Rashi's Daughters, Book II: Miriam (63 page)

The guilt was as relentless as the passion that had consumed him for months.

The next morning Rachel attended services with Judah, and when he stayed to assist the rosh yeshiva, she remained behind as well. It didn’t take long to ascertain that this was Judah’s usual routine, and by the end of the day she learned that he was a man of regular and pious habits, who spent his time either at his mother’s home or the Paris yeshiva. His sadness and anxiety were attributed to concern about his sons’ illness, feelings that every parent in Paris shared these days. A chat with Yom Tov assured Rachel that neither Aaron, nor anyone else they knew in Troyes, had visited Paris recently.

When Shavuot passed without a sign of Aaron, Rachel decided to return to Troyes. She had long since reconciled Alvina’s accounts, and the Hot Fair would be starting in a few weeks. Shimson had survived the pox, and though he was still weak, he’d eventually be well enough to travel. She offered to bring Yom Tov back with her; seeing him might speed Miriam’s recovery.

 

“But Yom Tov demurred,” Rachel explained to Miriam a week later. “He said this was the first time he’d spent so much time studying with his father, just the two of them.”

Miriam struggled to sit up in bed. “So was I wrong about Judah and Aaron?”

“All I know is that Aaron never came to Paris.” Rachel handed Miriam a cup of ginger tisane. “Here, drink some more.”

“
Merci
, it’s the only remedy that works for my nausea.”

Rachel had said nothing about Miriam’s skeletal appearance. Thank Heaven her sister was alive. It was just as well that Yom Tov had stayed in Paris; he shouldn’t see his mother like this.

“Miriam, haven’t you eaten anything besides matzah while I was gone?”

“If your stomach ached all the time, you were too tired to lift a spoon, and everything you tried to eat tasted like vomit, you wouldn’t eat much either.”

There was a quiet knock on the door. “Mistress Miriam,” Jeanne said. “Guy de Dampierre wishes to see you. I told him you weren’t receiving visitors, but he says it’s important.”

“Very well, ask him to wait.”

Miriam allowed Rachel to assist her down the steps. Guy stood to greet her, a somber expression on his face.

“Please excuse my untimely visit. I understand that you’ve been ill, which is why I delayed bringing you this message,” he said. “However, your father tells me that your malady is likely to continue through the summer.”

Miriam gave him a small smile. “I am strong enough to withstand some bad news.”

Guy took a deep breath. “The pilgrims accompanying Judah’s friend Aaron have returned. They are sorry to report that he became ill with smallpox during the journey, and they were forced to leave him at a hospice for travelers. On their return trip they learned that he had died there.”

Rachel and Miriam looked at each other, gasped, and each reached for the other’s hand. “
Baruch Dayan Emet
.”

“Not knowing his family, they brought his belongings back here.” Guy handed Miriam a sealed piece of parchment. “Among them was a letter for your husband.”

“Poor Aaron,” Miriam whispered once Guy was gone. “So that’s why he never came to Paris.”

“Are you going to open the letter?” Rachel asked. Her sister was holding it at arm’s length.

“It’s wrong to read someone else’s mail. I should send it to Judah.”

“Everyone knows that letters sent with travelers aren’t private. You should make sure there’s nothing shameful inside.”

Miriam’s resolve began to waver. “Maybe I’ll read it first, and then send it to Judah if it’s not too bad.”

“Read it aloud.” Rachel leaned forward, her eyes wide. “I’ll help you decide.”

Miriam unfolded the parchment and scanned it. “At least Guy and the other travelers didn’t read this. It’s in Aramaic.”

“So Aaron had some need for discretion.”

“I suppose you already know too much.” Miriam sighed with resignation and began to read. “My beloved Judah ...”

She paused and they stared at each other in trepidation.

“It is a terrible thing to die alone. Yes, I know I am dying—my skin is turning black and they tell me the whites of my eyes are red with blood. But worse than my physical pain is that of knowing that we will never see each other again. For you will surely go to Gan Eden, while my sins condemn me to Gehenna. I have committed transgressions with many men, and I repent for them. But you must believe that you are the only one I truly loved, and I will never repent for this. We have committed a sin, if it is a sin to love, yet the One who created me in His image made me to love you.”

Miriam gulped. “I definitely can’t risk someone else seeing this letter.”

“Is there anything else?”

Tears welling in her eyes, Miriam began reading again. “To die never having tasted your sweet lips, to have seen you naked in the baths and never felt your flesh against mine—I will burn with unrequited desire forever. Only a few weeks more and you would have been mine, body and soul, but the Holy Judge decreed that you should remain chaste.”

“That’s a relief,” Rachel said. “Although it sounds like your suspicions were correct.”

“There’s still more,” Miriam said. “I never told you, dearest Judah, but I had a seminal emission on Erev Yom Kippur and was thus fated to die this year. That’s one reason I was so impatient to consummate our love, my great passion for you being the other. I bequeath you my meager belongings as a remembrance of one who loved you like my own soul and wanted so much to have loved you better.”

The room was silent except for the sounds of their breathing. Finally Rachel whispered, “I agree. You don’t dare let that letter leave Troyes.”

Miriam sniffed a couple of times. “I need to think about it, but right now I’m more sad than angry.”

“You always were too kind. If this letter were to my husband, I’d be demanding a divorce.”

“But Aaron is dead.” And Judah might wish he were too.

Rachel was about to retort,
And what happens when the next Ganymede student comes to Papa’s yeshiva?
But she decided that Miriam was upset enough. “So are you going to send word to Judah or make him wait until he gets home?”

“I think I’ll wait. I want to be here when he finds out.”

“As do I.”

“I have to inform Papa of Aaron’s death,” Miriam said. “But I’m not telling him about the letter. And I’m not going to tell Judah I’ve read it either.”

Rachel took Miriam’s hand in hers. “Don’t worry, I will never mention Aaron’s letter to anyone.”

Try as she might, Miriam couldn’t work up enough anger toward her errant husband to overcome her sympathy for him. But the strangest feeling she had was envy; if only she’d received a letter like this from Benjamin before he died.

 

It was the day after Rachel’s husband and son arrived in Troyes that a merchant from Paris brought a message from Judah. Shimson had suffered a relapse, and the doctor advised another month of rest. Judah hoped that Miriam’s health had improved and that she would tell Aaron not to worry, they’d be studying together again soon. Miriam, whose health had not improved at all, winced when she heard the part for Aaron.

Once the Hot Fair began, Joheved and her family moved to Troyes for the summer, along with Zipporah and Judita, who both came to study with her every morning after services. After the death of her father and younger daughters, Shemayah’s wife declared that their house in Provins was cursed. Brunetta insisted on their buying a house in Troyes, one with new mezuzot written by Mordecai, since it was clear that one of his had protected Joheved during labor and another had saved the children under her roof from the Angel of Death.

Shemayah’s wife wasn’t the only one to notice that no child had died from smallpox in either Joheved or Miriam’s home, and Mordecai was besieged with orders for amulets. The pox epidemic was dissipating, but not the one affecting Troyes’ elderly. Isaac haParnas died shortly after Shavuot and Count Thibault was also stricken, throwing doubt on the future of the Troyes fairs. The two men had nurtured them and worked diligently to bring about the success they currently enjoyed.

Thibault was so ill that he placed the sovereignty of Blois in the hands of his eldest son, Étienne-Henri, and gave Champagne to Adelaide’s son, Eudes. The Jews of Troyes wondered if Bonfils, Isaac’s successor, would be as clever and tactful, enabling them to continue enriching both themselves and their sovereign. Would the new
parnas
be strong enough to keep the Jewish community united or would old disagreements and jealousies be allowed to jeopardize their newly won prosperity?

And what of Eudes? Since his knighthood, the young man had shown more interest in hunting, fighting, and whoring than in statecraft. Opinion in town divided between those who hoped he would continue those pursuits and leave ruling Champagne to his mother and her capable advisors, and those who expected him to push his mother aside as soon as Thibault died and squander his inheritance in less time than it took his father to amass it.

The consensus from taverns and merchant stalls throughout Troyes was that Bonfils, while not likely to attain Isaac’s stature, would fill his shoes adequately. Salomon had offered no preference concerning who should be the new
parnas
, saying that all of the men on the community council were sufficiently wealthy and prominent.

Yet he would clearly rather not see one of Fleur’s cousins assume the position. The feud between Fleur’s family and those who supported Joseph’s deathbed gift to Samson had cooled once the council voted to deny Ishaiah the mohel permission to settle in Troyes, but it still simmered enough that the council had selected Bonfils as their
parnas
. Bonfils was not quite the richest Jew in town, but he possessed the exemplary trait of having somehow not offended either party to the dispute.

With the others in their family out of danger, Rivka, Joheved, and Rachel turned their attention to Miriam. While most women suffered nausea in early pregnancy, it was unheard of for a woman in her seventh month to vomit daily. There had to be some food besides matzah that Miriam could tolerate.

Joheved, recalling Meir’s illness, had the first success with rice cooked in chicken broth, and Rivka soon found that her daughter could keep down mashed turnips and carrots if she seasoned them with nothing except salt. But it was Rachel who triumphed by encouraging a local alewife to concoct a brew with ginger. If Miriam drank this at meals, she was able to eat almost anything with minimal discomfort.

Perhaps it was the ginger beer, but the amount of food Miriam ate increased as the time decreased before she would see her sons again. She hadn’t expected Judah to travel over the fast days, so she was shocked when, on the day after Tisha B’Av, Jeanne ran upstairs yelling, “Mistress Miriam, wake up. Master Judah just rode through the gate.”

Heart pounding, Miriam rushed to the open window. Papa was cradling a sleepy Elisha as Yom Tov dismounted from one pony, while Judah gently helped Shimson down from the other. Both older boys rushed toward the privy, and Miriam was relieved to see that Shimson ran almost as fast as his brother. She waited only until Papa put a comforting arm around Judah’s shoulders before heading downstairs.

Judah’s journey week had been a terrible mixture of hope and fear. Hope that he and Aaron would be able to study together as brothers from now on, and fear that as soon as he saw Aaron again the fire of his thwarted passion would be kindled even hotter than before. Or worse, that Aaron would be with Natan ben Abraham, or some such Ganymede, which was why he hadn’t come to Paris.

The one thing he did not expect was Salomon, his face heavy with sadness, taking him by the arm and saying, “I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.”

Judah closed his eyes and his head slumped.
I am too late. Miriam is dead.
He opened his eyes again and realized that Salomon’s
bliaut
and chemise were not torn, as a mourner’s would have been. So it wasn’t Miriam; but maybe she’d lost the baby. “What happened?”

“Aaron died of smallpox on his way to Sepharad.”

Non!
“Impossible. Aaron was too old.” He stared up at Salomon, his eyes begging for this to be a mistake.

“The pilgrims he traveled with have no reason to lie,” Salomon replied gently. “And I have heard that some children miss getting the pox, which makes them especially vulnerable when it comes again.”

Salomon waited for Judah’s expression to change from denial to resignation, for him to make the blessing that demonstrated his acceptance of Aaron’s death. That initial step was often the hardest for a mourner, even more difficult than the funeral itself. Of course, there would be no funeral for Aaron here, no official period of mourning. Judah’s loss, no matter how bitter, would be a private thing.

A stubborn, childish part of Judah refused to say the blessing; as long as he remained silent, Aaron would somehow not be dead. But Papa put an arm around his shoulder and was standing there patiently. Judah knew what he was supposed to do, and that only by doing it would Papa let go so he could finally see Miriam.

Judah took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “
Baruch Dayan Emet
.” Blessed is the True Judge. It felt as though he had closed the lid on Aaron’s coffin.

Salomon began leading Judah toward the house. “Come, let’s go see your wife. She was very ill while you were away, but lately she’s been better, may the Holy One protect her.”

Miriam had always been a slender woman, and she had lost weight during her previous pregnancy with Elisha, but Judah was unprepared for the gaunt creature sitting at the dining table with their sons. As soon as she saw him, she rose and reached out to him with such a sympathetic expression that he could barely restrain his tears. Seeing her standing up, her swollen belly in such contrast to the rest of her body, Judah winced to realize that he was responsible for her condition.