The courtyard of Ibn Kammuna’s residence was larger than the courtyard of the synagogue and much more lavishly appointed. The interior spaces of the house rose up on all four sides, pillars and shaded balconies looking down on a small arbor of shade trees and the perpetual gurgle of a fountain. Between the entranceway and the fountain, sitting silent on a semicircle of cushions, was the entire judicial council of the Ibn Ezra Synagogue. Ali could feel the heat of the sun burning the top of his head as the members of the council regarded him in silence.
“Please be seated,” Ibn Kammuna said finally, gesturing to an empty place at the hub of the semicircle.
Ali sat cross-legged on the cushion and stared down at the fabric of his robe, stretched tight between his knees like the skin of a drum.
“We have asked you here,” Shemarya the Pious began, “to answer some questions.”
Ali could feel the marble pressing hard against the knobs of his ankles while the great scholar outlined the scope of their concerns: the missing papers, the flash of light, the strange question he had asked al-Zikri. He felt his throat constrict as he waited for mention of Hasdi il-Sephardi and the spells, but Shemarya the Pious ended his speech without raising either of these matters.
“We are not accusing you of any wrongdoing,” Ibn Kammuna concluded. “But if you know anything about this, you must tell us.”
A silence fell over the group like a heavy muffled blanket. The council, Ali realized, knew nothing of his true offenses. Although he had no desire to lie, he saw their accusations as an opportunity to wipe the slate. It was a chance to confess, even if the crime was not his own.
“It was me,” he said after a long pause. “I stole the papers.”
Around the circle, Ali saw a wave of pursed lips and furrowed brows. A number of men spoke at once, but Ephraim ibn Shemarya’s voice rose above the rest.
“Will you give us a few moments to discuss our judgment?”
“Yes,” Ali said, keeping his eyes on the ground as he rose from his cushion.
He turned and was headed back toward the entranceway when he heard the sound of Shemarya the Pious clearing his throat, the very same sound that had saved him a few months earlier from the judgment of the crowd. The room fell silent.
“My son,” Shemarya said, “before you leave us, please allow me to ask one question.”
Ali nodded.
“Will you please tell the council why you stole the papers?”
“Yes,” he mumbled, but in the moment he could not think of a single reason why he would want to steal those papers. He swallowed and tried to begin again. “It was me. I stole the papers.”
“Did you?”
Ali opened his mouth, but the words wouldn’t come out. A number of the men in the circle exchanged glances.
“If you did steal the papers,” the great scholar said finally, “then would you please inform the council of their current location?”
As he looked around the room—from the elder Shemarya and his sons to Ibn Kammuna, Doctor Mevorakh, and al-Zikri—Ali recalled that verse from the Surah of the Cow, the one his aunt Fatimah often repeated when exhorting him to be truthful. Enter houses through their proper doors. And fear God that you may prosper. It was time, he decided, to reveal his true self. He was finished with lying and sneaking around, letting his feelings fester inside him like an old pot of stew left out in the sun. He was done with the secrecy and the deception. Whatever the consequences of his actions might be, he wanted to face them.
And so, with an unsteady voice, Ali told the judicial council about his infatuation with the youngest daughter of Shemarya the Pious. He told them about Hasdi il-Sephardi’s shop, the charm he had burned in the fire, and his encounter with Hasdi in the attic. As he spoke, sparing no detail of his betrayal, Ali felt as if a rope were unwinding from around his chest. He knew that the consequences would be severe. He could tell as much from the shocked expressions on the faces around him. But whatever his punishment might be, he was glad to finally unburden himself.
“These are serious matters,” Ibn Kammuna said when Ali was finished. “We will have to ask you to wait in the hall while we discuss our judgment.”
“Discuss?” Amram ibn Shemarya said, rising from his cushion in anger. “What is there to discuss? He betrayed us. He put a spell on my sister. And he freely admits it.”
“There is nothing to discuss,” Ephraim ibn Shemarya added. “We should put him out into the street and forbid him from ever returning to the synagogue. If he were Jewish and we were Muslim, he would already be in prison.”
“What is there to discuss?” Amram asked a second time, and there were a few murmurs of agreement.
Ali kept his gaze fixed to the straps of his sandals. He didn’t look up until he heard the voice of Shemarya the Pious.
“My child.”
At the sight of the great scholar, his kind face and long white hair wrapped up in his beard, Ali felt sick to his stomach. All the abuse from Amram and Ephraim ibn Shemarya was nothing compared with their father’s disappointment. He wanted to beg for forgiveness, to tear his galabiya and prostrate himself in front of the council, but he knew that such a display would not be looked upon with favor. And so, he said nothing.
“This is all very troubling,” Shemarya began after a long silence. “The magic you describe is quite strong indeed. And I will not deny that I am angry. But in such moments of anger, we must be ever more mindful of our capacity for mercy. Let us not forget that we are descendants of Abraham, Abraham who forgave the sins of Abimelech and then prayed to God for his enemy’s forgiveness.”
When Shemarya the Pious was finished with his speech, Doctor Mevorakh told Ali to wait in the hall.
“We will fetch you when we have come to a decision.”
For much of the afternoon, Ali sat in the entranceway of Ibn Kammuna’s residence, watching the outline of his face swim through the milky surface of the marble floor. He heard the council’s discussion as an undifferentiated stream of sound, punctuated every so often by a shout or silence or a single word bouncing down the hall like a ball from a child’s game escaped into the road. After some time, a servant brought a pot of tea and a plate of fruit arranged in a spiral of yellow, white, and red, but Ali could not bring himself to eat. Just the thought of it, the idea of that slick sweet fruit flesh sliding down his throat, made him sick. He stared down at the dark callused soles of his feet and thought of the saying Paradise is under the feet of the mothers. It seemed true enough. But then again, what did he know of mothers? And if paradise was under their feet, what was under his own soles? Nothing but worn leather and dirt, fitting for the bastard orphan son of a water carrier.
Darkness was beginning to assemble when a servant returned and led Ali back into the courtyard. Without raising his eyes, he seated himself on the edge of his cushion. Shemarya the Pious was the first to speak.
“You have committed a grave offense.”
“A number of offenses,” Amram put in.
“You colluded against us,” Shemarya continued as if he had not heard his son’s interruption. “You lied to us. You defiled our holiest of objects. And on top of all this, you bewitched my youngest daughter.”
Judging from Shemarya’s choice of words, it would seem that the charm had worked. Ali tried to put this thought out of his head. He tried not to imagine his beloved pining for him. He tried to focus on what Shemarya the Pious was saying.
“What you have told us will allow us to restore the afflicted child.”
At this, the great scholar devolved into a fit of coughing. When he had subdued the cough, he took a calming breath and tried to begin again. But, overcome with emotion, he could not bring himself to speak. Eventually, he nodded to Ibn Kammuna, who took up the remainder of the judgment.
“One could make the case that you did not know what you were doing, tha
t no one explicitly told you not to do what you did, that you did not have the sense to know it was wrong. It is not a strong case, but it can be made.”
Ibn Kammuna paused and looked around the circle.
“We are not pleased with your conduct. But we do value your honesty and hard work. We are also aware that this is your first infraction. Our tradition teaches us to be pliant as a reed, not hard like the cedar. And so, we have decided to grant you clemency, on a conditional basis.”
Ali released his breath.
“If you would like to continue in your present position,” Doctor Mevorakh said, “you must make two vows. First, you must agree to find a wife.”
“When a man marries,” Ibn Kammuna said, “all his sins are forgiven.”
The rest of the council nodded, and Ephraim ibn Shemarya added an aphorism of his own.
“He who has found a wife has found happiness and obtains favor from the Lord.”
“You are a good boy,” Doctor Mevorakh continued. “But you have the restlessness of a boy. We will give you two months to correct your ways. If, by the end of that period, you have not found a wife, we will be forced to search for a replacement.”
The doctor allowed the first half of the sentence to sink in before moving on.
“In addition to finding a wife, you must forget everything you know about the Ezra Scroll. You will never speak of it. You have never seen it. You have no knowledge that it exists. The same should also be applied to your dealings with Hasdi il-Sephardi.”
Ali opened his mouth to ask a question, but Ibn Kammuna interrupted him.
“Hasdi is dangerous, but his is the magic of schoolboys. We will see that he is banished from Fustat. Even so, you must never speak of him again. Is that clear?”
“Yes.”
“You should also be aware,” Ephraim ibn Shemarya added, “that this ruling is provisional. There are many among us who would like to terminate your position immediately, but we have agreed to give you another chance. The council will be meeting again in two months to make our final decision. If there are any problems between now and then, I can assure you that we will not be so lenient.”
Ali nodded.
“Is there anything you would like to say to the council?” Doctor Mevorakh asked.
There were so many things Ali wanted to say, far too many for a single speech. So he said only that which was most important.
“Thank you.”
Ali was indeed very thankful. But as he made his rounds that evening—investigating the silent corners of the courtyard, poking into the empty spaces behind the ark, in the ritual baths, and especially in the attic—he felt his desire gurgling back up again. Even after everything that had happened, a tiny part of him still hoped he might find a way to be with his beloved. He tried to swat these thoughts away. The council had granted him clemency, he told himself; they had given him a second chance. If he wanted to keep their trust and keep his job, he needed to tamp down his longing.
It wasn’t until the middle of the night that he discovered a way to force the forgetting. He was finishing up his fourth round, trying not to imagine his beloved’s reaction to the events of the day, when he accidentally burnt his wrist on the edge of his lantern. Crying out, he dropped the lantern and splashed his wrist with cold water. Ali often burned himself, but this time he noticed something new. Behind the pain there was also a melting, as if a portion of his worries had escaped through the burn. The next time he thought of his beloved, he pressed his forearm for a few beats against the rim of his lantern and again he felt that same release. Over the course of the night, Ali burned himself nine times, leaving puffy red marks all up and down the underside of his arm. It was painful, but effective. When he woke that next afternoon, he could already feel his yearnings beginning to slip away.
11
MR. MOSSERI’S APARTMENT was on a short tree-lined street in Mohandessin, three blocks from the Nile and around the corner from the Tawfiqiya Tennis Club. For some reason, this particular Gamal al-Din Street wasn’t included in the index of my map. But once I knew where to look, it wasn’t much trouble to find.
“Here it is,” Abdullah had said, the morning after my visit to the synagogue.
Pushing his plate aside, he pointed to the bristle of little side streets off al-Sudan.
“Gamal al-Din,” I said, reading aloud from the map. “There it is.”
I flattened the map on the table and took a bite of my peanut butter–and–Nutella sandwich. There it was, exactly where Mr. Mosseri had said it would be, in Mohandessin, just around the corner from the Tawfiqiya Tennis Club. After weeks of searching, weeks of wandering aimlessly up and down various Gamal al-Din streets in Nasr City, Imbaba, and Heliopolis, I had finally found the right one.
“There it is,” I repeated, but Abdullah was already on to the next question.
“When Mr. Mosseri invited you, what did he say he wanted?”
“He said he had something I would be interested in seeing.”
As the week progressed, we returned again and again to this question. What was it that Mr. Mosseri thought I would be interested in seeing? I did my best to temper my expectations, to keep my imagination in check. But when I stood there on the sidewalk in front of his building, seeing that address—72 Gamal al-Din Street—carved into the bronze plaque next to the front entrance, anything seemed possible.
“Welcome,” Mr. Mosseri said, pulling me into his apartment with a surprisingly muscular hug. “Welcome, my friend. I trust we weren’t too difficult to find.”
“No. Not really.”
“Good,” he smiled and, patting me on the back, led me into the dining room.
Seated at the long glass-and-chrome table was a group of older ladies all talking in a mixture of Egyptian Arabic and French. A few of them were smoking. There was a television on in the living room and the table was scattered with little plates of hummus, olives, pickled vegetables, and nuts. When Mr. Mosseri and I walked in, the conversation stopped and a wave of greetings rippled down the table.
“Me and the old ladies,” he said, after introducing his mother, Mrs. Shemarya, Mrs. Mevorakh, Mrs. Tunsi, and Madame el-Tantawi. “They won’t leave. And I won’t leave without them.”
“I was so sorry to hear about your father,” Mrs. Mevorakh said as I sat down in the empty seat at the head of the table.
“Such a kind man,” Madame el-Tantawi put in.
“May his memory be for a blessing,” Mrs. Mosseri said, and everyone nodded their agreement.
I thanked them, then turned to listen to Mrs. Shemarya, who was already halfway through a story about the pigeons my great-uncle—her husband’s cousin—used to keep on the roof of their apartment building.
“Such a mess,” she said. “You’ve never seen such a mess.”
“Is that right?”
“You wouldn’t believe it,” she said, shaking her head in disgust.
Listening to her go on about my great-uncle and his pigeons, I wondered if perhaps this was what Mr. Mosseri wanted to show me. I had expected something more tangible—a picture of my father or a dusty academic tome about the geniza—but wasn’t it also possible that he had invited me over in order to introduce me to this cluster of old ladies who, as far as I could tell, were the last Jews of Cairo? Or maybe I was the attraction, their link to a world that no longer existed.
“Every afternoon,” Madame el-Tantawi said, resting a hand on my forearm to get my attention, “your grandmother and I used to play marbles in the courtyard of her father’s house. And every afternoon my cousin Yakob watched us from the roof of the house next door. She was a modest girl, your grandmother, a good girl, and she never raised her eyes to him for more than a moment. Still, he watched us every day for nearly three years. Then, on the day after your grandmother’s sixteenth birthday, he entered the house through its front door an
d asked for her hand in marriage.”
“So we’re related?” I said. “Your cousin was my grandfather?”
Madame el-Tantawi shook her head ruefully and continued with the story.
“Later that same day, while your grandmother and her parents were considering the proposal, my cousin went out to a nice dinner with some friends and, halfway through the meal, he choked on a chicken bone. Died facedown in his own soup.”
She paused to serve herself a portion of stewed green beans and chicken, then came around to the moral of the story.
“Life is too short to wait, Yusuf. It is far too short.”
“Such a sweet boy,” Mrs. Shemarya said, chewing on a mouthful of green beans. “What a shame to die like that, in his own soup.”
All night they told stories—about their cousins and their friends, about my grandfather’s bravery and my great-grandfather’s failed business ventures—talking about the past as if it were another life, which perhaps it was. They asked after my mother and said what a pretty girl she had been. They argued about the quality of the lamb served at a wedding fifty years ago. They talked about crystal and silver, the Gezira Club, British troops, and the Abdeen Palace. Then, toward the end of dinner, the conversation came back around to my father.
“He was a good man,” Mrs. Tunsi said. “Even in difficult times, he always had a smile for me, for everyone.”
There were a few assorted nods as Mrs. Tunsi segued into a story about how my father chased down a group of neighborhood boys who had set a stink bomb in the ritual baths. When she was finished, Mrs. Mevorakh described an incident involving a family of cats trapped on the roof of the synagogue. Then Mr. Mosseri told a story, from my father’s produce salesman days, which ended in him returning ten thousand pounds to a poor fruit vendor who had inadvertently overpaid his account for nearly three years. I had heard most of these stories before—from Uncle Hassan and from my father himself—but hearing them retold from this new perspective, I began to understand what my father had meant to these women, their families, and the community he had served. He was more than just a watchman. He was a friend, a protector, an adviser, one of the linchpins that held the community together.
The Last Watchman of Old Cairo Page 15
