Death of a Monk Read online

  I could not manage to come to Bab Alfouqara that evening, I tell the good barber, nor have I been able to fully comprehend your intentions in inviting me to meet you there. The barber chuckled and gently embraced me, and his smell, the scent of a man, was strange and good to me, sweet and sweaty, and I gave myself over to his embrace, and he said, I had no intentions, neither good nor bad, and he placed a warm and caressing hand in my own and led me outside, to the street, and he was protective as an older brother to me, escorting me towards my family home, and when we arrived there he told me, quietly, Go in peace, and he stroked my cheeks with his right hand and played his fingers lightly upon my lips and kissed them gently, with a dab of sweet spittle, and then he took my head into his hands and kissed my lips again, and at the sound of approaching footsteps he fled.

  At once I turned my back to him and ran home, imagining Father’s shouts at my tardiness and perhaps the lash of his belt on my back, but when I arrived I found my family in slumber; no one asked about Aslan or his actions, no one was interested in him, and I hastened to wash my tongue with many waters, the smell of another mouth strong upon it, the scent of coarse and simple herbs, and I filled a bucket of water and poured it quickly over myself and I drew a cake of soap back and forth across my body, scrubbing with diligence and determination. A strange sensation rose in my throat and a heavy burden settled on my chest, and again I could hear the stifled flapping of the flock of cranes soon to take wing, and with a raging gust of wind they flooded my brain, made me dizzy, rattled me, shook me to and fro, and in their wake there remained, fluttering in a light breeze, a single feather, black and trifling, which oscillated to the left and right until it reached the earth, dormant.

  3

  IN THE WANING days of autumn of my fifteenth year, my parents informed me that I was to be wed. The name of my intended was Markhaba Antebi, upon whose face I must at one time have laid eyes, for she was the daughter of the Khaham-Bashi Yaacov Antebi, chief rabbi of Damascus, a girl with no dowry but with a good family pedigree. Two months from that very day we were to inhabit the fourth room from the right entrance to our family home.

  Father informed me of this development slowly, in an official manner, as if he were reading a guilty verdict handed down by the Majles, the Council of Jewish Elders, after which he departed from the room and left Maman and me to stare at one another.

  She asked me through the screen of black hair covering her eyes whether I would like to know further details, but I wanted nothing but to sink into the nuptial grief into which I was being forced; after all, how was Aslan to feed and provide for his wife and how was he to cohabitate with her, to engage in intercourse with her the way men did with their wives, for so delicate was he, his voice so feeble, his eyes moist, and a terrible fatigue descended upon my body and a small gurgle began its rumbling in my throat and Maman gathered her hair and shut me up immediately: Now listen, Aslan, and hear me well! It has been decreed that the perfumed days of your childhood and the self-indulgence and the foolish games of mischief and the teasing of your sister and your brother and the beautiful garments in which you were clothed have come to an end, and if you so much as shed a single tear I will tell your father, who has ordered that Aslan be flogged and his body tortured until he behaves like a man, not to mention that he must cease his pampered gait and his teetering footsteps, for Aslan already shaves his cheeks with a razor and sends forth semen from his loins and he must be a man as other men. It is bad enough that no groom has been found for his blue-eyed older sister, an old maid of seventeen years. Now Aslan will be kind enough to comply utterly with and acquiesce absolutely to the wishes of his parents, who have only his best interests at heart, for they love him dearly.

  She took hold of my forearm and led me to that fourth room, a small dark apartment, dim and dank, which had been used by the lowliest of the servants in our home as a place to copulate and to relieve themselves, and now it had been cleared of all chattels and rags, its floor had been cleaned, its old furniture removed, and it stood arid in its loneliness like a land of banishment and expulsion. A wicker double bed in all its heaviness had been placed in the centre of the room.

  It is to here that the contents of the bedroom of your youth will be moved, Maman said in a different, strange voice, her fingers clamped around her wedding ring. She deflected my attempts at embracing her and closed the door behind me and that gurgle in my throat burst forth in the form of a potent cough followed by choking and retching and once again that darkened screen lowered over my eyes, though this time no one came to my rescue and I fell supine on to the hardened mattress, pricked by the wicker, and wished my parents their share of tears and misery.

  At the end of two weeks’ time a festive meal was scheduled, at which I would meet my prospective bride, Markhaba, about whose existence I had been ignorant since I had had no dealings with her father, the honourable rabbi, nor with his rabbi-cohorts or his students; in fact, only this I knew: that these Torah scholars were preoccupied night and day with pleading for a messiah that would never come, and to being transported to a land to which they would never return, and to a god who turned them away empty-handed, and that they attempted to prevent all manner of diversions and pleasures like the bottom-wiggling of the dancers that Father and the uncles watched from time to time, and the drinking of wines made in Sidon and Tyre without rabbinical supervision, and the household ornaments created in the image of man, to which Maman was in the habit of speaking secretly before retiring, entreating them to provide assistance and good counsel.

  The rumour of my impending marriage spread swiftly through the Jewish Quarter, and at the Talmud Torah the boys looked askance at me, vacillating between a measure of teasing that was always reserved for me and a measure of envy at the new, lower tones in my voice and the bulging Adam’s apple in my throat and my new way of walking. Even the teacher ceased his floggings; but in spite of all this I could not quell the fears of calamity at my impending nuptials, since I could not know whether I would succeed in the great mission at hand. In my mind I pictured the women – gossips, the aunts, market hawkers, beggars – pointing at Aslan from the bottom of the lane and laughing their lecherous laugh.

  I began to take notice of this species – women – and found that I abhorred their bodies, that organ they possessed, and was repulsed by what one was meant to do with them; I could not comprehend, nor was there a soul to whom I could turn to ask his advice. Not Father, always enraged and preoccupied, not my friend Moussa, who had been forced away from me and had disappeared never to return, not the barber Suleiman Negrin, whose home and shop I was careful not to pass for fear of encountering a pair of shifty eyes or his mouth, which begged for kisses.

  In the bedroom of my youth, which granted me the favour of our final hours together, I resumed gazing at my body, now covered by even more hair, and examined my new voice, which leapt between the high-pitched days of my childhood and low tones, sturdy and new, and my hands descended to the organ that had, over the previous days, led my thoughts like an erect compass to its intended mission, and I searched the words of wise men for clues to the act it was expected to perform and which seemed to me beyond the realm of the possible.

  I requested an audience with Maman for an urgent discussion but again and again the servants rebuffed me, until I had no choice but to burst forcefully into the bedroom she shared with Father, and she covered her breasts with a piece of black cloth and pushed me away: Aslan, I have no time for you now, but I asked, Who is this Markhaba whom you have arranged for me to marry? I do not wish to be a husband to her, to copulate with her, to bear the burden of her through the long and miserable life that lies ahead of us. I told Maman about my feelings, how the ways of a man towards a woman were incomprehensible to me, and about the beautiful days of my youth, which I wished to exploit to their fullest.

  Maman began to repair a garment that needed no repair – something she was wont to do at times such as these – and told me it had been ordained a
nd there was no going back on this arranged marriage, for due to our interminable wars with the Harari family, who were doing everything in their power to remove the Farhi brothers from their commerce and their position of honour in Kharet Elyahud, it was essential for us to marry into a family of great rabbis.

  And then I poured out the contents of my heart and said that my father was trading me as if I were a promissory note that had come due, and that he never had a single word of affection to impart to me and that he was distant and estranged, and it was as though he had evil designs on me, and that even worse than Father was my mother, my good friend for flirtatious games of costumes and make-up whose true treachery became apparent at times of reckoning.

  Maman laughed raucously and said that my punishment would be grave and immense, that it would not come now but later, over time, over the entirety of my life from its beginning to its end, for he who curses his mother and father is destined for the most horrible tortures of hell, and now would I be so kind as to depart from her room before she summoned her husband, my father.

  We arrived at the meagre home of the bride on Sunday, that is, khad vakasal, the Day of Laziness that follows the Sabbath, and I was fatigued from the curses I had been hurling at Father, wishing all the world’s evil on him, such as bankruptcy, poverty and beggary, but then I was plagued with thoughts of sadness at this new week about to commence and the sorrows and suffering and decrees it would bring, and I sent a look of acquiescence at the virile sun, who was illuminating the street with his penetrating rays, while Father marched with a vigorous step to the meeting as though it were a profitable business proposition from which he would earn many piastres, and he opened the rickety gate that led to the narrow house and said, Sabakh alkhir, to which came the immediate response, Sabakh alfil v’alismin.

  Never before had I visited the home of a rabbi of Kharet Elyahud; it seemed to me more of a nest for rats than a home for human beings. Where were the fruit orchards and pools and fountains with carved roses and sayings of wisdom and good luck that adorned our own home? Instead, this hovel sported a small and fetid well, a cage with two screeching chickens, wretched walls of clay devoid of any picture or decoration, yellow mud tamed by wicker mats; and it was occupied by the rabbi, the Khaham-Bashi Yaacov Antebi, and his wife and their five daughters, and I said in my heart, This woman my parents have arranged for me to marry was taken not from the home of a great man but from the home of paupers.

  We are welcomed by the Khaham-Bashi, who pays occasional visits to the homes of the wealthy to request assistance and money for the Torah scholars, and he is dressed in his brown mantle with a colourful scarf wrapped about his waist, and as always he is good-humoured, overflowing with Damascene wisdom, his reddish beard curling down from his mouth, always pinching the children and ready with a melabes sweet from his pocket; he knows how even to raise a smile on the serious, dejected face of Aslan, who is eyeing his surroundings with suspicion.

  When we have settled on to reclining pillows in the qa’ah, the upper portion of the parlour which is covered with rugs, and served tea and ma’amul pastries, the two fathers begin conversing, my father’s face large, his chin thick, his eyebrows harsh and his hands rubbing one against the other; and the Khaham-Bashi is slight and spritely, his reddish beard in constant motion. The conversation moves from meaningless expressions of politesse to the telling of the story of the ban that the Harari family has placed on the Khaham-Bashi, how they have refused to pay his salary for the past two years due to a ruling he made against them once, and how now he is compelled to purchase necessities in a roundabout manner, through loans, and forced to accept gifts of flesh and blood with copious shame. As it is said about money, Vali ala qalitha shu sa’abeh, How difficult it is when lacking, and Father adds a curse on the Hararis for divesting him of his business interests by making agreements to supply caravans from Mecca and Baghdad with merchandise and guards.

  Aslan sits upon these simple pillows nibbling vile, stale biscuits and hopes in his heart of hearts for the evil Harari family to succeed, that they might continue to dispossess Father and the uncles and the parade of wives and the descendants of all their interests and profits, that Father’s ascendancy fall and that he become their slave, but the Khaham-Bashi cuts short my ruminations when he says, with a smile, What can we do? – Hiye, hiye, labaniyeh – Whatever will be will be, and then he arranges the large skullcap on his head, claps his hands and says, Yallah, bidkum t’shufu elaroussa, Do you wish to see the briiiiiiide? He pulls the last syllable even longer than anyone in Damascus would, accentuating it: elaroussaaaaaah.

  I have no opportunity to answer since the young woman appears before us, accompanied by her mother, her face hidden behind a black and white veil. Father rises to his feet at once and bows foolishly, his movements excited and sharp, and he motions for me to rise as well and approach the bride, her fingers white and her eyes lifeless, and in whose hands I notice a prayer book.

  Offered a taste of the refreshments, she pronounces the blessing over the fruit of the trees before taking a bite from an orange, then a second blessing over the ma’amul, and the Khaham-Bashi nudges us and winks, for Markhaba is the most devout of the daughters, his partner in devotion and love of God, and more than anything, she shares his yearning for the Messiah from the House of David; she sits evening after evening in a small, dark corner overlooking a bend in the road, focusing her gaze for the moment He will reveal Himself and unify the holy Israelites, and even now she requests that, after having laid eyes upon her betrothed, whom her saintly parents have chosen for her, she be excused to contemplate the Lord and His ways and offer her prayers.

  After all this had come to pass, on our silent way home, I received permission from Father to part from him and spend time alone with my thoughts while walking the streets of Damascus. I exited from the main gate of Kharet Elyahud and entered the street that is called Straight, crossed it, and continued northwards to the Christian Quarter, passing the Terra Sancta Monastery and the spacious homes of the wealthy, like ours, and my feet carried me to another place, past the walls of the city, where I departed through the northern gate to the good river, whose current was swift and whose scent was pleasant as it watered the city’s gardens and orchards and provided tranquillity for the soul and the heart, and I allowed the river’s current to wash away the tears I shed for my childhood, now dead and gone, since my destiny had been sealed by a father who could not be contested, and I had no consolation but a brief and turbid memory of the kisses of the barber Suleiman Negrin, and I had no life left in me but this longing for the Muslim youths passing before me and for the embraces and kisses I would bestow upon them and for the other things I would do which the Torah denounced, condemning the practitioners to death by stoning.

  How magnificent, how beautiful, was my wedding, an affair destined to be talked about many years hence; whenever someone wished to describe opulence, a true banquet, they would say, It was as the huppah of Aslan Farhi. Even after the Farhi descendants became destitute paupers due to their greed and the vicissitudes of fate, and nothing remained and nothing was spared from their great fortune but a piece of an ear snatched from the mouth of the lion, and after the residents of Kharet Elyahud had dwindled and dispersed to the four corners of the earth and abandoned the River Barada and the apricot trees and the exceedingly pleasant summer evenings spent on the rooftops of the houses of Damascus, even then the memory of Aslan Farhi’s wedding would bring back a honeyed sweetness, and they would tell one another of the kubeh meat pastries you bit into only to discover tiny nuggets of gold, and of the precious pearl or lucky gemstone you might encounter between the potatoes and the ground meat of the kawaj. As for me, however, I found nothing of this beauty or happiness, and no memory comes to me but that of a burning nausea and a trembling repulsion.

  As a stranger I walked among the wedding guests, among the wealthy Muslims, their fingers rolling prayer beads and twirling moustaches, with whom Father and the uncles trade
d; among the diplomats from the foreign consulates who spoke melodious European languages and stood laughing with wine glasses in their hands; and among the three members of the Harari clan who attended the huppah, their faces filled with arrogance as they shook hands coolly with Father.

  I shot glances at that Markhaba as she mumbled holy verses of Scripture. The girl was a stranger to me, her ways were foreign to me, her body odd to me, and I avoided Aunt Khalda’s shouting singsong as she chased after me to pinch my thighs and laugh her vulgar laugh; even the Khaham-Bashi failed to raise the slightest hint of a smile on my face when he pointed to the nuptial room and chanted in rhyming couplets, Arisna alzen yit’hana/ Saar lo sinten bistana: The groom shall enjoy himself at last/ After waiting these two years past.

  I glimpsed Markhaba’s face for the first time only under the huppah, mainly due to her insistence upon remaining covered and modest, since to her way of thinking this had been decreed by the Creator of the Universe in order to make this a coupling that was pure of heart and body and lo, with her short hair and her bulging eyes and her small breasts she looked to me like a young lad, and an impure hope stole into my heart: that during our copulation she would reveal her male organ to me, and not the female version that made my heart sink just to think of it.

  The Khaham-Bashi requested that I repeat what he was saying about not forgetting thee O Jerusalem, and after I muttered my feeble mumblings I was presented with the glass I was meant to shatter against the wall behind me, but my tossing hand was limp and weak and so the glass landed on its side and rolled back my way, to the laughter of the guests.