piecing Virgin Marys together out of stained glass thought about the less-than-sacred uses of their materials. It probably kept them sane.
Many are Thy works, O Lord. There were women of every shape and size, for every style and taste, from twiggy teens to full-figured fertility goddesses, including a blond as white as bleached flour with a cross around her neck. Her name was Jana, and she wasn’t just there to be someone’s fantasy dress-up, she really was a Christian.
“You mean there’s actually someone here who’s more out-of-place than I am?” I said.
“I’ve never felt more at home,” Jana said, linking arms with the girl next to her. “The richest men in the ghetto come to me.”
“Second richest,” said a good-looking slightly older woman with dark wavy hair, whose name was Trine. “The richest have their own class of whores in the Christian part of town, only they call them mistresses.”
“What does it matter?” said a woman whose attributes were as full and round as ripe melons. “The milk of white goats and black goats is the same.”
What would the rabbi say if he heard the Midrash quoted in this room, from such a mouth?
Or if he heard Jana proposition me in fluent gambler’s Yiddish: “Nu? You wanna play the froyen-shpil with me for a little while?”
“He’s not interested in your games,” said Trine. “Can’t you see that he’s a scholar? You have to say, Come, let us explore the sod ha-zivug together.”
The mystery of coupling. A term from the Kabbalah.
“So what’ll it be, mister?” said one of the skinny ones, smiling at me and revealing a number of missing teeth. I guess there were men who found that sexy.
“Yeah, we don’t have all night, O learned one,” said Trine. “For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
Now the Torah. If you ignored their profanities, they had to be the most literate bunch of whores in the kingdom.
I picked Trine.
She grabbed a candle and led me down a nearby corridor with doors lining both sides. Her raven hair glistened in the candlelight, and the stark shadows accentuated her cheekbones. Her skin was a bit weathered, but she must have been a groyse yefeyfiyeh, a real stunner, when she was younger, because she was still very attractive to my eyes. Considering how sharp-witted she was as well, I wondered what happened on the road of life that sent her down this path. Did she take a wrong turn somewhere, or did someone happen to give her especially lousy directions?
“I’m right, aren’t I?” she said. “You’re some kind of a scholar.”
“Sure. Now, if only I could figure out what kind.”
I listened closely, catching bits of Yiddish, Czech, and German conversation through the cracks and keyholes. A sallow-faced girl with layers of makeup painted on as thick as a wooden marionette’s stepped around us, followed by a slow but eager-looking man with the perpetual stoop of a porter and rope burns across his hands.
“I knew you were the brainy type,” said Trine. “You probably want to discuss the teachings with me before we lie down, since if we sit together and no words of Torah pass between us, then it is a seat of the scornful, but if we sit together and words of Torah do pass between us, then the Presence is with us.”
My God, the Pirkey Avos chapter of the Mishnah.
“What were you before? A rabbi’s daughter? Or sister? Or—”
“Or what?” She turned suddenly. “Keep talking like that and I’ll snuff this out in your eye.”
She pointed the candle at me, the flame close enough to singe my eyebrows. The creases around her eyes deepened, and I realized that with nowhere else to go, her sharp-wittedness had become dangerous.
“I’ll have you know that we’re doing the work of God,” she said, “by keeping all the filthy men in this town from ruining the well-brought-up women from the good, pious families.”
Candle wax was dripping on my cloak, and I could smell the bitter, minty herbs on her breath.
“I guess I never thought of it that way.”
“Yeah, I bet there’s a lot you never thought of.”
She withdrew the flame from in front of my eyes.
“Do you drip hot wax on all your customers?”
“Only the ones I like.”
“I’m flattered.”
“Don’t be.”
Two shapes approached from the shadows. One was another wayward daughter of Israel, who barely glanced at me as she slipped by, pulling along a fairly well-dressed man who touched his hat as he passed and thereby managed to cover most of his face