“When did you get this?” I ask.
“Last Friday. I found it slipped under the door of my apartment. At first, I thought it was from your uncle. I thought he was trying to scare me so he could get the book he wanted from me.” Carlos smiles as he adds, “Then, I thought that it might have been left by you.”
I roll my eyes. “And now that your mind has come home to roost after its errant voyage?”
“Now I don’t know. But if someone killed your uncle and now wants to kill me… Maybe this talisman is from him. Maybe the book I have has to do with your uncle’s death! Maybe it’s more valuable than we think.”
“Can you get it for me?”
“No. It’s in my apartment. And the Northerner… Beri, it was my last page of Judaism. I held it back because I had to. Your uncle was asking me to retain nothing of what I was.”
“It’s all right, Carlos. But do have any idea why it would be so valuable?”
He shakes his head, says, “There are other copies extant. It’s hardly unique.”
“Are there notes in the margins?”
“Nothing. Perhaps whoever was smuggling books with your uncle decided he simply wanted it for himself, didn’t want it to leave the country.”
“That doesn’t seem plausible. After shepherding a hundred or more valuable works across the border, there’s no logical reason why the smuggler would suddenly turn against Uncle simply because of your manuscript. Not only that, but there were several precious manuscripts in the genizah which the killer passed up to take Uncle’s Haggadah.” I hold up the talisman for inspection, see that the word sand, areia, is spelled incorrectly. “This has been done in haste, probably in secret,” I observe. “By someone without a complete eduction in Torah. And without formal training as a scribe. Although the ink is very good. An amateur scribe who has access to the best, I’d say. Right handed, of course, because of the slope of the characters. As for the yarn…” I sniff at it, run the plies between my fingers. “Rather old, I’d say. Smells of cedar. Kept in a trunk, perhaps. If we want to know more, we’ll need Farid’s help. Perhaps even the ink has a characteristic smell.” I look to Carlos. “The creator of this talisman was someone who wants to scare you. But if he wanted to kill you, he wouldn’t have bothered sending such a warning. May I hold on to it?”
He nods. “Just keep it away from me.” He leans his head back suddenly and yawns. “Sometimes I think that I could sleep for a century or two,” he says.
I say, “Look Carlos, you can take my bed. Grab an extra blanket from the chest.”
“The courtyard’s fine.”
“Your suffering won’t bring anyone back.”
“Beri, I need to see the sky, the stars. Let me sit here. I’ll sleep when God grants me grace.”
With a futile shrug, I wish him sound sleep. On my way to the cellar, I spot my mother standing in her bedroom, a shadow keeping vigil over Farid. I go to her, find her hugging to her chest a vellum talisman in the shape of a magreifah, a mythical ten-holed flute. We look at each other across a landscape beyond speech. With common purpose we shift our gaze to Farid. He breathes freely now, as if re-entering our world. Has an exchange been made? Farid for Judah? Is that why Mother will not take her eyes from him?
I whisper to her, “Thank you for giving him your bed and for watching over him.”
She takes my hand, squeezes it. The scent of henbane clings to her. In a drowsy voice, she says, “If only he were one of us.”
“It no longer matters,” I say.
“You’re wrong, Berekiah. It matters more than ever.”
We seem representatives of different races. I kiss her neck, shuffle down into the cellar. But there is little in Uncle’s correspondence to give me hope. Only two letters hold promise, both from the same person. The first is dated the Third of Shevat of this year and written in Arabic. Uncle must have received it just prior to his death. It is signed in florid script in the shape of a menorah. As best I can make out—for the elder generation of kabbalists love to confound the casual reader—the correspondent’s name is Tu Bisvat. Of course, this is just a pseudonym, Tu Bisvat being the name of a Jewish holiday which our mystics associate with the tree of life and certain reparations performed here and in God’s Upper Realms.
Unfortunately, my Arabic is woefully inadequate for the correspondent’s florid style. There is no doubt, however, that the author makes at least one reference to a safira which Uncle was sending to him.
The second letter dates from almost exactly a year ago, is also in Arabic. I can decipher nothing that makes any sense. If I were forced to make a translation, I’d have said that Uncle was negotiating to buy a tile decorating the center of a sunset.
I will need Farid’s help to remove the serpentine vines of Arabic code from both letters.
Before I close the genizah, I examine all the correspondence once again, this time to compare the writing with Carlos’ talisman. There are none which match.
Upstairs, I find Farid snoring away. His forehead no longer burns. Although tempted, I do not wake him; it is the first sound sleep he’s had in days. I sit in the kitchen to wait for him to stir, the letters from Tu Bisvat safely in my pouch. Onto the smoldering embers of our fire I toss pinches of cinnamon. A shower of red-glowing sparkles pricks at the air like shooting stars. I realize that I’m filthy with dust and grime, but my moist stench is comforting. It is as if it is a Jewish smell, as if I have agreed to make a permanent home in grief, as if revenge—once I find Uncle’s killer—will intensify this musky scent and render it divine.
I awake early Friday morning at the kitchen table to the smell of brackish seawater—great hides of salted codfish are soaking in a cauldron of water by my head. Roosters cry the dawn. Cinfa and Father Carlos are preparing verbena tea.
It is the seventh day of Passover, and the final evening of the holiday will descend tonight. The fear that time is running out for me to catch the killer shakes me fully awake.
Cinfa fixes my gaze with a cheerful face. “Mother says a person can live like a king on just codfish and eggs,” she observes. Her imploring eyes seek to have me confirm her fantasy happiness.
But I am weighted by a sense of entrapment. The house is a prison; Cinfa and Father Carlos unlikely prophets of survival. Jumping up, I ask, “Rabbi Losa hasn’t come, has he?”
“Not yet,” the priest answers.
“And Farid?”
“Still snoring.”
“He’s slept enough! I’ve got to wake him.” As I start away, Cinfa rushes to me and presses warm into my chest. “Please don’t go out again! Something terrible is going to happen to you today, I know it!”
I should be moved, but I only want the girl away from me. I walk her back to the hearth. “Nothing is going to happen,” I whisper. “I promise you that I will never again let an Old Christian hurt me.”
I can see in her hollow expression that the thick layer of disbelief which protected her from grief has been stripped away. I hold her hand while I lead her and Father Carlos in morning prayers. Afterward, the priest says, “I’m going back to São Domingos to make some more inquiries after Judah.”
“Give it up, Carlos,” I advise. “If he’s still alive, we’ll find him. They’re not going to tell you anything. He’s just another bit of Jewish smoke to them.”
“No, I must go.”
“But it’s not safe. The Northerner may be out looking for you.”
“He’ll expect me at home. I’ll slip out the store entrance to Temple Street and walk down by the river. Nothing will happen.” Carlos nods at me as if he needs my approval.
It seems that courage has finally blessed the priest. “Very well,” I nod.
He bows, then shuffles away.
Alone with Cinfa, I say, “Give me a moment with Farid, then I’ll come back to you.”
Her face reddens and bloats. She stares at me ready to burst into tears. I reach for her, but she breaks away from me and runs out through the kitchen door.
>
Farid is still asleep, but color has animated his face. The skin of his arms and legs is supple, warm. Mother’s talismans dangle over him like crazy confirmations of his health. Knowing that the angels have backed away, a grateful fullness rises as moisture to my eyes, propels me to the window to offer thanks to God. Belo, ears pointing, stares out over the wall of Senhora Faiam’s house, his one front leg propping him up firmly. Blessed are men and women, children and dogs, I think. With so much beauty in the world, does the existence of a personal God really matter so much? Can’twe be satisfied with what we’ve got?When I look down, I discover Carlos’ Nazarene, broken from his cross, still lying in the street. The figure and I share questions aimed at an impenetrable future. Farid wakes, taps the bed frame twice to get my attention. “Have you heard from Samir?” he signals.
“Nothing. I’m sorry. Just a second…” I retrieve his fathers sandals from my room, kneel by my friends side and offer them to him. I gesture, “I didn’t think it right to show you these before, while you were so… The man at the mosque said that your father left so quickly after the riot started that he forgot them.”
When Farid grips the sandals, his eyes shut tight. His thumbs trace the outline of the straps, and he sniffs at the leather. Scenting Samir, his lips curl out, his face seems to peel open. The tendons on his neck strain up toward the judgment of God’s wrath. He begins to moan. I lock both hands with him and attempt to pull him free with the strength of my love.
Slowly, Farid’s waves of grief subside to a silent flow. When he leans up on one elbow and wipes his eyes with his sheet, I gesture a simple, “I’m sorry.”
He nods and blows his nose on his shirt sleeve.
I sit by his side, signal, “You had dysentery. With everything else, I almost missed the diagnosis. I think it was that rice you bought when we were walking back to Lisbon on Monday.”
He sweeps his hand across his lips to thank me, then unfurls it in the air to praise the generosity of Allah. His movements are sure, woven by recaptured faith. Envy for his belief in a beneficent God tugs me to my feet.
“What day is it?” he asks.
“Friday.”
“Already approaching the Sabbath.” He shakes his head and takes a deep breath as if summoning his body’s long-dormant resources. “What more have you found out about Uncle’s murder?”
I explain, then show him my drawing of the ragamuffin who tried to sell Uncle’s Haggadah, then hand him the letters from Tu Bisvat.
“Now we have something,” he signals as he glances over the first letter, and he translates the important information it contains with rhythmic ease: “I have waited to write to you, Master Abraham, in the hopes that more safira would be arriving. But as there has been nothing of late, I am beginning to wonder. Has something happened to our Zerubbabel? Or perhaps you are ill. Please send me news. I begin to worry.”
There is a moment when the miniature world of a manuscript becomes real, when the contours of a prophet’s hands or twinkle in a heroine’s eyes glow again inside the eternal present that is Torah. A similar sentiment of time’s cessation captures me now, turns my vision inside. A path unfurls before me. It leads from Lisbon across Spain and Italy toward the Orient. Uncle walks along it, and he is carrying his beloved manuscripts, smiling with the joy of the gift-giver.
These images descend to me because this letter seems to make it clear that the path of my master’s smuggled books led to Constantinople. And that his accomplice in the Turkish capital, Tu Bisvat, had not received scheduled shipments, was worried that something had befallen Uncle. This news must have alerted him to the possibility that he was being betrayed by one or more of his couriers. Probably, my master kept this information to himself until he could be sure of the criminal’s identity. And in the meantime, he went to see Dom Miguel Ribeiro to try to recruit a new accomplice who could carry manuscripts across Portugal’s borders with relative ease. When the nobleman refused to participate, Uncle wrote to Samson Tijolo, who, because of his wine business, might also have been able to obtain permission to travel abroad.
As for Zerubbabel, he was a character in the Book of Ezra, of course. It was under his leadership that Solomon’s Temple was rebuilt during the reign of King Darius of Persia.
But who was he in this context? A coded name for the man who delivered Uncle’s smuggled manuscripts to Constantinople?
In the second letter from Tu Bisvat, the author makes reference to the zulecha, tile, that he is willing to buy for Uncle in Constantinople. “I don’t understand,” I tell Farid.
He signals, “In this context, I think it is a veiled reference to a building block for a home. Your uncle may have been negotiating to buy a house on the European side of the Bosporus—the sunset side of Constantinople.”
Chapter XV
To Farid, I signal, “So Uncle was planning all along to move, was waiting for the negotiations to be completed before telling us about Constantinople. Byzantium, imagine… A Moslem land. If only he’d shared this information with me. I’m sure we could have all worked harder to raise the money. But perhaps he feared being caught and then compromising.
The cascade of my surprised signalling is halted by Aunt Esther calling to me from the kitchen. “My God, her soul has returned to her body!” I whisper.
He reads my lips, gestures urgently, “Go to her! She may need you to pull her all the way back to our world!”
As I run in, I see that my aunt is not alone. She holds Cinfa in front of her like a human shield. An old man stands next to her. He is gaunt and tall, very pale, with spiky white hair and furry, caterpillar eyebrows. A man constructed from snow, it seems. Esther’s eyes follow me gravely. “You may remember Afonso Verdinho,” she says. “He was in Uncle’s threshing group.”
O Sinistro, the man from the left side, we used to call him with a certain ambivalent affection. It was a double entendre taken from the Italian language referencing Dom Afonso’s left-handedness and grim otherworldliness. Uncle liked him as a curiosity, used to say that he read the Torah as if it were fixed in fish glue—a consequence of the uncompromising asceticism he picked up while studying with Sufis in Persia. So where has it all gone? Now that I know his identity, he appears even older and more wilted, as if he has been starved and stretched in a lightless chamber. Yellowing sweat stains show under the arms of his crumpled white shirt. A shabby black cloak lined with frayed blue silk hangs over his arm. As our eyes meet, his lips twist uncomfortably. Neither of us makes a move toward greeting.
“You remember him, don’t you?” Esther prompts. “You were but a boy when…”
“I remember him,” I answer curtly. A sense of imminent disaster fixes me as if in crystal.
“Berekiah, I’m going to stay with Afonso for a while,” she continues, speaking slowly and gently. “He rode here when word about the riot reached Tomar. He’s rented rooms at Senhor Duarte’s inn by Reza’s house. We’ll be there. Please tell your mother. I don’t want to wake her. But if she needs me, she can come for me.”
“I don’t understand,” I say.
My aunt reaches to her temples, rubs them as if trying to center scattering thoughts. Cinfa twists to gaze up at her, then bolts out of the house. Esther calls after her in vain.
Afonso’s expression becomes one of gentle compassion as he whispers to Esther in Persian. His protective arm circles her shoulders. He hugs her to him. To me, he says in a dry voice, “Just give your aunt some time. Try to understand that the journey is far more complex than you once thought.”
He leads Esther into the courtyard. Huddling together, they disappear through the gate. Jealousy, thick and hot as pitch, sluices through my chest; cruel is the knowledge that a virtual stranger could revive my aunt when I could do nothing.
And that she would abandon her family at this time—it seems impossible!
Dom Afonso…does his presence change everything? Could he have been involved in Uncle’s murder, in smuggling his books? But he moved from Lisbon p
rior to the forced conversion, long before my master and my father dug the genizah.
An absurd disappointment buries itself in my gut, is linked to the knowledge that life is not a book, does not hold margin notes explaining difficult events. If it were, Dom Afonso would have remained seated in front of his fireplace in Tomar. His arrival only serves to complicate what is already out of my control.
I hear my uncle say: dearest Berekiah, life presents us with many paths leading nowhere, doors opening upon sheer drops, staircases risingto locked gates. And I remember that he used to tell me that all life is a pilgrimage to the Sabbath. Even if it is, I think, then nearly all of us take the most circuitous routes trying to get there.
I plod back to Farid. “People are very odd creatures,” I comment.
“Why? What happened?”
When I explain, he signals, “You don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?” I ask.
“They were lovers long ago. Samir told me.”
“Are you crazy, Afonso and…”
“It all ended years ago. It means nothing.”
His words are too simple to understand. The floor grows moist, slides away like sluicing floodwaters. Farid’s gesturing hands anchor me in a spinning world.
Could Esther have been involved in Uncle’s murder after all? Maybe in passing she divulged to Dom Afonso the existence of our genizah. He could have acted on his own out of continuing passion for her.
Farid senses my thoughts, signals, “A house of cards on a slanted table in a sandstorm.”
“Not if she didn’t know about Dom Afonso’s plans. Perhaps he hid his scheming from her. Even now, she doesn’t suspect that the man giving her solace is her husband’s murderer!”
“But from Tu Bisvat’s letter, we know that one of Uncle’s smugglers was very likely to have been involved. Unless you can believe that Afonso was one of them…that he was Zerubbabel.”
Farid and I sit in an expanding silence for quite some time; I am still awe-struck by Esther’s departure. My friend signals to me from time to time, but I pay no attention until he grabs my arm. “Someone with a strange walk has entered the house,” he gestures. “I can feel the vibrations.”
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