The Moor's Last Sigh (11 page)

have carried out his threat? I asked him. For a moment I thought he was going to reach for his invisible needle and thread; but then a coughing fit seized him, he hacked and hawked, his milky old eyes streamed. Only when the convulsions subsided a little did I understand that my father had been laughing. 'Boy, boy,' croaked Abraham Zogoiby, 'never try an ultimatum unless'n'until you are ready and willing to have the ultimatee call your bluff.' The master of the Marco Polo did not dare call the bluff; but someone else did. The cargo ship journeyed across the ocean, travelling beyond rumour, beyond calculation, until the German cruiser Medea holed her when she was no more than a few hours away from the island of Socotra off the tip of the Horn of Africa. She sank quickly; all hands, and the full cargo, were lost. 'I played my ace,' my antique father reminisced. 'But, damme, it got trumped.' Who could blame Flory Zogoiby for going a little loco after her only child walked out on her? Who could begrudge her the hours upon hours she had begun to spend straw-hatted, sucking her gums on a bench in the synagogue entrance-hall, slapping down patience cards or clicking away with mah-jong tiles, and delivering herself of a non-stop tirade against 'Moors', a concept which had by now expanded to include just about everyone? And who would not have forgiven her for thinking she was seeing things, when prodigal Abraham marched up to her, bold as brass, one fine day in the spring of 1940, grinning sweetly all over his face as if he'd just located some rainbow-end pot of gold? 'So, Abie,' she said slowly, not looking directly at him in case she found she could see through him, which would prove that she had finally cracked into little pieces. 'You want to play a game?' His smile widened. He was so handsome that it made her angry. What business did he have coming here, pouring his good looks all over her without any warning? 'I know you, Abie boy,' she said, still staring at her cards. 'When you got that smile on, you're in trouble, and the wider the smile, the deeper the mud. Looks to me like you can't handle what you got, so you came running to mother. I never in all my days saw you smile so big. Sit! Play one-two hands.' 'No games, mother,' Abraham said, his smile almost touching his ear-lobes. 'Can we go inside or does the whole of Jewtown have to know our business?' Now she looked him in the eye. 'Sit,' she said. He sat; she dealt for nine-card rummy. 'You think you can beat me? Not me, son. You never had a chance.' A ship sank. Abraham's new trader family's fortunes were placed once more in crisis. I am pleased to say that this led to no unseemly squabbling on Cabral Island--the truce between old and new clan members held firm. But the crisis was real enough; after much cajoling, and other, less, mentionable tactics from the depths of Thread-Needle Street, a second and then a third da Gama shipment had been sent on their way, going the long way round via Good Hope to avoid North African dangers. In spite of this precaution and the British Navy's efforts to police all vital sea-routes--though it must be said, and Pandit Nehru said it from jail, that the British attitude to Indian shipping was, to understate matters, more than a little lax--these two ships also ended up adding spice to the ocean-bed; and the C-50 condiment empire (and, who knows, perhaps also the heart of Empire itself, deprived of peppery inspiration) began to totter and sway. Overheads--wage-bills, maintenance costs, interest on loans--mounted. But this is not a company report, and so you must simply take it from me: things had reached a sorry pass when beaming Abraham, latterly a powerful merchant of Cochin, returned to Jewtown. Hath all his ventures failed? What, not one hit?--Not one. Okay-fine? Then let's get on. I want to tell you a fairy-tale. In the end, stories are what's left of us, we are no more than the few tales that persist. And in the best of the old yarns, the ones we ask for over'n'over, there are lovers, it's true, but the parts we go for are the bits where shadows fall across the lovers' path. Poisoned apple, bewitched spindle, Black Queen, wicked witch, baby-stealing goblins, that's the stuff. So: once upon a time, my father Abraham Zogoiby gambled heavily, and lost. But he had made a vow: I'll take care of things. And accordingly, when all other devices failed, his desperation was so great that he was obliged to come, grinning mightily, to plead with his maddened mother.--For what?--What else? Her treasure chest. Abraham swallowed his pride and came a-begging, which in itself told Flory all she needed to know about the strength of her hand. He had made a boast he could not make good; spinning-straw-into-gold, that kind of old-time stuff; and was too proud to admit no his failure to his in-laws, to tell them they must mortgage or sell off their great estate. They gave you your head, Abie, and see, here it is on a plate. She made him wait a little, but not too long; then agreed. Capital needed? Jewels from an old box? Then OK, he could take. All speeches of gratitude, explanations of temporary cash-flow problems, disquisitions upon the especially persuasive properties of jewels when sailors are being requested to risk their lives, all offers of interest and pecuniary profit were waved away. 'Jewels I am giving,' Flory Zogoiby said. 'A greater jewel must be my reward.' Her son failed to grasp her meaning. Certainly, he radiantly vowed, she would receive full recompense for her loan, once their ship came in; and if she preferred to receive her share in the form of emeralds, then he would undertake to select the finest stones. Thus he babbled; but he had entered darker waters than he knew, and beyond them lay a black forest in which, in a clearing, a little mannikin danced, singing Rumpelstiltskin is my name... 'This is by-the-by,' Flory interrupted. 'Return of loan I do not doubt. But for so risky an investment only the greatest jewel can be my prize. You must give me your firstborn son.' (Two origins have been suggested for Flory's box of emeralds, family heirloom and smugglers' hoard. Setting sentiment aside, reason and logic recommend the latter; and if they are right, if Flory was speculating with the gangsters' stockpile, then her own survival was in doubt. Does it make her demand less shocking that she risked herself to gain the human life for which she asked? Was it, in fact, heroic?) Bring me yourfirstbom... A line from legends hung between this mother and this son. Abraham, aghast, told her it was out of the question, it was evil, unthinkable. 'Wiped that stupid smile off your mouth, Abie, didn't I?' Flory grimly asked. 'And don't think you can grab the box and run. It is in another cache. You need my stones? Give me your eldest boy; his flesh'n'skin'n'bones.' O mother you are mad, mother. O my ancestor I am much afeared that thou art stark raving nuts. 'Aurora is not expecting as yet,' Abraham muttered weakly. 'Oho-ho Abie,' giggled Flory. 'You think I'm crazy, boy? I'll kill and eat him up, or drink his blood, or what? I am not a rich in woman, child, but there is enough food on my table without consuming family members.' She grew serious. 'Listen: you can see him when-when you want. Even the mother can come. Outings, holidays, these also are OK. Only send him to live with me so I can do my level best to bring him up as the thing you have ceased to be, that is, a male Jew of Cochin. I lost a son; I'll save a grandson at least.' She did not add her secret prayer: And maybe, in saving him, rediscover a God of my own. As the world fell back into place, Abraham, in the dizziness of his relief, the great hunger of his need, and the absence of an actual pregnancy, acquiesced. But Flory was implacable, wanted it in writing. 'To my mother, Flory Zogoiby, I hereby promise my firstborn male child, to be raised in the Jewish ways.' Signed, sealed, delivered. Flory, snatching the paper, waved it above her head, picked up her skirt and capered in a circle by the synagogue door. An oath, an oath, I have an oath in heaven... I stay here on my bond. And for these promised pounds of unborn flesh she delivered Abraham her wealth; and, paid and bribed by jewels, his last-chance argosy set sail. Of these privy matters, however, Aurora was not informed. And it came to pass that the ship was brought safely to port, and after it another, and another, and another. While the world's fortunes worsened, the da Gama-Zogoiby axis prospered. (How did my father ensure his cargo's protection by the British Navy? Surely it is not being suggested that emeralds, contraband or heirloom, found their way into Imperial pockets? What a bold stroke that would have been, what an all-or-nothing throw! And how implausible to suggest that such an offer might have been accepted! No, no, one must just put what happened down to naval diligence--for the marauding Medea was finally sunk--or to the Nazis' preoccupations in other theatres of the war; or call it a miracle; or blind, dumb luck.) At the earliest opportunity, Abraham had paid off the jewel-money borrowed from his mother, and offered her a generous additional sum by way of profit. However, he left brusquely, without answering, when she refused the bonus with a plaintive call: 'And the jewel, my contracted reward? And when will that be paid?' I crave the law, the penalty and the forfeit of my bond. Aurora continued to be without child: but knew nothing of a signed paper. The months lengthened towards a year. Still Abraham held his tongue. By now he was the sole in-charge of the family business; Aires never really had the heart for it, and after his new nephew-in-law had performed his triumphant rescue act the surviving da Gama brother retired gracefully--as they say--into private life... on the first of every month Flory sent her son the great merchant a message. 'I hope you are not slacking off; I want my precious stone.' (How strange, how fated, that in those blazing days of their hot-pepper love Aurora conceived no child! Because had there been a boy, and here I speak as my parents' sole male issue, then thebone of contention--the flesh'n'skin'n'bones--could have been me.) Again he offered her money; again, she refused. At one point he pleaded; how could he ask his young wife to send a newborn son away, to be cared for by one who hated her? Flory was implacable. 'Should've thought before.' Finally his anger took control, and he defied her. 'Your piece of paper buys nothing,' he shouted down the telephone. 'Wait on and see who can pay more for a judge.' Flory's green stones could not match the family's renewed affluence; and if indeed they were hot rocks, she'd think twice before showing them to court officers, even those willing to feather their nests. What were her options? She had lost her belief in divine retribution. Vengeance was for this world. Another avenger! Another ginger dog, or murderous mosquito! What an epidemic of getting-even runs through my tale, what a malaria cholera typhoid of eye-for-tooth and tit-for-tat! No wonder I have ended up... But my ending up must not be told before my starting out. Here's Aurora on her seventeenth birthday in the spring of 1941, visiting Vasco's tomb alone; and here, waiting in the shadows, is an old crone... When she saw Flory dart towards her out of the shadows of the church, Aurora thought for a startled moment that her grandmother Epifania had risen from the grave. Then she collected herself with a little smile, remembering how she had once ridiculed her father's ghostly notions; no, no, this was just some hag, and what was that paper she was thrusting out? Sometimes beggar-women gave you such papers, Have mercy in the name of God, cannot speak, and 12 kiddies to support. 'Forgive me, sorry,' Aurora said perfunctorily, and began to turn away. Then the woman spoke her name. 'Madam Aurora!' (Loudly.) 'My Abie's Roman whore! This paper you must read.' She turned back; took the document Abraham's mother proffered; and read. Portia, a rich girl, supposedly intelligent, who acquiesces in her late father's will--that she must marry any man who solves the riddle of the three caskets, gold silver lead--is presented to us by Shakespeare as the very archetype of justice. But listen closely; when her suitor the Prince of Morocco fails the test, she sighs: A gentle riddance. Draw the curtains: go. Let all of his complexion choose me so. No lover then, of Moors! No, no; she loves Bassanio, who by a happy chance picks the right box, the one containing Portia's picture ('thou, thou meagre lead'). Lend an ear, therefore, to this paragon's explanation of his choice. ... ornament is but the guiled shore, To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word, The seeming truth which cunning times put on... Ah, yes: for Bassanio, Indian beauty is like a 'dangerous sea'; or, analogous to 'cunning times'! Thus Moors, Indians, and of course 'the Jew' (Portia can only bring herself to use Shylock's name on two occasions; the rest of the time she identifies him purely by his race) are waved away. A fair-minded couple, indeed; a pair of Daniels, come to judgment... I adduce all this evidence to show why, when I say that our tale's Aurora was no Portia, I do not mean it wholly as a criticism. She was rich (like Portia in this), but chose her own husband (unlike in this); she was certainly intelligent (like), and, at seventeen, near the height of her very Indian beauty (most unlike). Her husband was--as Portia's could never have been--a Jew. But, as the maid of Belmont denied Shylock his bloody pound, so my mother found a way, with justice, of denying Flory the child. 'Tell your mother', Aurora commanded Abraham that night, 'that there will be no children born in this house while she remains alive.' She moved him out of her bedroom. 'You do your work and I'll do mine,' she said. 'But the work Flory is waiting for, that she never will see.' She, too, had drawn a line. That night she scrubbed her body until the skin was raw and not a trace of love's peppery perfume remained. ('Iscrubbofy and tubbofy...') Then she locked and bolted her bedroom door, and fell into a deep and dreamless sleep. In the following months, however, her work--drawings, paintings, and terrible little skewered dolls moulded in red clay--grew full of witches, fire, apocalypse. Later she would destroy most of this 'Red' material, with the consequence that the surviving pieces have gained greatly in value; they have rarely been seen in the saleroom and when they were, a fevered excitement prevailed. For several nights Abraham mewled piteously at her locked door, but was not admitted. At length, Cyrano-fashion, he hired a local accordionist and ballad-singer who serenaded her in the courtyard below her window, while he, Abraham, stood idiotically beside the music-man and mouthed the words of the old