Jacob the Mutant

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The forms remained in suspense. The men’s skin perpetually wet. A golem. A dozen boiled eggs. No mutation was produced. All that appeared was the image of some sheep grazing among rocks.

Jacob Pliniak is presented to the reader as one of the simplest beings in the world. Considered a rabbi in his small community, he dedicates a good part of his day to teaching Scripture to the village families’ children. He is married to Julia and together they own a tavern called The Border. The young Anselm helps them with their tasks. The days are hectic. Jacob Pliniak rises at dawn. Following the ritual prayers, and his baths — fully clothed and with cold water, as if a personal penance — he awaits the arrival of his pupils, who enter the shed out back in silence. Just shortly prior, the bustle in the tavern has come to a close. Many of those present — soldiers and peasants in flight, or women, for the most part, of unknown origin — sleep among the tables, a sleep provoked by the excesses of the night. Julia and the young Anselm have managed the tavern until early morning. They’ve been attentive to the guests all the while trying their best not to meddle with their conduct. Julia has gone to sleep at daybreak, in the bed that Jacob Pliniak has just left. The wife will not get up until noontime. Before drifting to sleep, making out the sounds of Jacob Pliniak’s bath, Julia tends to wonder about that very peculiar way in which her husband does penance. She likewise asks herself why he has never been taken for a legitimate rabbi. In reality, he was not a rabbi in the full sense of the word. If he were, his wife would not be allowed to manage the tavern, even less so until the early morning hours. The Border was perhaps one of the least known works of the Austrian writer Joseph Roth.

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