He gestures for Farid and me to enter his sitting room like an elder inviting youths toward wisdom. The two emerald rings crowning the index and middle fingers of his right hand suddenly seem dyed by holy light.
Inside, the girl from his carriage stands by a shuttered window at the far wall, her right arm behind her back. She wears a long gown of cream-colored silk which rises to a lace partlet and ruffled collar. A violet wimple draws her hair back into a cone ringed with silver filigree. Her face is pale and gentle, curiously girlish, centered by inquisitive eyes. Spurred perhaps by my stare of fond solidarity, she shows her hidden arm. It is short, stubby, reaches only to her waist. A quiver in her tiny fingers as she grips her pearls marks her anxious hesitation, but the longer I gaze upon her, the more solid becomes her expression of tenderness. I sense that she would like to caress the tips of her fingers across my lips.
“My daughter, Joanna,” the Count says.
With a mixture of gratitude and sexual desire, I think: praised be God for not making her his wife. I bow and offer my name. I extend my hand toward Farid and introduce him. “He is deaf and cannot speak. He will read your lips.” Farid bows with the deep Islamic grace he has inherited from Samir. It is intended to remind us that we are representatives of Allah and must meet together with a seriousness equal to our origins.
“I’m overjoyed you’ve come,” the Count says. “You’ve saved me a trip out to that pestilent Alfama. Let’s make ourselves comfortable, no?” He takes the elbow of his daughter’s left arm and leads her across the room as if about to dance. Farid and I slip uncomfortably down into gold and scarlet brocade chairs around a table of marble marquetry. A pewter tray holds a rose-colored ceramic carafe and four silver goblets. Joanna pours us wine. The Count studies us with insistent eyes. The two of us seem awkward, hesitant, like sea gulls on land. Farid signals, “The sooner we leave, the better.”
“I assume that when you gesture like that you are talking together,” the Count remarks. He twists his body to the side as the skeptical often do, stares at me above his nose with a mixture of curiosity and superiority.
“We grew up together and developed a language,” I explain.
“A language of the hands. And for obvious reasons,” he says, nodding toward Joanna, “I am fascinated by hands. Tell me, do you spell every word?”
“A few. But most words have signs.”
“And when you spell, is it in Portuguese or Hebrew?”
The Count smiles cagily at my silence. A grin from a man who likes to pose and prosecute, to confuse his victims before… He laughs suddenly and claps his hands. “Watch,” he says. He leans forward and lays an invisible object onto the table, picks corners apart as if unfolding a piece of expensive material. Bowing his head and mouthing some words, he blankets his head and shoulders with an invisible shawl. Facing east, he chants the opening of Jewish evening prayers in a faint whisper. As his words fade, he turns with a gentle expression requesting patience. He says in whispered Castilian, “From our century forward, acting will be a good profession for Jews to study. I predict that we will be the best, in all countries, in all languages, until the Messiah comes, when we will take no more roles.” He smiles through pursed lips and nods as if seconding his own theory, straightens up and swirls his invisible shawl into the air like a magician. “No matter how lucrative those roles may be. So forgive my little play. An actor without an audience is nothing, and I must use all my opportunities.” He nods at me, then Farid. “I do indeed remember you both from the street. And your uncle of blessed memory, almost caught by the King’s guards in his phylacteries.” He leans across the table to take my hand. “It’s pointless hiding when amongst your own,” he observes.
I slip out of his cold and sweaty touch. “Then you are New Christians?” I ask.
“Yes,” Joanna answers.
“And a little bit ‘no,’” adds the Count with an apologetic shrug.
Has the girl spoken because she senses that I do not trust her father? Sensing my weakness for her, Farid signals, “Do not put your faith in either of them.”
I lay my hand on Farid’s arm as reassurance. To the Count, I say, “You’ll have to speak more plainly with me.”
“Simple really,” the Count says. “We are and aren’t New Christians. We have delightful little cards of pardon from King Ferdinand. Blessed be He who creates a stain and removes it. And he’s also conferred upon me a sweet little title, of course. How did I get this delicious bit of powerful nothing? Marriage, my young man. Remember that when it comes time to plant your seed. Joanna’s mother of blessed memory sprouted from the branches of a very important family tree.” He nods toward his daughter and holds up a finger as if the truth must be told. “Very important, but very broke. So money is also how I became a count. Don’t look at me as if that’s to be belittled. No, senhor. No, indeed! I’m no different from the King of Castile himself. All nobles are fakes. Look below their finery and you’ll find a jealous peasant thrilled to nestle between the legs of his maidservant. And they’re always overspending. Don’t ever forget that! They never learn. It’s one of the ways you know that they’re not Jewish. If they do learn anything, then our dwarf-minded Dominican friars exclaim, ‘Aha! A Jew!’ and turn them to smoke. So make a lot of money and buy what you want, and never learn a thing, and you, too, may become a count!” He moistens his lips with a sip of wine. “What business is it you’re in, anyway?”
“Father…” Joanna says. “I’m sure that’s not necessary.”
“Of course, you my dear would think so. Everything but love to a young woman is unnecessary.”
Farid signals, “That passes for wit in Castile. I think we’re supposed to smile admiringly.”
The Count turns to me with raised, questioning eyebrows. “I asked what business you are in, Senhor Zarco.”
“My family owns a fruit store. But I really…”
“Oh, please!” he exclaims, flapping his hand at me in protest. “Don’t talk to me of family! Family ties are the curse of Spain and Portugal. You must walk away… no run away from them, dear boy!”
I look at Farid for his opinion on what to reply. He sighs and signals, “He’s trying to confuse us for some reason.”
“You’re right,” I observe, standing.
“You’re right’ what?” the Count asks, dumbfounded.
“Just tell us why you wanted to buy manuscripts from Simon Eanes,” I say.
“I just told you, my son! Doubloons, maravedis, cruzados, reis…. Tell me your heartbeat doesn’t quicken just a little when you hear the glorious names of money! Like the names of God, they are. Only not the least bit secret. Blessed be He who creates the obvious.” He leans toward me, whispers, “Maybe I shouldn’t go into it, but… Your uncle knew it. Look, dear boy, I buy the manuscripts here for a pittance. You poor people are just dying to get rid of them. And then I sell them for a fortune in Alexandria, Salonika, Constantinople, Venice—even Pope Julius, blessed be the stone foundations of the Church, is interested. There’s no end to the profits to be made. Now I know that you’ve got a few delicious poems hidden away. So why not sell? Then you can leave this hell. I’ll even help you. I’ve got connections in shipping. Down in Faro, there’s a…”
How does this pilfering, silken weasel know that Uncle was keeping Hebrew manuscripts? I ask Joanna, “Is this true? Is it all for gold?”
She fixes my eyes with a grave expression and nods affirmatively.
So this monied vulgarian is implying that Uncle was smuggling the works of Abulafia and Moses de Leon for mere gold! As if such works of kabbalah even had a price in the Lower Realms!
“The time has come for direct talk,” I tell the Count, as if it’s an order. “Did you have my uncle killed?!”
He leans back, offended, but catches himself and gestures for peace between us. “Of course not. I don’t…”
“But if what you say is true, then you undoubtedly considered him a competitor. You might have tried to…” R
age surges as words fail.
“Then you won’t sell me anything?” he asks. “Not even a Haggadah? A Book of Esther? A single…”
“Father, please,” Joanna begs.
“Nothing!” I say. “And if I find that you killed my uncle, I promise I’ll cut your throat!”
The Count smiles. “How very thrilling to be threatened! I expect it’s good for adding a little color to my complexion, no?”
“You sicken me,” I say. My neck burns as I turn and march to the door. Footsteps run from behind. Joanna’s tiny hand presses into my wrist and she whispers, “You must find the noblewoman my father calls, ‘Queen Esther!’ But beware of her!”
Chapter XVII
Up close, the scent of Joanna’s hair was like an invisible extension of my own desires. She squeezed my hand once, then dashed away. From the back of the room, I heard a slap. “This is serious!” her father growled. “What did you tell him?!”
I turned to her, but her eyes flashed a warning for me to leave. Outside the gates of the palace, breathing in the golden light of sunset, I gesture her words to Farid. He signals, “Every name adds a page to our book of mystery.”
“Yes. And we’ve got to check Uncle’s personal Haggadah to see which page. Now I’m beginning to understand. Zerubbabel has got to be there. Queen Esther, too. And when I find them, I believe that they will have the faces of the smugglers.”
“Something else you should know,” Farid gestures. “This Count, he is the same man as the Isaac who wanted to sell you a Hebrew manuscript.”
“What?!”
“They are one and the same, Isaac of Ronda and the Count of Almira.”
“How do you know?”
“I know. The eyes for one thing. They can’t change. And some of his gestures. Surely you noticed Isaac of Ronda’s elegant hands. He’s a good actor, as he says. He must be able to change his voice or you would have known. And he has an excellent disguise. But it’s not perfect. And underneath his scents, there is one that will not go away. Oil of cloves.”
“His blessed toothache!” I gesture. When Farid nods, I signal, “But why would he want to sell a manuscript one moment, then buy Uncle’s books the next?”
“We do not have enough verses to know the rhyme scheme.”
“Farid, come…we’ve got to get home to check Uncle’s old Haggadah!”
“I need to stay,” his hands answer, and he requests forgiveness by bowing his head. “Now that I’m well, I must search for my father. I’ll meet you as soon as I can.”
His fingertips brush against my forearm, petal-soft. I remember how the angels had him clothed in white and hear Uncle say, “Do not abandon the living for the dead.” Yet I am unable to prevent myself from signaling, “I need you to help me. We’re so close now.”
“Beri, please don’t be selfish,” he gestures.
“Selfish?! Uncle is dead! What do you want me to do? What do all of you want me to do?!”
“I don’t want you to do anything but let me search for Samir! So go from me!”
Farid’s gestures cut the air between us. Yet out of guilt and fear, I follow behind him to his friends’ homes in the neighborhood. “I’ll go as fast as I can,” he says.
But his effort to placate me only spills acid onto my rage.
We search with silence wedged between us. The only clue to Samir’s whereabouts comes from a toothless fishhook maker who lives across the street from the old confiscated mosque. In an Arabic which fuses all consonants, she says that she saw Samir praying atop his blue prayer rug on the hillside below the castle. Had he stopped for a moment in his race home to beg Allah to spare his son? She points a scarred red finger, withered almost to the bone, to where he had been. Dusty weeds and a withered marigold mark the spot. Farid straddles them and gazes across the rooftops of Little Jerusalem and central Lisbon to the Tagus.
“It’s too wide,” he gestures.
“What?” I ask.
“The river. One should be able to see to the other side. As in Tavira or Coimbra. Even Porto. Here, we have no intimacy. We cannot hug this city. The width of the river makes us feel like we’re all just visiting. That we’re all expendable. It’s the city’s curse.”
“We’ll keep looking till we find more clues,” I say. My cushioned words belie the impatience twisting my gut; Uncle is dead and he babbles on about embracing rivers.
Farid’s black eyes target me with a passive light that hides his rage. I realize that we have both put on masks again. For each other. For the first time in many years. Even so, despite all the frustration hidden under my burning cheeks, there descends to me the calming assurance that our connection can never be broken. Then, and during many days since, I have often thought that my life would have been much simpler had I been able to find physical fulfillment in his arms.
We rush home encased in our separate thoughts. The possibility that the Count of Almira has turned us both to marionettes turns the city into a ragged backdrop of gray scenery. Was Joanna’s whisper, too, just a part of a puppeteer’s plot?
By the entrance to our store, Farid marches away from me toward his house without even signalling goodbye.
Mother and Cinfa are arranging fruit at the back of our store. Miraculously, the doors to Temple Street are back on the hinges and have been painted deep blue. I’m about to ask about them when Mother says in a burdened tone, “We’ve been waiting. Are you ready to say prayers?”
Her hair is disheveled, her eyes drowsy. It must be the extract of henbane. I say, “Give me five minutes.”
“Sabbath has waited long enough!” she shouts.
“Two minutes then!”
In the kitchen, Aviboa is asleep on a pillow. Reza is boiling cod in our copper cauldron. “Brites came,” she whispers to me. “I gave her the soiled sheet you hid in the courtyard.”
“Bless you,” I say, kissing her cheek. “Did Rabbi Losa stop by, by any chance?”
“No.”
“Who painted the doors to the store and put them back on?”
“Bento. As partial thanks for extracting the ibbur from Gemila, he told me to tell you.”
“Good. Listen, stall my mother for a few minutes if you can.”
Reza nods. Dashing down into the cellar, I slip the genizah key from our eel bladder and take out Uncle’s personal Haggadah. Sitting with it on my lap, my heart drumming, I page through the illustrations looking for Zerubbabel. His panel tops the sixth page of illuminations prefacing the text. In my uncle’s rendering, he is a young man with long black hair and zealous eyes. He stands in a posture of righteous pride before King Darius, who has the optimistic, outward-looking face of Prince Henry the Navigator. Both men stand in front of the limestone tower of the Almond Farm. In his right hand, Zerubbabel carries a scrolled Torah, the essence of truth. In the left is the golden Hebrew letter Hé, a symbol of the divine woman, Binah. Two emerald rings shine from the index and middle fingers of his right hand.
These gemstones gift me with Zerubbabel’s true identity; men’s faces age, emeralds do not. Zerubbabel is none other than the Count of Almira.
“The sun’s chariot is about to pass beyond the horizon,” Reza calls down. “You’re making the Sabbath bride wait for her betrothal. And it is the last evening of Passover. Come up now!”
“Let her wed without me!” I shout up.
“Stop being so stubborn!”
“Reza, you know the prayers. You’ve got a voice. Do it yourself!”
“What serpent has eaten your sense, Berekiah Zarco? You know I can’t conduct services.”
“Then have Mother,” I say. “Just leave me be. Please.”
“We need a man, you idiot!”
It is blasphemous, but I shout, “The Sabbath bride needs only a voice, not a penis! Get Cinfa to lead you if you’re afraid.”
Reza slams the trap door to the cellar. We have peace.
I page through the panels of the Haggadah searching for Queen Esther. Her regal face confronts me from t
he bottom of the very next page. Her identity makes my heart race; Esther, the Jewish Queen who kept her religion a secret and who later saved her people from the wrath of the evil courtier Haman, is none other than Dona Meneses! Here, she is depicted carrying the Torah to Mordecai, her adopted father. Partially concealed beneath her arm is a manuscript, probably the Bahir—the Book of Light—since Uncle has gifted it with a brilliant nimbus. The face of Mordecai is someone I’ve never seen. But he wears a Byzantine cross, a Jewish prayer shawl and a blue aba fringed with green arabesques. Is it a reference to a man of the Eastern Church? A Jewish friend in a Moorish kingdom? A dervish from Turkey? “Someone who reconciles all of the Holy Land’s religions,” I hear my uncle say. To myself I whisper, “Or a man who wears all three masks.”
Perhaps, I think, he is Tu Bisvat.
These findings extract thought from me for a time. Then I realize that for so important a discovery, I must have the confirmation of Farid’s falcon eyes. As I poke my head form the trap door into the kitchen, Reza says, “So, Berekiah Zarco, you’ve come to your senses after all!”
I rush past her, ducking my eyes from the Sabbath ceremony. Farid is in his bedroom. On his knees, facing Mecca, his eyes closed, he sways forward toward the ground like a palm leaf bending in a breeze. When his back raises up, a furrowing in his brow indicates that he knows I’m with him. Yet his eyes do not open. He lowers himself again. Anger stiffens me when he refuses to acknowledge my presence with a hand signal. The word betrayal engraves itself in my mind. With my heel, I tap thrice, then once, then four more times. He sits up. Passive eyes open. I signal, “Please, I need your clear vision.”
He stands, his face elongated into a dry expression of feigned disinterest. Gliding like a ghost, he follows me into my house. Reza says in a gentle voice, “Will you join us now?”
I neither look nor answer. We slip into the cellar.
Farid takes one look at Zerubbabel and signals, “Its the Count of Almira.” As for Queen Esther, he isn’t so sure until I point out the choker of emeralds and sapphires which she always wears around her neck. “Yes, that’s her,” he gestures.
The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon Page 29