Читать книгу The Sublime Jester - Ezra S. Brudno - Страница 18
I.
Оглавление“Who is there?”
Albert rubbed his eyes. The voice sounded as if it were coming through a tunnel, muffled yet rumbling. There were other noises in his ears, stamping and pounding and shuffling of feet. And there was darkness around him, the darkness of black night.
“A traveler,” called another voice.
This voice was familiar to him. He remembered the voice of Bandy-legged Schultz—the name by which the coachman was best known in Gunsdorf—and that brought to his mind the memory of his departure from his native town, the long tedious journey, the stops at various taverns. He felt weary and every muscle ached. He wished he were at the end of the journey. And what dreams he had had since he left Schmallgasse!
“Verdammte Juden! You are too late. The gates are closed.”
A shudder ran through the lad’s frame. He was now sure he was dreaming and buried his face into the cushion in the corner of the coach.
“Here, Schultz!”
It was his father who was speaking. He saw through half-closed eyes his father handing the coachman a silver coin. The driver jumped off the box and approached a high wall in front of him. Albert could not make out what the barrier was except that it was high and it cast a great black shadow, revealing in the foreground a little house, and beyond it a gleam of the moon, half hidden, as if balancing itself on the high wall.
Schultz knocked on the pane of a tiny window. He used the silver coin as a knocker. Then silence—ominous silence. Albert felt that his father was holding his breath and he, too, caught his breath and sensed the mystery around him.
“The lazy louts are asleep,” the coachman murmured.
David Zorn passed his hand over his head and emitted a grim grunt.
The coachman knocked again with the silver coin.
“Open the door—a traveler wants admittance!” he bellowed angrily.
There was a stirring inside the little house and a thud as of one rolling off a bench.
“The devil take the Jews! Tausend Donner Sakrament! They don’t give a fellow a moment’s rest even on Easter Eve!”
A gruff voice was heard within, a clatter of a bolt—of a heavy iron hasp—the clanking of chains—the grating of a key in a lock, the creaking of hinges, two tall gates swinging open slowly, and Albert beheld a bit of sky above the horses’ heads. The sky appeared narrow and high, as if seen from a deep trench.
A short, heavy-set man, with a mustache the color of dry sand and the stiffness of bristle, appeared at the opening; between the swinging gates. He held a lantern in his hand, the yellow glare of the tallow candle inside fell grotesquely over his patched jerkin and saffron-colored hose.
Schultz put the silver coin into the hand of the man with the lantern.
The man put the money into his pocket and mumbled, “Don’t you know any better than to come so long after the gates closed!”
He was stretching his arms and yawning. His jaws opened and closed sleepily as he spoke.
“We are coming a long way,” the driver explained. “Couldn’t figure on the exact hour.”
“How many Jews have you?”
“Just one.”
The guard walked up to the wagon, raised his lantern, and strained his eyes.
“Huh! What do you call this, a suckling?” pointing at Albert, who stared around him in bewilderment.
“He is the gentleman’s son,” explained the coachman.
“You didn’t bring his cradle along—Huh! When a Jew reaches the age of twelve he is just as much of one for poll tax as he will be at seventy-five. We call it two Jews—huh! One Jew, he says! You can’t fool me!”
“How much is it?” Zorn opened his purse, the guard holding the lantern to help him see the contents.
“One Jew one Thaler, two Jews two Thalers—simple arithmetic,” snickered the guard.
Zorn paid the price in silence.
“How about a few Pfennige for Trinkgeld—what do you say? I could have kept you waiting here all night. And tomorrow is Easter.”
Zorn handed him a few more coins and cleared his throat as if something was choking him.
Schultz led the horses by the bridles a few steps. There was another guardhouse inside the gates.
“Dovidle, stick your nose out—a couple of Jews for Easter,” the guard called in a piping, mimicking, sneering voice, and pounded on the casement.
A door opened and out came a little man.
The little man greeted Zorn kindly, extending his hand. “You must have come a great distance or you would have known better than to come so late.”
“Since when have they re-established the Ghetto?” asked Zorn tremblingly.
“As soon as they chased the French out,” replied Dovidle in a saddened, low voice. “Yes, they have hemmed us in again;” the little man sighed. “They are at their old tricks again, fleecing and torturing our poor people. Oh, God, will there ever be an end?”
Albert trembled in every limb, a piercing pain shot through his head. He had read of the miserable Ghettoes, which were abolished as soon as Napoleon’s troops occupied the Rhenish provinces, but he had never thought of himself as belonging to a segregated people. He had long forgotten the taunts of Long Kunz and Shorty Fritz. In his native city he had never thought, and was never reminded, of his ancestry. His parents’ indifference to creed had made him almost forget it himself.
The driver soon mounted the box, clacked his tongue, and moved on.
They proceeded slowly through a long, narrow street —it seemed to Albert interminably long and exceedingly narrow—the buildings on either side high and close together. It was dark—depressingly dark—with an occasional candle light peeping through a window. Not infrequently there was the sound of footsteps which was quickly drowned by the heavier tread of the horses. A door opened now and then—dabs of yellow against a black curtain—a slam, and silence again ...
