The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish

Author:Rachel Kadish [Kadish, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Literary, Historical, Jewish, Contemporary Women
ISBN: 9780544866676
Google: asilDAAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0544866460
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2017-06-06T05:00:00+00:00

The rabbi was waiting for her upon her return. He sat in silence until she’d hung her cloak.

“To Daniel Lusitano,” he said.

The rabbi had had Rivka set out fresh paper.

“My distress grows,” said the rabbi, “with every hour I meditate upon your letter.”

She lowered herself to the writing table.

“And so I hope you will forgive the crowding of one missive atop another, as my thoughts crowd like sheep at the pasture gate when a wolf prowls.”

She wrote.

“In my own darkness”—the rabbi continued, and she saw he’d rehearsed this letter in his mind—“I see perhaps too vivid a picture of the error that lies before your community in Florence. It is an error not only of soul but also of body, for they that muster for the next world before it has come can only betray their lives in this one. Long have I heard rumor of Sabbatai Zevi and yet I remained foolishly silent, and I can only rebuke myself that it required report of the threat from my beloved student to awaken me. What small help my thoughts may offer is ever at your disposal, and so I set forth the following additional arguments.”

Her hand slowed on the page. “You should rest,” she said. Could he hear the regret that snagged her voice? “I’m certain he’ll write to you again soon. You can add to your arguments later, without taxing yourself to compose them now.”

His thin nostrils quivered. “You’d now stand in my way?” he said.

She’d never seen him angered. He’d registered her betrayal, she saw, even if he didn’t know its nature.

“I’m ready to write,” she said.

Her quill moved across the page at the rabbi’s direction. The letter was long, full of careful argument, clarification, gentle insistence, and one flare of passion. To follow this man is to follow the very false god warned against in the commandments.

His distress was her doing. She wouldn’t pretend otherwise. He was the only one who had tolerated her desire to study, even loved it. And here she was, dissolving the ground he stood on. An impossible price for her freedom. As she wrote his words, she pledged: I’ll repay you.

And did her body still hum from the morning? Did John’s clear eyes, his living form, float through all the extremities of her body, did the sound of his laughter in the garden linger? She’d banish it. She hadn’t done this great wrong to the rabbi so that she could waste her freedom on distraction.

When he’d finished, his face was solemn. The effort of the letter had emptied him. What’s more, she understood now what he’d ventured: however carefully phrased, his words could only be understood as a charge to be levied against the esteemed leaders of the Florentine community. Yet for the sake of his student, and for the sake of stemming the tide of Sabbatai Zevi’s followers, he dared.

“Copy it now,” said the rabbi.

Her hand moved thickly on the page, composing a letter that would never be sent.

A knock upon the front door.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.