houseboy do it,” said the maid, her face cracking. “Oh, my poor master!”
Kassy drew the woman close, stroking her coarse gray hair and offering words of comfort as the maid clung to her, shaking and dampening Kassy’s long cloak with tears.
I was still stuck on the mezuzah . I guess there were plenty of ignorant Jews in the world. Though to be fair, the ignorant goyim outnumbered us and did a lot more damage.
When my thoughts returned to the world around me, Kassy was giving me a black look for upsetting this helpless old woman. I stood accused, once again, a coarse blunderer unfit for the world of women. But then she raised an eyebrow and her bright green eyes flitted toward the room above, and I understood her unspoken message.
As I climbed the creaky stairs, knowing I was approaching a solemn place of death, I couldn’t help feeling relieved that Kassy wasn’t really angry with me.
The master’s bedroom was dark, with heavy curtains shutting out all but a sliver of daylight. A cluster of gold and silver semicircles hung low to the ground in the center of the room, catching a bit of the light, and as my eyes got used to the darkness, the remains of a bedside supper for two took shape and form. The luminous rings and curves resolved into silver plates and spoons, a polished wine jug, and what appeared to be solid gold wine cups. But the fire in the hearth had long since died and the room was ice cold.
So the old man’s spirit had been given plenty of time to flee the scene. I threw open the curtains, letting the cool gray light of the early Polish springtime flood the room.
I approached the master’s bed, mindful not to touch anything, since a familiar fluttering in my gut was telling me that something deadly, whether of this world or the World-to-Come, was present in this room.
The dead man’s half-opened eyes were milky and opaque, fixed on the red velvet canopy above the bed, and his fist clutched a handful of velvet curtain in a death grip. Bits of silvery residue clung to his lips, and a trickle of silver-flecked wine, dried to a glittering red stain, had dripped from the corner of his mouth into his graying beard stubble and onto the silk pillowcase.
“Looks like Reb Schildsberg knew what he was drinking,” said Kassy.
I turned. Kassy was bent over the table, examining the remains of the unfortunate soul’s last meal, her brownish blond hair hanging loose around her face, just a few inches above the leftover peas on the tainted dinnerware.
“Take a look at this.” She beckoned to me with a crooked index finger.
As I drew nearer, I could just make out traces of a powdery silver residue clinging to the rim of one of the gold wine cups.
The master’s cup.
The other cup contained a few drops of red wine, but otherwise appeared to be free of metallic adulterants.
“How could someone slip that much poison into a man’s drinking cup without him noticing it?” I wondered aloud.
“It probably wasn’t meant to poison him.”
“Then what . . . ?”
Kassy folded her arms across her chest and looked right at me.
I took in the scene—an intimate dinner for two, with candles and wine and closed curtains, and the victim still dressed in his nightshirt.
“A love potion?”
“Either that or something to increase the heat of passion,” Kassy said, “or else to help a hoary old man achieve—well you know.” She picked up a polished spoon and scraped some of the silvery residue from the golden cup.
“Using powdered silver? Are you sure . . . ?”
“I’m afraid that a good number of incompetent or simply fraudulent alchemists have poisoned their customers with elixirs containing quicksilver, antimony, and other heavy metals.”
She held the spoon up to the light and examined the crumbly wine-and-metallic-powder compound.
“If only I had some of my tools with me,” she said with a sudden onrush of bitterness.
Kassy had been forced to abandon her experiments with magnetism and
Kassy drew the woman close, stroking her coarse gray hair and offering words of comfort as the maid clung to her, shaking and dampening Kassy’s long cloak with tears.
I was still stuck on the mezuzah . I guess there were plenty of ignorant Jews in the world. Though to be fair, the ignorant goyim outnumbered us and did a lot more damage.
When my thoughts returned to the world around me, Kassy was giving me a black look for upsetting this helpless old woman. I stood accused, once again, a coarse blunderer unfit for the world of women. But then she raised an eyebrow and her bright green eyes flitted toward the room above, and I understood her unspoken message.
As I climbed the creaky stairs, knowing I was approaching a solemn place of death, I couldn’t help feeling relieved that Kassy wasn’t really angry with me.
The master’s bedroom was dark, with heavy curtains shutting out all but a sliver of daylight. A cluster of gold and silver semicircles hung low to the ground in the center of the room, catching a bit of the light, and as my eyes got used to the darkness, the remains of a bedside supper for two took shape and form. The luminous rings and curves resolved into silver plates and spoons, a polished wine jug, and what appeared to be solid gold wine cups. But the fire in the hearth had long since died and the room was ice cold.
So the old man’s spirit had been given plenty of time to flee the scene. I threw open the curtains, letting the cool gray light of the early Polish springtime flood the room.
I approached the master’s bed, mindful not to touch anything, since a familiar fluttering in my gut was telling me that something deadly, whether of this world or the World-to-Come, was present in this room.
The dead man’s half-opened eyes were milky and opaque, fixed on the red velvet canopy above the bed, and his fist clutched a handful of velvet curtain in a death grip. Bits of silvery residue clung to his lips, and a trickle of silver-flecked wine, dried to a glittering red stain, had dripped from the corner of his mouth into his graying beard stubble and onto the silk pillowcase.
“Looks like Reb Schildsberg knew what he was drinking,” said Kassy.
I turned. Kassy was bent over the table, examining the remains of the unfortunate soul’s last meal, her brownish blond hair hanging loose around her face, just a few inches above the leftover peas on the tainted dinnerware.
“Take a look at this.” She beckoned to me with a crooked index finger.
As I drew nearer, I could just make out traces of a powdery silver residue clinging to the rim of one of the gold wine cups.
The master’s cup.
The other cup contained a few drops of red wine, but otherwise appeared to be free of metallic adulterants.
“How could someone slip that much poison into a man’s drinking cup without him noticing it?” I wondered aloud.
“It probably wasn’t meant to poison him.”
“Then what . . . ?”
Kassy folded her arms across her chest and looked right at me.
I took in the scene—an intimate dinner for two, with candles and wine and closed curtains, and the victim still dressed in his nightshirt.
“A love potion?”
“Either that or something to increase the heat of passion,” Kassy said, “or else to help a hoary old man achieve—well you know.” She picked up a polished spoon and scraped some of the silvery residue from the golden cup.
“Using powdered silver? Are you sure . . . ?”
“I’m afraid that a good number of incompetent or simply fraudulent alchemists have poisoned their customers with elixirs containing quicksilver, antimony, and other heavy metals.”
She held the spoon up to the light and examined the crumbly wine-and-metallic-powder compound.
“If only I had some of my tools with me,” she said with a sudden onrush of bitterness.
Kassy had been forced to abandon her experiments with magnetism and
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