THEY REACHED KALMAN’S estate before dawn, Sorel limping on her tired feet. She meant to sneak into the house by the window in her father’s study, which faced the forest. Any servants working in the kitchen or stables wouldn’t be disturbed—she hoped—and Kalman himself should be asleep.
The house was dark. On the other hand, when they crept up to the back gate and Sorel boosted Adela up to look over the wall, Adela reported that there were a few carriages in the yard.
“Guests for my shiva,” said Sorel, feeling strangely giddy. Adela’s weight on her shoulder made her feel not burdened, but stronger in a way that would have been embarrassing to share with Isser, except he felt it too.
“Will it be a problem?” Adela asked. “I count three of them. I think one might be the rebbe.”
“I don’t think so. My father’s study isn’t in the same part of the house as the guests. He likes his quiet, though. He’ll be asleep on the floor above, so we will have to be careful. The rebbe sleeps like a rock. I’ve heard the servants complaining about it when he’s been here before.”
“And Shulem-Yontif?” Adela asked, dropping to the ground and shaking out her skirts. She’d tucked them into her belt, so they hung only to her knees, still wearing Isser’s trousers underneath.
Sorel hesitated. She didn’t know anything about Shulem-Yontif. She’d never bothered to be interested.
“He’s fine,” said Isser. “If he wakes up and finds us, all we have to do is explain. He’ll do what you say.”
“You know, some people would say that’s not the sort of husband you have to run away from,” Adela teased, jostling Sorel with her elbow.
“It wasn’t just him,” Sorel protested. “I told you, didn’t I? It was everything.”
“I’m teasing. I’d have done the same.”
Adela was to stand lookout while Sorel climbed into the study and searched for the book. She would know, more or less, what was out of place in Kalman’s study. Isser would know if there was anything that belonged to him.
With Adela, they’d agreed that if they found the book they would take it and run. Isser said he thought it was dangerous for it to be outside of the city, so they’d take it back there. Sorel envisioned, romantically, stealing a horse and riding it back along the moonlit road, but she knew they’d just be back in the forest walking through the mud.
Between them, secretly, she and Isser had agreed that they weren’t sure they would run. If they found a sign that Kalman was a murderer, neither of them could simply let that go. But Adela would tell them it was dangerous and stupid to do anything but retreat and regroup, so they hadn’t told her.
Kalman’s study had glass windows, with wooden shutters over them. The shutters were closed and locked, of course, but Sorel twisted Sam’s eagle-claw dagger behind the lock and snapped it off. Adela caught it before it could hit the ground and tucked it into her pocket. The glass windows were lead-framed, opening inward opposite of the shutters. There was a little latch on the inside, but it was set in soft lead that bent like putty when Sorel jammed the narrow tip of the eagle claw between the frames, and the window swung open with the smallest squeak of hinges, barely louder than a breath.
“Here,” Sorel whispered. She took the other knife from her pocket and offered it to Adela. “Take this, just in case.”
Adela nodded, her face set, and turned her back to watch the path and the riverbank. Sorel hoisted herself through the window and drew the shutters closed, locking herself and Isser away in the dark. She knew this room, but only by lamplight—she hadn’t exactly practiced sneaking around her father’s rooms at night. But there was a soft glow in the bottom of the fireplace, and there would be candles on the mantle. She crept across the rug, avoiding her father’s monumental desk by touch, and felt for the box of candles, barely breathing. There was a strange fear creeping up her back, the same feeling that had made her jump from her own window on the night of her wedding. Isser’s fear, she realized now.
“You really think he could have done it?” she whispered. Her fingers closed on a candlestick, and she lifted it from the box with care, as if the slightest jostling noise could have woken Kalman on the floor above.
I don’t know, said Isser. I told him I was getting him the book, but I didn’t want to give it to him. I don’t remember what happened on the day I died. The last thing I know is I was going to meet his messenger at my shul, the Papermakers’. It was what we usually did. An easy place to find me. I wanted to talk to him, your father. I wanted him to explain what he needed the book for, and then … I don’t know. I was hoping he’d say something I could agree with.
But he didn’t think Kalman would. He’d been expecting an answer he wouldn’t like.
“What would you have done if he said something else?” Sorel asked, crouching to touch the candlewick to the glow in the embers. It flared to life so suddenly that she almost dropped it, blinking away spots as Isser steadied her hand.
I can’t remember, said Isser. I think maybe I would have done something stupid.
Right. “Me too, I suppose. Like jump out a window, no?”
There was a lamp sitting at the other end of the mantle from the candle box. Sorel glanced around the room first, to dispel the creeping feeling that someone was behind her, then set the candle into the lamp so the wax wouldn’t drip on her hands. Kalman’s desk loomed in front of them like some great, crouching beast. She didn’t want to step closer to it—as if the light might show it to be covered in blood, or she might open a drawer and find Isser’s body, tucked away among the ledgers.
There was nothing on top of the desk but an inkwell, a pen set neatly beside it. Kalman was precise, organized. He wouldn’t leave a secret lying in plain view. Sorel laid the lamp on the floor, kneeling to open the drawers. They were locked, but when Sorel pried at the panels with the eagle-claw dagger, the locks snapped out of place. Her father would know at once that there had been an intruder, but Isser’s panic was infecting her, and she no longer cared about anything but finding answers as quickly as possible.
There were no blood-soaked daggers or gruesome trophies. The first drawer was packed neatly with pocket notebooks, each labeled on the spine with a date: Kalman’s personal records. The next held a much heavier ledger, labeled as records of the Jewish community. Sorel checked underneath and behind it and found nothing but a few specks of dust.
The last drawer wasn’t papers at all. There was a box and inside it were a few pieces of jewelry: Sorel’s mother’s rings, her headpiece decorated with pearls, and a few pairs of earrings. Sorel would have worn the headpiece if she’d married Shulem-Yontif. She held it for a moment, trying to imagine the person she would have been with pearls on her forehead. Her hands were dirty, already forming callouses from all the things she’d done in the last few days, her nail beds cracked. They didn’t look like a young bride’s hands.
She put the headpiece back in the box. She would not be that person again. Not for anyone.
As she closed the lid of the jewelry box, her hand brushed something soft, hidden in the very back of the drawer, in the shadows. When she drew it out, she knew that it didn’t belong there. She knew because her hands were suddenly not hers, because it was Isser who was looking out behind their eyes, who recognized what they were looking at, who knew every stitch of what they were holding.
A tfillin case, embroidered with a pair of foxes.