Lucena

by Mois Benarroch

  Nobody hated more than he those loathsome texts that he was obligated to write so he could pay the rent without having to work at his profession of financial advisor. Two years before, he had received a small inheritance from his grandmother in France but it was only just enough to eat, for female escorts, and for paper.

  He immediately grabbed the telephone and called the editor.

  “We’re not back doing the same thing again, are we?”

  “Who is speaking please?”

  “Who? It’s Bukovza. I’m Bukovza.”

  “Oh! I hope you will write the article. I think you are the right person for this righteous assignment.”

  “Mister Brosh, aren’t you guys tired of all this foolishness?” complained Charlie. “Tell me, what the hell do I know about Moroccan poetry? I don’t speak Moroccan. I came to Israel at age three. How can you expect me to know Moroccan, much less Moroccan poetry? At great effort I did read the poems of Tahar Ben Jelloun, who, by the way, writes in French. My father is from Algeria and my mother is from Benchauen, from the Benzimra family. Do you know them? Why didn’t you ask for an article for the previous issue about love, or the previous one, about wine? What’s the matter? Do only Ashkenazi’s know about love?”

  “Now, now, are we back to that again? I thought you got over that.” replied Brosh.

  “Believe me,” said Charlie. “I’ll write an article for you. But why don’t you ask me to write articles about other topics as well? Besides, I want to be paid in advance. Eight hundred shekels in advance, tax free.”

  “You know we don’t pay in advance.”

  “Pay in advance or nothing,” demanded Charlie. “I know that those who don’t pay in advance don’t pay. It is what it is. See, I’ve turned into a Polack. We all turn into Polacks from arguing so much with you guys.”

  “You must know,” injected Brosh, “that I am, in fact, a Moroccan according to halajá, Mosaic tradition, because my grandmother was born in Morocco, my sister-in-law is Moroccan and my daughter is going to marry a Moroccan who previously lived in France - now they call them Franco-Moroccans.”

  “Surely your grandmother was born on the border between Morocco and Poland,” said Charlie.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because,” said Charlie, “I have heard the Poles have even taken the Mediterranean away from us. ... In the Van Leer Foundation, King Leer was born in Morocco. Didn’t you know that? The world is Polish. I have a friend who says Judaism is Sephardic.”

  “Right.” sighed Brosh, “Are you going to write the article or not?”

  “When your check is deposited I will write it and in two days the article will be on your desk.”

  “Good bye...”Charlie hung up.

  The check arrived in two weeks. He deposited it and went to eat at the ‘Forel’ restaurant with his life- long girlfriend, Haya Barchilón, self-taught sketch artist and lesbian by choice.

  “You’re the one who is always on the subject,” said Haya. “That’s why they always ask you to write about Moroccans, couscous and the rest.”

  “I hate couscous. I never liked it. What a name! It sounds worse than sauerkraut. I always thought sauerkraut was a Tunisian food until ten years ago when I met a French girl Franco-Moroccan. She laughed at me for over an hour when I said that because it is an Alsatian food.”

  “Who doesn’t know that?”

  “Me. I also thought that besamel sauce was a honey sauce that was cooked with honey.”

  “Why don’t you change the subject?” complained Haya.

  “Tell me,” said Charlie, “You tell me. What do I know about Moroccan poetry? What am I going to talk about? About Tahar Ben Jelloun and the Palestinians? Know something? Jelloun justifies the assassination of Jews. I would like to write a poem called “Injustice justifies Injustice” because in this case we Jews can make the world spin a hundred times without a word.”

  “Now you’re on the Palestinians? Eat your langostinos,”mumbled Haya.

  “That‘s it,” said Charlie, “langostinos-Palestinos, it rhymes, gabacho-Morocco, I will write about the Sufi poetry of the Moroccans. You know something? It always goes well. You start out talking about the Sufis, then you say what you want and everybody drools. Then something about the whirling dervishes, a little of this, a little of that, a few names from the encyclopedia and you have an ajla article, fantastic.”

  “Do you know where ajla comes from?” he went on. “Once I gave my book of poems ‘Occidente en mi Corazón’ to a presenter on Channel 3 or 33, and one day she called me and I asked what was going on, and whether they were thinking of doing a program about it. And she said “I’d like to, Wow what an ajila of a book.”

  Haya laughed.

  Charlie was nervous. He ate the fish quickly not even enjoying it, as usual. After the divorce his father had returned to France. There he had bought a pricy, famous restaurant ‘Le chaperon bleu’, where he used to go eat whenever he was in París. His father also didn’t know anything about Moroccan poetry and very little about couscous.

  Charlie sat by the old typewriter and, as per his custom, he wrote the article in twenty minutes. He put it in an envelope and sent it to the editor. If all those homos who voted for the Meretz party and wrote one poem every four months knew how quickly he wrote they would tear out their hair. At any rate they already hate me enough it’s not necessary to irritate them further. In every interview I tell them how much of an effort it is for me to write so they don’t feel alone.

  The next day there was a call from Mr. Brush.

  “What is this? Here you don’t say anything about Moroccan poetry Langostino-palestino. What’s gotten in to you?”

  “That’s not true. There is an allusion to the poet Barkat Abu Sansana, at the beginning of the article.”

  “An allusion is not an article.”

  “There was no contract. I wrote what I wrote. Besides, I am a Moroccan poet. Everything I write is Moroccan poetry, right? That is what you all always say.”

  “You’re going too far! Write another article. I’m not publishing this”

  “Another article, another eight hundred shekels. This time taxes included.”

  “I won’t pay you again.”

  “Tell me, is your grandmother still in Morocco or ...?”

  “Don’t you raise your voice to me!”

  “You know something?” said Charlie, “I have discovered that my family comes from Germany. My grandmother comes from Germany. Incredible isn’t it? I found out yesterday. I’m a yeque!”

  “Imagine that!”

  After two days another check arrived. Charlie had promised he would not write anything again about Morocco. It was enough. He had done it thousands of times. He didn’t even remember anything about there, nor had he experienced any nostalgia for visiting the parental home. In fact, neither had his parents.

  He sat down and began writing an article entitled “Borges, Couscous and the Library of Babylonia,” in which he declared Borges the best Moroccan poet of all time and in which he explained, in great and convincing detail, that in its heart of hearts, the great library was the Torah.

  Brosh said nothing. He concealed the article in his library until his grandson’s wedding.

  THE DISTANCE

  It has been a year that I have attempted to get to Lucena. It is three hours away but there is no way. There is always something in the way. As if I wanted to do something positive for mankind and God forbids it. As if the world depended on my travelling to Lucena, a tiny village almost a city, as the books and the internet page say. A city where the birth rate is increasing, a city which is progressing by industrial standards. But I, I don’t want to see its present state, I want to see its past. I want to see there my grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather. I want to see the door whose key I have kept in the strongbox. I want to see the marks in the dirt, in the mud and in the cement. I want to hear the shrieks from the day of abandonment, and the cries of joy when the man from w
hich I came was born. I want to smell the food from Friday slowly cooking for hours until ¿Saturday midday. I want to see the dress the day before the wedding. I want to see the underground synagogue, subterranean like the true Lucena. I want to see the battle after which the Jews fled. Did they fight? Or did they leave like the Jews always do, with their heads down and without their worldly goods, seeking a new road and a place to rest their heads? Did they perhaps expect the coming times? I want to see and hear the songs which they wrote there, the songs which were heard among the trees in the snowy winters of Lucena. I want to see my rabbis. Oh my rabbis! Where are you? Where are you, with all your knowledge of astrology, astronomy, and all the sciences? Where are you: knowledgeable of languages and marvelous translators? Where are you? Where are my Sephardic rabbis? My poetic rabbis? Where are you composers of verse?

  Today I feel like an orphan from you, I feel like an orphan without anybody of sufficient size to guide my questions. I feel orphaned from you because you were the intellectuals who taught us to walk. Today there are sighted, excavators of tombs and fabricators of amulets but I don’t have anything to do with them. They are as far from me as Lucena is far from me. As Lucena is far from herself. They are as far from me as the distance between Sefarad and Lucena and the Israel of today. They are as far as the distance between Mugador and Tetúan, like the distance between Bagdad and Granada they are as distant as from Tblisi and Córdoba. Everything is far from me. The Jews closest to me lived in the eleventh century in Lucena.

  AND, A BREATH OF GOD

  It was the most disquieting dream I have ever had in my life. I am in Jerusalem, on the terrace of a house and suddenly my book isn’t clear because the letters have all been placed in a different order. I look at my book but I don’t understand anything. But it is my book. Suddenly it all becomes clear. Each word, suddenly takes on its own, different, meaning. The words have attained their own, independent existence. There is a very fearsome darkness. And then I understand it is the end. We all expect the end. And I go walking down a street and I see rabbi Stawski and I tell him, “Well, this is it. It’s the end.” And he looks at me. I ask him where he had been up to now, and he doesn’t answer me. And then I ask him if I can overcome this. And I know that very soon there will be a big, instantaneous explosion, and he agrees, and tells me I don’t have to worry.

  And then there is a big explosion which isn’t dynamite or atomic; but a spiritual explosion wherein part of the humanity appears up above and the other remains on earth. Up there, there is no need for oxygen and we are as light as a feather. And we all have to look forward. And I don’t know if my family is with those up above or if they have stayed with those down below. And underneath us we see a sea.

  And then I see a woman who is disrobing. She has beautiful black hair. And her pubic hair is short and formed in a line. And she says that if we are there we must go in the water. We go in but nobody says anything. She continues into the water and then it becomes evident that it is a cloud. And she falls down, to earth.

  We are all very frightened. I wake up and feel the presence of the dream very strongly in my home.

  WHO ARE YOU?

  -I am the son of the head.

  -Where are you going?

  -Every day I travel from head to feet. Sometimes I also return.

  -Where were you born?

  -On the seashore. I grew up thanks to the smell of the salt.

  -You are the shore from birth to death.

  -I am shore, salt, and water.

  -What will you call your son?

  -Salt of the earth.

  -Your son will be a foreigner in every city.

  -Only in the sea will he feel part of the world.

  THE SEVENTH DAY

  I am the man who saw the sea inflamed with the shouts of your ancestors, fathers of your fathers, from those who created you and from those who disappeared on the way. Samuel, never forget those who disappeared on the way, those who were fodder for fishes, those whose seed disappeared. Those who had no descendants. Those who travelled to the end of the road. Don’t forget the women whose uterus did not produce children. Never, ever, forget those whose uterus did not open up.

  Samuel, I saw sons, sons of sons, great grandsons, sons of great grandsons, grandsons of grandsons. I have so much sorrow in me that I could have filled this sea with joy. There is, in me, so much sorrow that I could have filled this sea all over again.

  I also saw joy, my son. I say happiness, I saw births, and death of an elder of advanced age, nevertheless the death of an elder in our people is the occasion of great joy. When one of us arrives at an advanced old age we have huge celebrations. No one but us knows the importance of the years, of life. So many deaths force us to love life.

  Until not so long ago our children were like dust in the air, small children, like clay in the hands of the one who creates the depraved mind, sent to threaten on the ocean, to change into fellers of trees and into good Christians. At the age of two they were kidnapped and their mothers preferred to kill them rather than have them baptized as Christians.

  The world wants us to forget, wants you to forget. The Jews want you to forget, the gentiles want you to forget, the Ashkenazi’s want you to forget and the Sephardi want you to forget. But there is no power in the world strong enough to keep a man like you from remembering. And if just one remembers Lucena will continue to exist. If just one man remembers, all of our world of Lucena and Granada continue existing and subsisting. If only one man remembers, the past shall be converted into the present. If just one man remembers, his ancestors continue to live in his memories if just one man remembers; the past is converted into the present. Always struggle against forgetting.

  I do hope you now understand the first day otherwise you have not wanted to listen. You will live one thousand years. Be wary of doctors. They are the only ones who can do you harm. Be careful with fire and avoid gallows. Live a simple life without standing out. Now you will face more dangers than existed in my time. Avoid x-rays and don’t live in an area close to radioactivity. I’m sure things will come up for you that I haven’t even dreamed about. Make every effort not to become well-known. And when the time comes, try to save yourself the best way you can. Success and power are merchandise that are very difficult to get rid of. Every forty years, distance yourself from people. Go to the mountains, to an isolated place where no one can see you in the state you will be in. Under no circumstances let doctors get their hands on you. How do I know you will live a thousand years? I know those who are like you. I have found others like you. All the excesses that you have lived with your friends and acquaintances up to now came up because your time is different from theirs. The rhythm of a thousand year man is different from the rhythm of one who lives seventy eight years.

  ASHKABA

  Lucena died here, in Jerusalem. Here the Sephardic culture was buried. What the Inquisition could not do, nor a thousand years of exile, nor five hundred years of Muslim domination the Ashkenazi’s managed to destroy in under a hundred years. They kept out of sight all the poets of old, and silenced those of today. They made the rabbis unrecognizable, turned the people into criminals and police to entertain them. They simplified history and called the grand creations folklore.

  Perhaps you have found this book by accident. The members won’t talk about it, or the professors, or the literary critics. You have most likely stumbled on it accidentally, forgotten, in some nook in a book store. It is your destiny, like that of the Sephardi’s. They struggled against us, and they destroyed us. And for all those years we didn’t even know there was a war. And when we awoke, we had no arms or legs. And the head was unable to comprehend the magnitude of the moment. Some of us just continued on in our wheel chairs receiving a few crumbs and thinking we should be grateful we had something to eat. Others left the country we had dreamed of, and others, we simply went mad.

  No major publishing house will publish this book. So it will not be a major book. It will not be impo
rtant because the Ashkenazi’s will not publish it because in it, it is said that their existence is no more than an irritating grain of sand in the eyes of the Sephardim. That the whole dead culture survived better without them, than with them. What is left of one hundred years of Zionism? Ridiculous singers singing Ladino songs on a television program. Madmen who talk of the past, of what life was alongside the Muslims. What the Holocaust could not accomplish with the Jewish culture of Salonica, Zionism managed to destroy.

  It is the annihilation and the funeral of my culture. In Jerusalem and in Tel-Aviv Lucena has been destroyed. Here my rabbis and my poets have died. Here my protests and words were silenced. Here what I speak of is not understood. Here, in the Jerusalem of which I had dreamed, here, not in exile.

  Yitgadal ve-yitkadash shimjá, Great and Blessed be Your Name.

  If there remains the possibility of resurrecting the dead, it will not be in Jerusalem. Possibly in Madrid, or in New York. Perhaps in London, or in Paris. The Ashkenazi’s have declared war on us and won, without us even knowing.

  May God our Father and the God of our fathers accept me and accept my attempt to remember my ancestors, the rabbis of the rabbis, those of us who lost our way and fell into the nets of Christianity. My unsuccessful attempts to forgive the Ashkenazi’s who caused the damage they caused us. Give us new and vigorous generations who can see what Lucena did not see in our final days. That which I would prefer not to see.

  GLOSSARY

  AshkabaPrayer in memory of the dead.

  AzifúIn Haquetiya, pornography.

  Embolico [los]In Haquetiya, they mess them up.

  Bar-mitzvaIn Judaism, the ceremony which is carried out when the boy reaches age thirteen (13 yrs.) at which time he is required to observe all the commandments and to begin to participate in the community’s religious life. For girls, the ceremony takes place at age twelve (12) and is called Bat-mitzva.

  Jatimá továGreetings for the New Year which is spoken the night of Yom Kippur.