Free Judah the Pious by Francine Prose Page A

the reason was not really so odd at all: he had begun to realize that Rachel Anna was mortal.
    Now the fact of death was nothing new for someone who had lived a dozen years in the wilderness, who had dissected carcasses, reassembled skeletons, and desiccated skulls; nor was it surprising to a naturalist who could predict the approximate life expectancy of a dragonfly, a dandelion, and a man like himself. But, until he had seen the scar, it had simply never occurred to him that his wife’s life was as brittle as a length of bone, and subject to the same unchangeable laws which governed all living things.
    For the first time, Judah began cautioning Rachel Anna about wandering too near the marshes, scrambling too quickly up the rocky hillsides, and failing to watch out for the poisonous snakes which nested beneath stones. Her disregard of these warnings only made it harder for him to work, for he was always listening tensely to make sure her footsteps followed closely behind his. Finally, even their lovemaking became for him a fearsome ritual, in which he was conscious of nothing but the light, quick beating of her heart.
    Nor was he able to share his worry with Rachel Anna, since he did not wish to infect her with his fear. Unable to extract the truth from him, she finally interpreted his constant brooding as a temporary sadness of the blood brought on by the humidity, and waited for it to pass.
    Suddenly, the Rabbi Eliezer jerked his spindly body to the edge of the throne and leaned forward. “Excuse me, King Casimir,” he said, “but I have completely forgotten to ask your views on this delicate subject of death.”
    “I am quite resigned to it,” sighed Casimir majestically.
    “A healthy attitude,” nodded Eliezer. “I only wanted to make sure that you were not one of those unfortunate people who make the entire journey to hell and back each time the matter is mentioned.”
    “I am not nearly so suggestible,” said the king. “But still, I can understand Judah ben Simon’s position; for if I had such a beautiful woman, I would also worry about losing her.”
    “Ah,” murmured Eliezer. “Another soul lost in the Garden of Earthly Delights. But that is another matter entirely. As for now, I am quite pleased that you find it so easy to empathize with my hero, for perhaps you will be better able to understand the complex ways in which Judah’s fears were to influence his actions during the rest of that summer.”
    “One night, early in August, Rachel Anna started suddenly from a deep, dreamless sleep. She sat bolt upright, her body tense and wary; then she began to sigh and toss about in a manner intended to wake her husband.
    Judah ben Simon opened one eye and rolled over, murmuring the soothing, meaningless nonsense syllables which had always been sufficient to comfort his wife after a bad dream; but, this time, she was not so easily calmed. “Listen!” she whispered, her voice shaking with fright.
    From the close, hot darkness near their shelter came the frantic, insistent shrieks of a terrified woman.
    Judah ben Simon laughed. “It is nothing,” he said. “You must be a very sound sleeper not to have heard those noises before. For that is the voice of an old admirer of mine, a lone wildcat who has come to visit me summer nights since my first year in the forest. By now, I am familiar with the most intimate details of her personal life; she is unmarried, childless, with a special taste for brown field mice. But I have never actually seen her, for, like many older ladies, she prefers to visit young men on the darkest nights, when the ravages of time are more likely to go unnoticed.”
    “Now you are making me feel like the jealous wife,” said Rachel Anna, nestling comfortably against her husband’s chest. Yet, as soon as she felt his regular breathing, and knew that she and the wildcat were alone together in the dark, all her uneasiness returned. Throughout the night, she stayed awake, trying to