by Alon Hilu
Aslan has departed from this scene of his family quaking before the manly soldiers and stepped out into the street, where battalions of soldiers armed with bayonets have forced their way into every home, from the grandest to the most meagre, when suddenly he hears someone greeting him and he turns his head to find himself facing the French consul, whose name he has already forgotten, and the man is elegant, stately, his eyes prominent and his moustaches curled and waxed at the tips, and, as always, he reeks of the scents of faraway Europe. The consul recognises Aslan as the young man who agreed most graciously to climb the ladder and open the chapel from within for the Capuchin monks gathered at the monastery, and Aslan returns his greeting warmly, the translator always at the consul’s side now interpreting the consul’s proud words to Aslan, for Sharif Pasha has appointed him, just the morning before, to head, in the name of the ruling regime, the search for the missing monk who is suspected of having been abducted by the Jews for unknown purposes, and he adds an amiable request to Aslan to reveal at long last where Tomaso is hidden.
Aslan issues a brief and nervous laugh and waits at the side of the consul to see what the soldiers might dredge up and lo, apart from the tears of Jewish women and the shouts of frightened children, apart from the lamentations of the Torah scholars for the holy and sanctified Sabbath queen that has been desecrated by gentiles and Muslims, apart from all this, no other sound can be heard throughout the Jewish Quarter, neither that of the tortured Father Tomaso nor his heroic saviours, and the Count de Ratti-Menton regards the homes of the Jews made of clay, clinging one to the next as if seeking salvation, and he relates to Aslan that he is fearful for the fate of dear Father Tomaso, and he watches the soldiers as they depart from the homes of the Jews clutching copper vessels and jewels and victuals, confiscated at their will, and they wave their hands in front of their noses to rid themselves of the smells from the Jews’ homes, the smell of oil lamps and Sabbath stew and gruel left standing on a paraffin stove for long hours, a holy, suffocating stench.
My happy friend, why did I not hasten to take leave of the French consul, why did I not proffer my hand and kiss his cheek and depart from him in peace; why, instead, did I acquiesce to his small, matter-of-fact questions, when he asked who were my friends among the Jews, and behold, my pale pink tongue, the very same tongue wagging now between my gums, that tongue claimed complete freedom to behave as it saw fit and produced the name of the barber Suleiman Negrin as one of my closest friends, describing with precision the location of his shop and adding a morsel of gossip to pique the consul’s interest: that alongside the barber’s shop was posted a notice hung there by the missing Tomaso with regards to the public auction, and the consul thanked Aslan brightly and sent him on his way.
Aslan returned to his frightened family and to his father, who stood before him and slapped him soundly: Who gave you permission to leave the house, you piece of filth and excrement! Maman chose the moment to reveal that Aslan was in the habit of leaving the house of late and that there were nights when his bed was empty and his wife left alone and abandoned; and this angered Father until he was burning with murderous rage. What business do you have wandering about, you contemptible rogue! And although Aslan was already a married man, his father rained blows upon him one after another as though he were still a walad zrir, a small child, and they mocked and scorned Aslan until he fled to his room to sob into his pillows.
My happy friend, that evening the Khaham-Bashi came to our home, crestfallen, and told how the French consul had forced him to go to the small Jewish cemetery, which bordered on the lower part of the Jewish Quarter, where there were ancient tombstones from bygone days, and he had demanded that the freshest graves be dug up to see whether the body of the monk had been concealed there, and although the Khaham-Bashi had explained that it was unthinkable for a gentile to be buried among Jews, for the matter was contrary to the Jewish religion, the consul nonetheless ordered one of the gravediggers to take up a shovel and dig, exhuming two newly buried bodies that had not yet begun to decompose, one of an infant that had died in its cradle, its strangled throat still showing blue, and the other of an older man overcome by a malevolent disease, and the Khaham-Bashi stood next to my father and wept bitterly, and Aslan could not remove his gaze from them; here, before him, was a vision of the end of days, when they would all be thrashing about in the dirt and the blackened waters of Elnahar Alaswad roiling beneath them.
After that Father and the Khaham-Bashi sequestered themselves in one of the rooms and whispered between themselves in low tones, and by bending my ear to catch bits and pieces of their conversation I was able to learn of my calamity, for it became apparent that the barber Suleiman Negrin had been detained on the orders of the French consul and had been taken, bound and beaten, to the Saraya prison, and several Christian thugs had taken shots at his face so that the length and breadth of it was now stippled with blood.
Before falling into a dead faint Aslan wished to extract information and additional details, such as on what grounds Suleiman alkhalaq had been detained, and what his interrogators had learned, but Aslan was unable to gather his wits, for just then the evil shrew imprisoned in his womb ballooned up inside him, bursting forth and filling the hollow, empty space between his ears with howls of pain for Aslan’s imminent demise, for would not Suleiman Negrin reveal to the Muslims and gentiles the story of his forbidden copulation? And this secret would not only pull down upon him his own death, but also his disgrace, that very same disgrace that Aslan had attempted to flee throughout his childhood and youth, and Aslan turned to his father wishing to look into the depths of his eyes and confess his crime and beg forgiveness; and if his crime warranted death, so be it, he would die in the Saraya Square. But his father was short-tempered and preoccupied and would not listen to him, he merely brushed him aside, preoccupied with matters far more important than those bothering Aslan, and my uncles and cousins and father-in-law marched in and out of Father’s study, everyone conferring and weighing options, for a great terror had fallen upon them that perhaps this incarceration was only the first of a larger plot whose end would be a guilty verdict on all the residents of Kharet Elyahud and the evil which had been perpetrated on generation after generation of Jews would be visited upon them as well and would threaten to annihilate them, and once again the Holy One Blessed Be He would fail to save them from calamity.
3
AT EVENTIDE ASLAN lay in his prickly double bed gazing at the candle’s flame flickering above its wick, drawing long shadows across the high walls, and he tortured himself with thoughts of his friend the barber at that very moment not far away, in a similar room, also wrapped in shadow, perhaps maintaining a deep, choking silence in the face of the barrage of questions the French consul is asking, perhaps retorting with impertinent responses that will cause the consul to permit a speedy return to his shop and his six pauper clients; or perhaps he accepts with trembling lips the cup of sweet tea served him by the stately French gentleman who adorns his fingers with powders and ointments that please his skin, and the barber provides him with each and every detail of his conversation with his friend Aslan, kisses the consul on one cheek and proffers the other to be kissed in return. It was not long before there was a knock at the bedroom door.
Without thinking, Aslan answered in a quiet, confident voice, Enter, let the soldiers take him and strip the tunic from his body and he will recount the story of his guilt from beginning to end, yet who entered the room but Maman, who had not visited him there from the time of his undesired marriage, and what did Maman want at this time, and what was the strange look in her eyes? After all, from her womb and body had Aslan entered the world, from her lower lips his head had protruded; why was she so estranged to him? Even her rings concealed their splendour. Aslan allowed her to enter and could see, in spite of the thin light of the candle and her long, black hair, the wrinkles covering her forehead and the old furrow of anger running the length of it, and Maman caresses Aslan’s cheeks a
nd brings her mouth close to him, that same mouth whose teeth will one day, in her old age, fall out, as the itinerant priests will inform Aslan one day hence, but for now they lean one upon the other, quivering above infected gums, and she says, simply, Inte biher? Is everything all right, Aslan dear? And she moves to embrace him and Aslan permits her, hoping to renew their games of yore, perhaps he will don for just a moment the black cape draped over her shoulders; and Aslan knows not what his mother desires, why she has come to his room, why she has buried his head between her breasts, and what is this scrap of paper she is passing into his hands, and as she departs from the room he deciphers the hurried writing, the curled, flowing letters, the rebellious hamza, which changes position each time it appears, the dots that connect to form lines that lend the words their meaning and pronunciation as in his own name, here before his eyes, Aslan Farhi, the tzad fat-bellied and fleshy, the nun deep as a dark well, the kha and the ya in his surname short and clipped, pursued by shame, and two definitive lines, thick and coarse, drawn under his name.
Thus Maman’s visit becomes clear to Aslan, for six names are listed there on that scrap of paper, people whose surnames attest to the fact that they belong to the impoverished members of the Jewish community, those six beggars, friends of his own friend the barber Suleiman Negrin, and beneath their names his own, the seventh, while above the seven names, in bold print, the words WANTED URGENTLY, and Aslan does not understand the meaning of this matter; bitter laughter fills his heart that his name has been included on this list of impoverished Jews, and he envisions them in contrast to him: their beards eaten away by lice and his own neat and shaven face, their tattered garments and his own suits of linen, the foolish look in their eyes and his own intelligent, serious expression; what a band of buffoons was destined to be the chorus accompanying him to the executioner’s rope!
Aslan laughs mirthlessly, he has no idea what hour or place has been scheduled for his detainment. A deep suspicion pecks at him, that the barber, his partner in confessions and acts of love, has not hesitated to provide his name to the consul, just as the Jews have been known for their traitorous behaviour from time immemorial, now once again they are informing on one another, slandering one another, and they know not the meaning of brotherly love or a covenant of community or the importance of working the land or engaging in manual labour; rather, their delicate, deficient souls, which are unschooled in warfare and in facing an enemy and beheading him in a single swoop of the blade, would shatter and surrender against a band of gentile men.
Just then Aslan recalls the good counsel that the barber gave him, and the oath he swore, and their naked embraces of yore, and the deep affection they whispered to one another from the dawn of their first meeting at the barber’s shop, and their fluttering kisses and the passion they shared, honest and true, and for the next few moments Aslan feels certain of the loyalty of his new friend, with whom he had shared his secret, and he consoles himself with praises of their loving, manly friendship.
The gate of our home swings shut as I depart as one condemned to die for the interrogation at the consulate, and Aslan stands bare-handed against the raging winds as they flail and assail him with their frigid gusts, spinning and swirling into tall, narrow funnels and provoking the shrew hidden inside him, rapping at the door of her hiding place somewhere between the twists and turns of his colon and his caecum, whistling to her, inviting her to come out and join their dance, and Aslan is swept off in a dense maelstrom now bolstered by clouds gathering from the west and heavy drops of rain, and his legs and arms are drained of blood, utterly pale, and he is tossed and battered by the winds and yearning for the hand of a man, an arm covered densely with black hair, that will rub drops of anisette on his lips to revive his soul.
Never before has Aslan been interrogated, nor has he been required to sleep even a single night outside Kharet Elyahud or his parents’ home or his own bed, always wrapping himself up in pleasant nightclothes; as he passes by le guardien it seems to him, to Aslan, that he will never see this man again, or the simple clay hovels of the impoverished, or the chicken market or Teleh Square or his own home, everyone and everything has become alien, estranged, they are unconcerned with Aslan, nor do they share his fate: Aslan will proceed to the interrogation, then the trials, and finally the executioner’s rope, he will fulfil the destiny proscribed for him for his sins and crimes, and his life means nothing to them.
Aslan shuts his eyes in order to silence the winds and, with the help of the shrieks of that old Jewish hag inside him, a shrill-voiced woman orphaned and widowed and afflicted, he considers matters at hand, arriving at the conclusion that the barber has betrayed him, that he has handed over all his secrets to representatives of the Egyptian ruling regime and they are expecting no less than a confession of his copulation with the monk and the dissection of his body; and Aslan will, therefore, confess to his crime and then request a quick and pleasant death in deep, dreamless slumber, his senses dulled, for he is most fearful of the pain inflicted by a chopping blade.
Aslan is admitted to the consulate at the northern tip of the Christian Quarter, not far from the River Barada splashing about in its waters, and he is ushered to the second floor, which is higher than the other buildings in the street, and he is left alone to inhale the air before the interrogation commences and permitted a moment to gaze down at the crowded, dusty city from whose environs Aslan has never departed in his life, and facing him are the turrets of the Umayyad Mosque from which in a very few moments the muezzin’s voice will issue forth, and Aslan bids farewell to these beautiful sights, this Garden of Eden in a desert valley, to the streets of Damascus and his days of roses, and to his dear old friend, his Moussa, and when a polite clearing of the throat from inside the room reaches him, Aslan knows that the hour has arrived and he turns to enter.
Shiny, scented leather-bound books stand in order along the shelves of the consul’s massive library, the man’s eau-de-Cologne wafting through the air. The rosy-cheeked consul is smiling at Aslan, who catches a glimpse of the thick notebook in his hand, the pages filled with dense writing, and this is the book of his destiny, the confessions of the barber surely written therein alongside his own ignoble deeds, and before the consul has a chance to utter a word and before his acquaintances have a chance to translate the consul’s questions into the Shami Arabic dialect, the final syllables of every sentence drawn comically, farcically long, the churning storm inside Aslan breaks loose in an enormous wave of roiling water, and Aslan knows that the time has come to make a full confession before them.
Aslan is brought before a team of interrogators – the consul, and Beaudin, the consul’s roguish-looking chancellor-dragoman, and a court clerk – and following several short, standard enquiries with regards to his name and his surname and the names of his siblings, they hint, their expressions immobile, that the barber has revealed a number of details concerning him and immediately they begin questioning him as to his whereabouts on that fateful day, a Wednesday, the last day Father Tomaso was seen, and Aslan tells them of the time he spent accompanying his father and what transpired at the Majles, the Council of Jewish Elders, and the trial he attended, and he tells them of the moment or two he tarried outside the barber’s shop to read the notice about the public auction, and when they ask him about events that occurred in the evening, at night, Aslan’s throat constricts and he steels himself to continue telling about the dissection he carried out, about the secret trapped inside him and for which he wishes to be punished; and lo, in the moment before a torrent of words gushes forth from his mouth, flooding the entire room and the ink and quills of the interrogators recording the questions and answers on large squares of paper, the door to the room opens and a fourth interrogator enters and comes to stand beside the escritoire upon which all the other men are leaning, then withdraws his own quill and ink and takes a seat.
Tall and stately, blue-eyed and blond-haired, his appearance is that of a European though he is clearly an Arab
by the greeting he utters, and from this man’s face, this fourth, kind interrogator, Aslan is struck by a white light, thick and bewitching, which blinds him and hammers between his temples, and the eyes of this excellent man resemble the light blue of the fringe on a Jew’s prayer shawl, his own fringe clipped short over his forehead, and Aslan’s mind is jumbled into confusion, and he is sucked into the shining ray of light, shifting his weight from side to side on the chair, his head spinning and dizzy, for this is the first time in Aslan’s life that such an unfamiliar feeling is throbbing inside him, of tears mixed with exultation, and drumbeats of new hope, and the colourful light of eternity pure and clear, and at that very moment he resolves to change his plans; he will not reveal the secret of Tomaso’s death, for his life suddenly seems more dear than he had thought it could be and he wishes to spare his days, the numbers of which had just now grown perilously short.
From that moment Aslan’s answers grow vague, confused, he cannot recall his actions of that evening, nor the hour at which he lay down in his bed, nor the final words he shared with members of his family, and it seems to Aslan that the new interrogator has slipped him a small smile, and Aslan wishes to learn the meaning of this smile as he hastens to answer the questions that follow, and from there the interrogation wanders to odd and sundry topics with no connection at all to Tomaso or that stormy night that led to his demise; the interrogators are interested in other details, such as what are Aslan’s preferred garments and what are his favourite colours and which songs does Aslan know to sing, and questions about the day of his wedding and what has transpired since and what kind of woman is Aslan’s wife Markhaba; and Aslan vacillates at first, but in the presence of the new interrogator’s smile and his maddening silence, and his pale blue eyes that shine like a naughty fox among the grape vines, Aslan recounts the story of his matchmaking and of the unloved bride with whom he shares his bed, and he tells them of his birth and childhood, of his tetchy sister of the blue gaze, of his brother and his games, and Aslan glances sideways to glimpse whether these matters are not dull to the new interrogator, or repulsive, awakening his loathing and revulsion.