The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon by Richard Zimler

seeming to possess a secret. Stars. Light. Patterns. Secrets. Years of training in Torah and Talmud had taught me to sense when my own reasoning had veered from the path of logic, whether Greek or Jewish, and my mind was searching out a fixed pattern in the tiles with which to cleanse itself. Staring at the whirl of blue, white and gold glazes, I permuted the word azulejo, tile, until the meaning of the word slipped away, until there were only eyes fixed on a glassy surface. Graced with the freedom that is emptiness, a realization tugged me breathless to my feet: Uncle’s soul could not have been set loose by Christian rioters; I’d found the trap door closed, our tattered Persian rug in place. The rampaging mob would not have murdered two people, then closed the door neatly behind them and slid our rug into place. They’d have been emboldened by the Jewish blood warming their hands, stormed out of here overturning everything in sight. Our cellar would be a shambles!
    I looked around to certify that the room had not been trampled by Christian feet. The desks and storage cabinet appeared to be untouched. Of the furniture, only the distorted looking glass on the wall above Uncle’s desk bore an obvious bloodstain. A single rivulet ofbrown descended from its upper rim across the concave silver surface.
    Had the murderer held a dripping hand to the mirror’s frame as he peered at his distorted image? Or was the legend of the Bleeding Mirror true?
    Whatever the case, no Christians had penetrated; their search had been confounded by the secret threshold of our trap door.
    And no Jewish butchers have been here either! came another inner confirmation. For no butcher knew of the existence of our secret entrance. Nor would Eurico Damas have known of it. So the trap door must have been left open. Could Uncle have been so careless?
    I placed the palm of my hand flat on my master’s chest, as if seeking the answer from his presence. A faint residue of warmth stilled my breathing. Examining him for blemishes, I found only a dark bruise on his left shoulder, a slight swelling around it. His whitened skin felt thick to my fingertips, like leather, but still retained a terrible trace of the suppleness of life.
    I would have guessed that he had been dead no more than half an hour, since just before four o’clock in the afternoon. And that there had been little struggle.
    I gripped his right hand, his hand of blessing and illumination, began examining its pores and lines as if seeking to decipher the language scripted on an ancient parchment. Suddenly, for the first time in my life, I could actually feel God’s presence leaving my body. I prayed that the curtain of blood on Uncle had been a dream, counted to five, the number of Books of the Torah, then swiveled my gaze back… The air squeezed in my throat as if a fist had closed. I could not look at him; my sobs, sharp and deep and endless, had begun.
    How long did I cry? Time ceases under the pressure of such emotion.
    When the blessing of silence descended to me again, I sat, began to rock back and forth. I remembered a deaf and blind little boy I’d once seen swaying like this in the street, and now I understood why; pervaded by an isolation and loneliness so wide that it has no borders, the body seeks to console itself with the grace of its own movement.
    Awakening to my own presence, I found myself holding a jagged piece of flower pot. I sat by my master’s chest. Ripped my shirt off and started cleaning the blood from the warped mask of his face. My lips sculpted his name as if in incantation.
    I noticed his bloody shawl balled up by the base of one of the myrtle bushes and drew it over my shoulders. Like a reminder. Of what, I had no idea. I was sitting barechested. Shivering. Cleaning ink again from the fingers of his right hand with my shirt, slipping his topaz signet ring off; the crown of God had trapped the emerald glow of my master’s eyes inside, and I needed that light