CHAPTER ONE
AMSTERDAM – April 1656As the final rays of light glance off the water of the zwanenburgwal,Amsterdam closes down. The dyers gather up their magenta and crimson fabrics drying on the stone banks of the canal. Merchants roll up their awnings and shutter their outdoor market stalls. A few workers plodding home stop for a snack with Dutch gin at the herring stands on the canal and then continue on their way. Amsterdam moves slowly: the city mourns, still recovering from the plague that, only a few months earlier,killed one person in nine.
A few meters from the canal, at Breestraat No. 4, the bankrupt and slightly tipsy rembrandt van rijn applies a last brushstroke to his painting Jacob Blessing the Sons of Joseph, signs his name in the lower right corner,tosses his palette to the floor, and turns to descend his narrow winding staircase.The house, destined three centuries later to become his museum and memorial, is on this day witness to his shame. It swarms with bidders anticipating the auction of all of the artist’s possessions. Gruffly pushing aside the gawkers on the staircase, he steps outside the front door, inhales the salty air, and stumbles toward the corner tavern.
In Delft, seventy kilometers south, another artist begins his ascent. The twenty-five-year-old Johannes vermeer takes a final look at his new painting,The Procuress. he scans from left to right. First, the prostitute in a gloriously yellow jacket. Good. Good. The yellow gleams like polished sunlight. And the group of men surrounding her. excellent—each could easily stroll off the canvas and begin a conversation. he bends closer to catch the tiny but piercing gaze of the leering young man with the foppish hat. vermeer nods to his miniature self. Greatly pleased, he signs his name with a flourish in the lower right corner.
Back in Amsterdam at Breestraat No. 57, only two blocks from the auction preparations at rembrandt’s home, a twenty-three-year-old merchant (born only a few days earlier than vermeer, whom he would admire but never meet) prepares to close his import-export shop. he appears too delicate and beautiful to be a shopkeeper. his features are perfect, his olive skin unblemished, his dark eyes large, and soulful.
he takes a last look around: many shelves are as empty as his pockets.Pirates intercepted his last shipment from Bahia, and there is no coffee,sugar, or cocoa. For a generation, the Spinoza family operated a prosperous import-export wholesale business, but now the brothers Spinoza—Gabriel and Bento—are reduced to running a small retail shop. Inhaling the dusty air, Bento Spinoza identifies, with resignation, the fetid rat droppings accompanying the odor of dried figs, raisins, candied ginger, almonds, and chickpeas and the fumes of acrid Spanish wine. he walks outside and commences his daily duel with the rusted padlock on the shop door. An unfamiliar voice speaking in stilted Portuguese startles him.
“Are you Bento Spinoza?”
Spinoza turns to face two strangers, young weary men who seem to have traveled far. one is tall, with a massive, burly head that hangs forward as though it were too heavy to be held erect. his clothes are of good quality but soiled and wrinkled. The other, dressed in tattered peasant’s clothes,stands behind his companion. he has long, matted hair, dark eyes, a strong chin and forceful nose. he holds himself stiffly. only his eyes move, darting like frightened tadpoles.
Spinoza offers a wary nod.
“I am Jacob Mendoza,” says the taller of the two. “We must see you. We must talk to you. ?is is my cousin, Franco Benitez, whom I’ve just brought from Portugal. My cousin,” Jacob clasps Franco’s shoulder, “is in crisis.”
“Yes,” Spinoza answers. “And?”
“In severe crisis.”
“Yes. And why seek me?”
“We’ve been told that you’re the one to render help. Perhaps the only one.”
“help?”
“Franco has lost his faith. He doubts everything. All religious ritual. Prayer. even the presence of God. He is frightened all the time. he doesn’t sleep. he talks of killing himself. ”
“And who has misled you by sending you here? I am only a merchant who operates a small business. And not very profitably, as you see.” Spinoza points at the dusty window through which the half-empty shelves are visible.“rabbi Mortera is our spiritual leader. You must go to him.”
“We arrived yesterday, and this morning we set out to do exactly that.But our landlord, a distant cousin, advised against it. ‘Franco needs a helper,not a judge,’ he said. he told us that rabbi Mortera is severe with doubters,that he believes all Jews in Portugal who converted to Christianity face eternal damnation, even if they were forced to choose between conversion and death. ‘rabbi Mortera,’ he said, ‘will only make Franco feel worse. Go see Bento Spinoza. he is wise in such matters.’”
“What talk is this? I am but a merchant—”
“he claims that if you had not been forced into business because of the death of your older brother and your father, you would have been the next great rabbi of Amsterdam.”
“I must go. I have a meeting I must attend.”
“You’re going to the Sabbath service at the synagogue? Yes? We too. I am taking Franco, for he must return to his faith. Can we walk with you?”
“No, I go to another kind of meeting.”
“What other kind?” says Jacob, but then immediately reverses himself.“Sorry. It’s not my affair. Can we meet tomorrow? Would you be willing to help us on the Sabbath? It is permitted, since it is a mitzvah. We need you.My cousin is in danger.”
“Strange.” Spinoza shakes his head. “Never have I heard such a request.I’m sorry, but you are mistaken. I can offer nothing.”
Franco, who had been staring at the ground as Jacob spoke, now lifts his eyes and utters his first words: “I ask for little, for only a few words with you. Do you refuse a fellow Jew? It is your duty to a traveler. I had to flee Portugal just as your father and your family had to flee, to escape the Inquisition.”
“But what can I—”
“My father was burned at the stake just a year ago. his crime? They found pages of the Torah buried in the soil behind our home. My father’s brother, Jacob’s father, was murdered soon after. I have a question. Consider this world where a son smells the odor of his father’s burning flesh. Where is the God that created this kind of world? Why does he permit such things?Do you blame me for asking that?” Franco looks deeply into Spinoza’s eyes for several moments and then continues. “Surely a man named ‘blessed’—Bento in Portuguese and Baruch in hebrew—will not refuse to speak to me?”
Spinoza nods solemnly. “I will speak to you, Franco. Tomorrow midday?”
“At the synagogue?” Franco asks.
“No, here. Meet me here at the shop. It will be open.”
“The shop? open?” Jacob interjects. “But the Sabbath?”
“My younger brother, Gabriel, represents the Spinoza family at the synagogue.”
“But the holy Torah,” Jacob insists, ignoring Franco’s tugging at his sleeve, “states God’s wish that we not work on the Sabbath, that we must spend that holy day offering prayers to him and performing mitzvahs.”
Spinoza turns and speaks gently, as a teacher to a young student, “Tell me, Jacob, do you believe that God is all powerful?”
Jacob nods.
“That God is perfect? Complete unto himself.”
Again Jacob agrees.
“Then surely you would agree that, by definition, a perfect and complete being has no needs, no insufficiencies, no wants, no wishes. Is that not so?”
jacob thinks, hesitates, and then nods warily. Spinoza notes the beginnings of a smile on Franco’s lips.
“Then,” Spinoza continues, “I submit that God has no wishes about how, or even if, we glorify him. Allow me, then, Jacob, to love God in my own fashion.”
Franco’s eyes widen. he turns toward Jacob as though to say, “You see,you see? This is the man I seek.”
