by Alon Hilu
And in the tiny cell of those condemned to die the Khaham-Bashi Yaacov Antebi is filling up with new life at the prospect of his holy death, and he recites to my father from the Torah and he searches with a candle for any last crumbs of the leavened bread forbidden during the Passover holiday, and he burns them thoroughly and declaims from the Haggadah from beginning to end, recalling the deeds of Rabbi Elazar and Rabbi Tarfon, and in the highest of spirits, wondrously joyful, he passes Father an imaginary Seder plate, and he laughs his familiar laugh of former days as he savours the invisible bitter herbs and makes a blessing over the hard-boiled egg of his imagination and drinks the four cups of wine and samples the Passover cake and eats from the sweet kharoset, and their taste is true and sincere on his tongue, and he lays a piece of cloth on his shoulder and recites from the Passover ceremony, Their kneading troughs are bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders; but Father does not give in to this game and does not respond to his questions, Min wein jai ulawein rayekh, From where do you come and to where goeth you; instead, a heavy Aslanish feebleness befalls him, and his large body and its well-known portliness plunge down, down, to the floor of the cell that is blacker than black, and he no longer pays heed to Rabbi Antebi, who is tempting him to take a bite from the leg of lamb he has conjured with the power of his words, nor does Father bother to refuse the many pots of multi-hued rice placed before him in silence, yellow rice coloured by saffron and grey rice coloured by beans and red rice coloured by tomatoes, and he does not taste the kusa makhshi or the riz ubamyeh, the stuffed marrows and the rice with okra; and Aslan and the crucified one, splayed across the parental bed, feel a light stabbing, a tiny incision, and they can picture Rafael and Yaacov at the bottom of the pit that is the Saraya prison dungeon, and at each incision, my happy friend, we would pray for some solution to this saga that had became so unnecessarily tangled, and if it were possible we would have rolled it backwards, rescued it from its snarls, disengaged it from its knots and cut it short in its infancy, at its inception, at the point of the original sin of bringing into the world a bleating, breathing overgrown baby whose body would one day sprout copious hair and who would be known by the name of Aslan son of Rafael Farhi.
6
AND WHEN A spirit of desperation and nullity settles on Aslan, and when the cords of death surround him and the pains of the underworld seize him, he consoles himself with the organ that brought upon him all his troubles and ruin, and while massaging it he conjures visions to please and comfort his pining soul, but the organ does not lift its head, does not stand erect in its glory as in bygone days, even when incited by thoughts of Umm-Jihan or Mahmoud; it remains flaccid, lazy and feeble like Aslan himself, and Aslan yearns to deliver his soul from death and his eyes from tears, so that he may extract this final pleasure from the enfeebled organ, return to his original, childish, love, to the first step on his path to hell and delight, namely the Jewish boy whose name is Moussa, and though his image is faded a trace of the memory of his scent remains in Aslan’s nostrils, and he is visited by the sounds of their play, and Aslan is catapulted to those distant, other years before he became entangled with all manner of troubles, and once again he is that boy sharing a secret with a friend, surrounded by other children who mock them.
Other images from his life pass before his eyes faster even than the rubbing and massaging motions he is applying to his organ, and he wishes to suck the marrow of life from these memories, imbibe the blood of his infancy, and now he is a chubby-kneed babe or a pampered boy clinging to his mother’s skirts, acquiescing to her traitorous affections and draping himself with her soft scarves, and Aslan finds himself nostalgic for the scent and the touch of that woman and her fine breasts, for many days have passed since he has seen her last, and he recalls the love she would give him, and the lyrical voice with which she sang him lullabies whose words he did not comprehend, and he wishes to hold fast to these slivers and fragments that revive his soul, but his illness returns and grows stronger, quashing his manhood risen ever so briefly, and the contaminated black pus fatigues and weakens his body and he ceases his onanism and gathers unto himself the statue of the saviour so that he may cry upon its wooden shoulders.
When his friend the one-eyed shrew hears the bitter sobs of his lamentations as Aslan mourns his life, she hastens to press his ribs to find out how he is, and Aslan responds to the questions of his intestinal resident and lo, her words are consolatory and pleasant, not capricious or evil-minded, and she encourages him to gird his loins as a man and combat this wicked illness frothing in his veins, and the one-eyed shrew seems now to him sincere and full of goodwill, her voice no longer shrieks as it did in the past, but is quiet and mothering, and Aslan wonders whether the shrew is truly one-eyed or whether the dusky gloom of her cave-like residence has covered her eyelids with a thick and delusive layer of filmy blackness and her damaged eye is as sharp and well-honed as her healthy one.
And this intestinal resident, who ekes out her days among the ribs of all Jewish men, goads him to form a connection with his new friend – a Jew, and afflicted just like Aslan – for Jesus is a good and loyal friend, and if Aslan truly and wholly joins forces with Jesus perhaps his new, true friend will agree to relieve him of his heavy sacks of guilt and evil deeds and sink them in pure and many waters, thereby restoring Aslan to bygone days when he was clean of sin and iniquity.
Her words are good and pleasant in Aslan’s ears and he strings one hesitant word of his own to the next without knowing what will follow, but the words interlace and for the first time in his life Aslan finds himself uttering words of prayer, and his prayers are sincere and true, not a prescribed formula from the worn-out books thrust into his hands by the synagogue beadle, nor a recitation in the style of perspiring Torah scholars, but deep prayer full of intent, which cleaves to his tongue, and Aslan confesses to his good friend Jesus the sins he has committed and the path of sinners and evildoers which he has followed, and he adds a supplication to his friend that he might petition their Father to set right what may be righted and perform some miracle like the ones he has performed in the Land of Israel, such as healing the lepers from their leprosy or resuscitating the dead, and this is precisely what he would be doing for Aslan were he to pluck him from the entanglements of this affair, like a seamstress parting threads that cling together, and he will remove lie from truth and evil from justice and guilt from innocence, and Aslan’s first, hesitant prayer gains strength and continues, and Aslan appends to it all manner of promises and oaths and vows, that if his entreaties for a miracle and a solution are answered he will shed the slough of Judaism from himself like a slippery snake and he will assume the mantle of Christian doctrine in all three hundred and sixty-five sinews of his body, and he hearkens to the heavenly voice echoing inside the statue of Jesus, and it praises him for his supplications and affirms that it will indeed bring about this miracle that will put an extraordinary end to the affair of the Blood Libel, and upon the command of that heavenly voice he rises from his sickbed, descends to the pantry in the cellar and removes from there every kind of cake and confection he can find, stuffing them into his body in order to strengthen his soul.
New hope fills Aslan, for Jesus will speak to the hearts of his followers and will make it pleasant for them to rescind the Blood Libel, and he will bring much love to the priests and the consul and all the other Christians of Damascus, and he will rescue Aslan’s father and his father-in-law from the executioner’s rope and their deaths, and he will absolve Aslan of his terrible guilt, and Aslan repeats his vow, with increased intensity and intent, that if this grand miracle comes to pass – this miracle that seems too remote, too implausible – if somehow this grand miracle comes to pass, if Jesus releases the confined and annuls the edicts and saves the Jews, then Aslan will offer up his own life to him, will devote the rest of his days to worshipping him and praying to him and loving him munificently.
Aslan lies on his parents’ bed passing between sleep and wakeful
ness and back again, and lo, the inkling of a sweet faith overwhelms him, for the Christian saviour will indeed draw from his soul the eddying pus, blacker than black, and he will remove from his blood the frothing eruptions, the disease; and if Jesus does not come to his rescue Aslan will fade to his own death, his limbs withered and weak, and with these thoughts in mind he falls into a long, feverish slumber of nightmares.
A week passes, then another, then a month, and the wooden statue in the image of Jesus lies upon the headrest of Aslan’s sickbed, his deathbed, and not only have the heavens failed to answer his prayers but a new evil, worse than its predecessors, has visited the city of Damascus.
As if the trial of the pair of accused murderers, whose public hanging in the Saraya Square has been inexplicably postponed time and again, were not enough, and as if the outbreak of the terrible plague that descended upon all quarters of the city and claimed many victims were not enough, now people were agog and aghast over an impending war whose war-drums were already resounding in the pale grey skies that were dawning after the difficult winter.
The reason for this war, my happy friend, was that the rebel Muhammad Ali had rent asunder the yoke of authority of the Turkish sultan and had broken the bar of Damascus and conquered many other great lands, and now the wrath of the Europeans was upon him, and they exhorted the Turkish Sultan Ibd Almajid Khan, a thin and haggard youth of sixteen prone to fainting spells, to stand up to the ageing Egyptian rebel and reclaim the severed pieces of his empire, and with their assistance he had assembled his forces and was threatening to recapture his plundered lands and put to death Sharif Pasha and his aides, leaving none among them alive.
And a terrible dread descended upon the Christians, for they had enjoyed the flattering protection of Muhammad Ali and his governors, who permitted them to wear white turbans and chime the bells in their churches, and now this awful darkness was engulfing the city and Sharif Pasha’s clerks were recruiting young men and forcibly conscripting them into service for the purpose of fighting the young sultan’s armies that were now gathering in the north.
Aslan does not bother to conceal himself from those wishing to ensnare men for battle and slaughter, he does not spirit himself away to his secret hiding place between the walls of the cellar, in the company of the house snakes; instead he repeats to himself, again and again, with great purpose and deep supplication, the prayerful chant he composed, and he is filled with dread at the thought that perhaps not only are his prayers not being answered, but that the invisible, ethereal angels swarming round him seek to prevent them from reaching a heedful ear, for they despise and detest Aslan and wish him great suffering at the hands of this malady that has no cure, and that he may bear witness to the results of his many, many sins.
And lo, my happy friend, it became known to me only many years hence that at that very same period in time, when it seemed the death by hanging of the two accused prisoners was imminent and the world was blacker than black, that many strange events and deeds were taking place in foreign lands, for word of the incident that began with an act of copulation with the monk Tomaso that stormy night had reached the Houses of Parliament in Paris, Vienna and London, and many were those discussing the trial – some denouncing the Jews, others defending them – and in all manner of journals and daily presses throughout distant Europe long, detailed articles were being written about the crimes of Rafael Farhi and about a small glass bottle in which blood had been collected, and even the name of the informant was provided, Aslan Yehudah son of Rafael Farhi, and massive riots erupted across Europe in the wake of this trial and this Blood Libel, and writers and journalists from far and near descended upon Damascus in order to relate all that had taken place in this ordeal of blood and slaughter.
Furthermore, as I was to learn much later, urgent missives were dispatched to kings and sovereign rulers asking them to plead with the Egyptian governor Muhammad Ali to commute the sentence, and among those who came to the aid of Damascus Jewry were members of the hugely wealthy Rothschild family, who appointed a fiery French lawyer by the name of Adolphe Crémieux, and a portly hook-nosed English gentleman by the name of Moses Montefiore, and they sailed to Alexandria with the greatest of speed for a tête-à-tête with Muhammad Ali.
My happy friend, wondrous are the ways of our lord Jesus, at times revealed and at times concealed, and he always stands ready to aid his believers and does not abandon them and is prepared to embrace them with welcoming arms.
For indeed, in a manner whose details are a mystery to me to this very day, Aslan’s prayers were answered and a great miracle befell the Jewish people: a sealed envelope was sent in tremendous haste by Muhammad Ali in Alexandria to Sharif Pasha in Damascus, and it contained orders to liberate forthwith and unconditionally all of the incarcerated.
The first to be set free from prison were the children, sixty-three of them in number, the copper basins removed from their heads, their runny noses wiped clean of yellow snot, black blindfolds lowered from their eyes, their gait unsteady and troubled, for throughout their imprisonment they had been allotted a mere twenty drahim of bread and a tiny portion of water each day to keep them alive.
The children walk in single file, holding hands, as they emerge from the prison to their mothers waiting in the Saraya Square, but there are no exuberant cries of joy as at the end of a day of studies at the Talmud Torah, nor shrieks of happiness or calls for open-air games, rather, their heads are bent and their noses snuffling, for their souls are scarred and cleft and a deep, adult grief has taken seed in their eyes, and when they reach Azm Palace Aslan catches sight of them and it is then that he learns that his prayers have been answered and the end and conclusion of this affair are drawing near.
Once the liberation of the children has been completed an order is given to open the prison gates to release all the other prisoners who did not stand trial, and these are the butchers and the gravediggers and the hapless passers-by who fell unwitting prey to ambushes set by Sharif Pasha or the French consul and were consigned to the dungeons for this extended period, and their beards have grown exceedingly long and their shoulders are hunched and their voices hoarse and their fingers withered, and the Jewish expression on their faces – of grief, and wandering, and exile – is more apparent than ever, and Aslan understands that like him they, too, have a one-eyed shrew for a friend, and these shrews wave a greeting to him from between the men’s ribs and express their deepest gratitude for his prayers that have been answered, and Aslan returns their greetings with a smile though it delights no one other than the shrews to see him; rather, these mournful, exhausted men emerging single file from the Saraya prison remain silent as they take the hands of the spouses and children awaiting them, and if one among them catches Aslan’s gaze he turns his head and mutters a curse, for great is the sin of this traitor.
The doors of the homes of Kharet Elyahud are open to welcome the return of its fatigued population of males, yet there is none among them who celebrates this unexpected salvation, for once the surprise command had been issued by Muhammad Ali and transported by a swift caravan of camels from Alexandria to Beirut and on to Damascus, and once the missive had been presented to the disbelieving Sharif Pasha instructing him that he must grant a sweeping clemency to all the Jews, then the fate of these Jews was transformed and they emerged from slavery to freedom, from darkness to light, from death to life; and yet, as they arrive at the gates to the Jewish Quarter, they remain distraught and reserved, greatly frightened by the arbitrariness of the sovereign ruler.
And from his place in the mosque next door to the prison, the Islamised Jew Muhammad Effendi gazes at the lengthy procession of his Jewish brethren and he hastens, though fearful, to learn whether the rumour is true, that the pathways have opened and the gates have been breached and the way paved, for this is the hand of God, the God of the Jews, and he casts off his white turban and goes out to them and they receive him, silent, allowing him to join their ranks homeward-bound to Kharet Elyahud,
whose gates are thrown wide open.
As the procession marches on, the bars of the cell holding the Khaham-Bashi are opened, and his body is crushed, his eyebrows shaven as a sign of humiliation and from his ears grow long, white, lifeless hairs, and his glory has become thin and his flesh lean, and he emerges from the prison dejected, stooped like an alms gatherer in a city of ghosts, not as one cleared of blame but as one granted a clemency of benevolence, and two young Jews hasten to support him, and in no time his daughters come to join him from their strange and scattered hiding places, and as he watches the long, silent procession of people with slashed hands and cracked kneecaps and carrying no belongings, Aslan discerns that Moses Abulafia has slowed his pace so that his dear old friend will catch up to him, and now they are marching together, side by side, Abulafia still in his Muslim robe and the Khaham-Bashi in his filthy tatters, and for a brief moment Aslan can see how their shoulders touch and the impurity upon Moses Abulafia falls away, along with every hint of the confrontation and the lies and the abuse that were hurled like muck, all of it is swept down to Elnahar Alaswad and washed away to a place far distant, and Aslan, too, wishes to join the procession, but how deep is the chasm that gapes between him and the marchers, and how could he ever hope to cross it?
The last to emerge from the prison are the Farhi family, and they walk as one, the brothers weaving and blending among themselves so that Aslan does not know which is his father, and it is as if he has already forgotten the contours of his father’s face and his gait and the timbre of his voice, and a deep shame arises in Aslan for all his deeds, and the quiet of the silent procession shouts out his guilt as though these many feet and these stooped backs have only one purpose, and that is to point out, for all to see, this stubborn and rebellious son, this traitor and betrayer, and their clemency is his sentence, their liberation the seal of his fate in death.