The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon

His jaw drops as if he’s never seen artwork—or as if he understands. When I force out clinging words about her death, fists raise to his cheeks. Tears gush in his eyes. When I reach for him, Senhora Monteiro intercepts my wrist. “What are you saying?!” she demands.

“She was killed in the riot in Lisbon. On Sunday.”

The Senhora’s hand muffles her gasp. Terrified eyes focus inside. Silence seals the three of us together till she screams, “I knew it would come to this! Killed with those Jews, wasn’t she?!”

Her husband shoves her, runs back into the house before I can answer. She crashes up against the wall and crumples to the ground. “You bastard!” she shrieks. She cackles, spits after him.

I help the Senhora to her feet, retrieve my drawing from the ground. She has no tears to give, so I say, “She was killed in the Judiaria Pequena. Do you know what she was doing there?”

She snatches my drawing from me and surveys it as if forming a criticism. “That’s her all right. You make this?”

“Yes,” I reply.

“Artist, huh? Filthy goat should never have run off. But girls from mixed marriages…cause that’s what she was, you know…I’m not Jewish. Thank God.” She waves toward the back of the house as if shooing away a fly. “He’s a Jew…was, I mean. It’s the mixed blood. Makes girls want a man as soon as they start to bleed. The moon, it causes friction, they say, in the children of mixed marriages.” She rubs her filthy, callused hands together. “All that swirling of blood, the pure with the tainted.” She shakes her head. “You got talent, you know. You’re not Jewish, are you?”

“I was. Now I’m just trying to survive. Like pretty much everyone else in this dungheap.”

Her stare is fixed by inflamed contempt. I try to remember that she, too, is an emanation of God, a ripple from the sapphire of love he cast eons ago into our world. I see only the spittle on her lips and her raven-black wig. “Do you mind telling me what Teresa was doing in the Little Jewish Quarter?” I ask.

“Aren’t you listening? She was getting it between her legs! Wanted a bird that was circumcised!” She sees her tone bothers me, laughs, makes her hand flap. “Liked the way it felt when a big fat Jew-quail hopped all the way up her and began spreading its…”

“Who’s her husband?” I interrupt.

“An importer with lots of brains, big balls, too, they say. Furry…like wool. Only tasting like Moroccan dates.” She licks her lips greedily. “But no money. You don’t all have a talent for making money. Hah! I found that out twice in my life! That husband of mine… And now Teresa’s.” She shakes her head and frowns. “Name’s Manuel Monchique. You’d think she could at least have found one who…”

My heart seems to pound through my chest. Of course, I think, Uncle’s former student—Teresa was his Old Christian bride!

We’d learned only a month before that Manuel had obtained a card of pure blood from the King, effectively erasing the “stain” of his Jewish past. Uncle had recently insulted him on Temple Street because of this seeming betrayal. Now, framed inside Senhora Monteiro’s revelation, this confrontation appears dyed with sinister colors.

Cold fingertips brush against my arm. I focus again into the present tense, see that Senhora Monteiro is grinning up at me, has lifted up her skirt and is pounding her hand between her legs. I tug off her wig, toss it to the floor behind her. Underneath, sickly tufts of gray hair sprout from a louse-infested scalp.

Her clucking laugh accompanies my escape. The streets of Belem, then outer Lisbon open to me, yet I seem to race only into the mystery of my master’s murder. Maybe Manuel had found Teresa with Uncle, taken his knife and…

And yet, a high barrier blocks my way toward an answer; how would Manuel have learned of the location of our trap door and genizah?

Blessed be He who opens the arms of grace; I discover the Sao  Lourenco Gate to the north of the city guarded only by a lazy rabble. Marching through, I skirt the scruffy hillside that holds aloft the battlements of the Moorish Castle and descend quickly to the Alfama; I must check on Farid again before confronting Manuel Monchique. My mother meets me in the kitchen. Diego stands behind her. The gash across his chin is now obscured by several days’ growth of beard, the stitches barely visible. His saffron-colored turban crowns his head. He stares at me over his broad nose as if hoping to glean my thoughts, limps to me like a wounded dog. We hug. But the knowledge that he could have conspired against my master gives me the careful, self-conscious movements of a bad actor.

“I’m so sorry about your uncle,” he says. “And to have been killed by the Christian rabble, it’s almost too much to believe possible.”

Diego’s words are unable to penetrate the rigid gates I erect around myself; not only do I not trust him, but I now see that a stranger stands at the corner of the room by the hearth, and I cannot allow my ripped soul to be seen. A barrel-chested, stone-faced man in the coarse livery of a mercenary, he holds the handle of his sheathed sword with both hands and is fixed at attention. I nod questioningly in his direction.

“My bodyguard,” Diego answers.

“New Christian?”

“Yes. With a card of pardon. I figured that was safer. And now that the mob has killed your uncle and so many others, I think…”

“My master was murdered by a Jew!” I declare.

“What?”

“Uncle’s throat was slit as if by a shohet.”

It is the first time my mother has heard my reasoning. She reaches out for the table as if the world is receding from her.

Diego gasps for breath. He covers his mouth with his hands as if seeking to prevent the possibility of such treason from entering him.

Does he manifest the shock of an innocent philosopher or the dramatic flare of a murderer?

“But why would a Jew take your uncle’s life?!” he demands.

“Maybe jealousy, maybe robbery,” I lie, wishing to test his reaction.

My mother suddenly shouts, “What in God’s name are you talking about, Berekiah?! How could you believe that one of our own people would take my brother’s life?!” Her voice possesses that hysterical tone which indicates that she is but one step away from accusing me of being a bad Jew.

I gulp water from a jug on the mantle, stare into her eyes and say, “A manuscript was stolen. No Old Christian even knew that we had any in the house.”

My mother begins pulling at her hair.

“Are you sure?” Diego asks.

When I nod, he takes my arm. “From where was the manuscript taken?”

“From the cellar.”

“He had books in the cellar! What are you…”

“His last Haggadah,” I explain.

“He was keeping Hebrew books?”

“Yes.”

“Had he lost his mind?!”

Either Diego is skilled at feigning ignorance or he really hadn’t yet been fully initiated into the threshing group, hadn’t yet learned of the genizah. I will have to check with Father Carlos, if he is still alive. And yet, what if he lies in order to implicate his brother philosopher?

“He was smuggling the books out of Portugal,” I tell Diego. “Saving them from flames.”

“Dear God. With whom?!” he demands.

“Don’t know. Listen, when did you last see Uncle?”

“Last Friday. At the hospital. You were there. Why are you…”

“And Sunday?” I ask. “Did you see him then?”

“No. What are all these questions about?”

“I’m trying to trace his movements,” I lie. “Where were you from Sunday until now?”

“Hiding. With a friend.” Diego’s expression hardens into the look he gets before delivering a stern lecture.