Free Burning Twilight by Kenneth Wishnia Page A

rebuilt in the Italian style after the fire of 1536. It dwarfed the humble Rózany Targ, the rose market, the only spot of color on this gray day. But I found the old weighing house far more interesting than the opulent Ratusz. With its street level Romanesque archways and high peaked roof, it resembled the Old-New Shul in Prague where Rabbi Loew had delivered some of his most incendiary sermons.
    I crossed Water Street, which ran east to the famous Water Gate down by the river, and turned the opposite way, heading west toward Wall Street.
    As the main square receded, the streets narrowed, drawing their seductive arms around me and nearly blocking out the sky. The houses grew thin and crooked, and the alleys between them ran wet with offal. Men stood in dark doorways offering to sell everything a man’s heart desires at remarkably low cost. But somehow I chose not to purchase a cloak that would have rendered me impervious to weapons, or a potion that attracts gold, and I even turned down a number of opportunities to perform the generative act with any one of a dozen members of a tribe of slatternly women lining the foggy pathway like gaily painted milestones leading to the murky lights of a tavern.
    Water dripped somewhere in the darkness as I approached the heavy wooden door.
    The dank air filled my nostrils. And before I had taken three steps inside the tavern, several pairs of powerful hands grabbed me from behind and held me, while another pair of hands found my knife and took it from me.
    A couple of flickering torches mounted on the eastern and western walls provided the only light, and I could just make out a row of scurvy-looking patrons against the bar, leaning back on their elbows and enjoying my plight. A couple of women tittered, their teeth glistening in the pale light.
    The knave who had relieved me of my weapon strolled past the motley row of liquor-soaked lips buzzing with Polish and German thieves’ jargon, and handed my knife to a man standing behind a high-backed chair at the head of a long table. All I could see of him was a leather doublet and black leggings; his face was shrouded in darkness.
    He turned the knife in his hands, no doubt noting its lack of jeweled ornamentation, and tested the blade against the edge of his thumb.
    “I thought Jews weren’t allowed to carry weapons,” the man said.
    “I believe you’ll find that the length of the blade is within the legal limit,” I said.
    “I see that we have a law-abiding subject here,” he said, drawing more giggles from my shadowy female audience.
    “Please . . . ” He gestured to the seat at the foot of the table.
    My captors marched me over and forced me to sit in the wobbly chair. They stepped back, remaining on either side of me with their arms folded and their weapons at the ready.
    Their leader resumed toying with my knife, holding it by the blade and slapping the handle against his palm.
    “Tell me, Jew, which king is the best in the world?” he asked.
    “That’s easy: a dead one.”
    It was the standard answer to an old riddle, but it silenced the titters like a choke chain.
    “The men in this land must learn to watch their words,” the leader said, pacing back and forth. “For certain words are like the heat that radiates from a glowing coal, which though unseen may still harm you. You don’t have to touch a red hot coal to know that it can burn you, right?”
    “I once did.”
    The air in the tavern grew still and close, except for the faint sound of water dripping from a leaky tap.
    A pair of crossed swords mounted on the wall to my left gleamed faintly in the torchlight, but I’d probably be cut down by three different hands before I could pry one of them loose.
    So I continued: “As a child. I wanted to see how hot a coal was, so I touched one.”
    A couple of women cringed and murmured things to each other that I did not catch.
    “But I bet you learned a valuable lesson.”
    “Apparently not,” I said, trying to