— But all that already reached you with that irascible emissary, Rabbi Gavnel ben-Yehoshua…
— Once more?
— He had his throat cut, madame: like a tender lamb, or a black goat in the dead of night…
— Now it is you who shudder, madame — the tears are now yours…
— But what will it avail you?
— Why multiply your pain?
— If you must… Well, then, rubissa, he went out at night without a lantern, which is against the law in Jerusalem, with no light or badge, and in a black robe, to make matters worse…
— He turned into a lane in the Souk-el-Lammamin on his way to the Via Dolorosa. ‘Twas the night of the nativity of the Christians’ messiah, may his bones rot in hell. He was stopped by the watch — and rather than let himself be apprehended and brought to trial, he sought to flee. Nor did he run to the Stambouli Synagogue or the synagogue of Yohanan ben-Zakkai, where he could have hidden in the Holy Ark, but up the lane, through the Vidal house, and to the great mosque on the Haram-el-Sharif, perhaps because he wished to cast suspicion on the Muslims rather than on the Jews. And there, on the steps leading to the Dome of the Rock, he had his throat slit, madame. He was butchered like a black sheep.
— By our Ishmaelite cousins, those masters of the hidden knife.
— And thereabout did I wonder — did I grieve — did I sigh — did I question — did I beg to know — all during my stay with him, from the moment he pulled me to my feet in the sands of Jaffa, which I kissed with great love as soon as I was hurled ashore — yanked me to my feet and asked at once about you, madame — why were you not there — aghast to see me by myself…
— Because he was certain that I had you with me aboard ship, or that you had me with you.
— He knew nothing of Rabbi Shabbetai’s last-minute ban on your coming, Doña Flora. He stood there on the shore, looking mournfully at the deckhands folding the sails, hoping that perhaps they would still produce you from the hold, hee hee hee…
— What was there to explain, Doña Flora? His Grace had explained nothing to me… did His Grace give any reason for it?
— He is looking at me, the poor man… he is thinking…”Heal him now, O God, I beseech Thee”…
— A kind of mother?
— Perhaps, madame. In truth, he never had enough of his own mother, who was in a hurry to depart to a better world. But were you only a mother to him, madame, or were you also a sister of sorts?
— I mean, a sort of elder sister, someone to share one’s secrets with and tell one’s strangest dreams to… There he stood, our Yosef, preoccupied with his own great grief and disappointment, yet at the same time, quite sure of himself and already gazing off into the distance, a high, black consular fez on his head, speaking to the villagers around him with much patience, as if they were his friends. I noticed that he could already chat blithely away in Ishmaelitic, and when I realized that my solo arrival was a far from joyous occasion for him, I sought in my despondency to cast myself reverently back down into the soft, sweet sands of Jaffa. But he seized my arm, and I could tell at once from how he did it that something had changed in him…
— From the firmness of it. He pulled me up out of the sand and commanded me, “That will do, Papá, the horses are waiting and we have a long way to go…”
— In truth, mí amiga in truth, Doña Flora: he had brought neither donkeys nor mules nor camels for us from Jerusalem, but horses, an entire horse for each of us — and most wondrous was the horse he had chosen for you, rubissa… I still can picture it, a most exquisite mare, with a brightly colored saddlecloth laid over her…
— Especially for you. He let no one mount her, and for three whole days she trotted by our side without a rider, all the way to Jerusalem, carrying only my bags of spices. Each time we looked at her, madame, we thought of you and of His Grace’s prohibition. The more we sought to comprehend it, the more we simply sighed.
— With sorrow, but without resentment, for I still felt as if I were in a dream, as if I still were rocked by the motion of the waves. We left the noisy marketplace of Jaffa, which was bubbling with colors and smells, and made our way up streets of stairs that ended in orchards and fields of large flowers and fierce thorns… and suddenly, madame, there were only the two of us, father and son, with the broad land all around us and a harsh, inhuman sun overhead before which the very sky appeared to cringe.
— He pushed on that first day as far as the great khan of Kafr Azur, because he wished to catch the dawn caravan, in such a hurry was he to get back to his consul in Jerusalem. Does His Grace still remember the route?
— Truly, Doña Flora, truly I am confused! Indeed, the rabbi came from Damascus and entered the Promised Land by crossing the Jordan… and so it should be, by the front door and not by the rear one. Then my master and teacher never got to see Jaffa? A pity, for ‘tis a saucy town…
— In truth, I clutch at my memories as one clutches at a lifeline, for I can picture nothing that happened without welling up with compassion. Thus it began — with a father riding behind his son in the Holy Land, rather chagrined and bewildered, regarding the wasteland around him, although ‘twas nôt always waste.
— Well said, madame, that is so. Suddenly you see a fine grain field, or an orchard, or some date palms and fruit trees by a water course, or a peasant’s hut, or a group of children playing by a well — and then there is wasteland again and the remnants of a most ancient devastation. At sunset we reached a large khan and found it deserted, because the caravan had already moved on to pass the night in Ramleh. Fresh straw was scattered for us in a corner of the hall, beside a blackened wall, and our pallets were made there. I stepped outside and looked at thé vast and most exceedingly dark plain in which there shone not a single light. Smoke curled up from an oven where bread was being baked for our supper. Yosef went to see to our horses. I watched him, a handsome, erect young man, stride over to a hedgerow of prickly pears and hang the feedbags on the horse’s necks while patting their heads and talking to them, his head nestled in the mane of your mare. Perhaps he was whispering some consolation to her for her mistress’s failure to arrive! An Ishmaelite standing nearby made some remark to him and he listened with friendly attention — and once again I was struck by how the soft, pampered youth who went shopping with you in the bazaar of Kapele Carse, carrying your dresses and perfumes, had turned into a young man beneath whose newly grown mustache there was already something quite secretive. He resembled my father as a young man, before his bankruptcy, and I suddenly felt such a bitterness of spirit, señores, that I longed to return to the sea I had come from no more than a few hours before, which had played with me and tossed me on its waves. I thought of my parents of blessed memory, and all at once I felt a great desire to say the kaddish for them in the Holy Land and to pray for their souls. And so I asked my son if there might be a village nearby with enough Jews in it for a prayer group. At first he was as startled as if I had asked him to pluck a star from the sky. “Jews? Here?” “And is there anywhere without them?” I marveled. He cocked his head and stared at me, and then he smiled a bit — and I wonder, Your Grace, whether it was then that the frightful idea was born in him, or whether it had been there all along — and after mulling it over for a moment he said softly, “Right away, Papá, right away.” He ducked through a gap in the prickly pear hedge and stepped into some mud huts, from which he pulled out one shadowy form after another and brought them to me. I looked about me and saw these dark-faced, bare-legged Ishmaelites, some with battered fezes on their heads and some with black keffiyehs, most silent and docile, as if they had just been torn out of their first sleep, madame. “Here, Papá,” says Yosef, “here is your minyan ” He frightened me. “But who are these men, son?” I asked him. And he, standing there in the still of evening, señor y maestro mío, he said, mí amiga Doña Flora, as if he were loco in the head, “But these are Jews, Papá, they just don’t know it yet…”