The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon

She comes downstairs smoothing the front of her black smock with nervous hands. Her gaze will not rise to meet my own. She says in a hesitant voice, “When we first met Senhor David, we thought he was so gentlemanly. That’s why we kept him as a tenant. Later, of course, we found out that he was just a Marrano. He assured us that he would be moving out by the end of this very month.”

In her pathetic way, she is trying to distance herself from her tenant. In a reassuring voice, Manuel says, “He was the local chazan, you know.” He utters these specific words because he suspects—as I do—that she is terrified because she has a Jewish background as well. His use of the Hebrew word “chazan” is his way of letting her know that we, too, know Hebrew—that we are New Christians who mean her no harm.

Due to a similarity of sound, however, the woman confuses “chazan” with the Portuguese word for a bad omen or instance of ill luck, azango. With a great nod, she replies in an excited voice, “Yes, yes, your excellency is right—all the Jews are azango!”

A week earlier and we’d have laughed at her ignorance. As it is, we both inhale deeply as if bracing ourselves for a fight that may last our lifetimes. Emboldened by the solidarity which she believes that she has elicited from us, she rushes to open the door. “Got it!” she says as the lock clicks. When the door squeals open, a foul smell wafts out. She says in a humble voice, “If you would only stay a few minutes, I would be most appreciative.” She meets my gaze for but a moment. “I don’t mean to be rude, dear sirs, but the stars and planets say that we’re not to have strangers in our townhouse today. I’m sure you understand.”

A worn leather runner leads from Master David’s entrance to his cold hearth, five paces of a man distant. But we daren’t move; all along its length, the precious ouds and lutes of Davids collection lie gutted and shredded. A cittern banded with the most beautiful rose and cherrywood, like an agate carved for music, has been broken in half and dangles from a hook on the mantle like a dead crab. Below it sits a small mound of broken glass and ceramic potsherds topped by a tangle of phylacteries which will never again feel the pulse of any arm. The landlady points a stern finger toward us. “You should have seen it before I cleaned up. His fava beans were growing gray beards. Like their rabbis! And the stink… Lord, his people smell, don’t they?”

“Just tell me if you’ve seen his clogs,” I say.

She smooths the front of her smock again. “I’m afraid I don’t keep track of his things. We were not friendly. In fact, we never even…”

I head to his clothes chest as she babbles on about the cold distance she insisted on maintaining from the “musical little Jew,” as she now refers to David. His clogs are huddling together below a jumble of dated velvet caps from the time of King Joao. With a little prompting and silent cursing in Hebrew, the heel swivels open and three keys fall out. The landlady gapes. I say, “For four years, long before you moved here, I studied the Greek and Arabic modes with David right in this room. Couldn’t you tell by my odor?”

“Ah, I understand,” she whispers with an urgent inhale of breath. A grudging admiration deepens her voice as she says, “You people disguise yourselves well.”

“It’s no disguise,” I say, “it’s magic!” Remembering an old trick taught to me by Uncle, I show her an empty hand, then pull David’s keys from out of her nostrils.

She gasps and crosses herself, falls to the ground in a position of prayer. “I beg you do me no harm,” she moans, tears gushing in her eyes.

I say, “If the ‘musical little Jew’ should return, just tell him that Pedro Zarco has visited.”

“Yes, senhor,” she says, making a little bow with her head. “But I’m afraid that it would be better to tell him in your dreams tonight. That’s the only way your excellency is likely to get a message through at this point.”

The micvah is damp and slimy, and its windows have been nailed shut by some thoughtful Jew. As we descend, I lose my footing in the pure darkness. My behind is rudely introduced to the granite edge of a stair, and a raw pain stabs my shoulder. I cry out.

“I better get an oil lamp before you do yourself some serious damage,” Manuel says. He climbs back up and out into evening, eases the door closed behind him.

As I sit inside the comfort of the black solitude, violet shapes condense, only to then shrink away into spotted shadows. “The lathe of darkness gives form to our wishes and fears,” I hear my uncle say. So I wait. Framed by my soft breathing, Mordecai appears in his youth, then dances away on fawn’s feet. A creak tugs me back from daydream. I jump up. A footstep? My heart pounds a code of warning. My uncle suddenly rises, blue with flecks of gold, an illumination painted by my memory. His expression is hesitant, pensive, as if he is considering the meanings of a difficult verse. Instead of stopping to greet me, he continues floating up and out into the false night of ceiling until he is gone.

Pay it no mind, I think. It is not a vision, but only an illusion.

Faint breathing from below prompts me forward. Or is it only the wind threading through an unseen shaft of cave? It is said there are a dozen different tunnels and borings that meet and surface here, the remnants of a subterranean network created by our ancestors in preparation for the Messiah. I call in Portuguese, “Judeu ou Cristao?” It seems to be the only question that matters anymore.

The breathing is gone. “I come in peace,” I say.

Expectant silence returns my fear. I decide to ask the darkness a riddle; a Jew will know my meaning. “Who is the angel that offers his hands to Abraham?” The answer is “Raziel”; both his name and that of Abraham add up to two hundred and forty-eight in Hebrew, a language in which letters are also numbers. Raziel’s hands are the equal sign that links them.

I ease two steps up the stairs in case a shadow should lunge for the source of my voice. But no movement pierces the darkness. I ask my riddle again, climb still higher. A door creaks open, a flame from above lights Manuel’s face. The staircase below opens gray before me.

“Sorry I took so long,” he says. “No one…”

“Sshhh…I think someone’s here. I’ve heard breathing, a step I think.”

He tiptoes down to me. “Jew or Christian?” he whispers.

“A footstep has no faith.”

“So what is…”

“Raziel,” comes a hoarse whisper. “…Raziel.”

“What’s he saying?” Manuel asks.

I put my finger to my lips to request silence. “Show yourself,” I call below in Hebrew.

A tiny man with blinking eyes and tufts of thinning hair above his ears steps bare feet to the base of the stairs. A thick towel at his waist makes his chest appear shrunken. It is the surgeon, Solomon Eli. Before I realize it, I have bounded down the stairs. “It’s impossible!” I say. “I saw you in Loios Square, roped together with your wife and…”

He pats my shoulders in exultation. “Shalaat Chalom!” he cries. “One of my little boys has escaped with his life!”

Solomon gives pet names to all the babies he circumcises. Mine has always been Shalaat Chalom, meaning “dream request”—a reference to my father’s supplications for another son.

“But I saw you with….”

Solomon blocks my words with a finger to his lips. “My dearest wife, Reina, is dead,” he whispers. He ribbons his hand upward in imitation of smoke. “All but me.”

“But how?”

“How, you ask? A cyst, my dear Shalaat. I cut a painful cyst from one of the thugs who took us. A mason. About a year ago now. He recognized me after Reina had already… They made me watch. I told him I wanted to follow her across the Jordan River. He smiled furtively, hit me. When I awoke, I was lying on the roof of a house above the Church of Sao Miguel. Yellow wildflowers were growing from the tiles between my legs. Very strange. I thought I was dead. It was night. But when I saw the moon… I mean, I never read that heaven was circled by celestial bodies. Or is the sahar so uma outra sohar, the moon just another prison?” Solomon shrugs, forces a sour smile. “Maybe my mason thought it would be greater punishment to leave me alive. I had no clothes when I awoke. So where should I go? Not home. No one there anymore. I stumbled here. The door was open. Later, someone came and locked it.”

“Has anyone else been here?” Manuel asks. “A girl?”

“No one,” the surgeon replies.