03.04 — CAIRO
Cairo · Fatimid Caliphate
I do not know Alávaro. Yet I remember him.
I see Cairo for the first time from the bottom of a cart. The blanket no longer covers my face, and I can sit up just enough to look over a board: first walls appear, then rooftops, then a number of people that seems impossible to me, merchants shouting prices, donkeys laden with bundles, men writing as they sit behind small tables, children running between the animals’ legs, women disappearing into alleys where the sun barely enters. My wrists are still tied, and Rashid’s voice remains intact inside my head, though whenever I try to remember his face I see the spear first. Cairo seems to notice none of this. The city works. That is perhaps the first thing I learn from it: a man can die, a child can disappear, another can be sold, and meanwhile someone weighs a sack of flour, someone calculates a tax, someone argues over the price of a cloth. For the first time I hear a word it will take me a while to understand, dhimma, and then another, Ahl al-Dhimma. Jews. Christians. Protected. Subordinate. Necessary. I do not understand how all four things fit into a single person, but in Cairo they fit easily: doctors, merchants, administrators, men who count the money of those who pray in another way and who, for that very reason, can become indispensable to those who despise them.
The name I hear most is Yaqub ibn Killis. They say it in courtyards, in shops, among men who talk about taxes as though they were talking about the weather; some pronounce it with admiration, others lower their voices, others spit afterward. They say Al-Aziz understood something the others preferred not to understand: the order of the caliphate also depended on people that very order kept beneath it. They say Yaqub put the accounts in order, filled the court with poets and scholars, and managed the money with a precision that ended up making him more necessary than beloved; when he was arrested in 372, the year others call 982, the offices began to grind to a halt, payments fell behind, the entire machinery seemed suddenly to discover that it had a Jewish heart and did not know how to beat without it. Even those who loathed him asked for his release. I like that story, though I do not yet know why. Perhaps because I am already beginning to understand that there are different ways of being a prisoner: one person can have his wrists tied, while another is allowed to sit beside the treasury, given a house, servants, authority, even respect, provided he does not forget who grants him each of those things. In the streets I hear a man shout that the feet of non-Muslims must not trample the heads of the faithful; a few hours later I see another bow before a Christian official to ask him to intervene in a payment. No one seems to notice the contradiction. Or everyone notices it, and that is precisely the problem.
There are days when the city reaches me as noise and others when it becomes a net. The dhimmís collect, administer, lend, hire their own people, some grow rich, almost all survive, and each success adds another strand to the resentment. The strangest thing is that the insults and the bows begin to resemble each other. “Let our mouths kiss your feet and our hands be at your service,” I hear some men say before someone who can grant them something; the phrase sounds humble, but the speaker’s face is not. I look into his eyes and think of Rashid when he said important questions had the bad habit of not answering themselves. Here no one asks whether a society can need those it considers inferior. It simply happens. The caliphate shines over that contradiction like a lamp too full of oil. I do not yet know what this has to do with me, and perhaps it has nothing to do with me. I am twelve, I still smell of pine nuts and carob when the sweat does not erase it, someone has decided how much my body is worth, and I keep thinking of Jerusalem as though the road had not ended beside a spear.
Then Alávaro appears. Not in the street. I do not know him. I cannot know him, and yet, as soon as I close my eyes, I see his hands. It is one of those things I have stopped arguing about with myself: Lisbon exists before I know where Lisbon is; Hakim has a mouth before he has a name; Alávaro hammers metal in a workshop that may be somewhere in Egypt, and I can hear him as though he were behind the wall. The hammer falls, falls again, misses, breaks something. He curses. Ximena is sitting nearby, or leaning against a door, watching him work with that mixture of patience and distance that sometimes announces someone has already left even though their body remains there. “I would give anything to get out of here forever,” she has told him. Alávaro hears get out and understands fly. That is his mistake, but also his way of loving: taking a phrase literally until he endangers the world. He reconstructs a science he once knew—or believes he knew—fills the hut with parts, smoke, vessels, wood, leather, metal; each failure leaves a burn, a hole, a new correction. His assistant receives blows, bruises, and orders with a loyalty no one has asked of him. Ximena laughs sometimes. Alávaro thinks that laughter means he still has time.
I do not know why I remember him here, among the tax collectors, the merchants, and the men who hate one another while needing one another. Perhaps there is no reason. Perhaps it is only the hammer: someone is working metal in an alley in Cairo, and the sound opens the other workshop, the one I am not seeing, the one that perhaps does not yet exist. Alávaro lifts a piece to the light again, examines a crack, and starts over; outside, an official finishes an account, and another man kisses his hand while silently insulting him. I do not think both things mean the same. That would be too easy. I only see hands busy building systems to keep from falling: some sustain an empire, others try to build wings. None yet knows whether what it makes will be able to support its own weight.
At dusk I hear a flute again. I sit up so quickly that the rope cuts my wrist. The sound comes from somewhere beyond the market, barely three notes, perhaps a seller, perhaps a musician, perhaps nothing; I try to find the Serpent Charmer among the people and find only a man with a scale, two soldiers, and a boy carrying an empty cage. The same cage. It cannot be the same. I follow him with my eyes until he disappears into an alley. Then someone behind me says a word I do not yet know, and all the boys in the cart raise our heads at the same time. It is not our name. It is the price.
03.04 — CAIRO
Cairo · Fatimid Caliphate
I do not know Alávaro. Yet I remember him.
I see Cairo for the first time from the bottom of a cart. The blanket no longer covers my face, and I can sit up just enough to look over a board: first walls appear, then rooftops, then a number of people that seems impossible to me, merchants shouting prices, donkeys laden with bundles, men writing as they sit behind small tables, children running between the animals’ legs, women disappearing into alleys where the sun barely enters. My wrists are still tied, and Rashid’s voice remains intact inside my head, though whenever I try to remember his face I see the spear first. Cairo seems to notice none of this. The city works. That is perhaps the first thing I learn from it: a man can die, a child can disappear, another can be sold, and meanwhile someone weighs a sack of flour, someone calculates a tax, someone argues over the price of a cloth. For the first time I hear a word it will take me a while to understand, dhimma, and then another, Ahl al-Dhimma. Jews. Christians. Protected. Subordinate. Necessary. I do not understand how all four things fit into a single person, but in Cairo they fit easily: doctors, merchants, administrators, men who count the money of those who pray in another way and who, for that very reason, can become indispensable to those who despise them.
The name I hear most is Yaqub ibn Killis. They say it in courtyards, in shops, among men who talk about taxes as though they were talking about the weather; some pronounce it with admiration, others lower their voices, others spit afterward. They say Al-Aziz understood something the others preferred not to understand: the order of the caliphate also depended on people that very order kept beneath it. They say Yaqub put the accounts in order, filled the court with poets and scholars, and managed the money with a precision that ended up making him more necessary than beloved; when he was arrested in 372, the year others call 982, the offices began to grind to a halt, payments fell behind, the entire machinery seemed suddenly to discover that it had a Jewish heart and did not know how to beat without it. Even those who loathed him asked for his release. I like that story, though I do not yet know why. Perhaps because I am already beginning to understand that there are different ways of being a prisoner: one person can have his wrists tied, while another is allowed to sit beside the treasury, given a house, servants, authority, even respect, provided he does not forget who grants him each of those things. In the streets I hear a man shout that the feet of non-Muslims must not trample the heads of the faithful; a few hours later I see another bow before a Christian official to ask him to intervene in a payment. No one seems to notice the contradiction. Or everyone notices it, and that is precisely the problem.
There are days when the city reaches me as noise and others when it becomes a net. The dhimmís collect, administer, lend, hire their own people, some grow rich, almost all survive, and each success adds another strand to the resentment. The strangest thing is that the insults and the bows begin to resemble each other. “Let our mouths kiss your feet and our hands be at your service,” I hear some men say before someone who can grant them something; the phrase sounds humble, but the speaker’s face is not. I look into his eyes and think of Rashid when he said important questions had the bad habit of not answering themselves. Here no one asks whether a society can need those it considers inferior. It simply happens. The caliphate shines over that contradiction like a lamp too full of oil. I do not yet know what this has to do with me, and perhaps it has nothing to do with me. I am twelve, I still smell of pine nuts and carob when the sweat does not erase it, someone has decided how much my body is worth, and I keep thinking of Jerusalem as though the road had not ended beside a spear.
Then Alávaro appears. Not in the street. I do not know him. I cannot know him, and yet, as soon as I close my eyes, I see his hands. It is one of those things I have stopped arguing about with myself: Lisbon exists before I know where Lisbon is; Hakim has a mouth before he has a name; Alávaro hammers metal in a workshop that may be somewhere in Egypt, and I can hear him as though he were behind the wall. The hammer falls, falls again, misses, breaks something. He curses. Ximena is sitting nearby, or leaning against a door, watching him work with that mixture of patience and distance that sometimes announces someone has already left even though their body remains there. “I would give anything to get out of here forever,” she has told him. Alávaro hears get out and understands fly. That is his mistake, but also his way of loving: taking a phrase literally until he endangers the world. He reconstructs a science he once knew—or believes he knew—fills the hut with parts, smoke, vessels, wood, leather, metal; each failure leaves a burn, a hole, a new correction. His assistant receives blows, bruises, and orders with a loyalty no one has asked of him. Ximena laughs sometimes. Alávaro thinks that laughter means he still has time.
I do not know why I remember him here, among the tax collectors, the merchants, and the men who hate one another while needing one another. Perhaps there is no reason. Perhaps it is only the hammer: someone is working metal in an alley in Cairo, and the sound opens the other workshop, the one I am not seeing, the one that perhaps does not yet exist. Alávaro lifts a piece to the light again, examines a crack, and starts over; outside, an official finishes an account, and another man kisses his hand while silently insulting him. I do not think both things mean the same. That would be too easy. I only see hands busy building systems to keep from falling: some sustain an empire, others try to build wings. None yet knows whether what it makes will be able to support its own weight.
At dusk I hear a flute again. I sit up so quickly that the rope cuts my wrist. The sound comes from somewhere beyond the market, barely three notes, perhaps a seller, perhaps a musician, perhaps nothing; I try to find the Serpent Charmer among the people and find only a man with a scale, two soldiers, and a boy carrying an empty cage. The same cage. It cannot be the same. I follow him with my eyes until he disappears into an alley. Then someone behind me says a word I do not yet know, and all the boys in the cart raise our heads at the same time. It is not our name. It is the price.
03.04 — EL CAIRO
El Cairo · Califato fatimí
No conozco a Alávaro. Sin embargo, lo recuerdo.
Veo El Cairo por primera vez desde el fondo de una carreta. La manta ya no me cubre la cara y puedo incorporarme apenas lo suficiente para mirar por encima de una tabla: primero aparecen muros, después azoteas, después una cantidad de gente que me parece imposible, comerciantes que gritan precios, burros cargados con fardos, hombres que escriben sentados detrás de pequeñas mesas, niños corriendo entre las piernas de los animales, mujeres que desaparecen en callejones donde el sol apenas entra. Tengo todavía las muñecas atadas y la voz de Rashid sigue intacta dentro de la cabeza, aunque cada vez que intento recordar su cara veo primero la lanza. El Cairo no parece advertir nada de esto. La ciudad funciona. Esa es quizá la primera cosa que aprendo de ella: puede morir un hombre, puede desaparecer un niño, puede venderse otro, y entretanto alguien pesa una bolsa de harina, alguien calcula un impuesto, alguien discute el precio de una tela. Escucho por primera vez una palabra que tardaré en comprender, dhimma, y después otra, Ahl al-Dhimma. Judíos. Cristianos. Protegidos. Subordinados. Necesarios. No entiendo cómo las cuatro cosas caben en una sola persona, pero en El Cairo caben con facilidad: médicos, comerciantes, administradores, hombres que cuentan el dinero de quienes rezan de otra manera y que por eso mismo pueden volverse indispensables para quienes los desprecian.
El nombre que más oigo es Yaqub ibn Killis. Lo dicen en los patios, en las tiendas, entre hombres que hablan de impuestos como si hablaran del clima; unos lo pronuncian con admiración, otros bajan la voz, otros escupen después. Cuentan que Al-Aziz entendió algo que los demás preferían no entender: el orden del califato dependía también de personas a las que ese mismo orden mantenía debajo. Dicen que Yaqub puso las cuentas en su sitio, llenó la corte de poetas y eruditos y administró el dinero con una precisión que terminó por hacerlo más necesario que querido; cuando fue arrestado en 372, el año que otros llaman 982, las oficinas empezaron a detenerse, los pagos se atrasaron, la maquinaria entera pareció descubrir de pronto que tenía un corazón judío y que no sabía latir sin él. Hasta quienes lo detestaban pidieron que lo soltaran. Me gusta esa historia, aunque todavía no sé por qué. Tal vez porque ya empiezo a entender que hay formas distintas de estar preso: a uno pueden atarle las muñecas y a otro permitirle sentarse junto al tesoro, darle una casa, servidores, autoridad, incluso respeto, siempre que no olvide quién le concede cada una de esas cosas. En las calles escucho a un hombre gritar que los pies de los no musulmanes no deben pisotear las cabezas del pueblo fiel; unas horas después veo a otro inclinarse ante un funcionario cristiano para pedirle que intervenga en un pago. Nadie parece notar la contradicción. O todos la notan y ése es precisamente el problema.
Hay días en que la ciudad me llega como ruido y otros en que se vuelve una red. Los dhimmís recaudan, administran, prestan, contratan a los suyos, se enriquecen algunos, sobreviven casi todos, y cada éxito añade otra hebra al resentimiento. Lo más extraño es que los insultos y las reverencias empiezan a parecerse. «Deja que nuestras bocas besen tus pies y que nuestras manos estén a tu servicio», escucho decir a unos hombres ante alguien que puede concederles algo; la frase suena humilde, pero la cara del que habla no lo es. Miro sus ojos y pienso en Rashid cuando decía que las preguntas importantes tenían la mala costumbre de no responderse. Aquí nadie pregunta si una sociedad puede necesitar a quienes considera inferiores. Simplemente ocurre. El califato brilla sobre esa contradicción como una lámpara demasiado llena de aceite. No sé todavía qué tiene esto que ver conmigo, y quizá no tenga nada que ver. Tengo doce años, sigo oliendo a piñón y algarrobo cuando el sudor no lo borra, alguien ha decidido cuánto vale mi cuerpo y yo continúo pensando en Jerusalén como si el camino no hubiera terminado junto a una lanza.
Entonces aparece Alávaro. No en la calle. No lo conozco. No puedo conocerlo y, sin embargo, en cuanto cierro los ojos veo sus manos. Es una de esas cosas que ya he dejado de discutir conmigo mismo: Lisboa existe antes de que yo sepa dónde está Lisboa; Hakim tiene una boca antes de tener un nombre; Alávaro golpea metal en un taller que quizá se encuentra en algún rincón de Egipto y yo puedo oírlo como si estuviera detrás de la pared. El martillo cae, vuelve a caer, falla, rompe algo. Él maldice. Ximena está sentada cerca, o apoyada contra una puerta, y lo mira trabajar con esa mezcla de paciencia y distancia que a veces anuncia que alguien ya se ha ido aunque su cuerpo continúe allí. «Daría todo por largarme de aquí para siempre», le ha dicho. Alávaro escucha largarme y entiende volar. Ése es su error, pero también su forma de amar: tomar una frase literalmente hasta poner en peligro el mundo. Reconstruye una ciencia que alguna vez conoció —o cree haber conocido—, llena la cabaña de piezas, humo, recipientes, madera, cuero, metal; cada fracaso deja una quemadura, un agujero, una nueva corrección. Su ayudante recibe golpes, moretones y órdenes con una lealtad que nadie le ha pedido. Ximena se ríe algunas veces. Alávaro cree que esa risa significa que todavía tiene tiempo.
No sé por qué lo recuerdo aquí, entre los recaudadores, los comerciantes y los hombres que se odian mientras se necesitan. Quizá no hay razón. Quizá sólo es el martillo: alguien trabaja metal en un callejón de El Cairo y el sonido abre el otro taller, el que no estoy viendo, el que acaso todavía no existe. Alávaro vuelve a levantar una pieza contra la luz, examina una grieta y comienza de nuevo; afuera, un funcionario termina una cuenta y otro hombre le besa la mano mientras lo insulta en silencio. No pienso que ambas cosas signifiquen lo mismo. Eso sería demasiado fácil. Sólo veo manos ocupadas en construir sistemas para no caer: unas sostienen un imperio, otras intentan construir alas. Ninguna sabe todavía si aquello que fabrica podrá sostener su propio peso.
Al atardecer vuelvo a escuchar una flauta. Me incorporo tan rápido que la cuerda me corta la muñeca. El sonido viene de algún lugar al otro lado del mercado, tres notas apenas, quizá un vendedor, quizá un músico, quizá nada; intento encontrar al Encantador de Serpientes entre la gente y no encuentro más que un hombre con una balanza, dos soldados y un muchacho que carga una jaula vacía. La misma jaula. No puede ser la misma. Lo sigo con la vista hasta que desaparece en un callejón. Entonces alguien detrás de mí dice una palabra que no conozco todavía y todos los muchachos de la carreta levantamos la cabeza al mismo tiempo. No es nuestro nombre. Es el precio.