The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon

by Richard Zimler

  “Why here?” I demand.

  “You know the story of Aaron Poejo and his…”

  “Yes,” I interrupt.

  “And his vision…?” she asks.

  “The blond savages with iron masks over their mouths who would come to sack Lisbon.”

  “Iron masks to prevent communication,” she says, as if offering a citation of wisdom. “Blonds because they are Christians. You should understand. You were Master Abraham’s chosen one. Imagine it as scripture.”

  “Yes. It was a vision that the Christians would one day take our words from us, our books.”

  “And it was here, your uncle said, that we would plan their downfall.”

  The answer to a riddle which Uncle posed to me just before his last Sabbath sprouts inside me. He had asked, What lives for centuries but can still die before its own birth?

  A book, I now realize; it is born anew in each of us when we read it. And it can die in the Inquisitional flames as surely as any of us.

  Dona Meneses peers at me over her nose. “You know, if you hadn’t asked to meet me here, I might have had you killed, as well. But there is something about this place…”

  “Where’s the Haggadah?!” I ask her with renewed fervor.

  “I haven’t got it. Berekiah, let me…”

  “I do not grant you permission to speak my true name! Use my Christian one!”

  “As you like. Pedro, I was working with your uncle. For more than three years now. Tell me, do you remember Senhora Belmira?” she asks.

  “The Jewish woman beaten to death by the Madre de Deus Fountain a few months ago.”

  “Yes. Have you wondered why she was killed?”

  “There are Old Christian men in Lisbon who will do anything to a…”

  “No! It was my driver. Remember him? The swarthy one I used to have. Not one of these new Flemings I’ve got.”

  “Your driver killed her?” I ask.

  “Yes. A note had been sent to me. A blackmail note. I was to start handing over the Hebrew manuscripts your uncle was entrusting to me or the blackmailer would reveal my Jewish past. Not a very good position for me to be in. And not just for me, but for members of my family, as well. I was to leave a first manuscript in a hiding place by the Madre de Deus Fountain. So I did. Or rather, my driver did. He hid and waited. A woman came for it at nightfall. Senhora Belmira. My driver took her, tried to find out who had sent her. But she would not talk. Nothing he did… I’m afraid he got carried away in his loyalty to me. A boorish man. I’ve sent him back to his family in Toledo. Castilians are born murderers. Never hire them except for bullfights.”

  “Did you tell my uncle?” I ask.

  “I told no one,” she replies.

  “You didn’t trust him?”

  “In my position, I can’t afford trust. For all I knew, he was the one who had betrayed me.”

  “My uncle never betrayed anyone!”

  “No, perhaps he never did. But in such a dilemma… Pedro, trust is something that few of us can afford these days. It can be too…too costly.”

  Her face suddenly elongates toward the sadness of regret. She takes a step toward me, but I raise my hand to keep her away. I feel as if she is tainted with a dangerous kindness.

  “I began to have him watched, your family, as well.” Dona Meneses’ words fade as she takes a deep breath. “In any case, I received another note after Senhora Belmira was killed. This time, the blackmailer wrote that if I tried to find out about him, my secrets would be revealed to the Church and to King Manuel himself. He had proof, he said, of my Jewish background. So I began leaving manuscripts for him which your uncle had entrusted to me.”

  “Do you still have the notes?” I ask.

  She nods cagily. “You want to know if we can trace the man from his writing. I thought of that. His notes have always been scribbled, written as if in someone’s left hand. Or by a child perhaps. But I came up with a plan. I have an old friend from childhood. Someone beyond doubt who was helping us smuggle books across the Spanish border. You know him as…”

  “The Count of Almira,” I interrupt.

  “Yes. He came…”

  “And Isaac of Ronda,” I add.

  She purses her lips and gives me an astonished look. “So you figured that out, too.”

  “Farid did,” I reply.

  “How?”

  Farid points to his eyes and nose.

  She bows towards him. “My compliments. So I devised that the Count would come to Lisbon in order to offer books for sale in one guise, buy them in another. We hoped to flush out this blackmailer one way or another. To be neat and clean about it. I know that he, this blackmailer, tried to sell your uncle’s Haggadah to Senhora Tamara. A mistake on his part. He must have panicked right after the riot. Unfortunately, the Senhora scared his messenger away without making him talk. It was then that the blackmailer realized his error and became more cautious. In any event, I know that he has to be someone who was in—or had been in—Master Abraham’s threshing group. Only they were entrusted with the secret of his smuggling books. He told me so when we made our agreement. I began having them all watched. The Count himself was following one of them, that old misfit Diego, when he was attacked by Old Christian boys that Friday before everything in Lisbon began unraveling. One of the Count’s drivers saved him. And then came Sunday…the pyres. After that, with everyone calling for Jewish blood, I couldn’t afford to wait any longer. My instincts told me it was Simon Eanes, the fabric importer. So I had him…‘relaxed.’”

  She speaks as if the order to kill came naturally to her, uses the accursed terminology of the Inquisition; since no ecclesiastic person is supposed to shed blood directly, those condemned by the Church in Spain are handed over or “relaxed” to civil authorities for burning. “I had hoped that my troubles were over, but I got another blackmail note,” she continues. She takes another step toward me, implores me to suspend judgment with a fragile look in her eyes. “I was to hand over more books by the Madre de Deus Fountain just yesterday. But I didn’t.”

  “So then you tried for Diego,” I say.

  “Yes, God forgive me, I did!” Her hands have formed fists. “What would you do?!”

  “Me, I wouldn’t kill anyone because I haven’t the courage to admit who I am!”

  “Very honorable. When the Inquisition swoops down upon Portugal and you feel its talons around your neck, we shall see if you still feel that way.”

  “Will you try for Diego again?”

  “Yes. And Father Carlos, as well. I cannot risk… They will be located soon. And my men have their orders. I can wait no longer. I have no choice.”

  Farid points at her choker and signals with angry, chopping gestures, “Too many emeralds at stake, no doubt!”

  When I translate his condemnation of her, she shouts, “You’re heartless!” She curls her fingers around her necklace and tears at it. Beads scatter on the floor. “Take it!” she says, offering what’s left of the string of jewels to me, then Farid. “It’s not about money. It’s my life! It’s all our lives!” A grimace of anguish crosses her face. The slap I feel is her necklace thrown against my cheek.

  The three of us stand silently in the room like prisoners who dare not escape into language out of guilt and shame. I close my eyes and follow my breathing. Farid takes my hand and names a suspect with the shape of his fingers. “Yes,” I signal back. “It could still be him.” As I turn, however, a magic moment occurs; the marble-white ring of skin that was always hidden below Dona Meneses’ necklace confirms another stunning possibility.

  “There are only two people left who could have murdered my uncle,” I say. “Give me until morning before you have anyone else killed.”

  “Too long!”

  “Until midnight then. You are killing innocent men!”

  Dona Meneses nods her agreement, glares over her nose at Farid and me like a defiant princess scanning men who have violated her. She lifts the train of her dress and sweeps it
behind, turns and marches out the door.

  Chapter XX

  Farmlands give way to the wooden shacks and dungheaps of the city’s outer districts as Farid and I race back to Lisbon.

  At the Senhor Duarte’s Inn of the Sacred Body, we approach the manager. A tiny man with wisps of hair combed forward into bangs, he sits ladling soup into a toothless mouth. His cheeks open and compress like a stretched bellows.

  We stand over him. “When did Dom Afonso Verdinho arrive?” I demand.

  He squints up at me and sticks a chunk of soggy millet bread into his mouth. “Who’s asking?”

  “Pedro Zarco. Dom Afonso is with my aunt. When did he come?”

  Each chomp squashes his face and closes his eyes. “I’ll have to check my books,” he says. His cracked lips drip soup. “And as you gentlemen can see, I’m eating.”

  I reach into my pouch for Senhora Rosamonte’s ring, then remember with a curse that I’d given it to Diego. Farid catches my desperate look with a smile. He takes out one of Dona Meneses’ emeralds and hands it to the man, then furtively slips several more gemstones into my pouch.

  Shaping the words, “Bless you,” against Farid’s arm, I say to the innkeeper, “The gem is yours if you tell me when Dom Afonso Verdinho arrived.”

  His tongue slips snake-like between his lips. With a ribald nod up toward me, he scrapes the bead against his ceramic bowl. A curl of glaze lifts away from a dot-sized impurity jutting from the emerald. His eyes shine. “She’s a beauty,” he observes with a greedy smile.

  “I ask you now, when did he come?!”

  “Wednesday.” He holds the stone up to the light of his candle.

  “This past Wednesday, after the riot, or the one before?”

  “This past one.”

  “You’re absolutely positive?!” I demand.

  He tucks the bead into the inner curl of his lower lip as if it’s a cardamon seed. “See those men over there?” he questions, pointing to some merchants eating at a dining table.

  “Yes.”

  Between slurps of soup, he says, “The one with a beard deals in sugar but stinks like rotten cabbage. Arrived yesterday sweatin’ like a priest in heat. He likes big-busted women without teeth. The clean-shaven one is from Evora, is here to buy copperware. Arrived today. He likes carne preta, black meat, if you know what I mean.” He squints at me. “Nothin’ goes on here I don’t know about. Your man arrived Wednesday, lookin’ and smellin’ worse than his horse.”

  “What room is he in?”

  “Upstairs.” He points to an open door at the back of the dining room. “To the left. Last door on the right.”

  Aunt Esther answers my knock with a gasp. “Berekiah! Is everything all…”

  I push past her. Afonso sits on an unmade bed in his long underwear. His feet are shriveled and coarse, like unearthed mandrake roots. “Ever hear of Simon the fabric importer?” I ask him.

  “A friend of your uncle’s. Esther wrote to me about…”

  “So she wrote to you.” I bow toward her. “You’ve been using your gifts well, dearest aunt.”

  Her face becomes hard and cold. “Your judgment is noted,” she says. “Now get out!”

  “Did you ever meet him?” I ask Afonso.

  “What’s this about?” he questions, his face all shock and puzzlement.

  “Just answer my question!”

  Esther pushes against me as Afonso answers, “I honestly don’t remember. I may have.”

  Without warning, my aunt slaps my face. As I grab her wrist, Afonso jumps up. “Leave her alone!” he shouts.

  Farid steps between Esther and me, removes my hand. He glares at me, signals, “Don’t you dare touch her again,” then leads her to the bed.

  She sits and rubs at her wrist. Her eyes are glassy, and her back is bent forward as if she’s weighed down by a locket bearing her grief. Such is my rage, however, that her figure cannot elicit from me even the ash of the burning solidarity I once felt for her. To Afonso, I say, “So you wouldn’t know if he has any disabilities? That he has crutches, wears black silk gloves to…”

  Farid signals that I talk too much and suddenly tosses a few of Dona Meneses’ emeralds and sapphires toward Afonso. The old thresher thrusts a hand out and catches one. “What’s this…?!” he demands, showing it to me.

  Farid grips my shoulder. “Forget about him!” he signals with a cutting motion. “Not only wasn’t he in town, but look at which hand he used!”

  “The left!” I signal back.

  “And the slope of the cut across your uncle’s neck, it was…”

  Each step in our flight back to my house seems to fix the last of the missing verses of a long-lost poem into place. White Maimon of the Two Mouths! Of course, Gemila was right! In her hysteria, who else would she form out of a hooded killer with scars on his face and blood on his hands? Everything fit: the timing of Uncle’s discovery of Haman’s persona; the blackmailer’s choice of Senhora Belmira as a go-between; even the murderer’s own words about never being tortured again.

  And the date on which the blackmailer demanded that Dona Meneses turn over the latest manuscripts to be smuggled from Portugal—that, too, implicated only one suspect.

  The garments of mystery drop away one by one until a single face stares at me.

  In our courtyard, a donkey with raw saddle sores is tossing flies away with his tail. From the inner window in my bedroom, I see that Cinfa, Reza and my mother are standing in the store with my cousin Meir from Tavira. “Beri!” he cries. He rushes to me open-armed.

  “Not now!” I say, raising my hands to keep him away. “Mother, where’s Diego and Father Carlos?”

  “Why?”

  “Must you ask questions! Where are they?!”

  “The priest has gone back again to the Church of São Domingos. Diego is in the cellar. He went downstairs to say evening prayers. What do you…”

  Cinfa interrupts, “No, Diego came upstairs while we were in here. Just a few minutes ago. You weren’t looking, Mother.”

  “Let’s go!” Farid signals.

  “Wait, I think I know why he went to the cellar. And what we discover there may help us cross the last gate.”

  I unhook one of the lamps hanging from the crossbeam above the table. After sliding away our Persian carpet, Farid rips open the trap door. I take out my knife, descend. But the darkness gives up only emptiness. The genizah is closed. Neatness is a holy duty, I think. It was the murderer himself who reminded me that. With the key from the eel bladder, Farid opens the lid. I shine my light into the hiding place. All of Uncle’s manuscripts are gone! Even our pouch of coins.

  We rush up the stairs and head through the courtyard to the Rua de São Pedro. Farid’s fingers play against my shoulder blade. “Do you know where he was leaving from?” he gestures.

  I shake my head. “But I think I know where he’s gone. He wouldn’t dare try to leave Portugal with Hebrew books. If he were caught—pinga. He must…”

  “Berekiah!”

  António Escaravelho, the New Christian beggar, is slumped in his usual spot across the street, calling to me.

  “Have you seen anyone come from my house—out the courtyard gate?” I shout.

  He nods and points down the street toward the Cathedral. “Set off that way just a little while ago.”

  Farid grabs my arm, signals, “So where’s he gone?”

  “To trade them. With what he stole and the ring I gave him, he could get anything he wanted. He could even buy the volumes of Plato he wanted.”

  Soft candlelight frames the shutters of Senhora Tamara’s bookstore. “Blessed be He who opens the Gate of Vengeance,” I whisper as the door handle turns in my hand. Farid comes panting to my side. I caress the wood open. We step inside.

  Diego.

  Surprise crosses his face for only a moment. He stands over the desk at the back of the room, wary, an owl’s impenetrable silence concealing his thoughts. The books stolen from our genizah are piled by his feet
. Senhora Tamara is seated on a stool, her hands linked in her lap. She speaks, but I do not hear. Behind her stands a wiry African slave with large, dull features and the imploded cheeks of a starving man. Confusion and fear crease his sweaty brow.

  I fix the scene in my Torah memory.

  Diego and I continue to stare at each other across a ritual space of flame-like heat and clarity. Senhora Tamara stands. Her mouth moves. The shadows on Diego’s white robes tremble as he straightens up. My legs tense as if preparing me for flight. My heartbeat swells toward a grace akin to sexual power. Beneath his beard, I imagine the scar on his marble-white chin, red, lined with vertical stitches, a second mouth of betrayal and murder. “White Maimon of the Two Mouths,” I whisper.

  He slips a knife from his cloak, long, squared at the end; a shohet’s blade. The slave takes a stiletto from his pouch. In his other hand, he clutches a cane ending in a serpent’s head.

  Senhora Tamara’s words penetrate my nervous rage for the first time: “Berekiah, what’s wrong?” She steps toward me.

  “Leave!” I order her. My glaring eyes remain fixed on Diego.

  She comes to Farid, presses desperate hands to his chest. “What’s wrong, my boy? Tell me!”

  “He killed Uncle,” I say.

  “Diego?!” She whips around to him. “Is this true?!”

  He opens his hands palm up in a peacemaking gesture. “Of course I didn’t,” he replies.

  I reach for the Senhora and tug her toward the door. “Go!” I shout.

  She stands firm. Still keeping my eyes focused on Diego, I pull the door open. She resists my prodding, caresses my chin. “But dear boy, Diego said you had given him permission to trade the books…that your mother was too frightened to keep Hebrew books in her house.”