and reached for my clothes, but the foreign garments piled on the chair weren’t mine.
Oh, right. They were now.
How long had I been asleep?
It was still dark out, but a faint glimmer of the dawn’s first light outlined the chimney tops outside the window.
Suddenly I was wide awake. How much time had I lost? And what did they need witnesses for? Some strange Bohemian fertility rite to mark our reconciliation? Were they going to shower us with seeds and tell us to be fruitful and multiply? Somehow, I didn’t think so.
The scribe laid his tools on the night table and unfolded a document that consisted of long passages of unadorned Aramaic laid out in uncompromising rows of plain black letters, and instead of taking up the iron pen of the court scribe, he took up the kosher quill that a rabbinical scribe uses to create a Torah, a mezuzah, an amulet fulfilling the commandment to bind them as a sign upon your hand, or a bill of divorce.
“Husband’s name?” he asked.
“Benyamin Ben-Akiva from Slonim,” Reyzl answered, shutting the lid of the trunk.
The quill traveled from inkpot to parchment and scratched in my name.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I said. “You can’t write a get at the wife’s bidding.”
“Wife’s name?”
“Reyzl bas Zalman Rozansky of Prague,” she said, closing the latch with a distinctive click.
Reb Avreml inscribed Reyzl’s name on the parchment.
“And you’re writing it on a yontef?” I said.
“The rabbis have given us special permission due to the current emergency.”
“I don’t think this is what the rabbis had in mind.”
“Shows what you know. Cause?” The pen hung in the air, waiting.
“The groom does not provide enough to support his bride,” said Reyzl.
“He readily admits that this is the case?” said the scribe, sniffing at me with his pickle-nose.
The get wouldn’t be valid without my approval. Otherwise, it was a thoroughly illegal and invalid document that would never stand up in court. I had it in my power to cling to her until she relented.
In theory, that is.
Then Reb Avreml advised me that the city fathers had already decided to place me under house arrest and keep me from leaving the ghetto in my—ahem—ridiculous costume, unless I approved the get.
God knows what strings Reyzl had pulled to get the rabbis to allow this.
I could have fought them on it. I could have battered through what ever flimsy cordon they used to hold me back, but then what? I couldn’t fight the whole community by myself. (Right, it takes at least three people to do that.) And the community was clearly supporting their native daughter’s cause.
Reb Meisel and Rabbi Loew would have backed me up, but Reyzl knew that I didn’t have the time to summon them and make my case.
I nodded, but it wasn’t enough. They needed to hear the words. For the record.
Finally, I said, “Yes, I admit it.”
Scribble, scribble, scribble.
And so I approved the get, irrevocably divorcing my lawful wife, Reyzl, and giving her permission to marry another man, as witnessed on this, the 16th day of Nisan, 5352 years from the Creation of the World, by Reb Avreml ben Shloyme the scribe and Reb Rossl ben Shimon the rent collector. Then Reb Avreml folded the document and sewed it up with a special needle and thread, and placed it in Reyzl’s hands.
And that was that.
“MAYBE I’LL SEE YOU SOMETIME at the great fair in Lublin,” said Reyzl, trotting down the stairs as if she couldn’t wait to get out into the open air.
I followed in silence, carry ing her trunk on my shoulder.
“There’s no one else, in case you were wondering,” she said.
No one else yet. She didn’t have to say it, but I bet she had a lot of possibilities.
“But I’m glad that you’re finally giving me a second chance to produce an heir for my father, even if it’s with another man,” she said. “It shows a great heart and a charitable spirit on your part, and I’m thankful for it. Really I am.”
I had nothing to add to that, although I certainly wondered who would be benefiting from my great heart and charitable spirit.
We descended into darkness, to an eerie nether region inhabited by the musty smell of damp stones—the bare bones of the original ground floor, long buried under layers of silt. I had to feel my way along the mold-covered walls with my free hand, but I still stumbled a couple of times, while Reyzl’s step never faltered.
I finally saw the small window