The Bookseller's Sonnets Read online

  Perhaps it is as the husband says; it is dangerous for a woman to know too much; and those who invite danger in the form of knowledge, who succumb to temptation of thought and will as in the time of Eden, must be punished. It is thus that he binds me in this way; I am confined here with no light; no books; no reason; as was my father in his last days, with only my faith in God and the memory of my sweet father to sustain me.

  There is nothing left for me without my studies; without them I am denied all former pleasures. I have purchased the precious paper on which I write these thoughts from my dearest friend; I hath been forced to hide the pages within the folds of my sleeves as I move through the house, and it is upon this parchment that I mark my thoughts until the time when the husband arrives; and it is then that I must again hide them away from his sight. For if he knew that I indulged the reason of my thoughts…if he knew the source of the papers, he would surely destroy them both as he endeavors to destroy my very soul.

  This is a tale I must confess - tho’ there is no confessor but this gentle paper and this sacred ink; but perhaps the finder of these pages will learn and tell all who cherish the memory of the Margaret More who lived; lived, yes, and died with her father; in spirit and following the hand of her ruler, for her God.

  The words on the page came to an abrupt end, the deep black color of the ink like a wound upon the aged parchment.

  I looked up from the book. The dark hands of the clock upon the wall told me it was 10:00. All around us, we could hear the rush and bustle of the building coming to life as it opened to the public. Outside the tall, light-filled windows that overlooked the front door, we heard the energetic babble of dozens of schoolchildren as they emerged from long yellow buses to be met in the courtyard by volunteer docents.

  More pages beckoned. I looked over at Aviva, whose face seemed solemn, lost in thought.

  “What are you thinking?” I asked.

  A long silence. And then: “Do you know who she is?”

  “Who? Margaret More?”

  “Yes.” Aviva distractedly felt for the strands of curling hair on the back of her neck, found them and tucked them back under her hat. “If I’ve got my history straight, then I’m pretty sure that she was the daughter of Thomas More. He was an advisor to Henry VIII, but he fell out of favor because of his refusal to accept Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn. He was eventually beheaded. More was one of the king’s chief counselors, but he disagreed with Henry’s break with the Catholic Church and the establishment of the Church of England. Eventually, his death was considered to be a holy martyrdom to the Church and he was granted sainthood.”

  I leaned back, impressed, as always, with her secular knowledge. “I think I knew that. A Man for All Seasons, right? Wasn’t that the film?”

  “Actually, it was a play first. But yes, it was also a film,” she said. I made a mental note to rent the DVD as soon as possible. “So there’s a chance that this could be authentic.”

  “And there’s a good chance that it may not.”

  “Why do you say that?” I asked. “It certainly looks old enough. Obviously we need to get it examined by a lab, someone who could date the paper with certainty. If Dr. Schiffman approves the budget to have it done. You know how expensive the process is.”

  “I wouldn’t say anything about it to anyone yet. Because in all honesty, I’m wondering why anyone would send this to us. So far, it doesn’t have anything to do with Jewish heritage, or the Holocaust.” Her eyes narrowed. “I mean, is this some sort of sick joke? Another means of telling us about the ‘true faith?’”

  I knew Aviva was particularly sensitive to attempts, on the part of well-meaning Christians – and some not so well-meaning–who sent dire warnings both through the mail and through the email addresses on the museum website to those of us who hadn’t “heard the Good News.” It was always jarring and sometimes frightening to hear, in painful detail, exactly what would happen to those of us who failed to heed the call of the Gospel.

  But I didn’t know what to think.

  “You have to admit, this would be someone going to a lot of trouble to send us that message,” I replied.

  “Or whoever the message is meant for.”

  “What do you mean by that?” I asked. “It came to the museum.”

  “Very true,” Aviva said. “But don’t forget, even though it was sent to the museum, it had your name on it.”

  5

  For the next few days, the manuscript and its mystery were all I could think about. But it was impossible to take the time to read further. Due to a series of immovable deadlines and intensive special exhibition meetings with the team of fabricators, curators, registrars and historians with whom I would be working as soon as Aviva went out on maternity leave, the manuscript remained safely stored in the very back of the vault, where I fervently hoped no one would stumble upon it by accident.

  I could hardly stand knowing it was there and not having the time or privacy to look at it again. By Thursday, I was trying to figure out how to get back to reading it without having to bring it home with me.

  Removing the book from the safe confines of our conservation area could be a big mistake, especially if it turned out to be as old as I thought it to be. Because it was in such delicate condition already, exposing it to the winter elements would be risky. So I figured I would be staying late again, instead of going to the gym, or more importantly, spending time with Michael.

  I was trying to mentally juggle my work for the afternoon and that evening’s obligations when another letter landed on my desk. Again, no return address. The same inconsistent ink patterns as on the letter tucked inside the book. What would the mystery survivor have to say to me today? I hoped that whatever lay inside the envelope would prove the manuscript’s authenticity.

  Miss Jill Levin, Senior Curator

  Museum of Jewish Heritage

  36 Battery Place

  New York, NY 10036

  Dear Miss Levin:

  By now I hope you have received the book which I sent to your care about a week ago.

  The book was passed down through my family for many generations. It was given into my care by my mother in late 1937. As a child, I always thought of it as only one of many books in our family’s library, but for my mother, and her mother before her, this book always held special significance.

  A few hours before the signing of the ketubah, on the morning of my wedding, my mother, with great ceremony, gave me this book and instructed me that it had been passed down to the firstborn daughter in every generation on her wedding day, and that it was up to me to keep that tradition.

  As you read in my last letter, I wish to keep this donation private, and my identity a secret, I do not wish for you to have too many details of my life. But because there are certain things I must disclose to you which are important to how this book survived the war, I will tell you that I was born in a small town in Germany, just outside of the city of Berlin.

  My parents were not German but Austrian and Polish. My mother still had family living in Poland in the late 1930s. And because of this, we found out what was happening in the Warsaw Ghetto. In the end, this information saved the life of this book. Because our cousins could still get letters to us, written in code, to tell us what was happening in the ghetto, this gave me just enough time to see that this book would be safe before we were deported.

  I will write more to you as soon as I find the strength to do so.

  I sat back in my chair and leaned around the wall of the cubicle. “The book’s not from an evangelist,” I said to Aviva, as I folded up the letter and placed it carefully back into the brittle envelope.

  “That’s good to hear.” She leaned around the edge of the cubicle. “How do you know?”

  “I just got another letter from the mystery survivor.”

  “Can I see it?”

  I passed the typed pages over and watched her read them.

  “What are you frowning at?” I asked. “This ce
rtainly sounds like it’s from a survivor.”

  “I don’t know,” she sighed. “There’s no detail here. It could be anyone’s story.”

  “There are plenty of details,” I argued. “We know she’s a woman. We know she was born in Germany.”

  “You call those details?”

  “It’s a lot of people’s stories

  “Well, at least it sounds like she’s Jewish.”

  “What do you mean by that?” I said, a little annoyed. “It sounds like she’s Jewish? What exactly does being Jewish sound like?”

  “Okay, so that was the wrong way of putting it. But there’s not a lot of information here. I’m always afraid of being taken in by another Benjamin Wilkowski.”

  “Come on. One person faking a survivor’s story has jaded you to the point of not believing anyone?”

  “I’m just saying that I’d feel better if we had some specifics to go on.”

  “So what you’re telling me,” I said in a low voice, “is that you’d be reassured of her ability to tell the truth if you saw the numbers on her forearm?”

  “That,” Aviva said quietly, “was totally unnecessary.”

  “Okay, I was out of line. But what are you really trying to say?”

  She was silent for a moment. “Jill,” she said, “something makes me think that you want this artifact to be authentic because it was addressed to you. But you know as well as I do that we have to think about it in a smart way. It could be a fake. Her story – if she’s real – could simply be fiction. I’m not saying that’s the case, but I am saying that we don’t know. We simply don’t yet have enough information. You have to consider the kinds of people who try to use us in order to tell their own story, who even lie to gain a platform that gives them credibility when they don’t deserve it.”

  “It just feels like you’re being overly cautious. Is your way of thinking even realistic?”

  “Of course it is. We’ve seen it before. And right now it’s all over the papers, what some other institutions are going through. Mostly because they didn’t really care whether something was a fake, because all they could see was the money.”

  “You’re talking about antiquities. I’m talking about survivor testimony. There’s a huge difference.”

  “Maybe. But maybe not. Listen, I know it’s tempting to take this at face value, but you have to remember what those other museums and synagogues went through when they found out that Wilkowski’s book wasn’t even true. It was just a bunch of facts, cobbled together to make it sound as if he had lived the life of a survivor. And when he was caught, they realized they had invited someone in to tell – and then sell - their story. Ultimately it came out; they had been used to perpetrate a lie. And not just any lie, but a lie which gave people like David Irving and his Holocaust-denier friends the kind of ammunition that keeps them going. Imagine finding out we had contributed to the problem. Imagine it happening here.”

  “But she’s not trying to sell anything,” I replied.

  “You don’t know that yet. You don’t know where this is going.”

  “I don’t understand why you don’t want to believe her.”

  “And I don’t understand why you do.”

  We glared at one another. It was the first time in years we had clashed over the legitimacy of an artifact.

  “Look,” Aviva said, “I don’t want to fight about this. But you need to be professional about this. It doesn’t matter that your name was on the label. We’ve still got to examine it carefully.”

  I nodded.

  “Good. You keep going. I’ll take care of the rotation schedule. And if anyone comes looking for the new timelines, I’ll say you’re working on them. Don’t worry. I’ll cover for you,” she said.

  “Thank you so much, Aviva.”

  She smiled. “Don’t thank me, Jill. If your hunch is right, we’ll both get our names in Art News, and then we’ll see who gets a bigger bonus.”

  I turned back to the parchment and turned the page.

  He looks upon her, yet is bound to me

  The words unto his master, but a lie;

  Who takes upon himself a blinded eye

  To poses of deceit and trickery.

  One sister, loved by wit and modesty

  is fain to let the devious serpent by;

  The other, with a meek, insipid sigh

  Inspires his art to heights of treachery.

  The cruel Apprentice severs family peace

  with one turn of his tongue, one twist of speech

  One sister loved; the other is betrothed

  In duty. How his honor doth appease

  The father, who in love, hath loved each;

  and choosing, chooses him that I hath loathed.

  The darkest of days that I recall, save for the death of my father, are those in that most tragic spring of 1518, when William Roper first invaded our house, and from within our house, our lives.

  When I first learned that he was to be a member of our household, as apprentice to my father, I rejoiced for a man whom I believed could be of help to that most noble soul in the offices of his profession. Roper had also been promised to us as a companion in our learning; in the hope that perhaps this welltraveled man could bring to us new insights and ideas from the bright worlds he had explored as a young man.

  Yet the moment that he stepped over the threshold and into our house and I saw his face in the light for the first time, I could not understand how he could be a man of my father’s choosing. From the first hour, I could not endure his company. It was not that he was not pleasing to the eyes; indeed, he was a fine looking young man; yet something in him remained a mystery, something deliberately hidden from sight, a defect of the soul, perhaps; for his manner was as coy and evasive as if he was loath to have some detestable trait brought to light.

  My father brought him to me and said to him, This is my jewel, my own dearest child Margaret, whom I call my dearest Meg. Hearing my father’s sweet words, I dropped a careful and modest curtsy, as my lady governess had taught me, but from beneath my downcast eyes I could see that the stranger looked upon me as if my respect for him were no more than his due. Enraged, I defiantly lifted my countenance unto his. And in that first glance, he cowered beneath my scrutiny as if his very soul was being called before the holy God on the day of his Judgment.

  I disliked him from the very first; yet felt it my duty to conceal this from my father, for being a man of such honor and justice, I believed his choice to be sound, and my first dislike of this apprentice perhaps a passing whim of distrust, to be remedied in the future by this man’s service to my father.

  Indeed, my sisters took a liking to the stranger with apparent ease of mind and treated him with great kindness and gentle hospitality. Cecily, in particular, took note of his learning and wit, and enjoyed his fair and constant companionship to her in his idle hours.

  He was our tutor to begin with, though by this time I was nearly thirteen years of age, and no longer in need of a tutor or a governess. Before William’s arrival, I studied each day for an hour in the company of my father, who believed that I hath gained a level of intellect far beyond the tutors and governesses who hath been my instructors in my youth. Indeed, my own work as a scholar was greatly esteemed by my father, and it was by his grace that I had continued my studies with him. Yet for some reason, perhaps goaded by his new responsibilities sating the relentless demands of the Throne, the Law, or the Holy Church of Rome, my father deemed it his new wish that William and I should be companions in study as well as leisure. At first, I told my father of my desire to continue my work in solitude, as I always had; but my father entreated me to befriend his apprentice. I had not the heart to deny him his wish.

  When first I encountered William, it was clear that he desired my companionship no more than I desired his. William distracted me from my studies, and worst of all, he represented the work of my mind and hands as his own, so that he might gain in the confidence and esteem of my father.
It was a mark of evil; but that my good father did not recognize the fruits of his own child’s labor this cast me into depths of the greatest sadness. I felt I had lost the esteem of a worthy man to the deceit of a lesser one.

  From that moment, William’s inconstancy, by word as well as deed, became my constant sorrow. My eyes that bore witness to the ill-conceived works of his hands, my ears that bore witness to his lies. His devious and ill-made soul cast him to the depths of my esteem, and I knew I could not befriend such a man, who seemed to revere my father to his countenance; but once leaving his sight, spoke of his teachings as suspect, and his word as traitorous.

  For William spoke as a traitor to the one beneath whose roof he dwelt. It was William, I believe, who was in service of that godless Monarch, the adulterer Henry, whose ill-treatment of his good and godly wife is a mark of sin upon his soul, and as the angels of heaven dwell with the Holy One upon the Throne of Judgment, he shall learn that such a throne is not his, and woe unto this king whose sin pervades the throne and pollutes the honor of his subjects!

  It was not long before I realized William’s cruel intention - to marry into my father’s house and inherit the honors and offices of my father’s affairs, rather than work to earn his own place in the world. It was then I realized it was my fair sister Cecily whom he desired as wife, a choice which I abhorred, for I cherished my dear sister and wished for her happiness to be completed by a worthy mate.

  I hath no such desires for myself. I believed that my fair sisters would marry, and I should be left in peace as a happy spinster, desiring no other mate save for my beloved books and quill. Alas, it was not to be; for my dear father, so perfect in all things, forced the fate upon me that forever altered my happy course, as the gentle wind tenderly caresses the blossoms, yet in one breath, strips them from their stems with savage ferocity.