Richard Zimler - The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon

“He should have asked me. If only he’d…”

“You still don’t understand, do you?” Diego asks.

“Understand what, you bastard?”

“He couldn’t risk your life. You were to be his heir, carry forward his plans for healing the Upper and Lower Realms…the greatest kabbalist Lisbon had ever seen! You don’t risk such a man’s life by getting him involved with smugglers. As it stands now, you’ll probably be the last kabbalist of Lisbon.” Diego shrugs and offers me a weak smile, as if accepting an inevitable truth. “No books, no kabbalists, no Jews. A shame, but such is life.”

Amazing , I think, that this murderer could understand so clearly what was hidden from me. Was I afraid of the responsibility ? Or of being the last of my kind ?I ask Diego, “Why didn’t you take all the books from the genizah when you killed him?”

“I was looking at the manuscripts, evaluating them, taking my time. I wasn’t worried, knew that with the riot raging and my knowledge of the secret passageway to the bathhouse that I was safe. Then I came upon Master Abraham’s last Haggadah. Beautiful work. I leafed through it and found my image as Haman, tore it out, of course, put the whole book in my pouch for safekeeping. To see my face in his illuminations, it was a shock… I was suddenly panicked. Silly, I suppose. I was about to go through the secret door when you began calling for your family from above. I started to go through, but I’m afraid that with my girth I couldn’t make it. I turned back, entered the cellar again, closed the door after me. Just before…”

“Why didn’t you just hide behind the secret door, in the passageway?”

“I’d never been through before. I worried that if I closed the door, some secret latch would fall and I’d be entombed there. Not a very nice fate that would be! So just before you came down, I managed to curl myself into the genizah and shut the lid. Thank goodness for all the banging you were making. By the time you came downstairs, I was safe in my nest. Though I was worried that you could hear my heartbeat, that I might have to kill you as well. But I was fairly confident that you’d be fooled at first, that you’d think Old Christians had done it. When you went upstairs, I emerged, locked the lid and put the key back in the eel bladder. I slipped out through your store to Temple Street. I didn’t think anyone had seen me. But that Gemila… It’s lucky for her she’s such a hysterical cow with her hallucinated demons or I’d have had to…”

“Senhora Belmira? Why her?”

“Miriam? She was in love with me. Don’t look surprised. I’m quite a nice man to those who… Remember the hours we spent sketching birds together? Anyway, it was safer that way. If she were caught, she’d have preferred death rather than give up my name. And she did. Women are stronger than men in that way. I learned that in the dungeons of Seville. They’ll see their feet melted and still won’t sell the Moses in their hearts to the Christians.”

“The boy who went to sell Uncle’s Haggadah to Senhora Tamara? Who was he?”

“I’m afraid that was my mistake. I got nervous. I have my frailties, as I’ve already admitted. As for the his identity, some things should remain a mystery, don’t you think? His name is Isaac. He’s a good, sweet child. It is all I’ll tell you.”

“The note that fell from your turban? Was it really about the Count of Almira or this Isaac?”

“Another mystery I will not solve for you. Sorry.”

“So, now that you’ve got your Plato…?”

“I’ll be leaving tonight as I said. By carriage to Faro. You can forget all about me.”

“I won’t let you leave,” I note.

“You have no choice.” Diego taps the edge of his knife against his slave’s shoulder. “My new bodyguard is skinny but desperate,” he says. “He wouldn’t want to return to his old master. Put a bit in his mouth. Beat and fucked him senseless. They say he even knows spells. A regular black kabbalist if you ask me. From one of our lost tribes perhaps. You’d better just back outside and let us go. Or you’ll end up with your soul separated from your body just like Master Abraham.”

“And a curtain of blood across my neck. I’ll never forget what you did to him!”

“Poetic words. Yours or Farid’s?”

Diego picks up two leather-bound volumes from the desk. He motions the slave before him. The African crouches, holds his knife and cane out in front of his chest, slides forward.

Farid signals against my back, “You take the slave and…”

“No.” I toss my knife to the floor, twist around, grip Farid’s upraised arm.

He tugs against me, signals, “What do you think you’re doing?!”

“Go now!” I shout to Diego. “I cannot hold him long!”

I wrap my arms around Farid, pin him back to a wall of books. Though he still grips his dagger, I know he’ll never use it against me. As he struggles to break free, I shout again, “Leave, demon, before I change my mind!”

I press against Farid with the terrible strength of my vengeance. The slave and Diego rush past. “You’ve chosen wisely,” the murderer hisses.

My eyes close tight as if to shut out sin as the bolt on the door clicks open. The night air, sharp and chill, blows against us. “Fly back to hell, Diego!” I whisper to myself.

“Berekiah!” Farid’s voice comes garbled, honked, but clear as prayer. At the same time, his fist catches my shoulder and opens its old ache. With a sweeping kick, I manage to take his feet from under him.

The door slams closed. We are alone. A warm and bitter pleasure rises into my chest.

Farid jumps up, glares at me. I open my hands in a gesture of peace, take his shoulders. “You spoke!” I signal with a smile; it seems a crowning miracle atop all this debased horror, a sign from the Lord, perhaps, that I have chosen Diego’s fate correctly.

With whirling gestures, Farid says, “Because you were letting him get away. It’s all for nothing now. Nothing. Unless we can…”

“Don’t worry,” I signal. “Diego was wrong. Some men can be trusted. You shall see.”

Outside, Senhora Tamara stands trembling in her bare feet and nightgown. As Farid wraps his arm around her, I spot Diego running down Goldsmith’s Street behind his slave toward the Rua Nova d’El Rei. The moon lights him as a stealthy animal, a night creature fleeing hunters. To myself, I whisper words from Jeremiah: “He shall dwell among the rocks in the scorched wilderness, in a salt land where no man can live.”

“But he’s getting away!” Senhora Tamara moans. She gives me an imploring stare.

Her words etch a line of burning doubt across my gut. I start walking, then sprint ahead as if in search of Uncle.

A dark shadow suddenly crosses from the right. It trails Diego for a few moments, shows a hatted profile, swings closer. A glint of metal. An arm raised. When it falls, Diego melts to the cobbles. A sound like the knocking of Simon’s gloved fist on our door is carried to me by the dry wind. It is unable to reach the gates of my compassion.

Farid, who has been running behind me, holds out a hand as I slow to a walk. He signals, “Who was…”

“One of Dona Meneses’ killers,” I answer. “He was waiting for Diego. He had orders not to strike until midnight just like we asked.” I take out a few of the sapphire and emerald beads left from Dona Meneses’ necklace. “But I changed the timing.”

“You paid for him to kill Diego?!”

“He would have anyway. But I couldn’t risk the wait. May God forgive me.”

I cup the noblewoman’s beads in my hand. “It only took one to convince him to kill Diego right away,” I say. “A Jew’s life, a man’s life, costs almost nothing.”