Knox was on the next flight out of Berlin. And now Skovajsa had spirited him away to a dingy room in the basement of the library illuminated by a single bare lightbulb.
“Isn’t there somewhere more comfortable for us to conduct business?” Knox said, eyeing the metal table （also Communist-era） with suspicion. “Is that goulash?” He pointed to a sticky spot on its surface.
“The walls have ears, and the floors have eyes.” Skovajsa wiped at the spot with the hem of his brown sweater. “We are safer here. Sit. Let me bring you the letter.”
“And the book,” Knox said sharply. Skovajsa turned, surprised at his tone.
“Yes, of course. The book, too.”
“That isn’t On the Art of Kabbalah,” Knox said when Skovajsa returned, growing more irritated with each passing moment. Johannes Reuchlin’s book was slim and elegant. This monstrosity had to be nearly eight hundred pages long. When it hit the table, the impact reverberated across the top and down the metal legs.
“Not exactly,” Skovajsa said defensively. “It’s Galatino’s De Arcanis Catholicae Veritatis. But the Reuchlin is in it.” A cavalier approach to precise bibliographic details was one of Knox’s bêtes noires.
“The title page has inscriptions in Hebrew, Latin, and French.” Skovajsa flung open the cover. Since there was nothing to support the spine of the large tome, Knox was not surprised to hear an ominous crack. He looked at Skovajsa in alarm. “Don’t worry,” the conservationist reassured him, “it isn’t cataloged. I only discovered it because it was shelved next to our other copy, which was due to go out for rebinding. It probably came here by mistake when our books were returned in 1989.”
Knox dutifully examined the title page and its inscriptions.
?????? ??? ???? ???? ???? ?? ????? ???? ??? Genesis 49:27 Beniamin lupus rapax mane comedet praedam et vespere dividet spolia.
Benjamin est un loup qui déchire; au matin il dévore la proie, et sur le soir il partage le butin.
“It is an old hand, is it not? And the owner was clearly well educated,” Skovajsa said.
“‘Benjamin shall raven as a wolf: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil,’” Knox mused.
He couldn’t imagine what these verses had to do with De Arcanis. Galatino’s work contributed a single shot in the Catholic Church’s war against Jewish mysticism—the same war that had led to book burnings, inquisitorial proceedings, and witch-hunts in the sixteenth century. Galatino’s position on these matters was given away by his title: Concerning Secrets of the Universal Truth. In a nifty bit of intellectual acrobatics, Galatino argued that the Jews had anticipated Christian doctrines and that the study of kabbalah could help Catholic efforts to convert the Jews to the true faith.
“Perhaps the owner’s name was Benjamin?” Skovajsa looked over his shoulder and passed Knox a file. Knox was happy to see that it was not stamped top secret in red letters. “And here is the letter. I do not know Hebrew, but the name Edwardus Kellaeus and alchemy—alchymia—are in Latin.”
Knox turned the page. He was dreaming. He had to be. The letter was dated from the second day of Elul 5369—1 September 1609 in the Christian calendar. And it was signed Yehuda ben Bezalel, a man most knew as Rabbi Judah Loew.
“You know Hebrew, yes?” Skovajsa said.
“Yes.” This time it was Knox who was whispering. “Yes,” he said more strongly. He stared at the letter.
“Well?” Skovajsa said after nearly a minute of silence had passed. “What does it say?”
“It seems that a Jew from Prague met Edward Kelley and was writing to a friend to tell him so.” It was true—in a way.
“Long life and peace to you, Benjamin son of Gabriel, cherished friend,”
Rabbi Loew wrote.
I received your letter from my birth city with great joy. Poznań is a better place for you than Hungary, where nothing awaits you but misery. Though I am an old man, your letter brought back clearly the strange events that occurred in the spring of 5351 when Edwardus Kellaeus, student of alchymia and beloved of the emperor, came to me. He raved about a man he had killed and that the emperor’s guards would soon arrest him for murder and treason. He foresaw his own death, crying out, “I will fall like the angels into hell.” He also spoke of this book you seek, which was stolen from Emperor Rudolf, as you know. Kellaeus sometimes called it the Book of Creation and sometimes the Book of Life. Kellaeus wept, saying that the end of the world was upon us. He kept repeating omens, such as “It begins with absence and desire,” “It begins with blood and fear,” “It begins with a discovery of witches,” and so forth.