Death of a Monk

by Alon Hilu

  But this interrogator continues to smile his good, compassionate smile and his eyes continue to shine, and the interrogator moves from the edge of the escritoire where he had sat to listen to the unfolding tales of Aslan’s life – which no person prior to this day had deigned to hear, not even a single detail of it – and he gently commands Aslan to carry on speaking, his voice lucid as a singer’s, and Aslan takes note of the manly, bulging veins of his hands as they transport the inkwell and quill and record the remainder of Aslan’s answers about how he had slept the whole of that night in his bed, had not set foot outside his home, had not seen the monk for a very, very long time, perhaps since he had been inoculated against smallpox long hence, in his childhood.

  However, the other interrogators were not satisfied with my responses and they dug deep into my activities that evening, desirous of more details, more precise answers, such as what was the exact hour I had lain down upon my bed, and what were the exact words I imparted to my wife, and what did she answer, and Aslan’s tongue mocked him and he answered absentmindedly, for he had not shut his eyes that entire night and they were in a rush to reveal why it was that he had not slept that night, and he hastened to correct himself, that he had in fact fallen asleep but that his sleep was troubled, and they wished to know the nature of his nightmares, and Aslan’s tongue stuttered and stammered and he could find no suitable response, and he was about to repent all his lies when the handsome interrogator took notice of the gathering storm and appealed to the French consul for permission to interrogate the young man again in private, when he had gathered his wits and refreshed his memory, and the interrogators consulted and whispered among themselves at length, until the Count de Ratti-Menton cast a penetrating gaze in my direction and told me through pursed lips that I was excused for several hours’ leave, that my interrogation would continue that very night, two hours past the muezzin’s third call, and only because of my family’s good name and the assistance I had given to the monks in entering the locked monastery would I not be required to post a bond, and I was free to go on my way.

  *

  Aslan departs from the consulate without comprehending how it is that the course of his life has drifted off to this particular point; one moment precious light is shining on him and another moment he wishes to cast his life aside, and the glorious ray of light from the Good Interrogator appears then hides behind the clouds of his worries, and thus, deep inside his thoughts, he passes through the gate into Kharet Elyahud, and as he walks along the narrow streets, which are covered as always in a layer of putrid yellow sewer water, the gossiping old hags shout at him to hurry to the Khush Elpasha Synagogue where a huge rally is taking place at that very moment, and every Jewish male of barmitzvah age is required to attend, and Aslan goes there against his will, for he has no wish other than to escape to a long sleep – in the arms of the Good Interrogator – from which he prefers never to awaken.

  Many men have filled the main synagogue, not only the Torah scholars, sweating in their thick clothing and full beards, but also his pot-bellied uncles, and here was his father, too, alien and estranged to him, perpetually tense and angry, standing among them, his fat flesh trembling as a soul trembles for its life, and all the impoverished Jews are there as well, the simple haberdashers and coppersmiths and shoemakers, and Aslan regards them wearily; like them, he, too, is out of breath and heavy of limb, his soul bereft of strength, and their faces blur and become many dark spots that mix together into an ashen batter, lifeless and meaningless, and in juxtaposition Aslan wishes to recall the Good Interrogator – handsome, radiant, his gaze manly and self-assured, his stature proud and erect, and the dazzling light that shines from him and drowns Aslan with its power – but the rustling of the crowd has intensified and is growing louder in Aslan’s ears, and he is about to plunge into that Aslanish gloom of his, to swoon and convulse into it for all to see, but just then the blast of a ram’s horn splits the air in a manner not heard even on the Day of Atonement, and the eyes of all turn to the reader’s pulpit, where Rabbi Antebi, the Khaham-Bashi, is now standing in his brown cloak, a scarf tied at his waist, and he trumpets the strange and ancient ram’s horn, dotted with violet spots and stored among the treasures of Khush Elpasha, brought out only rarely, the shofar of one of the great rabbis of yore, Yoshayahu Pinto.

  Without understanding the meaning of this urgent gathering, the Jews raise their voices in the wailing lamentations reserved for days of fasting, for they are terrified by the shofar blasts, and Rabbi Antebi, short of stature and quick to jest, now grows red from the effort of blowing the ram’s horn, and he raises his arms like Moses to quiet the people, but the men continue to talk among themselves, snivelling, wiping their noses with cloth handkerchiefs produced from hidden pockets, and Aslan regards them from afar and removes himself from them, and an ancient loathing arises in him; how he despises their submissiveness, their endless supplications to God, for Aslan knows the meaning of this spontaneous gathering: to bemoan the new edicts befallen the Jews.

  Aslan wishes to return to the street, his sole desire is to be alone in his room with his longings for that yellow-haired, blue-eyed man, but just then a new mass of Jews – Torah scholars and merchants and peddlers – assembles at the entrance to the main synagogue of Damascus and so, for the moment, there is no way of departing; instead, a thick, sweet mixture of Jewish sweat chokes the air and from within it, trembling and nervous, rises the voice of Rabbi Antebi, his wife’s father, who informs the large and holy crowd that God, His name be blessed, is testing all the Jews by placing before them a new edict, and this is none other than the birth pangs of the Messiah, for according to his calculations the Kingdom of Heaven will descend to earth during these very days, five thousand, six hundred years since Creation.

  The Khaham-Bashi tells the large and holy crowd how he was summoned that morning to Azm Palace by His Honour the governor, Sharif Pasha, adopted son of the rebel Muhammad Ali, along with his friends Shlomo Harari and Khalfon Attia, and how the governor had shouted at them in language to which they were unaccustomed: Where is his grace, Father Tomaso?! And how Antebi had answered him light-heartedly, Am I Tomaso’s keeper? And how Sharif Pasha had hurled his slipper at him and commanded the rabbi to bow down and bare the nape of his neck to his chopping blade and said, Many are the witnesses who saw Father Tomaso enter Kharet Elyahud on the day of his disappearance, to which Rabbi Antebi retorted, Is the Jewish Quarter closed and off-limits? After all, two gates are there in the quarter, and perhaps the monk entered, spent several hours, then departed. But the governor grew more and more angry with each of Antebi’s answers until finally he allotted Antebi and his two aged friends and all the Jews of Kharet Elyahud one day, and one day only, to bring the monk before him, dead or alive, to rescue him from his hiding place or the grave in which he had been concealed, and if not he would command the Damascene army of gendarmes and mercenaries to assault the quarter again and kill every male, from infant to child, from young man to old.

  All at once the Jewish men begin wailing loudly, and their tumult spreads to the women, who tear at their hair in the women’s gallery above, and Aslan casts about to grab on to a banister or chair back, and Rabbi Antebi strives to strengthen the spirits of his congregation in the face of this trial with which God, His name be blessed, is testing them, and after these things come to pass the rabbi removes from behind the embroidered gold curtain of the Ark of the Covenant the Crowns of Damascus, ancient Torah scrolls saved for times of distress, and swaying side to side with the scrolls crowned in hammered gold he sings – Let us repent to God and He will take mercy upon us and bring us into the light; and then he whispers an oath of bygone days, rife with curses one would not dare repeat, that whoever knows anything at all of the disappearance of the monk and does not come forward at once to make his report will be cursed for ever, ostracised unto the seventh generation from the Jewish people, defiled and untouchable; and this person will bear upon his conscience the bizarre, twis
ted destiny of his Jewish brethren, not only in the Khush Elpasha Synagogue or the Jewish Quarter of Damascus but in Aleppo and Beirut and Cairo and Acre and Tiberius and Jerusalem and Baghdad and the Jews of every city the world over, in their ritual baths and their synagogues; and these strong words he concludes with a direct plea to Our Father the King who sits on high and takes note of His defenceless, persecuted children, who have nothing but their Talmud and their petty, impoverished businesses, and Rabbi Antebi pleads with Him to open the Kingdom of Heaven and listen to their cries and their shouts, so that He might put an end to this distress that has befallen the Jews, for He is their witness that they have caused not a single hair to fall from the head of the Christian, and they desire nothing but to live peacefully in this south-west corner of the walled and ancient city and to go about their business uninterrupted.

  This whole affair causes a frozen laughter, trembling and tortured, to arise in Aslan, a story born of a forbidden act of copulation that has evolved into a threat to kill all the Jewish males of Damascus, and he gazes upon the furrowed faces of the frightened Jews and lo, even the babies and infants are silent, ageing all at once, their hair turning white and their shoulders stooped, and Aslan takes note of the gaunt Torah scholars and his pot-bellied uncles and the paupers and the children and infants and babies, and suddenly they are all deceased, piled naked one atop the other in tall heaps, unburied, with no portion in the world, their skin white, inert, their eyes shut, their limbs jumbled, some of them trampled under the soldiers’ boots, stabbed by knives and bayonets, and there are those whose heads have been bashed with rocks and stones, and he wishes to flee that place, to banish from before his eyes the piles of naked bodies, and Aslan pushes his way towards the door of the synagogue, imagining himself drowning in deep puddles of blood, but the crowd of congregants blocks his way, and amid cries of Messiah! Messiah! Messiah! they raise their eyes to the entrance of Khush Elpasha to see whether it might not open for them to catch sight of the white ass and its holy rider marching by in a procession.

  Aslan fights against them to depart from there and flee to the Good Interrogator, who will save him from his dread, but from every direction lifeless white hands grab at him, their fingers grasping at the cloth of his cloak, and they do not let him pass, and Aslan fights to ward them off, to remove the hands from his clothing, and he strikes at the prodding fingers and tries to prise them free, to crush them, but they are stronger than he, they surround his body by the dozens like an army of spiders, and Aslan slips out of his cloak and stomps on the floor and on the many worshippers, and their fingers hold tight in order to calm him, and they murmur softly to him, crooning, but the touch of their nails sets his flesh aflame as if they were filling him with their poison and trapping him in their many webs to suck the marrow from his bones and put him to death.

  My happy friend, forgive me for the nightmarish visions I am pouring into your youthful, innocent soul; from the look in your eyes I can see that I have troubled your soul mightily, and your heart appears to be beating wildly, so let us now step outside this sombre abode in which we mete out our days and lie down upon the sloping hill, for as it is written, Truly the light is sweet and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun; as for this terrible tale you have agreed to hear and record on paper, it is only a story that takes its form from the power of punctuated words and sentences and nothing more, so now take hold of my hand and show me the path to the pleasant air.

  Still, I must add that Aslan fled for his life from Khush Elpasha, but before making his escape he heard, from far away, a voice, and it was none other than the Khaham-Bashi calling him, Aslan, this way my child, over here, and Aslan answered his call, and the Khaham-Bashi embraced him heartily, as a man on his way to die, and he laughed through his tears and said, My dear son, these are black days that have befallen us, days good for slumber and nothing more, and Rabbi Antebi showered Aslan with farewell kisses and another embrace, his priestly scarf wrinkling at their touch, and he did not wipe away the torrent of tiny, transparent tears flooding his face, and his wife and daughters, who came to join him, cried copiously along with him.

  And Aslan noticed his father, who was standing in the street as well, pretending to search his pockets for some note lost for ever to the world, and Aslan stood facing him, waiting for him to desist from this searching and turn his gaze to him and offer the caress he so desired, but his father continued to stand where he was, at a distance, and after a long while Aslan returned to his home and its thick clay walls to await his meeting that same evening with the Good Interrogator, who would save him from the prodding fingers, and he glances behind him on occasion to learn whether the Khaham-Bashi had been right, that God’s disciple had indeed reached Damascus, or that if not the Messiah King then perhaps his father would raise his head, smile at him and call him to join him on his way.

  4

  ASLAN PASSES THE hours in thrall of the evening ahead and the meeting with the Good Interrogator, and he eagerly anticipates the relief and salvation it will bring both for him and for all the Jews from this calamity that has complicated their lives, and he dismisses the touch of those prodding fingers from his skin and steps out into the orchard of his father’s estate in order to calm himself among the long, narrow aqueducts that transport the River Barada and to steel himself with fine, invigorating thoughts, just like the waters of the river itself, for in just a matter of hours he will come before the yellow-haired man and make a full confession of his forbidden intercourse and the events that followed, and the Good Interrogator will be amused, will smile his good smile and wipe away Aslan’s tears and comfort his troubled soul, and they will go together to reason with the consul and his assistant and his clerk, urging them to call off the interrogation and their accusations against the Jews, and Sharif Pasha will issue an order to annul the edict against the citizens of Kharet Elyahud, and after many days, when the spring arrives and along with it cool gusts of wind and sweet rays of sun, the two of them will sit at one of the Damascene cafés on the banks of the River Barada drinking cup after cup of coffee, their mouths full of gurgling laughter at the unfolding events of this drama.

  Aslan is confident and assured that the tall, handsome interrogator will trample underfoot any poisonous, hairy-legged spider that attacks him, will protect him with sweet embraces and save him from all oppressors, and Aslan reflects upon the Good Interrogator’s proud and shapely form, his shoulders protruding under his tunic, his manhood visible through the cloth, his muscled heels in their sandals; how magnificent is this man in his eyes, the symbol, the paradigm of his heroic, esteemed people, the tribe of man. His musculature is well formed, his limbs thick and coiled, the look in his eyes intelligent and powerful, his voice deep and full of assurance, for the glory of the entire world and all its beauty were created by none other than those good men who toil to carry beams in their naked arms and erect buildings and pave roads and plant orchards, among them the porters and builders and labourers; and all of Damascus as it stretches out before you, and every chiselled stone in your father’s home have been built by virtue of their vigour and strength, their welcome tenacity and their will-power, and the stately turrets of the Umayyad Mosque and the fortified walls encircling the city and the modern, underground river conduits that lap at the gardens that run its length and breadth: all these were created and carried out and brought to life by virtue of their brains and their brawn.

  Aslan’s eyes fill with tears, for he cannot count himself among them, and he pinches his arms until they bruise, for he is a son of a soft, deposed and forsaken people, a people so despised that the nations of the world banish them from country to country, from realm to realm, from city to city, and their menfolk are not fit for manual labour, they are neither powerfully built nor courageous, and they are not proficient in the ways of war and are incapable of waging battle; and Aslan’s only hope and expectation is to unite with this new love who miraculously chanced across his path, this young man who,
in addition to his handsome countenance and yellow hair and pale blue eyes and impressive stature, has posed so many questions to Aslan and, thanks to his sly smile and enticing silence and his shining, compassionate eyes, has prompted Aslan to speak freely; and his beloved will fill him with his love and his juices and his sweat, and he will blend with him and pour into his own Aslanish blood the strength and pride of good men.

  While strolling in the orchard Aslan becomes aware of a commotion taking place within the house, and it is soon apparent to him that Father and the Khaham-Bashi have returned from the rally at the Khush Elpasha Synagogue and have sequestered themselves in one of the rooms; through a thin crack in one of the windows Aslan catches sight of their eyes rolling in their heads and the Khaham-Bashi’s splayed legs, and he hears bits of sentences here and there, for the time that Sharif Pasha has allocated is quickly passing, and the meeting in Aslan’s home grows noisier and noisier, new waves of people are joining, and his cousins are coming and going from the house whispering among themselves. Only Aslan knows that there is no need for their efforts and endeavours, for the Good Interrogator will bring about the end of this drama, and an excellent conclusion it shall be.