The Physician

by Noah Gordon

  “But you must remain constantly alert lest you make a fatal error. Uncovered, your deceit would bring a terrible sentence from a mullah’s court. Doubtless, death. If you should be caught, it might imperil the Jews here. Though your deception is no fault of theirs, in Persia it’s easy for the innocent to suffer.”

  “Are you certain you want to become involved with so much risk?” Rob asked quietly.

  “I’ve thought it out. I must be your friend.”

  “I’m glad.”

  Mirdin nodded. “But I have my price.”

  Rob waited.

  “You have to understand what you pretend to be. There’s more to being a Jew than donning a caftan and wearing your beard a certain way.”

  “How shall I gain this understanding?”

  “You must study the Lord’s commandments.”

  “I know the Ten Commandments.” Agnes Cole had taught them to each of her children.

  Mirdin shook his head. “The ten are a fraction of the laws that make up our Torah. The Torah contains 613 commandments. These are what you must study, along with the Talmud—the commentaries dealing with each law. Only then will you see the soul of my people.”

  “Mirdin, that’s worse than Fiqh. I’m being smothered by scholarship,” he said desperately.

  Mirdin’s eyes glinted. “It’s my price,” he said.

  Rob saw he was serious.

  He sighed. “Be damned. All right.”

  Now for the first time Mirdin smiled. He poured himself some of the wine and, ignoring the European table and chairs, sank to the floor and sat with his legs folded beneath him. “So let us begin. The first commandment is, ‘Thou shalt be fruitful and multiply.’ “

  It occurred to Rob that it was exceedingly pleasant to see Mirdin’s warm, homely face here in his house. “I’m trying, Mirdin,” he said, grinning at his friend. “I’m doing the best I can!”

  52

  SHAPING JESSE

  “Her name is Mary, like Yeshua’s mother,” Mirdin told his wife in the Tongue.

  “Her name is Fara,” Rob said to Mary in English.

  The two wives studied each other.

  Mirdin had brought Fara to visit, along with their brown-skinned little boys, Dawwid and Issachar. The women couldn’t converse, lacking common language. Nevertheless, soon they were communicating certain thoughts amid giggling, hand signals, eye-rolling, and exclamations of frustration. Perhaps Fara became Mary’s friend at her husband’s command but from the start the two women, dissimilar in every way, shared a bond of mutual esteem.

  Fara showed Mary how to pin up her long red hair and cover it with a cloth before leaving the house. Some of the Jewish women wore veils in the Muslim style but many simply covered their hair, and that single act made Mary inconspicuous. Fara guided her to market stalls where the produce was fresh and the meat good, and pointed out merchants to be avoided. Fara taught her to kasher meat, soaking and salting it to remove excess blood. And how to place meat, capsicum powder, garlic, laurel leaves, and salt in a covered earthen pot which was then heaped with hot coals and allowed to bake slowly all through the long shabbat to become spicy and tender, a delectable dish called shalent that became Rob’s favorite meal.

  “Oh, I would so like to talk with her, to ask her questions and tell her things!” Mary said to Rob.

  “I’ll give you lessons in the Tongue.”

  But she would have none of the Jews’ language or the Persians’. “I’m not quick with foreign words, as you are,” she said. “It took years for me to learn English, and I had to work like a slave to gain command of Latin. Will we not go soon to where I may hear my own Gaelic?”

  “When the time is proper,” he said, but he made her no promise of when that would be.

  Mirdin undertook to manage Jesse ben Benjamin’s reacceptance by Yehuddiyyeh.

  “Jews since King Solomon—no, before Solomon!—have taken Gentile wives and survived within the Jewish community. But always they’ve been men who made it clear through their daily living that they continued to cleave to their people.”

  At Mirdin’s suggestion it became their custom to meet twice a day for prayer in Yehuddiyyeh, for shaharit in the morning at the little synagogue called the House of Peace, which Rob favored, and for ma ‘ariv at day’s end in the House of Zion Synagogue near Mirdin’s home. Rob found it no hardship. He had always gained tranquility from the swaying and reverie and rhythmic chanted prayer. As the Tongue grew ever more natural to him, he forgot that he came to the synagogue as part of a disguise and sometimes he felt that his thoughts might reach God. He prayed not as Jesse the Jew or as Rob the Christian, but as one reaching for understanding and comfort. At times this happened while he said a Jewish prayer but he was as likely to find a moment of communion in a relic from his boyhood; sometimes, while all about him men babbled blessings so ancient they may well have been used by a Judean carpenter’s son, he petitioned one of Mam’s saints or prayed to Jesus or to His mother.

  Gradually, fewer glares were directed at him, and then none, as the months passed and those in Yehuddiyyeh became accustomed to the sight of the big English Jew holding a fragrant citron and waving palm branches in the House of Peace Synagogue during the harvest festival of Sukkot, fasting alongside the others at Yom Kippur, dancing in the procession that followed the scrolls in celebration of the Lord’s giving the Torah to the people. Yaakob ben Rashi told Mirdin it was obvious that Jesse ben Benjamin was seeking to atone for his rash marriage to an alien woman.

  Mirdin was shrewd and knew the difference between protective coloration and total commitment of a man’s soul. “I ask one thing,” he said. “You must never allow yourself to be the tenth man.”

  Rob J. understood. If religious folk waited for a minyan, the congregation of ten male Jews that would allow them to worship in public, it would be a terrible thing to deceive them for the sake of his illusion. He made the promise promptly, and he was always careful to keep it.

  Almost every day, he and Mirdin made time to study the commandments. They used no book. Mirdin knew the precepts as oral law. “It’s generally agreed that 613 commandments can be gleaned from the Torah,” he said. “But there’s no agreement on their exact form. One scholar may count a precept as a separate commandment, another scholar may count it as part of the previous law. I’m giving you the version of the 613 commandments that was passed down the long generations of my family and taught me by my father, Reb Mulka Askar of Masqat.”

  Mirdin said 248 mitzvot were positive commandments, such as the directive that a Jew must care for the widow and the orphan, and 365 were negative commandments, such as the admonition that a Jew must not accept a bribe.

  Learning the mitzvot from Mirdin was more enjoyable than Rob’s other studies because he knew there would be no examinations. He enjoyed sitting over a cup of wine and listening to the Jewish law, and he soon found that their sessions helped him in his study of Islamic Fiqh.

  He worked harder than ever but savored his days. He knew that life in Ispahan was far easier for him than for Mary. Though he returned to her eagerly at the end of each day, every morning he left her for the maristan and the madrassa with a different kind of eagerness. That was the year of studying Galen and he immersed himself in descriptions of anatomical phenomena he couldn’t see by looking at a patient—the difference between arteries and veins, the pulse, the working of the heart like a constantly squeezing fist pushing blood from it during systole, then relaxing and refilling with blood during diastole.

  He was taken from apprenticeship to Jalal and turned from the bonesetter’s retractors, couplers, and ropes to the surgeon’s inventory of tools, for he was assigned to al-Juzjani.

  “He dislikes me. All he allows me to do is clean and sharpen instruments,” he complained to Karim, who had spent more than a year in al-Juzjani’s service.

  “It’s the way he starts each new clerk,” Karim said. “You mustn’t be discouraged.”

  It was easy for Karim to
talk about patience these days. Part of his calaat had been a large and elegant house, from which he now ran a practice consisting largely of the families of the court. It was fashionable for a nobleman to be able to remark casually that his physician was Persia’s hero-athlete, Karim of the chatir, and he attracted patients so swiftly that he would have been prosperous even without the prize money and stipend he had been awarded by the Shah. He blossomed out in expensive raiment and came to their house bearing generous gifts, delicacies of food and drink, and once even a thick Hamadhān rug to cover their floor, a wedding gift. He flirted with Mary with his eyes and said outrageous things to her in Persian which she declared that she was grateful not to comprehend, but she soon became fond of him and treated him like a naughty brother.

  At the hospital, where Rob might have expected Karim’s popularity to be more restrained, it was not. Clerks clustered about and followed after him as he tended his patients, as though he were the wisest of the wise, and Rob couldn’t disagree when Mirdin Askari grinned and remarked that the best way to become a successful doctor was to win the chatir.

  On occasion al-Juzjani interrupted Rob’s work to ask the name of the instrument being cleaned, or its use. There were many more instruments than Rob had used as a barber-surgeon, surgical tools specifically designed for special tasks, and he cleaned and sharpened rounded bistouries, curved bistouries, scalpels, bone saws, ear curettes, probes, little knives for opening cysts, drills for removing foreign bodies lodged in bone …

  Al-Juzjani’s method made sense after all, for at the end of two weeks, when Rob began to assist him in the maristan operating room, the surgeon had but to mutter a request and Rob could select the proper tool and hand it over at once.

  There were two other surgical clerks who already had apprenticed under al-Juzjani for months. They were allowed to operate on uncomplicated cases, always to the master’s caustic comments and close criticism.

  It took ten weeks of assisting and observing before al-Juzjani would allow Rob to make a cut, even under supervision. When the opportunity came, it was to remove the index finger of a porter whose hand had been crushed beneath a camel’s hoof.

  He had learned by watching. Al-Juzjani always applied a tourniquet, using a thin leather thong similar to the ones employed by phlebotomists to raise a vein prior to bleeding. Rob tied the tourniquet deftly and performed the amputation without hesitation, for it was a procedure he had done many times through the years as a barber-surgeon. Always he had worked impeded by blood, however, and he was delighted with al-Juzjani’s technique, which allowed him to make a flap and close the stub without wiping and with scarcely more than a drop of ooze.

  Al-Juzjani watched closely with his usual scowl. When Rob had finished the surgeon turned away without a word of praise, but neither had he growled nor pointed out a way that would have been better, and as Rob cleaned the table after the operation he felt a glow, recognizing a small victory.

  53

  FOUR FRIENDS

  If the King of Kings had made any moves to curtail the powers of his Vizier as a result of the disclosures Rob had made, they were invisible. If anything, Qandrasseh’s mullahs seemed to be more ubiquitous than ever, and more stringent and energetic in their zeal to see that Ispahan reflected the Imam’s Qu’ranic view of Muslim behavior.

  Seven months had gone by without a royal summoning. Rob was content that this was so, for between his wife and his medical training, his hours were too few.

  One morning, to Mary’s alarm he was called for by soldiers, as on the previous occasions.

  “The Shah wishes you to ride with him this day.”

  “It’s all right,” he assured his wife, and went with them. At the great stables behind the House of Paradise he found an ashen-faced Mirdin Askari. When they conferred, they agreed that behind their summoning was Karim, who had come to be Alā’s favorite companion since gaining athletic celebrity.

  It was so. When Alā came to the stables Karim walked directly behind the ruler and his face wore the broadest of smiles as he followed the Shah to his two friends.

  The grin became less confident as the Shah leaned forward to listen to Mirdin Askari, who was audibly muttering words in the Tongue as he prostrated himself in the ravi zemin.

  “Come! You must speak Persian and tell us what you are saying,” Alā snapped.

  “It is a benediction, Sire. A blessing Jews offer when they see the King,” Mirdin managed to say. “ ‘Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has given of His glory to flesh and man.’ “

  “The Dhimmis offer prayer of thanks when they see their Shah?” Alā said, amazed and pleased.

  Rob knew it was a berakhah said by the pious upon sighting any king but neither he nor Mirdin saw any reason to point this out, and Alā was in a splendid mood as he swung onto his white horse and they rode after him into the quiet countryside.

  “I’m told you have taken a European wife,” he called to Rob, twisting in the saddle.

  “That’s true, Excellency.”

  “I have heard she has hair the color of henna.”

  “Yes, Majesty.”

  “A female’s hair should be black.”

  Rob couldn’t argue with a king and saw no need; he was grateful to have a woman Alā didn’t value.

  The day was spent much as the first in which Rob had ridden in the Shah’s company, save that now they traveled with two others to share the burden of the monarch’s attention, so there was less strain and more pleasure than on the previous occasion. Alā was delighted to discover in Mirdin a profound knowledge of Persian history, and as they rode slowly into the hills the two talked of the ancient sacking of Persepolis by Alexander, which the Persian in Alā decried and the militarist in him applauded. At midmorning in a shady spot Alā practiced against Karim with the scimitar, and while they whirled and the swords clanged and clashed, Mirdin and Rob talked quietly of surgical ligatures, discussing the relative merits of silk, linen thread (which they both agreed decomposed too easily), horsehair and, Ibn Sina’s favorite, human hair. At midday there was rich food and drink under the shade of the king’s tent, and the three took turns being bested at the Shah’s Game, although Mirdin fought valiantly and in one contest almost succeeded in winning, making victory all the more sweet for Alā.

  Within Alā’s secret cave the four soaked companionably, loosening their bodies in the warm water of the pool and their spirits with an unending supply of fine drink.

  Karim rolled the wine on his tongue appreciatively before swallowing and then favored Alā with his smile. “I was a beggar boy. Have I told you that, Excellency?”

  Alā returned the smile and shook his head.

  “A beggar boy now drinks the wine of the King of Kings.”

  “Yes. I choose as my friends a beggar boy and a pair of Jews.” ALā’s laughter was louder and more sustained than theirs. “For my Chief of Chairs I have lofty and noble plans, and I have long liked this Dhimmi,” he said, giving Rob a friendly, slightly drunken shove. “And now another Dhimmi appears to be an excellent man, worthy of notice. You must stay in Ispahan when you finish the madrassa, Mirdin Askari, and become a physician to my court.”

  Mirdin colored in discomfort. “Sire, you do me honor. I beg you not to take offense, but I ask your good will in allowing me to return home to the lands along the great gulf when I become hakim. My father is old and ailing. I shall be the first physician in our line, and before he dies I wish him to see me settled in the bosom of our family.”

  Alā nodded carelessly. “What does it do, this family that lives on the great gulf?”

  “Our men have traveled the shores as long as any can remember, buying pearls from the divers, Majesty.”

  “Pearls! That is good, for I acquire pearls when I can find good ones. You shall be the making of your kinsmen, Dhimmi, for you must tell them to search out the largest perfect pearl and bring it to me, and I will buy it and make your family rich.”

  They we
re weaving in their saddles by the time they rode home. Alā strove to sit erect and addressed them with a fondness that might or might not survive the painful sobering that was certain to follow. When they reached the royal stables and his attendants and sycophants closed in and hovered, the Shah chose to flaunt them.

  “We are four friends!” he shouted within the hearing of half the court. “Just four good men who are friends!”

  It was repeated quickly and traveled through the city, as all gossip did that involved the Shah.

  “With some friends, wariness is necessary,” Ibn Sina cautioned Rob one morning about a week later.

  They were at an entertainment given for the Shah by Fath Ali, a wealthy man whose mercantile firm was responsible for selling wines to the House of Paradise and most of the nobles of the court. Rob was happy to see Ibn Sina. Since Rob’s marriage, with typical sensitivity the Chief Physician seldom asked for his company in the evening. Now they strolled past Karim, who was surrounded by admiring courtiers, and Rob thought that his friend appeared to be as much a prisoner as an object of adulation.

  Their presence was demanded by the fact that each was the recipient of a calaat, but Rob was bored with royal entertainments; while they might differ in detail, they were cursed by a general sameness. In addition, he was resentful of the demands on his time. “I would greatly prefer to be working in the maristan where I belong,” he said.

  Ibn Sina looked about cautiously. They were walking alone on the merchant’s estate and would have a brief period of freedom, since Alā had entered Fath Ali’s haram moments before.

  “You must never forget that dealing with a monarch is not like dealing with an ordinary man,” Ibn Sina said. “A king is not like you or me. He drops a hand carelessly and someone like us is put to death. Or he wiggles a finger and someone is allowed to live. That is absolute power, and no man born of woman is able to resist it. It drives even the best of monarchs slightly mad.”