by Alon Hilu
Aslan sees them imprisoned in their cells and they are right fatigued and wish to die, for they have been subjected to strange tortures, the first of which was being made to stand on one leg, and then being submerged in barrels of cold water, where they rebound against the sides and then surface, and many other such terrible persecutions, and in spite of all these they do not confess to their cruel crime, nor do they supply new information with regards to the location of the dead monk’s body, so necessary to the success of the investigation.
My happy friend, at the same time as I was being escorted by soldiers to the prison dungeon of the Saraya, many others Jews were streaming in, stooped and parched and manacled, all of them new detainees brought in with the hope of spurring on the interrogation, which for the time being was not achieving any results due to the obstinacy of the Farhi brothers, and I see alongside me the Jewish gravediggers, who have been arrested and are filing in, three gravediggers and four assistants and three sub-assistants, all of them former Talmud scholars who had abandoned their studies, and their bodies are heavy-limbed and cumbersome, their hands coarse from labouring to dig graves and from brandishing shovels, and their eyes, which have seen so many Jewish bodies shrivelled with age, withered with disease or blue with crib death, those eyes brim with fear at this valley of the shadow of death, a dark and narrow chamber around the edges of which are cells and in the middle of which are whips and ropes and all manner of strange machines meant for bending and smashing, and the gravediggers pass by one after the other, heads bowed and stooped, and they are taken at once to be interrogated jointly and severally and questioned as to whether they have assisted the suspect Jewish magnates in any manner, whether they have concealed the monk’s body, whether they have buried it in this place or that, and if not, whether they lent their shovels or pickaxes or any other tools good for digging, and afterwards they are forced into the centre of the airless room where they must stand, without food or water, until it can be decided what is to be done with them.
The next to be incarcerated are two feuding bands of Jewish butchers, one the Fakhima family and the other the Nawamehs. Under normal circumstances their time is occupied with dishonest commerce and the dissemination of deceitful rumours against their competitors – that their meat is not kosher and their heifers tainted and their lamb meat full of worms, and he who eats from them endangers his life and soul and the lives and souls of his family unto the seventh generation – and now they are being led in as one group, their hands stained with the blood of chickens, feathers stuck to their sleeves and the odour of slaughtered beasts fresh upon their skin, and they are suspected of having donated their equipment for use in preparing the holiday and are asked to state whether cleavers or carving knives or any other blades have been taken from them, and they are made to list all the tools in their possession and explain their methods for slaughtering cattle and sheep and bleeding them, and the butchers hasten to cast blame upon each other, that a member of the rival family must surely have assisted in this abominable act, for they would certainly not hesitate to rent out their tools even for slaughtering an unkosher beast or for committing a murder in order to satiate their greed, and the soldiers interrogating them rise to pull them apart as they try to strangle one another with blackened fingers covered with congealed blood and everlasting sweat.
And lo, the tumult increases as the soldiers of Sharif Pasha lead the children of the Talmud Torah school into the overflowing interrogation room, for the purpose of – as the proverb goes – Khudu siracom min tzia’arcom, Extracting the secrets from the mouths of babes, and Aslan regards them from a hiding place he has found for himself in the bowels of the dungeon, watching these children so like all those who used to tease and mock him, and now they enter the teeming, airless dungeon sobbing, ruined, their noses running, each holding the shoulder of the one before him, and there is no purpose for their incarceration other than to cause their fathers and mothers to grieve, so as to bring about the end of the interrogation and reveal the awful truth.
And the mothers, thick-armed, strong-voiced women, call after their children loudly and the soldiers stop them at the entrance to the prison, and so they find slits in the floorboards to scour the dungeon for their loved ones, each woman crying the name of her son through these tiny apertures until one of the prison guards has an idea and he covers the eyes of the children with strips of black cloth and places copper basins like hats on the crowns of their heads, and the children collide one against the other and they fall, bruised, and the basins resound noisily, thunderously, and, against his will, Aslan hears this copper-bashing orchestra and the wails of the children and the mothers’ shrieks and the agony of tortured men, and he stares, eyes wide as can be, at the huge crowd assembled there and he is overwhelmed with desolation at himself, for this is all his doing, he has mixed this filthy batter with his own two hands, and he wishes to find his friend the Good Interrogator, Mahmoud, and take hold of his lapels and plead with him to issue an order confirming the lies of his confession and sending the Jews back to their homes, for his Uncle Joseph is having convulsions and might return his soul to his Creator at any moment, but Mahmoud is nowhere to be found, only the hard pinches of the prison guards on Aslan’s scrawny arms.
*
My happy friend, at that moment I yearned to be brought to a hidden cell in that dismal dungeon where I could wait, head bowed, for Mahmoud to save me from this distress, for the Jews knew it was I who had informed on them and turned them in, and they were liable to rise up against me and slay me, and indeed they had never been known for their love towards this worm who gnawed and slithered his way around them.
Aslan proceeds, hunched and stooped, his limbs gathered inwards to deflect attention, and he is thankful for the prevailing gloom and the tumult at every juncture, for in addition to his fear of revenge on the part of his clansmen there arises in him, in the form of reddened cheeks and the buds of a flame in his breast, the first signs of shame for his evil actions, and Aslan wishes to receive their pardon but he knows not to whom to turn, nor what to say.
So Aslan continues to walk with bowed head and gathered limbs and he is being ushered into one of the detention cells when suddenly he notices, between the butchers and the gravediggers and the children crashing and clanging into one another, that he is being stared at, and in spite of the grave warnings issued by his friend the shrew to avert his eyes, to proceed hunched and stooped, Aslan cranes his neck like Lot’s wife and another moment passes before he recognises, among the Jewish prisoners, the face of the Khaham-Bashi Rabbi Yaacov Antebi, incarcerated along with the rest of them, his customary garb replaced by a striped prisoner’s uniform, his ginger beard faded in the dim light but his eyes skittering like burning coals as if they are about to burn and consume Aslan’s limbs in their flames.
From the diminutive body of the rabbi, which contains too little virility to sire sons, and he is small and insignificant and always good-humoured – from this body now rips forth a huge shout that silences at once the prisoners and guards alike, for the Khaham-Bashi is pointing at me, my happy friend, and bellows, Here he is, here is the traitor!
In an instant all eyes and the lanterns of the curious prison guards have been raised towards me, and Rabbi Antebi steps on to a stool tossed to him from somewhere and in a clear, booming voice he tells the crowd of my evil deeds, that in spite of my loving parents – their exertions and toil in changing my soiled clothing and educating me and feeding me and sustaining me – I had not hesitated in blaming them for naught, and two soldiers stepped forward to remove Rabbi Antebi by force, but his tiny body withstood them, a new power surged through him as he warned the great and holy crowd against exchanging even a single word with the Jewish traitor, the wicked son who has turned his back and exempted himself from his people, and the rabbi concludes with a plea to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to speed along the arrival of He who is hoped for and to annihilate the wicked and the informers, may they be dispatched to
hell and perdition.
And now all knew of Aslan’s guilt and they denounced him and cursed him in secret, and the Khaham-Bashi took care to remind them hour after hour of my loathsome actions, and as for me, my happy friend, I was sequestered in my cell, rejected and ostracised from my people, and what did I have left but to beg for my own death, for Aslan’s prosecutors were correct in their plaints, and Aslan stands before the rancid, mouldy wall, its bricks black with filth, and beats his head to expel the malevolent thoughts, and his friend the shrew affirms that he should behave thus, but in spite of the heavy blows and the terrible pounding pain in his forehead and the cracks he imagines have cleaved his skull, Aslan’s breath continues, regular and obstinate, to inflate his lungs, and his sealed, petrified heart continues to beat, and the Aslanish darkness that descends upon him from time to time refuses to redeem him now so that, on the contrary, Aslan is wide awake and alert in order to watch his sins like a father watches his bastard children.
8
MY HAPPY FRIEND, the strength I need for telling this perplexing, long-ago story is ebbing, though it still throbs in my veins; these words force my ill and worn-out member to raise its ancient head unwillingly and now the tormenting pains that plague it when I pass water grow more intense and I must ask to pause in order to step out and calm myself with gloomy thoughts about my final days as they draw to a close, and you, my friend, you must continue to enjoy these carefree days of your youth: leave aside your plan to record this epic and set yourself free, take your meagre belongings and leave this monastery in which we dwell, for I am overcome with fatigue and wish to shut my eyes and join the everlasting, persistent journey of the Black River; just remember, please, to empty the bedpans, for they are overflowing.
But if the will to hear more of this tale is strong in you, then I will tell you only this, that after the Khaham-Bashi’s curse I remained alone in my cell day and night listening to nothing but the profanities hurled my way by the Jews, and I am forlorn and abandoned, despised by the members of my family, disowned by the entire community, my head bashed and battered, and that witch, the shrew, is flitting about inside me without mercy, and Aslan pictures himself an empty vessel lying lifelessly on the ground, no knowledge or insight in his brain, and again he yearns for death to overtake him at last, to rescue him from these torments of hell, and then, in the deep gloom of the Saraya dungeon I notice the group of gravediggers assembled by one of the cells and they are removing the body of a Jew who could not withstand the tortures, and Aslan regards the shape of the body in order to discern whether it is his father who has expired, but in fact the man is Uncle Joseph, and the Jews are mumbling Ma bidun illa Allah, Only God is eternal, and they say the Kaddish prayer over him before the prison guards order them to lie down on the cold stone floor for their fitful sleep.
And lo, as Aslan gazes in bewilderment at the bars facing him, and blue and purple shadows stretch out from him on either side and he is sunken and feeble and detests life, suddenly a scorching yellow ray of light strikes him, and a trickle of warm, sky-blue water, and a melody of the purest joy, and his eyes do not deceive him, for between the shrivelled body and the butchers and the gravediggers he catches sight, to his amazement, of the profile of a seated woman, her back to him, and she is wearing a long gown that stretches the length of her and is bedecked in gems and jewels that sparkle in the dark of the Saraya dungeon, and her serene presence there in that valley of the shadow of death late in the evening seems not strange to him, but quite fitting, and Aslan already knows this is the songstress, that very same singer who has captured his heart, and in spite of what the dead and dissected monk told him she is not the creation of his imagination nor the fruit of his hallucinations, but a flesh and blood woman, curvaceous, and Aslan knows that she is waiting for his kisses alone, his love.
Wordlessly, he approaches the bars of his cell and beckons to her with the words of the secret song the two share, and with every note that floats from his throat he is firmer in the knowledge that this noble woman has come to the Saraya prison to confess her love for him and that she anticipates the touch of his fingers on her shoulders, and he utters not a word, merely blows tiny, unseen kisses aimed at her white and dainty back through the bars that separate them, and she sighs in affirmation, and he sends kisses from afar that pass over her narrow, feminine shoulders, over the long, light-green sleeves of her gown so soft to the touch, and without turning her face to him she joins him in singing their song, that ancient song from his wedding, which she tapped with her feet and danced slowly to muffled drums for the gathered guests, and now she hums the familiar tune, Min badak ahgor khali, To you I will depart from myself, Ya a’aeb an aynya, You, who are far from my eyes, and her small chest rises a bit with each breath and her stuffed breasts sway and the words of the song form in their mouths and they tell of the love between a man and a maiden, and the song is more right and fitting than any other, and after Aslan has stared deeply at her for a long time, her back all the while towards him, she turns her face in his direction, and her head tilts slightly and she wears a shy smile, and she draws near his cell at a leisurely pace, and when she reaches him she kisses him chastely, gently, slipping her tiny tongue into his mouth, and they continue to sing as they kiss, and he rubs against her breasts and presses his nose between them, as far as the bars of his cell will allow him, and his member stands quite erect, ready for the act, but it is not lust-drenched debauchery or release followed by self-loathing and repugnance that he craves, but rather to join and unite with this soulmate of his, whose secret is already known to him, a secret which only serves to increase his excitement and his love.
Then the songstress takes hold of a small key dangling on a chain around her neck and opens the door to his cell and slips inside, and Aslan well knows the true nature of this pure maiden and understands the delays that have kept her from him until now, and in the dim light from the lanterns in the dungeon her dress appears to him as a wedding gown and the hat on her head as a veil and the small red purse in her hands as a bridal bouquet, and he wishes to transport her in his arms to the ratty, narrow divan in his cell, but too tall is she, and so instead she sits regally on the divan, which seems to Aslan as if it were glowing in the light of betrothal, and Umm-Jihan sees none of this, for her sky-blue eyes are lowered in modesty and bashfulness, and Aslan speaks to her softly, telling her not to cry, for even one of her tears is more precious to him than the great wealth of his family, and Umm-Jihan smiles shyly, and her neck is as that of a swan’s, her breasts ample and full, and Aslan whispers to her, Khabibti, My love, and he refrains from sullying her sanctity with his caresses, but only moments later he desires to pump life and passion into her blood, and again he kisses her, voluptuously, and removes the hat from her head and pulls her dress low, to her breasts, and he encounters her muscled chest and her pointed nipples and he kisses the short, white hairs on her thighs and he exposes her sex and sports amorously with it and smiles to himself at her attempts at concealing her true nature, and from inside her clothing Umm-Jihan writhes and twists and frees himself and lo, he is Aslan’s beloved, eyes smiling and sweet to the touch.
My happy friend, I could no longer control my impulses and so I stripped her clothing from her body, and with skills acquired from my former lover, the barber, I stuffed her member into my mouth, and its taste was sweeter than any delicacy, and from there, in the same manner that the dearly departed Tomaso had taught me, I turned to the task of awakening her sexual heat, her passion, and Umm-Jihan’s organ swelled and stood very erect, and she was not deterred from releasing loud moans and feeble cries on that betrothal divan, and Umm-Jihan’s thin sighs turned into Mahmoud’s pleasant voice, and Aslan finds himself concurrently making love to both lovers, and they mingle and transform one into the other before his eyes, at times the soft, hairless curve of her white buttocks, at times the strong, jutting shoulder blades of his manly back, and Aslan covers both with many kisses, and he has no aim and no desire beyon
d pleasing this maiden and this youth until their bodies drip with sweat and love.
And while Aslan kisses his lovers, Umm-Jihan resumes her frightened, fragile expression, and she tells him in a worried chant, high and thin, that their mutual friend, the arc-browed barber, has retracted the true confession he made and sworn his statement was false and deceitful, that he had begun to blubber like a terrified woman about his conscience and his sins, and Sharif Pasha had summoned her and instructed her to find new evidence or he would set the Jewish magnates free at once, and she does not know what to do, for now, because of the traitorous barber’s blunders there would be no solution to the puzzling matter of Tomaso, and this meant she would be returned to the prison and, like an ill-treated wife, would not receive her fine clothes, her raiment, her conjugal rights.
And this fear causes Umm-Jihan to sit upright and ask that they cease this act of love and she buries her head of golden hair between her arms and her eyes search for her gown, and the sweat of men upon her body chills quickly and her skin turns cold and frozen, and Aslan hastens to embrace her from behind and he wraps his hairy arms around her manly, muscled chest and he promises to do anything he can to help her, for her sorrow is his, and they are together in the same cauldron, and she relaxes her muscles upon hearing his fine words and she thanks him for the goodness and benevolence he has imparted to her from the very day the paths of their lives first crossed, but she does not believe that the power of his love and his excellent words can condemn their enemies and set her free from prison, and she sobs from the depths of her heart at the nightmare of having to return to her cell, where procurers are waiting to stifle the song of her life.