by Alon Hilu
And as she continues to shriek her lies, Mahmoud’s fair body covered in sweet, blond fur comes into view, and Aslan is aghast to find him deep in conversation with a curly-haired youth, and they are taking sweet counsel together and grazing their hands over each other’s muscles, and a short, sharp, feminine cry escapes from inside Aslan and Mahmoud turns, amused, towards him, but he does not desist from standing too close to the Arab boy and they continue their pleasant conversation, rubbing each other’s members all the while, and Aslan observes all this and cannot help but come between them, and he dispatches the Arab youth with evil looks and silent curses, and he plants his kisses upon Mahmoud’s lips, and Mahmoud responds with his laughter, pure and benevolent, and he acquiesces to Aslan’s stubborn pleas to depart forthwith from that den of vipers, and Aslan grips his lover’s hand so tightly as to leave an imprint, and he sucks the heat of his body from him like the leeches in the jar at the barber’s shop, and he vows a thousand oaths to himself never to let Mahmoud stray from him for even a moment, so vast and abiding is his love for that man.
Thus, my happy friend, we walk through the night-dark streets of Damascus, our organs still warm from the steam and the hair on our heads damp and thick, and I am attentive and alert to grant every wish of my lover; when he coughs, I proffer my handkerchief, when he jests I gush with boisterous laughter, and when he indicates that I should leave him in peace, for he desires to breathe the clear air or sink into his own thoughts, then I become a shadow at his side, silent and sombre, and I hold my breath until he crooks his little finger at me, signalling that I should return to the land of the living, and this tiny gesture causes the blood to course through me once again.
A gripping fear begins to buzz in Aslan’s breast lest his lover forsake him on this very night, lest he not invite him back to his chambers, and Aslan waves his hands to expel this buzz of meaningless fear, and he is careful to laugh with Mahmoud and he puts forth his pleasant nature and pure smile, yet beneath it all, in the walls of the tunnel that house her, the one-eyed shrew disturbs his peace, whispering that Mahmoud holds no love for him, for one thing is known of the character of males, and that is, in the wake of lovemaking, a man’s affections turn to loathing and his yearning flows to another object, one he has not yet known, and Aslan recalls the curly-headed Arab youth who wooed his beloved and he knows that just as he dissected the limbs of Father Tomaso atop the bald mountains outside the city, so too could he pass the blade across the throat of that son of a whore.
All the while Mahmoud whistles and remains utterly complacent, and when we reach a fork in the road, one path leading to the Jewish Quarter and the other to Azm Palace, Mahmoud stops walking, approaches Aslan, takes his hands in his own, levels his gaze at him and requests, in a festive whisper, to speak his mind.
I am aware, my happy friend, of your meagre years and your innocence and your scant experience in matters of love; indeed, it is upon my command that you are imprisoned in this house of God every day of the year so that you not fall prey to the temptations men will offer you, and still, my young companion, in the depth of your eyes I do believe I can see that you understand Aslan’s soul, how my heart sank at that moment to an abyss of desolation and despair, and how in my mind I could hear the very words I dreaded more than any others, that Mahmoud would toss me aside as men do with their former loves.
Mahmoud gathers himself for a long moment before speaking, and he leans upon an adjacent building, sheltering me with his body, and Aslan wishes to hasten the end of his torment and he appeals to his beloved, saying, What is the matter? And Mahmoud laughs uncomfortably and grasps Aslan’s fingers, and they are cold and limp, fidgeting like the spindly legs of a stray spider, and Mahmoud thanks me for my help and assistance from the day of my first confession in the arms of Father Alexis with regards to the slaughter perpetrated by the Jews, and for the confession I extracted from the barber and for my stance against my father and uncles, and for the listing of criminal actions in my affidavit to Sharif Pasha, and he is aware that it was I who purchased his freedom, and that he owes his very life to me, and then Mahmoud stutters as if attempting to speak but unable to do so, and he falls silent for several moments, and the terror ascends noisily from Aslan’s neck into his ears, his temples, and the shrieks of the hag pound their wings, and Aslan fears the two will cease to walk together, that he will fall as a stray bird, confused, in a snare upon the earth, and Aslan mourns their lovely days together now doomed to die with no chance of a stay or pardon, until at last Mahmoud takes hold of his shoulders with two sturdy hands, leans towards him and quickly, briefly states, in the gentlest, simplest of words, I love you.
Aslan wishes to run shouting his love through the streets of Damascus, to plunder the homes of the Jewish Quarter, to stand its men and women in a procession to witness his great love, to free the prisoners from their incarceration and the weary from their fatigue and the infirm from their illnesses and the buried from their graves, to march them all on the abundant, fruitful, springtime earth, to infect them with his tempestuous love, for his love is patient and generous and immortal, and Aslan now comprehends that he has been endowed with magic powers, and it is his wish to restore the Jews to their rightful land, to make the mountains skip like rams and the little hills like young sheep, and perhaps the holy year five thousand, six hundred has arrived for no other purpose than that of raising him up to greatness, and the pain and distress that the Jews have endured were nothing but the birth pangs of his arrival, and he has lived among them the entire time, hidden from sight, silent, shamed, and he himself did not even know until this very day the power of his sanctity.
Mahmoud gathers me into his embrace and praises me for my beauty and wisdom, and adds that he can reveal to me that in this matter of the Damascus Blood Libel, as it will come to be known, a place of honour and greatness will be reserved for me, not as some marginal character, mentioned in the drama only in passing, a character sketched haphazardly in the coarse outline of hearsay, but as one filled with life, an essential being whose desire conquers all and whose lust spills on to the words and letters of its design, and this character shall be nourished by abundant descriptions of its thoughts and moods, by words it speaks and expresses, by depictions of its body and soul; and all the beings in its orb have been created for the sole purpose of glorifying, praising and causing the life energy of this person to flourish, for he will make love over the course of many pages.
And when they retire to their bed Aslan hears the scantest of rumours of the trial poised to commence in the wake of his written confession, and of his father and uncles, accused of murder, and of the verdict that awaits them, whether by hanging or strangulation or beating, but these images slip from his mind, flickering and shattering into tiny, forgotten shards; their story will be told in a different book, the cover as thick and fattened as their skin and bodies: let Aslan and Mahmoud seal their tale with this great love, and Aslan is full of smiles and laughter, and he asks Mahmoud not to mention the fate of the Jews or the envisioned verdict against his father and father-in-law again, nor any of these old and distant sorrows, nor should he mention the cold draughts undermining the currents of hot air of their love; instead, he begs Mahmoud to don a wide-brimmed purple hat and sing the songs of Umm-Jihan, and they recall the story of their first meeting on the day of Aslan’s wedding and each enjoys hearing the other describe how their gazes met, and how they danced together without knowing of the other’s desire, and Mahmoud does not withhold any of the knowledge he has accrued in pleasures and delights, and they make love and sport for many hours all through the night, and he recounts and confesses the love coursing through his heart, and Aslan does not restrain his own heart from any joy, rather, he reciprocates with a confession of his love, even stronger, and he hastens to learn studiously the secrets of pleasing a man, and together they write their epic love in the minutest of details and they roll it about in every direction and learn its secrets and its sighs, and at its apex th
ey return to the start, to renew the story of an act whose end never comes.
2
HOW SWEET IT is to slumber with my beloved, his naked loins pressed to my body, his sturdy arms encircling my chest, his wide, pink bare feet entwined with my own, his belly exposed, vulnerable, above his genitals, and how lovely his breath, how lovely his eyes shut fast under long, pale lashes, and the smooth bronzed skin, and the blond fuzz of his head, and the tough, chiselled lines of his jaw, and Aslan is never sated from this vision of the body of a man deep in sleep, and the beauty of his musculature and his courage and his decisiveness and his pure intentions, all these sequestered for a few short hours from the world, and Mahmoud lies beside him as a dead man, bereft of strength, his faith and his fate entrusted to Aslan’s loyal custody, the slow and steady rhythm of his breathing visible in the rise and fall of his chest, and these are the only clues to the life locked inside and the soul that has not yet left his being, and I stroke his yellow hair and whisper words of love to him until at last it is decreed that I, too, shall be exiled to the realm of slumber, and I draw close to his bosom and join him in the depths of princely sleep.
Aslan is immersed in the sweetest of dreams when his beloved awakens him with the rustling of his belongings, knocking his inkwell to the floor, searching frantically through his papers and documents, and Aslan stretches his neck to receive a belated morning kiss, and he purses his lips and smacks them and makes all manner of kissing and sucking noises to remind Mahmoud to indulge him, but Mahmoud responds only with a low grumble, and Aslan sits up abruptly on the bed, an expression of concern on his face, prepared to carry out any request Mahmoud might make of him: to be his slave, his manservant, his maidservant, whatever it will take to ensure his continued presence with this prince of virtues, and Aslan rises to dance attendance on Mahmoud and offer whatever assistance he may need, though he does not yet know what that might be, for his beloved seems increasingly anxious, and estranged from his kisses and his love, until slowly the matter is revealed to Aslan, that Sharif Pasha has ordered the postponement of the trial of the heinous murderers until such time as he is presented with some tangible evidence and not another affidavit or confession or other tongue-wagging, the veracity of which may never be proved.
And I swear to Mahmoud that tangible evidence will in fact be found, perhaps a piece of cloth from the monk’s cloak or a chip of bone or the vessel that contained his blood, but Mahmoud is agitated and nonplussed, for my wicked father and uncles have refused to utter a single word, in spite of their being dunked in freezing water, stretched on racks and subjected to other methods of torture, they have made no confession in the matter of the monk’s murder and have provided no details, and I comprehend the machinations of my lover’s heart and gather him into my arms and press him to my breast, for it is the fear of being returned to prison that makes him troubled and distraught; instead of the soft kisses of young men at the pool of the Nur Aladdin hammam he will be treated to flagellations at the hands of the men in his prison cell, who will come unto him one after the other without any feeling or compassion or lubrication.
Mahmoud wriggles free of my grasp and continues to rustle papers as if hoping to find some lead that might save him, and he turns to me and demands to know what was done with the body of the monk, where it was buried, to where it was removed, and he pinches me hard with his fingernails and shakes me to and fro to make me confess at once the details of the ancient and mysterious ceremony conducted by the Jews, and presses me to rescind my claim that I fell into a deep faint in that half-built room in which the murder was committed, for did I not witness with my own eyes all that had come to pass in disposing of the monk? And with the onset of tears I request that he stop shaking me, for I am prepared to recount to him all that he wishes to hear.
After a long moment of silence between us, Mahmoud relaxes his muscles and begs my forgiveness, for he knows I am his true and everlasting friend who will always succour him in every matter, and again I cover his face with many kisses and assure him that we will find a way of extricating us from this cul-de-sac, and without knowing why I suggest that we return to that highly intelligent and resourceful priest, Father Alexis, to receive his good counsel in this matter.
Every last bottle from Alexis’ secret cellar at the Terra Sancta Monastery has been exhumed and consumed, so that the priest is on the prowl for new ones, and because he is completely given over to his desire for wines and liqueurs, so difficult to come by in Damascus, he has entreated his congregants to provide him with these libations essential for prayer and in uniting with God, and without them he sits despondent and slack at the edge of the altar in the chapel, his lower lip trembling.
And lo, in spite of his great weakness, when he takes notice of our sudden appearance at the door Alexis rises to his feet and greets us warmly, and he surprises Aslan by remembering his name, and their earlier embrace remains fresh in his memory, and after receiving us with a bright countenance he turns, suddenly outraged, his hands grasping a chair in his path, and asks Mahmoud why those men accused of Tomaso’s murder have not yet been hanged, why they are still contaminating this beautiful God-given earth with their tainted breath, for indeed their disgraceful, evil holiday is nigh upon them and their unleavened bread has been baked in preparation for the Seder night, drops of the murdered Tomaso’s blood concealed between its rows to satisfy their savage cravings, and he pounds the chair with a trembling hand, loses his balance and tumbles to the centre of the holy room, and now he pummels the chapel floor so that Jesus and Mary, sculpted into the wall above him, can witness his fury and the war he is waging.
Mahmoud explains to Alexis that this is precisely the purpose of our visit, for Sharif Pasha has demanded decisive proof in the matter of this murder, in order for there to be no further doubt as to its veracity, and Alexis, standing now but terribly wobbly from drink, removes his lips from the mouth of a bottle he has found discarded on the floor and says to Mahmoud, Ask the Jew, he will tell you everything, and he gestures grandly with his left hand in my direction, and when I remain silent he motions for me to draw near and he places a fleshy hand on my neck, and I remind him that I have no memory of the rest of the story of the Blood Libel for I was in a dead faint from the moment Tomaso was murdered and I have no knowledge of what Jews do with the body of a Christian after extracting his blood for the unleavened Passover bread.
Burping and hiccoughing, Alexis tells me with heavy breath all that he knows from ancient stories of ritual murders such as these, whereby Jews of every generation are in need of the blood of Christians, and not merely for the baking of unleavened bread but also for mixing with an egg to be given to a bride and groom before their nuptials, and for diluting in holy wine for the circumcision ceremony, and for curing all manner of illnesses and diseases brought on by the devil, and Aslan recalls the leeches that Suleiman alkhalaq stored in jars, and they were plump and swollen from fresh blood and were never, ever satiated.
Aslan presses the venerable priest with questions about what, from generation to generation, is customary for the Jews to do with the body of a murdered Christian, for the matter is well known and quite familiar in the faraway lands of Europe, and Alexis is prepared to divulge this terrible secret for the price of a libation which I must present him, and when Mahmoud and Aslan have pooled all the drops of liquid remaining in all the bottles scattered about the chapel floor he reveals, in a whisper, that after the murder and the slaughter the Jews dissect the body piece by piece, breaking, crushing, pulverising the bones, and they lower them into the latrines so that no man may ever discover them. This is similar, he says to me, to what you did with Tomaso, is that not true? And his face is red from exertion.
I free myself from Alexis’ grip and recount, to Mahmoud, the rest of what transpired, for it is true that I fainted upon seeing the copious flow of blood and Tomaso’s upturned eyes; however, I lied in my affidavit when I wrote that I did not awaken in that room, for at once my uncles slapped
my cheeks and revived me and ordered me to steel myself as a man in order to assist them wholly in the work needed to gut the body drained of blood.
It was then that my uncles and father removed various odd chopping implements from their bags and before my astonished eyes dissected the body piece by piece, limb by limb, and they explained their intention was to wrap these pieces in discarded coffee sacks they had collected and deposit them in the latrines so that Elnahar Alaswad would whisk them outside the city along with the excrement and filth, and they would become prey for the wild dogs and famished jackals, and they snarled at me to desist from my womanly weakness and join them in this hasty work, for they feared some unwanted guest might suddenly appear at that secret room and catch them in their shameful deed.
Unwillingly I took part in this horrible, bloody mission, and they placed a sharp cleaver in my hand and ordered me to hew the feet from the legs, and I did as I was commanded and I placed the flesh in the grey and crumpled sacks littered about, and next to me Suleiman alkhalaq, too, was hard at work dissecting Tomaso’s body, trampling the thighs and adding the torn flesh to his sacks, and when we were told to do so the two of us collected the many sacks that had accrued, in one of which were Tomaso’s tongue and ears and nose, while in Uncle Murad’s sacks were the internal organs, and when the Khaham-Bashi noticed this he hastened to remove the liver and the heart and he wiped away the blood, deep red and congealed, and placed them in the copper vessel in which he had collected the precious liquid.