Death of a Monk

by Alon Hilu

  Aslan proceeds light-heartedly to the consulate in the Christian Quarter, eager for his encounter with the Good Interrogator, lusting to fulfil his desires. His step is lively, and passers-by cast accusatory glances at his swaying, pampered gait, and he is like the man bearing tidings to King David, a man running alone, but Aslan pays them no heed, for the way to the consulate is sweet at this hour of the day, when the disputations of men have abated, their shops closed under lock and key, their market stalls folded up and waiting mutely for the next day, and the wardens and the prisoners and the clerks and the merchants of cloth and vegetables have completed their dusty quotidian of work, and now the hour is ripe for bringing to a close that which needs to be finished.

  En route to the consulate Aslan catches sight of a stately woman of beauty wearing a wide-brimmed chapeau in the style of European women, and an unruly hope overwhelms Aslan that this is the woman he has laid eyes on only for a few precious minutes but who, nonetheless, he is certain is the only person in the world who can understand the machinations of his heart, created in the fashion of that gentle songstress of trilled notes and frilled tresses, and he is sorely tempted to call after her but she is quick to slip away and he follows after her in haste through alley after alley, lane after lane; but her sprint is skilful as a man’s and in seconds she is lost to him, and the wide-brimmed hat is lost, too, along with her statuesque figure and her fresh complexion.

  At a bend in the Straight Street Aslan stops to calm his jagged breathing and a small boy leading a mule to the fields tosses an apple from his sack to revive him, and Aslan bows his head slightly, in gratitude, his breath laboured as he takes a bite from the red fruit.

  When the attendant opens the gate for him, Aslan requests to see the good, yellow-haired interrogator urgently, but he is informed that the man has gone to anoint his skin with unguents at the Nur Aladdin hammam, the baths near the Khan Assad Pasha, and that Aslan should wait for him a bit, and the waiting is long and agonising, and at last the tall, stately figure appears in the threshold of the building and the Good Interrogator, dripping with pleasant scents, beams at Aslan and greets him and compliments him for reporting as planned and for being trustworthy to a fault, and Aslan wishes to make a full, unadorned confession, barely able to contain himself from speaking out at once, but the Good Interrogator instructs him to restrain himself and to follow him to his private quarters in the consulate, and continue his interrogation behind closed doors, for the number of spies and eavesdroppers and slanderers has increased of late.

  They enter a side room in the consulate which appears to be a clerk’s chamber only recently converted into the Good Interrogator’s private residence, containing a canopied single bed abundant with pillows and bolsters and a window facing east to the wide and endless desert that extends all the way to the rivers upon which the city of Baghdad sits, and Aslan imagines showering the Good Interrogator with many wet kisses and sucking from him his beauty and manliness.

  The interrogator explains with an apologetic smile that because of the speed of events he has committed a grave error of politesse and failed to introduce himself properly. He tells Aslan that his name is Mahmoud Altali and that he is a Christian Arab, and they shake hands informally, with palpable warmth, and Mahmoud prepares khalib alsaba’a for them – lioness’s milk – which is araq diluted with a small quantity of water, and they clink glasses and sip, an embarrassed silence between them.

  Mahmoud breaks the silence, expressing a desire to become acquainted with his new friend in a leisurely fashion, and his voice is sweet and pampering; he is some ten years older than Aslan and worldly, and Aslan is overcome by a pleasant warmth, and slowly a twilight conversation develops between them, and there is nothing competitive or derisive or base about their banter, for they discuss matters of the soul and nothing else, matters such as Mahmoud’s father, who was an itinerant merchant, and how when Mahmoud was three years old his father left for Cairo never to return, and how his mother raised him alone and oppressed his soul so that he was forced to run away from her and her sorcery, and the songs he loved to sing and how perhaps one day, given the opportunity, he would sing for Aslan.

  Aslan asks many questions of this new friend of his, met by chance, as well as advice from his lifetime of experience, and Mahmoud tells Aslan in a flowing prattle, as if some heavy weight has been rolled away from his heart, about the domineering nature of women, how they have no purpose other than placating their odd-looking and hairy sex, so that rather than leaving their fathers and husbands and sons and uncles to set in motion by their own vigour the river of plenty of life itself, they harness their men to slavery and usurp their power through acts of intercourse and cause disputation between them through evil words and burden them with providing for their whining children, and they spread their net over the boy-child when he is still nursing, and when he is a lad, and when he is a youth, and later they force him under the marriage canopy, and thus a mother’s ageing tyranny is replaced with a bride’s youthful tyranny, and their faces readily turn sour, their expressions wrathful, and they are always prepared to share evil gossip with unbridled glee, and if the husband requests to join his fellow men, his former friends, for a game of cards or to raise a toast, they make his life bitter with reproaches and stand between him and his confrères, and they make alliances with their sisters – the mothers, wives, daughters – so as to keep one man from the other, one beloved from his mate.

  Aslan recalls his former friend Moussa and what became of him and tiny tears clog his throat, and he knows that Mahmoud is speaking in truth and good judgment, and Aslan is extremely grateful and listens eagerly, wholeheartedly, not only to how women are domineering but also how they are traitorous, and how they seek out a man’s sex with the desire to lop it off, and for this reason it is incumbent upon men to take utmost precaution when lying with them so that they will not lop off their sex or the testicles that quiver beneath in fear, and Aslan is astonished to find this soulmate and he recounts his failures with Markhaba to Mahmoud, and Mahmoud caresses him with his pleasant voice, wrapping him snugly in words of encouragement and consolation.

  After another sip of lioness’s milk Mahmoud asks me to draw near, his thighs brushing against my loins, and he wishes to return to the subject of his interrogation, the story of the disappearance of Father Tomaso, but I, my happy friend, I am unable to prevent myself from revealing my dark secret to the Good Interrogator, from beginning to end.

  Thus, my brown-eyed lad, I begin to recount to Mahmoud, sotto voce and with a heavy sigh, my full confession, for it is I who hold the key to the secret drawers that no one else can open, and the Good Interrogator regards me with a mixture of curiosity and astonishment, for I am speaking with great emotion, my breath shallow, my words swallowing one another, and I tell of that stormy night, and of the manservant Ibrahim, and of the hut that threatened to collapse in the raucous wind, and of the act of love with Father Tomaso, and of the excitement that took hold of him and snuffed out his life, and thus I make it known to Mahmoud that the Jews have no guilt upon them, for they have committed no crime against the monk, so it is incumbent upon us to explain to the French consul and the rulers of Damascus that these charges are incorrect and to request that they annul the edicts against the Jews, and I take Mahmoud’s hand in mine and entreat him to come with me at that very moment to the governor of Damascus and elucidate for him how this chain of events came to pass; surely one day we shall sit, all of us, at one of the cafés on the banks of the River Barada, doubled over with laughter and gladdening our hearts with the dinner meal, the scent of Damascene jasmine mingling with the waters from the fountains and the chirping of canaries.

  Good Mahmoud smiles broadly again, revealing his pearly teeth set one next to the other in a sparkling string, and he calms Aslan with pleasant words, even rises to embrace him a second time and offers him a handkerchief to wipe his tears of great shame, and he says, Aslan, how valiant are your attempts at protecting your peo
ple, how true and beloved are your declarations of our mutual friendship in the shade of the flowering jasmine of Damascus, but your pleas and appeals are for naught, for Suleiman Negrin, the barber in our custody, has already confessed to the crime.

  And I am astounded and shaken by this news and request that Mahmoud trickle more araq into my chalice, for my hands have begun to shake and my teeth are chattering and the pungent taste of aniseed strikes my tongue and descends to my belly to taunt the one-eyed shrew, who at this very moment is seeking to restore the reins of power to her control, and after calming myself as required, Mahmoud begins an account of the full confession of Suleiman alkhalaq, who admitted to having summoned Father Tomaso on that stormy night using a pretext, baiting him with a mission to the home of a Jew, and it was there that he, Suleiman, had handed the monk over to these prominent Jews on whose behest he had acted, and for his services had received the promised sum; but who these Jews were, and for what purpose they had abducted the righteous monk, and what had become of Tomaso – all these the interrogators had not succeeded in ferreting out, in spite of their redoubled efforts, and for this reason they wished to interrogate me a second time, for the purpose of confronting me with facts they had learned from the priests of Damascus.

  *

  My happy friend, at that time the one-eyed shrew was storming and shrieking about my intestines, warning me a thousand times of the trap being set before me; but what was the nature of this web, and which spiders would attack me, and what venom would they use to poison my taut body, to suck the marrow from me as the leeches in the barber’s shop suck blood? None of these could she elucidate for me, she merely repeated her cries about the chasm of my demise that stretched out before me, and I wished to placate this female, and sometimes Mahmoud seemed full of love and emotion and then immediately thereafter composed and pensive, and while I was tossed about between the two, I succumbed to the shrieks of the one-eyed shrew and was about to beg Mahmoud to listen to my story once again lest in my turbulent state I had erred in my description or wording, and I reminded him that the solution to this conundrum as well as people’s lives and deaths were all balanced on my tongue, my word, and I had already begun to repeat my description of that night and the forbidden intercourse, and I was keen to tell him that no Jews had spilled this blood.

  But Mahmoud again refused, with his white-toothed smile, to hear me out, so that in the end Aslan’s muscles relaxed and his voice and tongue fell limp and anyway, who was this Aslan if not a marginal character, a minor player in this grand scripted plot, whose role was none other than to let himself slip between its chapters, bump against its paragraphs, rest among its semicolons and flow through its commas until reaching the end, that end about whose meaning and significance nothing is known, so that when Aslan considers it, it awakens in him great fear.

  After all this came to pass there stood between us a long and contemplative silence; when it ended Mahmoud requested that I accompany him to meet his friend Father Alexis, head of the Terra Sancta Monastery in the Christian Quarter of Damascus, for words of reason and discernment flow from the lips of Damascene priests, and Aslan acquiesced unwillingly to this request, and on their way to Father Alexis he thought to himself that until two weeks earlier he had known nothing of the flavour of a monastery or a monk and now he was encountering them at every turn.

  Together they march along, nearly touching, to the eastern corner of the Christian Quarter, only a short distance from the consulate building, and Aslan glances southwards on occasion, to the cradle of his birth in Kharet Elyahud, and he reflects upon his friend the barber and upon his father-in-law the Khaham-Bashi and upon all those Jews, bothered and burdened with their daily matters, and he is overcome with grief for the misfortunes he has brought upon them without intending to, and now all his plans for making right that which requires repair are dashed, and there is nothing to do but to hand himself over to his interrogators and please them in any way possible in the hopes of silencing and subduing the spirits and the angels of destruction that have emerged to take part in his downfall.

  On their way to the Terra Sancta Monastery, Mahmoud hints to Aslan about a certain Christian witch in her ninetieth year who has not washed her hands from the day she came of age in order to wallow in refuse and filth so as to draw evil spirits and sorcery nigh, in the way of witches; and this woman stood the previous eve in the streets of the Christian Quarter, and when the spirits of the dead and other demonic creatures visited her, she swore that seven Jews had slaughtered the monk and taken his blood in order to make unleavened bread for the Passover holiday, and she has been crying bitterly since, allowing no man to console her or kiss her hand.

  Aslan remains silent in the face of these hints and he asks himself the meaning of Mahmoud’s actions, what benefit he could derive from such behaviour, and the one-eyed shrew carries on shrieking her terrible shrieks and tearing clumps of hair from her head, but he pulls a screen of pleasant words between them to comfort himself with sweet whisperings, for he enjoys himself in the company of this fair and handsome man; Mahmoud will rescue him from the evil edict, and perhaps all he need do is let his tongue rattle meaningless words against his teeth according to what these men command of him, to dribble the sweet lies they wish to hear into their ears, and Aslan invites this fellowship of loving men to enfold him from all sides.

  And lo, they enter the tall, ornate gate of the Terra Sancta and Aslan exchanges glances with the icon of that same tortured soul of the wounded feet and hands whom he recognises from Tomaso’s monastery and from the hiding place in his parents’ bedroom, and they pass by all manner of canvases painted in bold colours, such as one of Bethlehem at night, in which a woman with ample breasts receives her guests, her black eyes cast down, sunken in silence.

  They come upon Father Alexis, his back to them as he imbibes glass after glass of cherry liqueur, and when he takes note of their arrival he does not rise from his chair to greet them but motions them to sit with him, and his eyes are veiled and dark, heavy sacs consumed by tears hang pendulously below, and Alexis mumbles words of prayer and crosses himself and cries and drinks, for he is deep in mourning for his friend of many years, Tomaso.

  Mahmoud seats himself beside Father Alexis and with great eloquence encourages him to rise and take bread and desist from imbibing these intoxicants, for the church under his patronage is so beautiful and praiseworthy, and his flock of worshippers so devoted to him, and Mahmoud holds him in esteem as first among the priests of Damascus, and Father Alexis carries on sobbing, and he kisses Mahmoud’s hands and to my surprise kisses mine as well, and I recoil from his touch for fear that he, too, will die, for Aslan’s effect on the tribe of monks has been calamitous.

  The dejected Father Alexis, who is now gulping down liqueur from the bottle, asks Mahmoud about the interrogation, and whether there is any foundation for his grave suspicion that there is a connection between the monk’s disappearance and the approaching holiday of the Jews, and Mahmoud responds that one of the Jews is with them at this moment and he points, to my horror, at me, and Father Alexis casts a saddened glance my way and says, My son, have you ever paid a visit to the Jewish slaughterers in their booths behind the market and witnessed how they carry out the ritual and what they do with the blood? Have you watched as they slowly brandish the blade across the beast’s throat and how they allow the blood to drip gradually? And he describes the slaughtered beast, both beheaded and not quite beheaded, and erupts in sobs for its life that is seeping away, and after this he takes hold of my hand, shaking madly, and tells me, Ya ibni, O my son, why do you not remove this stone from your heart, why do you not recount to your beloved friends this dark secret that is poisoning your soul, for the priest knew well how to look deep into Aslan’s heart at the black rivers roiling in waves of refuse and dung, and he extends his hands to embrace me warmly, and Aslan falls willingly into his bosom, and the smell of old age upon Alexis is familiar and consoles him.

  When they b
reak off from their embrace Father Alexis informs him of the well-known treachery of the Jews of Damascus, who in the past had attempted to kill Paul, disciple of Jesus, for as it is written, They plotted to murder him; they watched the gates day and night, to kill him, so that the disciples took him by night and let him down by the walls of the city in a basket; and further, Father Alexis teaches Aslan of the intrigues perpetrated by the kings of Israel upon John the Baptist, cousin to the Christian saviour, who was beheaded, and his severed head is buried to this very day in a cave beneath the Umayyad Mosque, and he relates again, between sobs and tears, his dreaded fear that the treachery of the Jews has once again broken loose and that the Jews sought to murder Tomaso – Tomaso, who had won over not a few souls among them for the good and benevolent Jesus – and to make use of his blood for their holiday.

  My happy friend, would that all my Damascene sins were pardoned, for I have abused and I have betrayed; would that my tongue were not so sedulous, so diligent, so energetic in my mouth, spewing wild rumours. But at that moment, my dear, pure, sinless boy, on that day, in that monastery, Aslan’s eyes were blinded, covered by a thick film and darkness and gloom, and within this gloom there shone about me a light from heaven, a bright, blinding, brilliant light, and a still, ethereal voice rang out in my ears, and it was as if my twisted, winding, curling path had been made clear to me behind closed eyes, and this scheme lay before me, unfurled and vivid and full of life.

  Aslan pulled his hands free from the embrace and from behind his blinkered, blinded eyes answered the drunken priest that indeed there was a boulder, heavy and black and smothering his heart and poisoning his days, and when they asked him the meaning of this matter Aslan responded that the hints dropped by the Good Interrogator were indeed aimed at the true and proper target, which he had been prevented from revealing to them until this time due to an oath and curse of excommunication upon the Jews, that the monk had been abducted for the purpose of slaughtering him, and that the deed had been carried out by a band of Jews for the making of the unleavened bread for the Passover holiday, and Father Alexis grasped his chest in agitation, for lo, all that he had been told during his studies as an acolyte in Rome had been true, and the ancient texts had not lied, and the Good Interrogator blessed Aslan for his brave and determined decision to break his vows and reveal the truth, and all three men trembled with the power of this holy moment, and Mahmoud held fast to my shoulders and pinned his eyes upon me and tears pooled up in them at the cruelty of this terrible death, and I, too, joined in and took up in my former, disgraceful, Aslanish lament, my eyes shut tight, and we three tearful souls leaned one upon the other and cried for the pain of the world and its torments, and the tears were sweet and very good, and the man of God spread his hands over us to protect us, and that disconsolate woman and the shepherds of Bethlehem and her crucified son all hovered above us in rays of shining light.