The Book of the Unknown: Tales of the Thirty-six (9 page)

Outside, the decanter shone like a lantern, illuminating his way. Moths came to him, washing their dank wings in the light, wishing to awaken as butterflies. Dalet rested in the town square to give them time, though he reckoned that the chances of metamorphosis were slim. More moths gathered. There must have been a hundred by the time Shlomo the watchman made his hourly round. Old Shlomo loathed moths, for he’d heard that they carried omens from dusk to dawn. He swatted and shouted until all were gone. Then he walked on, leaving Dalet by himself again, unnoticed in the decanter’s spectral glow.

By sunrise, everyone in the baker’s household was awake: his wife, his two sons, and all but his youngest daughter. Avram sent his eldest girl, twenty-four-year-old Tamar, to wake her.

— Don’t you know what day it is, Riva?

— Tell me later. I don’t care.

— Tonight is Papa’s banquet. We have to prepare. Where are your rings, Riva?

— I left them on a table somewhere. I told you, I don’t care.

Tamar left her to tell their father of Riva’s latest mischief. She found Avram kneeling on the floor, digging linen out of a cabinet, cursing each rag as if it were a demon. His wife stood behind him, gathering up the fabric, refolding each piece. Tamar wanted to know what was wrong, but her mother just shrugged and put her to work on a heap of napkins.

Avram reached the back of the cabinet. Nothing there. He tore out the shelving. He stood up and lifted the thing. He shook it, and hurled it out the door.

What was the matter? his whole family asked him, and how could he answer? The crystal decanter had been his secret, cut at the utmost expense in a foreign country for this banquet. A secret that would surprise everybody: His neighbors would fordalet ever be put in their place, a feat for which his wife and children would eternally admire—and, yes, envy—him. He shook his head, and sought out Shlomo the watchman.

Shlomo slept during the day in an underground hut. Over the years, night had seeped into his eyes, where it had pooled until all he had were two black pupils. He couldn’t see in daylight, naturally, but after dark he often compensated by perceiving more than was actually there. Avram stomped on his hatch until Shlomo awoke and let him crawl under. The baker made sure no one else was there. He lowered his voice. He asked whether the watchman had seen anything suspect the previous evening.

— As a matter of fact, I did.

— I knew it.

— The moths were out.

— What?

— Hundreds of them.

— Moths?

— Moths carry omens, Avram. They carry omens from dusk to dawn.

— I don’t care about that. It’s not what I’m talking about.

— You’ve never seen moths like these.

— What I want to know is if you saw a person, a human being, breaking into my house, or getting away carrying . . .

— . . . An omen?

— No, Shlomo. A cut-crystal decanter.

— Don’t be silly. Why would anybody do that around here?

Avram didn’t have an answer. The only conceivable reason would be to ruin him, yet ever since he’d bought his horses, the village had shown him nothing but deference. He went home. He interrogated his family. He demanded to know if they’d moved anything without his permission. He wouldn’t say what was gone. Nevertheless, he made them search the house and bring him all they found.

The place was loaded with treasures, fashioned of gold and lapis, silk and tortoiseshell. Avram had forgotten how much he had. But each time his wife or children came to him, he shook his head. It got late. In two hours, guests would arrive for the banquet. Tamar reminded her father that she and her sisters had to dress and braid one another’s hair. He nodded. They went away, all but Riva.

— Have you gone to Dalet the thief, Papa?

— I spoke to Shlomo.

— But if a thief wears his cloak . . .

— Don’t be foolish. Poor Dalet takes my worthless batter spoon . . .

— It’s in the larder.

— Why didn’t you bring it to me before?

— If it’s worthless, why would you care?

Avram saw that his spoon was where his daughter said, which was odd: By his reckoning, the spoon had been gone for ages, not worth its customary two-penny ransom. Avram was a modern man—as his wealth well proved—and knew that an object couldn’t simultaneously be in Dalet’s possession and in his own hands. He went to investigate.

Dalet was at home in his shack. He hadn’t left since he awoke, too entranced by the decanter even to let his eyes wander. He sat and watched desire churn inside, quickening in morning torment, lengthening into afternoon longing. He learned the language of want. He knew that Avram was coming even before the baker left his own house.

He opened the door as Avram approached. They met on the road. Deprived of the chance to ambush Dalet, Avram decided to trick him. He took two pennies from his purse and dropped them in the thief’s hand.

— I’m here to take back my batter spoon.

— You already have it.

— Isn’t it your job to filch it?

— Not anymore. My job is to steal people’s needs.

Avram didn’t understand what the village thief meant. But he knew perfectly well, as Dalet invited him inside, that the decanter on the table was the one he’d bought for his banquet. He said so. Dalet agreed. Avram grew large with rage: How could the thief pilfer it? Dalet reiterated what he’d been told by the town elders.

Avram couldn’t argue with them, for they were shortly to be his guests. So he took a seat and reached again inside his purse. He hadn’t any more coppers. He withdrew a fat gulden, and set it on the table between them.

The gold glowed pure greed, but what match was that for the blaze of Avram’s desperation? One gulden was the same as another: Their glimmer was shared. Dalet could barely even see the coin in the decanter’s glare. He declined the offer.

Avram added another gulden, and then several more. At last he emptied his purse. But it was like casting stars into sunlight. Poor Avram, his reckoning was all wrong: In matters of desire, no quantity is greater than one.

— How much do you want, Dalet? Is my gold not enough? Do you want my silk? My lapis? My daughter Tamar? I’ll go get her. She won’t complain. My banquet will be your wedding.

Dalet had often seen Tamar in the marketplace. She was built tall and stiff like a post, fenced in her own crossed arms.

Though he didn’t wear his invisibility cloak in the daytime, she’d never acknowledged him, and, while he was accustomed to being overlooked, he had trouble imagining how he’d fulfill his marital duties without her participation, whether a woman could conceive children without even noticing that she had a husband. Then Dalet’s thoughts returned to little Riva. He recalled how she’d smiled at him. His memory flared anew with her unbridled light, overwhelming the decanter’s stoppered glow. Dalet put both hands on the table.

— I’d like Riva.

— Riva is my youngest.

— I want to marry her. You can have the decanter.

— I can’t give away my daughters out of order, Dalet. Tamar is already twenty-four, and Riva . . . My eldest must be married first. You know that’s the way of the world. Would you have me break the law?

The thief sighed. His breath made the decanter shimmer, a sympathetic quivering of the desire pent up within. In that light, he saw the tumble of Riva’s auburn hair, the moisture in her copper eyes, the downturn of her mouth as she gnawed on a stale crust. He sighed again, and, wishing for what she might want, mumbled the words
fresh bread.

— What did you say?

— I’ll return the decanter if you’ll bake some challah.

— How about a wagonload of whole-grain import? It’s only three days old, a week at most.

— No, Avram. I want it made here, by you.

— I haven’t baked in ages, Dalet.

— I’ll return your decanter when you do.

By the time Avram got home, Dov the shoemaker and Zev the carpenter were already at his banquet, as were the tailor and the cooper and the butcher. If he’d bartered with senseless Dalet any longer, he wouldn’t have been on hand to greet Yehudah the mayor and his wife, Esther, his coveted guests of honor. More people came, and on each new face the baker looked to find the disappointment that he himself felt—that he felt toward himself—for not having a cut-crystal decanter on the table. But they couldn’t even see where it would have gone: Not knowing of it, his wife had left no place for it. To everybody but Avram, the decanter didn’t exist.

They toasted him. They praised the beauty of his wife and daughters. They complimented the mutton he served them and admired the plates on which it was served. Avram tried to stop them, to object that nothing could compare to his decanter, but they wouldn’t let him. Dov praised his silk. Zev complimented his tortoiseshell. Yehudah admired how his money shimmered like jewelry. But the toasts weren’t celebratory; they sounded like an inventory. And if folks could make such a fuss about things so obviously inferior to his decanter, Avram knew their envy didn’t add up to much.

At last they left, just hours before the coming of dawn. His family went to bed. Avram didn’t sleep, though. He slipped down the cellar stairs to fetch a load of wood. He hauled it next door, where his stone ovens were, and built a fire. When he turned around, he found little Riva there, still draped in satin, hair braided with amber. She was carrying his batter spoon.

— Why wasn’t Dalet at the banquet tonight?

— Because he’s a thief, Riva.

— He has luminous eyes.

— He’s got a crooked face.

— That may be, but he’s never told a lie.

Avram stared at his daughter for a while, trying to discern whether the thief had gone ahead and seduced her without his permission. However, he saw no abrasions, none of the blunders that a man might leave in the night, and he attributed her own fervid state to his good wine. He stooped to gather flour and water. He mixed his batter in a great vat. He kneaded it. Riva went to sleep in the corner. He covered the dough with a white shroud. He wrapped his daughter’s shawl around her febrile shoulders, and carried her to bed.

The town awoke to a scent as strangely familiar as the touch of a lost lover. Husbands and wives whispered to each other, but it wasn’t gossip about the banquet. All they said was:
fresh bread.
They dressed in a hurry, no time for jewels and finery. They crowded around the bakery.

Avram opened the door to get away from the heat of his oven. The people in the street engulfed him. They wanted to know when the bread would be ready. They jangled their money.

Avram sold them all the challah he had, all but the loaf he’d set aside for the thief. Those who came late wanted to buy that. He was offered a gulden, five, ten. He was barricaded by a veritable auction, and might have been detained all day had he not promised to bake a bigger batch the following morning.

Concealing the loaf under a silk swathe, he went at last to see Dalet. Though he didn’t say where he was going, little Riva followed him down the road, and refused to turn around.

— You can’t come with me. What do you want?

— Why isn’t the bread you baked for us?

— It’s ransom. You wouldn’t understand.

— Dalet must have stolen something that you love very much.

Recalling his decanter, Avram couldn’t bear to be detained by his daughter’s banter any longer. He permitted her to accompany him if she promised not to talk to the thief, and to shun his crooked gaze.

They entered Dalet’s hovel together. Accustomed to hardwood luxury, Riva was shocked by the conditions in Dalet’s shack, scarcely the size of Avram’s pantry, a slum of rot and rust, in which the thief sat, rough and unwashed. Heeding her father’s orders, she didn’t say hello, and stared at Dalet’s ruined shoes while her father addressed him, unwrapping the swaddling, unveiling the precious loaf.

Dalet cradled his hands around the warm heft. He split off a braid, and gave it to Riva. Then he handed a portion to the baker and took a piece for himself. Seated around his hobbled table, they ate together.

At last Dalet stood. He retrieved the decanter from behind some rubbish—stolen goods ages abandoned—and handed it to the baker. The light within lifted as Avram held it out for the admiration of his daughter.

She shrugged and asked if she could have more challah. The glow dissipated. Avram stepped outside and held the crystal to the sun to see why it no longer seemed so spectacular. As she watched him turn it, Riva found the bread in her hands replenished. Filling her mouth, she furtively glanced at the thief. In the combined light of their eyes, the decanter seemed to vanish.

The following night, Avram brought the decanter to Dov the shoemaker as a gift. Dov had been to the bakery that morning to buy bread for the evening’s feast, a bacchanal to rival Avram’s own banquet. The shoemaker had placed his order with the pomp of a prince. But in the dozen hours that had passed, he’d collapsed. He absently set the decanter in a corner. Avram was too hungry for a taste of his own bread to wonder what had overcome the shoemaker. Only little Riva saw how Dov’s gaze dropped, from everyone whose eyes met his, to the floor.