Ways to Lucena Read online

  YEHUDÁ

  One day I will get to Jerusalem. There my heart always beat. I learned it from my poems. Every letter I wrote in Hebrew, I saw myself distancing myself from this lavish land. But I know.

  I know we Jews cannot live without Jerusalem. I know also that we will be thrown out of this Paradise. Today everyone says the road is dangerous, that we poets go insane, like Ibn Gabirol. Today they tell me it is inconceivable how I, a famous poet, with so many patrons, can want to leave. They tell me no exile was as good as that of Sefarad, that no country was as good for us as was Sefarad, not even Israel, not even Babylonia. That Sefarad is more ours than Jerusalem, and that the country could not exist without us.

  Oh they tell me that there has never been such good poetry written, and knowledge begun to increase. And they tell me this and tell me that but my heart beats in Jerusalem, my heart is in the ruined Temple. I look East with my eyes, even when they are facing West. Oh, they tell me this and they tell me that, speaking of the end of our suffering, of the kindly life which awaits us.

  But I know, my father, I know it is all false. I know it, my father. Tell me I am right. Tell me that I will live and die in Jerusalem.

  To start this journey, I wrote my poems. The time has come for me to depart.

  WHERE ARE YOU GOING?

  I am going. This place, this city, has ended for me.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I only know that I am going.”

  JOSÉ MARÍA

  Priest, son of a priest, I come to the end of the road. And I repent. Of what? Of not having been a good Christian. Of not having been a good Jew. Of not having accepted the destiny of my people. What do I repent of? Paco, my son, look at the name you also took on becoming a priest. Without knowing that your father is the son of “Marranos.” A thousand times I have said that it is over, that the obligations have ended, the debts, the sacrifices. I tried to be a good Christian but I saw my mother in my dreams, looking at me and crying, and when I ask her why, she is crying, she cries even more, and every time I say something she cries even harder. So I learned that when the dream appears, I simply have to stay seated in silence in front of her. She never stopped crying.

  And if you were to ask me who will pray the Kaddish at my tomb? Worse yet, who will pray the Kaddish at my tomb? That is what I ask myself what I ask you, even though you are not at home, It frightens me that you will hear what I say, It frightens me that you know I am a convert, even knowing that you know it we both know it, but one doesn’t talk about that. How many priests have children? Only among the converts can there be three generations of priests. But if I don’t talk about this to you now, when will I do it? At least there is something good in that you are a priest. And that is that you won’t father more Christians. That you won’t have descendants. That with you the Christian line of the family ends. The shame ends with you. Others will continue on, others in other countries. Now I need warm contact with a woman, your mother. She died thirty years ago and I haven’t again had contact with a woman. I only gave myself hand-jobs. Like today, the old masturbator, priest who remembers his wife and expects an erection, the last one, the greatest one, at the moment of his death, with the one which no woman could enjoy. I have seen them confessing before me of the adulteries and fornications but at the moment of death, as though wishing to cling to one last moment of pleasure see the enormous erection as though to say I have won, I have beaten all the laws of all the gods and I have fornicated without end or without principles, I have died but I still hold up, I hold up with what I have. After an erection like that, who will pray Kaddish for me?

  I remember, I remember my brother at age six. He went to Lisbon with an uncle. I was too old. Many years have gone by but only I only remember from when he was six, surely he has a son who knows how to recite the Kaddish at his tomb. Or maybe he died on the voyage. And now we are here in Vinaroz, at the end of this world, fleeing from the big city so I won’t be recognized, a priest for the simple people, Here at the end of the world, but my soul has no rest for me.

  I cry and keep crying. Who will pray the Kaddish for me?

  MIMÓN

  I have to close the pharmacy and emigrate to Israel. Since Independence, Tangier is no longer what it was, there are increasingly more Moors with no money to buy medicine. Yesterday the cousins from Tetuán came, the Benarroch. The one who is my namesake comes frequently. He’s at the point of marrying the daughter of the Chocróns. He gave me an invitation so we’ll go to the wedding.

  Here the strangest people are a group of Americans who come to buy all kinds of unusual medicines and hallucinogens. I think they’re all homosexuals and writers. The youngest is called Jack Kerouac or something like that, He speaks a bit of French with a strange accent. He is convinced that he will write the best books in the world. The oldest one is a Bowles. His wife also seems a little strange. One day I saw her in the alley hugging a Moor. There is a Williams who does heroin although I don’t sell it without a prescription, and another younger one called Gregory, perhaps his friend. Every day more writers and poets arrive. As though there were no places in the United States to write. There was even a Jew called Ginsberg who spent a few weeks here. What’s a Jew doing in Morocco?

  Anyway, I must leave all this behind and go to Israel. Once the Moors take over, it’s all over. Everything will crumble and they won’t leave us anything. The Moors are more intelligent than the Spaniards or the Europeans. They have no need to throw us out or kill us. In a very educated manner they let us know there is no room for us. I have been told that close to Tel-Aviv there is a city called Ashdod where there are a lot of people from Morocco and Maghreb who speak French. I have to go. This city is filling up with Moors and crazy Americans. My cousin wants to go to Caracas but I finish my exile in Tangier. I’ll leave here only to go to Israel, not to another exile country. My cousin also talks about Canada, the Canary Islands, Madrid, France and Venezuela. He says he can’t establish himself in a backward country like Israel.

  WHERE DO THE EAGLES SLEEP FATER?

  -In the sky.

  “How, mama?”

  Sometimes.

  “Why are the kids at school mean to me?”

  Because you are different.

  “How am I different?”

  “You are Sephardic. You have darker skin than they do.”

  “What is Sephardic?”

  Many years ago my son, we lived in a country which at that time was called Sefarad and now Spain. In that country lived Moors, Christians, and many Jews. There we spoke Arabic and Spanish and we also wrote in Hebrew. And in that country my son, we were all friends. But since then so much time has passed that now we only know it from books.

  “Why did you leave that country?”

  I never lived there. I never left there, the Jews left that country because the Christians threw them out. The Christians wanted a country with no Jews.

  “Papa, do they want to kick us out of here too?”

  “No, here we are all Jews. You are only a little different because I am from Morocco and you have a Moroccan name.”

  “And what if here they also want a country without Moroccans?”

  “That will never happen. You’re just a little different.”

  “Can’t we just go back to your country, Sefarad?”

  “The land still is there but that country, Sefarad, is no more. It is a dream.”

  “Like how we dream when we sleep?”

  It is a dream we have while awake. In that dream those who return to the land of Israel were equal to those who lived there, nobody was less than another person. All were equal, even if the color of their skin or their names were different. I had that dream many times while awake, as I walked through the streets of Tetuán. I dreamed that never would they tell me, or you, that you are different.”

  LUNCH IN MÁLAGA

  This time the girls Luisa and Muriel were there. Samuel pensively asked, “Can anybody live a thousand years?”
/>   The father: “What you need to do is look for work. It is worth the effort for you to learn how to make a living. Money doesn’t fall from the trees.”

  The mother: “He signed up at the university. He can rest a bit before the course starts.”

  The father: “How can he rest when I can’t? I’ve been working since I was fourteen. I studied, I worked, and I finished high school. Kids of today are wimps.”

  Luisa: “The bible talks about a guy named Methuselah who lived a thousand years. Adam too, didn‘t he? I learned that in school.”

  “The father: “All that is no more than stories. What you all need to do is to sweat a little more instead of expecting that your father will hand it to you all ready.”

  Samuel: “I’m not referring to now. If somebody existed who was a thousand years old, how would we know he’s that old?”

  The father says to the mother, “You see? Didn’t I tell you not to pamper them so much? Look how they’re spending their time. Next they’ll be talking about flying saucers.”

  Muriel: “That’s more interesting. I read that once a flying saucer fell to earth. Do you believe that?”

  Samuel: “Of course we think a thousand-year-old would have wrinkles and look very old. Also if he lived so many years surely it is because he has the capacity to not age, and to look young.”

  The mother: “How about somebody eating the squids I prepared. You can talk later.”

  Samuel: “It’s not kosher.”

  The father: “Now you want to eat Kosher, when last year on the day of Tishá be-Av, the day of the destruction of the Temple, you went to a party?”

  Samuel: “Last year was last year. Now I have changed and I want to eat Kosher.”

  The mother: “There is a kosher chicken in the freezer, if you want I can prepare it for you.”

  Samuel: “No, that’s not necessary. I’ll eat vegetables and a little sole fish.”

  Muriel: “The United States tried to cover it up.”

  Samuel: “What did the United States cover up? The squid”

  Muriel: “No, idiot. I’m talking about the flying saucer.”

  Samuel: “A flying saucer full of squids.”

  Muriel: “That’s enough! Stop! Papa, tell him to stop!”

  The father: “Stop!”

  The mother: “I’ve served the sole. Now let’s eat.”

  Samuel thought he would never get a response from that table where everyone shouted, sure that they were right. Perhaps grandmother would know something but it seemed that she had forgotten more than Lucena.

  “Have you asked what was in the box?”

  “Who?”

  “The one who claims to be Abraham Benzimra, my great grandfather.”

  “Oh, Lucena! Look, I’ve brought you some issues of Playboy,” Samuel told her from a distance, but without the passion he usually displayed on pronouncing those words.

  The grandmother looked at the magazines, happy to do something different, at this time without commentaries.

  “Can somebody live one thousand years?”

  “Anything can happen, believe me, if that, the Wahnish guy, the one who married a Christian millionaire, he, being the son of a rabbi, then anything can happen.”

  “How can you know if he is lying? From a historical point of view, I have searched for him in the library. Nothing that is said, or nearly nothing, is exact, but Lucena is one thousand years old. It’s that old, but on the other hand, who can remember all the details that the historians talk about? It could be that he reads the books and recites them to me. How do I know?”

  “Ask him about the vessel I take out every year for Passover. It is said the Jews brought it when they fled from Granada. Or Sevilla. From Sefarad, in any case.”

  “My god grandma, they didn‘t come to Morocco from Granada. They weren’t really all that Jewish. They came from Portugal and they were all converts or “Marranos.”

  “Who put those tales in your head? We are authentic Jews; the ones who didn’t convert were the ones who went to Tetuán.”

  “Authentic, yes, I have no doubt. I’m not saying that we are not authentic, but we are also “Marranos. There is no shame in being that”

  “Of course it is shameful because “Marranos” is a nasty word. A disgusting word.”

  “It was the Christians who changed it into a dirty word. For them the Word judios, Jews, is, is nasty, So what? Aren’t we Jews?”

  “This is a new one. My own grandson says we are “Marranos.” Where will this end?”

  “OK right, let’s forget this. Let’s forget the “Marranos.” Tell me how I can investigate this Lucena. How can I prove if he’s telling the truth or not? Is it possible he could be one thousand years old?”

  “Ask him about the vessel from Granada. Ask him about the keys, the keys. I remember one time my grandfather showed me some large keys like those from yesteryear. For the family it was like an obsession. Save the keys, look here, I have one. She opens a drawer, and another and keeps looking. “I don’t know where it is. Maybe our uncle got it. He takes everything thinking that I don’t notice. It’s one of those old keys for the antique doors. I’m sure you have seen one. Little by little they have been disappearing. Perhaps it could open a door here in Málaga, in Melilla or in Lucena. Before, Lucena was an important city. I have read that. You see, Samuel, I read books too. Do you need money?”

  “This time I don’t want money. I want answers.”

  “I remember when I was a little girl – How interesting that I hadn’t remembered it until today- once two aunts of mine were talking in the kitchen by the pots and pans. I remember they were talking about someone very old who always looked young and came to take one of the young Benzimra girls, would marry her and then would disappear leaving her with a lot of money to marry her. Sometimes they called him el del sielo and sometimes el dembasho, He who comes from heaven and he who comes from hell. They talked about one who came in from the mountains, he had a lot of gold and he wanted to marry her little sister and she was thirteen.

  They debated between them whether to approve or not, because it was evident he would end up disappearing. In the end, he disappeared before the wedding. He left in the same way that he had arrived but he left her a box with some gold rings that were worth a lot of money. Maybe that was him, maybe not. The rings were the engagement gift.

  “I don’t know, seriously, I don’t, know what to tell you. I have never known anyone who was a thousand years old, and if I have, I didn’t notice.”

  “I am looking at you. You are ninety, and you look old. But how would someone one thousand years old look? Certainly they can’t look old because if they have arrived at such an exaggerated age it is because they can continue being young, because they have a certain amount of antioxidants which avoid ageing.”

  “What are animoxilantes?”

  “It doesn’t matter. The issue is that he has some substances in his body that avoid ageing, so because of that he looks young, that it‘s logical, and evidently he looks younger that he is. A lot younger, because it could be said that he looks to be under forty.”

  “I would like to meet him.”

  “Impossible. I can’t talk about him. I only say that if you tell anyone nobody will believe you so I advise you not to do it because if anyone knew about it, poor me and poor him.

  SO YOU BECAME A PRIEST?

  “It is my mission.”

  “You know your mother died to avoid being a Christian, and you want to be a priest.”

  “Jesus called me. Jesus let me live so I may be his servant.”

  “That is worse than converting.”

  “Repent and save your soul papa.”

  “I converted to stay alive, not to see you dressed in this robe.”

  “You have to repent to enter the kingdom of God.”

  “If I don’t you will send me to the Inquisition?”

  “I am the Inquisition.”

  “You? Are you telling me that you are the
one who submits your brothers, the Jews, your “Marranos” your peers, like me, like your brothers and sisters?”

  “I do it to save them from hell. I do it out of love.”

  “What kind of love burns children alive? What kind of love forces people to change religion?

  What kind of love kills my wife, your mother, Sultana? What kind of love burns my house to the ground? Maybe she was right. That cruel night, it would have been better for you to have died, then and there, to not have to see you like this. How can I say that? How can I live the years left to me? I wish I had seen you dead, and not killing our own people.”

  “Don’t talk about that. The hour has come for you to return to your God. I will take you to the Tribunal so you can demonstrate your repentance and be absolved.”

  “To the Tribunal? With your own hands?”

  “They wanted to send another priest. But I preferred to do it myself.”

  “Yes, I did it. To save you.”

  “No, my son. I’m not going. You can kill me here and now. I just ask one thing. Let me escape. Say that you could not find me. Let me disappear, become transparent, non-existent, leave this world, leave me in peace.”

  THE THIRD DAY

  “You are late. Do you think this is a school? Well, don’t ask questions. Yes, I know you have many. But you will have your answers to everything at the end of the seventh day. And if you don’t find one, perhaps it is because you don’t need it. The porcelain vessel, you want to know something about it. You spoke with your grandmother. It comes from Lucena, not from Grenada. It was the muezzins who drove us out of Lucena. Either we convert to Islam or abandon our homes, our strongholds, and our lives. From one day to the next. So we fled to the Christians and then we had to flee again toward the Muslims. There are those who say that in Islam everything was splendid, The Christianity which received us was also exceptional. However it was, we left there with only that vessel and what we had on. Since that day in 1141 Lucena would not be a Jewish city again, nor a city of rabbis and poets. It would be a dead city. The vessel came from there and from that moment it became memorabilia of our expulsion. Vessels and keys carried from city to city. You also took the key from your house in Jerusalem. I know.