This was before her birth, in dismal, wretched times, when everyone was urgently clinging to the hope of a savior, for people’s misery was so great it seemed impossible the world could go on any longer. Such pain can’t be relieved by any world. It certainly can’t be explained or understood, and no one would believe it corresponds to God’s designs. And anyway, those with a sensitive eye, most often older women who had seen a great deal during their lifetimes, had noticed that the machinery of the world is breaking down. For instance, one night in the mill where Yente’s father delivered grain, the milling wheels came apart, every last one. And then the sow thistles, with their yellow flowers, arranged themselves one morning into the letter alef. In the evening, the sun set bloody, a deep, dark orange, so that everything on earth turned brown as though coated in dried blood. The reeds along the river grew so sharp they’d cut human calves. The wormwood got so toxic that its scent could topple a grown man. Not to mention Khmelnytsky’s massacres. How were those supposed to fit into God’s plan? As early as 1648, terrible rumors of slaughters began to spread from country to country, and with them came the refugees, the widows and the agunot, the orphaned children, the crippled—all irrefutable proof that the end was on its way and the world would soon give birth to the Messiah, that the birthing pains had already begun and, as had been written, the old law would soon be null and void.
Yente’s father had traveled to Poland from Regensburg, whence his whole family was expelled for the same eternal Jewish sins. Settling in Greater Poland, they traded in grain, like many of their kin and co-religionists, sending that lovely golden stuff to Gdańsk and on into the world. It was a good business, and they lacked for nothing.
The enterprise was really just getting under way when, in 1654, a plague broke out; many souls were taken by the pestilential winds. Winter put a stop to the spread of the disease, but then the cold did not let up for months and months on end, and those whom the plague had spared now began to freeze to death in their own beds. The seas turned to ice, so that you could cross on foot to Sweden; the ports ceased their operations, the roads were all impassable, the livestock perished en masse. When spring finally came, so, too, did accusations that all of these misfortunes had been caused by the Jews. Trials began all over the country, and the Jews, in order to defend themselves, sent for help from the pope, but before their messenger managed to return to Poland, the Swedes arrived, laying waste to cities and towns. And once again the Jews were ripped to shreds, for being unbelievers.
And so Yente’s father moved with his family from Greater Poland to the east, to relatives in Lwów, where he hoped to find a peaceful haven. Here, they were far from the world—all things arrived with some delay, while the earth revealed itself to be more fertile than any they’d encountered. And as in those colonies to which the people of the west were so eager to immigrate, there was plenty of space for everyone. But it lasted only a moment. After the expulsion of the Swedes, amidst the ruins of the towns, on ruthlessly looted market squares, people started asking all over again who could be responsible for the Commonwealth’s misfortunes, and more often than not, they came up with the same old answer: It was infidels and Jews, plotting with the invaders. At first they went after the Polish Brethren, but soon the pogroms began.
Yente’s maternal grandfather came from Kazimierz, near Kraków. He had a small business there that produced felt caps. In the summer of the Christian year of 1664—5425 by the Jewish calendar—one hundred twenty-nine people died in riots. It started when one Jew was accused of stealing the sacramental bread. Yente’s grandfather’s shop was pillaged and destroyed. Having traded the rest of his possessions for their safety, he put his whole family in their wagon and headed southeast, to Lwów, where their kin lived. It was a good idea: the Cossack element in this part of the world had already had its fun under Khmelnytsky in 1648. Gezerah—the Great Catastrophe—could not occur again. It’s just like what they say about lightning: It’s safest to stand where it’s already struck.
They settled in a village not far from Lwów. Here, too, the earth was rich, with thick soil, dense forests, and rivers filled with fish. The great nobleman Potocki kept it all in perfect order, never permitting any deviation from the rules. By that point, Yente’s family must have thought that there was nowhere on earth they could hide—that it would be better to simply submit to God’s will. And yet, things were good for them here. They brought in wool for felt from Wallachia, and other goods as well, so that soon their business really prospered, and they were back on their feet—they had a home with an orchard and a little workshop, a yard that geese and chickens roamed, fat yellow melons in the grass, plums they used to make slivovitz as soon as frost set in.
Then, in the autumn of 1665, along with their goods from Smyrna came the news that soon shook all the Jews of Poland: The Messiah has arrived. Everyone who heard this instantly fell silent and tried to make sense of this short sentence: The Messiah has arrived. For it is not a common phrase. And it is a final answer. Anyone who pronounces it will watch the scales fall from his eyes, will see the world completely differently from that day forward.
In truth, had there not already been sufficient signs of end times? Those monstrous yellow nettle roots that tangled insidiously underground around the roots of other plants, along with the extraordinarily rampant bindweed that year, its shoots thick as ropes. All sorts of greenery climbing the walls of houses, trees seeming ready to reach for people’s throats. Apples with several seeded cores, eggs with two yolks, hop that grew so savagely it suffocated a heifer.
The Messiah was known as Sabbatai Tzvi. He already had thousands of people from all over the world in his retinue, preparing to travel with him to Stamboul, where he was to tear the sultan’s crown from his head and proclaim himself king. With him, too, went his prophet, Nathan of Gaza, a great scholar who wrote down the Messiah’s words and sent them out into the world for all the Jews to read.
Right away a letter came to the Lwów kahal from Rabbi Baruch Peysach of Kraków, saying there was no more time to wait—they needed to get to Turkey as quickly as they could, to bear witness to these final days. To be among the first who would see.
Mayer, Yente’s father, did not easily succumb to such visions.
He said: If it were as you all say, then a Messiah would come in every generation, he’d be here this month, and there the next. He’d be born again after every riot and after every war. He’d intervene after every misfortune. And how many of those have we had? Countless.
Yes, yes, his listeners would nod. He was right. But everyone could sense that this time was also different. And once again the game of signs began—the clouds, the reflections on the water, the shapes of the snowflakes. Mayer finally made up his mind to go because of some ants he’d seen as he was giving the matter serious thought: they were moving up the table leg, in a row, obediently, calmly, and when they got to the tabletop, one after another they scooped up a tiny morsel of cheese and went back down just as calmly and contritely. Pleased, he decided to take this as a sign. He already had money and goods set aside, and being a highly esteemed man, considered reasonable and wise, he had no trouble finding a place in that great caravan that was to travel all the way to Sabbatai.