Page 64 of The Phoenix Bride
“What is it?”
“I am grateful for you.”
“It is only a cloth, Papa,” I reply.
“Close the door behind you. There is a draft.”
I do so, and I head down the steps.
In the kitchen, I heat the water, listening in case my father calls. I hear nothing. The water bubbles. I soak the cloth and wring it out. As I watch the dark patch fade, I recall his shuddering, the paleness of his face, the quickness of his breaths. A sudden terror grips me. I push it down. He is a doctor himself; if it was something more than a cramp, he would have known.
I remember him saying,I am grateful for you.
He would have known.
I drop the cloth to the counter and run back up the stairs. When I reach his room, the door is closed. I knock.
“Papa,” I say. “Papa. Are you well?”
I knock more.
“May I come in? Papa?”
There is no response, and in the empty space where his words should be, there is instead only the stuttered rap of my knuckles against the door, over and over, slower and slower.
“Papa?” I say again, quieter now.
But I know—as a bird knows to sing, or a heart to beat—that he will not respond.
—
Each year during the days of repentance, we recite the Avinu Malkeinu. In that prayer, we sing our failings to God:Avinu Malkeinu. Our Father, our King. We have sinned before You.
Avinu Malkeinu, my Father, my King: Perhaps the moment I abandoned You was two years ago, when the plague was at its worst. Most of the community had left the city. Our street was empty but for me and the Cardozos, who had remained only because Manuel was already sick. I went to see him wearing my plague mask, offering him what little relief I could. He was so feverish he called me Father. He could not see my face behind the crow’s beak. I was glad of that, because it hid my tears, and prevented my panic from spreading to his family. I was in love with him, and I didn’t tell him. Now, I never will.
Avinu Malkeinu: the next morning, You were not there, either. No one was there. The synagogue was empty and I had taken the mezuzah from the doorframe. I had sent my father to the countryside to avoid sickness, and I was alone in the house. In the garden, I pruned the lilac. The birds seemed louder than they usually were. London was emptying, and they were celebratory in their newfound solitude. My mask remained hung on the stand, next to my oiled coat. When I went on house visits later that day, I stuffed the beak with fresh herbs, to protect myself from the miasma that spreads the disease. Other physiciansoften refused to see Jews; those patients I saw were very grateful for my time, and they were relieved to see me in the trappings of a plague doctor. But I was no specialist in such illnesses, and these visits were merely a comfort, rather than a cure. I dispensed physics to limit their pain, to lower their fevers, to help them sleep. I could never be the difference between living or dying.
Avinu Malkeinu: Did You see the irony of it? Law requires that infected houses put red crosses upon their doors, like the slaves in Egypt, painting with lamb’s blood. This is what the Cardozos did. But I could not pass over them. Instead, I knocked and was permitted within, a premonitory reaper, selling false hope, and sorry smiles.
Avinu Malkeinu: I have sinned before You. In the waning days of that accursed summer, I went to the cupboard to find the last of the henbane tincture. I found a note behind the bottle; my father had written it and hidden it there before he left for the countryside.I am with you still, Davi,it said. God is with you. Remember: He who saves a life is as if he saved an entire world.
But I could not save them. I could not save Manuel, and I could not save my father. All these people in my wake, whom I have failed—they trail after me.
Avinu Malkeinu: Forgive me. I cannot forget, no matter how much I might try.
Determined to introduce me to court, Margaret secures us an invitation to a salon. The event is being held by an heiress I do not know. Sam assures me she is a great friend of his, but this does little to assuage my nerves.
Margaret herself curls my hair tonight, tightens the laces of my emerald-colored bodice, dusts my face with powder. Her dress is very similar to my own, in an amethyst tone rather than green. I wonder if she thinks others will take pleasure in the novelty of a matching set of twins. Our mother had dressed us in similar clothing when we were small, but it has been long since we were presented as a pair.
She instructs me in etiquette in the carriage, while Robert reads a broadside in the opposite seat, and Sam fiddles with his ribbons. She says I must take great care with how I address people:Her Grace, His Lordship, Your Majesty. I must curtsy neither too low nor too high. I must laugh lightly and cover my mouth as I do so. Her words spill into one ear and dribble languidly out of the other. The back of my neck itches—she has fixed a fewcurls there with fish glue—and my dress is too heavy for the summer, leaving me flushed and sweating. My eyes meet Sam’s, and he gives me a sympathetic look. He is in green, too. I wonder if that was intentional.
We arrive at a house identical in appearance to the one we left. In the foyer, the hostess is introduced to me as Mistress Myddleton: She has auburn hair and doe-like eyes and a soft chin, and she smiles at me with earnest warmth as she welcomes me inside her parlor, which is full of people. She deposits us beside a banquet table resplendent with sweetmeats and chalices of port. Robert wanders off to greet a group of men in pale wigs and old-fashioned stockings, and Margaret is quickly engaged in conversation with some court ladies. Sam, mercifully, stays by my side.
“Mistress Myddleton is one of the Windsor Beauties,” Sam tells me as he passes me a glass of port. But I am not listening; I am staring, stricken, at the man on the other side of the parlor. He is at least a head taller than everyone else, and of the two dozen or so present, at least half are gathered around him. His hair is dark, and his face is not particularly handsome—thin-lipped and large-nosed—but it is so immediately recognizable that it doesn’t matter. He laughs loudly at some turn in the conversation; the sound booms warm and bright, a log tumbling onto a fire.
“Oh! I shall introduce you,” Sam says. He ignores my desperate refusals as he seizes my elbow and draws me toward the king.
It takes some struggle to part the crowd, but we reach him finally, and I drop into a shaky curtsy. Sam bows. The king says, “Samuel, we see now why you have been avoiding us!” which leads to guffaws from the room.
