Death of a Monk

by Alon Hilu

  As the crowd continues to surge into the monastery, Aslan hastens to escape before his guilt is revealed. He lowers his gaze and bows his head so as not to encounter the consul or any of his entourage, and he huddles close to one of the walls, waiting for the flow of incomers to cease, and when the last of the faithful has entered the chapel with a sign of the cross and a muttered prayer, Aslan dashes outside as fast as he can, fleeing this den of vipers, so they will not discern his pallid face or read the guilt in his expression; but an old woman stops him at the entrance with loud cries, and from upstairs, peering through the open window, the French consul’s advisers summon him to return to the chapel and give testimony of what he has seen, for even his name they do not know.

  Aslan curses himself mightily and drags himself back to the chapel as if condemned to death, and they gesture to him to be seated upon one of the benches, facing that female icon who appears to him now to be evil-eyed, and Aslan takes notice of the men’s fruitless searches, of their surprise at finding the monk’s scorched cooking pot, the embers still glowing under the bean stew that the manservant Ibrahim had prepared the night before. The consul prattles loudly and authoritatively in French and Aslan is afraid: What will become of me if I fall into that one’s hands, what terrible fate will befall me then? After an hour-long search that turns up no trace of the monk or his manservant – no letter, no note, not the slightest of hints at the meaning of their disappearance – after all this, Aslan is called to appear before the consul, who introduces himself as the Count Benoit de Ratti-Menton, and his advisers translate the necessary questions to Aslan so as to compile an official report on their findings at the abode of Father Tomaso from Calangianus in Sardinia, what Aslan had witnessed when he entered through the window, whether he had touched anything, perhaps his eyes had caught sight of some object – a letter, some shred of evidence – and they ask what is his name and what is his place of residence and who are his parents and what business does he have at this hour of the day and in this part of the city, and Aslan sputters that he had been perambulating towards the River Barada to feast his eyes and drink coffee at one of the riverbank cafés, and the consul chortles and slaps Aslan’s back: Why, we have a real bon-vivant here! To which his sycophantic entourage laughs heartily.

  Apart from this laughter, no one is amused, and the consul tries to console the worried crowd: one hundred and fifty thousand piastres in cash have been found on the premises and none of the monk’s possessions seem to be missing, which, the consul points out, indicates that no evil has transpired and that the monk has no doubt been detained at the home of one of the rich families of the city, called upon to care for a sick child, to provide some inoculation or exorcise some witchcraft, making use of his God-given talents, and they answer, Would that you be correct; our saviour Jesus Christ will save Tomaso and bring him back to us whole and healthy. And they continue to interrogate Aslan: What business did he have with Tomaso, perhaps they had known one another, perhaps he knew something of the monk’s disappearance, and suddenly they recall that Tomaso frequented the homes of the Jews, that he entered and departed and traded with them, that he knew how to manipulate their renowned cunning; and Aslan reproaches himself for his foolhardiness, how it had come to pass that he was now in the presence of these gentiles, and that they know his name and his place of residence and they are on his trail and the trail of all the Jews; Aslan prays they will let him go and that they will pay no heed to the Jews or to Kharet Elyahud and that this interrogation will be erased from their memories.

  After he is officially released by the consul, Aslan turns to depart, his eyes averted to avoid being detained yet again, and he refrains from breaking into a run. Behind him the people chatter and opine, and one of them tells another he had seen Tomaso entering the Jewish Quarter the day before in search of someone, and others respond that they had spied Tomaso heading south towards the Jewish gatekeeper, and thus begins a small but persistent rumour that Tomaso has disappeared in connection with some matter concerning the Jews or the Jewish Quarter, and these murmurings threaten to overwhelm Aslan, and he wishes to don a woman’s robe and hide his face beneath the veil, sprout breasts and lush buttocks, marry a wild Bedouin and leave the city with him, never to return.

  But he does none of these things, and his legs lead him faithfully back to his father’s home.

  2

  FOR ALL THAT Aslan hoped the matter of Tomaso would be forgotten, submerged in the flow of other events in Damascus such as an outbreak of cholera that claimed many victims and the lust-parties hosted by the city’s foreign consuls and the strife, quarrels and disputations between merchants, and all other routine affairs, reality rose up and slapped him in the face, for not only was the matter not forgotten, but now Tomaso’s disappearance and the question of his presence in the Jewish Quarter on the night he vanished were on everyone’s lips.

  Everywhere one went – the Jewish souk, the haberdasheries, the Torah academies, the grand salons of the wealthy, the clay-walled homes of the poor – in all of these places the evil rumour whistled and teemed and intensified and inflated, and no one could stifle it; on the contrary, the Jews themselves padded it with new details: how Tomaso had entered the quarter in the morning to hang notices of the auction, how he had left, only to return, unusually, for a second time in the evening; perhaps someone had summoned him, perhaps a rendezvous had been scheduled. He had been spied nodding a greeting to the Khaham-Bashi and cursing an old Jewess, and the pampered son of Rafael Farhi had been spotted the following morning at the entrance to the missing monk’s monastery, and what business did a Jew have at the entrance to a chapel? Aslan attempted to seal his ears against the abundance of new information nourishing the gossipers in a slanderous cycle, his only hope that these evil rumours would vanish as they had appeared and that this foolish affair, which had begun with a depraved act and would end he knew not where, would soon be laid to rest.

  At home, too, talk was of the sudden disappearance of Tomaso, and Maman imparted to Father some gossip she had heard from friends, that the monk did not follow the path of the straight and narrow, instead sharing his love with the manservant who lived with him; but Father silenced her: What hearsay you women prattle on about among yourselves! He nearly struck her, but reconsidered; then, while sipping lukewarm tea from a jug, the stench of the day emanating from his bare feet, he told her of the Arab merchant he had tried at court, who was found guilty of such acts of love with men – which had become j’nan baladi, the local craze – and Aslan pretended not to listen as his father related the verdict to her, life imprisonment with hard labour, a punishment which very few men succeeded in surviving for even two years. Aslan’s parents fell silent until his father shouted at him, What’s with that expression on your face!

  The more the stories and rumours increased and tongues wagged over the conundrum of the monk’s disappearance, the greater was Aslan’s temptation to stand before them and tell them, once and for all, in one long, fluid breath, how he had gone to the Maqha upon the counsel of the barber, how he had met the monk there, how the monk had died in his arms, and then his soul would receive their guilty verdict eagerly and with equanimity, as grave as it would be, and he would incline his head towards the slaughtering knife and request their forgiveness, he would behave, for once in his life, as a man; but Aslan was unable, his weak nature got the better of him, his throat clogged and his tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth, and he decided instead to wait and see how this matter concerning Father Tomaso would play out.

  However, aside from the torrent of evil, malicious rumours, nothing came to pass, and it seemed as though the interrogation begun near the monastery had proven inconclusive; perhaps the chief of police had scribbled his signature at the end of his investigation, decreeing that no further measures would be taken in the matter other than awaiting the monk’s return, if not today then certainly next week or even a month later, for was it not true that to the west, in the Levant, churches and
monasteries were as plentiful as insects and perhaps he had gone there to join forces with them, or perhaps he had grown nostalgic for his homeland, Sardinia. Then the officer would sip from his tea until it had all been consumed, yawn in boredom, and toss the paper aside, onwards.

  In preparation for their journey on Friday evening to the Khush Elpasha Synagogue and later for a festive Sabbath meal at her father’s home, Markhaba stood silently in their mouldy, stuffy bedroom, arranging her clothing.

  That same queer feeling that had stood between Aslan and his father from time immemorial, that same queerness that stood between him and his siblings, his uncles, their children, the children at school, his friend the barber; that same queerness was there in the room with them like a newborn babe lying between them, and he looked at her straggly hair and her pious brown eyes as she adorned herself in preparation for meeting her parents and sisters that evening, muttering the usual Sabbath song – Come let us sing to God/ Let us call out to the rock of our salvation – and Aslan was overcome with hatred and loathing for this mélange of bodily odours and holy mutterings, wondering to himself when she would next try to force him into conjugal relations he did not desire, and whether he would manage to overcome his aversion and acquiesce.

  After prayers in the main synagogue of Damascus, where the Khaham-Bashi led the service with great intensity, pleading for salvation and rescue while Aslan trapped hapless flies in flight, they crowded into the Khaham-Bashi’s tiny, narrow home, the ragged carpets of which covered simple floors of clay, and the Khaham-Bashi sang together with all the family members and guests the closing verses of the Book of Proverbs, about the woman of valour, then they blessed the wine and passed the wine goblet from person to person, and when it reached Aslan he took great care not to spill even a single red drop of the sweet wine, so that his guilt would not be written upon his clean, white clothing for all to see.

  Miraculously, at this table no one spoke of the fate of the missing monk; instead, the hearts of this household were turned to the assurances of the Khaham-Bashi, his eyes sparkling with tears, for according to secret calculations he had conducted, this very Friday, at the beginning of the Jewish month of Adar the First, precisely five thousand, six hundred years since Creation (give or take a few days), the Messiah was due to arrive borne on a white ass, and he would lead them all to the Kingdom of Heaven whose capital was Jerusalem, and the Khaham-Bashi’s daughters squealed and giggled, and the diminutive, bearded rabbi sat facing the doorway, never lowering his gaze from that part of the street visible from the small window in the clay wall of his home, and his excitement and hopefulness seized all the members of his household, who, after each mouthful of shiwa soup, stopped for an instant to listen to the sounds from the street, only to be answered by the clucking of hens in their tiny pen in the courtyard.

  The more certain the Khaham-Bashi became of their impending salvation, and the more the taste of the thick chicken and rice soup settled on Aslan’s tongue, so a new feeling welled up in Aslan, a void, as if his soul, the living spirit within him, had been sucked up inside itself, had been emptied into a cesspit and vanished for ever, leaving him hollowed out, rendering him a shell, a vacant wooden puppet, so that while Markhaba laughed with her mother and sisters, something she never did in their own home, Aslan became convinced he was looking at his own worried face, his small, brown eyes and black hair, all of it floating outside his own body, or perhaps he was outside of them, and the profound queerness was seeping into him now, his soul hovering above the dining table and the wine goblet and the braided Sabbath bread and it was as cold and blue as the cloudless night.

  Aslan continued his plunge into the depths of that queer feeling and in the infinite obscurity he heard a loud and jarring shriek; who was it shrieking there, who could it be other than that quarrelsome shrew, spreading confusion, and she had taken on the form and shape of Aslan himself, and his own sobbing was nothing in the face of hers, and she tore out her hair and her shoulders convulsed in waves and her entire being was shouts and screams, and Aslan understood that henceforth she was to be his taskmistress, that she would dominate him and enslave him, that she had set up house inside him during his childhood and had burst free today, seeking to gather in all his strength of being, until the people around the table called, Aslan, Aslan, your wife implores you to leave, and only then did he join her so that they could return to their home, as the hour was late.

  On the morrow, in the early hours of the great and holy Sabbath day of beloved rest and relaxation, the Farhi family awakens not to the customary call of the musha’el elnar, the Arab who comes to light fires in the homes of the Jews, but to loud voices and the whinnying of horses, and Father shouts, Who is making such a racket? And the pious Jews raise their voices against the desecration of the Sabbath, while Markhaba awakens with great excitement in anticipation of the impending arrival of the Messiah, until we see, on the other side of the clay wall surrounding our home, a posse of guardsmen and policemen and soldiers, their progress marked by the trumpeting of horns.

  And to Aslan it is clear that these soldiers are there for him, to lob off his head with a polished axe, and he holds only one hope in his heart: that death will fell him in a single, painless swoop, a quick flash beginning with life and ending with – a nothingness. Aslan dresses hurriedly, his hands shaking; come let us meet death erect of posture, come let us bring this chapter of his queer and strange life to an end, and on his Via Dolorosa he will not turn his head towards his estranged family, will not glance at his strict father, nor at his traitorous mother, his evil siblings, his tormenting wife; rather, he will somnambulate towards his jailers, and after his neck has been broken or he has been asphyxiated or stabbed in the heart, all this will end, not to be followed by the rising of his soul or excruciating torments or heavenly delights but an eternal void, a black and silent abyss, and even the evil hag residing among his bones will vanish, buried under clods of earth.

  Aslan stands on the tips of his toes to observe, through a crack in the wall, the gendarmes and soldiers spreading out through the streets of Kharet Elyahud, three or four sentries in front of each home, truncheons, muskets and bayonets in hand, and they stand at attention in perfect silence in every square, in every street, facing every synagogue and yeshiva, they wait in front of the fruit and vegetable stands, now closed for the Sabbath and collapsed one on to the other, and they are stationed in the doorways of the small shops, whose windows are bolted with a slightly sour touch of holiness.

  Silence pervades the Jewish Quarter, even babies awakening to the Sabbath morning, and women arising in a panic to the sound of shouting; even they hold their breath and keep from shrieking so as not to hasten the end of this mute waiting, and Aslan, standing on the edge of the desolate stone fountain where goldfish no longer bathe and splash, waits along with all the other Jews for the short blast of a trumpet, after which the measured pounding of bayonets and truncheons resounds throughout the Jewish Quarter on this Sabbath day as the soldiers shatter the windows of homes and business establishments and synagogues, and they storm inside accompanied by hounds and specially trained trackers and a few thugs from the Christian Quarter, who mock the Jews and their desecrated Sabbath, raining blows in every direction.

  Father commands Aslan to lock the entrances to the house immediately, punching him roundly on the shoulder and shouting, highly agitated, that the soldiers are poised to despoil the remainder of their magnificent possessions, and Aslan is astonished to discern now, for the first time, a spark of terror in his father’s eyes; that strange and estranged father known to stun with his blows and shouts, that father whose every decree was honoured and who required absolute silence during hours of repose and absolute obeisance for every whim and whimsy: that father stands gripped with terror at the door to his own home, and Aslan sings songs of mourning and lamentation to himself for his own impending demise.

  Soldiers enter the greening orchard of our estate, lances at their belts, and their c
ommander presents Father with an official warrant, signed by Sharif Pasha and approved by his legal adviser, for the purpose of searching Jewish households in order to locate the monk Tomaso, and the soldiers are black-haired and handsome, tall and well formed, their eyes glittering and their hands rough and strong; facing them stands Father in his undergarments, sleep-wrinkled and pot-bellied, his pudgy, soft-skinned fingers that have known no manual labour are clasped together, his knees shaking as if preparing to genuflect before the great army of soldiers.

  Aslan regards his father, now greeting these warriors with eloquence, and a strange, distorted laughter takes hold of him suddenly, for this very same tyrant – whose appearance before impoverished Arab farmers, their bills of debt grasped in his hand, causes them to tremble; from whom Maman keeps hidden the mischievous games she plays with Aslan; of whose long and thick shadow Aslan lives in perpetual fear – that very same renowned man of importance is saying, in a voice saturated with obsequiousness, Tfadlu, tfadlu, Please, you are welcome, in that singsong Damascene manner, ushering the young men into our home, allowing them to pocket things at random, whatever they find, from Meir’s toys to Maman’s strings of pearls, and Aslan is overcome with loathing at his father’s submissiveness.

  All at once it becomes clear to Aslan that he is of no consequence or concern to these soldiers as they overturn blankets and pillows and burrow into the eiderdown filling of comforters scouting for they know not what, and they pass by him in haste, dallying not with Aslan or his hallucinations or his tormented soul, and Aslan shuts his eyes and wills the muscles in his face into a state of apathy and laxity, he settles his breathing – which had been short and irregular – and he quiets the she-demon churning inside him, plying her with gentle caresses, returning her to her cramped and hidden place between his ribs, and she obeys him with reluctance, squeezing herself inside his organs, and Aslan is able to breathe deeply, calmly, since for the moment he is not under the spell of the tyrannical woman, perhaps she will remain imprisoned there for hours and days, and these searches through the homes of the city’s Jews will produce nothing and this affair will end right here and Aslan will be left to live out his days.