The Nature of Blood (6 page)

I swing my legs up and on to the bed, and I stare through the window. It is evening now, and the light is fading. We have come to the right D.P. camp. We are on the outskirts of the right city. And tomorrow I will meet Mama in the square. But there is no reason for me to flaunt my good fortune. It is bad manners to do so. I try to let the other women know that I, too, like them, am happy. I do not want to dampen the atmosphere. I try to smile at them, but they consider me unreliable. I understand this. I am not angry. I listen to their planning, to their excitement, and I wish that I, too, had somebody with whom to share my joy. But all of us, in our own way, will now survive.

And now, at the end of the day, I have to admit that, again, there will be no Mama. For almost one week I have sat on this bench from sunrise to sunset. And then I walk back to the displaced-persons camp and take my meal with the rest of them. Men, women and children. I have my routine. I sit in the market square and I stare at the poster across the way. A splendid, colourful poster with a bright sun, a marine sky and bronzed shores. Come to Greece! I want to go on a voyage. What a temptation. What luxury. People pass by and glance at me. Their lives are also miserable. Their eyes are filled with despair, their faces are glum, their heads are bowed to the ground. Their hearts are icy. I look at them and I whisper to myself. You deserve this unhappiness. You deserve it. In this city, people played in the park in the summer. In this city, people skated on the river in winter. At the end of the day, as the sun begins to set, I rise to my feet. It is a mile or so back to the camp. It will not take long. And when I return, there will be food.

It is simply another day. Why sit here any longer? There is no Mama. There never was a Mama, neither in this camp nor in the last. There is a place that I must find. A place to which Margot now belongs. A place to which I might travel. I am lucky. (Am I?) I am sorry, but I do not recognize this world any more. Why sit here any longer among these people who hurry across this market square, dragging their miserable lives behind them? They cannot know what I know. They can never know what I know. Full of their stupid importance. No, I will not waste my time enlightening them. No. Mama is gone from me and I am alone. For more than one week now, I have been afraid to face this. I have not wanted to see this. But now I see it, as clearly as I see my Greece at the corner of the square. These stupid, distressed people walking by me. Their bearing respectable but defeated, my imagination ruined. I have no Mama. And so back for more food. I must leave this bench before sunset and go back to the camp. I remain constantly haunted by food. Even though there is plenty to eat, I always carry a piece of bread hidden about me. I am ashamed.

I have spent a whole month avoiding impertinent questions. I eat with them, what more do they want from me? I am frightened to fall asleep at night in case I talk and reveal something about myself. Both day and night, I stare at the other women. Clearly I have unnerved them. But I am trying to be good. And whenever the women begin to sing in Yiddish, 'Pioneers prepare themselves for Palestine', I too join in, my voice weak, often mouthing the words, but I try. I still try. And then I received the letter from Gerry. And then I talked. I am going to be married. That was my announcement. In England. The camp authorities agreed to arrange my journey, but only after I showed them the letter. I told the women in my dormitory: He wants me to come to England and marry him, and so I will go. They were puzzled, but the camp authorities understood. We will give you money and arrange your passage. You're very lucky. Congratulations. My life here is dead. I lie down at night without a life. I rise up in the morning without a life. Mama, why did we not all hide together? Mama, why did Papa not turn around and look at me as he wheeled to the right?

Tomorrow, I leave for England and Gerry. I am to pass this final night in a new dormitory. With one other woman. This woman talks to me. She tells me that she went back and found nobody. That her family furniture had been burnt as firewood by the townspeople. That her family house was derelict. She tells me that she found a photograph in a frame. The glass was broken and the picture torn, but this is all she has left.
(I stayed one night and then ran for my life.)
She smiles at me. She says that she has heard. That they have given me some money and a ticket. She tells me that she simply wished to live long enough to witness the end of the war and then one hour more. But now she is happy. There is a new life.
(A new life for all of us, if we trust in God and believe again.
This is what she says.) She has a present for me. She slips it into my hand and then leaves the room. I know what I have to do. I wait for a few moments and then move across to the mirror. A stranger's face, with large puffy eyes. I do not want this anguished expression. How can this stranger be me? I look like them, ugly and ravaged. I begin to laugh at this mask. I smear the lipstick around my mouth. A jagged slash, red like blood. Tomorrow, they will release me into an empty world with only Gerry for company. Gerry has never seen my true face. Oh Gerry, my heart is broken. Perhaps you can mend it a little, but it will never again be complete. Do you understand this? How can she give me this useless lipstick? How can she give me such a present? I am not like them. I am not.

IN MARCH of 1480, the people of the small town of Portobuffole,
near Venice, were preparing their houses for the much anticipated arrival
of relatives. The winter was at an end and the weather had already turned
mild, but, more importantly, it appeared that the famine which had troubled
the lives of these people for the past three years was now over. There were
provisions for everybody, although the poorer members of the community could
not afford to indulge themselves with luxuries. However, every household could
boast either pork or eggs, or both, and the eager townsfolk now waited for
the priest's blessing of house and food before completing their tables with
delightful flowers and scented herbs.

The women, in particular, watched the streets in a state of anxiety, for the majority of them were looking for their men. The Most Serene Republic of Venice had recently made a reluctant peace with the infidel Turk and, once again, the Venetian army was being demobilized. Every day, the women expected to see their loved ones, and they contemplated the streets in anticipation of a joyful reunion. There was, however, a further reason why the streets were being scrutinized in such a concentrated manner. After raging for almost a full year, the plague had mercifully ceased, but the old suspicion of strangers remained. So, even as they looked for their men, the women also kept a sharp eye open for those they did not recognize. And then, on one evening, shortly before sunset, a young beggar boy entered the town, but sadly the women did not follow him closely. The boy's hair was blond and unkempt, his tattered linen skirt brushed his bare feet, and he carried a worn sack across one shoulder. One woman did speak to him, for he asked her the name of the town, and the woman remembered that the boy's difficult foreign accent reminded her of her husband's when he had first been recruited to the region by the Venetian army. There was one other woman who saw the boy, but unfortunately she did not speak to him.

The blacksmith claimed he had been busily shoeing a horse at the time that he saw the young vagabond. The boy approached him cautiously and asked him the way to the Jew Servadio's home. It was nearly dusk, and the blacksmith remembered that he simply pointed the wretch in the appropriate direction. The blacksmith then returned to the urgent business of shoeing the horse, in order that he might return it to its impatient owner before nightfall. It was important that the child had also been seen by a man, albeit the temperamental and somewhat unpredictable blacksmith, for in these times nobody would accept the word of a woman unless it had been substantiated by a man. This 'male' sighting of the boy became even more important when one considers that the innocent beggar child, who that day entered the small town of Portobuffole, was never seen again.

Portobuffole was a small town of less than a thousand people, some living inside and some outside the boundary walls. However, despite its small size, it was well known as an important administrative and commercial centre which had jurisdiction over fifteen or so neighbouring villages. Upon entering the town, one found a square, and in the town square, between the gates in the boundary wall and the town hall, was the hub of Portobuffole: the warehouse. The building boasted an ugly veranda, but beneath the veranda was a large counter, where one could negotiate for loans and securities. On the stone wall behind this counter was a list which plainly indicated the current taxes for those who wished to borrow. If one entered the town square and looked to the far left, one would see the synagogue and the large and comfortable homes of the principal Jewish moneylenders, Servadio and Moses. These homes were easily distinguishable by the cylindrical containers which held Hebrew scripture written on parchment. By law, these had to be placed to the right of a Jew's front door.

The leader of Portobuffole was Andrea Dolfin, a Venetian aristocrat,
chosen by the
Signoria
of Venice. It was understood that he would remain
in office for some sixteen months in return for a modest salary, out of which
he had to support a deputy, a notary, three pages, three horses and a servant
boy. Andrea Dolfin worked together with a local civic body which comprised
members of the most important families, but, unlike other towns, these members
were not required to be noblemen. The democratic ideals of Portobuffole determined
that all men over a certain age could participate in the development of the
town and, with some justification, the townspeople of Portobuffole were proud
of the manner in which their town was governed.

The Jews had first begun journeying to Portobuffole in 1424, many of them migrating from Colonia in Germany. Back in 1349, the Christian people of that region had suddenly become incensed and irrational from fear of the plague, and the Jews began to suffer as this Christian hysteria manifested itself in violence. Eventually the Jews could take no more and they barricaded themselves into their large synagogue, set fire to it, and recited moribund prayers to each other as they waited for the end. The few Jews that survived this catastrophe remained in the region, but finally they were driven out. And then, a few years later, they were once more readmitted as though nothing had ever occurred. Such is the way of the Germans with their Jews. In 1424, the Jews of Colonia were finally expelled for good, and most decided to travel to the Republic of Venice, where it was rumoured that life was more secure.

Initially, the people of the republic accepted the Jews from Colonia with all the mistrust that is common among people who do not know one another. Sadly, as the years passed, this mistrust did not abate. It became apparent that the Jews wished to speak only among themselves. Further, they chose not to eat or drink with the Christians, and they refused to attend to their heavy German accents. They looked different, the average one being between thirty-five and fifty years of age, pale and heavy under the eyes, with a long untidy beard. And even at the height of summer, these men always wore their dark grey, heavy wool coats and their unseemly black hats. Although their women dressed with more propriety, occasionally wearing handkerchiefs on their heads like the Christian women wore in church, even these gentler creatures refused to join in the most innocent female talk about household matters or children. The Jews ate neither pork nor red meat sold from a butcher, preferring instead to slaughter live animals and then drain the blood. They washed their clothes on Sundays and rested on Saturdays, and eight days after a son was born they had huge celebrations in honour of the boy's circumcision. Those who glimpsed the Jewish men praying claimed that they covered their whole bodies, including their heads, with a large shawl that made them appear both animal-like and foolish. These Jews arrived as foreigners, and foreigners they remained.

In Germany they frequently murdered the Jews, because the Christian
people claimed (and provided good evidence) that the Jews spread the plague
by poisoning the wells with whatever came to hand: spiders webs, lizards,
toads and, most commonly, the severed heads of Christians. Not only had the
Jews killed Jesus Christ, but during Holy Week it was common practice for
them to re-enact this crime and kill a Christian child in order that they
might draw out the fresh blood and knead some of it into the unleavened bread
which they ate during their own Easter celebration, known as Passover. Their
feast was designed to celebrate the moment in their history when they claimed
that the Red Sea turned into blood and destroyed the Egyptian army, hence
their need for fresh blood. However, this murderous act also demonstrated
their hatred of Christianity. At the moment at which they stabbed the innocent
Christian child, the Jews were known to recite the words: 'Even as we condemned
the Christ to a shameful death, so let us also condemn this innocent Christian,
so that, uniting the Lord and His servant in a like punishment, we may retort
upon them the pain of that reproach which they impute to us.' In addition
to using this blood in the preparation of bread, it was widely known that
the Jews used fresh Christian blood for anointing rabbis, for circumcision,
in stopping menstrual and other bleedings, in removing bodily odours, in making
love potions and magical powder, and in painting the bodies of their dead.

Although the Venetian
Grand Council
sought to discourage the propagation of false ideas about the Jews (for these people were an important part of the republic's economy), the doge's inner
Council of Ten
nevertheless passed a law according to which the Jews were instructed to distinguish themselves by yellow stitching on their clothes. People detested the Jews for a variety of reasons, but the most often cited referred to their position in society as people who would loan money at an interest, more often than not requiring extravagant security from the borrower. To comprehend fully how shameful a trade this was, one had to understand that Christians were strictly forbidden to give out loans at interest to anyone. In fact, even Jews were forbidden by God Himself, taken from the word of the Scripture, to lend money to their 'brothers'. However, by interpreting this edict liberally, the Jews discovered that they could give loans to Christians, who were technically not their 'brothers', at whatever interest they deemed applicable. By obliging the Jews to lend money in exchange for permission to live in their territory, the Republic of Venice could pretend to be implementing a policy of some tolerance towards the Jews, while serving its own interests and ignoring the fact that it was further exposing the Jews to the multiple dangers of Christian hostility.

The grandparents of Portobuffole's principal Jewish moneylenders, Servadio and Moses, had begun to practise usury in Germany. Jews were unable to practise in either the arts or trades, no matter how skilled, for the various guilds had been deliberately established with religious affiliations to Christianity. Usury, however, because it was forbidden to Christians, remained a professional outlet for the Jews. The work was risky, and therefore profitable, but it was not physically demanding and it left time for both reading and studying. The Jews paid an excessive amount of tax on their profits, but plenty remained for them to live on. There was, however, little for them to invest in, so their money remained liquid, which further drove home the notion of the Jews maintaining a sybaritic lifestyle.

The Jewish moneylender offered to the public an indispensable
service. In Portobuffole there was not a single working family who, every
now and then, did not have to take out a loan in order to survive periods
of poverty. However, a dependency upon the Jews was not confined to any one
section of society. After the war with the Turks, the economy of the Most
Serene Republic of Venice began to falter as the opportunity for expansion
in the Orient appeared to have been blocked. This led young Venetian aristocrats
to begin to explore the commercial and economic prospects inland, but only
with the understanding that the Jews would be able to provide large-scale
capital investment. However, despite their central role in Venetian society,
Jews were ever-mindful that every debtor was a potential enemy, and that the
goodwill of the usurer often fed the greediness of the borrower. It remained
both easy and convenient for individuals habitually to accuse the Jews of
wicked doing, and subsequently to confiscate their profits, but the doge and
his
Council of Ten
realized that they could not afford to alienate
these Jews completely.

The 'Contract of Moses' was the means by which the Jews were allowed 'freedom' to practise usury, but under strict controls. Whenever a town such as Portobuffole decided to grant a usurer's licence to a Jew, the contract between them, which was generally valid for five years and was renewable, had to be submitted to the Venetian
Grand Council
for ratification. The contract clearly listed the
rights
of the Jew proprietors and their collaborators:

– The Jews have usury rights (sometimes exclusively) in the
town for the period valid in the contract.

– The Jews can live the way that they please and erect a
synagogue.

– The Jews are not obliged to keep the banks open on
Saturdays, or during other Jewish holidays.

– The Jews can refuse to lend to foreigners.

– The Jews can sell securities that have not been claimed for
more than one year.

– The Jews are not held responsible for securities that are
lost during fire, war, looting or robberies, or for securities
that are gnawed by moths or rats (provided they keep cats
in their houses).

– The Jews have the right to receive, from the butcher, living
animals for the same price paid by Christians.

With as much care and precision, the 'Contract of Moses' listed the
duties
of the Jew proprietors and their collaborators:

– The Jews cannot keep banks open on Sundays, or on
Christmas, Easter or Corpus Christi Day, or during any of
the four feast days set aside for Mary.

– The Jews cannot refuse to lend money on securities with a
value of less than ten ducati.

– If the Jews refuse to do this for more than ten consecutive
workdays, then they have to pay a fine of ten ducati.

– The interest on their Jewish loans cannot exceed two and
a half Venetian lire each month.

– In the case of loans given without securities, or, in other
words, written loans, the monthly interest can rise to four
lire.

– The Jews have to give loans up to one hundred ducati to
the municipal government without interest.

– It is prohibited to take sacred furniture as a security; loans
for weapons are given at the discretion of the Jew.

– A half of any fine is to be given to the town council.

For every object received as security, the usurer was obliged
to write up a receipt in Italian, which indicated the place and date of the
loan, the nature of the object offered as security, the weight of it, and
whether it contained any gold or silver. In addition, each usurer generally
kept a personal book in which he recorded confidential information. This private
record book was usually written in Hebrew characters.