The Antiquarian (38 page)

“As long as my vows are kept unbroken, I will do as you say.”

“Then I will tell you this: over the next year, you will receive several discreet visits by night. I will accompany a man to your house, Pere Casadevall, and this man will instruct you in what you are to know. That man has no name. You shall call him S. There will pass intervals of time between the visits. We may come two days in a row, but weeks may pass between one and the next visit. Be patient and abide. Be patient and learn part of the science they are going to show you.”

“I will.”

“I can take my leave, then.”

I reflected on the conversation after Martín left. In truth, I had nearly forgotten our agreement, as the years pass and the dark memories fade, allowing us to continue with our lives. In fact, today was the first day in years I had remembered it, precisely during the wedding. And so it had to be. As for this mysterious S.: Who could it be? Martín, as I heard long ago, is a rabbi, a master among his people; the figure of highest importance in their community. But when he spoke of S., he did so with a tone of special admiration, even pride, though I thought I also detected a certain inferiority, as if that man were beyond his own social influence.

What must pass shall pass.

It has been one month since S. called for the first time. Martín accompanies him to the door, and then leaves. Other times I find them inside, awaiting me. But we are always left alone. And then, S. speaks. His voice is soft, almost feminine. He is neither old, nor young. He demands we remain in darkness, and I can scarcely make out his features. I know I have seen them before; not on the city streets, but I would swear I remember them from some other time. But once he exits, slipping out the door with short steps, those peculiar features disappear, and try as I may, they are erased from my memory. Only his eyes appear to shine in the darkness, especially when I comprehend an idea. Then they sparkle intensely, like jewels, and I feel as if they give an intense light that only I can see. There is something strange in him! But
whatever it may be, it does not cause fear or repulsion, only a feeling of affinity, of closeness.

S. speaks and speaks, and I listen and listen. He tells countless stories, in no apparent order, without much logic. He speaks on occasion of the Old Testament, also a sacred book for the Jews. Other times he tells short tales with strange morals. And still other times he talks of things I do not understand, ideas that, once explained, vanish like his features, as if out of my reach, or spoken by him in a different language. Yet I know he speaks vulgar Catalan, and other times even expresses himself in Latin. So then, why do those stories disappear from my memory as soon as he leaves my residence? What peculiar magic is there in his voice or his person? I only know that, as the days pass, I am ever more desirous for S. to return, as he is a challenge that has come to me in the autumn of my life, when there is little that the few remaining years can offer us.

Who is S.? We see one another often, but I know not how many times he has visited. We speak of many things, but few are those I retain and can remember. He looks on me and enlightens me, but there is no light burning in the chamber. Anyone in my place would speak of witchcraft, of damnation, of Hell. And yet I only seem to find elevation, salvation, and glory. What dwells inside him? What wisdom does he hide? There is no trouble of mind, only serene calm. There is no ruin, only a path! But everything he offers me seems unreachable, ineffable, and completely out of my grasp. Things too great for words have become hard but fleeting realities that seem to play innocently with me. There is no derision in the feeling I get, only, only … a promise! I know not what it is.

It is December. S. has been visiting me for six months and I am learning to listen. I now understand many stories, and his eyes now shine brightly on many occasions with unusual intensity. Just as I thought, only I can see that shine. Once, a light
surrounded me, and I looked around and everything was dark. But when my eyes returned to S., the light shone on me again. When on occasion he speaks the incomprehensible language that I should understand by now, he seems to smile indulgently, like a kind master who encourages a student who is distracted, or slow-witted, but for whom he has true affection. And those enigmatic stories are repeated: I do not understand them, but I grasp the euphonic sonority that musicians speak of and I know they are the same, that he repeats them time and again hoping they will pass through my hard skull.

I grasp only vague ideas, but not the story as such, as if what he told me were so far beyond my reality that there could be no possibility for me to know it, this being the true reason for my inability to understand. My desire to know is such that, in one of these situations I wept, as I sincerely desired that his efforts be good, and not just for the ultimate purpose that Martín has designed. I wept for him, for his fruitless labor. Then, for the first time, S. approached me, put his hand on my head as I bowed it over my knees, and spoke of infinite gratitude and thankfulness with his captivating voice. I felt wonderfully comforted. As if there were in his touch a healing, mystic quality. Since that time, all of my understanding has grown in manifold ways. So much has it grown, that for the first time, S. told me that he must show me a precious object; that it, and nothing else, was the primary purpose of our meetings. He told me that this must happen in the Call, as there was no other way to reach it.

We no longer meet in my home. Now, when night falls, and with no need for anyone to come for me, or any signal telling me that it is the right day, I leave my dwelling and go to the Call, to the house of Ángel Martín. I walk the streets in near darkness, but I err not on my path, nor does anyone disturb me. There are no guards making the nighttime rounds or drunkards seeking brothels in my way. There are no thieves hunting easy prey to rob. My path is ever open and clear. There, S. is always waiting
for me, and the talks we once had on my terrain we now have on his. I understand everything, and only await the time when I will be able to finally contemplate the object. I feel impatient, and S. says that my impatience is not good and that it must be expurgated. He says that the object must be approached with reverence. He is familiar with its significance. He says that it is a treasure, but not one in the usual worldly sense, of material value; it is a thing of infinite spiritual value. Although the treasure cannot truly be possessed by men, who may only be its temporary depositaries, it could be that it ends up possessing its depositary, and not the other way around.

We descended into the abyss through a basement door, whose opening mechanism I will not mention here. We went down worn and shapeless stairs, mere stumps of stone, witnesses to ancient times. We came to a circular chamber where seven corridors converged or were born. We took one of them. Now we began a true descent, always downward, an endless path on which we seemed to spend hours and of which I remembered very little once we returned to the light. When we were nearly at the place—as I have said, I do not remember how or when I arrived there—S. looked at me gravely.

“We must return. It cannot be today. You feel the desire. I was wrong, it is still too early.”

We returned in a dream state to the guest chamber of Martín's house. I felt sad.

“We shall have to work more.” His soft voice was more harmonious than ever, touching every sensitive nerve in my being. “You have the power, it is a sign from Adonai that you have come to us. Do not weep, for you will achieve it. But you will be able to see it only when it cannot harm you.”

When he had said that, for the second and last time, his hand caressed my head.

I returned to my house, I know not how. I slept soundly, and the impression that nighttime adventure had made on me seemed to disappear with the arrival of day.

Another night. There has been no visit from S. But Martín has come.

“I come only to give you this letter. Do you recognize it?” He handed me an old parchment, rolled and tied with a ribbon. I did not need to open it to know what it was.

“The years have passed, but I still remember the day I wrote it. Why do you return it to me?”

“We do so because it is no longer necessary. We know you will not betray us and it is more just that it return to your hands than for it to remain in ours. Destroy it in your hearth, Pere Casadevall.”

I cast the letter onto the embers of the fire, where it burned by and by until it was consumed.

“Indeed, I would not betray you. But the existence of the letter could only harm my daughter, and I do not want that to happen.”

“It will not pass. We know that the solution to our trouble is in your hands. It is the will of Adonai.”

“You trust me too much.”

“As I told you before, we have been waiting a long time. S. says the time has come. And he cannot be wrong. I am but a humble rabbi who, forced by the circumstances that persecute my people, must now bear in private that which I was always publicly proud of. But not him; he can make no mistake.”

“But who is S.? Who is he who cannot err as the rest of us do? Is he not like us? I have felt the touch of his flesh! And you, you are a rabbi. You are the most prominent public figure among your people. How does he outdo you?”

“Master Casadevall, doesn't the beauty of the day outdo that of the night? You have spoken with him, and so should understand the difference. Of course he is of flesh and blood, like all of us, although there are also other beings who are not, and those we cannot see! But it so happens that among wise men there are even wiser
men, and these mark the paths of the former: such is the station of men like S., the last of the kabbalists on this peninsula, abiding the completion of his mission.”

“It is all too much for me.”

“In truth, you have already done everything, Casadevall; and yet, you still do not understand. And the moment is very near. Abide only a little more.”

After this, Martín left, leaving me before the fire, lost in thought.

Enrique knew the rest by heart. Bety had only changed a few words, and the odd phrase, of his translation. But he reread it enthralled, as the text now took on a new life following Manolo's story.

We are in the middle of May, the month Hebrews call
Shevat
and the Muslims
Jumada
. A miracle has occurred this month: today they are most probably going to show it to me for the first time! S. told me that today I will attend a different sort of
gahal
from the others. I have asked them so many times I still cannot believe they have decided to do it. May God, the God of us all, not only certain of us or that of others, help and enlighten me.

What I have seen today cannot be named, what I have seen today cannot be spoken of.

They led me from the house of S. to an unknown place, through the passageways. We did not use the same routes we had before; I could not find the path again. Under our feet wind dark labyrinths that we, prisoners of our happy ignorance, know not of. And they lead to forbidden places. There, where impatience once kept me from fixing the memory, today, with the clarity of my mind restored, I remembered the gloomy path well. First we descended at length. Then we walked in a circle for many minutes; perhaps it is the only path, perhaps it was to confuse me,
so I could not memorize the path even if I wanted to. I believe that they trust me, but our differences are as obvious as the existence of these tunnels that would let them escape if persecuted. If they have shown it to me, then they do trust me. But no one in their right mind would expose the object, the relic, or whatever it be called, to the eyes of a stranger without taking certain precautions. What am I before their eyes, but an infidel? And not only an infidel, not only to the degree that our religions are different; no, I am also from among those infidels who, every few years, persecutes, robs, and kills them. But whether I be an infidel, or if they be such before me and my God, the truth is they asked for my help and I promised to give it.

We reached a circular chamber decorated with thick scarlet curtains, tattered and darkened by the dust of countless decades of solitude. The chamber, which had seven doors, had in its center a bare altar, upon which stood a menorah, the seven-branched candelabrum. Engraved in the floor, before each door, was the name of the seven demons of the shedim caste: Na'Amah, Kardeyakos, Ruah, Sam Ha, Mawet, Shibbetta, and Ashmodai.

S. made a sign to his companions, who, as if performing a ritual done time after time since the dawn of the ages, stepped at the same time with the same foot, the left, on the names of the seven demons. I then thought I heard a soft murmuring, so light it was almost inaudible, that seemed to come from nowhere. I wish to believe it was a figment of an imagination formed in a profane, strange upbringing, capable of suggesting things that do not truly exist, and that trick the mind. I wish to believe that the excitement of seeing a much longed-for wish come true could have altered my perception of things. I wish to believe it. However …

His companions remained near the seals, unmoving. S. entered the room with an air of restrained prudence, an inner reluctance he could not completely conceal. He lit the menorah with a resin stick he touched to the torch of one of our companions,
beginning with the candle on the left, and not allowing me to approach until all seven candles burned with the pale light that distinguishes old tallow.

I observed that a symbol was engraved below the menorah. S. told me to do or say nothing without his instructing it, but I, possessed by an unexplainable impulse, felt impelled to touch the inscription. When my fingertips were about to brush the surface of the Stone, S. stopped my hand. He looked at me with great seriousness, though not without compassion, and muttered some incomprehensible words.

“
Abreq ad Habra
.”

Later he told me that it was the name of a powerful demon, capable of hurling a deadly bolt, and that the unwary or ignorant soul who touched the Stone would die soon thereafter amid great torment. The demon had power enough to trap the unwary and thus punish them for their bond to such a dark place. Had anyone told me such a story before that experience and knowing what came after, I would have thought them mad, infidel or no, but when one's eyes have seen what reason denies, one must believe in anything, no matter how strange it seems.