Paris: The Novel (20 page)

Roland stared. Amid the bright flowers and plants were several trees. Apparently this was meant to be a wood, or perhaps an orchard. There were birds in the trees. Four people, two men and two women, dressed in rich clothes, were walking in a stately way through the scene. They were accompanied by several hunting dogs. Farther off, other animals lurked in the undergrowth. Then he heard his father exclaim.

“My God. A unicorn.”

In the upper right-hand quarter of the scene, leaping away through the trees, where one might have expected to see a deer making its escape, was a pale unicorn. So perfect was the composition that, having spotted it, the eye was led right around the scene before returning to the lovely, haunting presence of the magical creature.

“There are two famous tapestry sets that feature the unicorn,” Jacob said. “There is the spectacular Lady and the Unicorn series, on its dazzling red background, which was placed on show just five years ago in the Cluny Museum. Do you know this museum, young Monsieur Roland? It’s on the site of the old Roman baths on the Left Bank, only a short walk from your father’s house. And there is also another set, called the Hunt of the Unicorn, on a green background, that is owned by the Duc de La Rochefoucauld. Both those sets, we are almost certain, were of Flemish origin—made in what, today, we call Belgium. But this tapestry is French. It dates to a little later than those sumptuous masterpieces—to the early fifteen hundreds—and belongs to what we call the Loire School. Perhaps this unicorn was inspired by those famous tapestries, or perhaps it came there by chance. But I like that it is rare, and the work is of very high quality.”

At last, thought Roland, he’s finished. When Jacob had called him young Monsieur Roland, and asked if he knew the Cluny Museum, which in truth he’d never entered, although it was close to his home, he’d felt as if the antique dealer’s soft voice, in some insinuating way, was rebuking him for his ignorance, and putting him down. He hated Jacob for it.

But his father was gazing at the tapestry with admiration.

“My dear Jacob,” he said at last, “tell me what you want for it.”

The dealer wrote something on a piece of paper and handed it to him. De Cygne glanced at it and nodded.

“The restoration?” he asked.

“If you will leave it to me …,” Jacob suggested.

“Of course.”

Roland had seldom seen his father so pleased as when he got into the carriage afterward.

“It’s perfect for the château,” he remarked. “Exactly the right date, the right spirit. Each generation, my son, should add something of beauty to a house like ours. That will be my contribution.”

They started back down the rue du Temple. His father stared ahead thoughtfully.

“Jacob didn’t have to do that, you know,” he suddenly remarked. “He could have sold it to a dozen rich collectors for more than I paid him.”

“Why did he offer it to you, then?” Roland asked.

“I did him a good turn some years ago, when I recommended him to the Comte de Nogent, who’s become one of his most valuable customers.
Jacob must have been waiting for an opportunity to return the favor.” He nodded. “Certainly, his choice couldn’t have been better.”

“You think he really bought it the way he said?”

“Why not?”

Roland didn’t answer. But he knew exactly what he thought about the soft-voiced dealer who had tried to put him down.

Jacob had probably stolen it.

It wasn’t so strange for him to imagine such a thing. Whether seriously or in jest, it was the sort of thing that most of the boys he knew at school would have said. So would their parents. The presumption was general: the Jews were all in league together, and they were all conspiring to cheat the Christians. The first proposition would have come as a surprise to the Jewish community; the second dismissed as absurd.

But it was not a question of logic. It was a question of tribe. The Jews were not of the French tribe, for they had their own. Nor their religion. And therefore, tribal instinct declared, they could not be trusted—not even to obey the Ten Commandments that they themselves had given the world. Roland supposed this was something that everybody knew. And he would have been most surprised if anyone had told him he was prejudiced, it being the nature of a prejudice that those who possess it have no idea that it is prejudice at all.

So, as they drove away in the elegant phaeton, Roland experienced a secret sense of disappointment that his father should, through moral carelessness, have allowed himself to be cheated by Jacob, and indeed, that he should have had any dealings with Jacob at all. It was just one more indication, he thought, that his father, though kind, was shallow and lacked any fixed center.

In such circumstances, how was he to find any certainty? Whatever his father’s shortcomings, he himself was still the descendant of crusaders, and of the heroic friend of Charlemagne himself. What life could he follow that would be worthy of those ancestors, and of his mother, too?

There was the Church of course. But he also had a duty to provide heirs for the family. It looked as if providence had chosen that he should follow the path of his pious namesake in the reign of Saint Louis, and attend to the estate and his family. But in some way that might make up, perhaps, for the moral laxity of his father.

He was still brooding about this when, as they reached the foot of the rue du Temple, the coachman took another way home and crossed
directly over the bridge to the Île de la Cité. And they were just passing in front of the parvis of Notre Dame when he turned to his father and declared: “I have decided upon my career, Papa.”

“Ah. The law, perhaps?”

“No, Papa. I wish to join the army.”

•  1307, October  •

Jacob ben Jacob had been out all night and half the next day. He’d searched the main road that led toward the south, asked every farmer and passerby. Nothing. He’d searched other roads, farther to the east.

Not a sign. Either his daughter had taken some other way, or they were still hiding in the city. Or, just perhaps, it had all been a mistake, and she had come safely home after all. It could be so. He prayed to God that it was so.

But if not, then he faced a huge problem. How to explain her absence? Could he pretend that she had died? He went over the possibility in his mind. He couldn’t say that she had fallen sick. Quite apart from the fact that no physician had seen her, the two servants in the house would know it wasn’t true. Might she have had an accident outside the city? Could some story be concocted that would satisfy the authorities? Could the little family mourn behind an empty coffin, watch as it was lowered and bury the memory of his daughter safely in the ground?

But what if she came back again?

Yet somehow the business had to be covered up. No one must know what Naomi had done.

Jacob ben Jacob was a small man with thinning hair and pale, kindly blue eyes, and he loved his daughter Naomi with all his heart. But he also thought of his dear wife Sarah. She had gone gray when Naomi was still a little girl, but for all her loyal and silent suffering, the skin on her face was still as smooth and her eyes as bright as they had been twenty years ago. How much more would she suffer, if the business were discovered?
Even her little brother would be implicated—at the very least the object of suspicion for years. As for himself—he tried not to think of what the consequences would be. And all this Naomi knew very well. He could not help it therefore if, despite his love, he cursed his daughter now.

The sun was already sinking when he crossed the Seine and made his way northward up the rue Saint-Martin. When he got to his house, he went in quickly. Sarah was standing in the hall.

“Well?” he cried. “Where is she?”

“I do not know, Jacob.” His wife shook her head sadly. Then she handed him a piece of parchment.

“What’s this?”

“A letter. It’s from her.”

Jacob slept badly that night. He rose at dawn and decided to go for a walk. Putting the letter in a pouch on his belt, and wrapping his cloak around him, he stepped out into the street. His house in the rue Saint-Martin was not far from one of the northern gates. From the gate, he took the lane that he and Naomi had taken so many times before that led toward the little orchard he owned on the high ground.

It was Friday, the thirteenth of October. A misty morning. As the lane wound its way to the upper slopes, he was greeted by the sight of the sun rising over the eastern horizon into a blue sky, while below, the great walled city and its suburbs were hidden by the mist, except for the towers of Notre Dame and half a dozen medieval pinnacles, which emerged and seemed to hang, as if by magic, over the silvery carpet. And as Jacob gazed at this lovely sight, he wondered: How could any soul, Jewish or Christian, fail to be uplifted by these exquisite citadels floating in the heavens?

Jacob ben Jacob loved Paris. It was his home, as it had been for his father and grandfather before him. Even as a boy, he’d loved the wide sweep of the Seine, the vineyards on the hills, the aromas in the narrow streets; even the beauties of Notre Dame and the Sainte-Chapelle, although they belonged to a religion not his own. And he still did. He never wanted to leave it. Yet now, the sight of Paris brought him nothing but despair.

He took out Naomi’s letter and read it once more.

There was no doubt about one thing. The letter was clever. Very clever. The huge lie it contained was obvious to him; but she intended anyone
else who read it to believe what she wrote. And her trick might work. It might.

But that did not alter the one, awful fact. He had lost his daughter. Perhaps he’d never see her again.

Was it his own fault? Certainly. The Lord was punishing him. He had committed a terrible crime. Now he must pay the price.

Jacob shook his head sadly, and wondered: Had he been making bad judgments all his life? When had he started to go wrong?

Alas, he knew the answer to both these questions all too well.

His childhood had been happy. His father was a scholarly man who made his living as a physician. His standards were high. “The best Jewish scholars are in Spain and the south,” he liked to say, “but Paris is not so bad.” He also had a mild disdain for the intellect of the rabbi, of which the rabbi was aware. But to a little child, he was gentleness itself. Each night he would come in to little Jacob as he was going to bed, and say the nighttime Shema with him:

And each morning he would repeat the prayer with his son again. His father also had many friends. And as he treated prominent Christian families as well as Jewish, and was well liked, young Jacob had grown up in an easygoing environment. His best friend, Henri, a handsome boy with dark red hair and alert brown eyes, was from a rich Christian family of merchants called Renard.

As far as Jacob could remember, his destiny had been decided from his birth. He was going to be a physician like his father. His father was quietly proud of the fact. His family and friends all understood it. As a little boy, the thought had been delightful to him. Everyone respected his father. All he had to do was follow in his footsteps, and he’d have a wonderful life.