Rashi's Daughters, Book III: Rachel (53 page)

It did not occur to him that his wife never had any intention of going to Toledo.

twenty-nine

Rachel waited an entire month after the men returned for the Hot Fair before questioning Pesach about Eliezer’s second wife. Still she approached the subject gingerly as they walked together, first discussing the kinds of merchandise available in Toledo, what they cost, and the young man’s impression of economic conditions in Sepharad.

“Eliezer has no trouble finding buyers for his furs and woolens; they were just waiting for him to arrive,” Pesach said proudly. “And his agent in Maghreb brings the finest dyestuffs via the winter caravan. Honestly, I don’t see why he needs me.”

“Since he completes his business so quickly, I wonder what my husband does all day in Toledo.” She spoke lightly, as though the idea amused her.

“As far as I can tell, he sleeps.”

“Of course. He stays up all night studying the stars.”

“I don’t understand why he finds them so interesting.” Pesach shrugged. “I mean, what difference does it make if the planets go around the earth or they go around the sun?”

“It makes a big difference to him,” Rachel said. Eliezer had always been desperate to know more than other men: about Talmud, once, and now astronomy.

Pesach lowered his voice. “They say his friend Abraham knows when the Messiah is coming.”

“Nonsense. Nobody can know that.”

“Eliezer says Abraham may be right.”

Rachel hesitated before springing her trap. “So how is Eliezer’s second wife?”

As she expected, Pesach cringed at her question. “Please, Mistress Rachel, don’t ask me about that.”

“I know,” she said gently. “My husband told you not to say anything about her. But you needn’t say a word. I’ll ask you a few questions; then you nod or shake your head in reply.”

Pesach’s eyes were wide with fear, but he nodded.

“Does he have any children with her?” She held her breath, waiting for the answer she dreaded.

Pesach shook his head and Rachel sighed with relief. If Eliezer hadn’t gotten this woman pregnant after three years, then perhaps he was the barren one.

“One more thing. Was she with child when you left?”

He shrugged, which was probably the best answer she could expect. “That wasn’t so bad,” she said. “Now if Eliezer asks, you can honestly tell him that you didn’t say a single word to me about her.”

Pesach remained silent until they arrived at Simon’s. The dyer was working in his shop instead of a smelly vat.

Simon grinned upon seeing her. “Mistress Rachel, your latest woolens are even finer than earlier ones, and they were fine indeed. Let me show you.”

“They should be,” she replied, accompanying him and Pesach outside to where racks of brightly colored cloth were drying. “The wool is from this summer’s shearing.”

Simon displayed his work. “As you authorized, I chose the dyes personally, according to the fabric’s quality. You will be pleased to hear that all were worthy of imported dyes. Dovid’s work for you surpasses anything he did at Othon’s.”

“Excellent. I expected nothing less.” Rachel restrained the joy she felt at hearing her fuller praised.

“Since this fellow brought back so much kermes scarlet,” Simon inclined his head toward Pesach, “I utilized it wherever I could. For the slightly lower quality wool, indigo and saffron.”

He pointed out the red, blue, and yellow woolens, whose colors were vivid despite the bright sunlight. Every cloth’s shade was without variation.

“They’re beautiful.” Pesach couldn’t hide his delight. “But why are some black?”

“The abbess at Notre-Dame-aux-Nonnains was inquiring after fabric, so I asked Simon to prepare some for her,” Rachel explained. Nuns took a vow of poverty, but the local abbess came from a noble family and refused to wear anything but the highest quality fabrics.

Simon turned to Pesach. “True black is one of the most difficult shades to obtain. Each dyer has his secret formula; mine involves lamp soot.” He motioned the pair back indoors, where he slowly unrolled a small bolt of brilliant purple.

Rachel gasped. “This is exquisite.” She couldn’t resist stroking the material. “I thought Eliezer couldn’t find any Tyrian purple, or did you mix scarlet and indigo?”

Simon allowed Pesach to answer. “I found some, although Eliezer judged it too expensive. But the other dye merchants in Toledo said Tyrian purple was particularly scarce this year, so I gambled and bought some on credit.”

“A successful gamble, I may add,” Simon said. “Several merchants have expressed interest, each outbidding the last.”

“You did well, Pesach,” Rachel said as he beamed at their praise.
Better than Eliezer, who is apparently more interested in the heavens than in our business profits.

 

For his part, Eliezer spent the summer simmering with concealed anger, biding his time until Sukkot was over and he could return to Toledo. While Rachel responded to his embraces as enthusiastically as ever, she was not interested in anything he had to say. When he tried to explain how important and revolutionary it would be to prove that the heavens did not all revolve around the earth, she practically yawned in his face. She dismissed his calculations with a wave of her hand, saying she would look at them later, yet never finding the time.

All her attention was focused on woolens. She disappeared to Ramerupt for hours at a time, even spending the night when she was
niddah
. Yet when he offered to accompany her to see the fulling mill, to finally meet the new fuller, she always found some excuse why he should wait. Fed up with her delays, and suspicious about what lay behind them, he decided to visit Ramerupt on his own, about an hour after she’d left.

The estate, which should have been awhirl with the taking in of the harvest, was moribund. Shepherds leisurely tended the sheep, but the sparse, spindly sheaves in the fields were a sad testament to the recent poor weather. This being the height of the Hot Fair, Joheved and Meir were in Troyes, but Milo and Isaac’s very pregnant wife, Judita, came out to greet him.

Both seemed alarmed to see him.

“Would you like some refreshment while I send someone to the mill for your wife?” Judita asked, a little too eagerly.

“
Merci, non
. I’ll go see her directly.”

Milo and Judita exchanged glances, and Milo said, “The fulling mill is some distance away; I’ll take you.”

Eliezer thought that Milo could just as easily have given him directions. The fulling mill would have to be downstream from the manor, and Eliezer was perfectly capable of following the creek alone. But he said nothing and accompanied the steward.

He could hear the mill long before it came into view, its thumping hammers reverberating through the trees. He frowned slightly as Rachel came down the stairs, her hair hidden under her veil, waving to him. So much for catching her and Dovid unawares—assuming the fuller was still there.

He was, following Rachel at a respectful distance. A handsome young devil too. Eliezer observed Rachel closely as she approached him, a big smile on her face. But he knew his wife well enough to recognize the annoyance in her slightly squinting eyes and tightened lips.

“Eliezer, I thought you and Shemiah were studying with Papa today.” Her unspoken reproach was clear; he was taking time away from Torah.

“I’ve heard him teach this
sugia
at least twice, and the weather is so fine that I thought I’d go riding.” He turned to the fuller and held out his hand. “You must be Dovid, the finest fuller in Troyes, the man behind our successful woolen business.” Two could play this dissembling game.

Dovid shook Eliezer’s hand and clasped him around the shoulder. “Come see our new mill. The fullers in town must be mad as wet cats; we’re finishing our woolens at least three times faster than they are.” He eagerly led Eliezer up the stairs.

Eliezer detected no guile in Dovid’s voice, so he responded, “Excellent.”

Rachel at his side, Eliezer followed Dovid through the mill, past the incredibly vile smelling troughs, and then quickly, thank Heaven, out into the fresh air where a great many lengths of wool cloth were stretched out drying in the sun. It was an impressive sight.

“It’s good to see where all the dyes I bring back will go.” Eliezer turned to Rachel. “It’s almost time for
disner
. Shall we ride back or dine here?”

Rachel hesitated only for a moment. “Let’s go home.”

They rode through the forest with minimal conversation, their few words short and curt. Tension built between them, both knowing a quarrel was imminent and neither wanting to instigate it.

 

In the end, their son precipitated the argument by refusing to leave for Toledo in the fall, which sent Eliezer charging home in the middle of an evening Talmud session. One look at his furious countenance and the servants scattered. But the object of Eliezer’s fury was upstairs.

“How dare you contradict my wishes for Shemiah?” Eliezer slammed the door behind him.

Rachel carefully put down the folio of Nedarim she’d been reading and stood up to face him. “If our son wishes to study Talmud with his grandfather, I will commend him, not discourage him.” She tried to appear calm, but her insides were quaking.

“It is the Talmud that says a father must teach his son a trade, which I intend to do in Toledo.”

“He is perfectly capable of earning his livelihood as a clothier in Troyes.” Her eyes narrowed. “As are you.”

“What if I don’t want to be a clothier in Troyes?” he challenged her. There—now it was out in the open.

“How can you say that?” Rachel’s chin began to quiver. “After all I’ve done to build this woolens business for our family.”

“I didn’t ask you to do it. You never consulted me about whether I wanted it.”

“But I did it so we could live together in Troyes.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “So we wouldn’t be separated.”

“I told you before that I have no intention of living in France. Jews will never be as safe here as in Sepharad,” he retorted, unmoved by her sobs. “You’re not interested in us living together; otherwise you’d have come with me to Toledo.”

Rachel blinked back her tears, anger overpowering her pain. “You expect me to live in Toledo, to share you with another wife? Never!” she hissed.

Eliezer was silent; his face flushed bright red.

“Don’t blame Pesach. He never said a word to me,” she jumped in before he could speak. “I’ve known about her for years. You’re not the only merchant from Toledo who attends our fairs.”

“I have every right to another wife in Sepharad if that is their custom,” he finally replied. “Rabbi Gershom’s edict doesn’t apply there.”

“If you’re so proud of having two wives, why didn’t you tell me about her? Did you honestly think I would accept a rival in my husband’s bed?”

Of course Eliezer hadn’t thought that, which is why he hadn’t told her. “What if I divorced her? Would you move to Toledo then?”

Now it was Rachel’s turn for silence. Slowly she shook her head. “I can’t leave Papa, not at his age. I couldn’t bear it if he died while I was away.”

This was Eliezer’s opportunity for rapprochement, for responding with his own vulnerability. But instead he snarled, “Are you sure it’s not that new fuller you can’t leave?”

Rachel sprang forward and slapped his face. “How dare you distrust me? You who’ve kept another wife in secret.”

“A woman is supposed to leave her parents and cleave to her husband,” Eliezer quoted Genesis, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

“Don’t you quote Torah to me,” she shot back. “You know very well that a man may not force his wife to move to another city against her will.”

“And if his first wife refuses to live with him, he is permitted to take another.”

“Not in France he’s not.”

“I won’t be living in France.”

“But I will be.” She stared at him defiantly.

“Because you don’t love me enough to move to Toledo.”

“On the contrary. It’s you who don’t love me enough to remain in Troyes.”

Eliezer returned her gaze, observing her flushed face and flashing eyes. Her pulse beat visibly on her neck, where a trickle of sweat slowly slid down her skin and disappeared into the cleft between her breasts. Lust merged with fury, and with a quick bound he closed the distance between them.

She recognized the look in his eyes and tried to step back, but the bed was behind her. His arms were around her before she could dart away, pulling her close. His lips fastened on hers, her body clasped firmly against his. Abruptly one of his hands began fondling her breast, searching for a nipple beneath her thin chemise.

When he found it, desire flooded her. Drowning in passion, she franticly pulled him down onto the bed. Yet at the same time that she was reveling at Eliezer’s caresses, a voice in her head was screaming that she hated him, hated how he could always make her body respond, and hated needing him so much. But though her mind could fight him, her flesh could not—would not. All her traitorous body wanted was to feel him, hard and throbbing inside her, pounding his flesh against hers until finally, in a great explosion, all desire drained out of her.

Even so, she would never move to Sepharad.

 

Normally a time of celebration, the New Year’s approach filled Rachel with melancholy. Once Sukkot was over, in less than a month, Eliezer would depart for Toledo, not returning until Shemiah’s wedding next summer. There had been no more arguments between them after that terrible and exhilarating night, each one accepting the other’s implacability.

The day before Yom Kippur, both sought and received the other’s forgiveness. But despite the Holy One’s commandment to celebrate Sukkot with gladness, the holiday was heavy with gloom. Eliezer had agreed to delay his departure until she became
niddah
again, causing Rachel to pray for a child with a fervor she’d never experienced before. But her flowers arrived on schedule at the end of September, and she could barely restrain her tears as Eliezer packed.