TIRED AND IRRITABLE AFTER A NEARLY SLEEPLESS NIGHT, I STOOD outside the American Academy Library and wondered if Kurt would approve of my plan. After finding Asher’s face in the Nazi photo, I had silently carried my questions and bewilderment back to my apartment, where I tossed and turned throughout the hours of darkness. By the time daylight at last fringed the blinds, I had formulated a two-pronged plan—first, I would go to the library and look up references to this Wandering Jew character, the better to prove to Asher that he couldn’t possibly be a living legend, then I would return to Global Union headquarters and search for information that might explain how a man who looked exactly like the current Asher Genzano came to be employed in Hitler’s army. Perhaps, my tired brain told me, the man in the photograph is one of Asher’s relatives. Even if that was the case, I doubted that Santos Justus would welcome the news that one of his employees was related to a Nazi war criminal.
I crossed the Via Angelo Masina in a flood of pedestrians, then entered the library, one of the few in Rome that catered to English-speaking residents. Accustomed to the large, expansive stacks of the New York Public Library, this building seemed small and crowded. A gate prevented entrance to the large hall where the books were shelved. A small woman sat behind a dark wooden desk next to the gate, her pink scalp glowing through a tight white perm like a warning.
“Buon giorno,” I said, giving her the brightest smile I could muster after a sleepless night. “Parla inglese? ”
She made a faint moue of distaste, then switched to English. “How may I help you?”
I placed my hands on the railing and cast a covetous glance toward the books on the shelves behind her. “I’m searching for information about the man called the Wandering Jew. I don’t have a library card, but perhaps I could just look at a few materials here in the library.”
Her mouth took on an unpleasant twist. “Signorina, we do things differently here. In Italy, you do not join a library, you gain access to it. And the extent of your access depends upon whether or not you have a sponsor to support your work.”
Momentarily speechless with surprise, I gaped at the woman.
“You must go to the Ufficio Orientamento and present your passport or other official identification, then you’ll be given a permesso di entrata for however long we estimate your work will require. If you want access to rare books or manoscritti—”
I flagged her to a halt, afraid she had somehow moved on to the discussion of pasta without answering my question. “Wait, please. I must go where to get what? And what are manoscritti?”
“Manuscripts.” Her brows drew downward in a frown. “You must go to the admissions office and get an entrance pass before you will be allowed access to the library. And once you have gained access, you will need help from one of the bibliotecari. We do not have computerized card catalogs, and only our bibliotecari understand the filing system.”
She had lost me again, but by the second mention of the b-word I deduced her meaning: Bibliotecari were librarians, and apparently I wouldn’t get anywhere without one. I wouldn’t even get through the gate without some sort of entrance pass.
I smiled and struggled to maintain control of my temper. Most Italians I met were polite, if a little relaxed and phlegmatic, but this woman had definitely risen on the wrong side of the bed. “Thank you for your help.” I returned her icy smile in full measure. “I’ll be back.”
Two hours later, armed with my Global Union identity card and a letter from Reverend Synn—I had vaguely explained that I was working on a research project—I approached the library’s admissions office. It took twenty minutes for them to examine my ID and fill out a form that gave me permission to pass the guarded wooden gate, but by noon I found myself standing before the library’s white-haired watch poodle again.
“Here is my permesso di entrata,” I said, handing her the library form, “and I also have a letter from Darien Synn of Global Union. He asks that you allow me to search through the library this week.”
She took both documents, scanned them, then gave me a frosty, tight-lipped smile. After handing the documents back to me, she picked up the receiver of the heavy black telephone on her desk and murmured something in Italian. A moment later a younger woman, this one soft and smiling, came up to the gate and invited me in. Upon her fuzzy sweater she wore a nameplate that told me her name was Carmela. “How may we help you?” she asked, speaking perfect English as she opened the swinging gate.
“I’m researching the legend of the Wandering Jew,” I answered, happily moving into the forbidden territory. “I’d be interested in anything you have on the subject, no matter how old.”
Carmela and I spent the rest of the afternoon playing find the needle in the haystack. The watch poodle wasn’t kidding when she told me only librarians could understand the cataloging system, and Carmela often seemed as baffled as I by the sprawling cursive script on the file cards. In one section of the library, bound volumes of handwritten pages functioned as a catalog. On its pages the books were organized per autore (author), per soggetto (subject), and per titolo (title).
I’ve always loved libraries, and I can find practically anything in the New York Public Library within minutes. But in Rome, for some mysterious reason only librarians are allowed to access the stacks. When in the handwritten catalog I found a book I wanted to examine, I had to fill out a modulo on which I wrote the call number, title, publication place, and date. I then had to give the modulo to Carmela, who gave me a receipt and went to search for the book. More than once she returned after a lengthy search, only to tell me the book was out on loan or irreperibile—impossible to find.
By the end of the first day, I wondered why the Romans, who profess admiration of many American institutions, had not thought to visit an American library.
By the end of the second day, I was convinced the Romans had instituted their library system solely to encourage the ownership of household libraries.
As I neared the end of the third day, I was ready to commit arson upon the American Academy Library so that Carmela and the watch poodle could have a new and efficient one.
I was nearly ready to give up for another day when Carmela approached and placed a heavy, leather-bound volume on the catalog desk. “I found this,” she said, a blush of pleasure tinting her cheeks. “It seems quite complete. Such a pity the book has been damaged.”
The book was titled The Legend of the Wandering Jew, and the author’s name was all but obscured by a water stain on the front cover. I thanked Carmela, then carried the book to the reading room where I could devour whatever information it held.
The scents of mold and earth and leather rose from the pages as I cracked open the book and scanned the copyright page. The publication date was 1942. In the eternal scheme of things, this work was fairly recent.
I smoothed the yellowed first page and began to read:
The Legend of the Wandering Jew is an amalgamation of the traditions of Malchus and St. John. Malchus is identified in John 18:4– 10 as the servant of the high priest—the unfortunate soul who lost his ear in the face of Peter’s eagerness to defend the Savior in the Garden of Gethsemane. Later the apostle John tells us that a servant of the high priest struck Jesus with the palm of his hand (18:20–22). Though we cannot be certain of the abuser’s identity, he has traditionally been identified as Malchus. One fact is certain: a man struck Jesus at his trial, and in the following years those who repeated the story felt such a blasphemous act deserved a suitably horrible punishment— the curse of immortality.
Consider now the Legend of St. John, which has its roots in Matthew 16:28 and John 21:20–22. In the Matthew passage, Christ said, “Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.” Theologians have long debated what Jesus meant, but many people of Jesus’ day thought the Savior meant to honor John with the gift of immortality.
According to tradition, John the dearly beloved disciple did not die either in Ephesus, where he worked after Christ’s ascension, or on Patmos, where he spent time in exile. According to the Legend of St. John, the disciple’s grave was opened after his supposed death, but his body had mysteriously disappeared. Proponents of the legend say John is a wanderer and a prophet, still waiting for the day of Christ’s second coming.
These two ideas—the story of John and the tale of Malchus— met and married, bringing forth the Legend of the Wandering Jew. Throughout history, the legend has served as a vehicle for anti-Semitism, though some early versions maintain that the Wanderer was not Jewish, but Roman.
The legend first appeared shortly after A.D. 1200, when a Latin chronicle recorded the Wanderer’s appearance in Armenia. The old man, who called himself Joseph, told the people of that city that he had been a Roman porter in the house of Pilate. There he witnessed the “passion of the Lord” and drove the Savior away with a blow and wicked words. The Lord reportedly answered him, “I go, and you will await me till I come again.”
The Wanderer is said to wear sandals with seven holes in the bottom of each shoe. The holes form two lines, horizontal and vertical, so that the Wanderer leaves the imprint of the cross with every footstep. Several versions of the legend recount his trek across blazing desert sands, imprinting the cross upon the dunes. In some versions he is called Joseph, in others Cartaphilus or Ahasuerus. In a German legend, he is called John Buttadaeus, whose appearance is recorded in the thirteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. John Buttadaeus’s last recorded appearance was in Brussels in 1774.
Paul von Eitzen, Bishop of Schleswig, was said to have encountered the Wandering Jew in Hamburg in 1542. During his interview with the Wanderer he learned the man’s name was Ahasuerus. A shoemaker in Jerusalem, Ahasuerus had cried out in anger when Jesus, carrying his cross, stopped to rest against the wall of Ahasuerus’s house. Jesus replied, “I will stand and rest, but you must walk.” Ahasuerus reportedly felt compelled to follow Jesus and witness his execution, then he left Jerusalem to wander about the world, miserably but reverently providing a witness to Christ’s power and teaching.
Throughout countless generations, the Legend of the Wandering Jew has been retold and embellished. The Wanderer has, on occasion, represented the futility of questing for the fountain of youth and personified the wandering nation of Israel. He has embodied world-weariness and nostalgia and served as a symbol of the entire human race. His tale has been set in ancient times and contemporary; a 1940 novel by Nelson Bond even launched him into outer space.
Though within the following pages I will attempt to give as complete a rendering of the legend as possible, space will not permit me to describe all the different versions of the legend. In some stories he ages until he reaches one hundred years, then he falls asleep and awakens as a thirty-year-old. In nearly all stories he refuses gifts and speaks of the coming of the Lord, telling his tale with great sorrow and repentance. In some stories he is a shoemaker, in others a servant. He is supposed to have visited several of the crowned heads of Europe, impressing them all with his knowledge of the events surrounding Christ’s crucifixion. In 1604 he was reportedly seen in France; he visited Saxony in 1603–4 and spoke with several noblemen there. His story has blossomed in poetry and song; his fame has spread throughout Europe and the Western world.
He is as much a man for our time as he is a man for the ages.
Looking up from the book, I found that my brain had become a lightning rod for ideas. Was it possible that Asher had read this book, or one like it, and adopted the role of the Wandering Jew for himself? He certainly knew the story of Ahasuerus; he had recited it for me.
And he said he was an orphan. In seeking his identity, why couldn’t he have latched onto this persona of the Wanderer? Without parents to give him the foundation of a family, he could easily have looked elsewhere for emotional and psychological support. And in a city like Rome, where the stones of the streets themselves attest to the elegance of generations past, who wouldn’t want to be known as “a man for the ages”?
I flipped through the following pages, skimming stories and poetry and supposed eyewitness accounts of encounters with the man called “the eternal wanderer” or the Wandering Jew. One stanza of a seventeenth-century poem caught my eye:
Desiring still to be dissolv’d, and yield his mortal breath;
But as the Lord had thus decreed, he shall not yet see death.
For neither looks he Old or Young, but as he did those times
When Christ did suffer on the Cross, for mortal sinners’ crimes . . .
“If thou had’st seen grim Death,” said he, “as these mine eyes have done, Ten thousand thousand times, would ye his Torments think upon;
And suffer for His sake all pains, all torments, and all woes.”
These are his words, and this his Life, where’er he comes and goes.
Something in my heart constricted as I read the words for neither looks he Old or Young. Asher looked exactly the same today as he did in the photograph taken with Adolf Hitler . . . if that was Asher in the photograph.
Shaking my head, I dismissed the possibility, then turned the page and found myself staring at a photograph of a man with swarthy features, narrow eyes, and a dark goatee. The caption told me the black-and-white photo was from a 1933 film about the Wandering Jew, but the fierce-looking man in the picture bore little resemblance to Asher Genzano.
Smiling at the moviemaker’s caricature of the villainous wanderer, I turned the page, then froze, my heart beating hard enough to be heard a yard away. Two photos faced me, one on each page, and each portrayed an ancient image. The first featured a woodcutting titled “The Wanderer on the Road,” and though the man in the primitive cutting could have been anyone, there was something in the Wanderer’s posture that reminded me of my delusional friend. The slim body and long hands were Asher’s, as were the broad shoulders and the unique way his hair curled over his forehead . . .
The second photo slammed into my consciousness with all the delicacy of a charging bull. I stared at a marble statue sculpted in the tradition of Michelangelo. The stunning bust revealed a man with broad shoulders, a cleft chin, and wide white eyes that seemed to gaze upon a world filled with tragedy and sorrow. The chin was Asher’s, as was the jaw; the nose could have belonged to no one else. The sculptor had caught every detail of the face I had studied for hours, even the cowlick that forced the curl over his left brow to stand slightly apart from the others.
Feeling as though I moved in slow motion, I lowered my hands to my lap, wiped my damp palms on my skirt, and sent my thoughts scrambling for a reasonable explanation. Could this image be the result of some sort of genetic fluke that resulted in identical men born hundreds of years apart? Why not? After all, how many combinations of eyes and nose and mouth and forehead could the human body fashion? Sooner or later, nature was bound to duplicate a creation. This statue looked like Asher, but it was an eerie coincidence, period. Perhaps Asher Genzano had passed a lazy summer afternoon looking at this book and he noticed the resemblance himself. Perhaps he had been an impressionable youth at the time. His fantasies and an unstable family situation rendered him susceptible to suggestion, leading him over the years to believe he was this eternal wanderer . . .
Grasping for an answer, I read the caption beneath the photograph. According to the author, the bust had been sculpted between 1501 and 1505. Some art experts claimed Michelangelo himself had carved the sculpture, but others doubted it, since his marble David was created at the same time. One odd peculiarity, the caption noted, was a small initial chiseled into the base of the bust, a tiny letter A.
I felt a cold hand pass down my spine. A—for Asher. Or Ahasuerus.
I shivered and drew the edges of my sweater together as a horrifying realization washed over me. My suppositions and wild conjectures were more far-fetched than the story Asher had related. Why was I more willing to give credence to random genetic coincidence than to the man who asked nothing of me but belief? Believing that the man who posed for this marble bust was Asher’s genetic duplicate required far more faith than accepting the obvious—I was staring at a bust of Asher himself.
I dredged that admission from a place far beyond logic and reason, and the resulting flood of relief surprised me. With sudden clarity I understood that I wanted to believe Asher. Despite my fears and misgivings, he had done nothing to hurt my standing at Global Union, and he had proved himself capable, honorable, trustworthy . . . and a good friend. I liked him. Why, then, couldn’t I accept his story?
“Because men don’t live forever.” I whispered the words, rubbing my cold hands together as I stared at the photo of the marble bust. “Because to believe Asher, I would have to believe in God and curses and eternal punishment. And I don’t believe in any of those things.”
Sighing heavily, I closed the book, then stood and took it back to the librarians’ desk. I had spent three days searching for the truth, and my head now bulged with more questions than when I started. But at least I knew where to go next—I needed to speak to a minister, and I knew right where to find one.