Lucena

by Mois Benarroch

  “Those are extraordinary,” and he grabbed three cds. Later the salesman told me he was a good client, insinuating that I was not, that I had only come to talk and finally expecting that the cds that I wanted would have been discounted so as to pay a quarter of the price, or, I would order the by mail from the United States for half price.

  “Whoever counts on you will go broke,” he was saying.

  Of course he was right but I never understood how he could expect me to buy something from him at double the price that I could find elsewhere.

  To sum up, the Russian started to talk to me about music, cognac, girls, and then he asked me if I were Russian.

  “Russian? No, not exactly.”

  “So, where are you from?”

  “From Morocco.”

  “Where?”

  “From Morocco.”

  “You’re pulling my leg. I don’t believe you. You’re not from Morocco.”

  “It’s true, he is Moroccan,” said the salesman. “He’s a Moroccan writer.”

  “I don’t believe it. You’re either Polish or American. You can’t be.”

  “Look,” I said, showing him my ID. “See? Here it is in writing. Place of birth: Morocco.”

  He got so close to me the smell nearly made me faint. He looked me in the eye, looked at the photo, and unconvinced, he said: “You aren’t Moroccan. You can’t be.”

  To this day I’m not sure which one of us was right.

  SHMUEL

  Have you had a good time? What a silly question! I’m crazy. How could I do this? How could I do something like that? Where have I got to? Nevertheless, perhaps you have had a good time. I had never done something like this. I know that will not console you, I know. Look. Look at my hands. You will see what this country has done to me. I’m a wrung-out rag. Now look at what I did. In Morocco I was a good kid. I ran through the mountains, I climbed trees, I went swimming ...and now I have spent more time in jail than I can remember. Shut your mouth you dirty whore! See what you’ve done! See how you’re dressed! “Look you tramp! Bitch! You don’t have any right to speak. I could kill you if for one moment I thought you capable of turning me in. Yes, I know, now you say you wouldn’t, I know, all of you are tramps. Who could assure me you would keep your word? Who? Maybe you have had a good time. I like it when a woman enjoys my being, my body. Not you. I know it’s not about you. Shut your mouth, I tell you, close it. Shut your cloaca, quickly or I’ll sit your throat, I’ll cut your pussy. Makes no difference to me since I, Samuel, have been able to change into this Shmuel. To change my name as they did, they could have changed Samuel to Samael, the name of the angel of death but you should know I am a good man. Inside I am a good man, I am the child who would climb trees, who fed the alley cats. I am tender, I caressed you sincerely. If now you say you believe me, you hide it very well. Don’t nod with your head. Don’t say anything. Don’t move. Don’t look at me. I might have a crisis and liquidate you. Do you understand? In the end, what are you? A disgusting whore. Look at you, naked in bed, a disgusting whore, that’s what you are, raggedy. I could kill you here and now and make meatballs out of the pile of meat. A pile of meat, that’s what you are, a pile of meat, a mat for soldiers. Go back and fuck with all those soldiers you disgusting piece of meat. And I, How have I come to this? Tell me Sara, tell me. How have I come to this? Can you tell me? Can you explain to me how, from the Alliance Française I managed to get to jail, how I managed to be here, face to face with you, naked and not even enjoying it? I haven’t enjoyed it either, not either. Do you understand? I haven’t enjoyed it either! No way! But I had to believe that I still could. Could what? I would read poetry. I could recite La Fontaine from memory. I even got to make a speech on the day of my Bar-mitzvah. Tell me Noa, Sara, Michelle, whatever your name is, it doesn’t matter. Tell me how I can have come to this. Don’t look at me, don’t talk, you are my wall, my mother, my sister, you are a disgusting whore. How many men have you slept with? Ah!

  In Morocco you would be a married woman with three children. Yes, you would have married at thirteen or fifteen, you would be a woman, not a ragdoll, a mat for army officers who fuck you until they tire. How has this helped you? What use is all this Zionism? Zionism is nothing more than a big fuck. See how they shoved it in the pussy, in the ass. They shoved in knives, and still expected us to enjoy it. Do you understand? They lied to us, saying that here, in Israel, we would be given a house and work but they fucked us. The same way I lied to you to get you to come here. The same way I got you in my car in the wee hours of the morning. So tell me who are these here? Shut up! Who are these sons of bitches here? They are the Government, a state of perfection. And evidently the State can fuck with its citizens especially after stripping them naked and beating out the last drop of honor. I had never said this kind of thing, Sara, to anybody, not even when I was on coke, not when I was mainlining, which was the longest trip. Now I say the truth. I didn’t enjoy it when they fucked me. No, I didn’t like it either when I did it with you, you Moroccan tramp. Maybe you liked to lay with those well-dressed Ashkenazi’s but not with me stupid whore. Agreed. Yes, let it be, now I’ve said all that, get out of here. Look I’ll let you leave. But get out now. Run before I change my mind and slice your pussy. Get out of here whore!

  MY SON, THE TIME HAS COME FOR ME TO GO

  “Where?”

  “To the other world.”

  “So soon?”

  “After seeing what I have seen, all that is left is for me to leave this world.”

  “Father, we always go from one place to another.”

  “Yes, but we don’t always survive. Death stalks us from behind every ruin, behind every look into the abyss.”

  “But father, we still need you. Grenada can also be your home.”

  “Grenada, my son, will be your home and perhaps your son’s. I cannot build another nest somewhere else.”

  We have emigrated for a thousand years. Exile has become our daily bread, the olive oil with which we are anointed, from the same olives that we took from the land of Israel. We still have years to go before we return. Lucena was not our home, neither will be Grenada.

  Tonight I will meet with my loved ones. I have already advised them of my arrival. I have already seen my father, my grandfather, my great grandfather and the true Sun. They will prepare a place for me and soon I will be set free.”

  “Is this your own decision?”

  “I have seen seagulls, and crows flying over our sunny house. I have seen the eagle of my childhood in my father’s pine tree. Trees speak. Doors slam and the keys are our future. Wherever you go, take a key.”

  Good bye papa.”

  “Don’t cry my son. We all come to this. Now, go tell your mother to come here

  TERESA

  I thank you, God Almighty, for having shown me the road to you, for having made me a Christian and for having saved me from the destiny of the Jewish people. Jesus, Father, and my God, the only one who enters me, the true Messiah and God on earth, I will write you a thousand poems of love. I love you as no woman has ever loved a man. I will be the repentance of all my Jewish ancestors who were in error because they would not recognize the Messiah, who would not accept our authority. I will be Christian in body and soul, even if I should die of hunger, and crazy folks laugh at me, I will continue to be yours only. I will never regret having taken the road to your throne and your great mercy.

  My father who are in heaven, give me strength to endure the road to Paradise which you have prepared, to be an example for Christians and sinners so that all may live in you and not die in sin.

  My father, our father, I will always live in you.

  THE SECOND DAY

  “Can I ask a question?” said Samuel, uncertain.

  “No, no! Don’t even talk. I can’t answer any of your questions. I talk and you listen. That’s the deal.”

  “What was in the box you gave your wife before you left for Brazil in 1870?”

  “That’s en
ough. From now on you don’t talk or I will leave you to your fate and you will never understand why things happen to you and you will worry. I will tell you what was in the box. I always left one with each of my wives before disappearing. The same thing to each one.” How many were there? Once I had three. That was when I had to flee from the muezzins who wanted to convert me to Islam. I didn’t, but I claimed I was Muslim and they believed it because from Lucena I knew the ins and outs of their religion quite well.”

  Then I went to Dar’a, south of Morocco, and there, in a tall mountain, I found a tribe of men who had breasts and nursed their children while the women went to search for water. At that time I had three wives. Nobody questioned it. In Spain, if a Jew had two wives, people would refuse to talk to them even if it were permitted. How many wives in all did I have, and how many children? Really, Samuel, I don’t remember. A thousand years is a long time. But I do remember Raquel. I remember I saw her watering her father’s donkeys. She was only twelve. Back then they got married at that age. I remember my first wife Raquel had such big, blue eyes, like the Berbers. At that time I was a common carpenter in Lucena. Discussions began quickly with her father and we were married. She loved me because I was her husband. That is the way things were back then. Not like now, where you have relations for five years and then you get married and you think love will last but it always ends up disappearing.

  Back then I was twenty six and she gave me three sons, Shmuel, Moshé and Yeshurún. At age forty I became gravely ill. I had a very high fever and everyone thought that I would die, but after two weeks bedridden I awoke feeling under twenty years old. The spots had disappeared from my skin and I could go back to work like when I was young. People started to talk about me. Rumor had it that I was a witch, and that I did all kinds of rituals at home and even that I had killed an infant as it emerged from my wife’s womb. I didn’t want to leave but my life was in danger and I had to give in.

  After leaving Lucena nothing was ever the same again. The landscapes and mountains that had been mine disappeared forever. I returned a few times but the city had also changed very rapidly. The Jews were expelled from there. At first they wandered from one country to another. I never saw my children again. The city became Catholic. Then a few Jews returned but it wasn’t the same lively urban center where Hebrew, Arabic and and Latin were heard mixed together. There I began to hear the language that was to become in time one of the most widely used in the world, Spanish. At first it was hard to speak it, it seemed like a poor folks Latin, but later we got used to it and even some Jews made it the official language to consolidate the authority of the king who would become a well-known linguist. One language for the people. There were also Jews who translated the Bible and New Testament into Spanish and thus the language spread among all the inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula.

  A thousand years have gone by but I have not forgotten Lucena, not the tiny current city, but the one that once was mine. It was a shining city. It had a light which no longer exists. Now its light is different from the one from a thousand years ago as though we had all been fitted with sun glasses because back then the speed of light was ten times greater, and more light came to the earth than now. I will never forget her. The world was different, and in the same way that the mother tongue exists, or the landscapes of childhood, the man who lives a thousand years also has the light of infancy, a light that fills me with longing, that reminds me of Raquel and Sara who I married in Sevilla. Then I was already a well-known carpenter, even the royal palace ordered chairs from me. I remember that Sara was very young when she came to ask me to repair her father’s chair. That is what she said. She gave me the chair and kept looking me in the eye for a few minutes. Those minutes seemed an eternity to me. She had such black eyes. Mediterranean eyes. And then, unexpectedly, she began to cry, and I...to laugh.

  Her tears were so beautiful and so luminous that one could say that they had their own light. So then, to break the ice, I told her that the chair would be repaired tomorrow. A tomorrow that would be eternal. She was not Raquel, but a great consolation for all the previous departures from her, and for those which were to come.

  Seville, 1391. They attacked with the cry: “Christianize, or die! Christianize, or die!” When anyone doubted, they burned their house. And I shouted to Sara: “Woman, come on! Let’s live! It makes no sense to die for this.” But she stayed, sitting in her father’s chair that I had repaired for her, not wanting to move, and I tried to grab her by the hand to take her with me to the church.

  “Don’t take the children!” she shouted. “Not the children. Better that they should die as Jews than to live as Christians. Death is better than to be slaves to the Bastard!”

  And then the house began to burn and I pulled on her and the flames approach and quickly she says

  “Grab the children so they can live!”

  And while I was going to the church with the children, she went up in flames and became Saint Sara.

  Perhaps she did the right thing. I can’t tell you. It may have been better to have had a righteous death there and not to have to live so many years and to put up with this perverted world for so long.

  And 1391 was not the end either. Then there were the converted, the “Marranos” former Jews, and Jews, living all among each other and struggling against third parties. Maybe 1492 was the lightest with respect to the dispute between the the semi-Jews - the ones who converted- and those who were contrite who had lost everything. One hundred years, as though someone would think that the situation would again become what it had been, as if something could go back to being what it once was. There, in Seville, I understood that the Sefarad, Sephardic territory, (the Iberian peninsula) had been finished. There, Spain began but the Sefarad, where Jews had participation and inheritance, had disappeared. Among all the Diasporas, Sefarad was our territory. Only in Sefarad were we part of it, four hundred years, perhaps fewer. Later the situation calmed down a bit and up to 1492 perhaps it was possible to hope that something would change. But it was the new Christians who wanted to expel the Jews who had remained Jews. And the “Marranos”, since here and there some continued in their same positions and competed for the same royal duties and in the same commercial areas. “Were they Christians then?” The fact is, in Sevilla, almost everyone converted to Christianity, a few were martyred and another very few somehow continued being Jews. Sometimes the controversy occurred within the same family. Some felt very guilty.

  From Brazil I went to Texas where I fought in the war against the Mexicans and where there was a large Jewish community. The Jews had already arrived there in 1880, from Poland and Germany. We fought against the barbarity of the Mexicans and that is how the Republic of Texas was born, which, for a decade existed as an independent state.

  There I was very prosperous. I had a flourishing furniture business, since then people were again beginning to enjoy a comfortable economic situation.

  It was hot in Texas. When they joined the United States, I decided to return to Brazil, and from there, to Spain. In that time, very few Jews were returning to Spain. I was among the first to arrive in Málaga. There was religious freedom but anti-Semitism was so entrenched that it could be felt everywhere. It was anti-Semitism by those who had formerly been Jews! That was the hardest. I worked with three Benarroch brothers, very well-established textile merchants. It seems that the son of one of them was the first of those from Tetuán to marry a Christian and convert. He kept his name and that is why today you can see Christian families named Benarroch. Evidently there are Benzimra Christians, too. There is everything. These guys, so very many years after fleeing, renouncing their countries and Christianity, to then see their sons marry Christians. An irony of destiny.

  I wonder... my wife Raquel was martyred for this? But the worst is, that Raquel’s grandson had become a priest and tried to convince me to convert. And in 1450, more or less, he even got to the point of telling me that he would inform the Inquisition that I was a “Marran
o”, that he would inform on me.

  “For your own good,” he said.

  “For my own good? Just what do you know about my own good?” I asked him.

  “It is good to believe in God. Put your life in Jesus’ hands and you will feel redemption.”

  “And then I will go kill those who don’t agree with me, like those who put their lives in Jesus’ hands and burned your grandmother alive.”

  “They were wrong. People have to be convinced in a good way.”

  “Do you mean to say that sending me to the Inquisition is a ‘good way’?”

  “I mean to say that it would be better for you to convert to Christianity for your own good, so that I do not feel obligated, by my faith, and the laws of the church, to deliver you to the authorities.”

  “You’ll give me at least a day to think about it, won’t you?”

  “I will give you that because you are my grandfather, and because I take pity on your soul.”

  “Perhaps Raquel was right, and I should have allowed your father to die in the blazes so I wouldn’t have to see you like this now...not to hear this conversation and the words that come out of your mouth.”

  “In that way you saved my soul and that of my father who, unlike you, is a good Christian, not an old, recalcitrant Jew. What am I saying, old? You look younger than me, recalcitrant and obstinate. Haven’t you realized that Judaism is out? WE are the REAL Jews. The continuation of Moses, Look at the Jewish people. It has gone from grandeur to nullification, from gold to Shinola, from a shining light to darkness. Look at them, and look at us.”

  “It would have been better to have died It would have been better to have been consumed in the fire than to see this.”

  “You have time, until tomorrow.”

  I remember this conversation Samuel, as if it had taken place yesterday. Evidently I immediately fled to the mountains and to Morocco. I understood that Portugal would not help us either. I understood that the Christians would never be our allies. Then I saw how the Jews were fleeing to Portugal, believing that there they would build a new Sefarad, but in fewer than ten years they realized that in the Christian world they were lost.