Death of a Monk

by Alon Hilu

  My happy friend, my brown-eyed foundling of gentle expression, many years have passed and often the memory of those events tosses about in my mind and becomes mixed with hallucinations and sorcery and the evil touch of pallid, prodding fingers upon my skin, and I do not know for certain what precisely were Aslan’s actions at that time, whether my memories are clear and correct or whether they are the product of my imagination, the foolish chatter of an old man tormented by a past that was not his, for then Aslan stands before the gathered crowd and states the following: The Right Honourable Sharif Pasha, beloved soldiers of Damascus, indeed the barber has spoken the truth, from his own mouth have I heard that this gang of men who face you now banded together in premeditated fashion and by ruse seduced the Christian to the home of Meir Farhi, though not to the fountain or the orchards or the rooms adorned with mosaics did they lead him, but to a small and hideous room left unfinished, the floor of which is covered with dust and dirt, and there did they bind the monk to a crucifix of wooden beams and wind ropes round his body, tightening them, and with the instruments of slaughter they had prepared, they combed his flesh, catching at the veins, and wielded a cleaver to bleed him alive, and the monk pleaded for his life as it seeped away into the glass bottle held by Rabbi Antebi.

  Father and the uncles and the Khaham-Bashi take in my words, stunned and terrified, their laughter turned to sobs, and Aslan watches his father to see whether he will beg for his life, but Rafael almuallem Farhi stands apart from the rest, a grimace of scorn upon his face, and he remains hateful to Aslan, and estranged from him.

  A deep and empty silence follows, and Rabbi Antebi asks permission of the governor to approach the witness, and he draws near Aslan, his reddish beard glowing in the light of the candles and torches, and he embraces Aslan valiantly and says to him, My son, whom I loved, you are as one with me, my own flesh, you are married to my daughter, and with God’s help a great nation will burst forth from your loins and you will raise a large family. Why should you remove yourself from your people and make a covenant of lies with these gentiles, and he whispers to me that if my father has wronged me I will one day be avenged, and if my uncles have angered me their retribution will surely come; but words such as those issued from my mouth are liable to bring down a holocaust upon the entire Kharet Elyahud.

  And the shrewish witch in Aslan’s intestines blinks her eyes and growls and snarls like the belly of the earth before a quake, and Aslan awaits some small sign, some unnoticed hint from his father – clasping his fingers or tugging at his earlobe or curling his lower lip as it trembles – for if he gives him even the slightest hint, Aslan will retract the entire story immediately, will fall to his knees and cry bitterly and confess his many sins, from the first of them to the last, and his father will gather him in his arms and embrace him boldly, forgivingly, and his body will press up against his father’s, thighs, groins, bellies rubbing against one another, their warm fingers spread wide across the other’s back, and the scent of men, like the aroma of myrrh and persimmon, will waft above them. But his father remains estranged and hostile.

  Aslan is overwhelmed by the wailing of that hag, and she stomps her bare feet and tears at her hair, and I grow dizzy when the Khaham-Bashi turns away from me, his shoulders stooped, and these Jewish lords are made to stand in a row, their bellies cascading, their brows furrowed, and a tempest brews in my intestines when they are instructed to cross their hands behind their backs and cuffs are snapped into place in anticipation of their arrest that very evening.

  My happy friend, once again nimble spider’s legs have come to dance upon my skin and I thank you for the cold compresses you apply to my feverish brow; would that we had some of Suleiman Negrin’s leeches to place upon my veins and arteries to suck away the blood and blackened pus that has not yet departed from my body, and would that I could dive in among the pages of the book you are now writing, to plunge between its lines, to grab hold of young Aslan by the lapels or by the hair on his head and rescue him from this turn of events, which he has concocted with his own two hands, but there is no rectifying that which has been, and the imprisonment of my father and uncles thanks to my lies is fated to be written and sealed in this book as eternal witness to my evil deeds.

  The first to be imprisoned are my father and my uncles Murad and Meir, in one low-ceilinged cell with a cesspit in the corner, and later Uncle Joseph Farhi and the Khaham-Bashi are stuffed into an adjacent cell, and all of the men loudly broadcast their innocence until there is no choice but to shut their mouths and make each one stand on a single leg, the other leg raised in the air and cuffed to a hand forced behind the back like those waterfowl who bathe in their own excrement, and their muscles are ruined and their bones break and Joseph Farhi, oldest of the four, shouts in grunts and no one relieves him of his agony.

  When the last of the candles burns out and thick, heavy smoke swirls above them towards the cool night and the guards return to their posts at the end of the dungeon, I approach in stealth the cell where my father is incarcerated and I peer through the bars to see what is happening to him, and I glimpse his large pot-bellied figure, limbs distorted, one foot trembling from the weight of his enormous body, the hair on his neck and arms slightly raised, his flesh pressed close to that of his brothers as they attempt to keep warm, and Aslan wishes with all his heart for his father to turn his head for a moment towards the hall and notice him, he sorely wishes that his progenitor and provider will stare directly into his eyes so that Aslan can catch, in the split of a second, the most trivial plea or request or wink of any kind, and lo, his father is turning his glance to the darkened hall and Aslan stands facing him, levelling his gaze; perhaps he will take the few steps necessary to reach the door of the cell, perhaps they will exchange a few words, for they are, after all, father and son, not two strangers. But Aslan remains rooted in place and his father does not see him, does not even sigh despairingly or mash his face in his hands, he merely closes his eyes as he stands on one leg beside his brothers and dozes like they do.

  Aslan closes this chapter of the grief that has befallen him, his father and uncles housed together in two cells, grunting as they stand in the awkward positions thrust upon them without warning, the lamb and fish from their Sabbath meal mixing inside their stomachs with the fried rice and noodles, vomit frothing upon their lips, and the eldest among them, Uncle Joseph, floats in and out of consciousness, and as Aslan slowly ascends the staircase, immersed in sadness, a tune of yore catches his ear, that melody of his long-distant childhood:

  Min badak ahgor khali

  Ya a’aeb an aynya

  To you I will depart from myself

  You, who are far from my eyes

  And Aslan is once again a beloved babe in the arms of his mother and father, and the melody is false and deceiving, seeming at first to rise from an upper floor of the palace, then to issue from the night-abandoned square, or from one of the cells, as though the Jews are singing their pain, and Aslan’s astonishment increases when he realises that the voice behind the pleasant song is that of the only woman to have aroused true desire in him, and that she is incarcerated in this very dungeon, prey to the sodomites in her cell, and Aslan races back down the stairs, perspiring with anticipation, but the song fades as though he has drawn away from her, so Aslan ascends once more, glancing around with half-closed, roving eyes, and the melody dims slowly until nothing is left of it but a distorted delusion, trilling in a clear, feminine voice, swallowed by the night sounds of grunting Jews and the groans of prisoners coupling one with the other.

  7

  MY HAPPY FRIEND, what was my lot in this unfolding of events if not heart-grief and a flow of tears? As for the night when I delivered my father and uncles to stand on one leg in a prison cell, well, after that I was released by Sharif Pasha’s adjutants to return to my father’s home, and told not to leave there until I was called to give testimony a second time in the trial that would begin when the suspects had been interrogated, and I was
warned firmly against violating these terms and then sent, unescorted, on my way.

  Aslan returns with dawn’s first light to Kharet Elyahud, all the while his friend the shrew tamps faintly on his wickedness and sniggers at his various evil deeds and prophesies that the hour of his retribution is nigh, and Aslan consigns her to the murky abysses, chokes her until her blood runs, and she falls silent for the moment, jammed in between his third and fourth ribs, wedged among his intestines, and Aslan calms his soul by walking slowly, rhythmically, wishing to hold on to the familiar sight of the buildings in order to placate the shrew, and the Jewish Quarter stands hushed as death this early morn, its edifices silenced and mute, bereft of its men, for many are the Jewish males who have escaped Damascus with their lives, some gone north to Aleppo, others south to Safed or to the village of Jobar, where they rent clay huts, and the only males left in Kharet Elyahud are the children and babies, and their mothers stand beside their beds to soothe them in the wake of nightmares that terrorise their sleep, and at the sound of marching in the street they rush to hide them in their cradles or between old and dusty feather pillows or in niches in the walls of their homes, for they are in great fear of the strong arm of the ruling élite of Egyptian rebels.

  Aslan enters his father’s home and finds it empty of the man, husband and father who, in normal times, rules it despotically; his frequent quarrels with Maman have fallen silent, his heavy footfalls are mute, the thick scent of him is evaporating from the rooms, and Aslan tours the spacious courtyard and ascends the wide staircase, the rapping of his shrewish friend upon his ribs all the while resounding behind his tired eyes, and he walks as if sonambulating until he chances upon his younger brother Meir crumpled like a newborn babe in his room near the abandoned fountain, his sleeping mother lying beside him, her arms embracing him, and Meir sucks his thumb in sleep and his eyes roll in their sockets as he dreams of his father and the games they played together, and his warm and loving voice.

  In the tiny, repugnant room transformed from servants’ quarters to the bedroom he shares with his wife, he finds said woman, whose name is Markhaba, and she has risen early, her hair dishevelled, a book of psalms in her hands, and she is using it to murmur a string of verses and blessings as long as eternity and does not take notice of her husband who has returned to his home from who-knows-where, for she bends and sways her body in prayer to God, that He may spare her father at once from these rioters and that He may visit the Messiah upon them swiftly and soon, and let us say: Amen.

  And Aslan stands inside the walls of his home, now alight with the first rays of the day’s sunshine, and he is immersed in his loneliness like a swamp fowl slogging through ankle-deep waters, and Aslan fails to comprehend how it is that the parade of people who loved him has grown so terribly thin, for was it not that when he came into the world so many years earlier he was the first-born son of his parents’ children, their joy, the apple of their eye? And how is it that his fortunes have changed so very rapidly, how has their love turned to blazing hatred so that even the abandoned dogs that roam the streets of Damascus and the weeds that grow along the roadside and the insects and worms and reptiles all seem full of wrath and reproach for Aslan, wishing to ostracise him for his many acts of treachery?

  With daybreak Aslan rushes to his parents’ bedroom and seizes several of his mother’s garments, long dark scarves and thick cloth skirts, and he steps into a pair of her shoes and makes haste to depart from there on a fast mule to find refuge and shelter in one of the villages surrounding Damascus, or perhaps as far as Aleppo or further north, he will leave this scene behind him before all the Jews find him out and snuff his soul for his heavy guilt.

  Aslan hastens to dress himself in a hidden corner of the estate behind the orange and lemon trees, and the fine clothing is drenched with Maman’s sweet scent, a faraway aroma of infancy and childhood, and he tucks his curls under a woman’s head-scarf and minces along in tiny shoes that pinch his over-large feet, and Aslan flees with a coin purse of piastres saved for a moment of crisis, and he will not leave behind any note or letter; the conundrum of Aslan’s disappearance will waft above the Jews of Damascus for generations, no solution at hand, and he jiggles his head in order to arrange the lock of hair on his forehead and thus, dressed as a woman, he wobbles his way along to find a young mule driver willing to rise early in order to lead him to the western gate of the city from which they will proceed to one of the villages, and there he will bide his time until their wrath has subsided, supporting himself with his hoard of piastres and he will work anonymously writing letters for others, just as he has done many a time for his father’s business interests.

  And lo, the first passers-by stare, astonished, at this strange woman waddling alone through Kharet Elyahud, and it is not long before hooligans begin to harass Aslan, calling the woman blasphemous names, and Aslan attempts to ward them off, all those who wish to bring about his demise, begs them to leave him be, and when they tug at his dress and very nearly reveal a hairy arm, he flees, running awkwardly, tears flowing, and an image comes to him of a 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, that gentle songstress of trilled notes and frilled tresses, and he recreates in his mind her chiselled shoulders and her fresh complexion.

  In a bend of the Straight Street he comes upon a young mule driver with a sharp, direct gaze who agrees to lead him, in spite of the strangeness of the hour, to the estuary of Elnahar Alaswad and the fields of the Arab farmers west of the city, and Aslan opens his purse of piastres and slips the lad two coins, and it appears that his hasty plan, to whose details he has given no forethought, might very well succeed.

  No one seems to stare at the woman riding the ass, covered as she is from head to toe, the lad with the black expression on his face seated in front of her, and when Aslan passes by a group of soldiers assessing the vicinity of the Jewish Quarter for suspicious signs on command of Sharif Pasha, he bows his head so that they will not catch sight of him, so he might be vomited out to the river that slakes the farmers’ fields.

  A large wagon loaded full with copper vessels stands sideways before the western gate, blocking the path of the camels and mules, and Aslan begins to perspire under the heavy clothing he has pilfered from his mother, garments unsuitable for long journeys or outdoor perambulating, and he wishes to remove the head-scarf to allow his sweat to evaporate in the cool early spring Damascus air, and while the soldiers and gendarmes are preoccupied with the hammered copper narghiles, handiwork of the Quarter’s Jews, Aslan takes advantage of the momentary distraction and removes the head-scarf to breathe.

  When he replaces the head-scarf over his hair the one-eyed shrew imprisoned between his intestines thunders, What foolishness you have committed, Aslan of the pea-brain! For when these soldiers catch you trying to smuggle yourself out at daybreak they will surely bring you straight to the torture chamber at the Saraya prison, and what then will you tell your inquisitors? What lies and fabrications will you invent for them? Better you should order the mule driver to retrace his steps and stealthily drop your mother’s sweat-drenched and dusty clothing into the wicker clothes hamper for the washerwomen to clean in the waters of that river in which you wish to splash.

  So Aslan orders the mule-driving lad to return half his piastres since the journey outside the city has been cancelled, but the youth with the sharp, direct gaze answers impudently that he will not return any piastres to this coquettish woman with the croaky voice, and when Aslan snatches the two piastres with the strong grip of a man, the lad wails and sobs; just then the wagon loaded with narghiles moves forward to the villages, the open hills, the cool desert, and the soldiers guarding the western gate cannot but help notice the bony woman, alone, shaking to and fro the young mule driver who has requested to be paid his wages.

  And when they draw near, amused, to watch this strange sight, they discover it is
a man disguised as a maiden and their suspicion is aroused, and they order him to dismount from the ass and deposit his coin purse in their care and identify himself, and at once they understand this is a Jew, and Aslan attempts to jest with them, for on this day has fallen Purim, a holiday when the Children of Israel are commanded to don guises, and the soldiers are overcome with fury at these strange Jewish holidays, for is it not because of this Passover season and their Seder night and the eating of unleavened bread that they slaughter the good citizens of Damascus? And so they summon reinforcements, including soldiers bearing bayonets and lances, and a throng of men congregates around Aslan, surrounding him from every side, and they lead him, manacled, to the Saraya dungeon prison, and Aslan can hear only the thin, high shrieks of his shrewish escort, and he plugs his ears against the din but cannot overcome her.

  Aslan is led to the Saraya prison, where his uncles and father and the Khaham-Bashi are already incarcerated and it transpires that from the day before, when they were detained, they have refused to confirm even a single detail of the barber’s confession: neither that they had assembled that evening, nor that they had joined forces to extract the monk’s blood, nor that they had risen up to slaughter him; rather, they are adamant in their protestations and have provided contrasting testimony as to the events of that stormy evening, for one among them had been revelling at a party in the Christian Quarter and could provide witnesses to testify to his presence there, and another had battened down the windows and sunk into deep sleep with the members of his household, and another was travelling abroad on matters of business, as a number of clerks and customs officers could affirm, and their denials only served to provoke the anger of the consular officials and Sharif Pasha against this Jewish cunning that sought to mock and scorn them all.