“Furthermore,” he said, as we towed the beasts in there and began to unload them, “since all the household servants are Kashan Persians and therefore bound by the strictures of Ramazan, the Almauna Esther has agreed to prepare and serve you gentlemen your meals with her own hands. So again you will be eating at your accustomed hours, and she assures me she is a good cook. The payment she asks for our stay is also most reasonable.”
My uncle frankly gaped at the slave, and said in awe, “You are a Muslim, the thing most despised by a Jew, and we are Christians, the next-most despised things. If that were not enough to make this Widow Esther spurn us from her door, you must be the most repulsive creature she has ever set eyes on. How in God’s name did you accomplish all this?”
“I am only a Sindi and a slave, master, but I am not ignorant or lacking in initiative. Also I can read and I can observe.”
“I congratulate you. But that does not answer my question or lessen your ugliness.”
Nostril scratched thoughtfully in his meager beard. “Master Mafio, in the holy books of your religion and of mine and of the Almauna Esther’s religion, you will find the word beauty often mentioned, but never the word ugliness, not in any of those scriptures. Perhaps our several gods are not offended by the physical ugliness of mere mortals, and perhaps the Almauna Esther is a godly woman. Anyway, before those holy books were written, we were of one religion—my ancestors, the almauna’s, perhaps yours as well—all were of the old Babylonian religion that is now abhorred as pagan and demonic.”
“Impertinent upstart! How dare you suggest such a thing?” my father demanded.
“The almauna’s name is Esther,” said Nostril, “and there are Christian ladies also of that name, and it derives from the demon goddess Ishtar. The almauna’s late husband, she tells me, was named Mordecai, which name comes from the demon god Marduk. But long before those gods existed in Babylon, there existed Noah and his son Shem, and the almauna and I are Shem’s descendants. Only the later difference of our religions divides us Semites, and that should not have been too severely divisive. Muslims and Jews, we both eschew certain foods, we both seal our sons in the Faith with circumcision, we both believe in heavenly angels and loathe the same adversary, whether he is called Satan or Shaitan. We both revere the holy city of Jerusalem. Perhaps you did not know that the Prophet (may peace and blessing be upon him) originally bade us Muslims bow to Jerusalem, not to Mecca, when we make our devotions. The language originally spoken by the Jews and that spoken by the Prophet (all blessing and peace be his) were not greatly dissimilar, and—”
“And Muslims and Jews alike,” my father said drily, “have tongues hinged in the middle, to wag at both ends. Come, Mafio, Marco. Let us go and pay our own respects to our hostess. Nostril, you finish unloading the animals and then procure feed for them.”
The Widow Esther was a white-haired and sweet-faced little woman, and she greeted us as graciously as if we had not been Christians. She insisted that we sit down and drink what she called her “restorative for travelers,” which turned out to be hot milk flavored with cardamom. The lady prepared it herself, since it was not yet sundown and none of her Muslim servants could do so much as heat the milk or pulverize the seeds.
It seemed that the Jew lady did have, as my father had supposed, a tongue hinged in the middle, for she kept us in conversation for some while. Rather, my father and uncle conversed with her; I looked about me. The house clearly had been a fine one, and richly appointed, but—after the death of its Master Mordecai, I guessed—had got somewhat dilapidated and its furnishings threadbare. There was still a full staff of servants, but I got the impression that they remained not for wages but out of loyalty to their Mistress Esther and, unbeknownst to her, took in washing at the back door, or through some such genteel subterfuge supported themselves and her as well.
Two or three of the servants were as old and unremarkable as the mistress, but three or four others were the supernally handsome Kashan boys and young men. And one servant, I was pleased to note, was a female as pretty as any of the males, a young woman with dark-red hair and a voluptuous body. To pass the time while the Widow Esther prattled on, I made the cascamorto at that maidservant, giving her languishing looks and suggestive winks. And she, when her mistress was not observing, smiled encouragingly back at me.
The next day, while the lame camel rested, and so did the other four, we travelers all went separately out into the city. My father went seeking a kashi workshop, expressing a wish to learn something about the manufacture of those tiles, for he deemed it a useful industry that he might introduce to the artisans of Kithai. Our camel-puller Nostril went out to buy some kind of salve for the camel’s bruised foot, and Uncle Mafio went to get a new supply of the mumum depilatory. As it turned out, none of them found what he sought, because no one in Kashan was working during Ramazan. Having no errands of my own, I simply strolled and observed.
As I was to see in every city from there eastward, the sky over Kashan was constantly awhirl with the big, dark, fork-tailed scavenger kites circling and swooping. As also in every city from there eastward, the other most prevalent bird seemed to spend all its time scavenging on the ground. That was the mynah, which strutted aggressively about with its lower beak puffed out like the pugnacious underjaw of a little man looking for a quarrel. And of course the next most visible denizens of Kashan were the pretty boys at play in the streets. They chanted their ball-bouncing songs and their hide-and-seek songs and their whirling-dance songs, just as Venetian children do, except that these songs were of the cat-screech variety. So was the music played by the street entertainers soliciting bakhshish. They seemed to own no instruments except the changal, which is nothing but a guimbarde or Jew’s harp, and the chimta, which is nothing but iron kitchen tongs, so their music was nothing but a horrid cacophony of twang and clatter. I think the passerby who tossed them a coin or two did so not out of thanks for the entertainment but to interrupt it, however briefly.
I did not wander far that morning, for my stroll brought me around through the streets in a circle, and I soon found myself again approaching the widow’s house. From a window the pretty maidservant beckoned, as if she had been waiting there just to see me pass. She let me into the house, into a room furnished with slightly shabby qali and daiwan pillows, and confided to me that her mistress was occupied elsewhere, and told me that her name was Sitare, which means Star.
We sat down together on a pile of pillows. Being no longer a callow and inexperienced stripling, I did not set upon her with clumsy juvenile avidity. I began with soft words and sweet compliments, and only gradually moved closer until my whispers tickled her dainty ear and made her wriggle and giggle, and only then raised her chador veil and moved my lips to hers and tenderly kissed her.
“That is nice, Mirza Marco,” she said. “But you need not waste time.”
“I count it no waste,” I said. “I enjoy the preliminaries as much as the fulfillment. We can take the whole day if—”
“I mean you need not do anything with me.”
“You are a considerate girl, Sitarè, and kind. But I must tell you that I am not a Muslim. I do not abstain during Ramazan.”
“Oh, your being an infidel does not matter.”
“I rejoice to hear it. Then let us proceed.”
“Very well. Loose your embrace of me and I will fetch him.”
“What?”
“I told you. There is no need to continue in pretense with me. He is already waiting to come in.”
“Who is waiting?”
“My brother Aziz.”
“Why the devil would we want your brother in here with us?”
“Not we. You. I will go away.”
I loosed my hold on her, and sat up and looked at her. “Excuse me, Sitarè,” I said warily, not knowing any better way to ask it than to ask it: “Are you perhaps, er, divanè?” Divanè means crazy.
She looked genuinely puzzled. “I assumed you took notice of our re
semblance when you were here last evening. Aziz is the boy who looks like me, and has red hair like mine, but is much prettier. His name means Beloved. Surely that was why you winked and leered at me?”
Now I was the one puzzled. “Even if he were as pretty as a peri, why would I wink at you—except that you were the one I—?”
“I tell you no pretext is necessary. Aziz saw you also, and was also instantly enthralled, and he already is waiting and eager.”
“I do not care if Aziz is eternally adrift in Purgatory!” I cried in exasperation. “Let me put this as plainly as I know how. I am at this moment trying to seduce you into letting me have my way with you.”
“Me? You wish to make zina with me? Not with my brother Aziz?”
I briefly pounded my fists on an unoffending pillow, and then said, “Tell me something, Sitarè. Does every girl in all of Persia misspend her energies in acting as procurer for someone else?”
She thought about that. “All of Persia? I do not know. But here in Kashan, yes, that is often the case. It is the result of established custom. A man sees another man, or a boy, and is smitten with him. But he cannot pay court to him outright, for that is against the law laid down by the Prophet.”
“Peace and blessing be upon him,” I muttered.
“Yes. So the man pays court to the other man’s nearest woman relative. He will even marry her, if necessary. So that then he has excuse to be near his true heart’s desire—the woman’s brother perhaps, or maybe her son if she is a widow, or even her father—and has every opportunity to make zina with him. That way, you see, the proprieties are not openly flouted.”
“Gèsu.”
“That is why I supposed you were paying court to me. But of course, if you do not want my brother, you cannot have me.”
“Whyever not? You seemed pleased to learn that I wanted you and not him.”
“Yes, I am. Both surprised and pleased. That is an unusual preference; a Christian eccentricity, I daresay. But I am a virgin, and I must remain so, for my brother’s sake. You have by now crossed many Muslim lands; surely you have comprehended. That is why a family keeps its maiden daughters and sisters in strict pardah, and jealously guards their virtue. Only if a maiden remains intact or a widow chaste can she hope to make a good marriage. At least, so it is here in Kashan.”
“Well, it is the same where I come from … ,” I had to admit.
“Yes, I shall seek to make a good marriage to a good man who will be a good provider and a good lover to us both, for my brother Aziz is all the family I have.”
“Wait a moment,” I said, scandalized. “A Venetian female’s chastity is often an item of barter, yes, and often traded for a good marriage, yes. But only for the commercial or social advancement of her whole family. Do you mean the women here willingly endorse and connive in the lust of one man for another? You would deliberately become the wife of a man just so you could share him with your brother?”
“Oh, not just any man who comes along,” she said airily. “You should feel flattered that both Aziz and I found you to our liking.”
“Gèsu.”
“To couple with Aziz commits you to nothing, you see, since a male has no sangar membrane. But if you wish to be the breaker of mine, you must wed me and take us both.”
“Gèsu.” I got up from the daiwan.
“You are going? Then you do not want me? But what of Aziz? You will not have him even once?”
“I think not, thank you, Sitarè.” I slouched toward the door. “I simply was ignorant of local custom.”
“He will be desolated. Especially if I have to tell him it was me you desired.”
“Then do not,” I mumbled. “Just tell him I was ignorant of local custom.” And I went on out the door.
2
BETWEEN the house and the stable was a little garden plot planted with kitchen herbs, and the Widow Esther was out there. She was wearing only one slipper, her other foot was bare, and she had the removed slipper in her hand, beating with it at the ground. Curious, I approached her, and saw that she was pounding at a large black scorpion. When it was pulped, she moved on and turned over a rock; another scorpion sluggishly crawled into view and she squashed that one, too.
“Only way to get the nasty things,” she said to me. “They do their prowling at night, when they are impossible to see. You have to turn them up in daylight. This city is infested with them. I do not know why. My late dear husband Mordecai (alav ha-sholom) used to grumble that the Lord erred miserably in sending mere locusts upon Egypt, when He could have sent these venomous Kashan scorpions.”
“Your husband must have been a brave man, Mirza Esther, to criticize the Lord God Himself.”
She laughed. “Read your scriptures, young man. The Jews have been giving censure and advice to God ever since Abraham. You can read in the Book of Genesis how Abraham first argued with the Lord and then proceeded to haggle Him into a bargain. My Mordecai was no less hesitant to cavil at God’s doings.”
I said, “I once had a friend—a Jew named Mordecai.”
“A Jew was your friend?” She sounded skeptical, but I could not tell whether she doubted that a Christian would befriend a Jew, or a Jew a Christian.
“Well,” I said, “he was a Jew when I first met him, when he called himself Mordecai. But I seem to keep on meeting him under other names or in other guises. I even saw him once in one of my dreams.”
And I told her of those various encounters and manifestations, each of them evidently intended to impress upon me “the bloodthirstiness of beauty.” The widow stared at me as I talked, and her eyes widened, and when I was done she said:
“Bar mazel, and you a gentile! Whatever he is trying to tell you, I suggest that you take it to heart. Do you know who that is you keep meeting? That must be one of the Lamed-vav. The thirty-six.”
“The thirty-six what?”
“Tzaddikim. Let me see—saints, I suppose a Christian would call them. It is an old Jewish belief. That there are always in the world just thirty-six men of perfect righteousness. No one ever knows who they are, and they themselves do not realize they are tzaddikim—or else, you see, that self-consciousness would impair their perfection. But they go constantly about the world, doing good deeds, for no reward or recognition. Some say the tzaddikim never die. Others say that whenever one tzaddik dies, another good man is appointed by God to that office, without his knowing he has been so honored. Still others say that there is really only one tzaddik, who can be in thirty-six places simultaneously, if he chooses. But all who believe in the legend agree that God will end this world if ever the Lamed-vav should cease doing their good works. I must say, though, that I never heard of one of them extending his good offices to a gentile.”
I said, “The one I met in Baghdad may not even have been a Jew. He was a fardarbab tomorrow-teller. He could have been an Arab.”
She shrugged. “The Arabs have an identical legend. They call the righteous man an abdal. The true identity of each of them is known only to Allah, and it is only on their account that Allah lets the world go on existing. I do not know if the Arabs borrowed the legend of our Lamed-vav, or if it is a belief which they and we have shared ever since the long-ago time when we were mutually the children of Shem. But whichever yours is, young man—an abdal bestowing his favor on an infidel or a tzaddik on a gentile—you are highly favored and you should pay heed.”
I said, “They seem never to speak to me of anything but beauty and bloodthirstiness. I already seek the one and shun the other, insofar as I can. I hardly need further counsel in either of those respects.”
“Those sound to me like the two sides of a single coin,” said the widow, as she slapped with her slipper at another scorpion. “If there is danger in beauty, is there not also beauty in danger? Or why else does a man so gladly go a-journeying?”
“Me? Oh, I journey just out of curiosity, Mirza Esther.”
“Just curiosity! Listen to him! Young man, do not ever deprecate the passio
n called curiosity. Where would danger be without it, or beauty either?”
I failed to see much connection among the three things, and again began to wonder if I was talking to someone slightly divanè. I knew that old people could sometimes get wonderfully disjointed in their conversations, and so this one seemed when she said next:
“Shall I tell you the saddest words I ever heard?”
In the manner of all old people, she did not wait for me to say yes or no, but went right on:
“They were the last words spoken by my husband Mordecai (alav ha-sholom). It was when he lay dying. The darshan was in attendance, and other members of our little congregation, and of course I was there, weeping and trying to weep with quiet dignity. Mordecai had made all his farewells, and he had said the Shema Yisrael, and he was composed for death. His eyes were closed, his hands folded, and we all thought he was peacefully slipping away. But then, without opening his eyes or addressing anybody in particular, he spoke again, quite clearly and distinctly. And what he said was this …”
The widow pantomimed the deathbed occasion. She closed her eyes and crossed her hands on her bosom, one of them still holding her dirty slipper, and she leaned her head back a little, and she said in a sepulchral voice, “I always wanted to go there … and do that … but I never did.”
Then she stayed in that pose; evidently I was expected to say something. I repeated the dying man’s words, “I always wanted to go there … and do that …” and I asked, “What did he mean? Go where? Do what?”
The widow opened her eyes and shook her slipper at me. “That was what the darshan said, after we had waited for some moments to hear more. He leaned over the bed and said, ‘Go to what place, Mordecai? To do what thing?’ But Mordecai said no more. He was dead.”