The Weight of Ink

The narrative returns to London in December 2000. Helen marvels over the cross-written document that Aaron found. Right before Aaron called to tell her about the discovery, Helen had a disconcerting conversation with her doctor: Her health is failing much more rapidly than she wants to admit. Helen also thinks back to the day four years earlier when she learned that Dror had died in a car accident. Given his involvement in Israeli intelligence, Helen believes his death could not have been accidental.

Another scholar, Wilton, and three of his graduate students, are now also reviewing the documents. Helen feels protective of the work that she and Aaron have already done, and this creates a new trust and comradery between them. She is grateful when Aaron reveals that he is delaying his work on the cross-written letter, so that it will be longer before Wilton’s team is able to access it: “[F]or some reason he’d bent his neck and knelt beside her on the chopping block” (249).

The narrative resumes in March 1665. Catherine da Costa Mendes has passed away, and Mary’s father now shows little interest in his only child. Ester worries about what will happen to Mary. She agrees to accompany Mary to the theatre one day, even though going to see plays performed is considered risqué and generally unsuitable for young women. Overwhelmed by the crowd and the heat at the theatre, Mary faints; one of the actors, a man named Thomas Farrow, helps Ester and Mary. He is surprised when he subsequently learns that the two young women are Jewish. Ester and Mary also meet two other actors, including a man named John Tilman who seems intrigued by Ester.

Mary quickly begins flirting with Thomas and invites him to come to her home the following day. Ester is hesitant about condoning this behavior, but Mary offers to pay Ester to join as her chaperone. Ester wants the money, so she agrees. As Mary and Ester make their way home, they run into a chaotic scene where a crowd is mocking and taunting two men who have been caught having sex in an inn. Ester is surprised to realize that one of the men is Alvaro HaLevy. Alvaro’s father, Benjamin, arrives, clearly enraged, and drags his son away.

Back at the rabbi’s house, Ester lies and tells Rabbi Mendes that he has received an urgent letter from the Jewish community in Florence concerning false claims from an individual who says that the Messiah has come. Ester knows that the Rabbi will be so committed to providing a response that he will let her act as his scribe one more time, and that is exactly what happens. The Rabbi reluctantly tells Ester that she can act as his scribe while he resolves this problem. Afterward, Ester composes and writes her own letter to a philosopher, Franciscus van den Enden, known to work with Spinoza, asking questions about the ideas that she is most curious about. She signs the letter as Thomas Farrow.

The next day, Ester goes to Mary’s house, where they are joined by Thomas and two of his friends, including John. While Mary and Thomas flirt, Ester and John discuss ideas and intellectual beliefs. After the men leave, Ester cautions Mary again. Ester goes home, and Manuel HaLevy comes to the rabbi’s house. He explains to Ester and to Rabbi Mendes that his father has arranged for Alvaro to be sent away as a laborer on board a ship bound for North America. The Rabbi knows that Alvaro is being sent away as punishment for having relationships with men, and objects to the punishment as being too severe. Ester hastily goes to the HaLevy household to deliver a note dictated by the Rabbi, urging mercy. While she waits at the house, she meets Alvaro, who is clearly terrified by his fate. Manuel and Alvaro’s father makes no reply to the note, and does not change his mind.

Ester and Manuel walk together. Manuel confides that he was the one to request Ester’s hand in marriage. He admires Ester’s strength and confidence, and wants to see it passed down to his children: “I want no faint woman for my wife, though such I may seek for pleasure” (291). At the same time, he believes he can tame her and bend her to his will. He tells Ester that even though she refuses to marry, she will have no alternative once Rabbi Mendes passes away. Ester stubbornly insists that she will never marry. After the conversation with Manuel, Ester secretly writes another letter, this time to the famous philosopher Thomas Hobbes (again signing it Thomas Farrow). She also begins a personal, diary-like document—this is the cross-written document later discovered by Helen and Aaron.

The narrative continues in December 2000, now shortly before Christmas. Aaron continues to work on the documents while feeling melancholy about Marisa’s rejection. He and Helen are alarmed to learn that Wilton and his team of researchers have been given permission to photograph some of the documents, including the letter written to the Jewish community in Florence and the cross-written documents. With the rapid progress of Wilton’s team, and the ability to work from photographs, Helen and Aaron realize that Wilton and his team are likely going to uncover and publish the major revelations of the documents very soon. One of the librarians covertly helps them by bringing them more documents, and they continue their work.

Helen comes across a letter, dated April 1665, that confuses them both. The letter is from the philosopher van den Enden, addressed to someone named Thomas Farrow. The letter cautions Farrow for the bold and reckless ideas he seems to be pursuing. Since Helen and Aaron do not know that by this time, Ester had adopted “Thomas Farrow” as a pseudonym, they wonder if this is a random and unrelated letter that somehow became mixed up with the other documents from the household of Rabbi Mendes. They begin researching Thomas Farrow, who is mentioned in a few sources as a minor 17th-century English philosopher. However, another document quickly reveals some key information: that the female scribe was named Ester Velasquez, that she seemed likely to have begun writing under the pseudonym Thomas Farrow, and that she seemed to have begun writing to notable philosophers, including van den Enden and Hobbes.

This new discovery is more important than ever, and Aaron and Helen want to safeguard it from the other researchers. Aaron tears part of the document and claims to have done it accidentally; since the document will now need to be repaired, there will be a delay before Wilton and his team can access it.

The chapter opens with a series of letters from April 1665. Under the guise of being Thomas Farrow, Ester has been writing to Spinoza. She has also falsified letters so as to give Rabbi Mendes the impression that the controversy in Florence is getting better, but that the community still needs his help. This falsehood gives Ester more time to keep scribing, since the Rabbi feels a moral responsibility to keep helping for as long as the community needs him.

Meanwhile, by May 1665, Ester is still being paid to act as Mary’s chaperone during visits from Thomas. Ester believes that Thomas is mostly attracted by the obvious wealth of Mary’s family, and even worries that Thomas may hold antisemitic beliefs. Thomas’s friend, John, always treats Mary and Ester with respect, but their third companion, Bescos, is often rude. Ester also worries because Rabbi Mendes receives less and less money from students and patrons, and the household has to run on a reduced income.

Ester eventually receives an answer from Spinoza, cautioning her about being too bold and provocative in the way that she interprets and extends his arguments. Ester writes back immediately, refusing to back down from the skeptical and iconoclastic questions she is asking about the nature of God. Later, Rabbi Mendes notices that Ester seems distracted. He explains that while he regrets that Spinoza was excommunicated, he cannot endorse individuals who challenge deeply-held norms out of intellectual arrogance. Rabbi Mendes sadly tells Ester, “[T]o us, he is dead. And even in himself he surely feels this grief. The youth we entrusted with the light of the sages’ wisdom is no more” (335).