People burst out laughing, thinking he has made this up, but to their surprise, the innkeeper acknowledges it to be true! She says that he is right, to the astonishment of their spectators, and then, beet red, she disappears.
Now Jacob’s message becomes as clear and distinct as the footprints stomped in the snow for warmth by those who didn’t make it inside and will have to find out about all of this secondhand. It is a question of uniting the three religions: Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. Sabbatai was the First, and he opened the door to Islam, while Baruchiah paved the way to Christianity. What appalls everyone and makes them stomp and shout? It’s the fact they have to ford the Nazarene faith as they would a river, and that Jesus was a shell and a shield for the true Messiah.
At around noon, the idea seems shameful. By the afternoon, it’s up for discussion. By evening it’s been assimilated, and late at night it’s perfectly obvious that everything’s exactly as Jacob says.
Late at night, yet another aspect of the idea, which they hadn’t really taken into consideration before, occurs to them—that once they are baptized, they will cease to be Jews, at least as far as anyone can tell. They will become people—Christians. They will be able to purchase land, open shops in town, send their children to any schools they wish . . . Their heads spin with possibilities, for it is as though they have suddenly been given a strange, almost inconceivable gift.
The Lord’s female guardians
The spies have been aware that as early as Jezierzany, Jacob has been accompanied by a young lady, later joined by a second. Both are purportedly there to guard him; the first one, a beautiful Busk girl, has light hair and pink cheeks and is invariably smiling, and she always walks one step behind him. The second one, Gitla, from Lwów, is tall and as proud as Queen Saba, and barely speaks. They say she is the daughter of one Pinkas, the secretary of the Lwów kahal, but she insists she is of royal blood, descended from the Polish princess her great-grandfather abducted one day. They sit on either side of Jacob like guardian angels, wearing beautiful furs on their shoulders, hats on their heads like noblewomen wear, decorated with precious stones and peacock feathers. At their sides sit small Turkish swords in turquoise-lined sheaths. Jacob positions himself between them like he might between the pillars of a temple. Soon the darker one, Gitla, becomes his true bodyguard, pushing ahead in crowds and barring access to him with her person, using a walking stick to protect his flanks. She keeps a warning hand on her sword. The fur only gets in her way, and soon she switches it for a red military doublet decorated with white silk cords. Her lush, unruly curls pop out from under her fur-lined military cap.
Jacob won’t go anywhere without her, and, as if she were his wife, he spends every night with her as well. He says God has sent her to protect him. She will accompany him on through Poland, she will keep him safe. For Jacob is afraid—he’s not blind, after all, and behind the backs of his followers he can see the quiet mob that spits at his mention, that mutters curses. Nahman sees that, too, which is why he has guards placed around whatever house they’re sleeping in that night. Only a jug of wine and the beautiful Gitla can calm Jacob’s nerves. The other guards can hear their giggles and amorous moans through the thin wooden walls of each humble home. Nahman doesn’t like it. Moses, the rabbi of Podhajce—the one who advised the Shorrs to call off the wedding—also warns that such a display is egregious, and that it will cause some to speak ill of Jacob—even though he himself, a recent widower, can’t help but look at Gitla with interest from time to time. Gitla gets on everyone’s nerves, puts on airs, looks down at the other women. Hayim from Warsaw and his wife, Wittel, cannot stand her. Although Jacob gives up the light-haired girl in Lwów, Gitla he keeps. In any case, the light-haired one is soon replaced.
The whole tour takes a solid month. Every night it’s different lodgings, different people. In Dawidów, Jacob greets Elisha Shorr like a father—Shorr in a floor-length overcoat and a fur-lined hat, his sons on either side of him. With a trembling hand, Shorr points out a strange glow over Frank’s head, and the longer they look at it, the bigger it gets, until all those present kneel down in the snow.
When he stays with the Shorrs again in Rohatyn, Old Shorr says, in front of everyone:
“Jacob, show us your strength. We know you have received it.”
Jacob refuses, saying he’s tired, saying it’s time to get some sleep after all those long disputations, and he heads upstairs to his rooms. But his feet on the oak steps leave tracks that look almost burned into the wood, permanently imprinted for all to see. From that night on, people come to behold those divine tracks in pious silence, and there in Rohatyn they also keep one of his embroidered Turkish pantofles.
The spies sent from the Lwów kahal take detailed notes on everything, from the contents of the new prayer Jacob Leybowicz Frank has brought with him to the fact that he adores kaymak and Turkish sweets with sesame seeds and honey. His companions always carry them in their baggage. In the prayer, Hebrew words intermingle with Spanish, Aramaic, and Portuguese, so that no one can understand exactly what is being said, which makes it sound all the more mysterious. They pray to someone they call Se?or Santo, sing “Dio mio Baruchiah.” From the snippets they have heard, the spies try to reproduce the contents of the prayer, coming up with this:
“Let us know your greatness, Se?or Santo, for you are the true God and Lord of the world, and king of the world who was incarnate and who destroyed once and for all the order of creation, raised yourself up to your proper place to cast aside all other created worlds, and apart from you there is no other God, neither high nor low. And do not lead us into temptation or shame, so we kneel and praise your name, great and mighty king. For He is holy.”
Scraps by Nahman of Busk kept secret from Jacob
When God had Jews set forth into the world, He already had in mind the end point of such a journey, though they did not know of it yet; He wanted them to go toward their destiny. The end point and the point of departure are divine; impatience is human, as is believing in chance and hoping for adventure. And so when it came time for the Jews to settle somewhere for some longer stay, they showed—like children—discontent. Joy, on the other hand, when once more they were called upon to leave. And so it is now. God is thus the frame of every journey. Man provides its contents.