In whispers, Moishe’s father had explained: it only looked like the man had walked through fire. Imagine that the magician had poured oil onto the earth in the shape of a kuf, a , his father had said. When the letter was on fire, he walked into the space at the bottom, waited inside for a few minutes and then slipped out from the opening at the top. The doves had been in his pocket like two pieces of bread, waiting to make a wondrous—and untoasted—sandwich. “Sometimes,” said Moishe’s father, “we say ‘b’shin, kuf, resh,’ and spell out the Hebrew word for ‘lie,’ sheqer. Kuf is at the heart of this lie, also, though it is a marvellous lie, like much in this world.”
“With this trick,” Moishe said, “we will arrange the escape.”
There were three things that we needed.
Oil.
A disguise so that Moishe could appear at the lion’s den of the quemadero.
Beytsim the size of lions or small ships. It would help if they would roar or at least tack into the wind.
There was a cloak and a hat on a hook in the hall outside the kitchen. Wearing these things, one could no more recognize Moishe than one could read the Mishnah between the hairs of a twilit pig.
We found lamp oil in the kitchen.
As for the beytsim, we’d have to rely on the principle that, if necessity is the mamaleh of invention, then desperation is the mother of beytsim the size of two shvitzy schooners.
I would be conspicuous and so we went in search of a means of concealment. And Moishe wanted one more look at the genizah.
There was a large thick book, the size of a gravestone. No words were stamped on its mottled rabicano binding, nothing to indicate its Hebrew insides. Moishe hauled it off the shelf, and without reading it, carried it upstairs to the seder table, pushing aside the plates and food and cups. He opened the book and began cutting at its pages with a carving knife.
I did not understand the reason for this surgery.
“Now, there’s room for you. Once I close the cover, I can carry you and no one will know you’re there.”
It was a coffin of words and I was its hidden meaning.
“Shver tsu zayn a Yid,” I said. “It’s hard to be a hidden Jew. Just don’t forget me.”
Chapter Twenty
From inside the book, I could hear the shushkeh of Moishe’s voice as he spoke quietly, keeping us both calm, the way one might soothe a skittish horse.
It was a long walk to the quemadero and several times, Moishe turned into an alley and opened the book a crack so that I could have fresh air. It was not difficult to know which way to go. Many had already lined the streets to witness the execution parade: the brotherhoods wearing their pointed hoods, the pasos, the elaborate floats depicting Jesus, Mary, and scenes from the Stations of the Cross. There were penitents carrying crosses, and a swarm of Inquisitors led by the Red Queen himself, the Grand Dragon Torquemada. The procession led to the quemadero and from there its route went to the Catedral. But it wouldn’t arrive. Our fire, the chaos of the kuf, would create a thousand individual processions of panic and fear, in the midst of which the Jews could hide.
Moishe shuffled like an old man into the square, the jug of oil concealed beneath his cape. There were a few guards standing around, kibitzing, laughing, waiting casually for the crowds. I felt Moishe walking, pouring oil in a kuf shape. Or so I imagined.
We waited behind a stumpy wall on the edge of the square. Moishe opened the book a little, as if checking the words were still there. After some time, the sound of crowds and music increased. The procession had arrived. Moishe closed the book. Once again, everything was filtered through words.
The place would soon be thick with crosses, actual size.
The higher-ups, the balebatim, would climb up into the stands to be a little closer to God than the rest of us. Except for the condemned who would soon be nothing more than an ascending curl of dark smoke that God would inhale, then expel with the full force of His divine lungs, blowing them all to hell.
The expiration of the living.
I heard trumpets. Not the end-of-the-world trumpets of the revelation, but corporeal horns, signalling the end of some Jews.
Then singing.
Venite, adoremus.
Because I led thee out of the land of Egypt, thou hast prepared a Cross for thy Saviour.
Because I brought thee into a land exceeding good, thou hast prepared a Cross for thy Saviour.
O My people.
Then the sound and fury of the Grand Inquisitor, a sermon signifying voluble nothing for I could understand but few words from inside the book. Only his wrath and righteousness, the febrile excoriation of the sinful by an alter kaker.
Then the fervent jeering of the crowd.
More words.
Moishe dropped the book and stepped forward.
Its wing-like pages opened, a magician releasing a hidden dove. I flew—nu, where else?—onto his shoulder.
He bent down ready to touch the torch to the long inflammable tail of the kuf. Then without warning, those tied to the stakes began to sing as those before had sung.
Sh’ma Yisroel, they sang. Hear O Israel.
The others, chained together, waiting their own execution, sang also.
Sh’ma Yisroel Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad.
Sarah was bound by ropes to the stake. And she, too, sang with defiance.
The faces of the about-to-die were beatific. The world was a broken vessel and they were pouring like light from between the cracks. This was the incorporeal song of themselves, a quantum song beyond time and space.