Martin nodded, his silence fueling Didier’s distress.
“You’re sure about this, this ‘Jacob the Wanderer’ then? You’re really certain?”
The slice taken from the worthy Jacquette’s arm would seem to be incontrovertible proof. “As certain as one can be before we catch him. That’s why I need all the men I can get.”
Didier turned a decidedly petulant profile to Martin and began to stare at the ceiling. “And the Jewish community, what am I supposed to tell them?”
Perhaps more people should understand there was more than one “Jewish community” in Nancy. More than one kind of Israelite. But this was not the time for such lessons.
“You’ll tell them that you believe that the killer is a madman, and madmen are to be found in every race,” Martin said. “You’ll tell the press that this has nothing to do with Dreyfus’s alleged treachery in any shape or form.” He crossed his arms, almost daring Didier to contradict him.
Didier pinched his lips together in a straight grim line. His steely blue eyes began to rove around the room. Martin watched, fascinated, as the prosecutor’s mind shifted gears, like the well-oiled political machine that it was. “At least this tinker is not ‘one of
ours
,’” he offered.
“You mean ‘one of us,’” Martin corrected him, assuming that Didier was referring to those Israelites who were Frenchmen, who possessed what the Grand Rabbi called the “true Blood of Lorraine.”
“Ours, us, what does it matter? The important thing is, we can label him a foreigner.”
“Indeed, what does it matter?” Martin muttered. Anything to get the courthouse off the hook, keeping the bishop happy and the rabbi happy and the prefect happy and all those good citizens of Nancy who felt they were truly, oh so truly French, happy. The only reason Martin bit his tongue was that he knew Didier was on the same side, the side of equality of the races. He also knew that the prosecutor was not one to tolerate ambiguity or complications. If there was anything that Martin had learned in the last few weeks, it was that life is not so simple, that some Frenchmen were both equal
and
different, all at the same time. And then there were those, whom the Republic should care about, who were less than equal. “We should not stigmatize the whole immigrant community,” he declared, thinking of the Abrahams, and the Shlomos, and the women working in Ullmann’s mill.
Undoubtedly pleased with his new characterization of the suspect, Didier blithely ignored Martin’s last remark. “We can worry about
that
later. Perhaps you and Singer can figure out what to say to the press when we catch him.”
“Ah, yes, Singer. Since it is an
Israelite problem
,” Martin said, making no attempt to hide his sarcasm.
Didier responded with a scowl. He was not liking this conversation. “Let’s catch him first and worry about everything else later. What do you need?”
“More men, not only to protect the most prominent Israelites in our city, but to go out to the countryside so we can track the tinker down.”
“Yours. You can use Singer’s inspector to organize more police. Whatever you need. Do it. And talk to Singer, get him on board.”
Talk to Singer
. Didier assumed he was leaving the most difficult task to Martin. By now, Singer’s worst fear, that the killer was a Jew, must have hit home. Of course Martin was going to talk to him.
Friday, December 21
B
Y EARLY
F
RIDAY MORNING, THE
police had fanned out across the city in twos and threes, watching for the tinker. Martin had also sent an inspector with the gendarmes scouting the remaining depopulated villages. Now all there was to do was wait, Martin in his ground-floor chambers, and Singer above him, undoubtedly pacing, distraught at the turn of events.
Martin had tried to temper the blow, by talking about madness and loss, about the things that tragedies can do to someone. A conversation, Martin realized as he listened for signs of his colleague’s distress, that he dare not yet have with Clarie. He could not imagine when he would be able to tell her how disturbing her behavior had become. With a sigh, he went back to work, shuffling papers, giving orders to Charpentier, and beginning to outline a dossier of the case. He was just going through the motions. He felt eerily suspended between apprehension and hope. His body tingled on alert, and his ears stayed attuned to every sound in the courthouse. They had to find the killer. He had to get on with his own life.
Finally, at one o’clock, Franchot, Singer’s inspector, arrived with the news that he believed they had found the place, but not the man. Someone was living in a stone hut, where they had discovered several long benches, a stove with wood in it, a single tin cup and bowl, and books. Inspector Franchot, grayer around the edges than Jacquette, bigger, and much less talkative, handed a black leather-bound volume to Martin and commented that it had lain open on a bench. He added that the engraved arch above the doorway bore the same kind of writing.
A tremulous wave rolled down Martin’s chest as he watched the book fall open to a much-used passage. He recognized the script he had seen on the gravestones in the cemetery, Hebrew, the ancient language of the Israelites. His first instinct was to send Charpentier for Singer, but he caught himself in time. Ordering the brawny veteran officer to wait for him, Martin ran up the stairs himself. He paused before the door to collect himself, and knocked.
“David, I think we have him,” he announced as he entered the room. He told Singer about the occupied hut in the abandoned village and handed him the book. Singer opened it to where it had been creased and worn. The blood drained from his face as he read the passage. “This is our Torah, our most sacred text,” he said quietly, as he closed it and carefully laid it on his desk, his attention and fingers hovering over it. “Do you want me to go with you?”
“Of course: we may need you. Your wife said he speaks only the old common language.”
“Most of our men know at least two languages,” Singer mumbled as he tapped on the book with his finger.
Then, without saying another word, Singer went over to a clothes tree to retrieve a black wool coat, less grand than his usual tweed but untainted with Jacquette’s blood. He threw it on, saying “If this is where Jacob lives and he is truly observant, he will want to be home before sundown. If I am right about the script above the door, it is the old shul of the village.”
They rode hard, single-file, for forty-five minutes, Franchot in the lead, Martin between him and Singer. Their panting horses sloshed and spattered the mud of the narrow, rutted road. Melting snow lay in sullen, ashen-edged patches on the floor of the forest that surrounded them. The tall trees, sturdy pines and skeletal oaks, tattered the waning rays of the afternoon sun, obscuring their vision. Martin hoped they would be done with their work before nightfall shrouded them all in darkness.
Franchot held up his hand. They slowed down as they approached the village. Martin patted the head of his horse to quiet its labored snorting. At first they heard nothing; then an anguished cry split through the forest, and the inspector whipped his horse into a gallop.
By the time Martin and Singer caught up to him, Franchot was in a muddy clearing, standing beside a bonfire, warming his hands and talking to the uniformed men. He broke off from them and came up to Martin. “Your tinker’s in there,” he said, pointing to a hut that was slightly larger and more substantial than the other buildings near the clearing. Although it was doorless, it seemed in good repair and very clean, as if recently washed down. Beside it stood the cart filled with old pots and pans, and the thick round knife-sharpening stone. As if confirming his presence, the man inside the hut began to drone a lamentation.
“They think he’s going crazy,” Franchot explained. “I told them to wait if they spotted him, so they hid until they were convinced he wasn’t coming out.” Martin was about to dismount when Franchot added, “There’s something else you should know, sir. While they were hiding they came across a mound, maybe another body, buried in the woods over there.” He pointed in the opposite direction from which Martin and Singer had come. “They could dig it up, if that’s what you want, sir.”
From the puckered look of distaste on Franchot’s face, Martin was certain that that was not what
he
wanted, uncovering a body that had lain in the ground for God knows how long.
Martin explained to Singer, “Probably the stepmother. To think he may have buried her himself in this place.” Martin shook his head, imagining the scene. Then he told Franchot that they would not have to uncover the body tonight.
In the meantime, Singer maneuvered his horse toward the building and read the inscription above the open doorway. He slid down off the steed. “It is the shul,” he told Martin. “I’d better go in.”
“No, you won’t!” Martin shouted. This time the blood on Singer’s coat could be his own, oozing from a fatal wound. But before anyone could stop him, Singer had stepped under the inscribed archway to the inside.
Martin swung his leg over the saddle, landed on his feet and lurched toward the doorway. Franchot stopped him before he could step inside. “If it’s their holy place, sir, I’m not sure we have a right to arrest him there.”
“Singer!” Martin called and stopped, knowing that he had to respect a sanctuary and sensing that Singer wanted to do this on his own.
Martin leaned his back up against the outer wall by the arched entrance, breathing hard, and listening. Anxious sweat ran down his forehead. He tried to assure himself that a religious man would not defile his place of worship with violence. The singing had stopped. Soon he heard Singer shouting in French, accusing the tinker of humiliating and betraying his people. Martin turned to observe what was going on inside.
As Martin’s eyes adjusted to the dark within, the tinker spread his arms wide and began to circle around the middle of the floor in a kind of ecstatic dance, ignoring Singer. Then he began to chant again. In the shadows, Martin could see that Jacob the Wanderer was a slight man, of medium height. His shoulders, long bent to the wheel of his heavy cart, caved inward, concealing the strength or the rage that allowed him to kill and to wound.
Martin and Franchot watched as Singer, still shouting, raised his hand to smite the tinker, and then, as if stayed by a supernatural force, let it fall by his side. He dropped down on a bench, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. For his part, the tinker began to weep, raising his hands to his face and then toward the ceiling. For a moment, all of them, the uniformed men by the fire, Franchot and Martin at the doorway, and the two Israelites locked in a shadow play of pain and grief, were suspended in an eerie calm.
Suddenly, horribly, the tinker rushed to one side of the room and began to beat his head against the wall. Martin was about to order Franchot to go in and stop him, when Singer got up, went to the tinker, and pulled him away. Singer began to speak to Jacob, hesitantly, as if searching for words, in some version of what Martin had come to know as “the common language.” Gradually, Singer’s sentences became more fluid, as if he were recapturing the sounds of his childhood, and as he did, he seemed to regain his composure. Singer and the tinker sat on one of the benches; the judge questioning and prodding, the killer sobbing and wailing. Martin whispered to Franchot that they must go in if there was a chance that the suspect might hurt Singer. The inspector nodded and gestured to the gendarmes to draw near.
Martin stood at the threshold, listening intently. He ran his tongue around his lips to moisten them. It took a tremendous act of will to hold back, when every instinct, every muscle in his body was poised to intervene. Once more he felt cut off from Singer, divided from him now by a stone wall and a language he did not understand. He watched anxiously as Singer became more “foreign” to him.
Or, was it that, foreign? Standing against the outer wall of the shul, Martin surveyed the ancient village. How long had it existed? When had it been built? Centuries ago, no doubt. Before there was a Republic. Before there was a France as they knew it, a France filled with citizens, not abject subjects. The inhabitants of this village, like the ancestors of Jacquette and Fauchet, had sustained the place they called Lorraine. More than the distant kings and dukes and emperors who once ruled it, they were its life’s blood. And yet David Singer had kept this past buried deep inside, out of public view, out of the regard of non-Israelites. Because…because of men like Rocher, Hémonet, and countless others, who hated anyone who they thought was not French enough. Even, Martin realized, because of someone like himself, who had once assumed all men of good will were like him, or would be if given a chance.
Martin glanced at his friend, still and listening now, as Jacob the Wanderer wailed and explained. And then Martin understood something more about Singer. He wanted to be a French Israelite, not this poor, unkempt, despised Jew. Just as Jacquette did not want to be the peasant his grandfather had been. This was Singer’s right, and yet—the words of Noémie Singer came back to Martin—in the sea of Christians and nonbelievers, Singer had an obligation to sustain the most ancient part of his past, or it might die forever. An obligation and a community, something which gave him strength while at the same time marking him, among other men, as different. Martin’s heart reached out to his friend, with all his self-protecting correctness and aloofness, and his pride. How complicated it must be.
After about a quarter of an hour, the men inside had quieted down and were standing. Singer laid his hands on the tinker’s shoulder and back and pushed him out of the shul. Martin, Franchot, and the other men stood by, ready to pounce. “Tie him up,” Singer said, “but with his arms in front, so he can pray.” For just a moment, Singer was the man that Martin knew so well from the courthouse. He examined the bottom of his coat, his fine shoes, and his pants and tried to wipe the mud off them. He soon realized it was useless.
There could not have been a greater contrast than that between the calm, methodical Singer and the trembling, humble Jacob the Wanderer. Martin stared at the killer, a man of indeterminate age who swayed from side to side to a persistent rhythm heard only by him. The tinker had the same wiry beard, aquiline nose, and battered round black hat as the men in the immigrant café. What was familiar, however, was overshadowed by what Martin would never forget: the watery blue eyes raised to heaven and the parched lips moving in an unending silent prayer.
“Martin.” Singer signaled that he wanted to talk.
The two of them moved outside the circle of the others. “He did it. I knew as soon as I read the passage in the Torah. It was about a righteous Israelite killing other Jews because they were desecrating our religion. He was wrong, of course. He had no right to commit violence against our people. We will all suffer from the shame of it.”
Singer barely got these last words out. He grimaced, his face dissolving in sorrow and grief. Martin reached out to take hold of his arm. He almost said, as Singer had said on the fateful day they buried Henri-Joseph, “I know.” But Singer did not know then, and Martin did not know now the depth of what his friend was feeling. So Martin just said, “He is insane. He is mad. Madmen do mad things. That is what we will say over and over again.”
When Singer did not reply, Martin let his hand drop to his side. “What else did he tell you?”
Singer sighed and stared at the ground. “That anyone who tries to teach the old ways, the right ways, is humiliated by the rich, the powerful, the ones who are changing everything. That His God curses us. And yet,” an ironic smile crept across Singer’s face, “he asked me to apologize to Noémie for her pain, for she is one of those ‘who understands.’ Heh,” Singer’s voice took on a bitter edge, “I probably have much more than that to apologize for.”
“No, you don’t. You have tried to make life better for men like him, for everyone. We all have.” Martin grasped at these Republican straws, these half-truths, in an attempt to assuage his friend’s pain.
“Really? I tried to make life better? Did I ever listen, ever want to hear his story? How he was left here as a boy, wandered far to find his home as a man, had everything taken from him by force and violence, and when he came back,” Singer lifted his arm in a weak gesture toward the hut, “everything here had changed. Noémie tried to tell me, tried to explain why we should be kind, but all I saw was dirt and superstition. And my poor dear uncle,” Singer turned away as his voice broke, “all he saw was a simple-minded man who needed to be reformed, remade in our image.”
Martin struggled to come up with a comforting reply. Singer should have been kinder, more patient and less righteous with his wife. But Singer did not want Martin’s sympathy, he wanted something else.
“I have a request. I want to walk back into town with the tinker.”
“What?” Martin was stunned. “Even if we go at a gallop, we’ll be lucky to make it back before dark.”
“Not tonight. Tomorrow.”
Martin’s head hunched toward Singer. He did not believe what he was hearing.
Singer stepped back. “This will be his last shabbat evening in this place, where he grew up. He does not want to ride to town on his sabbath. He’s begged me to let him stay and walk into town, and I am willing to do it.”
“Singer, the man is a murderer, and mad. I can’t let you—”