I stared at the defilement, then caressed the pages closed, vowing never to look again. I put the book on her table.
“I can’t live as a Christian!” Rana suddenly yelled. “I’d sooner kill myself!”
Her shout seemed to split the air between us. “But your son?” I asked. “Who would care for him?! Now that…”
“I’d rather he were dead!”
Some Jewish parents had murdered their children, then committed suicide to avoid the forced conversion nine years earlier, acts which were written in a script I’d never comprehend. “You can’t mean that,” I told Rana.
She leaned forward, placed Miguel in my arms. Her eyes glowed with frightening resolve. She grabbed a thick bread knife from the table, jumped up, pointed it toward me, her body clenched with rage. “I would do it now if you told me that I must sew a shroud for my God!”
“You would be sinning gravely if you were to ever harm this baby. He is God’s ambassador to us. Would you kill Abraham, Isaac, Moses if they stood here before you?”
She held her knife in place.
“This child is Abraham, Isaac, Moses. He is the Lord our God!” I exclaimed.
Rana dropped her weapon and began to sob. I sat her down and caressed her hair. The baby seemed entranced by her wails. Yet when she calmed, he began to kick and fuss. I gave up on trying to soothe his discomfort and handed him back to her.
Without giving myself time to consider, I took the defiled Old Testament from the table, held my breath and threw it into the hearth.
Rana gasped. “Berekiah! No! What you’ve done…”
As smoke and flame crackled from the curling, yellowing pages, I spoke in a voice that seemed to come from Uncle: “I don’t need words written for me. Not even the Torah. And you don’t either. Keep an internal Judaism. God will meet you inside, just beyond where you speak to yourself. If Samson returns…and we will all pray for his safety, then let him talk of Christianity while you breathe Judaism. Your son will know the difference. And when he is old enough to keep secrets, you shall tell him of the bride that is the Sabbath who has been waiting inside him patiently all through his childhood. And you shall celebrate their wedding together.”
The baby sought her breast again. Rana fed him, stared at his face as if seeking a glance of that future ceremony beyond his eyes.
How wonderful, I thought with burning jealousy, to be able to offer your own nourishment to another being.
Does one’s life goal always appear without warning, in the space of a single instant? For I knew then that I sought to offer myself as fully as Rana to someone before I died.
She shrugged as if unconvinced. “We’ll see,” she said.
At the door, we kissed. “Rana, was Samson angry with Uncle or any of the other threshers? Did that have anything to do with his loss of faith.”
“No. It was the baby. It’s one thing to live in terror yourself, quite another to condemn one you love to a similar fate. He took a long look at the baby’s future as a Jew, and he didn’t like what he saw.”
“Do you want to come with me?” I asked. “You know you’re welcome to stay with us for as long as you need to. And you mustn’t be afraid of the Other Side. It’s superstition. You’ve no need to fear leaving the house.”
“No. Thank you.” She caressed my arm. “My parents will try to come to me. If they can…”
“I understand. Remember, build an inner garden where you can hide, where you can invite Miguel when he’s old enough.” I brushed the baby’s wisps of hair again. “And if Samson returns, send him to me. We can all still use the future tense when speaking of Jews in Portugal. Perhaps he will regain his faith.”
We kissed. Yet she called me back as I set out. Her hand was trembling by her lips. “Do you think that the Lord has taken Samson in revenge…for what he did to the Old Testament?”
I closed my eyes to search for an answer, and with a chill, realized I no longer trusted God. I inscribed the sweeping gesture Farid and I make to express the unknowable.
Chapter VIII
As I walked away from Rana’s home, my descent into a hollow world unwatched by God made me cling tightly to Uncle’s story of Rabbi Graviel. On reading his words again, I recalled the last lesson he had given Judah and me; in it, my master had spoken of the need for making a sacrifice, as well. This lesson was spoken during our Passover seder, last Friday. As turnip and saffron soup was being ladled by Esther into our wooden bowls, he had nodded to me and said, “The Lord showed favor upon Sarah…”
His words had been a cue for me to chant Torah from memory beginning with that verse in Genesis. In Portuguese, so Judah would understand, I began: “The Lord showed favor upon Sarah as He had promised, and made good what he had said about her. She conceived and bore a son to Abraham for his old age, at a time…”
My uncle had me continue through the following fifty-two verses. Pausing only to wet my lips with wine, I recounted the story of Isaac, son of Abraham and Sarah, whose name means “he laughed” in Hebrew—a reference to Abraham’s great pleasure at having been able to sire a son despite his one hundred years of age.
When I recited the verse, “The time came when God put Abraham to the test,” Uncle nodded with lifted eyebrows for me to talk directly to Judah. Cupping the boy’s chin, I received the gift of his gaze. In my best theatrical voice, I continued the story:
“‘Abraham!’ the Lord called, and Abraham replied, ‘Here I am!’
“God said, ‘Take your beloved only son Isaac and go to the land of Moriah. There you shall offer him as a sacrifice on one of the hills which I will show you.’”
Judah wriggled in his seat and bit his lip, disturbed by the prospect of Isaac’s death. I could sense him recoiling from the memory of our mother’s cursing, wounded in his soul by the way she denied him a place in her life. I took his hands in mine and told him how Abraham had bound Isaac and laid him atop an altar he’d built of wood, and how just as he raised his knife to cut life from his son, the Lord in the person of an angel intervened: “‘Do not raise your hand against that boy; do not touch him! Now I know that you are a God-fearing man. You have not withheld from me your son, your only son. I shall bless you abundantly and give you descendants until they are numerous as the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the seashore.’”
Judah was hardly put at ease by this peaceful ending; his face swelled with yearning for reassurance. My stomach sank as I realized it was cruel of Uncle and me to have thrust a sword of Torah through his fragile defenses. I fixed my hand at the back of his neck as he looked down and away from the eyes of the family, trying to caress encouragement into him. “Eat some more soup,” I said. “It’s getting cold.”
Uncle frowned, waved my advice away and said, “Now Judah dear, I had Beri tell you this story for a reason. Tell me what you think of it.”
Eyes focused on the little boy. But his lips were sealed tight. My hand began to pat encouragement at his back; he was near crying. I stared at Uncle with bound anger, wanting to shout, “Hasn’t he been through enough in five short years! Leave Judah be or so help me…!”
“I want to know what you think,” Uncle prompted. “I will never judge you badly for telling me the truth. Never! On that you have my word.”
“Tell us, Judah,” Esther said. She smiled maternally.
Mother was looking at him with a stoney face, had begun picking nervously at the wisps of hair by her temples. When I pinched his neck for him to get it over with, Judah whimpered, “I didn’t like it.”
“Me neither,” I interjected.
“Why didn’t you like it?” Uncle asked, shooing away my help with a flapping wrist.
Judah balled up his fists and rubbed his eyes. “Because…because I don’t know. Because I didn’t.”
“Tell me why?” Uncle said softly.
“Because Isaac didn’t do anything wrong!” Judah blurted out.
“Exactly,” Uncle said. He stood up and leaned toward the boy, his han
ds braced on the table. “Now I’m going to tell you a secret, Judah. And secrets are very powerful things. So you must not tell it to anyone. It is only for us. Okay?”
Judah nodded, and his mouth fell open as if he were suddenly entranced; he loved Uncle’s secrets.
“Many people say that this story means that sometimes it is necessary to make a sacrifice for God,” my master began. “A terrible sacrifice, if need be. And on one level they are right. Abraham was willing to kill his son. Then there are some people who say that it was wrong of God to have asked this of a man. And wrong of the man to have agreed. Maybe they are right. I sometimes believe so myself. But here is the secret…” Uncle lowered himself across the table so that his face was but a foot from Judah’s. His eyes were flashing. Lifting a finger to his lips, he whispered, “Do not forget that Isaac means, ‘he laughed.’ That is the proof we need to be sure that the Torah is speaking metaphorically, in riddles of a very particular sort. Isaac is not Abraham’s son in this world. He is a kind of son inside Abraham himself. He is a child made up of Abraham’s laughter and sorrow, anger and tenderness, fears and dreams. And what was God asking from Abraham? That he be willing to give these up. That he be willing to give up his innermost emotions and thoughts, his dearest possessions. That he untie the knots of his mind. That he extinguish part of himself. And why? So that a door might open inside him through which God could enter. Dearest Judah, this story is asking you to open yourself to God and nothing more.” Uncle reached out to tousle his nephew’s hair, then twist his nose. “God loves you so much that he is willing to tell a terrible story and have you think bad of Him. All this so that you may one day meet Him inside yourself. He wants to be able to hug you, nothing more. Okay?”
Judah, still entranced, gave a great big nod. With gratitude, I noted how children’s moods could be altered so easily.
The lesson for me in all this—at the time—had been to think twice before doubting Uncle. But now, as I walked toward home, I thought of what he had been telling us all about sacrifice. God had asked the Biblical Abraham to give up his most cherished possession. Had He asked Uncle to give up his own life? Why? Was it so that more books could be saved from Christian flames?
Such speculations were interrupted a few minutes later by a man shouting my name. Rana must have had intuition concerning her parents; her father, Benjamin, and mother, Rachel, were rushing toward me from the top of a coming ridge. “Beri,” Benjamin shouted, running to me, his dark eyes wild with fear. “Rana, is she…?”
“She’s fine. And Miguel is fine, too. They’re safe for now.”
“Thank God.” He placed his hands against my chest. “Listen, we cannot talk, we must get to her. Give our blessings to your entire family.”
“I will.” I held his arm. “Just one thing. Have you seen Samson? He was supposed to be in Lisbon buying…”
Benjamin raised his fingertips to my lips. “As of Sunday, my daughter is a widow,” he whispered. “Samson was captured when the riot broke. He was unprepared.”
Rachel twirled her hand in the air. “Smoke. Samson is nothing more than smoke.”
“And are the pyres still burning in the Rossio?” I enquired.
Benjamin nodded. “The fires will never go out as long as we remain ourselves.”
His words seared through the numbness which seemed to advance and recede inside me at its own pace, and I realized that I had been too long away from my family. Rushing back to the city, I found the eastern and northern gates clogged with crowds of Christians and Dominican friars. The young men among them were hitting one another, cursing, preparing like bear cubs for a chance to test their prowess. To the west, however, at the St. Catherine’s Gate, I found only a small crowd of drunken old men. Later, I discovered that word had spread through the city that the King would be sending troops from the east to re-establish order in his capital; hence, this negligence of the western gates.
Apparently, I looked less like a Marrano than even my mother imagined; the Old Christians whom I passed raised not a single sword, instead entreated me to share their crude jokes about women and Jews. For the sake of my life, may God forgive me, I acceded to their wishes. “How is a Jew like a praying mantis?” asked a man with a thin and empty face. When I shook my head, he said, “Spit at it, it continues praying. Lock it away, it still continues praying. Only solution is to take out your sword and cut off its head!”
Amazing that anyone could find that sort of thing amusing. But the Christians stained the air with their toothless howls, and I joined them as best I could.
As I strode away from them, I began to suspect that God had allowed me to enter Lisbon at this gate so that I might visit the New Christian arms dealer Eurico Damas on my way back to the Alfama; his home was in the wealthy Bairro Alto neighborhood crowning the slope above the great shantytown just ahead. As to this enviable location, Damas told my uncle shortly after his own voluntary conversion, when the two men were still on speaking terms, “I never want to forget where I came from. No faithful New Christian would.”
Honorable sentiments. But when he was out of sight, Uncle plucked a hair from the middle of my head. Shushing my yelp, he said, “Berekiah, that man’s noble words are as anchored in his soul as this filament was in your scalp. One little tug and it’s…” He swirled his hands in the air and feigned amazement at the disappearance of the hair. “Never trust anyone who gains by the death of another. Especially such a man who later shows off his prayer shawl in public.”
With the sun low in the sky, I climbed up the tangle of unpaved streets that switchback across the western hillsides toward the Bairro Alto. Passing the jumble of wooden barracks where the poorer classes spent lives of dreamless servitude, dirty faces regarded me over shoulders as if I were an unusual sight. Children scattered dust as they chased chickens and cats. Flies fed at the corners of their eyes. A tall African slave chained at his ankle to a rusted anchor, stared at me with the intense eyes of a storyteller recording the passing of a character. I recognized a kinship in him and nodded, but he turned from me as if he’d been suspected of a crime. The air was modulated with the scents of shame and anger. Yet here and there, a few homes sprouted gardens planted with marigolds and lavenders, cabbage, turnip and fava beans.
A cobblestone plaza umbrellaed with powerful chestnut trees marked the end of the King’s tolerance; beyond this point, the pinewood planks and cloth patches of these wretched squatters ended and the polished stone of Lisbon’s aristocracy began.
I recognized Damas’ house immediately; sprouting from the limestone cornice were horned, cavern-mouthed gargoyles which had petrified me as a child. From beyond the roof, where the courtyard undoubtedly was, smoke was rising in tufts. I slipped my hand in my pouch and took out my knife, concealed it in the waistband of my pants.
To my banging on the iron grating that fronted the door, a delicate boy with a sweet round face answered. He stood on his stoop, hands on his hips. A green silk shirt and scarlet vest billowed from his chest—presumably, hand-me-downs prematurely given. With an irritated gesture, he swept a long lock of amber hair away from his cheek and tucked it under the rim of his blue beret. His hands were ash-stained. He seemed to think I was a foreign peddler; in his lilting voice, he said slowly and definitively, “We don’t have any need of whatever you’re selling.” Rubbing his chin, he left a sweaty black streak behind.
“I’m not selling anything. I’m looking for Eurico Damas.”
He looked up skeptically into the sky, then down to the ground and shrugged. “I’d start digging if I were you.” He twisted his lips into a sneer and jerked his thumb upward. “He ain’t gonna make it up there if I got any say in it.”
“Dead?”I asked.
The boy knocked against the stone doorframe. “Couldn’t be no deader.”
“You’re sure?”
“Saw his body myself. Opened his mouth and spat in it to make sure.”
“Was he killed during the riot against the New Christian
s?”
He shrugged. “Look, Master Eurico had lots of enemies. Did you really expect him to survive? He should’ve hidden himself like a bedbug in a mattress seam.” He nodded up at me. “Who are ya, anyway?”
“Pedro Zarco,” I replied, using the Christian first name I’d accepted under the sword of conversion. “I live in…”
“Ah, Master Abraham’s nephew!”
“How do you know who I am?!”
The boy approached me, slipped his fingers around the grating of the gate as if planning to scamper up. From here, I saw that bruises and scrapes were what reddened his cheeks. “Master Eurico hated your uncle,” he said. “Talked all the time about capturing him and giving him the pinga just to see what curses and drivel would come out. Strange, but in a way, I think he kinda liked him, too. In the way that he liked anyone. But he thought your uncle was a little crazy…and dangerous.”
Pinga, meaning “drop,” was a torture in which droplets of boiling oil were dripped one by one across your body. Sometimes they spelled the victim’s name with the burns; Portuguese appellations can be very long and most people will confess to just about anything before a boiling drop even touches their family name.
“Are you a servant?” I asked.
“I’ve sent them away.” He peeled off his beret with the grin of someone revealing treasure. A cascade of silken amber hair dropped across his shoulders. He was most definitely a she. “I’m his widow,” she said with a great nod. She shrugged as if to excuse her previous disguise and unlocked the gate. She took my arm as if inviting me to dance. “Come!” she said.
So this boy was Damas’ child bride! She ran me into a bloodstained kitchen and tugged me through the larder into a courtyard shaded with orange trees thick with fruit. On the brick terrace by the back of the house, a raging pyre of clothing and wood was crackling. A colorful pile of shirts, coats and trousers was heaped nearby. Flakes from the flames were drifting up into the sky and falling back to earth like feathers. “I’ve been burning his things all night,” she said with an exhale of triumph. “The boots were the first to go. Eight pairs he had. One for each day of the week. And an extra one of sharkskin for Mass on Sunday. If he didn’t like my polishing, he’d change his water on them and make me start over. And let me tell you, that man’s pee smelled like a cat’s! Only problem now is that they stink when they burn! Just like he did!”
The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon Page 15
