The more the distracted mother pondered over this sensational
suggestion, the more it tugged at her. Science and Judaism had failed
her: perhaps this unknown power, this heathen Pope, had indeed
mastery over things diabolical. Perhaps the strange religion he
professed had verily a saving efficacy denied to her own. Why should
she not go to Rome?
True, the journey loomed before her as fearfully as a Polar Expedition
to an ordinary mortal. Germany she had been prepared to set out for:
it lay on the great route of Jewish migration westwards. But Rome? She
did not even know where it was. But her new skill in reading would,
she felt, help her through the perils. She would be able to make out
the names of the railway stations, if the train waited long enough.
But with the cunning of the distracted she did not betray her
heretical ferment.
"P--o--p--e, Pope," she spelt out of her infants' primer in Brum's
hearing. "Pope? What's that, Brum?"
"Oh, haven't you ever heard of the Pope, mother?"
"No," said Zillah, crimsoning in conscious invisibility.
"He's a sort of Chief Rabbi of the Roman Catholics. He wears a tiara.
Kings and emperors used to tremble before him."
"And don't they now?" she asked apprehensively.
"No; that was in the Middle Ages--hundreds of years ago. He only had
power over the Dark Ages."
"Over the Dark Ages?" repeated Zillah, with a fresh, vague hope.
"When all the world was sunk in superstition and ignorance, mother.
Then everybody believed in him."
Zillah felt chilled and rebuked. "Then he no longer works miracles?"
she said faintly.
Brum laughed. "Oh, I daresay he works as many miracles as ever. Of
course thousands of pilgrims still go to kiss his toe. I meant his
temporal power is gone--that is, his earthly power. He doesn't rule
over any countries; all he possesses is the Vatican, but that is full
of the greatest pictures by Michael Angelo and Raphael."
Zillah gazed open-mouthed at the prodigy she had brought into the
world.
"Raphael--that sounds Jewish," she murmured. She longed to ask in what
country Rome was, but feared to betray herself.
Brum laughed again. "Raphael Jewish! Why--so it is! It's a Hebrew word
meaning 'God's healing.'"
"God's healing!" repeated Zillah, awestruck.
Her mind was made up.
X
"Knowest thou what, Jossel?" she said in "Yiddish," as they sat by the
Friday-night fireside when Brum had been put to bed. "I have heard of
a new doctor, better than all the others!" After all it was the
doctor, the healer, the exorcist of the Evil Eye, that she was seeking
in the Pope, not the Rabbi of an alien religion.