Later, when you went upstairs to get nails and a hammer, you paused to scare away a robber, to gaze down the street at the mob. You were dizzy and sat for a time. He must have used those moments to escape through your mother’s door to Temple Street.”
“Oh God…I didn’t look…I mean, it didn’t occur to me to look because I thought at first Old Christians had killed him. They would not have known of the
“We must check,” Farid signals. “We can afford no mistakes.”
Opening the lid of this hiding place with the key taken from behind the Bleeding Mirror, I lift out our manuscripts and letters—our sack of coins, as well. Inside the now denuded pit, it is then easy to spot the blood stains. They cover the floor like brown shadows of scattered leaves, bear the woven imprint of pressed fabric.
When I turn to Farid, I signal my interpretation of the stains: “The killer was lying on his right side, with his body folded around the pile of manuscripts. Hence all the stains on the floor from the bloody clothing. His legs were tucked up toward his chest, and the tips of his sandals made the smudges on the eastern base. His left elbow was held back against the northern side and left the petal-sized fabric imprint near the top rim. His right arm, held out, was holding his
Farid nods his approval.
To myself, I whisper, “Diego.”
My friend reads my lips, signals, “What about him?”
“With his size, he might not fit in the crawlspace leading from the cellar to the bathhouse.”
“True. But even Father Carlos might have trouble.”
“Maybe. But look, Diego said he’d be back tonight with a man who wanted to sell Uncle a Hebrew manuscript. What if he told me that only to buy himself some time? I have to find him. Maybe he’s trying to escape even now. And I promise to look for your father. I’ll go to his secret mosque after Diego’s apartment.”
As I lift the books and letters back into the
“I’ll descend to the Moorish Quarter from the Graca neighborhood. It’ll be fine.”
“Speak only Portuguese.” When I nod, his fingers say, “And take my best dagger. The one from Baghdad which can split even a Sufi’s thinnest thought in two. Get it from my bedroom.”
“What will you use?” I gesture.
“One of my father’s. The long one from Safed. He would want…”
I nod as Farid’s gestures tumble toward grief-stricken silence. We face each other across the distance of the dying. We both know that after a time, my hands will not be able to reach him. He will free-fall just like Mordecai and my father into the black-flame hands of Dumah, the soul-keeper of the world beyond. Farid quivers his hand by his gut, our signal for terror, then punches a weak fist against his chest; he is saying that his spiritual dikes are failing and he cannot continue alone.
When we hug, he has the sick-soft petal feel of Mordecai. His ribs, hard and cold, ripple outward as if seeking to emerge. I hear my uncle warn me:
“No doctors!” Farid interrupts. “All the Christians know is bloodletting.”
“I’ll find an Islamic one.”
“Where?” he gestures skeptically.
“Somewhere…I’ll go wherever I have to.”
We argue for a time. But it is only a show; we both know that Dr. Montesinhos was one of the last who faithfully practiced the wisdom of Avicenna and Galen. Who could I find now who would risk illness to visit a poor and deaf weaver of rugs? He waves away my words with flapping motions. He moans as I wash his arms and legs with water. His skin is free of sores. It is not plague, not the sweating sickness. He is being sucked dry of life. Suddenly, he pushes me away. “Go find Diego!” he gestures angrily. “You’re only wasting time with me.”
“Farid, will you do what I say?” I ask with my hands.
He stills my request with a descending wave of gestures: “You have no oil of life that can be poured into my lamps.”
“Your poetry is of no interest right now,” I signal back. When he continues to protest, I raise my hand to feign a threat of violence. He smiles at the absurdity.
With a descent linked to the inevitable, I think:
I lock the
“What do you have in mind?” he signals.
“Patience.”
In the kitchen, I boil an egg, pour salt on it and force him to down it with boxwood and verbena tea. Together, we suffer an hour of automatic chewing and agonized heaving. I feed him charcoal ash, more liquid till his belly is distended. On my instructions, he hugs his legs to his chest, and I give him a strong enema of linseed decocted in barley water, another of barley water and a single drop of arsenic. Once he’s clean, Cinfa brings us from the cellar a special incense of poppy and camphor intended to induce drowsiness. Farid wheezes as he inhales. I talk him to sleep with the fables of Kalila and Dimna told me by Esther in my childhood.
After I grab the dagger from Baghdad from under his mattress, I climb through the cool air of the sixth night of Passover into the upper streets of the Alfama to find Diego. Just before I reach his townhouse, however, I spot a man of towering stature looming in the darkness across the street. He is leaning back against the flaking wall of the cobbler’s workshop, wears a wide-brimmed hat and a dark cloak which curtains his body down to his booted feet. He is at least a hand’s length taller than I am, well over six feet, a height almost never seen amongst the Portuguese. Straight hair falls to his shoulders. His right hand grips a rawhide riding whip.
He can only be the Northerner about whom I was warned.
His head raises up suddenly, and he stands upright; he has spotted me. We share a look in which I sense that he knows who I am. Neither of us make a move, however. Questions seem to root my feet to the cobbles: is he here to kill Diego or merely waiting to collect the payment he was promised by this thresher for the murder of Uncle?
What must he be wondering about me?
I don’t stay to learn the answers; they must come from Diego himself, and clearly, he is not in his apartment or this Northerner would not be waiting so diligently outside. I back away and rush toward the Moorish Quarter, checking over my shoulder now and again to make sure I’m not being followed.
In the nighttime streets of Lisbon, harsh orange lights spray from the windows of taverns and brothels. Every time I hear a sound, my heartbeat leaps as if toward a secret refuge; it is that time of night when all noises and objects seem to have turned into oracles foreseeing death.
The secret mosque which Samir frequents is in the second floor of a blacksmith’s workshop near the old Moorish bazaar. The great wooden door, carved with knotted patterns and centered by a horseshoe knocker, is locked. A dead goldfinch, of all things, lies on the cobbles below, a tear of blood near its beak. After a second tap with the knocker, a candlelight blossoms in the window above. “Who is it?” comes a woman’s hissing whisper.
“Pedro Zarco. I’m looking for Master Samir.”
The shutters bang closed. After a few seconds, a man in long underwear, with the wiry frame and squinting eyes of a Sufi ascetic, appears in a doubtful crack of doorway. Lit by a fluttering candle flame, his cheeks show hollow under the crescent moons of his cheekbones.
“I’m looking for Master Samir,” I begin. “He comes here…”
“Who are you?” he asks in Portuguese. His voice is deep, sonorous, as if cut from granite.
“A friend. Pedro Zarco. We live on opposite ends of the same courtyard. If he’s with you, tell him I’m…”
“He’s not here.” He speaks gruffly, as if being seen with me is a risk.
“Do you know where he’s gone?”
“When the pyre started, we scattered. He ran home for Farid. Wait.” He closes the door and bolts it. Footsteps trail off, then return in a rush. When the doorway squeals open, dangling sandals are offered to me. “Samir ran off so fast that he left these,” he explains.
