Paris: The Novel Read online

  “It really looks like a painting,” said Roland. It wasn’t much of a comment, but he wanted to say something.

  “Excellent,” said Monsieur Jacob softly. “You are more correct than you know. Before a tapestry was made, it was normal for the artist to paint the design separately. This is known as a cartoon. But in the case of these particular tapestries, the artist painted directly onto the canvas backing, through which the needleworkers would pass their wool and silken thread. The colors were matched precisely.” He turned again to Roland’s father. “But it is the figures themselves that we should examine.”

  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.”

  Chapter Six

  • 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:

  Shema Yisrael Adonai eloheinu Adonai ehad

  Hear O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One

  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.

  He was twelve years old when he began to have doubts. He hardly knew why himself. Perhaps it was a talent he had for mathematics that did not find much outlet in the physician’s art. Perhaps there were other causes.

  And then there were the patients. Sometimes his father would take Jacob on his visits, and let him watch him examining people; and afterward he’d explain to him the treatment he was recommending, and why. Jacob became quite good at spotting ailments and suggesting remedies. His father was pleased with his progress, and Jacob was proud.

  Yet as time went on, he began to find that he didn’t enjoy it. First he was surprised, then concerned. The fact was, he didn’t want to spend his life with sick people. He admired his father very much, and he’d always hoped to be like him. But perhaps he wasn’t.

  What should he do? He had no idea. And since he couldn’t explain his feelings in a satisfactory way, he’d felt too embarrassed and guilty to mention them to anyone. Certainly not his father.

  So he tried to put the matter out of his mind. He told himself that he was being childish. And this was no time to behave like a child. For very soon he was to become a man.

  The bar mitzvah that lay ahead of him was a serious but simple observance. All the Jewish families he knew celebrated it the same way. On the Sabbath following his thirteenth birthday, he would be called in the synagogue to read from the Torah and to recite the blessings. Unlike in some other communities, this would be the first time he’d be allowed to do so. Afterward, at the family house, there would be a small gathering of family and friends to celebrate the occasion.

  Jacob was looking forward to it. He was well prepared for the religious part of the proceedings. He could read Hebrew just as well as he could Latin. From that day, in theory at least, he could be considered an adult. He was determined, therefore, to put aside these foolish uncertainties about his life before the day arrived.

  It was a month before his bar mitzvah that he went for a walk with his mother’s cousin Baruch.

  His father didn’t like Baruch. Jacob could see why. Baruch was about his father’s age, but there all resemblances ended. Baruch was corpulent and inclined to be loud and argumentative. He had little respect for scholarship. But he wasn’t stupid. Jacob knew that his mother’s cousin was richer than his father. Baruch was a moneylender.

  He didn’t often come to their house, but he’d looked in to see Jacob’s mother that day, and as he was leaving he’d said: “So why don’t you walk with me, Jacob?” He’d turned to his cousin. “Your son never talks to me.”

  “I never see you,” replied Jacob.

  “Go and walk with your cousin Baruch,” his mother told him.

  It was a fine afternoon. They’d walked out through the nearby postern gate and followed a lane that led toward the big compound of the Templars. Trying to make conversation, Jacob had asked Baruch about what he did.

  “I lend money,” said Baruch. “Then I try to get it back.”

  “I know this,” said Jacob.

  “So what do you want to know?”

  “I don’t know. How you do it, I suppose.”

  “How does your father cure people? He gives them medicines they think they need. Then they get better. He hopes. I give people money they need. Then they get richer. They hope. I hope. Otherwise they can’t pay me back. It’s obvious.”

  Jacob considered.

  “So how do you decide whether they’re a good risk?”

  “That is a good question.” Baruch seemed to soften a bit. “Maybe you’re not so stupid after all.” He paused. “You need security. The man has to pledge something for the loan, so you have to figure what it’s worth, and whether he really owns it. And you need a good head for numbers. If the risk is high, you’re going to need a higher interest rate to protect yourself. Are you understanding me?”

  “I think so. You have to calculate.”

  “Yes. But you know what. It’s not just that. It’s an art as well. You really have to understand the man’s affairs. And you have to judge his character. Sometimes that’s the most important thing of all. Character.” He shrugged. “So maybe it’s like being a physician. It’s instinct, you know. I’
m a money physician. I look after people’s lives. It’s a terrible occupation.” He looked at Jacob to see how he was taking it.

  “I think it’s interesting,” said Jacob frankly.

  “It’s not so bad.”

  “The Christians call it usury.”

  “The Jews call it usury. It’s in the Torah. Thou shalt not lend money at interest. It says so.” He paused a moment. “You know something? The Torah is very good at telling you what not to do. But if there is no profit to be had, no interest, then there is no reason for anyone to lend, and so nobody can borrow anything. They can steal it from their grandmother, but they can’t borrow it.” He smiled. “But there is an escape clause. A Jew is not allowed to lend at interest to another Jew. But it doesn’t say that you can’t lend to someone who is not a Jew. So we can lend to Christians.”

  “And the Christians are allowed to borrow from us.”

  “By the same logic. They say they mustn’t lend at interest, because it says so in the Bible. But if a Jew is prepared to lend, then that’s all right. They say the Jew is probably going to hell anyway, so who cares? It’s one of the few occupations they allow us to follow, which is very convenient for them.” He made a dismissive motion with his hands. “They get the money. We go to hell.”

  “But the Christians lend money too,” Jacob objected. “What about the Italian moneylenders, like the Lombards? I heard that they’re sanctioned by the pope himself.”

  “Ah. But they don’t charge interest.”

  “So how can they have any profit?”

  “They charge a fee instead.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Mathematically? There is no difference. But the word is different.”

  They were coming close to the huge compound of the Knights Templar now, and they had stopped to gaze at it.