The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon

by Richard Zimler

  “Here, it’s where I’m needed.” He laughs in a single exhale. “And where there’s wine. It’s not kosher, but it works just the same.”

  In the foyer, a last question which I hesitate to ask makes me pause before the door.

  Dom Miguel says, “Would I have saved all these Jews had I not known about my true past? That’s what you want to know, isn’t it?”

  “It’s an unfair question. You’ve acted honorably, more than…”

  “No, I wouldn’t. Not that I would have applauded the killing, mind you. I’m not a cruel person, and I’ve never believed the Jews very different from… I was about to say ‘us.’ A case of understanding arriving a little late again, no? But I’d have sat in my palace in Lisbon reading by silver candlelight. And when the screams pierced my window frames, I’d simply have had the shutters closed.”

  Back in Alfama, irritated with my sweaty exhaustion and the passionate afternoon sun of Lisbon, I knock on Father Carlos’ door to no avail, then enquire after him inside St. Peter’s Church. According to the caretaker, there is still no word of him.

  As for Diego, I wouldn’t know where to begin looking for him; with the burly Northerner probably waiting outside his apartment, he is surely not at home. And his only friends that I knew for certain were the members of the threshing group.

  Prodded by the hope of finding the names of Uncle’s smugglers or even a suspicious reference to an acquaintance, I decide to check the correspondence belonging to my master which I earlier discovered at the bottom of our genizah. Before going home, however, questions about Rabbi Losa’s whereabouts on Sunday tug me toward his door. In response to my sharp knocks, his gaunt face juts like a gargoyle out the window on the second floor. “What do you want?” he questions unpleasantly.

  Strange, but I’m relieved to see his face and hear his crusty voice. I reply, “Just to talk to you, dearest rabbi.”

  Perhaps he thinks I’m being sarcastic. “Go back to your accursed kabbalah!” he snaps.

  His shutters bang closed. I knock at the door, and sensing my good feelings for him betrayed, shout, “I’m not going away till we’ve talked!” As I wait, an irrational rage seethes in my gut. I begin kicking at the door. “I’m going to break it down! I swear, I’m going break your damn door down!” Fury rises into my head, burns my cheeks and temples. It is as if boiling alcohol has risen into the top chamber of an alchemist’s alembic, and I cannot stop myself from kicking. Obviously, whatever makeshift masonry was giving me firm foundation has suddenly crumbled. Ragged children gather to watch. A scruffy wood carrier shoots me a look of contempt. He dares to say, “You, Marrano, what are you doing there?!” Squatting, he lowers his baskets to the street. His eyes, seemingly unrimmed by lashes, are dim, imply only the vaguest approximation of human intelligence. When he stands, he folds his spindly arms over his chest and leans back into a posture of disdain.

  I must be crazed, because I march right up to him behind the silver of my dagger. “I’m about to hack your ears off!” I say, venom spraying from each word. “That’s what I’m doing here!”

  In an instant of clarity, I realize that I’m mimicking Farid’s presence in my thoughts. Is that how one gains earthly bravery—by embracing an image of courage and making it one’s own?

  Do we learn by carrying into our interior what was once exterior?

  The wood carrier continues to eye me defiantly but doesn’t speak. Fear and hate give him a foul odor, redden his cheeks. I turn back for Rabbi Losa’s house. An olive-skinned child with bangs of black hair curtaining his forehead watches me, waves. Suddenly, I realize it’s one of our neighborhood kids, Didi Molcho. Blessed be He who saves the little children. I wave back. He gasps suddenly, points behind me. I turn, jump away from a flying log. Too soon, another one is racing toward my eyes. It catches my ear with a glancing blow. I’m on the ground. Blood stains my fingertips as I explore the wound. My nemesis leans back and grins with sated content. His mouth is a mossy brown ruins. He spits and coughs. I stand, feign wooziness. As he laughs, I run forward, barrel up into him. He is frailer than I expect, all bones and whiskers and yellow skin. Knocked onto his behind, he gasps for breath, then shouts, “Marrano dog!’

  I stand over him menacingly and put a finger to my lips. “You’ve still got your ears. If you want to keep them then you’ll keep God’s silence.”

  He stands, brushes off his pants, looks away into the crowd. “He’s just a Jew,” he says to save face. “Not worth my trouble.”

  As I turn around to walk away, I catch Didi’s eyes. He knows to signal to me should the wood seller approach. He nods that all is well as we come together. “He’s gone?” I ask.

  “Already down the street. But listen, Beri, while you were fighting, Rabbi Losa got away. He ran from the house.”

  My mother is sweeping the courtyard slate when I arrive at home. She doesn’t ask where I’ve been. “Dirt everywhere!” she says to my questioning eyes.

  Reza is preparing codfish and eggs at the hearth.

  “Have you checked on Farid by any chance?” I ask.

  “He’s still in your mother’s bed. Oh, and look on the table,” she adds. “Something for you from Master Solomon.”

  Solomon, the mohel whom I found hiding in the micvah, has dropped off a hulking Latin translation of Averrões commentary on Aristotle’s “De Anima”—perhaps in thanks for liberating him from the bathhouse. “When did he stop by?” I question.

  “About an hour ago.”

  “Did he mention why he left it?”

  Reza shows a fleeting smile. “‘A present for my little Shalaat Chalom,’ he said.”

  I lug the book to my room and drop it to my bed. Through the inner window, I see Cinfa scrubbing the floor of the store. She looks up with faded eyes as I climb inside. “In the night, I gave water to Farid like you told me,” she says in a dry voice. “And he ate two eggs I made.”

  “Thank you. That was sweet. Are you okay?”

  “Fine. Why don’t you stay home for a while? Eat something.”

  “Listen, I’m going to go down to the cellar. You can come with me if you like. But then I’ve got to go out again.”

  “To find who killed Uncle?” she enquires.

  “Who told you that?”

  “Beri, I’m not stupid. I hear conversations, know what…”

  A single knock on the door halts her explanation. Without waiting for our reply, Senhora Faiam, our neighbor from across Temple Street, rushes in. Her black dress is torn at the collar, red scratches arc across her cheek toward her lips.

  “The Old Christians?!” I shout, rushing to her, thinking she’s been assaulted.

  “No, no,” she says. “Nothing like that.” She grips my hand. Her pale eyes are rimmed red with sleeplessness. Her jowls sag. “I saw you from my house,” she continues. “I’m sorry about Master Abraham.” When she lifts my hand to her lips and gives it a gentle kiss, I sniff at her odor of distress. “Beri, we need you,” she says. “Can you come to my house?” So Cinfa won’t hear, she tugs me down to her level, whispers into my ear, “Bring talismans. An ibbur has possessed Gemila and is clinging as tight as can be.” She grips my hand hard. “And Beri, the ibbur says he knows who killed your uncle!”

  Chapter XIII

  From our storage cabinet in the cellar, I gather what I need to exorcise an ibbur and head to Senhora Faiam’s house. Gemila, her daughter-in-law, sits bound with rope to a wooden bench in the kitchen, her hands tied together, breathing in gulps, famished for air. How to describe the victim of a possession? Twice before I have seen the symptoms: the white skin like waterlogged parchment; the tormented eyes; the rims of crusted blood inside the lips and nostrils. Gemila is no different, perhaps even worse; she has already ceded a good portion of her human shell, begun to take on the demon’s form. Her chestnut locks are matted with shit, stuck in clumps to her cheeks and neck. The pinky of her left hand has clearly been broken, sticks out to the side at an impossible angle. Her loose-fitt
ing white frock is stained everywhere, looks as if she has been swimming in mud and blood. A being from the Other Side has slithered around her soul, I think, and my first urge is to run. But Uncle has taught me that ibburs are only metaphors—very powerful ones, it is true, but no match for even an incipient kabbalist. And if this demon truly knows who killed my master…

  Gemila suddenly tilts her head back as if it is too heavy to control. When she gazes at me, her eyes lose their terror and connote only a contemplative depth of vision. They fix upon the wisps of incense smoke now rising from my censer.

  Bento, Gemila’s husband, touches my shoulder and shows me a lost smile meant to ask for help. His black hair is tied back tightly with a blue ribbon, and a weeks growth of beard sprouts thickly on his cheeks. His forehead and hands, pants and shirt, are all streaked black with sweat and the grease of fleece. He earns a living as a traveling shearer and must have made it safely back into Lisbon only to find his wife like this.

  Belo, their three-legged dog, normally tethered to Gemila by a fierce fidelity, has backed up against the door to the bedrooms and is staring at her with frightened eyes.

  “Sente-se bem?, do you feel all right?” I ask Gemila in Portuguese.

  It is a stupid question, I admit. She offers me only silence. Eyes as cold as obsidian resist my penetration. I lift her roped hands. Her pulse races unevenly, as if her essences are scurrying in all directions. She frowns and stares contemptuously at my touch. She gulps again for air. Cringing, she screams in Hebrew, “A bell is falling through my chest!” Her eyes roll white, then fix me with a frigid stare.

  Senhora Faiam whispers, “She is ricocheting between our world and the demonic sphere. When I nod, she adds, “We have found that the ibbur speaks no Portuguese, only Hebrew.”

  “When did this pain begin?” I ask Gemila in the holy language.

  Her chest heaves, then stills. “There is no pain—this vessel is frail but adequate,” comes a voice. It is not Gemila’s. It is monotone, leached of warmth. The Hebrew is Castilian accented.

  “Who are you?” I ask.

  “White Maimon of the two mouths.”

  I look away for a moment to gather my resolve; this is no ordinary ibbur, but a demon. “Why do you say, ‘two mouths?’” I ask.

  “One to devour the children of Anusim, the forced converts. Made of blood. With needles for teeth.”

  Biting at the air for breath, she suddenly spits red at me. Senhora Faiam gasps. As I wipe my neck, Gemila opens her mouth. Ruined teeth are coated with fresh blood. She laughs.

  “God forgive her,” Senhora Faiam moans. “She ate glass just before I ran to you. I tried to stop her but the ibbur can only live on minerals. He’s…”

  I wave away the Senhora’s cascade of words, face Gemila. “Why have you come?” I ask.

  “Zedek is divorced from Rahamim.”

  This demon knows kabbalah! He refers to the break between female justice and male compassion that has given rise to a reign of evil in our era.

  “I come with Rahamim,” I say. “Together, Rahamim and I will marry this woman.”

  “You may enter and ride me, but you will not emerge!” the demon warns.

  It is a double entendre on Gemila’s sex and the chariot of mystical vision; few who ride it can return unscathed. Referencing a second-century Jewish sage who emerged safely back into our world after a journey in the chariot, I say, “I come in peace, like Rabbi Akiva.” Raising my middle finger over the girl, I invoke the power of Moses.

  She rears back. With challenge grounding his voice, the demon spits out, “I am neither Amalekite nor asp! And Moses is dead!”

  “It is always Passover,” I reply. “Moses parts the Red Sea even as we speak.”

  “Then soon he, too, will be on the other side unable to help you.”

  “So you refuse to let the woman guide her own vessel?” I ask.

  “She has let me inside, and I will stay with her and give her the solace which your God has refused. Otherwise, I would be an ungrateful guest. Don’t you agree?”

  “As you wish.” I turn to Bento. “Three things I will need. Cold water from the Tagus. Fill the largest tub or cauldron you can find with it. It must fit Gemila. We have one if you can’t…”

  “We have one! What else?!”

  “A sole. Bring me the smallest one you can find. And for God’s sake, keep it alive. And lastly, get Cinfa to show you where our magic dye is. Bring it to me and spill some into a plate.”

  “What will we do?” Senhora Faiam asks.

  “All filth and dirt heighten the Other Side. So the Zohar says. And so this demon knows. Gemila must be cleaned.”

  “You may even pare my fingernails, it will do no good!” the ibbur hisses. “The Sabbath is just another sunset to me, and you are a shadow trying to hold a fire.”

  “And the sole?” Senhora Faiam whispers, so the demon won’t hear.

  “Fish are immune to the likes of Maimon,” I answer. “It will help us in the struggle.”

  While Bento is out, I instruct Senhora Faiam on how we will chant Psalm Ninety-One to prepare Gemila. The Senhora grips the censer chain with both hands as she listens.

  “Take that foul odor from me, you shit-filled goat!” the demon suddenly shouts. “And know this, Berekiah Zarco—if you attempt to remove me from my home you will never find your uncle’s murderer!”

  The evil beings words rip speech from me. I stare into Gemila’s dark eyes to make contact with him. Her head swirls in a lazy circle as if plagued by irresistible sleep. When she straightens up, she laughs from her gut.

  “So you’ve seen the murderer?!” I demand.

  “I have! But if you raise Moses’ finger against me again, I will cling as tight to the secret as I do to this woman.”

  “And you will tell me the identity of the murderer if I leave you be?” I ask.

  “Yes.”

  “Why should I trust you?”

  “Maimon does not lie,” he says. “I have even dared to tell your Lord the truth. I do not fear him. I have nothing to lose. Only Jews like this sinning whore have a need to lie before their Lord!”

  Senhora Faiam takes my arm, “Would you listen to an ibbur, Berekiah?”

  “But he knows!” I shout. “He knows who did it!”

  “Untie me!” the demon demands.

  I pry myself from Senhora Faiam’s fevered grasp. With fists raised to her cheeks, she shouts, “Would you serve Samael, the Devil, to avenge your uncle?!”

  My confession clutches my throat: Yes! I would do anything to find him! Anything!

  So what is holding me back? Gemila herself? She jerks upright with a grunt, her neck craning as she lifts up the bench to which she is tied. When she lets it drop with a crash, she writhes within her bindings as if impaled by a burning sword. She bites at the air for breath. When the tide inside her ebbs, she stares at me with her impenetrable eyes. “Untie me!” she demands.

  Yelping turns me. Belo is scratching furiously at the door to the courtyard with his single front paw.

  My uncle’s voice sounds inside me: “Do not abandon the living for the dead!” His hands grip my shoulders as I turn back to the demon. I begin to chant Psalm Ninety-One: “You shall find safety beneath his wings, shall not fear the hunters’ trap by night or the arrow that flies by day, the pestilence that stalks in darkness or the plague raging at noonday…”

  “You will never find the murderer!” Maimon shouts. “Never!”

  Senhora Faiam follows my lead, and the plies of our separate voices are united by the spinning wheel of psalm. We chant together: “You shall watch the punishment of the wicked. For you, the Lord is a safe retreat. You have made Him your refuge. No disaster shall befall you, no calamity shall come upon your home. For he has charged his angels to guard you wherever you go…”

  Beyond my words, I turn inwardly from the demon, ascend the steps of silent prayer. Once atop a glowing parapet of inner vibration, supported by the bellows of my chest, I
raise again my middle finger over Gemila. She looks around with darting eyes, strains against her ropes, mumbles obscenities in Hebrew, shrieks. Laughs squirt from her. She offers me a grin of beguiling enchantment pierced by a flicking tongue. But she is far below, entwined inside the psalm melody I now entrust to Senhora Faiam. God’s secret names are rising from my throat, flowing in and out of my nostrils as I match my breathing to the rhythm of the words. Light and dark entangle, then separate into stark relief. The world is lit as if by black flame. Time recedes into the distance, and in my heightened state, I see that it is the terror of abandonment that gives rise to Gemila’s laughter. Ascending still higher on the winged melody of psalm, I reach down to caress her cheek. Pain. A grip of evil. Cold wind. Blood sluicing across my hand. Shrieks. Senhora Faiam washing me.

  “The demon has bitten you!” she shouts.

  I wave her away, take up the chant again till the room grays and Maimon and I are staring at each other across a charged space which breathes slowly in and out. Bento approaches my body, touches its shoulder. “The bath is ready,” he says.

  Gemila struggles like an animal as we strip her. I turn toward the bedroom; Gemila’s little boy, Menachim, is sitting inside, hugging Belo, crying. “You must leave us!” I say.

  He jumps up, runs past us with the dog at his heels. Together, they dart out of the house.

  The river water is pure and frigid. Gemila’s shrieks cut the air. Fists form, tendons strain on her neck. Her arms flail free of the ropes. A blow catches Senhora Faiam and sends her crashing. Gemila’s face contorts in banshee joy. Blood drips from her mouth, sends pink clouds through the churning water. She writhes as we hold her, every muscle slithering toward escape.

  Soaked cold but heated by inner prayer, I chant as Bento holds his wife under. Until the airless cold numbs the fight out of her. Her teeth chatter. I hold the smoking incense under her face. Her lips go gray and her eyes glaze.

  We lift her out. As Senhora Faiam dries her hair with a towel, she whispers soothing words. Bento kisses her hands.