The Last Watchman of Old Cairo

by Michael David Lukas

  The geniza was his final stop. Warm still in the middle of the night, it was completely black but for the opening above him and the shaft of yellow falling from his lantern. As before, there was a charge in the room, a strange feeling coursing down to the tips of his fingers. Taking a cautious step toward the middle of the room, he lifted his light to its far corners, bathing the piles of paper with a dull radiance. Ali thought he glimpsed the note from Abu Saad to the governing council, stained along the top with his own blood. But before he could look more closely, he heard something rustling near the back of the room.

  Ali caught his breath, stood stock-still, and listened intently to the darkness. When he heard it again, he crossed the room and made his way along the wall until the roof sloped down and he could no longer stand. He swept the back of the room three times with his lantern before discovering the source of the rustle. Hidden in the rafters, just below eye level, was a nest of kittens, all the same light-gray color. Ali went over the perimeter again, but the mother was nowhere to be seen. After considering the situation for a few moments, he made a basket of his galabiya, climbed out, and carried the kittens downstairs. Ali’s new home was more than big enough for himself and his new companions. In the corner of the main room, next to his bedroll, he made a nest for the kittens using the remains of an old blanket. He fed them leftover bread soaked in water and went back to his duties.

  Ali made five more rounds that night. Although he was exhausted, the cold and the excitement kept him awake as the stars wheeled across the great blackness of the sky. And when the first light of day slipped between the palm trees, al-Zikri came to relieve him. He asked how everything had gone, and Ali said there was nothing to report. He didn’t remember the kittens until he heard them mewing in their nest next to his feet, by which time he was already in bed, reveling in his good fortune, slipping rung by rung, farther and farther into the hard-earned sleep of a working man.

  * * *

  —

  As the days and weeks went by, Ali grew ever more accustomed to his life in Fustat, to the world of the Jews and the inverted shape of his days. He enjoyed the contemplative solitude of his schedule, watching over the synagogue when the city was asleep and sleeping when the sun rose. Most days he awoke just after noon to the sound of children playing in the street. After washing, he prayed, prepared himself a pot of tea, and warmed a plate of ful or a bit of dinner from the night before. Then he fed the kittens and set out for his daily walk around Fustat. Cutting through the mostly Coptic neighborhood around the old Babylonian Fortress, he might buy a few vegetables at the produce market or some bread at the bakery al-Zikri had recommended. On days he felt particularly flush with money, he would get supper from one of the vendors whose pots—fragrant with the murky tang of molokhia or the smell of beef stew with vegetables—crowded the entrance to the produce market.

  When he finished with his shopping, Ali usually made his way to a narrow street occupied primarily by textile workers. Beyond the tentmakers, tailors, and embroiderers there was a small fabric shop owned by Ephraim ibn Shemarya, which, for reasons no one could recall, had become a gathering place for some of the synagogue’s more notable members, a kind of informal council meeting. Ali first came upon the conclave entirely by accident, trying to find a shortcut home from the produce market, and Ephraim had insisted that he sit down for a glass of tea.

  In the weeks that followed, Ali discovered a more direct route home, but he often found himself stopping by the fabric shop, to sit, drink a glass of strong sweet tea, and listen to the men discuss the news of the neighborhood, of Fustat, Qahira, and the larger world. From time to time, one of the men would direct a question at Ali, but for the most part he just sat and listened.

  With time, Ali came to understand many things about the community that employed him. As much as he learned, however, many aspects of Jewish life remained mysterious to him. He knew the Jews sprinkled their prayers throughout the day, and he often observed them pause to mumble a benediction over tea or a piece of bread, but he had only the vaguest grasp of when and why they were obliged to pray. He did not fully understand the purpose of the Sefer Torah, or why it was kept locked away in an ark, and any questions he asked about the ritual baths were met with laughs and bawdy insinuation. The Jews’ most perplexing ritual, however, was their practice of discarding papers in the attic storeroom next to the women’s section. Even after Ephraim explained their belief that documents containing the name of God should not be discarded like common trash, Ali still had a difficult time understanding why they would keep such papers in the attic, and he often wondered about that tingling sensation he felt when he was in the room. But he knew it was probably best to keep his questions to himself, to do his job, and to let the Jews be Jews. He would learn the answers to these questions, and many others, soon enough.

  * * *

  —

  Almost exactly a month after Ali took up his position at Ibn Ezra, the renovations to the synagogue were completed. Finally, after many months of praying elsewhere, the members of Ibn Ezra would have their own space, and just in time for the Jewish New Year. All week the neighborhood buzzed with preparations. New clothes were made, visiting rooms were swept, and the air smelled sweet with fresh-baked bread. The exterior of the synagogue was scrubbed and scrubbed again; the windows above the women’s section were washed. The tapestries were taken out, beaten, and rehung. A new wooden podium was installed in the center of the prayer hall, a gift from Abu Saad, and the lamps were filled with oil. Ibn Kammuna’s eldest son had been given the honor of reading from the Sefer Torah, and his reading would be followed, it was said, by a rare exegesis by Shemarya the Pious.

  On the morning of the New Year, Ali forced himself to stay awake. Stroking one of the kittens in his lap, he sat on the front steps of his house and watched the men of Ibn Ezra stream through the courtyard, dressed in their finest clothes and faces beaming with the possibility of the new year. Ali listened to their prayers, and when Ibn Kammuna’s son chanted from the Sefer Torah, he felt his chest swell with something like pride. Although he was still very much a Muslim—did his best to pray five times a day, and believed with all his heart that there was no God but God, that Muhammad was the seal of the prophets—Ali had come to see himself as a part of this community. When you protect something, no matter what it is, it becomes your own.

  After the service, the congregants spilled out into the courtyard, the men discussing the many merits of Shemarya the Pious’s exegesis while the women tended to the children. Ali was watching one of his kittens play around the edge of the well in the corner of the courtyard when a slender and unadorned wrist reached down to scratch it between the ears. The owner of the wrist, Ali saw, was no older than himself, and the fine cut of her cloak suggested that she was the daughter of a wealthy merchant. Balanced on the cusp between childhood and marriage, she kept to her spot near the well, every so often acknowledging the greeting of an older woman or gently chastising an unruly child. He had never seen her before, he was sure of it. How could he forget those lips, that gentle curve of forehead? Yet somehow her face seemed familiar.

  Ali knew that it was not seemly to stare, but he could not bring himself to look away. He was about to rise—to remove himself physically from the temptation of watching her—when she turned slightly and looked him full in the face. Recalling the moment later, Ali could see her nose and her perfect sloping eyebrows, but he could not remember the color of her eyes. They swirled in his memory, from green to blue to hazel, like the reflection of sunlight on water. What he did remember—very distinctly—was that feeling of fate, like a lightning bolt striking the earth. And when she demurred, turning her attention back to the kitten, it was as if she had severed the nerve running between his eyes and his heart.

  That night Ali did his best to stay focused. He prepared himself an especially strong pot of tea and was even more attentive than usual on his rounds,
stopping every so often to listen to the darkness and shining his lantern behind rocks too small to conceal even a cat. Still, it took everything in his power to keep his mind from drifting back to his beloved, the young woman who had, just a few hours earlier, graced the courtyard he was charged with protecting.

  Ali knew well that the bastard son of a Muslim water carrier would never be able to marry a wealthy and beautiful young Jewess. He knew this, yet his stomach still roiled. He could not shake the sliver of a chance that she felt what he felt, that the force of their gaze had meant something to her as well. All week, he was suffocated by the agony of his own desire. He wanted very much to tell someone, but knew nothing good could come of such an admission. So he kept his thoughts to himself, repeating again and again the words of the Prophet Muhammad, who had said so wisely, He who is in love and hides it and remains chaste is a martyr. Ali took great comfort in these words, in the idea that the Prophet understood exactly what he was feeling. More comforting, however, was the knowledge that his beloved would return to the synagogue in less than ten days, to observe the Day of Atonement.

  When that morning finally came, Ali sat on his steps and watched the Jews stream into the synagogue. He followed along with the now somewhat familiar sound of their prayers, and that evening, when the mournful bleat of the ram’s horn sounded, its stutter and piercing cry felt like a sound inside himself. At last the doors of the synagogue opened and the courtyard filled with somber white robes gleaming silver in the moonlight. Ali inhaled, repeating the words of the Prophet to himself as he gripped a pebble so hard it broke the skin.

  He did not see her at first. And then there she was, less than ten paces away, as beautiful as she had been on the New Year. This time, however, his beloved refused to look anywhere but at her own feet. She must have sensed him watching her. How could she not feel the heat of his gaze? Ali wanted to shout, to wave his arms above his head and profess his love to everyone assembled. Fortunately, he was able to control himself.

  All night she avoided his gaze. Then, as the crowd began to thin, a lock of her hair came loose from her head covering. When she raised her hand to tuck it back, she glanced up in Ali’s direction and held him in her honey-colored eyes. It lasted no longer than a breath, but the very fact of the glance confirmed Ali’s most ardent hopes. She remembered him. Why else would she look so pointedly in his direction? And if she remembered him, was it not possible that she had been thinking of him? Ali dropped the pebble he had been holding and shut his eyes. When he allowed himself to open them again, he saw that she was talking with Amram ibn Shemarya. For a moment he thought that perhaps the two had been recently betrothed, but the truth was much worse. When she left the courtyard with Amram and the rest of his family, Ali understood that his beloved was none other than the youngest and most beautiful daughter of Shemarya the Pious.

  * * *

  —

  Those next few weeks were a muddle. Ali continued with his rounds, his walks to the produce market, and tea outside Ephraim’s fabric shop. He did his best to maintain some order in his life, but he could not control his thoughts, and when he slept he dreamt of his beloved, waiting by the well or sneaking through dark streets in her pale nightclothes, dreams so real he felt they must be true, if not in this world then another.

  Even so, the days continued to pass. The Nile receded and young spoonbills molted their stripes. When autumn was fully upon them the Jews began to prepare for Sukkot, the Feast of the Temporary Dwellings, and Ali helped al-Zikri build a tentative structure of sycamore and muslin in the middle of the courtyard. All over Fustat and all around the world, al-Zikri explained, Jews were raising similar structures in their fields and courtyards and the open spaces where one normally did not dwell. On the first night of the feast, which al-Zikri said would last for an entire week, Ali watched Ibn Kammuna shake a narrow palm branch in four directions while the rest of the council recited a series of prayers. The men then passed around a large yellow fruit and shared a meal beneath the structure. Doctor Mevorakh invited Ali to join them, but he demurred, not wanting to disrupt the celebration.

  For four days the Jews of Fustat ate and prayed in their temporary dwellings without incident. Then, on the morning of the fifth night, Ali woke to the sound of al-Zikri speaking urgently to Ibn Kammuna in the courtyard. A number of the structures had been damaged, al-Zikri said when Ali came outside. Shemarya the Pious’s dwelling had been completely destroyed, as had the structure outside the Babylonian synagogue.

  “Keep your eyes open,” al-Zikri told Ali later that night as he handed over the watch. And he did.

  During his second round, as he was emerging from the prayer hall, Ali saw the sputter of a shadow near the front entrance of the synagogue. Extinguishing his lantern, he crouched behind the well in the corner of the courtyard. In the moonlight, he could see the outline of three boys about his own age. Two of them were carrying sticks and the third had a rock. Listening to their muffled laughter, Ali felt the cold clench of fear in his throat. He knew that hiding was the cowardly thing to do. But wasn’t it safer, he asked himself, to let the boys do their business and tell al-Zikri that he was inside the synagogue when it happened? As Ali watched the boys approach the temporary structure in the middle of the courtyard, he stilled his breath and thought of his beloved, imagined her standing there next to him. What would she think of him cowering behind the well?

  Without thinking, without considering the danger of what he was about to do, Ali leapt out from behind the well and, waving his arms, shouted in the high wavering voice of a ghost or a djinn. After a beat of silence, two of the boys ran off. The third, the one with the rock, stood stock-still for a moment. Then he turned, threw his rock in Ali’s direction, and ran after the others. Ali felt the rock graze his forearm, but he didn’t realize he was bleeding until al-Zikri appeared a few moments later.

  “What was that?” al-Zikri asked. Then he shone his lantern on Ali’s arm. “What happened?”

  “I scared them,” Ali said, pressing down on the cut with the cuff of his galabiya. “I jumped out and shouted, and they ran.”

  Over the next few days, many people came by to thank him and hear the story from his own mouth. Ibn Kammuna brought a package of sweets flavored with rosewater, and Doctor Mevorakh gave him a container of the finest tea, but Ali was happiest to see Ephraim and Amram ibn Shemarya. Although they did not give him any tokens of gratitude, they brought with them the knowledge that their youngest sister had heard the story of his courage. And that was the best gift he could imagine.

  * * *

  —

  When the Feast of the Temporary Dwellings was over, al-Zikri told Ali to take the night off, in appreciation of his hard work. Ali didn’t think twice about the offer. He didn’t wonder why he was being given that particular night off, nor did he consider who would watch the synagogue in his absence. He simply wiped his brow and thanked al-Zikri for his kindness, grateful for the chance to take a longer walk than usual.

  After his midday prayers, Ali changed into a clean robe and set out. With no particular destination in mind, he wandered the streets of Fustat, always aware of the possibility, slim though it was, that he might chance upon his beloved. A left turn near the market of the wood-carvers led him to a dead end, and eventually he emerged into a small passageway shaded by the branches of an olive tree. He had no idea where he was, but the heavy layering of light reminded him of the metalworkers’ market where his uncle Rashid had worked for many years.

  “Ali.”

  For a moment Ali thought he had heard the sweet voice of his beloved; then he recalled that he had never actually heard her speak.

  “Ali. Over here.”

  When he turned, he saw that the source of the whisper was a man, standing in the doorway of a tiny shop. The man was no taller than a child, and although he did not appear to be particularly old, his hair and beard were white as clouds.
Above the door of the shop was a placard engraved with the name Hasdi il-Sephardi. The sign announced no title or trade, nothing but this name and a single Hebrew letter in a circle.

  “Come,” he said, ushering Ali inside.

  Hasdi il-Sephardi’s shop was dusty and disheveled, about the same size as the front room of Ali’s house and heavy with the smell of sulfur. A low wood counter at the back was covered with clay amulets, strips of parchment, scales, and casks of various sizes. A chair next to the door held a stack of books and a small reed cage filled with what appeared to be a family of frogs. As he stepped inside, Ali felt a tingle of awareness in his toes and the tips of his fingers, that same mysterious charge he felt in the synagogue attic.

  “Is this…?” Ali began, then he stopped himself, not sure how to phrase the rest of the question, or whether it was something he should be asking in the first place.

  He knew little of the ways of magic, but he knew enough to be cautious. He had heard stories of young women inhabited by djinn, children transported to distant lands, and grown men wandering through vast deserts of the mind. Magic was not to be taken lightly, for all the magic in the world was, in one way or another, derived from the names of God. By rearranging letters, rewriting or transposing them in new ways, magicians were able to harness a small bit of the names’ divine power.