Lucena

by Mois Benarroch

  Have to be on the road again. Moving on is calling us, now, after the king of Portugal gave us refuge after one hundred years we have to move on again. They don’t care if we are former Jews “Marranos,” that we have changed so very much that we don’t even know who we are, that we aren’t even really sure that we are Jews. It is necessary to set sail in the direction of Tangier and the new city of Tetuán. What a shame to see that my relatives did not become Christians, would not have gone through the humiliation of leaving two hundred years before when the rabbis said it was necessary to emigrate to Morocco instead of converting! Thus we lost our sons beneath the waves of the sea, the wind and darkness; they were snatched from us and Christianized. These boats frighten me even though they say the trip is short and we don’t have to pay anything, that this Ruti does it out of duty. Maybe, as in other boats someone steals our belongings and our life in exchange for a few coins.

  I still carry with me the stories my grandmother told me about those who paid the Spaniards to take them to Maghreb and paid with their lives. My grandfather still weeps over his uncles and brothers, for those who we have not heard from again since they went to Málaga. But I also hear the tears of those who converted to Christianity, and the worst of all, the story of an uncle of mine, an unnamed uncle, my father’s brother, who became a priest. And what happened to those who did really convert to Christianity, whose children died at the hands of the Inquisition? Didn’t they do enough by being Christians? This is our destiny, to convert or emigrate but I know that one day we will return to our city, to Lucena, maybe even Jerusalem, but I dream of Lucena, the city where my surname was born:

  Benzimra.

  Now here, they call us Suárez but we all know perfectly well that when we arrive in Morocco We will again be Benzimra, our name will be returned to us. It will again be our name, yes, it will be ours again.

  WHAT IS YOUR NAME?

  -José.

  -What do you do?

  -I build bridges.

  -What kind of bridges?

  -Bridges between people.

  -You make a living from that?

  -Whenever I build a bridge, someone destroys two.

  -So how do you make a living?

  -I have a fruit tree that bears me fruit when I am hungry.

  -What kind of fruit?

  -Fruit with the flavor of my hunger.

  -What flavor does your fruit have?

  -If I hunger for meat, they taste like meat, If I hunger for mango, like mango, and if lemon, like lemon.

  -How much is your tree worth?

  -Nothing.

  -I want to buy it from you.

  -You can’t. It’s not for sale. You think everything has a price. If you could, you would try to buy God.

  -Why not?

  -Because God is not for sale.

  -Not God, your tree. Why can’t I buy your tree?

  -The tree is invisible.

  -What is your name?

  -José Santillana.

  -You’re crazy, crazy, crazy.

  -That is what everybody says about me but I am less crazy than you.

  THE GODS

  A SHORT STORY BY SAMUEL MURCIANO

  “And now what?

  “We have to stop this.”

  “Stop what?”

  “Hitler.”

  “Don’t you think you have exaggerated just a little? Six million Jews. You have eliminated most of them.”

  “There wasn’t any other way.”

  “What do you mean there wasn’t any other way? You know very good and well it’s no use. That’s why you chose them, because they are so strong.”

  “They’ll have to wait ‘till the day comes.”

  “We tried everything and it didn’t work. Exile, rapture, prophets, sacrifices, resurrection.

  “Agreed. Eliminate Hitler.”

  “He’s been eliminated. I pulverized him.”

  “So nothing may be found of him so he doesn’t become some kind of messiah.”

  “I think he’ll be changed into a devil.”

  “Great. What do we do now?”

  “We’ll have to admit a mistake was made. The whole Mount Sinai thing should have lasted seven days like the creation of the earth. Now that’s been three thousand years ago and every time we try to amend it something interferes and it breaks down.”

  “That’s true.”

  “First we left them in the desert for forty years. Maybe that was a mistake because there they made the golden calf. Then we took them to the land of Israel and they lay down with Canaanite women. The Joshua thing could have been for real but he couldn’t handle some of the small towns. We would have been able to handle them with a small flood. And then there was the tabernacle, and then the first temple, and then they gave them a king. It’s just been a big bunch of errors.”

  “Do you have any advice on how to solve it?”

  “Not exactly, but I know what the problem is. I already told you from the start that it was very dangerous. Why give them free will? We have created dozens of worlds without ever giving them free choice and everything has functioned like clockwork. Not just because, but out of respect for the earth which is the most beautiful planet we have in the universe. Why give them free will?”

  “This was the whole issue. Fortunately we have discovered some interesting things such as how to make a golden calf, the wheel...Don’t forget that the wheel is only found on planet Earth, and the ships.”

  “We could have fixed it without that. What use are ships when there are space ships, something that has taken us a long time to discover and we have had to help them. Look at the clunkers of airplanes they have built: they weigh tons... and atomic bombs. Stupid thing.”

  “It may be stupid but on no other planet have they even thought of that.”

  “They haven’t thought of it? But just why is it necessary? Just to annihilate them?”

  “No, impossible.”

  “Why is it impossible?”

  “Because we do not have free will.”

  SHMUEL

  When we were in Tetuán we were told it is better to have a room in the land of Israel than a huge mansion in the diaspora. But, tell me: Is it better to serve time in prison in Israel than to enjoy freedom in the diaspora? That, we were not told. And now I am in jail. I’m no saint, but I don’t recall a single Jew in Chauen who has been in jail. Once I heard one of my uncles had gone to jail about something to do with taxes, but after two days the local mayor got him out. Here we don’t have any mayor who could get us out of jail. We are in a democratic society and these things can’t happen unless you might be a Muslim. In Morocco the mayor of that community took care that nobody should be jailed. Here we’re all crushed to dust. I’m here for armed robbery so you don’t have to feel sorry for me. It all began when I was fifteen and I stole some candies from the grocery store. They opened a file on me and put me in the reformatory. There is where I learned all the tricks of the trade. They brought me a psychologist who didn’t understand a word I said to him. He talked all the time about development and integration into society. I talked to him about my family and Chauen. Once, in Chauen I had done the same thing in a grocery store and all I got was slapped. No psychologist or interrogators. Another time I smoked something I didn’t even know what it was and I was put in jail. So I have a criminal record. In Morocco the Jews never had a criminal record. In that country of bribes there was always someone who would see to it that all traces would disappear. But here in Israel, in the land of the Jews, at age twenty I already had a criminal record. That is why I was not accepted into the army. Then I also could not get a normal job. When I was in Morocco I just wanted to be a police officer. But who can be a police officer with a criminal record? I tried out several abominable Jobs but I very soon decided to return to my friends in jail who taught me how to steal without getting caught. One was called Cami and the other Jojo. All of them were from Moroccan families who had never been in trouble until arriving in the land
of the Jews. Those were better times. At night we would pilfer here and there and with the money I would invite girls for a ride in my BMW. Easy come, easy go. Even without doing drugs, the money quickly disappeared.

  Even Sami one day proposed we rob a Kiryat Gat bank. It all looked real easy but we had bad luck because at that moment the patrol car came by. It was just real bad luck. Otherwise I would be here sitting on several million. That’s all. Fifteen years in prison. That is what Zionism is to me. If my parents had known that Zionism would end up like that they would have emigrated to France, or Canada or any other place where I would surely have completed high school, I would have gone to university or at least have studied accounting. The only good thing about this jail is that there is a majority of Sephardim and very few Ashkenazi.

  So, a rotten prison in Israel is better than a forty room house in Morocco? Hurray for Zionism!

  DINNER IN MÁLAGA

  Samuel hated family meals where his father would ceaselessly say silly things while his mother would laugh, mortified, in the corner. But this time he had to swallow the whole stupid and repetitive discourse of his father, Salomón.

  “So, where were you until two in the morning yesterday Samuelito?” I hope you weren’t getting mixed up with a Saxon girl.” I haven’t brought you back to Jerusalem for that. What do you do all day? Tell me, couldn’t you do a little work? If you were in Israel now you would be in the army, running through the mountains. Although a little azifú might do you some good. Saxon, nowadays one doesn’t really know what to fear. Look, for example, Benchimol’s nephew, the one who was friends with your brother, Isaquito, turned into a queer, a homo and he had the nerve to tell his father. I’m sure that’s what caused his heart attack. He told his father, do you hear me? I’m surprised you are still sitting at the table. I’m sure something’s wrong with you. He told his father that he should be happy that he had discovered his true sexuality and that he was very happy with his queer friend, and a Saxon. I hope at least that they don’t get married in the church. I hope that doesn’t happen to you and that the two years you have spent in Israel will help you to be a real Jew, or at least so you don’t get done from behind like Benchimol’s son.”

  Coti was ready to intervene. “Why don’t you stop talking like that and grossing us out? These days we need to respect homosexuals because they are part of society. Your Tetuán and your stories are over. And your own nephew Mois Hadchuel was also a homo. We are in a democratic state and everybody can do as they please.”

  “I’ll agree with that.” He had his mouth full and he turned red. “But not in my family. If you two, my sons, are gay, what do I know? If you like to be done back there, please, don’t tell me. I don’t even want to hear it. Or to have a heart attack.”

  Samuel realized that things were turning ugly and that his father wouldn’t go very long without suffering an attack of apoplexy as had occurred a few years back during the celebration of Sucot, when he got so upset he couldn’t breathe and had to be taken, to hospital. He remembered very well that they had argued about an uncle he did not know, a Jacob Benzimra, who, sixty years before, had married a Christian prostitute.

  “Papa, I don’t know why you get so heated up. Neither I nor my brother are homosexuals. You don’t have to worry. We are boy scouts and we go out with Jewish girls. Calm down. Everything is ok.”

  “I should calm down? With everything we see on television?”

  “Why don’t you stop watching it?”

  “So finally this Benchimol ended up changing sex. I know how they fill their brains with butterflies, those scabs. They poison their brains with this foolishness and they think they are being modern.”

  “But since we don’t have any contact with those Benchimol why do you care?” said the mother trying to calm things down.

  “Papa, tell me something: Did you have a grandfather Abraham Benzimra that went to Brazil in the last century?”

  “Back then everybody went to Brazil. Yes, there was one with that name. He left, but he would come back every couple of years until one day he didn’t come back and we don’t even know where he was buried. The wind took him. Or maybe he found a prostitute in Brazil. The specialty of our family.”

  “Does that make you nervous?”

  “May he rest in peace,” said papa. “No, God save me, we needn’t talk about our ancestors He was forty years old when he disappeared. He started out visiting Brazil, like many from Tetuán, seeking a bread crust, shortly after his Bar-mitzvah. He must have married very young, I can’t remember. Ask your grandmother. Remember the photo your grandmother has in the kitchen? Where there is an old man and a child at his side? The child is him: Abraham Benzimra, who disappeared in Brazil. They called him the one who left us in Brazil he who went to Brazil, and the one who is sitting beside him is his grandfather, who was also named Abraham Benzimra. ”

  “So did his children say Kaddish for him?”

  “Kaddish? I don’t know. Why do you want to know? Maybe they did, maybe not. His poor wife, Freja Benzimra, surely she remained alone to the end of her days. I didn’t know them. I was born after Moroccan Independence. All this is only stories. Maybe your grandmother can tell you something. Go see her.”

  The little brother, David, who up to then had remained silent, started imitating the grandmother, wrinkling up his face and in a parody of what she always said to them when they went to see her: “All day long alone. Nobody comes to see me, neither my sons nor my daughters. What do you want child? Did you bring me a gift?”

  Samuel nodded to his brother indicating agreement with what he had said. But what happened when he went to grandma’s house was different. When he didn’t have anything to do, he used to go to grandma’s house and take her copies of Playboy.

  “Look, grandma: models.”

  “Models? Well I never saw anything like that!

  “Look at this blonde. Look at those breasts.”

  “What’s wrong with you child?” She would say halfway laughing half shouting. “This is new style renewed. Throw that all out.”

  “Why grandma? These are respectable models!”

  Sometimes he would go to see her to tell her he had joined the mafia, that he had asked them for a loan and that he owed them a lot of money: two million pesetas, and if he did not pay them back they would be on him. Then the grandmother would call his father, frightened and in response to his father’s questioning Samuel would tell him candidly: “Grandma sees too many soap operas. She made it all up.”

  But that had been some time ago. He had hardly seen her in the last two years. Only at High Holidays when they went to see her after leaving synagogue.

  She was a bit deaf and didn’t want to leave the house. She was ninety some.

  “Samuelito, how are you? Nobody ever comes to see me anymore. Not even you, with your models.”

  “I came to ask you something.”

  “Did you bring me magazines?”

  “Who was Abraham Benzima who disappeared in Brazil?”

  “Your cousin Abramito?”

  “No, not him. Abraham Benzimra from 1870 or something like that. So you remember him?” and he repeated, shouting the Word “BRAZIL.”

  “He who left and never returned. Abraham Benzimra, your grandfather’s grandfather. What can I say about him? He left and never returned. He was a real bastard. That’s what my grandmother said. Somebody said they had seen him on the Amazon and that he had married some girls there. So she spent her life abandoned. But who knows? It could be that whoever said that was envious that my grandmother was rich, from the large quantity of money that Abraham Benzimra brought from Brazil. He built many buildings in Tetuán and left her a lot of money. They say it was all envy and that the man had died. Others said he was swindler and he ran away with non-Jewish women. These days everybody marries non-Jews, like your models,” she said laughingly.

  “Yes, yes,” answered Samuel.

  “Did you bring me a magazine? I hope you‘re not still
in the mafia,” she laughed again.

  “No, I finally paid my debts.”

  “Here, here take some money,” she said, surprising him as she handed him five thousand pesetas she had in her bag.

  “Grandma, can dead people talk?”

  “Yes, I, at my age I can talk,” she answered smiling as her false teeth moved around.

  “Dead people can also do it. They appear in one’s dreams. Have you seen Abraham Benzimra in your dreams?”

  “It wasn’t a dream grandma, I was just with him like I am here with you now.”

  “That’s a sign he is alive. Nobody has seen him dead so maybe he’s alive.”

  “That’s foolish grandma, he would be one hundred fifty years old by now.”

  “We have heard about stranger things than that happening.”

  “He says he’s a thousand years old.”

  “You see? What else does he say?”

  “To tell the truth, I didn’t understand anything. He told me a bunch of things about the Spaniards and the Stone Age from five hundred years ago. He said he was born in Lucena.”

  “They say our family came from Lucena.”

  “From that little town?”

  “At one time it was a large city, and the Jews there were in the majority.”

  “He didn’t stop talking about a bunch of confusing things and he seems insane.”

  She thought for a while, making signs that he should not bother her. Then she said:

  “Ask him what was on the handkerchief that he left his wife the last time he left for Brazil. A stranger could not know that.”

  RUSSIAN

  A SHORT STORY OF SAMUEL MURCIANO

  I went in to the record store at ten in the morning, something I do frequently, and I began talking with the salesman about the future of Tejano music in Israel after two thousand years of exile. Then a Russian with a strong accent came in looking for the latest cd by the Tremeloes. The odor of cognac emanated from eight meters away.