side of the stone bridge like a fleet of ships gliding through the misty waters of some inland sea. And the people melted away like clouds of gray-green fog before the fixed figureheads of municipal authority.
The sheriff stood square-shouldered, his heels planted firmly in the earth, and when we approached him, he informed us that he and his men were here to escort us back to the ghetto. That was his plan, anyway, until we presented him with a copy of the emperor’s decree.
“What’s this?” he said.
Rabbi Gans started reading it out loud: “Our Sovereign Emperor Rudolf, a just and pious ruler—”
“I can read, you know,” said Zizka, taking the decree from Rabbi Gans and looking it over.
We awaited his reaction.
He said, “So the emperor takes your gold and returns the favor with his protection, and I have no say in the matter. You Jews certainly know the ins and outs of every legal document in the land, don’t you?”
I admitted that textual perspicacity was one of our strengths.
“Do you really have to go through with this?” he asked, slapping the decree with the flat of his hand.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Because a lot of people are not going to like it.”
“No, they’re not.”
“It says we are obligated to accompany you at all times for your own protection,” he said.
Each of his men was carry ing a double-edged broadsword, all shiny and freshly sharpened.
I said, “Just don’t protect us too closely, all right?”
The sheriff shook his head with bitter amusement. And we stood there silently, while the currents of people washed around us, until finally he said, “All right, let’s get this over with,” and waved us on.
We started down the King’s Road toward the main square, with the armed patrol falling in behind us.
Zizka said, “But no matter what this decree says, I can’t guarantee your safety if you arouse the people’s anger by mishandling the child’s body in any way.”
“We all share your concern,” said Rabbi Loew. “And you may rest assured that we do not intend to force the dead girl’s spirit to reveal her killer’s name or anything else that might trouble her. We just want to see what she has to say for herself.”
A couple of guards stopped short with a clanking of metal. Zizka ordered them to get a move on, while we kept walking.
“What are you saying?” said Zizka, catching up with us.
Rabbi Loew explained, “What you Christians think of as the human soul is actually made up of several different elements. Although the young girl’s eternal soul, which we call the neshamah, has already returned to the Creator, her ruakh, or spirit, will cling forever to the mortal remains that housed her in life, and the active spirit of her nefesh will float between the two, mourning the body for seven days while drifting back and forth between the girl’s home and her final resting place. Some say this lasts a whole year. In any case, it is with the nefesh that we might be able to communicate during this period, although I need to warn you that it takes a tremendous effort for the dead to speak to us.”
“I would imagine so,” said Zizka. “But what if her spirit won’t speak to a Jew?”
“Then she may choose to speak to us through other means.”
We were coming up on The Blue Pike, a public house packed with laborers and artisans who had finished work for the day. They bubbled out into the street, and I greedily eyed their sweaty steins of Bohemian lager.
Zizka asked what we hoped to learn from seeing the girl’s body.
Rabbi Loew said, “It is not a matter of merely seeing the girl. Anybody can see her. Even wild animals are observant of their surroundings. But only men like us, Sheriff Zizka, are capable of combining our observations with the wisdom and understanding needed to determine if the child met with some accident, or slipped and fell on a knife, or if some other blameless tragedy occurred. And so we may learn many things from what the body tells us, and also from what it doesn’t tell us.”
“I don’t need any more riddles today, Rabbi. How can you learn anything from what it doesn’t tell you?”
“You know the tale of Jonah and the whale, don’t you?” said Rabbi Loew.
“Every little schoolboy knows that one,” Zizka growled.
“But have you studied it closely? Ah, I didn’t think so. For in the Book of Jonah, the prophet says that when the people of Nineveh