The Library Paradox Read online

  ‘But why? Why?’

  ‘Because she marries a Gentile.’

  Shylock’s cry of despair – O my daughter! Fled with a Christian!

  ‘And in the story,’ Rivka went on, ‘he never mentions her again, and forbids his wife and children to mention her, and never goes to see her even though she lives very nearby.’

  ‘That seems heartless,’ I said.

  ‘No – it is terrible for him – like a wound every time he thinks of her, like a death for which one cannot mourn because it is always fresh and never finished. But he cannot bear the marriage. His religion, his faith, his God, his whole life would lose their meaning, and all the suffering, all the persecutions and misery and poverty and injustice that he and all the Jews have had to bear just for being Jews. If you no longer care about preserving it, then where is the meaning of it all? Even modern Jews like Amy’s parents would suffer if she were to marry a Gentile. As for a rebbe like this one – I think it would be death to him.’

  ‘You really think the girl in the picture married a Gentile?’

  ‘No, I don’t think anything, I am just imagining and guessing. But you know, it could be. It is not so terribly unlikely; it does happen. And it is difficult to imagine any other reason for such a reaction.’

  ‘Suppose she had a … an illicit love of some kind?’

  ‘With a Jewish man? If he were not already married, the whole community would force them to marry. But then the father would not cut her off. All marriages are arranged within this community; such a marriage would not be worse than any other. If the man was already married, the daughter would probably be shut up at home until a new marriage could be arranged, probably with some horrible old widower who wouldn’t care. Those are grave sins, but they are not unforgivable; they are part of the human condition.’

  ‘Suppose she converted to Christianity?’ I asked.

  ‘Then the father would probably react the way he did! But what Jewish girl would convert to Christianity for any reason other than love?’

  ‘Does the girl in the picture remind you of anyone?’ I asked her suddenly, feeling a little spurt of suspicion that there might be some connection between the rabbi’s family and the Rubinstein or Gad families. Britta Rubinstein? No, the mother of a young girl like Rivka would not be old enough to be the girl in the picture, who, if she were still alive, would have to be nearly sixty.

  ‘Not particularly. Does she remind you of someone?’ she countered. I looked at her sharply, but her natural expression of surprised interest was convincing.

  ‘Yes, she does,’ I answered honestly, ‘but I can’t remember who it is. I have become sensitive to such resemblances. I feel that I saw a face like hers recently somewhere; very recently. If only I could think who it might be! You are sure that her face recalls nothing to you?’

  ‘Nothing at all,’ she said. ‘It is a shame. It would have been exciting to be able to help you.’

  ‘But you have been helping me a great deal,’ I replied. She didn’t answer, and in the brief moment of silence, I noticed that no more sound was coming from the other side of the curtain, and hastened back to it.

  ‘The play is over,’ I said, peering through a gap. There were still several men milling about, but most of them seemed to be the rabbi’s disciples, easily recognisable by their black garb, and their hats and fringes and long side-curls. David and a few other guests stood out in their more ordinary clothing, the more so as the disciples did not mingle with them at all.

  One of them began a song, and the others soon picked it up. It grew and swelled into a loud, tuneful and rhythmic chant, containing only one word, repeated over and over.

  ‘What are they saying?’ I asked Rivka.

  ‘Rebbenu,’ she answered smiling. ‘It means “our rebbe”.’

  ‘Rebbenu, rebbenu, oy rebbenu-u-u-u-u-u,’ sang and chanted the group of disciples, more and more loudly, and they surrounded the rabbi, still sitting tranquilly in his armchair, and danced around him in increasingly wild circles as they sang, swaying and flinging their arms about.

  ‘Oy, oy, rebbenu, oy, oy, rebbenu –

  Rebbenu-u-u-u-u-u-u-u – u-u.’

  I watched in fascination as they became more and more uncontrolled; many were dancing with their eyes closed, their faces upturned towards Heaven. Several of the women and girls on our side of the curtain took up the chant, albeit more softly, but they too lost themselves in the joy of it and swayed back and forth freely as they sang. The melody was an easy one and before long, to my own surprise, I found myself singing along, abandoning myself to its invincible attraction. The wildness of it swirled through the room, snatching up the guests one after the other; it seemed that no one could escape it.

  ‘Rebbenu, rebbenu, oy, oy, rebbenu,

  Oy, oy, rebbenu, rebbenu, rebbenu,

  Rebbenu-u-u-u-u-u-u-u – u-u.’

  On and on it went. As though in a trance, I melted completely into the collective spirit of it, totally forgetting about my mission and my reason for being there; I believe I might have remained singing and swaying with the others until evening. But my melodic reverie was broken quite suddenly by a hand seizing my sleeve and giving it a vigorous tug.

  I opened my eyes, startled. It was little Ephraim, mandated by his brother, who was eagerly pulling me by the arm.

  ‘David says – now or never!’ he whispered dramatically.

  A powerful wave of nerves washed over me as the memory of my task returned. I felt as though I were about to step on a stage. Worse, in fact, for at least the actress about to perform her role has rehearsed it thoroughly and benefited from the counsel and advice of the theatre director, and even more importantly, she will play for a house full of people who are expecting to see that very performance, and at least a portion hope to like it. Whereas I, with only the most summary preparation, was about to infringe every rule of the household in which I found myself. Deep in my mind, I repeated to myself a little phrase which has reassured me many times in similar situations.

  After all – what is the worst thing which can possibly happen?

  To be summarily ejected by the disciples with the sidelocks and flung rudely out upon the pavement, I concluded quickly. Horrid, but I would survive it. I yielded to Ephraim’s hot little hand and, lifting my chin under the golden veil, I emerged from behind the curtain, thinking of Esther, and trying to look both humble and courageous. Upon my appearance, the song stuttered to a halt.

  In spite of the gauze veil which entirely covered my head, the flowing black robe, and the silk shawl which wrapped my shoulders, all of which together allowed no hint of impropriety, I perceived immediate shock and, let me own it, horror and even disgust painted upon all the masculine faces in the room, as I stepped out amongst them. I resisted the urge to flee or hide and, approaching the rabbi, I stood facing him. He alone accepted the fact of my arrival without changing expression, but he did avert his eyes from my face.

  So did all the others, but they did not stop there. There was a general rustle of movement towards me, and various angry, half-whispered orders and probably insults were flung in my direction. I ignored it (or pretended to), and spoke clearly and steadily the words David had taught me.

  ‘If I perish, I perish.’

  And to complete the illusion of Esther, I knelt in a queenly fashion and tried to look supplicatingly at the rabbi without staring.

  The disciples stopped rustling and looked at their master for a clue to his response. They all had turned away their eyes and even their heads to avoid the sight of me, yet I felt their attention fixed inimically upon me. The few children still trailing in the room grouped silently in a corner or disappeared behind the curtain to watch the strange events from a safer nook. Suddenly, for the first time since I had arrived, I heard the rabbi’s voice.

  ‘Let the Gentile woman rise and speak,’ he said, in the careful, heavily accented yet perfectly comprehensible English of people who have studied the language in books in a foreign lan
d, but never spoken it in its native country.

  I felt a little twinge of something irritating, almost humiliating, in his immediate identification of my modest self as an outsider. How could he tell? After all, Amy, for instance, would have spoken exactly as I had, and surely he would not have referred to her as a ‘Gentile’. Did I radiate in some particular manner – or on the contrary, did I not radiate in some way undetectable to my inexperienced sensitivity? It was, I must admit it, annoying.

  However, the main thing was that he had invited me to speak. Seeing that the disciples were now all fixed in various attitudes of studied absence, albeit they were still listening closely, I stood up, and swaying very slightly like the storytellers I had seen at work earlier, I began my tale.

  ‘I am here to tell you the tale of a powerful rabbi and a young man in danger,’ I said, pronouncing the words slowly and distinctly, and then I waited until complete silence reigned.

  ‘Long ago, there was an evil man who lived locked inside a heavy stone castle working black magic. This man hated Jews above all other peoples and ceaselessly worked for their disgrace and death.’

  Stopping for the merest second after this introduction, I gave a tiny glance about me. A few of the children had edged forward, others had lost interest; clearly not everyone in the room understood much English. I continued to speak, even more slowly and clearly than before.

  ‘At the same time, in a different part of the same large town, lived a respected and powerful rabbi. This rabbi was beloved and surrounded by family and disciples who listened to his every word and never left his side. He had important, influential friends in many countries who sent him letters. He heard of every event in the world concerning Jews, of all that they had to endure in each country, of every scandal perpetrated against individuals or entire villages or cities, every accusation, every murder, every pogrom. He suffered from these things and surrounded himself with holiness in order that at least one spot in the world should remain pure.

  ‘One day, the rabbi received a letter from another rabbi, a very important rabbi, who lived in a large country across the sea. The rabbi spoke of the horrendous trial of a Jew who had been condemned to spend the rest of his life on an island in the sea no bigger than a large rock. The man was innocent and many people tried to save him; not only Jews, but righteous men of all nations and religions. Yet many other people worked against him, desiring to keep him imprisoned forever on his island. The man had become the symbol of all Jews, polarising and dividing the populations. Father quarrelled with son, brother with sister, friend with friend.’

  I glanced around me surreptitiously. By now, everyone in the room was listening raptly.

  ‘Among those who worked particularly hard to poison the mind of the populace against the innocent man was the evil magician who lived in the stone castle. This is what the rabbi from across the sea wrote to the rabbi who lived in the large city, and he asked him if there was anything he could do to stop the evil magician from preventing the rescue of the innocent victim from his terrible fate.

  ‘The rabbi normally never left his home, which was one of the few spots of stainless purity on the face of the earth. Yet, pondering over the letter, he saw that he could, perhaps, wield some influence, because of his extraordinary knowledge and power. He saw that it would be possible for him to confront the evil magician, face-to-face, and perhaps cause him to see the error of his ways. He saw that this would be a mitzvah.

  ‘Saying nothing to anyone, the rabbi, one day, quietly disappeared from the house and the shul where he spent all of his time. His disciples missed him, his family missed him, but all day they did nothing. They did not search for him, because they knew that he was a saintly man and whatever his business was, it was high above their comprehension. So completely did they believe in their rabbi that they had no fear at all and were quite ready to believe that he had gone to visit Heaven, which indeed, was in some sense not so far from the truth.

  ‘The rabbi made his way to the evil magician’s stone castle. I cannot tell you what happened inside that castle, because nobody knows, nobody except for the rabbi himself. It is a great mystery. The rabbi departed, his work complete, and returned quietly home, where he took up his usual life.

  ‘As it is, on his way out of the castle, he had passed a young Jewish man who was going in. This young man entered the castle and – he found the evil magician lying on the floor, dead! Secretly, deep in his heart, in spite of the horror and distress of the discovery, the young man felt a stab of joy, because he was well aware, in his own flesh, of the hatred that the evil magician had for all Jews, and the infinite harm he had done them.

  ‘However, the young man was not alone to discover the dead magician. His servants arrived, and they called in the – the soldiers.’ (This was a sudden improvisation; I preferred to refer to servants and soldiers rather than witnesses and policemen.) ‘The soldiers arrested the young man and took him away. They threw him in a dungeon and accused him of murdering the magician. He shouted his innocence, but no one believed him, because the servants had found him alone in the room with the dead magician. A date was fixed for his trial, though in fact, the outcome was already clear to everyone. It was obvious that the young man would be condemned and executed.’

  I paused to let a little tension gather.

  ‘Only the young man knew that the rabbi had been with the magician before he came, because he had seen him leaving. He knew the rabbi, from a distance, and was filled with love and respect for him, and it never occurred to him even for a single moment to imagine that the rabbi might have killed the magician himself. Nor did he think even for one second about mentioning the rabbi. His greatest care was to protect the rabbi from the horrors of a trial like the one he himself was about to undergo, like the one which had condemned that other innocent Jew to spend the rest of his life on a deserted rock. So he said nothing.’

  A longer pause.

  ‘The trial was fixed to begin at ten o’clock in the morning of a certain day. Ten o’clock in the morning. The day approached, yet the mystery remained complete, at least to the friends of the young man, who were convinced of his innocence, if not to the soldiers who arrested him, or to the judges who were already prepared to convict and hang him. Finally, as no clue appeared nor anything which could reveal the truth, on the very day before the trial was to begin, a lady who wished to aid the young man went to see the rabbi and ask for his help. The rabbi should help as he saw fit; he knew better than anyone else what the truth was, and what it would be best to do. It was enough for her to relate the whole story to the rabbi. The rabbi was a holy man and would not leave an innocent Jew to be condemned.’

  I stopped speaking. It was not quite the end of my story, but I desired some kind of response. For a long moment, none came, only total silence. I was just about to speak again, when the rabbi lifted his head and looked up at me. His piercing eyes met mine for the briefest moment.

  ‘Where did the trial take place?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘In a grand courtroom, the grandest in the city,’ I replied quickly. ‘It was a great heavy building of grey stone, with thick and frightening walls, closer to a prison than a castle. Austere, forbidding, dangerous. It was in a street in the middle of the city, a curved street in the form of a bow. Bow Street.’

  Again I stopped. This time I was helped by Ephraim, who took the entire story literally, and was eager to hear the end.

  ‘Did the rabbi go there?’ he asked when he couldn’t bear the silence any longer, which was after but a very short time.

  It was now up to me to predict the future. I did so firmly.

  ‘The rabbi went, and there he told the secret which he alone knew, which cleared up the entire mystery, and the young man was saved. I wish I could tell you what the rabbi said, but I cannot. It is hidden behind a veil which the rabbi alone has the power to rend. The rabbi went there, and then he returned home, and his disciples said that he had surely visited Heaven during the morni
ng. Which was indeed not so very far from the truth.’

  My tale was over. I had delivered my message, and it must have been unmistakable. It was up to the rabbi to act now. Almost to my own surprise, I no longer felt the urgent desire to obtain some admission or some explanation from him at once. Under the influence of his personality, I felt no desire to press or insist, but only to wait; I was filled with a quiet certainty that he would not fail us. Making a deep and graceful reverence, I trailed as regally as I could to the back of the room behind the curtain. Rivka seized my hand joyfully.

  ‘That was wonderful,’ she whispered. ‘He surely understood. I wonder what he will do. Will he speak to us? We had better not leave yet.’

  We did not leave; the four of us remained in the rabbi’s house until the very end of the festival. Finally, the other guests from outside were all gone, there were no more songs or plays, and the smell of dinner began to waft through the front room. A couple of the young disciples took down the curtain and began to move the furniture which had been pushed to the walls back to its place, and to prepare the table and chairs for the evening meal. The rabbi heaved himself out of his armchair. ‘We must go,’ said David, pulling us towards the street door. I followed him, yet could not resist casting one look backwards. The rabbi bid us goodbye with a small movement of his hand and a little nod. Did I imagine it, or did that nod mean something special, something addressed to me alone?

  Outside, the dusk had fallen, and although a few disguises and musicians were still to be seen, almost everyone had gone indoors by now and few traces of the morning’s chaotic and joyful carnival remained. The dim light, the dirty pavement were depressing. I felt as if I were standing at a crossroads between two worlds. The whole of the afternoon I had just lived through seemed unreal, and my tranquil confidence ebbed away rapidly, leaving a residue of dissatisfaction and worry at the thought that I had, after all, learnt and accomplished nothing.