The Wallenstein Gambit

2

The first thing Morris saw when he entered the community center-the first thing he really noticed, at least, because of his nervousness-was the rabbi standing next to Jason and another young man.

He assumed he was a rabbi, at least. Partly from the clothing the man was wearing, but mostly from certain indefinable things about the way he carried himself-and the very evident respect with which Jason and the other youngster were listening to what he had to say.

Morris found himself almost gritting his teeth. He had a better knowledge of history, in general, than most residents of Grantville. And because he'd always been especially interested in Jewish history, he had a particularly good knowledge of that subject. He felt like shouting at the three of them: Your damn rabbinate didn't start running the show until not much more than a thousand years ago! Those old men in Babylon who started throwing their weight around after the destruction of the Second Temple. Our history goes back at least two thousand years earlier than that. Ask David and Solomon-or Abraham and Moshe-if they kowtowed to a bunch of old men with long beards and stupid hats!

But, he didn't. It would have been unfairly one-sided, as well as rude and pointless. And, besides…

Well, the fact was that the rabbi in question was not particularly old. In fact, he looked to be younger than Morris himself.

Nothing for it, then. Morris took a deep breath and marched over.

Seeing him come, Jason smiled widely. It was the biggest smile Jason had given Morris in at least two months, and Morris felt himself warming. As Judith had said, since the Ring of Fire Morris had come to look upon young Gotkin as something of an adopted son. The estrangement that had grown between them since their arrival in Prague had been painful.

The rabbi turned his head and regarded Morris. He obviously knew who he was, even though they'd never met. Morris was not surprised. This was not the first time, by any means, that Morris had entered the ghetto. He'd made a number of trips-right into the center of the Josefov-to meet with Dunash and his people. And, every time, although people had not been rude about it, Morris had been quite aware that he'd been carefully and closely observed everywhere he went. And was just as sure that the people who watched him passed on their observations to their rabbis.

As he neared, the rabbi smiled politely and addressed him. "Good morning, Don Morris. Since I have never had the opportunity, let me take it now to thank you for your generosity in providing for this center. And your many other generosities."

The rabbi's German was excellent, if oddly accented to Morris' ear. By now, Morris' own German was almost fluent. What he found more interesting, though, was the way the rabbi had addressed him. Don Morris-as if Morris were a Sephardic hidalgo. True, it made a certain sense, because most court Jews in the first half of the seventeenth century were still Sephardic rather than Ashkenazi. Still…

Morris decided it was a workable compromise, for him as much as the rabbi. Although there were some differences in the way Sephardim and Ashkenazim observed their faith, which resulted in friction and even occasional clashes, neither one of the branches of Judaism considered the other to be heretics. Not to mention that Italian Jews, in this day and age, constituted something of a third tradition of their own.

Truth be told, the friction between Ashkenazim and Sephardim was due more to social factors than religious ones. Sephardim, as a rule, were more comfortable with cultural accommodation to gentile society-and, as a rule, considerably wealthier than most Ashkenazim. So, they tended to look down on Ashkenazim as the equivalent of "country rubes"-a disdain which the Ashkenazim returned in kind, much as Morris' hillbilly neighbors made wisecracks about city slickers. But, since he'd arrived in his new universe, Morris had discovered that the interaction between the two-and with the Judaeo-Italians-was quite a bit more extensive than his study of history had led him to suspect.

Besides, the man was being courteous. Whatever his underlying attitudes, Morris had never found it possible to be rude to someone who was not being rude to him.

He nodded. Graciously, he hoped. "My pleasure, rabbi. Ah-"

"This is Rabbi Spira," Jason said promptly, almost eagerly.

So. This is the one.

Morris had to fight down a momentary surge of jealousy. Although Jason had been veiled about it, Morris was well aware that the young man had come to develop a deep admiration for Mordechai Spira-and something that bordered on filial respect.

Now that Morris had finally met the man, he could understand that better. As much as Morris was inclined to dislike zealots-and he considered all Orthodox rabbis to be zealots, by their nature-he couldn't miss the intelligence in Spira's eyes. Nor the quite evident warmth and kindliness in them, either. Jason had told him, more than once, that even when Rabbi Spira corrected him for his errors, he invariably did so with good humor. Even wit.

For Morris Roth, "witty Orthodox rabbi" had always been something of an oxymoron. Unlike Jason, who'd lived in Israel for a year as a student, Morris and Judith had never done more than visit the country for a couple of weeks at a time. Morris had not had much contact with Orthodox Judaism in the United States he'd come from, since his area of the country was dominated by Reform Judaism. So his main personal impression of Orthodox rabbis came from what he'd seen in Israel-which, to him, had been their constant interference in Israel's politics, their narrow-minded obsessions, the readiness with which they threw their political weight around. He'd been particularly angry at their refusal-well, some of them-to allow their adherents to serve in Israel's armed forces, at the same time that they demanded those armed forces be used to carry out policies they wanted.

He had to remind himself-as Judith reminded him constantly-that they'd left that world behind. There was no Israel in this universe. Not yet, at least; and not for some time to come, if ever. The rabbinate that existed here was one that had been shaped by the life of Jews in central and eastern Europe's ghettos and shtetls. It simply wasn't fair for Morris Roth to pile atop Mordechai Spira's head all the sins of a rabbinate in a different time, in a different universe.

He began to say some words that would have been simply friendly. But he'd barely begun before he heard noises coming from the entrance. The sounds were very faint, seeming to come from a great distance, but Morris thought he recognized them.

Gunshots. Then, a moment later Lots of gunshots.

"It's starting," he said. "Finally."