The Witch of Cologne

‘Indeed.’

Still she does not invite him in, determined not to encourage him. Tuvia stands in the dust, shifting his weight restlessly from one leg to the other, sweat staining the front of his plain cream jerkin.

‘I bring greetings from your father. He is well.’

‘So he seemed yesterday when I saw him at the synagogue. He did not tell me I would be receiving a visitor.’

Tuvia glances at the shadowy doorway of the cottage, it looks enticingly cool. ‘Will you not invite me in? I am in need of refreshment.’

‘Would that be proper?’

Momentarily outwitted, Tuvia looks around and sees Miriam hoeing suspiciously vigorously. ‘But we have an escort,’ he points out, trying to keep his nerves from showing in his voice.

‘If you insist.’

‘I do.’

The three of them sit around the small wooden table beside the kitchen window. Miriam, as chaperone, between Ruth and Tuvia as is the custom. A jug of milk and a bowl of eggs lie before them next to a loaf of bread while a lump of oozing honeycomb sits on a plate Ruth has placed in front of the young rabbi.

Tuvia looks around the room. Even in the shadows he can see the row of books placed on the mantelpiece above the hearth. Surreptitiously he scans them for blasphemous titles. To his relief he finds none.

‘For a philosopher you keep a clean house.’ He smiles, attempting to ease the tension with humour.

Ruth pours the rabbi a glass of milk. ‘You walked two miles to tell me this?’

‘Please, Fräulein, you know your hand has been promised. Why make this even more difficult?’

‘Because there is the small issue of my desire.’

‘Desire will come with time. Besides, with your dubious history you should be honoured; there are many mothers in the village who would seek me as a son-in-law.’

‘In that case there is even less reason for you to be sitting here.’

‘Ruth, your father gave his word. He wants to protect you, as do I.’

‘I am able to protect myself.’

‘That I have not noticed.’

Tuvia looks at Miriam who is staring politely down at a struggling bee trapped in the sticky honeycomb. Ruth, noticing his glance, leans forward.

‘She is to be trusted. She has ears but as yet has not got her tongue back.’

‘The archbishop’s men should answer for such an outrage.’

‘But they never will.’

‘Ruth,’ Tuvia leans closer, ‘I have heard from a reliable source that the inquisitor returns to Cologne and is determined to pursu

e your prosecution again.’

‘But I have a royal pardon.’

‘Royal pardons have a habit of bending with the winds…Marry me, we shall sell your father’s house and together with the good reb we shall join with Messiah Zevi in the Holy Land. It will be like a dream…’

‘It is a dream.’

Tuvia looks at her obstinate profile. It is a face he would love to conquer, to see that stubborn soul broken and submissive. He is convinced that this is his mission: to make a wife and a mother out of the old rabbi’s wilful daughter. He owes it to the father, the one person he regards as his intellectual superior. He will be Elazar ben Saul’s son. Ruth and he shall bear children for Messiah Zevi to populate the new Holy Land. It is his spiritual duty to make her a full Jew, he thinks, remembering the burning shame of the revelation of her baptism. Her own sentiments are nothing more than a mild hindrance.