“I’m scared of him.”
“What are you talking about? Can’t you see that we are all bathed in light, don’t you see how all our faces have changed, how we’ve grown more beautiful? And that light over Jacob? Can’t you see it? A green glow. We are all God’s chosen ones now. God is in us, and when God is in a person, he is no longer bound by any ordinary rules.”
“That’s how mushrooms shine at night,” says Wajge?e. “There is light in a mushroom, from the moisture, from the darkness . . .”
“What are you talking about, Wajge?e?”
Wajge?e cries. Nahman-Jakubowski strokes her back, until one day Wajge?e finally agrees.
Jacob tells him to stay. He lies down on Wajge?e stiffly, with a grunt, and without looking at her, he does his thing. Wajge?e releases a deep sigh.
Every evening, they gather in the officer’s chamber, and Jacob gives his chats, just like in Ivanie. He often points out a person from their company, and from their story he begins his tale. That night it is Wajge?e, Nahman’s wife. He tells her to sit next to him, and he puts his hand on her shoulder. Wajge?e is haggard and pale.
“The death of a child is proof that there is no good God,” says Jacob. “For how could there be, since God destroys what is dearest—someone’s life? What does He get out of it, this God, out of killing us? Is He scared of us?”
People are disturbed by such a framing of the situation. They whisper amongst themselves.
“Where we’re going, there will be no laws, because laws are born of death, and we are connected with life. The evil force that created the cosmos can be cleared out only by the Virgin. A woman will overcome that force, because she is powerful.”
Suddenly Wajge?e starts crying again, and after a while, old Paw?owska joins in, and some of the other women, too, begin to snivel. The men’s eyes glaze over. Jacob changes his tone.
“But worlds created by a good God exist—they’re just concealed from us. Only the true believers can find the road to them, since really, it isn’t far—you just have to know how to get there. I will tell you: To access these worlds, you must go through the Olsztyn Caves near here. There is where you’ll find the entrance. That’s where Makpela Cave is, and that is the center of the world.”
He unfurls a great vision before them—here all the caves in the world are linked to one another, and wherever they meet, time flows differently. Which is why if a person were to fall asleep in such a cave, for just a little while, and then he wanted to go back to the village where he’d left his family, he would find out that his parents had died, that his wife had become a decrepit old lady, and that his children had grown old.
They nod. They know these stories.
“Yes, and this cave that is so close to Cz?stochowa has a direct connection to the cave from Korolówka, and that one is connected to the cave where Abraham and the first parents rest.”
A sigh is heard. So this is how it is: Everything is connected with everything, carefully linked.
“Does anyone know the layout of these caves?” Marianna Paw?owska asks hopefully.
Jacob knows it, obviously. Jacob knows where and at what moment to turn in order to get to Korolówka or to another world, a world where there are all kinds of riches and carriages loaded with gold, just sitting there waiting for someone who might want to take them.
He brings them pleasure by describing these riches in detail, which is why he does so with so much attention to detail: the walls made of gold, the luxurious curtains, embroidered with silver and gold, the tables set with gold plates, and on them, instead of fruit, lie great precious stones, rubies, sapphires the size of apples, the size of plums, and damask tablecloths sewn with silver thread, and lamps made entirely of crystal.
Wajge?e, or Sofia Jakubowska, who does not yet know that she is pregnant, imagines that in reality she would not need all that, that she’d be happy with just one fat ruby the size of an apple . . . And she isn’t listening anymore, just planning what she would do with such a stone. She would have it cut into smaller pieces, so that no one could ever suspect that she had stolen such a wonder, since having a huge stone like that is also dangerous and might tempt thieves and villains. So she would have the stone cut in secret (although who would be willing to undertake such a thing?) and slowly she would sell all the smaller stones, one after the other, in different cities, because that would be safer. And she would live off that. She would buy herself a small shop, and then to go with the shop she would also buy a moderately sized home, but nice and bright and dry, and also pretty white linen underthings and silk stockings, half a dozen pairs, so she could have reserves. And maybe she would also order new, lighter skirts, and some wool ones for the winter.
When they have all gone their separate ways, slipping out of the monastery quietly to head back into town, Nahman Jakubowski stays behind. When they are alone, Nahman falls to his knees and wraps his arms around Jacob’s ankles.
“I betrayed you to save you,” he says into the floor, his voice muffled. “You know that. You wanted it.”
The hole that leads to the abyss, or a visit from Tovah and his son Hayim Turk in 1765
The first measure imposed by the new king makes him unpopular at the monastery: he will remove the Jasna Góra fortress from the brothers’ care, which reduces their funds to a bare minimum. Now there is a new prior every year or two, and none of them can figure out any solution, particularly since none of them is versed, as a monk, in the running of such an economy. For after all, a monastery is its own economy.