The Fire This Time

by S. Frederic Liss

  “Your true name would not have been revealed to be Mabi if you were Falasha. No. If you were Falasha, you would be struck down as an infidel who corrupted the religion of Abraham to undermine, to halt, to eradicate the purification process we have begun.”

  Mabi felt trapped between faith and whatever its opposite was. It was a feeling he didn’t have words for. Either he believed in that book or he didn’t. Either he believed he had been chosen or believed he hadn’t. Chosen. Everybody wanted to be chosen. Trick was who’s doing the choosing.

  Al-Saffah set up the chess board. “Let us put aside childish talk of Falashas and share the hookah over a game of chess.”

  Mabi thought of the eight centuries of history embodied in the chess set, eight fucking centuries. Once, it seemed an eternity compared to his past, but now it seemed a split second compared to the thousands of years of Falasha history. If I am what I am, he thought, how can I be different from what I was this morning? If everything be written in some fucking book, this must have been. And if it wasn’t, this book must be as bogue as Gideon’s comic book.

  Unable to concentrate, he lost in fewer than thirty moves. Declining al-Saffah’s offer of a rematch, he drove home where he locked the door and disconnected the phone. He had thinking to do, hard thinking, much too much for his liking.

  -6-

  Late Friday afternoon as the evening rush hour clogged the tunnels leading to and from Boston’s Logan Airport, Maddie paced back and forth in front of the doors through which passengers exited after clearing customs. George Harriman’s plane circled thousands of feet above her. Before departing Shannon, he had arranged for two detectives in plain clothes to shadow her wherever she went. At the airport, in addition to the detectives a policewoman in uniform wandered through the crowd. Two hours late, Harriman’s plane landed and, after another hour, he cleared customs.

  “Maddie. Maddie.” He dropped his suitcase. “Your hair.”

  “I had a close shave.”

  “Ah, my rose in the rood of time.” They hugged like father and daughter. On the drive back to police headquarters, he reviewed the file.

  “We have more than enough for a search warrant,” she said. “Get me a stenographer. I’ll dictate the application.”

  Rush hour had ended, the only consolation for the plane’s late arrival, and the tunnel backed up to the toll booths rather than the airport access road. As they inched along, Maddie relaxed, her hand in Uncle George’s. At District 1, they drafted affidavits with exhibits and applications for search warrants for Mabi’s apartment, the Trojans’ headquarters, Blackbird’s, Silvy Thomas’s home, and the home of Gideon and Hannah Wallaca. Several hours later, the stenographer had finished typing them.

  “Who’s the emergency judge?” Maddie asked.

  “We should wait ’til morning,” Harriman said. “At this hour, you’d have to be twice as persuasive.”

  “Suppose Mabi disappears?”

  “He’s in his apartment, which is under surveillance. If he takes one step outside, he’ll be arrested.”

  “Don’t wait. Arrest him now. You don’t need a warrant to search his apartment if it’s incident to a lawful arrest.”

  “This case is much too big for a warrantless search.” Harriman leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes.

  “Long day,” Maddie said.

  “I owe you an apology, Maddie, for all the shit I gave you for defending the Jew.”

  “His name is Avram Levy.”

  “For defending Avram Levy.”

  “Why? Because he’s innocent?”

  “No. Because you did the right thing.”

  “Don’t make me into something I’m not.”

  -7-

  While Maddie dozed, Harriman, on a hunch, checked the duty roster to see which black police officers were on duty, when their shifts started, where they were assigned. There were only a handful and it took him less than twenty minutes. One of them, he figured, was on the Trojans’ payroll. Several he eliminated because they would not go on duty until after the morning edition of the Herald-American hit the newsstands. He had fed the newspaper information and they promised front-page coverage in return for the scoop. Others he eliminated because they were stationed in districts other than District 1. That left three possibilities: Amelia Wine whose shift started at 4 a.m., Joe Ladeira whose shift ended at 8 a.m., and Dick Remillard who always seemed to be on duty. Harriman made sure each of them learned about the applications for the search warrants. He wished he knew for certain which one of them was Mabi’s spy. If Irish eyes weren’t smiling, it would be none of the above.

  Saturday’s headline in the Herald-American asked, DID THE TROJANS FRAME AVRAM LEVY? It seems more than a coincidence, the paper editorialized, that Mabi, leader of the notorious black street gang known as the Trojans, played chess with Bumper Sullivan within hours of his murder. How many of Mabi’s fingerprints would have been found on Avram Levy’s skull-cap if the police had properly tested it that night instead of assuming Mr. Levy’s guilt?

  “Didn’t they call for his execution?” Maddie asked.

  “That’s what I love about that rag,” Harriman said.

  CHAPTER 15

  SATURDAY, APRIL 25, 1981

  -1-

  By sunrise, Mabi’s mole at police headquarters had informed him that the police were applying for search warrants for his crib, the Trojans’, Silvy’s place, Hannah’s and Gideon’s apartment, and Blackbird’s. On the street he counted two, no three, stake-out teams in unmarked cars. He waved at one from his kitchen window, laughing as the driver covered his face with that morning’s Herald-American. Down the street beyond the lines the police had set up, television trucks from the local network affiliates waited. Mabi plugged in the phone and called Spider at the Trojans’ crib. “My place surrounded by cops and the TV.”

  “Here, too.”

  “You know what to do.”

  “It done.”

  “Silvy taken care of?”

  “She’s played out about it. Catch al-Saffah on the tube? He makes you the second coming.”

  Mabi hung up, then telephoned one of the lawyers the gang had on retainer, a Jew named Greenberg, because Mabi was color blind when the stakes were high enough.

  “How long can you tie up them warrants?”

  “A day, two tops with an appeal,” Greenberg said.

  “Go the distance.”

  “Stay in and you’re safe. The police are scared shitless about violating your rights and blowing up the case on a constitutional nicety. Otherwise, they’d have busted you and searched your place incident to the arrest.”

  The cops didn’t worry Mabi. Cops never did. Boston cops were always on sale and he had access to enough dollars to buy his way out of anything. Still, he had planned for the day his dollars would be worthless, mapping back doors into other buildings, escapes routes over rooftops, through passageways in basements. Let the cops think they had him trapped. When the time came, he would Houdini them but good.

  He lay down on his bed to think. He was inside a shrinking triangle, a triangle with al-Saffah on one side, his being Falasha on the second, and his doing what he’d done to Mayor Charlie’s kid on the third. It rested on his shoulders like a slave’s collar, this triangle, shrinking ’til it crushed his windpipe, snapping his neck. He felt dizzy, angry, stupid, for letting al-Saffah con him.

  The clay man Jesse had crafted for Mabi in the Sunday school playroom frowned. Mabi rubbed his eyes. The rest of the room–Silvy’s photo on the bureau, the wallpaper, the Bill Russell poster, the chair at the foot of his bed–was in sharp focus. Jesse’s clay figure now sat in the chair at the foot of his bed. Life size. Familiar. At the figure’s feet, a tiger. A hand reached out and grabbed Mabi’s in a soul shake. Flesh, not clay.

  “It’s traveling time.” Jim Ed placed his hand on Mabi’s shoulder. Mabi trembled at its warmth. “Close your eyes.” Later, “You can look now.”

  They were on a fire escape in the
’hood. Night. Hot. On the street, the Trojans marched as if to the funereal music of a dirge, Silvy, who was seven months pregnant, and Spider in the lead. The gang carried a glass coffin on their shoulders. Inside, wrapped partially in a winding sheet with the head exposed, a corpse. Candles bathed the glass coffin in a halo.

  As the procession passed, windows in the tenements opened. Hannah and Gideon joined the march when it reached their corner, as did Cealy Thomas. Children played hide and seek among the adults. Jesse, wearing denim coveralls and pajama tops, was always “it.”

  “Who made him a little kid again?” Mabi asked. No reply.

  Jesse wrapped his arms around Silvy’s thighs, rubbing the top of his head against the bottom of her belly. “Let’s sing a lullaby,” she said.

  Jesse wiped his eyes with balled-up fists. Silvy handed him to Stilts and began singing:

  Hush, little baby, don’t you cry

  You know your momma was born to die

  All my trials, Lord, soon be over.

  Her voice, pure, strong, cleansed the street. Others sang with her.

  River Jordan is muddy and cold,

  Well, it chills the body, but not the soul

  All my trials, Lord, soon be over.

  Scorpion played a blues harp. Like a trumpet, it poured forth notes so rich they could be tasted, so sweet they dissolved the grief. Silvy’s soprano caressed these notes, made love to them, point and counterpoint, melody and harmony, voice and blues harp, competing, complementing, merging, then separating to begin the cycle again.

  Too late my brothers, too late but never mind

  All my trials, Lord, soon be over.

  If living were a thing that money could buy,

  You know, the rich would live and the poor would die.

  All my trials, Lord, soon be over.

  The funeral became a parade, the mourning a spiritual celebration. Everyone rejoiced in life as the traditional black lament escorted Mabi in death.

  There grows a tree in paradise,

  And the pilgrims call it the tree of life

  All my trials, Lord, soon be over.

  Jesse joined in, his falsetto rising above Silvy’s soprano.

  Too late my brothers, too late but never mind

  All my trials, Lord, soon be over.

  All my trials, Lord, soon be over.

  Silvy raised her head. On the fire escape, Mabi felt her eyes burn into him. He saw what she saw, a scroll unrolled along the aisle of a synagogue in Chelsea, a red swastika stenciled on each page. She repeated a verse.

  There grows a tree in paradise,

  And the pilgrims call it the tree of life

  All my trials, Lord, soon be over.

  She held the last note until everyone stopped singing, until Scorpion stopped blowing, until her voice reached beyond the fire escape into the heavens, fading only when the sun edged above the horizon, washing the mourners in the red glow of first light, coloring the glass coffin with a scarlet burnish so it looked like it was filled with hot coals. As the funeral procession marched east toward the new day, Mabi slumped on the steps of the fire escape.

  “Take me home,” he begged Jim Ed. He blinked and it was as if they had never left his bedroom.

  “I’m here to challenge you,” Jim Ed said. “Same terms you gave Luke Shaw.” Jim Ed scratched the head of the tiger between its ears. The tiger yawned, eyeing Mabi with calm solemnity, unconcerned about where its next meal was coming from.

  Mabi led with a quick jab, but Jim Ed parried it, catching Mabi’s fist and flipping him onto the bed like a wet do-rag. Jim Ed pinned him with a forearm to the neck. Mabi thrashed around like a woman being raped, kicking, flailing, unable to get the leverage he needed to throw Jim Ed off. He grabbed Jim Ed’s jawbone and tried to break it with brute force, but Jim Ed bit his fingers to the bone. They rolled around the room. The tiger moved from one corner to another, content to watch.

  “Mabi!” A voice, high-pitched, screaming. Jim Ed evaporated. The tiger dissolved. Another shriek, then silence. Mabi’s head cleared. In his arms, he cradled Silvy. Bruises disfigured her face. He fetched a wash-cloth, wrung it out with cold water, and gently bathed her face. Her eyelids flickered and he looked deep into her pupils to make sure she could focus. His fingers massaged her scalp, searching for fractures, her nose to see if it was broken. Balls of paper, crushed and crumbled, and bits and pieces of clay littered the floor. Only one corner of the Bill Russell poster remained tacked to the wall.

  Silvy shifted in his arms.

  “The cops?” Mabi asked.

  “Walked right in the front door.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I haven’t turned white on you.”

  He kissed the top of her head.

  “When I walked in you were shaking like a kid having a nightmare so I tried waking you but when I grabbed your shoulders you screamed and hollered, Jim Ed! Jim Ed! and throwed me ’cross the room like I was a Raggedy Ann doll.”

  He unbuttoned her blouse to search for more bruises. Her skin was unbroken, soft, supple, still the color of fresh maple syrup. He examined her breasts for contusions, arousing his sex to the flash point. He caressed her and kissed her nipples and when she whispered Please, made love to her with a gentleness that magnified their passion until, exhausted, they both fell asleep. When he awoke, she was spreading pieces of the poster on the floor to try and patch them together, but the edges would not line up. She returned to bed and hugged him tightly, drawing strength from him as they made love on a bed bathed with sunbeams. In the afterglow, she felt a twinge and she knew the way a woman knows things a man will never understand that his seed had impregnated her.

  “It’s time,” he said.

  “Don’t go.”

  “No choice.”

  “There’s always a choice,” she said.

  He hugged her and buried his face in her hair to imprint her scent in his memory.

  “I’m scared,” she said.

  “The next time you see me, you be seeing Leroy Wallaca.”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you.”

  -2-

  An hour later Mabi sat across the chessboard from al-Saffah waiting for al-Saffah’s next move. He did not mention the morning papers because he didn’t want his confrontation with al-Saffah to be over the wrong thing.

  When al-Saffah showed him Scott Dunleavy’s piece in the Globe and told him about the television interviews, he nonchalanted it. Smoke from al-Saffah’s hookah saturated the room, settling on al-Saffah’s shoulders like rings circling a peg, veiling his harsh features in a cloud. The thickness of the atmosphere diffused the light; the mihrab looked like a torch barely visible in a heavy fog. The Islamic-style chess pieces cast multiple silhouettes. He had broken whatever linkage chained him to eight centuries of unknown chess players. He no longer envied the chess set for its past, but he understood how it had become a part of his, as much a part as a poster of Bill Russell or a comic book or a photo of the children of Wallaca razored out of a library book.

  Playing the Majdorf variation of the Sicilian Defense, al-Saffah held a two-point advantage, two pawns. Mabi unfolded the photocopy of The New York Times article about the torture of the Falashas in Ethiopia and fanned at the smoke. The paper rattled. “Chess should be played in the silence of the desert dawn,” al-Saffah said. “It’s a game for that quiet moment before the sun breaks the plane of the horizon, when the desert air still chills the body.”

  “If my noise be your bother, you should be resigning.”

  “Not with a two pawn advantage.”

  Al-Saffah’s bravado belied the position of his pieces. His king cowered at QR1. Mabi’s rooks patrolled the knight’s and bishop’s files on the queen’s side and his queen attacked the isolated pawn guarding al-Saffah’s king. Mabi’s knight was the trigger that would spring the final trap. There was no escape. If al-Saffah moved his queen’s rook to K-B2, then Q-B2 would force mate in two moves. If al-Saffah attacked w
ith his bishop to K-Kt5, Q-R1 would give Mabi refuge in his own corner where al-Saffah could not pin him. Al-Saffah lacked the tempo or time to start the sequence of moves necessary to checkmate him. Mabi recalled Bumper Sullivan’s taunt: The average player would become world champion if he could make two successive moves once each game.

  Al-Saffah reclined his king, conceding the game. “Now we’ve completed this child’s game, let us plan the Trojans’ next mission.”

  “How come it ain’t no child’s game when you win?”

  “Don’t be petulant, my son. It is written that the blood of Jews and Catholics will flow freely until they become extinct, first in Boston, then in America, then throughout the world. Jerusalem will become a charnel house for all but the followers of Allah. Out of this divine inferno the phoenix of Islam shall rise triumphant from the ashes. You shall be the warrior who starts the blood flowing.”

  “I remember you readin’ me from that Koran,” Mabi said, “about how them who wage war against God be executed and suffer heavy in the next world.”

  “An eye for an eye.”

  Mabi’s past welled up and burst forth from his eyes, fixing al-Saffah with a stare fed by the power of memories, memories of Jim Ed, memories of the children of Wallaca, memories of Leroy and Priam. Belief powered Mabi’s stare, not belief in hatred or the corruption of the religion of Abraham by Christians and Jews, not belief in some jihad supposedly ordained by Allah, not belief in al-Saffah as Allah’s messenger, but rather a belief Allah had ordained ajal to the enmity between the children of Abraham to be replaced by brotherhood. Allah, Mabi now understood, had chosen him to fulfill the destiny of his name, to be His prophet, to be His instrument to rid the world of al-Saffah and those who would prostitute Allah and the holy precepts of the Koran for their own unholy and ungodly purposes. The fire next time burned in Mabi’s eyes, spreading holy flames throughout the room.