The Silver Cup (13 page)

Later that morning, Anna was shelling peas and she asked the girl, “Would you like to help? It's easy enough work, and it would go faster if you did some.”

The girl said nothing, but she came to the table where Anna worked. Anna put a few pods in front her, and she began to help. Anna continued with her tales, and sometimes she sang little tunes or hummed, and the girl worked at her side.

Anna was no longer welcome in the garden that they shared with Agnes. But the next morning, after Anna saw Aunt Agnes depart for the market, she brought the girl outside to pick strawberries. The girl helped and watched as Anna filled a basket, eating as many as she picked. Anna offered a handful and the girl nibbled a few.

“Delicious, aren't they? ” asked Anna, smiling.

The girl nodded.

“I love my aunt's berries. Have you ever had better? ”

The girl shook her head.

Anna smiled. “My aunt may be pickle sour and as mean as an adder, but her fruit is sweet. Look, we've stained our fingers. She'll know who stole her berries,” said Anna with a fake look of terror.

The girl looked at her hands and smiled and looked at Anna.

“My name is Leah,” she whispered.

23

UNDERSTANDING

 
As Leah began to talk, Anna's life changed. Since the death of Anna's mother, Gunther had been distant, locked up in his sadness. With Agnes and even with her cousins, Elisabeth and Margarete, Anna knew she was kin, but neither a daughter nor a sister. Martin had entertained, and Lukas had comforted, but Leah was her first friend. The two girls were as similar as a chicken and a bench, yet they had arrived at the same point in their hearts and in their sympathies.

Conversation brought understanding, and Anna began to learn about Leah. One afternoon, the girls were eating alone, and Anna noticed that Leah ate only the bread and did not touch the soup.

“Do you feel ill? ” Anna asked. “I know I'm not a good cook, but the greens are fresh. The soup has good flavor.”

“I am sorry Anna. I cannot eat this soup,” answered Leah.

“But why? I even put pieces of bacon in it.”

“I know. Anna, my faith forbids me to eat any pork.”

“You can't eat pork ever?”

“No. Never. Every time I put something in my mouth here, I think about my God and his laws for my people. For me as a Jew. There are many rules I cannot follow here, or I would die. But I cannot eat this soup. Can you understand ? ”

“I think so. We have Lent. Forty days with no meat of any kind. Not even milk or an egg. But it isn't forever.”

The next afternoon, after Anna ladled soup into a bowl for her father, she poured a bowl of buttermilk and cut some bread for Leah.

“Anna, why trouble yourself with that ungrateful child's feeding?” said Gunther. “She won't starve here unless she chooses. The Jews are impossibly stubborn.”

“There are rules for the foods she can eat.”

“The Jews think we are a backward and unclean people. Your fare is too poor for her. That's all.”

“No father, you're mistaken. She's very grateful.”

“If she were grateful, she'd become a Christian. It would make your life easier, and she would be safer. Her people are so stubborn! You have no idea. Before Easter, I was in Cologne, in the market. One of the merchants heard that a certain cask of Jewish wine was better than any wine in the land. So he drew a small taste from the barrel, and drank it. When the Jew heard that a Christian had drunk a cup—mind you, not straight from the cask but from the Christian's own cup, the Jew poured what remained of the cask into the gutter, saying it had been spoiled by Christian lips. And now I must have this stubborn Jewish child at my table.”

Leah answered, “Sir, I am grateful to you and to Anna. Especially to Anna. But I did not choose to come here.”

“But you are here, and you must live as we live,” said Gunther, stroking his chin and looking at the girl, who had never really spoken to him before.

“I cannot. I must honor my family. You do not understand.”

“Why should I understand anything about you or your people?”

“Because we are people. Not monsters or devils. You traded with my father.”

“Yes, a few times.”

“My father was a very good man. Was he ever less than fair? ”

“No,” said Gunther “Your father was fair.”

“And yet a Jew? ”

“Yes.”

“But because he was a Jew, and for no other reason, he and my mother were murdered in our home,” said Leah in a steady, hard voice. “How many people in Worms were slaughtered and destroyed because they were Jews? ” Then she added, “And only your daughter understood the evil of it.”

Leah left the table and went to sit in the garden doorway. Gunther said nothing. That afternoon he packed for a long journey to Cologne. Instead of waiting until morning, he said good-bye to Anna.

As he left he cautioned Anna, “There is talk in town about Leah. Be careful. Stay home. Lukas will bring you anything you need.”

Anna was unsure whether her father was angry or worried, but she saw that he was concerned about a week's absence . Anna obeyed and stayed home with the doors barred, but the time in the house went quickly. Each day, Anna learned more about Leah.

“Lukas is a good man, isn't he? ” said Leah one day. She was showing Anna how to make designs on a leather belt strip by heating a knife blade. The girls sat on the floor near the hearth, working and talking.

“The very best,” answered Anna.

“Do you talk to him about me? ”

“Yes, of course. He cares very much about you.”

“Can you make him understand that I cannot accept your faith?
You
understand that now don't you? ”

“No. I wish you would become a Christian. I know you would be safer, and Lukas says you cannot enter heaven unless you are baptized.”

“It's different for me. But you're right. If I became a Christian, I might be safer. Perhaps my father could have made that same choice. Or my father's father and his before that, all the way back to Abraham. No, we are Jews because that is who we are. It's never been easy or safe. But baptism would be death to me, and all that I know.”

“I will talk to Lukas,” sighed Anna. Then she held up the strip of leather. “This belt is finer than anything I have ever worn. You had many beautiful things, didn't you, Leah? ”

“Yes. But all that is gone now.”

Leah's family had lived in Worms for centuries, for it was a city with a prosperous and ancient Jewish community. For more than twenty generations, Leah's family had been merchants there, and though Leah's father was a trader like Gunther, the Jewish trader covered immense distances and traded in goods of enormous value. His extended family had caravans and ships that carried goods from as far as the Holy Land and even beyond, from India, where he traded German furs, salt, and wine for exotic spices, silks, and gemstones. Leah's family had accumulated great wealth and counted King Heinrich among their customers.

“Your life was very different from this. Wasn't it? ”

“Yes, very. Our house was filled with people. We always had visitors,” said Leah. “My mother had a cousin who lived in Alexandria, and he came each fourth year. He traded with our people in Granada and then in the city of Paris. Every time he brought me delicious things to eat like tender dates and dried figs. There is a thick-skinned fruit that inside is the color of the sun. It's so sweet and filled with juice!” Leah's face was filled with longing. “After I ate it, he teased me when I refused to wash my hands, but the fragrance! This cousin told stories of white stone cities and palaces with windows of colored glass. In the harbor of Alexandria there's a tower as old as the bible and as tall as a mountain, with a fire's light that ships can see days before reaching the city. We had visitors from all sorts of distant places. I've seen a man with skin the color of a moonless night. My father had friends in many lands.”

“My father traded with your father.”

“Your father didn't want you to bring me here.”

“He didn't stop me.”

“He tried. When you found me, I wanted to die, but I didn't know how. I was so scared. You, and only you, saved my life. You've been so good to me, but I can't stay here. It has been awful for you. I want to live now but not here, not as a Christian. I want my own people. But where? Not in Worms.” Leah shook her head. “I'll never return there.”

“No, I don't want to go there ever again either.”

“For both of us, Anna, I must leave here. The others hate me, and they even hate you for bringing me here. I don't feel safe here.”

“I know. But they don't hate you—they hate your religion,” Anna said.

“My religion? They know nothing of my religion. They hate my people. And I despise them.” Leah looked hard at Anna. “You weren't so eager to know me last fall.”

“You remember that?”

“Yes. You were unkind and rude.”

“I was scared,” said Anna, biting her lip.

“Of what?”

“I'd heard so much—”

“About the wicked Jews? You probably thought I had a tail!”

“And horns.”

Leah shook her head. “See?”

“I'm sorry.”

“Sorry? It's not you, but y
our
people,
your
church. They murdered my parents and my brothers. I can't live here among them. How long before they come after me? Except for you, I am utterly alone. I'm not even a person, just some sort of horned monster. Everything here is against what I know. Your bloody meat. I would gag. You eat pigs and eels.”

“I hate eels.”

“I can't bear the loneliness.”

“It's lonely for both of us.”

“What did either ofus ever do? ” sighed Leah. “Nothing, and we both were undone. Sometimes I can barely breathe, it hurts so much.”

24

LEAH'S STORY

 
Rain was falling as Anna returned from church. She found Leah sitting in her corner. The windows and doors were shuttered and closed, and the air was stale. Leah was holding a little cup, and Anna saw that she had been crying.

“What's happened?” asked Anna with concern.

“Nothing. I was just remembering and feeling very sad. Yesterday was our Sabbath. I would have gone to the synagogue. See this?” she said as she held up a silver cup.

“That's the cup the silversmith was making when I first saw you, isn't it?”

Leah nodded. “Yes. It was my brother's. On the eve of the Sabbath we would have gathered for a wonderful meal. My father would have said a blessing over the wine in this cup.”

“It's lovely.”

“It's all that I have left,” said Leah. But she did not cry. She would not let herself cry anymore.

Anna opened the shutters along the garden wall, and she sat down next to Leah on the floor.

“Tell me more,” said Anna.

“In the early spring, we began to hear from other Jewish communities, from kinsmen south along the river, that armies of Christians were assembling throughout the land. Our elders hoped that gifts of silver would protect us, but then the news grew more and more threatening. There were the murders in Speyer. My father was frightened, and then the mob arrived in Worms. Father was sure there'd be no mercy. His worst fear was that he would be killed first, and his children would fall into the enemy's hand. We would be slaughtered or tortured and forced to give up our God—to worship the false hanged one.”

“Leah! You can't say that!” Anna was shocked.

“Why? My father was a gentle man with a wonderful laugh. But as your Count Emich marched into Worms, my father gathered my mother and his three children. He said it was time to give up this dark world. Then he took his sharpest knife and cut the throats of my young brothers. My brothers were so brave. I watched and prayed, but as he turned to me, I pulled away. I was crying. I was so afraid. Soldiers burst into our house, and he was overpowered. They murdered him and my mother.” Leah's voice almost broke, and Anna's eyes filled with tears.

“I saw it all, and then I ran. The mobs were more interested in what they could steal from our house, so I ran and ran, and I hid. I hid that night and all the next day. Fires burned, and everything I loved was turned to ash. I didn't even know if I was still alive.”

As she listened, Anna was troubled by one thought especially:
What if Martin took part in all this?

Leah continued, “Just before dawn on the third day, I crept through the city to the only Christian house I knew, where Lise, one of our servants, lived. Lise had taken care of my father as a boy, and she had worked for my family always. We loved her. But as I stood in the doorway, I saw her with her family. They were celebrating with my parent's things. Her husband was dressed in the very bloodstained clothing that my father had last worn! So I ran into the room and snatched my brother's silver cup, and I ran. Perhaps they thought I was a ghost. No one chased me. That afternoon you and your father came to Worms. I planned to fill my dress with stones and jump into the river. But I was too afraid. I hated myself, I hated my fear. I knew I should be dead. Now Lukas, with his talk of baptism, makes it worse. Can you understand?”

“Your father must have loved you very much,” said Anna.

For a moment Leah could not answer. Then she said, “Yes, more than life.”

The girls shared a quiet meal and sat on stools by the garden window to catch the afternoon breeze. Leah was braiding Anna's hair into a pattern of twists and coils when Anna began to cry. Leah put her arm around her friend.