Burning Twilight by Kenneth Wishnia Read Free Book Online Page A

disturbance, then began to settle. Some of the bubbles brought up particles with a faint reddish tinge, and for a moment I stopped feeling the hot breath of peasants on the back of my neck. Eventually other bubbles came up, bringing traces of an oily substance with an undeniable hint of blue. Rabbi Loew dipped a bit of parchment into the water and drew it out, then held it up and showed us that the substance had adhered to it.
    It was blue dye.
    Lord Strekov saw the signs and recognized their meaning. Every man in the room did the same. But if His Lordship knew something, he did not reveal it to us.
    But he could not stop all the tongues from running rampant and filling the hall with murmurs, until Rabbi Loew silenced them by pounding the floor with his staff. When all eyes were upon him, the rabbi raised his arms like the fabled councilor in the court of King Solomon and took four strides to the east, marked the corner with his staff, then took a stride to the north, and repeated the process, marking each corner of the slim rectangle until he ended up right back where he started.
    “What is the meaning of this?” Lord Strekov demanded.
    “I have just measured off the limits of your grave, my lord,” said Rabbi Loew, playing out a scene from a Yiddish moral tale published in Prague about twenty years earlier. “Know well that when you die, this is all the territory you will possess.”
    The imaginary rectangle beneath the rabbi’s staff suddenly seemed more real than the actual planks that made up the floor.
    “You can’t ask me to point him out to you,” said Lord Strekov.
    “That’s all right,” I said. “I think we can find him easily enough.”
    Lord Strekov’s face fell, and I knew that we would have our man before the night was through.
    T he Zohar says that just before the Most High brought His light into the world, He created all the souls that humanity would ever need, and that each soul descends to join its designated body when the appointed time comes. But what if a soul doesn’t want to descend from the heavenly spheres? Perhaps that would explain why some men seem to be missing a part of their soul.
    The part that feels.
    Rabbi Isaac of Safed says that such a man who yields to his anger is possessed by a strange god and thereby commits the sin of idolatry. But is it still a sin if he becomes possessed against his will? I don’t know the full explanation, but perhaps one day, God willing, I will go to Safed and ask Rabbi Isaac’s disciples to clarify what their master actually said.
    T he night was clear and the full moon defined the edges of the sloping roofs and crooked chimneys as sharply as if they were paper cutouts.
    One of Lord Strekov’s squires pounded on the door of the dyer’s home with a mailed fist.
    “Open up, Horshky!”
    The pounding was loud enough to startle the elves that sleep under the eaves of these country cottages.
    A woman’s voice answered: “Who is it?”
    “Lord Strekov’s men! Open up!”
    The woman stumbled in the darkness, then the door swung open and the moonlight struck her pale eyes like a watchman’s lantern.
    It was as dark as the bottom of an old cooking pot inside the dyer’s cottage, so the squire strode into the room holding a torch aloft, unconcerned about blackening the ceiling. He examined the four corners of the room to make sure that no evil spirits lurked there that might threaten His Lordship’s life, limb, or property.
    “What is this about?”
    “Where is your husband?” the squire demanded.
    “Right here,” said Horshky, stepping into the flickering firelight and pulling a short woolen coat over his nightshirt. His fingernails were covered with faded blue stains, and as he fixed his gaze on us, I immediately saw that he had the same bright blue eyes and defiant bearing of his half brother, Mateusz. “What do you want?”
    “Andrzej Horshky,” the squire announced, “you stand accused of the murder of Sir Tadeusz Strekov.”
    His