“No wonder you weep,” I said.
“Why do you say that?” he demanded.
“Because your soul is rent,” I said. I shrugged. “How can you not watch your brother’s illness without these thoughts.…”
“I would never wish his death!” he declared. He brought his fist down on the writing table. I thought it might crack and give way, but it did not. “No one has gone to greater lengths to save him than I. I’ve brought the doctors one by one to see him. I’ve sent for the caviar which is the only thing that he will eat.”
Suddenly the old tears returned and with them a deep and genuine and exhausting pain. “I love my brother,” he whispered. “I love him in all this world more than any being I have ever loved, even this woman. But I tell you there came a day when my father took me through that empty house, while Vitale and Niccolò were still in Padua, drinking themselves drunk, no doubt, and when my father took me through the place room by room to show me how very beautiful it would be and, yes, even into the bedchamber and how it would be so beautiful for them, and how and how and how!” He stopped.
“He hadn’t known then.”
“No. It was his secret, the name of the woman so carefully chosen. And I was the first one to bring up her name in these, these poems I wrote for her which I was fool enough, fool enough, I tell you, to reveal to him!”
“Cruel things, terribly cruel.”
“Yes,” he said, “and cruel things will make cruel men.” He sank back in the chair, and stared before him as though he didn’t know the meaning of his own story, or what it could conceivably mean to me.
“Forgive me that I’ve caused you this pain,” I said.
“No, you require no forgiveness,” he said. “The pain was in me and the pain would come out. I fear his death. I am terrified of it. I am terrified of the world without him. I am terrified of my father without him. I am terrified of Leticia without him, because she will never, never be given to me.”
I wasn’t sure what to make of these statements except that he meant them.
“I must get back to Vitale,” I said. “He brought me here to play for your brother.”
“Yes, of course. But tell me first. This tree—.” He turned in his chair and looked up into the rangy green branches. He looked at the purple blossoms. “Do you know what they called it in the jungles of Brazil?”
I thought for a moment and then I said, “No. I only remember seeing it there, and I remember its blossoms and how very fragrant and beautiful they are. I should think a dye could be made from such purple blossoms.”
Something changed in his face. He appeared calculating, slightly cold. I could have sworn that his mouth hardened.
I went on talking as if I hadn’t noticed this, but I was beginning to dislike this man intensely.
“These blooms make me think of amethysts and there are such beautiful amethysts in Brazil.”
He was silent, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly.
I couldn’t bear the feeling of contempt and distrust that was growing in me. Surely I wasn’t sent here to judge or to hate, but merely to prevent the man above from being poisoned.
I rose. “I should get back to Vitale,” I said.
“You’ve been kind to me,” he said, but when he smiled, only his lips moved, and it was frankly hideous. “Too bad you’re a Jew.”
A chill passed over me, but I held his gaze. Again, I felt that vulnerability I had known when I’d realized I was wearing the round yellow badge on my clothes. We merely looked at each other.
“Is it?” I asked. I made a small bow as if to say, I’m at your service.
He smiled again, so coldly that it was almost a grimace.
I felt the blood throbbing in my ears. I struggled to remain calm.
“Have you ever loved a woman that you couldn’t have?” he asked.
I thought for a moment, unsure what to say or why to say it. I thought of Liona. I saw no point in thinking of her now, here, with this strange young man.
“I pray your brother recovers,” I said suddenly, blundering, uncertain. “I pray that perhaps he’ll begin to recover today. Such a thing is possible, after all. Even sick as he is, he may suddenly begin to recover.”
He made a small ugly derisive sound. The smile was gone. He was looking at me now with bold hatred. And I feared I was looking at him in the same way.
He knew. He knew that I was on to him, and what he had done.
“Such a recovery could happen,” I persisted. I struggled. “After all, all things are possible with God.”
Again, he studied me, and this time his face was a picture of menace.
“I don’t hope for that,” he said, in a low iron voice. He sat upright as though gaining in strength as he spoke, “I think he will die. And if I were you, I would be gone from here before you Jews are blamed for his death. Oh, do not protest. Of course I don’t suspect you of anything, but if you’re wise, you’ll leave Vitale to his own devices. You’ll slip out of here now and go on your way.”
I’d encountered many ugly and violent moments in my life. But never had I felt such menace emanating from another human being as I felt coming from him now.
What did Malchiah expect of me here? What was I to do for this man? In vain, I tried to remember Malchiah’s advice to me about the difficulties I would encounter here, about the very nature of this assignment, but I couldn’t recover either the words or the intent.
The fact was, I wanted to kill this man. Horrified by my own feelings, I sought to hide them. But I wanted to kill him. I wanted to grab up a handful of those lethal black seeds and force them into his mouth before he could stop me. I must have burned with the shame of it, that far from being someone’s answer to a prayer, I was thinking like a very dybbuk myself. I took a deep slow breath, and made my voice as calm as I could.
“It’s not too late for your brother,” I said. “He might begin to mend from this very day.”
There was a flash of something unnamable in his eyes, and then the rigid stillness again, the deep hostility unmasked.
“You’re a fool if you remain here another moment,” he whispered.
I looked down for a moment, and uttered a small wordless prayer, and when I spoke I made it as soft and gentle as I could:
“I pray your brother recovers,” I said.
And then I went out.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I DREW VITALE WITH ME OUT OF THE SICKROOM AND into the passage.