Where the Bird Sings Best (9 page)

“I cannot deny the feelings consuming my daughter. Show us you’re worthy of the bonfire. Tell us what you see in the seven words of the first sentence of Genesis.”

Arcavi, bathed in sweat, trembling from head to toe, opened the Holy Book. He did not know how to read Hebrew and had no knowledge. In his soul, full of love for Luna, there was no room for God.

The old Hasid whispered with the voice of Baal Shem Tov, “The first and last letters of the Torah form the word heart. There is no greater knowledge than Love. You can do it. Be daring. You are a lion tamer, and each letter is a lion.”

Salvador stopped doubting. With the same concentration his ancestors employed staring at the lions, he fixed his eyes on the letters without trying to guess what they said. They were beings, not signs. The first word began with a descending arc, a horizontal base, and a period:
B.
He observed the form emptying itself of itself, allowing his eyes to see without the interference of his person. Slowly, the arc and the line transformed into an open jaw and then, within it, the period vibrated like the roar of a beast, a total, generative scream.

He focused his attention with such force that the small stain grew and acquired depth to become an endless tunnel, an insatiable throat that began to swallow all the other letters. Finally, all that remained on the page was that enormous, deep period. Salvador felt that its voracious center was absorbing him, extracting him from his body. He let himself be swallowed with no fear, and his soul entered that dark passageway. He felt he was dissolving, but with faith he went further and further.

At the far end, an immense sphere of light awaited him, a sun that did not burn. Entering into it, he began to lose his memory, but the beats of his heart continued repeating: Luna. His chest was a golden temple with an altar of living flesh at its center. Above him was a cup of fire filled with holy water. He knew he would never be thirsty again, that his mouth was the arc, the line, and the period, a divine fountain, and he allowed love to overflow and experienced a pleasure that was the explosion of his cup. And the water flooded the world, and he awoke preaching in Spanish or Yiddish or Hebrew (he never found out) among the rabbis who wept, the Hasids, who danced ecstatically listening to him, and the women, who kissed his hands and placed them on the heads of their children so that they might be blessed.

The great Vilna Gaon kneeled before him, and with a voice like a deep river sang to marry him to his daughter. When he finished the ceremony, he handed over the keys to the school, asked forgiveness for his errors, bade farewell to everyone, and set out on a trip to Palestine. Luna never learned another thing about him. Sadness was forbidden. Solemn meetings became festivals, where thanks to God was shown by offering Him continuous joy. Salvador and Luna had the same trances and visions, which they shared with the poor. Together they cured a multitude of sicknesses.

For the first time in the history of the Arcavis, a girl was born. Since she was the fruit of a year of matrimonial happiness, they named her Felicidad. They did try to have a boy so he could be baptized Salvador according to custom, but two years later another girl was born. She was named Sara Luz, a combination of her luminous gaze with the name of Luna’s deceased mother. Now, she was a saint who one day suffered an attack of fervor and devoured a complete volume of the Talmud. Unfortunately, she was incapable of digesting the thick sheets of parchment and died with the swollen stomach of a pregnant woman.

The first girl was given Abravanel’s red shoes as a talisman and the second, the violet leather bag containing the Tarot. Thirteen years went by. The two little women, despite the difference in their age, had their periods on the same day, at the same hour. Luna woke them at midnight and led them out of the house while Salvador pretended to be asleep. A group of ladies was waiting for them. Their mother ordered her daughters to remove their nightgowns, and then she undressed as well. Other women who were also menstruating joined them. They began to dance among the recently made furrows in the fields so their blood would flow down their legs and make a good crop of wheat grow.

They were having the time of their lives, beating drums and singing, when they saw in the distance a group of husbands waving torches. They quickly put their clothes back on and anxiously waited. Until then that feminine ceremony had never been interrupted by men.

Pale, Salvador spoke to the women: “We’re very sorry, but you have to return to the village immediately. There’s been a fresh outbreak of anti-Semitism. Over in the next village, they first raped Rabbi Scholomo’s widow, then cut her into pieces and burned down her shack.”

As they all ran to lock themselves inside their houses, Felicidad said to her mother, “Papa should take up a collection so we can buy weapons!”

“Weapons? How can a daughter of mine talk like that? God will punish you! If we deserve to be defended, He will do it. The sacred commandments forbid Jews to spill human blood.”

That night they had trouble falling asleep. The moon tinged the sky with red. The dogs never stopped barking. Sara Luz got out her Tarot, shuffled the deck, and picked three with her eyes closed. When she opened them, she screamed. She refused to say what she saw. The hours passed. Just before dawn, concealing themselves in the noise of a heavy rain, ten black shadows opened the door of the school with professional skill.

On the second floor, they found three families who shared the farm work with the Arcavis. In minute they bound and gagged the men, who made not the slightest gesture to defend themselves. They stripped the women—three adults and four children—bare and locked them in the bathroom. They then went out only to return, following, making great signs of respect, a corpulent man wearing a leather mask and a bearskin coat.

In despotic fashion he stretched out his enormous hand, and a shadow, saluting the whole time, handed him a well-sharpened kitchen knife. The masked man took off his overcoat and revealed his erect phallus, itself of extraordinary size. His servants, kicking her and dragging her by the hair, pulled a woman out of the bathroom. As soon as she saw the monster, she ran for the door, went out into the rain, and began to shriek. The aggressor caught her there, and with one blow cut off her head. He took hold of her body and drank the steaming spurts of blood from her arteries. Then he threw himself on the headless corpse to penetrate her while he grunted with pleasure. Staggering like a drunk, he went back into the school. Making brutal gestures, he shook the knife. They let loose a little girl. He chased and cornered her. The child fell to her knees and showed her face bathed in tears. The first thrust of the knife hit her in the eye. Ninety-nine more followed.

Upstairs, on the third floor, Salvador, Luna, and their two little girls heard everything: the cries of the women, their bare feet scrambling over the cold floor, the deep breathing of the murderer, the weapon slicing the air, the watery noise of bodies being sliced open, the guts spattering against the walls, the blood falling onto the floorboards like a fountain of thick water, the heavy body of the beast wallowing in the viscera, and his triumphant shout in orgasm.

They counted the victims: seven. And now the thirsty monster was climbing the stairs. Salvador, impotent, trembled as he prayed. Luna took off her clothes to offer herself as a sacrifice, hoping that way to save the girls. Sara Luz ran and hid under the bed, kissing her Tarot again and again. Felicidad, with anger so great that it seemed about to explode her little body, slowly and carefully put on the red shoes and lit the candles in the menorah.

A violent blow opened the door, smashing against the wall and breaking off chunks of plaster. The criminal entered the room, his body soaked with blood and the mouth of his mask overflowing with chewed up intestines. Reflecting the candle flames, his knife threw off a web of golden rays. Salvador opened his arms, hopeless. Luna walked toward the blade, offering herself resignedly. The murderer hunched over to give his stab more force, and for fragments of a second the world stopped in an eternal silence.

Then everything accelerated. Felicidad shouted an order so loudly that the roof beams creaked and a curtain tore open: “Halt!” Raising her right hand, she stopped the criminal. She completely cut off his movement. There was not the slightest speck of fear in her attitude, only perfect self-control. A superhuman will inhabited that fragile little body. Through that will, the spirit of all the lion tamers revealed itself. For Felicidad, descended from so many Salvadors, dominating a ferocious beast was a natural, necessary act. She’d never felt better.

The monster stopped short, fixed his gaze on the burning eyes of the tiny woman, roared, and clutched his stomach as if his liver had just exploded. He dropped the knife, fell on his knees, and sank his enormous head on the girl’s chest. In a sweet voice, saturated with love, he whispered in Russian, “Forgive me.” The other assailants climbed the stairs as a mob and tried to enter the classroom. A single gesture from their master stopped them. Another gesture made them bow, and a third compelled them back downstairs and out of the school.

The girl took the belt from her robe, tied it around the giant’s neck, and led him like a pet toward the patio. The rain had stopped. Salvador, Luna, and Sara Luz heard the galloping of horses that faded into the distance. Felicidad disappeared from their lives forever. Never again were murders like that committed in the villages.

From that moment on the lives of the Arcavis were no longer the same. On the one hand, the congregation praised the girl’s heroic sacrifice, but on the other they could never forget her triumphant smile as she tied the belt around the murderer’s neck. Also, he did not try to kidnap her. It was she who forced him to walk down the stairs like a dog and then disappear into the darkness. What happened after that? The madman could have reacted by shaking off his enchantment and cutting her to pieces as he did with the others. But why had the murders stopped?

One day at first light, Luna awoke, screaming. Hugging Salvador, her breath short and eyes wild, she told him, “What I’m thinking is atrocious. The night of the seven murders, I saw in the encounter between the monster and Felicidad something similar to what happened to us: in her eyes there was love—a huge, sudden love that survives beyond death.”

Sara Luz never wanted to hear another word about magic. She locked the Tarot in a coffer and tried her best to forget it. All three widowers asked for her hand in marriage. Together with her parents, she chose Salomón Trumper, much older than she but simple and tranquil.

On the way home from the wedding ceremony, the coach carrying Salvador and Luna crashed down a ravine because a yellow dragonfly flew into the horse’s ear. They both died. A year later, at the same time, on the same day, in the same month, Sara Luz gave birth to Jashe. And a year later, also at the same time, on the same day, and in the same month, she gave birth to Shoske. Jashe and Shoske, two common names with no greater meaning, deliberately chosen to bring an end to all the miracles.

The two sisters were brought up in the same way: they slept together, dressed identically, and learned to embroider, cook, plant wheat, and clean the house so that every Shabbat everything would shine. Shoske was happy in that life and hated anything out of the ordinary. Jashe began the same way, but one day, as she raked the garden, a yellow dragonfly began to fly around her, getting closer and closer until it entered her head through an ear and began to buzz, as if trying to give her a message.

Jashe imagined that the same insect that had caused the death of her grandparents came to pay its debt. She thought she understood what it was saying: “Forgive me, my child. I never wanted Salvador and Luna to die. In exchange for that, I’m going to give you the most valuable treasure in the world.” The insect flew to the school. The girl followed, all the way to the attic. The dragonfly landed on the old coffer, then it flew out the window. Jashe opened the box and found the Tarot. For years, in secret, she studied the cards, and they became her Master, teaching her to See. Everything changed. She became aware of the madness in which they were submerged; religious law seemed like a prison; and she tried to escape, to abandon her many absurd obligations, all superstitions, and arranged marriage. She wanted to live the holy life every day and not just on Saturday, to love freely and without tribal limitations, to eat whatever she wanted, to travel the world, to live not just one life but thousands, to recover magic. She was in that effervescent state when she found the door, the light, the road: she found him, Alejandro Prullansky.

As soon as Jashe finished telling him the story of her ancestors, the Russian dancer took her in his arms, hugging her so tight it was as if he wanted to absorb her through his skin and said, “Chance is a subtle form of Destiny. My mother’s name was Felicidad. She was Jewish and was stolen by my father. My family history doesn’t go back as far as yours for a simple reason: my grandmother, Cristina Prullansky, burned all the documents and pictures that tied her to the past.”

An only daughter with six brothers, much older than she, descended from nobility, Cristina had been educated by governesses brought from Germany. During the maudlin afternoons, these women would usually stroll among the pines on the estate, stomachs swollen from the rape by her father Ivan, a hunchbacked widower who could not restrain himself when drunk. After a few months, a black carriage would bring a new governess and carry away the old one, who was never seen again. She had fifteen governesses in ten years.

In that isolated place, more than thirty miles from Minsk, with her brothers in the army and a father who never spoke, the only entertainment possible was beating the maids—for any conceivable reason. She pulled up their skirts, pulled down their linen underwear, and with her short, hard whip she left garnet furrows on their milky buttocks. In her family, there were only invisible women and dead soldiers to defend Peter the Great, Catherine I, Ivan VI, Paul I, Peter III, and other czars in their wars with France, Turkey, Sweden, Great Britain, and many other nations. Her grandfathers, her uncles, and her brothers all gradually metamorphosed into portraits, medals, and posthumous decoration that covered the walls in the enormous hall. Only her father, stinking of vodka, urine, and vomit, would walk there, ashamed of his monstrous body, which would not allow him to take part in the continuous massacre.