by Alon Hilu
And upon my return to the Jewish Quarter by way of its main gate, open at this hour to all comers, I once again lose my way, and instead of continuing towards my family residence with its spacious buildings I walk to Suleiman Negrin, the barber; although my hair has not yet grown sufficiently I arrive at the entrance to his shop, where he is not working, but stands playing with the leeches he keeps in a glass jar.
Negrin opens his arms to embrace me and adds a kiss and then another on my cheek, Mabruk, he congratulates me on my marriage and my woman, though straight away he discerns my sad eyes and filthy tunic and soot-blackened face and seats me in his chair and spreads his barber’s apron to towel my head and instantly he understands what has befallen me from start to finish, how my evil parents have given me over to marriage before my time and how I have laboured in vain at my task and how they have attempted to undo the witchcraft, and Negrin embraces me ever more boldly and kisses my cheeks and lips and recounts that this terror ambushes the hearts of all males, from the insects to the mammals, from the monkeys to the Harari brothers, and he adds words of comfort and condolences and places in my hand a small cord to be tied at the base of my organ in order to ensure that the life and blood do not seep away, and he instructs me how to slip this cord on and what to do, and he prepares me for this task of copulation, and adds that once I succeed in my mission I should return to him and he will teach me one or two other things.
How happy I was after doing as he instructed me; I led that organ to the stiff, tight passageway and passed through walls of thick and obstinate skin and paved the way through twisted channels, and the cord at the base of my loins sustained my soul in that valley of death, that it should not fear evil or fall silent or retreat, and my emissary made his odd way into Markhaba, astonished at the fuss his confrères make over this dark passage, and when Markhaba let forth with a scream and the wicker bed filled with a red stain and the scent of blood rose in the room, I swore an oath that this visit, which I had undertaken in spite of myself, would be my last to this vale of horror.
On that very same day I found a way to inform my friend the barber that I would meet him at Bab Alfouqara one hour after the muezzin’s third call, and the servant boy returned with a spoken message from the barber that my proposal had been accepted and that it was his intention to close the gate of his shop earlier than usual and that at nightfall he would come to meet me there.
Markhaba, who had set out in the company of Maman to visit her sisters in order to ply them with the whole story of her intercourse and hopeful impregnation, left me with an evening utterly free of her presence, and thus I was able to prepare myself for my meeting by shaving my cheeks and clipping the nails of my fingers and toes and washing with copious amounts of hot water that small organ that had known such great hardships and was now plucked and shrunken and which experienced, with the passing of water, a splinter of pain hinting at the origins of the grave illness that would take hold of me in the future and which has burdened you, my happy friend, with difficult labour that you endure in silence.
No man roams the vicinity of Bab Alfouqara at this time of night, for it is none other than a deserted place of commerce where shops stand silent and sacks of tea and coffee lie forsaken and I reach this place anxiously excited about the act soon to take place and I investigate to make certain there are no passers-by or loiterers or momentary visitors and indeed the area is bereft of people, even the figure of Negrin alkhalaq has yet to materialise, and Aslan ponders whether the barber is mocking him, whether he should return quickly home.
However, in the end my arc-browed friend the barber does, in fact, arrive, spouting apologies for his beggar clients who never leave him alone and wish to engage him in senseless conversation and gulp glasses of tea at his expense, and his green eyes sparkle and Aslan is excited beyond measure and listens but hears nothing, and he envisions the two of them holding one another and the whole matter seems so distant and implausible.
The barber queries Aslan and asks after his health but Aslan knows not what to respond, and it appears that Negrin is speaking about all manner of preparations and powders that have arrived from the nations of the world, and about his plans to turn his barber’s shop into a place favoured by well-heeled Damascenes, certain is he that it is not his lot to search for lice and fleas on the clothes of his beggar clients, nor is it his lot to hold leeches to their bodies to free their blood of diseases, and as he speaks of all these matters Aslan places his hand on the barber’s thigh and the barber’s fingers entwine with his and Aslan inclines his neck towards the jabbering barber and draws closer to him and holds his fingers and brings him nearer to his lips and to that terrible act punishable by death, and lo, each falls upon the other’s neck with deep kisses, and Suleiman’s chattering tongue drowns his words in Aslan’s moist mouth and suckles the honey and milk under his tongue, and in his turn Aslan sends a wet emissary between the barber’s lips and their tongues curl over one another, and now Aslan wraps his arms around the barber and they become one man, whole, their clipped whiskers touching, their noses rubbing, their thick eyebrows blending, their hairy thighs slapping, their wide feet mingling, and they are reflected, increased, changed in one another, and deep gurgles rise from the two of them as from one man and indeed they are as Adam before the rib was taken from him, in that deserted alleyway visited by none, near a gate no man passes through for it is blocked and hidden and leads to no end or hope and is known to all as Bab Alfouqara.
My happy friend, the foundling, I will go so far as to reveal to you without being remiss with a single detail that against my will and quite early I attained a state of ecstasy, and lo, that same figure that reflects and mocks me ad infinitum becomes, in a single moment, separate and flaccid, dim, repulsive, and now the potentates of a new regime have come to govern me and their countenance is grave and they are law-abiding, and a great cry arises from them, that I must cease forthwith from any act to which I am drawn, and the barber leaning over me turns acrid, his skin pricks, his fingers are as nettles and his legs as thistles, and he is nothing like that Umm-Jihan, soft and good-hearted, who is all charms and sweetness, and I push alkhalaq away from my person, mortified at the pungently aromatic stain spreading across my clothing, and he wishes to continue sucking honey and milk from my tongue and he draws near once again, but from his own garments rises the smell of vomit and beggary, and he is like those large leeches in his jars, and I spit the taste of his limp kisses from my mouth and push him out of my sight, and he asks only another moment, but in the end he is obliged to dive into the empty sacks and satiate himself there in the way of Onan son of Yehuda, and I swear an oath to myself that I will not gaze upon his evil face again nor will I return to his wretched shop, and I will bring my passion to the paths of knowledge and wisdom and I will stand guard over it well, and I race quickly away from Bab Alfouqara, my eyes steadfast on the path ahead.
5
FOR THE NEXT six months I saw nothing of Suleiman alkhalaq and I did not visit Bab Alfouqara and I put away from my soul all thoughts of debauchery, and instead I released myself from the vow I had taken not to come to my wife’s gates, and from time to time I would fulfil my manly obligation and her conjugal need to become, at last, pregnant, and the matter was sorely difficult for me.
On Father’s command I ceased attending the Talmud Torah and instead was required to accompany him throughout the day, releasing goods at the customs office, signing Arab farmers to mortgages and loans at thirty per cent interest, and assisting him in his disputatious dealings with other merchants like him, accumulating piles of silver as dust.
Father and I pass from place to place, a wall of silence between us, and when he speaks to me I seal my ears shut and my answers are short and nasty and he responds with a familiar dose of his wrath, and thus the days pass for me in sadness and misery.
At eventide, when the gates of the Jewish Quarter close and we must not venture abroad, I have no choice but to enter my small room and there
awaits me that holy and pious creature, whose sole desire is to suckle from me the little life left in my blood, and she entreats me to come unto to her as a man comes to a maiden for the purpose of being fruitful and multiplying the Jewish people, and each time I am forced to make unique excuses, for example, that the odour from her mouth is that of death itself, or for example that the mole on her back is exceedingly uncomely, and I continue to insult and offend and curse her, and call her majdubeh and khamarah until she stops entreating me, but when she is returned to me after the days of her monthly bleeding she begins her lament once again, that from the time her virginity was taken from her I have not known her save on several occasions, and I swear to myself that I will send her away and live a life of loneliness, and perhaps I will take upon myself the Christian religion or Islam and I will be excommunicated and I will pass from city to city and village to village until I take up residence in the hills of Lebanon or the desert of Tadmor, and there I will remain alone all my days and none of my fellow Jews will find me.
Sometimes Father brings me to the residence of the governor of Damascus, north of the Jewish Quarter, and after we walk the entire length of Azm Palace, making our way past merchants selling dusty carpets and jewellery of silver and gold, we find ourselves at the entrance to the great square, and Father always scolds me to straighten my robe and brush from it the crumbs of egg and pickled cucumber still upon it from the breakfast meal, and he instructs me how to comport myself among important officials and how to bow deeply should the governor, Sharif Pasha, pass before us, and on our way there we move among many men and I am flooded with wonder at their bodies, that no two are alike, that there are tall men and short men, dark-skinned men and light-skinned men, blue-eyed men and brown-eyed men, porters pulling wagons, muscled Somalis and Ethiopians, fat men and thin men, a riot of aromas, hair, muscles and sweat that is pleasant to my nostrils, and they are powerful and well formed, and it seems there are none among them who are weak or feeble or faint-hearted or pale like the Torah scholars and the rabbis and Aslan of the white hands who is moving among them, astonished, and he yearns for them sorely.
Father conducts business with the rich, important men at Azm Palace and tries to teach me the intricacies of commerce and lending and bargaining and strange calculations according to the Muslim calendar, and he speaks of matters concerning property and merchandise destined to arrive and then depart after being taxed, and commission fees and the greasing of palms with baqshish, but Aslan pays no heed and does not listen, for nothing of these matters interests him, only the shapely palace attendants, tall and proud as they pass through the elegant corridors of Azm Palace, which is near to the perfume market, and he knows and reminds himself that the acts he wishes to engage in with them are lawfully and rightfully forbidden to him for as long as he lives among his fellow Jews.
The more Aslan decrees a state of abstinence on himself and swears oaths that he will not visit Suleiman alkhalaq or the Bab Alfouqara, and the more he reminds himself of the feeling of repulsion that arose in his body at the conclusion of that act and also the great danger involved for the two of them if some evil eye should spot them, the more his evil and forbidden desire grows and increases; that desire which was noisily expelled from his doorstep returns, stealing inside through slatted windows, and each morning Aslan awakens to an erect, unsheathed rod and the memory of sweet dreams still in his mouth.
Each Sabbath Eve, when Father recites the blessings over the wine, a deep, Aslanish sorrow settles on Aslan as he regards his siblings and uncles and aunts and cousins, and he sighs to himself, for he has not been created in their image, and he grieves for the grey and wretched life he must live among those who are neither friends nor fellows, and with whom discourse is troubling, and they eat riz b’hamoud – rice in a sour sauce – and kibabat alpasha – meat patties with pine nuts – and they speak, always, of commerce and banking, and of the competition between themselves and the lords Harari, and in his eyes they are as empty as eggshells, and their merriment is foreign to him, and when, on occasion, they scold him – Ya Aslan, when will we see a belly on Markhaba already? – he retreats into himself even further, and his organ shrivels between his legs for, truth be told, he has neither the strength for, nor the intention of, copulating with her again.
And sometimes they spend the Sabbath at the home of her father, the Khaham-Bashi Yaacov Antebi, and there, too, Aslan fails to find his place, feeling among them like a non-Jew, their supplications foreign to him, their intense swaying as they pray odd to him, and afterwards they speak of the Messiah yet to come, who will save the Jews from their sorrows; and all these words are insipid in Aslan’s eyes, and he mocks them in his heart, asking how this messiah will reach them and who will send him and to what end, and there are times when Aslan amuses himself with the thought that an angel of goodwill will one day appear in the fourth room in his father’s house, that he will open the door and jump into the wicker nuptial bed and send Markhaba home to her parents, and then he will face Aslan, and cast upon him his mantle and tell him that the time has come to reveal the great secret, and Aslan will ask, disengaging himself from troubled sleep, which secret the angel is speaking of, and the angel will say, Lo, I hereby anoint you as a prophet, and he will place before him a white ass to ride upon so that Aslan may save the Jews from their distress, and Aslan will mount the horse in his tattered nightclothes and stocking cap, and he will walk and ride among the Jews and they will say, Is that not the Aslan we once knew, and they will bow and prostrate themselves before him, and when the sign is given Aslan will gallop far away from there and they will chase after him and grab hold of the ass’s tail and plead for his salvation, but he will turn his back to those whose knees did not bend before him and those whose mouths did not bestow kisses upon him.
Alas, none of these things ever comes to pass, and not only is Aslan never awakened at dawn by an angel, but the first sight he meets upon opening his eyes is a bitter puss, followed by the sound of curses and arguments he did not know Markhaba was capable of, until Aslan is compelled to ask his younger brother to come and sleep in their room, and when his brother Meir refuses, Aslan commands one of the servants to bring his sleeping mattress near the room, to serve as Aslan’s protector from the demands of that woman.
And lo, by the end of six months of marriage, Aslan has forgotten the fright he felt at his previous encounter with the barber Suleiman and he begins to desire another meeting with him, to embark with him on a new path, so that late one afternoon, without pausing to reflect, Aslan sets out for the barber’s shop with a proposal to pick up where they had left off.
His rod protruding and his nose sniffing the air and his arms wide open, Aslan bounds eagerly for the barber’s, whose shop remains dreary, Suleiman engaged not in catering to the wealthy of Damascus but to drawing the blood of his pauper friends, setting leeches on their backs until they well up hugely, engorged with blood.
When the barber takes notice of Aslan gesturing to him from the shop window, Aslan is surprised to see that Suleiman’s green eyes do not sparkle with the light of desire, but rather, they smoulder murkily with disgust, and he turns his face away from him and refrains from casting his glance in Aslan’s direction, and this matter is very peculiar in Aslan’s eyes.
Aslan enters Suleiman’s shop and asks for a cut, even though his hair is shorter than usual and his sideburns neatly trimmed. The barber seats him on the chair and begins massaging his head and lo, the same evil and heavy silence that Aslan knows so well from his roamings with his father now stands between Aslan and the barber, and they are as two competitors shooting arrows of derision and hatred at one another.
And yet, the barber’s silence merely serves to pique Aslan’s curiosity, and Suleiman becomes even more amiable in his eyes, and Aslan desires to comprehend the meaning of his reticence, and he knows not with which words to open, until finally he wishes the barber, belatedly, good tidings, and in the words of the Damascene saying, Alsalaam bijir
calaam, To wish one good tidings brings on conversation. Aslan begins to interrogate the barber about all manner of preparations the latter wished to bring to Damascus and why he has failed to do so. And the barber explains that the customs duties are so high and the Jewish customs agents – among them Aslan’s father – have schemed to deprive him of his livelihood, and he hates them with all his soul, and then Aslan understands why it was that his friend seemed estranged to him, but the barber, as if reading his mind, hastens to correct the impression that he holds any grudge against Aslan, for it is nothing other than concern for his wife, whom he wed only shortly before Aslan’s own marriage and who is now carrying his child, and he is of the mind to cease and desist from all that he has done previously, and he hopes that what has transpired between them will be forgotten and that not even a single word will be spoken about it.
Aslan hears these words while his cheeks are still covered in lather, before the blade has passed over them, and they increase his pleasure doubly, for the more reticent the barber becomes, the more Aslan is aroused, and in no time at all Aslan is wishing they would once again taste from each other’s body and become one man, strong and sturdy, and to that end Aslan gropes the front of the barber’s tunic until Suleiman’s organ stands erect and the barber says as if to himself, If we retire to the corner of my shop and close the door behind us no one will have an inkling of this matter; and even though his pregnant wife awaits at home, she takes no interest in the wheelings and dealings in which he engages to provide for his family, her only worry the foetus in her womb, that he emerge into the world healthy and whole and that she may nurse him and that he may grow up to be a Torah scholar, an observant Jew; and lo, the barber carries out the plan by covering the window of his shop with a thick cloth and bolting the door, and in a second the two young men are touching one another’s organs, and Aslan strives to reach that sweet aim that has occupied him nightly, and he surprises the barber with his zeal, racing to lower his friend’s undergarments to his knees, and with gentle, hovering strokes he caresses the barber’s engorged organ and its deep-red cap with the tips of his fingers, in so different a way from Markhaba, who presses upon him like a vice grips a piece of wood; and at the same time and in the same manner Suleiman caresses Aslan so that four hands and two organs are mixed and rolled together, and from there Aslan continues to his true aim, for only one wish, one desire, has filled his soul through six long months of desolation during which he has spent his days with Markhaba, and he extends his tongue – that very same tongue that once wrestled with Suleiman’s own choice tongue – to lick the beloved organ, and his curiosity is piqued to know what will be its flavour, and his belly tumbles with delight, and in one quick motion he slips the whole large head with the smile-shaped slit that runs the length of it into his mouth, and begins to suck the marrow of life from his friend the barber, who, for his part, hastens to do the same to Aslan’s organ, and suddenly the barber shouts, Careful, your teeth! And Aslan resumes his suckling, but this time he is careful not to expose his teeth, only his thick lips, which rise and fall and suck and suckle, for here is the origin and the goal, the cause and the effect, the tainted and the holy; and the two men fall to the floor, exhausted from holding one another thus, and there they grasp one another, and they do not notice that the corners of the cloth covering the window of his shop have rolled back slightly, exposing them to the street.