Smyrna knows it sins, deceives, cheats. In the narrow little streets, by day and by night, trade takes place; someone always has something to sell, someone always wants to buy something. Goods pass from hand to hand, fingers extending for coins that disappear into deep coat pockets, into the folds of wide trousers. Little bags, handbags, purses, boxes—everywhere coins sound, everyone hoping to make money on every transaction. On the stairs of the mosques sit people known as sarafs, who keep on their laps little tables with a groove along the side that serves to slide away coins already counted. Next to them stand sacks of silver and gold or the currency for which the client wishes to exchange their money. They must have every type of money that exists in the whole world, and they know the exchange rates by heart; no wise book, not even the best map portrays the world so clearly as the profiles of rulers with their names minted into copper, silver, and gold. It is from here that they really rule, gazing sternly out at their subjects like pagan gods.
Here the little streets create a circuitous tangle in which a person not paying close attention to where they are going will easily get lost. The better-off have their stalls and shops on these streets, their storerooms extending deep into the buildings and even crossing into the apartments where the merchants keep their families and most valuable goods. The narrow streets are often roofed, which makes the city resemble a real labyrinth, in which many visitors have gone astray before finding themselves back in territory they have already explored. Almost nothing grows here; in places without a house or a temple, the earth is dry and rocky, covered in trash, rotting waste that dogs and birds dig through, battling each other over every bite.
Smyrna is filled with Jews from Poland who have come for charity—since they have known only poverty where they come from—or for business deals, whether smaller ones that can be counted in a couple of pieces of gold or big ones there aren’t enough sacks for. They roam, they make inquiries, they strike their deals, and it does not occur to some of them to go back home. The Smyrna Jews look down on them, don’t understand their language and communicate with them instead in Hebrew (if they can) or in Turkish. The new arrivals can be recognized by their warmer clothing, which is dirty, frayed at the hem, often in poor condition that reflects their having crossed a sizable swath of the world. Now this clothing is disheveled and undone in places—it’s too hot for it.
Some of the wealthy Podolian merchants maintain agents here—to turn around the merchants’ wares, lend and borrow money, issue guarantees of travel, and maintain the entire business in the proprietors’ absence.
Many of them, most of them, are followers of Sabbatai Tzvi. They don’t even hide it, and openly proclaim their Messiah without fear of persecution here in Turkey, since the sultan tolerates different religions as long as they do not get too intrusive. These Jews are already somewhat acclimated to their new home; they have even grown slightly Turkish in their aspects, and their demeanor is free. Some, less sure of themselves, still dress in the old Jewish way, and yet from their homespun Podolian garments something foreign, something colorful, now protrudes—an ornate bag or a fashionably trimmed beard, or maybe Turkish shoes made of kid leather. And just like that, faith manifests itself in clothing. But it is also well known that many of those who still look like the truest Jews are in the sway of Sabbatian ideas.
Nahman and Reb Mordke are friendly with all of them, because it’s easy to talk to them, and they see this great vibrant world in similar ways. Recently they came across Nussen, who, like them, comes from Podolia, and who navigates Smyrna better than any native.
One-eyed Nussen, the son of the saddler and harness-maker Aron of Lwów, buys up delicate dyed kidskin with patterns embossed in it; he packs up this leather and organizes its transport to the north. Some of it he leaves in Bucharest, Vidin, Giurgiu, some of it he sends onward to Poland. To Lwów he sends exactly enough to keep his sons’ workshop in business—they will turn the kidskin into book covers, wallets, purses. Nussen is fidgety, agitated, and he speaks quickly, mixing several languages at once. In the rare moments when he smiles, he reveals even, snow-white teeth—it is a very special sight, and his face becomes beautiful then. He knows everyone here. He deftly moves between stalls, down the narrow streets, avoiding the carts and the donkeys. His one weakness is women. He can’t resist a single one, which means he’s always getting into trouble and is unable to save the money to ever go back home.
Thanks to Nussen, Reb Mordke and Nahman find Isohar of Podhajce. Nussen takes them both to him, proud to know the wise man personally.
Isohar’s school is a two-story building in a Turkish district, narrow and tall. Inside the cool courtyard, a little orange tree grows, and past that is a grove of old olive trees, in the shade of which vagrant dogs often come to sit. They get chased out, stones thrown at them. They’re all yellow, as if they all come from the same family, born of a single canine Eve. They leave the shade reluctantly, regarding humans as eternal sources of distress.
Inside, it’s cool and gloomy. Isohar greets Reb Mordke heartily, his chin trembling with emotion. The two old men, slightly hunched over, hold on to each other’s arms and circle, as if celebrating the dance of the white clouds that hang from their lips in the guise of beards. They step around each other, similar in appearance, though Isohar is smaller and paler—you can tell he rarely ventures into the sun.
The newcomers receive a room to sleep in, just big enough for two. Reb Mordke’s renown gets conferred upon Nahman, and he is treated with great respect. At last he can get a full night’s sleep on clean and comfortable linens.
The neophytes sleep on the ground downstairs, in a row, more or less like at the Besht’s in Mi?dzybó?. The kitchen is in the courtyard. Water is retrieved by means of giant jugs dipped into the Jewish well in the other courtyard.