The groom is getting ready to go now. Yehuda Levi ben Tovah, Jacob’s father-in-law, has found him a good job in Craiova. It is a sizable city situated on the Danube, a gate between the north and the south. Tovah has a brother-in-law there who is a successful merchant, and he needs help with his warehouse—dispatching things, invoicing. The whole commercial network is run by a macher named Osman of Czernowitz; people say that whatever he touches turns to gold. Gold flows from Poland, from Moravia, they pay him for Turkish goods and the things that they don’t have up north. Why do they not produce hats made of wool felt in Poland? Why do they not weave carpets? And craft faience, and glass? They don’t make much there, importing everything, which is why someone like Osman must exist at the border, the salt of the earth, helping to channel the impulses of the world. The turban that wreathes his suntanned face makes him look like a Turk.
Reb Mordke thinks he will remain in Nikopol; he is old, tired. He needs soft pillows, clean sheets; his mission seems to have come to an end, the mystery revealed, Jacob matched and married and now a fully grown man. One broken gear in the machine of the world has been fixed. Now, perhaps, Reb Mordke can retreat into the shadows, into the smoke of his pipe.
Come tomorrow, everyone will part. Jacob and Hershel ben Zebu, Hana’s young cousin, will set out for Craiova, and at least for now, Nahman will go back to Poland. He will carry the good news to the brothers in Podolia, Rohatyn, Glinno, and Busk, and after all of that, he will be free to go back to his own home. He thinks about this with a mixture of happiness and aversion. As everyone knows, it isn’t easy to go home.
It takes them until midnight to say goodbye. The women have been sent off to sleep; the men have closed the doors. Now they’re drinking that Nikopolian wine and concocting schemes for the future, playing with little crumbs of bread on the table, sprinkling them into little hills, twirling the little balls. Nussen is already asleep on a cotton bale, he has closed his one eye and doesn’t see Jacob, gaze blurry, stroking Nahman’s face, or Nahman, drunk, resting his head on Jacob’s chest.
At dawn, not yet fully conscious, Nahman sits down in a cart that will carry travelers to Bucharest; he has gold sewn into his light-colored kapota, everything he has earned from this expedition—not bad. And he will carry some dozen bottles of aloe oil that he will sell in Poland for a considerably higher price. Deep in the pocket of his white wool overcoat that he bought at the bazaar in Nikopol, he has a clump of fragrant resin. There is also a bag of letters and a whole pack of gifts for the women in the cart. His freckled, chapped face is wet with tears, but as soon as they get past the town’s outskirts, he is overcome by such elation he feels as if he were flying over the stony tract toward the sun, which is just coming up and completely blinds him.
He is lucky: in Bucharest, he joins the caravan of the Kamieniec company of Wereszczyński, David and Muradowicz—so say the cases on the carts. The load smells of coffee and tobacco. The caravan is heading north.
After almost three weeks, Nahman reaches Rohatyn in good stead and dirty stockings, and in his dusty, light-colored overcoat he stands at dusk in front of the Shorr house, where they are just preparing for a wedding of their own.
In Craiova: Of trade on holy days and of Hershel, faced with the dilemma of the cherries
The workshop of Abraham, Tovah’s brother-in-law, is a veritable treasure trove; he trades all over Europe the things the Orient does best, which flow through Stamboul to the north in a colorful stream of all kinds of bright and shining merchandise, much vaunted at the courts of Budapest and Vienna, Kraków and Lwów. The Stamboul fabrics, which come in all different colors, interwoven with gold, in amaranth, red, green, in cerulean stripes or embossed with floral patterns, lie rolled up in bales and covered in canvas to protect them from dust and sun. Next to these, soft Algerian carpets made of wool so delicate it feels like damask, fringed or trimmed with galloon. And camlet, also in bales and of various colors, from which European men’s fancy jackets are fashioned, and lined with silk, which is also present here in great abundance.
There are also little kilims, tassels, fringes, mother-of-pearl and lacquer buttons, small decorative weapons, lacquer snuffboxes—a gift for the refined gentleman—and fans painted with scenes—for European ladies—pipes, expensive stones. There are even sweets: halva and Turkish delight. To the warehouse come Bosnians, known here as “Greeks,” bringing leather goods, sponges, fluffy towels, brocade, delightful Khorasan and Kerman scarves with lions and peacocks embroidered on them. And it all smells different—some exotic, foreign scent emanates from the pile of kilims, the fragrance of unfathomable gardens, blooming trees, fruits.
“Subhanallah”—“Praise Allah”—say the clients when they enter this place. “As-salamu alaykum.”
They have to bow their heads because the entrance is low. Jacob never sits in the office, but rather at a little table having tea, dressed lavishly, like a Turk, in a blue-green Turkish caftan and a dark red Turkish cap. Before they get down to business, they always have to have two or three little glasses of tea. The local merchants also want to get to know Tovah’s sonin-law, so Jacob gives audiences of sorts, which angers Abraham. But on the other hand, Abraham’s small warehouse is always full of people now. Precious stones and ready-made jewelry in semi-wholesale quantities are traded here. Strung beads and malachite of every possible size hang from hooks and cover the stone walls with a colorful pattern of undulating lines. The most valuable goods, including an exceptionally expensive pearl, can be found in the glass display cabinet.
Jacob stands and greets each guest with a bow. After just a few days of his working in Abraham’s warehouse, it has become the most popular place in all of Craiova.
Several days after the arrival of Jacob and his entourage, the fast of Tisha BeAv begins. It commemorates the destruction of the Temple—a dark and difficult time, a day of sadness; the world also slows down then, as though grown sad, and having started to stagger out of that sadness. The Jews, some dozen households in Craiova, close their stores, don’t work, sit in darkness, and read Jeremiah’s Lamentations, recollecting their misfortune.
This is good for Abraham, since as a true believer, and as a follower of Sabbatai Tzvi and his successor, Baruchiah, he celebrates the holiday in a different way, aware that in the end times, everything is done in reverse. For Abraham, then, this is a joyful holiday.