The Book of the Unknown: Tales of the Thirty-six by Keats Jonathon

Author:Keats, Jonathon [Keats, Jonathon]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781588367822
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Published: 2009-02-09T16:00:00+00:00

For seven days and nights, Zayin did not sleep. Straight through the sabbath she worked, tending the sick, holding their hands and murmuring her hope, insisting that they could get better, begging them to believe in her. They did, one after another. They believed that this lightning girl in long golden braids and white gossamer slip was the savior. And, one after another, they were healed by her.

Of course, religious authorities were skeptical. The head rabbi, undisputed leader of the community, several times sent his beadle to seize her, in order that there might be a proper inquisition regarding her irregular behavior, but the people wouldn’t let her go. Then the old rabbi got ill. He was put to bed by his wife, a zaftig woman half his age who all but breathed for him as he lay dying. At last she called for the beadle. Leading him into a room where nobody would hear, she asked the man to tell Zayin that the rabbi needed her.

The beadle had no difficulty locating the girl: Even from the steps of the shul, he could see the crowd of tradesmen and farmers surrounding the shack where she was reviving a stricken beggar. Having one and all pledged themselves to her, they called themselves her followers—despite her efforts to send them away—and also considered themselves her protectors, earthly guardians of the miracle that had saved them and their families. They halted the beadle as he approached. He tried to explain why he’d come, how it wasn’t the same as the last time, but they shouted him down.

Zayin emerged into the commotion. She asked what was wrong. The beadle held up a hand and called out to her. Fayvel and his brothers knocked him over. The mob prepared to lynch him. But as they closed in on their victim, they found that they were facing Zayin.

She was standing over the rabbi’s man. She wouldn’t move until the mob lost its will to be one. Then she knelt down, and let the beadle speak.

He repeated what the rabbi’s wife had said to him, and implored her, on his own behalf as well, to save the holy man. She took a deep breath. She vowed to do what she could, and, against the advice of her self-appointed disciples, who predicted that it was a trap, accompanied the beadle to the rabbi’s private quarters behind the shul.

Several feverish acolytes, men with eager beards, were praying there, but stopped short when they saw Zayin standing, radiant, at the door. Into the sudden silence rose the rabbi’s wife, embracing the girl and saying, loud enough for all to hear, that she believed in her. Then she brought Zayin to the bed where the rabbi lay sleeping, and, chasing away the acolytes like vermin, left the two of them alone.

For the first time, Zayin faced the great man unseparated by the distance of ritual, the ordained space between altar and balcony. Up close he appeared more ancient than the patriarchs.

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