At that moment, a skinny young man in a fez appears in the doorway. He turns to the old rabbi immediately and says in Turkish, “Sir Hakham, I want to become a Jew. How much?”
The shock on the old rabbi’s face is slowly replaced with a merciful smile. “Before we discuss money, you must tell me why you want to become a Jew. Do you know how hard it is to be one?”
“I know,” says the young man.
The excited rabbi’s son jumps up and says, “Why do you need to even ask, ya baba? His eyes have obviously opened to the —”
His father glances at him and he quiets down immediately. Then the rabbi turns to the Muslim and says, “Well?”
The man answers without hesitation, “I love a Jewish girl and I want to marry her. Her parents would never let her marry a Muslim, that’s why I want to be Jewish.”
The romantic motive raises protest in the heart of the rabbi’s son. “And where’s the faith? The epiphany? All for a girl?”
Once more, his father looks at him admonishingly, and once more he quiets down. The old man asks, “What’s your name, ya ibni?”
“Hamdi-Ali.”
“Hamdi-Ali?”
“Yusef Hamdi-Ali.”
“Listen, ya Yusef. We’re a small people. We’ve always been a small people, because our God demands a lot of his believers, and not everyone is willing or able to meet these demands. Our religion is a difficult one, and not accepted by many. Our neighbors do not like us, and they’ll like you even less. Because we, we were born Jewish, but you, one of their own, are turning your back on the religion of your ancestors …” The rabbi shakes his head doubtfully. “Your neighbors, they won’t like this one bit.”
“Then we’ll keep it a secret.”
“A secret? How could you? You won’t go to synagogue? You won’t observe the mitzvot? You won’t follow the customs of Israel?”
“Not the Judaism, we’ll keep secret the … the other religion.”
“How is that possible? Does nobody know you here?”
“I’m new in this country. I got off the boat just yesterday.”
“And your parents?”
“Dead.”
“Dead?”
“As good as dead to me. And I’m the same to them.” Silence.
“I want to be Jewish,” Joseph finally says.
“You want to marry a Jew, that’s really what you want!” the rabbi’s son spits.
“True, but nonetheless, I want to be Jewish.”
The old rabbi shrugs and says, “Fine, if not on purpose then by accident. God willing, this will please Him. Where do you live?”
Joseph says nothing. He has no place to live. He certainly cannot stay with his fiancée’s parents.
“The conversion process is long,” says the rabbi. “Stay here, we have plenty of space.” And he turns to his son with a smile. “As it says in the Torah, ‘the foreigner sojourns among you.’”
“I’ll pay you.”
“Are you working?”
“No, but I …”
“When you work, you can pay. The bed doesn’t cost anything, and the food …” the rabbi waved the thought away. “You don’t look like you eat very much, anyway. My wife cooks for three and feeds at least half a dozen. We have two or three guests coming over for every meal. She won’t even notice if she has one more mouth to feed.” Then he laughed mischievously.
“I’ll pay you. How much?”
“Have you got anything?”
“No.”
“Then what are you proposing?”
“How much? I’ll get a loan.”
“Fine. One rial per month, room and board.”
“And for the conversion.”
“The conversion is a mitzvah.”
“How much?”
“Donate to the community. To the poor. As you see fit.”
After the conversion Hakham Ferrera senior married Joseph and Emilie according to the faith of Moses and Israel. Most of the guests, all on the bride’s side, never guessed that Emilie was marrying a former Muslim. Only after years did the cloak of secrecy begin to fray. Suddenly, people began gossiping. How it was found out, no one could say. Among the Hamdi-Alis the matter was never to be spoken of, and none of the suspecting parties dared ask expressly if there was any truth to the rumor. And so the gossip remained hanging between uncertainty and the family’s utter silence.
Perhaps this is why Joseph tried, after the marriage, and after leaving Hakham Ferrera’s house, to minimize contact with the old rabbi and his son who succeeded him. They reminded him of the world he’d left behind and wished to erase. With almost cruel decisiveness he severed all ties with his parents, took no interest in their well-being, did not ask when they died or what became of his brothers. He kept only his name. In community records, a Yosef Ben-Abraham was registered, but he himself did not change his heavy Muslim name, the name which pulled him back to his roots. Why did he not change his name? Nobody knew, maybe not even he himself. Soon after they married, Emilie’s father passed away and the young couple, along with the widow, moved to Cairo. Those days, Joseph began making a living riding horses, an activity favored by him since youth. And though the rabbis Ferrera — the father, may he rest in peace, and the son, may he live long and prosper, sitting with him now on the balcony — hadn’t seen him more than three or four times in the many years that had gone by since, a check for two Egyptian pounds, a donation for the community’s less fortunate, arrived at the community offices in Alexandria once a month, every month, for thirty years.
“I need your help,” Joseph repeated. “It’s a matter of life and death.”
The rabbi’s face turned serious. He saw the abysses open, the two wells of Yusef’s eyes, their bottoms too deep to be seen. Yusef was not a joker. Nevertheless, when he thought of his words, the rabbi was embarrassed. A matter of life and death?
“The race is tomorrow,” said Joseph. “Tomorrow — the final race. Then, there’s a break. David will race. He must win. The way that David beat Goliath. Just like in the story, there is more to it than just those two. That’s why David had to win then. And that’s why David has to win now. A matter of life and death.”
A pleasant breeze blew from the sea. The tumult of bathers sounded from afar: Muslims, Christians and Jews desecrating the Sabbath. On the street, cars honked hysterically. The entire city rumbled and roared; nevertheless a Sabbath serenity was felt all around. But the rabbi felt so distant. His late father might have understood immediately, but he thought of himself as a small, insubstantial man. Nothing but a maître de cérémonies, a sort of master of rituals of the synagogue; or, as he once said jokingly about himself, “the conductor of a choir of non-believers.” Everything according to plan, a routine founded in the Jewish calendar, with no unexpected difficulties. But here was a Jew in trouble, and he didn’t even know how to talk to him. “Why?” he asked.
“Why what?”
“Why is this a matter of life and death?”
Joseph held back his impatience. If the rabbi himself did not understand, how could he explain it? This was a matter one either understood immediately or never understood at all. Some people spent their entire life on the surface, in a closed, orderly world, never imagining what might be going on below, in the depths, in those twisting, dark tunnels where lost souls seek their way. A rabbi! A spiritual leader, and he doesn’t know God, the devil, or death. Death! What could be more simple, more quotidian than death? How to explain this to him? Finally, he said with a sigh, “He’s being put to a test, don’t you see?”
“This isn’t the first time he’s participated in a race.”