Page 25 of The Velvet Hours
“It’s absolutely extraordinary to be able to see this book resurface again after all these years. As I mentioned before, your grandfather showed it to me only once. I had heard a rumor that he had somehow come to own it, and I hounded him for months before he finally agreed to show it to me. That said, he always kept the story on how he acquired the Barcelona Haggadah shrouded in mystery.”
I gazed at the table with the two books I had brought to the Armels’ shop. I had always suspected they were worth a bit of money, but I was even more grateful to learn more about my mother.
“You have no idea how interesting the story is about how this book was created. It wasn’t just conceived as a prayer book for Passover, but as a project between two people in love.”
Alex turned his head and looked at me. I could sense that both of us were about to hear a story that even he had never heard before.
“This particular Haggadah was written by a Sephardic rabbi and illustrated by his wife in the fourteenth century. The couple produced only one book in their lifetime, and it’s the one in your possession.” He paused for a moment before continuing.
“Rabbi Avram had a master calligraphic hand, and his wife had considerable artistic talent, particularly in painting. Early on in theirmarriage, they conceived of an idea of doing a Haggadah together. Rabbi Avram would write the story of Passover and the prayers as they were handed down over the centuries, and his wife would paint the illustrations. It took them over twenty years to finish it.”
He opened it to one of the pages with the painted border of birds and lions. The heavy parchment was stained in places, and some of the gold leaf that had been used was almost completely gone, but the wife’s talent was clear.
As Alex’s father told the story of this Haggadah’s unique conception, I imagined the rabbi writing with his wife working alongside him, doing the illustrations with her brushes and paint, so many years ago. It was a magical and mystical image.
Monsieur Armel closed the book and then carefully lifted it. “Can you imagine working on a single book for twenty years?”
I shook my head.
“Well this book is almost four hundred years old. So when you think of it, twenty years is not so long to make something that has withstood all these centuries of turmoil, wars, and the perpetual threat of floods and fire,” he explained.
“But it’s like the Jewish people. It continues to go on, even though each century threatens to extinguish it.”
I felt a shudder pass through me.
“Did your mother ever tell you that she was Jewish, Solange?”
I felt my stomach turn inside.
“She only told me a few months before she died,” I answered, my voice almost inaudible. I knew I had nothing to be embarrassed about with the Armels, and yet a sense of shame flooded over me.
Alex’s eyes fell downward. “With Hitler, now perhaps it’s not very good timing... to learn this news.”
His father made a look of disgust. “Hitler.” He shook his head. “He is what we now must fear, more than the bombs and trenches of another war. He wants to extinguish every last one of us.”
I made a pained face.
“I’m sorry...” Alex’s father tried to smooth over my obvious discomfort. “It’s just that Solomon tells us terrible things. Things he hears leaked out from Germany.” He let out another loud sigh.
“I suppose we must just try to be hopeful that France really does stand byliberté, égalitéandfraternité,” I said.
Alex took the last sip of his tea. “It’s nice to be surrounded by a woman’s optimism, right, Papa?”
Monsieur Armel smiled.
“My mother passed away some time ago. So it’s just the two of us now.”
“Just like me and my father,” I said.
Alex nodded. “It’s good to have someone in our shop that is not telling us to prepare for gloom and doom. Unfortunately, as my father alluded, Solomon has told us that we have much to fear if the Germans enter France.”
I shuddered. It wasn’t solely the Jews that feared a German occupation. All of France feared it. Even those who were not alive during the First World War heard stories about the cruelty and barbarity of the German army.
“I have to think the French army will do everything in their power to stave off an invasion. Plus, we’ve spent all these years preparing the Maginot Line of defense,” I offered. “Surely that will help us.”
Alex opened his hands. “We can only pray that you are right, Solange.”
***
