The Convert Read online

  Any trouble or infectious disease could be blamed on anyone. There is danger at every turn. Fear rules the imagination. Maybe the Jews are to blame for it all; you hear so many stories. Life is getting harder for Jews, day by day, in the narrow streets of provincial towns and villages.

  All this news comes to her in bits and pieces. She and her husband pass their lives in exile on this remote plateau, and sometimes, during prayers in the women’s section of the synagogue, she reminisces about the rich life she left in such haste four years earlier for love of this man – the man she has now forced into exile with her, though that was never her intent. But above all, in the final hours of dark nights, the image rises before her of her parents in Rouen – her mother, who will grieve for the rest of her days, sitting in the large front room of the house far to the north; her father, whose darling she once was, the man who sent knights after her in anger, whose hand she fears – and she jolts awake, covered with sweat, in the deep silence of the sleeping village under the cliff.

  She knows she is carrying another child in her tired body.

  II

  Rouen

  1

  In the Norman port of Rouen on a bright autumn day in the year 1070, a girl is born. That day the streets echo with the wails of soldiers mortifying their flesh, with monotonous prayers and incantations, with the slap of scourges on bare backs, the echoing of psalms, the cries of women’s voices, the clank and rattle of chains over paving stones, the solemn boom of the big drum, and the plaintive moan of rumbling-pots as the penitents hobble on. The men in this dismal and piteous procession were once merciless warriors in William the Conqueror’s army, ruthless descendants of the Vikings. The bishops have ordered them to do penance for the barbaric atrocities they committed four years earlier at the Battle of Hastings. The girl’s father is also a descendant of one of the Norsemen who captured this region some 150 years ago, looting, plundering and torching their way ahead until at last they reached the banks of the Seine and settled in the dense woods along the meandering river.

  Although they seized land and houses, they tended to respect the Peace of God, at least after those first horrific years. The newcomers brought a more hygienic lifestyle and, over the next few generations, adapted to their host culture. Meanwhile, they made a strong impression on the locals; the men of the first generation shaved off their eyebrows, decorated their eyes with kohl, and wore their hair in a tight ponytail. This seemed hard to reconcile with their belligerence and brutality. Their power inspired fear and, in most cases, a resigned submission. Many Norsemen kidnapped and raped the native women. But they also formed emotional ties, and the material interests of entire families became intertwined. Some people searched for a way to restore the peace that had prevailed for centuries. When the unstoppable conquerors were found willing to convert to Christianity, they were granted rights of inheritance to their possessions and dubbed Normans. Just a century after the first Norsemen arrived, some of their great-grandsons have become prominent citizens, integrated into the life of the fast-growing city. One such Norman is Gudbrandr, the girl’s father. Her mother comes from a wealthy family in Arras, distant relatives of the Counts of Flanders who then ruled that city.

  The child who comes into the world in their aristocratic household that autumn day is called Vigdis, an Old Norse name meaning ‘war goddess’. Since this heathen name is not on the Christian calendar of saints, the priest asks before her baptism if the name cannot be changed. Her father says no; even a converted Norseman has his pride. As a compromise, she receives a second given name during the baptismal ceremony in the local church, the name of her Flemish maternal grandmother: Adelaïs. Her mother’s father was of Frankish origin. Vigdis Adelaïs will have a guardian angel of mixed blood. In Normandy, Frankish and Norse birds of prey swoop past each other through the menacing skies, almost colliding, each with a bloodstained wing, as a monk from that time witnessed in a nightmare.

  Vigdis Adelaïs, with her blonde hair and blue eyes, slightly crossed, grows up in the sheltered environment of this prosperous city, where commerce thrives, and large merchant ships bearing textiles, spices, wood and copper wares lie moored beside foul-smelling fishing boats. By the banks of the Seine, where she plays with other children, the waters are churned by the Norsemen’s slender snekkjas. Even the heavier ships that come from England sometimes have a dragon’s head on the prow.

  The first half of the eleventh century has brought welcome changes for farmers. The climate has improved, and the harvests are more abundant. These days, their animals are fatter and healthier, chronic famine is a thing of the past, and the food supply is more varied. After decades of millennial anxiety and invasions, the looting has dwindled to an end, and society seems to have found a new balance. In the space of a century, the women have grown a few centimetres taller on average. There are far fewer cases of rickets, and average life expectancy has risen from just above thirty to thirty-six years. Vigdis seems likely to live a little longer than her ancestors. Nothing foreshadows the catastrophes that will mark the century’s end.

  From the age of six, Vigdis Adelaïs is tutored at home. Her parents are wealthy and cultured. She wants for nothing; her every need is catered for. A priest comes to the house to teach her to read and write. Not that her father’s motivations are entirely religious; education for girls is, above all, a status symbol for the nobility. The more she learns of elegance, eloquence and good manners, the more attractive she will be to high-ranking suitors. To this end, her freedom is restricted. After her tenth birthday, she is allowed to play only indoors, and only for the few idle afternoon hours before vespers. She must learn to hold her tongue unless she is asked a question, instead of speaking first. Out in the streets, she must cast her eyes down and never stare. When she walks, she must learn to take small, graceful steps. Her budding womanhood is bound up in dignified garments made of rich fabrics.

  One evening she hears her parents quarrelling at the table after the meal. She creeps into the room and sits down, unnoticed, on a bench against the wall. Her father is fulminating against Pope Gregory VII, who has plunged into a shameful power struggle with the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry IV. He lambasts the Church leaders and condemns in the strongest terms the corruption of some bishops, who systematically appoint their own relatives to powerful positions.

  Her mother raises her voice, defending the Church and the priests with a ferocity that frightens Vigdis. She accuses her husband of having heretical ideas.

  Her father snorts, slams his knife into the tabletop, and says that the priests are whipping up a growing hatred of Jews among the masses, and that he doesn’t care for it because it leads to unrest and fighting in the city.

  Her mother crosses herself and says that, after all, the Jews nailed their Saviour to the cross and besides, as a descendant of the Normans, her husband knows a thing or two about violence himself – with all those brawling uncles and cousins of his, is she wrong?

  Her father retorts that just like the Norsemen, the Jews wish to live in peace, but that riots are often stirred up by priests and zealots acting in secret.

  Her indignant mother mumbles that, in any case, the Jews are to blame for the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, because they let the Muslims into the city.

  Her father snarls that he’s sick to death of all the rabble-rousing nonsense about marching to Jerusalem and taking vengeance in the East.

  Her mother snaps that sooner or later Jerusalem will have to be liberated from the Saracen devils, and that the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre by that demon Al-Hakim seventy years ago is a disgrace to the whole Christian world.

  Whereupon her father, with a long-suffering sigh, replies that St Wulfram called Normandy the land where many peoples will be forged together.

  He steps outside and growls at the stable boy to fetch his horse.

  When her mother turns round, she finds Vigdis staring wide-eyed. Come here, she says, and takes the gir
l on her lap and strokes her hair. Vigdis doesn’t grasp much of what is happening, but years later her parents’ quarrels will resurface in her memory with a clarity that startles her. For now she and her brother Arvid play in the courtyard with rabbits’ feet, stone marbles and pigs’ bladders, and she does little dances in the shadow of the house before she is summoned indoors for her singing lesson and prayers.

  2

  She is fifteen when one day, on the way home from the great church with her mother, she passes the synagogue in Rue aux Juifs. A lad her age rushes past, pursued by a merchant from whom he appears to have stolen a bag. Huffing, puffing and swearing, the man runs after the quick-footed thief but soon has to give up. The boy is about to vanish round the corner when a young knight comes out of a gate, collars him and asks what is going on. The boy squirms in the knight’s iron grip, drops the bag and starts kicking his adversary, who hits him on the head so hard that he drops to the ground like a rag. Right away, a few onlookers start spouting curses. One of them kicks at the boy, striking him full in the face. His head snaps back as though his neck is breaking. The fat merchant comes running up, panting for air. He grabs a stone and pounds it into the boy’s bleeding head. A thin young man kicks the boy in the stomach, seeming half mad, shouting, Dirty Jew! Dirty, filthy whoreson of a stinking Jew! On and on he goes, cursing and kicking. The knight pushes apart the little crowd that has formed, telling them to stop. He picks up the boy, whose injured head falls back limp as his blood drips, quick and abundant, onto the ground. That is the moment when Vigdis and her mother pass. The girl looks straight into the mauled face, the blood-soaked lump that remains of it, the string of ooze from the burst eye, the swollen tongue bulging out between the lips, the blood from his belly soaking through the coarse linen smock. The knight, seeing them, makes an apologetic bow to the mother and her young daughter and withdraws into the gate with the dead boy. Vigdis is overwhelmed. She cries till her stomach cramps, her whole body trembles, and she seems about to faint; it’s the first time she’s witnessed violence from so close by. Her mother speaks soothing words, holding her upright and shushing her, but Vigdis doesn’t seem to hear. She slides to the ground; her mother tries to pull her back to her feet; the girl cries out something unintelligible, swinging her head from side to side. Then she vomits on her brocade dress.

  3

  A couple of years after this incident, the chief rabbi of Narbonne, Richard Todros, the reigning Rex Judaeorum, sent his son David to the city of Rouen to study with a few of the most eminent scholars there. During David’s studies, a great debate was in progress in the Jewish community. A few decades earlier, Rabbi Gershom ben Judah had issued an edict forbidding northern European Jews, the Ashkenazim, to practise polygamy. This prohibition followed from a strict, literal interpretation of the Torah. The Sephardim, the Jews of southern Europe and Muslim Spain, were more worldly in outlook and saw greater latitude in the scriptures. They went on insisting on a limited right to polygamy. In some places, the debate grew heated.

  The yeshiva or rabbinical school in Rouen – or Rodom, as it was then called – was later known for great teachers like Menahem Vardimas and the illustrious Rashbam, men whose commentaries on the Torah remain authoritative in our day. Scholars came from far and wide to teach or study there, men like Abraham ibn Ezra from Al-Andalus. In David Todros’s day, the Rouen yeshiva was still quite new, having been built around 1080. The city’s Jewish community, which had existed since Roman times, had reached a considerable size.

  When young David Todros arrived, the city had some five thousand Jewish inhabitants, about a fifth of the total population. Narbonne and Rouen were the two main terrae Judaeorum of the day. Besides the Talmudic school where young Todros went to study and debate, Rouen also had a synagogue and a ritual slaughterhouse. The entire Jewish quarter lay nestled between Decumanus – the present-day Rue du Gros Horloge – and Rue aux Juifs. Traces can even be found of David’s stay there; the name Todros appears in Rouen’s Jewish archives.

  During her walks through the city centre, Vigdis has often seen the stately yeshiva building, which was close to the Christian part of town. The young Jewish bag-snatcher was kicked to death just a stone’s throw from the school. Now and then, she has exchanged a few words with a couple of students. Some greet her when she passes, though her escort – a tutor or chaperone – disapproves, and it never amounts to more than a nod of the head or a few words in passing. Maybe it was there, where she witnessed the boy’s cruel death, that her attention was first drawn to this group she knows so little about, these people with whom she is never in real contact. But in any case, since the Christian neighbourhoods abut the Jewish quarter, the youthful David Todros, son of the chief rabbi of Narbonne, was bound to catch her eye eventually.

  The old rabbi has warned his son of the dangers he will face while studying in Rouen. Each year, the Christians become less tolerant of the Jews. But because the Jews pay hefty taxes for the right to practise their religion, they are left undisturbed for the most part and don’t often face anything worse than verbal aggression. Torah scholars can hold their own in a religious argument: What do you mean, our fault? Wasn’t Christ’s death on the cross God’s will and plan? Didn’t God send him to earth to atone for mankind’s sins? Isn’t that what it says in your own Christian Bible? Well, then, even supposing the Jews had played some part in his death, wouldn’t they just have been carrying out God’s will? And what could be wrong with that?

  In the yeshiva, David hears the shocking story recorded by Jacob bar Jequthiel a few generations earlier. In 1007 King Robert II, a Norman warlord, proposed that the Jews become Christians of their own free will. The implication that they had a choice was somewhat misleading; if they did not convert, they were to be put to the sword. After debating the matter, the Jews decided to remain faithful to the Torah, upon which many of them were, in fact, murdered or driven to drown themselves and their families in the Seine.

  Be careful, the elder Todros had told his son, just before David set out with a few other students on the long journey to the north in the spring of 1087. The old rabbi had no way of foreseeing the very different problem with which his son would return to Narbonne.

  4

  Seagulls wheel over the Seine; the morning sun shines over the roofs of Rouen. It is now the spring of 1088. David is about twenty; Vigdis Adelaïs is seventeen.

  The Western world is a place of growing unrest. Prophets of doom, beggars and heretics roam the land, spreading tales that agitate and confuse the gullible masses. They denounce the priesthood and claim that the true faith should no longer be sought in Rome. Now and then a man is lynched, a peasant beaten, a farm set on fire, a score settled with blunt knives or an axe. The knights hold unchecked power over the countryside, and the commoners, after centuries of relative freedom, now feel their iron fist. The lords in their castles feast on what they have plundered from the farmers. The Normans watch for disturbances and riots. By maintaining order, they enhance their status in the eyes of both the populace and the seigneurs.

  Counting petals, counting hours, counting days, counting moons. Vigdis Adelaïs, a budding Flemish-Scandinavian beauty, comes home from market with her governess. Her hair – oiled with butter, combed straight and gathered up in a chignon woven with pearls – shines brilliantly. She has the sharp features of her mother’s forefathers: a small straight nose, an ever so slightly receding chin, chiselled cheeks and a high forehead. The looks of a woman with a rich inner life – the kind who nowadays would become an intellectual or an art-house diva. Her blonde eyebrows have largely been plucked away, in the fashion of the time, as found in paintings by the Flemish primitives or Jean Fouquet’s renowned Madonna. Those who wish to picture her in a state of nature might imagine one of Lucas Cranach’s girlish Eves. When she goes out in the streets, her light blue eyes are almost always lowered. She wears elegant, sharply pointed shoes of reddish-brown leather, open at the heel – with each step, one is concealed and the other re
vealed – which form a discreet contrast with the emerald of her dress and the deep blue of her coat. Her chaperone is dressed in black – an ageing widow employed by Vigdis’s father to care for the girl as she reaches womanhood. Ahead of them is a servant with a mule, which carries the food they’ve bought. It’s cool for the season.

  At the gate of the Talmud school, a few young men are conversing in low voices. They pause as the young woman passes with her governess. Vigdis looks up for an instant and finds herself staring into two twinkling eyes. The young man, who looks like a southerner, sizes her up shamelessly. He wears a small yellow pointed hat of the kind often mandatory for Jews in those days. His mouth creases into a smile. Before she knows it, she’s smiling back and blushing down to her neck. A Jewish boy, she thinks, a Jewish boy smiling at me. The memory flashes through her mind of the bloody, monstrously deformed head of the young thief. She feels foolish and embarrassed; for the rest of the day, she’s peevish and says little.