The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon

Terrified, he concealed the manuscript beneath his cape, informed Damas that they had to make an early departure.

Damas had been told where to find our gold leaf and lapis lazuli, had just lifted them from their blackwood boxes.

Together, they stripped the bodies so it would look as if Uncle and the girl had been making love. It was intended to be a last cruel joke to play on our family. And, of course, to point blame toward the girl’s husband. The thresher may have protested. But he was reminded of the seemingly terrible secret for which he was being blackmailed.

All this killing provoked excitement in Damas, for there are men in whom sex is intimately woven with violence. Or perhaps he believed the scene was missing one last, perversely poetic touch. He wished to defile Uncle’s body even more foully.

He unsheathed his sex, spilled his own seed onto Uncle.

As for the girl, she was also known vaguely by the thresher. Her father was not just a good friend of Uncle’s, but one of his as well. And there was something in her clothing which would give this connection away. So he snatched up her dress and blouse, her undergarments even.

Had Judah stood at the top of the stairs witnessing all this? Was he encircled by the killer’s arms and carried away?

A secret name of God was then drawn by the thresher on his own forehead and that of Eurico Damas. On Judah’s as well, perhaps. A powerful name which had been lifted from a manual of practical kabbalah and which would enable them to pass through walls.

And then they were gone.

Chapter VI

As I repeated my scenario to Farid, I heard a man’s voice coming from the courtyard. I ran up. It was a neighbor, Rabbi Solomon Ibn Verga. His bearded face was framed in the kitchen doorway, and he was talking to Cinfa of God’s mercy in comforting tones. He carried three slate tiles in one arm, a basket of onions in the other. “You made it, my boy!” he told me with a smile. As if afraid to cross the threshold into our home, he did not come toward me.

“But most of us haven’t. Judah’s missing. And Uncle…”

“Yes, Cinfa was telling me.” He put his basket down, motioned me over. Taking my shoulder like an elder, he said, “Never forget that your life has been preserved so you can remember. As for me, I shall make this perfidious riot the culmination of the book I’m writing on the history of the Jews.”

“A history book?” I questioned, never having heard of such a work written by a Jew since the days of Josephus.

“Exactly,” the Rabbi replied. “An account of all the gates of nettles we have passed through on our way to the Mount of Olives.”

We are truly emerging into a new era, I thought. It will be a world defined by history texts, not the works of God. The rabbis and kabbalistsshall become obsolete.

“I suggest that you make use of what you’ve experienced during the past two days in your illuminations,” the Rabbi added. “Translate what you’ve lived through into images. As Jews, that is our process of artistry.” He handed over the slate. “From your courtyard, I believe. It was on the street.”

After I’d thanked him, he wished me peace and started to turn away. “Oh, and if you need any onions…” He held up his basket. “Someone overturned a cart. They’re not much, but they’ve come to us at bargain prices.”

Again, one would not think humor is possible at such moments. And yet we shared a smile.

Does insanity, like insight, comes in flashes?

Then I heard them. The first of the screaming waves of Old Christians approaching. I pushed past our guest and ran to the gate. From the swelling murmurs and shouts, I reasoned that they were approaching from the west, from the cathedral. And rapidly.

“What is it, my boy?” Rabbi Solomon asked.

I turned for him. “You better get home, Rabbi. I don’t think it’s over.”

He flipped the hood of his cloak over his head. As he passed me, he paraphrased a verse from Proverbs: “‘God punishes the one whom He loves, like the father the son he delights in.’ We are his chosen people. We shall yet see the Temple rebuilt.”

I gathered the family together and told them they had exactly one minute to collect belongings. Rushing to the outhouse, I scooped up a clump of filth with a wooden bowl, then smeared it into the fibers of the tattered rug which covered our trap door; in this way, I hoped to deter robbers or intruders. From my room, I took with me a candlestick and a flint, several blankets and a jar of water. In a secret panel at the bottom of my chest was the vellum ribbon on which was written my name and Uncle’s. I grabbed it and tied it around my wrist, turned the golden writing flat against my skin so that it could not be read. Then, I led us down into the cellar, cursing myself all the while; the minutes I’d used talking with Farid could have been spent searching for Judah. And now…

Atop a weak voice, I lifted a prayer begging forgiveness toward God when I realized that we would not be able to bury Uncle that day. Eyes closed, my body swaying with my heartbeat, I asked that this breach of duty in no way impede his soul’s journey.

For the rest of Monday, we waited—Mother, Esther, Farid, Cinfa and I. We sat in our own separate worlds, no one talking.

The royal blue of the prayer mat which covered the dead girl; the warm thick scent of Cinfa’s hair as she tucked her head below my shirt and breathed hot against me; the nervous buzzing of the cicadas in the courtyard. Every traitorous sensation underlined the same question: why was I here to see, to listen, to smell, when so many had died?

“I almost wish I had died with them,” I whispered to my mother.

“Guilt clings to us like God,” she answered. “How could it be otherwise?”

Every time that I believed my mother wasn’t worth fighting for, she surprised me with such a verse.

“We live to remember,” Cinfa said, repeating Rabbi Solomon’s words.

Is it through mimicry of adults that children are able to cling to hope?

Suddenly, there were shouts coming from the street, accusing the Marranos of having summoned the drought with witchcraft.

It was the first of three separate occasions that day when we heard the followers of the Nazarene. Hundreds of them descended upon us in waves, led by Dominican friars shouting with the strident, high-pitched voices of eunuches for us to come out and be cleansed through flame, shrieking epithets against the devilish Jews. “Bichos meio-humanos, half-human creatures,” they called us. Once, in the late afternoon, the music of bagpipes vibrated the chestnut beams of our cellar ceiling as if to summon us to a fair. The last time, by my reckoning about three hours after the fourth evening of our Passover had descended, sharp squeals reached us in our darkness—as if a pig were being whipped through the streets. I prayed that that was all it was.

Twice, they trampled through our house, shattering what was left of our furniture.

Cinfa huddled between Farid and I. Esther sat stoically. Her eyes no longer had any of their dark make-up, and her graying hair fell carelessly onto her shoulders. An actress whose fellow actors have all died, whose theater has been burnt to the ground, I thought.

Mother gripped her talismans and prayed silently. Whenever she looked at me, I could see her studying my resemblances to Judah.

If the Christians had discovered the trap door, all would have been lost; the planks were hastily nailed back into place and the bolt on the true cellar door was broken when I burst inside to find Uncle. One false step onto the center of the rug above and they’d have literally fallen upon us.

After darkness descended, I painted Uncle and the girl with myrrh to subdue the rising odors that signify the soul’s departure. Covered them again with prayer rugs.