And he needs women to take care of him. Women, he needs women, lots of them—he needs them everywhere, as if their mild, vibrating presence might turn back the dark time of Cz?stochowa.
And here they are. First Wittel Matuszewska—she is the first, but then comes Henrykowa Wo?owska, extremely young but serene, somewhat heavyset, with a wide, pretty face and a quiet, lilting voice. Her beautiful, shiny brown hair sneaks out of its pins. There is Eva Jezierzańska, who is slender, with a birthmark on her neck that has hair growing out of it of which she is ashamed, so that she wears a kerchief. But she has a nice face like a young ermine’s, dark, velvety eyes, a beautiful complexion, and a burst of hair held back by a tightly drawn ribbon. There is also Franciszkowa Wo?owska, the eldest of them, strong and lovely, with a clear voice and musical talent to boot. And there are the same women the Lord liked having around in Ivanie—Paw?owska, Dembowska, and Czerniawska, his sister. There is also Lewińska and Micha?owa Wo?owska. And there is Klara Lanckorońska, Hayah’s daughter, with her curves and her smiling eyes. All of them came to Warsaw without their husbands, in two carriages. They will look after the Lord.
Jacob has them stand before him in a row. He looks them over carefully (Piotrowski will later say: “Like a wolf”), unsmiling. He leers at them, so beautiful are they. He paces up and down in front of them as if they were soldiers, and he kisses each one on the cheek. Then he tells a startled Hana to join them.
As he looks at them like this, he says the same thing he once said in Ivanie—that they are to choose one from amongst themselves, but in unison, without any quarrelling, and that she will remain with him for some time, and he will take her seven times by night and six by day. That woman will then give birth to a daughter, and as soon as she is pregnant, everyone will know it, because she will trail behind her something like a red thread.
The women blush. The elder Wo?owska, beautifully dressed, has twins who are one year old, whom she has left in the care of her sister in Warsaw; she would be happy to go back to them soon. She retreats one step, somewhat embarrassed. The virgins among them blush the most.
“I will be the woman who will stay with you,” says Hana suddenly.