The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon

to glare at us.

Dona Meneses’ mansion is perched on the dirt road which rims the northern slope of the hill. A stone fortress adapted from an abandoned Romanesque battlement, its only modern exuberance is a marble balcony supported by four flying buttresses braced into the exposed limestone of the hillside below. I have come here twice before, both times to deliver silk dresses my mother had been commissioned to sew. As we walk to the gated entrance to the side of the house, a garden of towering Moroccan cedars offers us shade. From here, we can see the edge of the balcony at the back. A gaunt man in a plumed blue beret stands at the far end. He holds a red glass goblet, is conversing leisurely with someone I can’t see from this angle. As he turns to his left to note something in the distance, I recognize him: the Count of Almira.

Zerubbabel and Queen Esther have come together.

At the gate, a blond guard in the characteristic amethyst hat of Dona Meneses’ henchmen takes my message inside the house. As we slip away, Farid signals, “Maybe she gets a discount for ordering those northern monsters in bulk.”

I would like to laugh, if only to confirm that I am still the young man I was, but I no longer seem to possess the ability. As we pass the saturnine nun still standing guard at the convent, my heart seems to leap from my chest. I think: If my life were to end here, what would it have meant?

There is no time to consider a reply. We run-slide-run down the hill. Lisbon’s insanely tangled streets welcome us with anonymity.

Back at home, I take from the genizah two priceless philosophic treatises by Abraham Abulafia, “The Life of the Future World” and “The Treasury of the Hidden Eden.” Both are gifted with margin notes in the master’s own hand.

“What are you doing?” Diego asks from the stairs. He and Father Carlos stand on the steps giving me motherly looks of worry.

“I understand now what Uncle wants me to do. If Dona Meneses is seeking to purchase Hebrew manuscripts through the Count of Almira, she will have them. But for a very high price. I want my master’s last Haggadah. It’s the proof I need.”

The priest says, “But you told us that you believed Solomon was responsible for…”

“Who cares what I said!” I interrupt. “Do you believe everything you hear?!”

He frowns as if he’s smelled something rotten.

Diego asks, “An exchange? Master Abraham’s books for the Haggadah?”

“Exactly.”

“You’ve got your uncle’s guile,” Father Carlos tells me, his tone wary. “Can’t argue with that. But maybe you’re a bit too clever.”

“You’re tempting the Devil, you know,” Diego counsels.

“You two are beginning to sound alike,” I observe. “I think fear makes all Jews say the same things. And it’s getting tiresome. Anyway, I’m not tempting any devil. Dona Meneses is just a frightened Jew like the rest of us.”

“A Jew?!” Diego exclaims. “She’s no Jew!”

“She portrays Queen Esther in Uncle’s personal Haggadah…is depicted bringing the Torah to Mordecai.”

“That’s no proof!” he scoffs.

“It is for me!”

With the voice of a learned elder, Diego says, “Even if you’re right, she’s no Jew. She’s a New Christian. The gap grows wider between the two each day.” When I roll my eyes, he adds, “In any event, a knife knows no religion. And her bodyguards have very sharp ones in their possession. We have all found that out from close range of late.”

“So what do you want me to say? I know all that.”

The priest steps to the bottom of the stairs and approaches me. With supplicating eyes, he says, “Berekiah, now that you have neither your father nor your uncle…”

“Save it, Carlos! I don’t want your protection.”

He gives me the burdened sigh I’ve heard all my life meaning that I’m too obstinate for my own good. I slip the manuscripts into the leather day pack Uncle used to take on his spiritual outings to Sintra Mountain.

Diego comes to me. “So where will you confront her?” he questions.

“At the Almond Farm,” I reply.

“Why there?”

“It’s where my uncle said to go.”

Father Carlos gasps. As I pass him, he grabs my arm. “Master Abraham appeared to you?” When I nod, he asks in a hushed voice, “And you spoke with him?”

“I asked God a dream question and Uncle appeared to me.”

“What…what did he say?”

“That the last gate would be crossed at the tower on the Almond Farm.”

Diego says, “Berekiah, if you’re right, then Dona Meneses and the Count of Almira had Master Abraham and Simon killed. You shouldn’t go. I’ll get your mother. I can see you won’t listen to us.”

“Stop! Don’t bring her here! Simon wasn’t prepared. And neither, apparently, was my uncle. They didn’t know how dangerous she really was. I do.”

He continues to protest in a voice ascending toward hysteria. I raise my hand to call for silence. “If you tell my mother, she’ll just start sewing some more of her hideous talismans. Leave her in the store. We should say goodbye now. You may be gone by the time I return.”

Diego and I hug, but it is impossible for my emotions to reach toward his tears; there is a callous deadness in me linked to revenge. “May you find those pearls of rain you want from the skies over Constantinople,” I say. I smile as best I can. “And don’t forget those treatises you wanted from Senhora Tamara. You won’t be able to get them just anywhere. If you need some money…” I reach into my pouch and hand him Senhora Rosamonte’s aquamarine ring.

He takes it from me. “Berekiah, I don’t know what…”

“Say nothing. All will be well for you in Turkey.”

“I will miss the wonders of Portugal. And the good Jews of Lisbon most of all.” He blesses his hand over me. “May you and your family find the peace you so long have deserved.”

As Farid and I walk to the Almond Farm, the amber grasses and blossoming trees of Portugal seem to connote separation. We Jews are scattering again, and these mulberry and lavender bushes, poppies and magpies will not hear their Hebrew names for centuries to come, perhaps never again. Maybe it is even a good thing for them.

The scores of graves on the farm remain free of weeds because of the drought. Wooden markers scribbled in Portuguese sprout like hands reaching toward life. We enter the tower and ascend the spiral staircase. Round and round we climb, into the belfry, empty now except for a patchwork of bird droppings. We gaze out at the carpets of golden barley and plowed earth separated by rims of cork trees, their twisted, noble trunks stripped to a vulnerable red.

And we wait.

The sunset which marks the end of Passover rises with reflections of the great topaz-colored palm leaves which canopy Eden.

A few minutes later, just as I requested in my note, Dona Meneses’ coach approaches, stops at the property line of the farm. Alone, she strolls toward us through the old grove of almond trees, a scarlet parasol over her head. Yet she holds no manuscript in her hand. Farid signals, “The time has come.” He places his dagger in the waistband of his pants. Trying to remain calm, I lift up my pack weighted with Abulafia’s manuscripts. We descend from the belfry, Uncle’s hand guiding me at a leisurely pace wholly out of step with my nervous breathing.

On the ground floor, Farid and I stand amidst the stone rubble and await the noblewoman.

Dona Meneses does not disappoint. She steps confidently across the threshold of the tower and acknowledges me with a stiff nod, the kind of regal gesture she shows her drivers to ready them for departure. Her