For Tovah, what Jacob says is shocking. His son-in-law is doing worse than he sounded in his letters. But Tovah also sees that the members of his Cz?stochowa retinue take his words as if they were completely normal. Jacob says the Shekhinah is here in Esau’s captivity, which is why they have to accompany the prisoner, who has become the guardian of the Shekhinah in the Jasna Góra icon. He says that Poland is the country of the Shekhinah’s incarceration, the imprisonment of God’s Presence in the world, and it is here that the Shekhinah will also get out of jail in order to free the world. Poland is the most particular place on earth, at once the worst and the best. The Shekhinah must be raised from the ashes and allowed to save the world. Sabbatai tried, and Baruchiah tried, but only Jacob will succeed. Because he has come to the right place!
“Just look, Father, at the customs of the world,” says Tovah’s daughter, his beloved Hanele, as if suddenly waking up. “The Shekhinah cannot be chased with Ishmael, because the Shekhinah is in woman, and they, the Ishmaelites, do not care at all about the woman, she is a slave, and no one respects her. The Shekhinah can only be found in a country where honor is paid to the female, and so it is in Poland, they not only stand before their women with their heads uncovered, but they also pay them compliments, and they act like servants toward them, and on top of all of that, they pay the greatest tribute to this Virgin with her child here, in Cz?stochowa. This is the land of the Virgin. So we, too, ought to get under her wings.”
She takes her husband’s hand in hers and lifts it to her lips.
“The Lord will make us knights of that Virgin, and we will all be warriors of the Messiah.”
Hana’s father has thoughts of which he cannot rid himself. He would like to take her and his grandchildren far away from here. And explain to Jacob that it is for their well-being. Or kidnap them. Perhaps he could hire some ruffians to do it? It is so dark here, so damp. Living within the walls of this fortress has made them like mushrooms. Hana’s bones hurt, her ankles are swollen, and her face is puffy and ugly. The children are fragile and frightened. Lovely Avacha, taken out of Warsaw, has grown shy and withdrawn toward her grandfather. She should be better cared for. Jacob will not teach her anything good here. He lets her run around the garrison, conversing with the soldiers. She goes up and talks to pilgrims. The children have too little sun, and their food, even what is purchased in the best stalls here or brought in from elsewhere, is never fresh, is of poor quality.
Jacob speaks, gesticulating with his hands, and, squeezed into the chamber, sitting on straw mattresses and on the floor, they listen to him:
“Ayelet ahuvim, or the favored deer, the roe doe. To the place where I am going, the Jacob of the Scriptures has already gone, and then the First Jacob, Sabbatai Tzvi. And now I am going—I, the true Jacob.” When he says “I,” he strikes his broad chest so that it booms. “Many have attempted to pound on the entrance to this place—all the patriarchs, Moses, Aaron, David, Solomon, all the great pillars of the world. Yet they couldn’t get it open. In the place where we are going, there is no death. There is where the Maiden lives, the Blind Virgin, the Roe Doe, who is the true Messiah.”
Now Jacob falls quiet and paces two steps this way, two steps that way. He waits for what he has said to sink in. There is absolute silence, and against this backdrop the noise of Tovah clearing his throat sounds like a thunderclap. Jacob turns to him and goes on:
“It is all written—you know it all. The Maid is God’s wisdom hidden in a painted board like a princess in a tall tower whom no one will ever obtain. For her we must commit Foreign Acts, deeds that will turn the world on its head. Do you remember that serpent in paradise? The serpent urges us toward freedom. Whoever digs up the Tree of Knowledge, and attains the Tree of Life, and becomes one with the Virgin, will possess the knowledge of salvation, that hidden Daat.”
They all repeat that word: Daat, everywhere Daat. Tovah is astonished by the change in his son-in-law. Before he came here, he heard gossip that Jacob had died, and that someone else had replaced him. But he is a new person, in fact. He has almost nothing in common with the man to whom Tovah whispered secrets under the huppah all those years ago.
Tovah and Hayim sleep in a musty, dirty little house whose owners have abandoned it. It is disgusting to touch anything there. The fumes of the outhouse make him feel weak; it’s just a small roof on some stakes with a filthy rag used as a curtain, near a pile of shit. His son has to take him, Old Tovah holding up his long coat lest it be sullied.
Every day he promises himself that he will talk with Hana, and every day he is unable to ask her the question: Will you come home with me?
Probably because he knows what she will say.
Tovah sees that over the course of their two-week visit, Jacob has also conquered Hayim; a kind of confederacy has arisen between them, an odd and ambiguous understanding, filled with incomprehensible mutual dedication. Hayim repeats after Jacob, talks with his words.
Jacob Frank is therefore someone who stole Tovah’s children from him. A really terrible thing has happened. Tovah undoes his amulets, prays over them, and ties them around his daughter’s and granddaughter’s necks.
It becomes clear that Tovah is of little faith, and one evening they come to a quarrel: Tovah calls Jacob a traitor and a trickster, and Jacob hits him in the face. At dawn, Tovah sets out with Hayim, who is pained by this decision, without even saying goodbye to his daughter and granddaughter. His fury does not subside at any point along their journey. In his mind he is writing the letter he will send around to all the truebelieving kahalim in Europe. He will write to Moravia and Altona, to Prague and Wroc?aw, to Salonika and Stamboul. He will take a stand against Jacob.
There are, however, things on which father-in-law and son-in-law agree—they have to look to the east, to Russia. Here in Poland their protectors are slowly losing their influence. Both Tovah and Jacob believe in always siding with the strongest.
Shortly after Tovah’s sudden departure, a delegation sets out for Moscow. The delegation is led by Jakubowski, who is delighted to be back in Jacob’s good graces. On the evening before they set off, the envoys have dinner with him in the tower. Jacob himself pours them wine.
“We ought to be grateful to the First, who took that initial step into the Turkish religion. And to the Second, who discovered this state in the religion of Edom, that is, baptism. Now I am sending you to Moscow—for the third time.”
As he says this, he stands and walks around the little room, his tall hat catching on the beams of the ceiling. That night, before their journey, the envoys—Wo?owski, Jakubowski, and Paw?owski—have intercourse with Hana. In this way they all become Jacob’s brothers, closer than they have ever been before.
El?bieta Dru?backa writes from the Bernardine monastery in Tarnów a last letter to the canon Benedykt Chmielowski in Firlejów