Where the Bird Sings Best

My Father’s Roots

In 1903 Teresa, my paternal grandmother, got angry: first with God and then with all the Jews of Ekaterinoslav (now Dnipropetrovsk, in Ukraine) who still believed in Him despite the deadly flood of the Dnieper. Her beloved son José perished in the flood. When the house began to fill up with water, the boy pushed a chest out to the yard and climbed on top, but it didn’t float, because it was stuffed with the thirty-seven tractates of the Talmud.

After the burial, carrying all the children she had left, four toddlers — Jaime and Benjamín, Lola and Fanny — who were conceived more out of obligation than passion, she ferociously invaded the synagogue with her husband hot on her heels. She interrupted the reading of Leviticus 19: “Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them—”

“I’m the one who’s going to speak to them!” she bellowed.

She crossed over into the area forbidden to her as a woman and pushed aside the men who, victims of an infantile terror, covered their bearded faces with prayer shawls, silken tallises. She threw her wig to the floor, revealing a smooth skull red with rage. Pressing her rough face against the Torah parchment, she cursed at the Hebrew letters:

“Your books lie! They say that you saved the entire nation, that you parted the Red Sea as easily as I slice my carrots, and yet you did nothing for my poor José. That boy was innocent. What did you want to teach me? That your power is limitless? That I already knew. That you are unfathomable? That I should test my faith by simply accepting that crime? Never! That’s all well and good for prophets like Abraham. They can raise the knife to their sons throats, but not a poor woman like me. What right do you have to demand so much of me? I respected your commandments, I thought of you constantly, I never hurt anyone, I gave my family a holy home, and I prayed as I cleaned, I allowed my head to be shaved in your name, I loved you more than I loved my parents — and you, you ingrate, what did you do? Against the power of that death of yours, my boy was like a worm, an ant, fly excrement. You have no pity! You are a monster! You created a chosen people only to torture them! You’ve spent centuries laughing, all at our expense! Enough! A mother who’s lost hope, and for that reason doesn’t fear you, is talking to you: I curse you, I erase you, I sentence you to boredom! Stay on in your Eternity, create and destroy universes, speak, and thunder, I’m not listening any more! Once and for all: out of my house. You deserve only contempt! Will you punish me? Cover me with leprosy, have me chopped to pieces, have the dogs eat my flesh? It doesn’t matter to me. José’s death has already killed me.”

No one said a word. José wasn’t the only victim. Others had just buried family members and friends. My grandfather Alejandro, from whom I inherited part of my name — because the other half came from my mother’s father, who’s name was also Alejandro — dried with infinite care the tears that shone like transparent scarabs on the Hebrew letters as he bowed again and again to the congregation; his face crimson, he muttered apologies that no one understood and led Teresa out, trying to help her with the four children. But she wouldn’t let go and hugged them so tightly against her robust bosom that they began to howl. A hurricane wind blew in, the windows opened, and a black cloud filled the temple. It was every fly in the region fleeing a sudden downpour.

For Alejandro Levi (at that time our family name was Levi), his wife’s break with Tradition was just one more nasty blow. Nasty blows were an insoluble part of his being: he’d put up with them stoically throughout his life. They were like an arm or an internal organ, a normal part of his reality. He wasn’t even three when the Hungarian maid went mad. She walked into the bedroom where he slept hugging his mother Lea and murdered her with an axe. The hot spurts dyed his naked little body red. Five years later, in an outburst of hatred over the myth that Christian children’s blood was used to make matzoh, a swarm of drunken Cossacks poured into the streets of Ekaterinoslav: they burned the village, raped women and children, and beat Jaime, Alejandro’s father, to a bloody pulp because he refused to spit on the Book. The Jewish community of Zlatopol took him in. They gave him a bed in the yeshiva. There they taught him two things: to milk cows (at dawn) and to pray (for the rest of the day). That milk was the only maternal scent he knew in his childhood, and to feel a feminine caress, he taught the ruminants to lick his naked body with their huge, hot tongues.

Reciting the Hebrew verses was torture until he met the Rabbi in the Interworld. It happened like this: Alejandro davened so much, chanting passages he didn’t understand, that his feet were numb, his forehead boiling, and his stomach filled with an acidity. He was afraid he would gasp like a fish out of water and faint right there in front of his classmates, who understood the texts (unless their fervent expression of faith was nothing more than an act to earn them a good supper). He made a supreme effort, and, leaving his body to its davening, he moved outside himself and found himself in a time that didn’t elapse, in a space that didn’t extend. What a discovery that refuge was! There he could languish in peace, doing nothing, only living. He felt intensely what it was like to think without the constant burden of the flesh, without its needs, without its various fears and fatigues, without the contempt or pity of others. He never wanted to go back, he only wanted to remain in eternal ecstasy.

Piercing the wall of light, a man dressed in black like the rabbis, but with Oriental eyes, yellow skin, and a beard with long, slack whiskers floated next to him.

“You’re lucky, little man,” he said. “What happened to me won’t happen to you. When I discovered the Interworld, there was no one there to advise me. I felt as fine as you do and decided not to go back. A grave error. Abandoned in a forest, my body was devoured by bears. And then, when I needed human beings again, it was impossible to return. I was condemned to wander through the ten planes of Creation without stopping. A sad bird of passage. If you let me plant roots in your spirit, I’ll return with you. And to show my thanks, I’ll be able to advise you — I know the Torah and the Talmud by heart — and you’ll never be alone again. What do you say?”

What do you think this orphan boy was going to say? Thirsty for love, he adopted the Rabbi, who was from the Caucasus and steeped in Kabbalah. And seeking out the wise saints who, according to the Zohar, live in the other world, he got lost in the labyrinths of Time. In those infinite solitudes, he, a contumacious hermit, learned the value of human companionship, understood why dogs always long for their masters. He discovered that others are a kind of sustenance, that men without other men perish from spiritual hunger.

When he regained consciousness, he was stretched out on one of the school benches. The teacher and his classmates were gathered around him, all pale, because they thought he was dead. It seems his heart had stopped. They gave him some sweet tea with lemon and sang to celebrate the miracle of his resurrection.

Meanwhile, the Rabbi was dancing around the room. No one but my grandfather could see or hear him. The joy of the disincarnated man to be once again among Jews was so great that, for the first time, he took control of Alejandro’s body and recited (in hoarse Hebrew) a psalm of thankfulness to the Lord:

Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.

Everyone panicked. The boy was possessed by a dybbuk! That devil would have to be flushed from his gut! The Rabbi saw his error and leapt out of my grandfather’s body. And no matter how hard Alejandro protested, trying to explain that his friend promised never again to enter his body, they went ahead with the exorcism. They rubbed him down with seven different herbs; they made him swallow an infusion of cow manure; they bathed him in the Dnieper, whose waters were many degrees below zero; and then, to warm him up, they gave him a steam bath and thrashed him with nettles.

Even though they considered him cured, they still felt a superstitious mistrust for a while. But as my grandfather grew they got used to his invisible companion. They began to consult him: first about Talmudic interpretations, then about animal illnesses, and then, seeing the positive results in the first two instances, they moved on to human maladies. Finally, they made him a judge in all their disputes. The entire village praised the Rabbi’s intelligence and knowledge, but they had no regard whatsoever for Alejandro. Timid by nature and essentially humble, he had no idea how to capitalize on his position as an intermediary. People invited the Rabbi, not him. Whenever he came into the synagogue, they’d ask for the Rabbi, because from time to time the man from the Caucasus would disappear to visit other dimensions, where he’d converse with the holy spirits.

If the Rabbi accompanied him, they’d seat him in the first row. If not, no one bothered to speak to him or offer him a chair. The man from the Caucasus had said that what he liked most was to see children. So whenever people came to consult him in Alejandro’s modest room next to the stable, they brought along their offspring, bathed, combed, and dressed for the Sabbath. This exhibition was all the pay he got. No one bothered to bring an apple pie, a pot of stuffed fish, a bit of chopped liver. Nothing. Only the Rabbi existed; my grandfather was the real invisible man. From the cradle he was never accustomed to being indulged, so this made him neither sad nor happy. He milked the cows, prayed, and at night, before sleep overcame him, he had long conversations with his friend from the Interworld.

One day, at the first light of dawn, Teresa approached him. She was small but with robust legs, imposing breasts, and an iron will. She fixed her dark eyes, two coals swimming feverishly in sunken sockets, on him and said:

“I’ve been observing you for a while. I’m of age to have children. I want you to be the father. I’m an orphan like you but not as poor. You’ll come to live in the house my aunts left to me. We’re going to organize these consultations so that we can feed the children. You will be paid. The Rabbi needs nothing because he doesn’t exist. He’s the product of your madness. Yes, you’re crazy! But it doesn’t matter: what you’ve invented is beautiful. What you think he’s worth, that’s what you’re worth. That knowledge only comes from you. Learn to respect yourself so others will respect you. Never again will they speak directly with the phantom. They will tell their problem to you and will have to come back later to hear the answer. They will no longer see you entranced, talking to an invisible being. I’ll set the prices, and we will not accept dinner invitations where they try to take advantage of you. The Rabbi will stay home. He will never go out on the street with you, and if he doesn’t like that, he can leave — if he can. But as soon as he leaves you, he’ll dissolve into nothingness.”

And without awaiting an answer from Alejandro, she kissed him full on the mouth, stretched out with him under the udders of the cows, and took permanent possession of his sex. He, after gushing forth his soul in his seed, squeezed the udders and bathed the two of them in a shower of hot milk. When they married, she was pregnant with José. The community accepted the new rules, so never again did the family table lack for chicken soup or fried potatoes or a fresh cauliflower or a plate of porridge. Ten months after José’s birth, they had twin boys. The year after that, twin girls.

In the corset shop, in the presence of her neighbor ladies, Teresa would brag about living with a holy husband who never stopped praying, even during his five hours of sleep. Moreover, he would always eat, no matter what the dish happened to be, with the same rhythm so he could chew without ceasing to recite the psalms. And when he wasn’t praying, he only knew how to say two words: “Thank you.”

Everything was going so well and then, catastrophe! José dead! An extraordinary son, good among the good, obedient, well mannered, clean, with an angelic voice for singing in Yiddish, of resplendent beauty. Yes, his natural joyfulness brightened sorrows; he was a dash of salt in the tasteless soup of life, a shower of color for the gray world. Whenever he strolled past the trees at night, the sleeping birds would awaken and start to sing as if it were daybreak. He was born smiling, he blessed anyone who crossed his path, he never complained or criticized, he was the best student at the yeshiva. Why did a ray of sunshine have to die?

Teresa clung violently to her grief. Forgetting it, she thought, would be a betrayal. She refused to accept that he was gone, and she held him there swallowing muddy water, blue from asphyxiation, an incessant victim, a lamb in eternal agony. This she did to justify her hatred not only of God and her community but also of the river, the plants, the animals, the dirt, Russia, all of humanity. She forbade my grandfather from solving the problems of others and demanded — otherwise she would kill herself — that he never again mention the Rabbi.

They sold the little they had and went to live in Odessa. There they were taken in by Fiera Seca, Teresa’s sister, who was two years younger. Their father, my great-grandfather, had been married and widowed three times. His three previous wives had died giving birth the first time, and the children in turn had never lasted more than three days in the cradle. According to the old gossips, Death was in love with him and out of jealousy snatched away the wives and their fruit.

Abraham Groismann was a strong, tall man with a curly red beard and big green eyes. He made a living through apiculture. And while all that business about Death’s love for him was just an old wives’ tale,the love of his bees, on the other hand, was a clear fact. Whenever he harvested the honey from the hundred or so little multicolored hives, the bees would cover him from head to foot, without ever stinging. Then they would follow him like a docile cloud to the shed where he bottled the delicious honey. Many nights, especially during the glacial winters, they would gather on his bed to form a dark, warm, and vibrant blanket.

Teresa’s mother, Raquel, was thirteen when she gave birth in the cemetery. The old crones put her in a grave and wrapped her in seven sheets so Death wouldn’t see. There, in the cool earth, surrounded by dark bones, my grandmother bore her first child, whose mouth was filled quickly with a fragrant nipple to maintain the silence that was essential: Death had a thousand ears! Abraham, convinced that once again he was going to lose mother and child, prepared his heart for the tragedy by repressing any feelings. Their survival wouldn’t generate either heat or cold. He just went on submerged in his sea of bees, speaking with them in an inaccessible universe. But when Raquel, now fifteen, became pregnant once again, hope blazed in his soul.

Though he’d been warned that the Black Lady, as faithful and loving as the bees, would follow him anywhere, he went to the cemetery, pushed aside the ladies who were holding up the seven sheets, and looked into the deep grave. He saw exit the bloody temple the most beautiful of girls. A strange wind whipped the white cloth and carried the sheets toward the mountains as if they were immense doves.

The mother was now dying. “Fool!” the women shouted. “Why did you come? You’ve brought your ferocious lover. She’s already devouring the mother. The daughter is next.” They poured salt and vinegar over the child’s head and baptized her with a name that would shock and disgust Death: Fiera Seca. Then they put her in a basket, swaddling her in clusters of grapes, and carried her off to a secret place the father could never know, to hide her from the Enemy. Fiera Seca had to live as a prisoner in a barn until she was thirteen, when her menstruation began. When childhood came to an end, the danger disappeared. Death was looking for a girl, not a woman. Fiera Seca was led home by one of the old gossips. As she walked along the streets, the terrified townspeople closed doors and windows. To scare off Death, in case she discovered the child’s hiding place, they’d taught Fiera Seca to make horrible faces, one after another. Her face, like a soft mask, passed from one ugliness to another. If you looked at her for more than ten seconds, your head would ache.

When Fiera Seca entered the room, which was simultaneously kitchen, dining room, and bedroom, Teresa ran out to the garden along with the dogs, which began to howl, and the cats, which began to hiss. Fiera Seca was all alone. She heard footsteps. It had to be Death! Out of her hiding place she felt more vulnerable than ever. Besides contorting her face, she’d also begun to deform her body. She bowed her legs, twisted her spine, and made her hands look like claws. She drooled and foamed at the mouth, tinting that wretched mess with blood she sucked from her gums. The door opened with an insect-like screech. Abraham saw a monster, a kind of giant spider, but he did not run because he was covered with bees. To Fiera Seca, the buzzing of that dark mass seemed like the song of the Black Lady.

There they stood, face to face, sweating in terror. Perhaps the only beings that understood the situation were the bees. They began to fly in a circle that became larger and larger until it surrounded father and daughter. Within that living cordon, the girl saw the most beautiful man she could have imagined. In the depth of his green eyes, she found an ocean of goodness. That sublime spirit became a world where, if she could make herself small, she would have wanted to live. Little by little, she stopped making faces and stretched out her body, revealing herself as she was — a beautiful woman. Abraham realized that all the others, those who died giving birth, had been nothing more than sketches of the thing that, without knowing it, he’d sought forever: standing erect before him, like a tremendous miracle, his own soul was calling him. They submerged one into the other, they spoke words of love to each other, they wept, laughed, sang, and fell into the bed. The bees formed a curtain that separated them from the world, and there they remained, two bodies transformed into a single bonfire, not thinking of the consequences.

Teresa felt superfluous. Her father and sister disappeared forever, transformed into lovers. She put what little she had in a sack and went to live with her aunts. Two years later, she received news from her sister, a letter:

Forgive me, Teresa, for having forgotten you all this time. Dad is dead. You are the only one who knew our secret. I hope you’ll understand. It was stronger than we were, a passion we couldn’t control. No one in the neighborhood dared to imagine anything like that. Whenever I went out to shop, I made my faces and contortions so that no one would speak to me. My father, my lover, only showed himself covered with bees. Our real bodies were a miracle we only enjoyed in the intimacy of the house. To ward off spies, Abraham taught the insects to rest on the roof and exterior walls of the house until they covered it with a thick quilt. We made love inside a gigantic honeycomb, drunk on pleasure, unable to stop, again and again, wishing we could fuse and become one single being. That insatiable quest, that impossible dissolution; mixed in with the pleasure was a constant pain, a dagger piercing our string of orgasms. A short time ago, I became pregnant. We thought we were angels, beings from another world, unaffected by human phenomena: we had to return to reality. After five months, my stomach began to bulge. In dreams, Abraham received a visit from the Black Lady. She was insane with fury and jealousy. When he awoke, he said, “I am going to cause your death. She will not listen to my pleas. Her cruelty knows no limits. You will never be able to give birth and survive. Understand me, my daughter, my wife, I must sacrifice myself, hand myself over to Death, let her carry me off to her palace of ice. That way her love will be satisfied, and she will not devour you.” I wept for days, but I could not convince him that it was I who should disappear. He filled a bathtub with honey and submerged in the golden syrup. He died looking at me. He never closed his eyes. A tranquil suicide — he was smiling, and the bees flew, forming a crown that slowly circled over the yellow surface. Under the mattress, I found a note: “I shall never stop loving you. Please look after the bees. Don’t abandon them. They are my memory.” I fell into the bed. I spread my legs, and as my stomach shrank I expelled an interminable sigh from my sex. Nothing remained of our child. It turned into air.

Teresa never answered that letter and hadn’t returned to her paternal home until the day she went to live in Odessa with Alejandro and the four children. An obscure shape came out to meet them. When they walked into the room, the bees separated from Fiera Seca and went to suck at little plates filled with sugared juices. Crying out, Fiera Seca threw herself into Teresa’s muscular arms. She did not seem to notice the presence of my grandfather and the children.

“Oh, sister! No one knows about Abraham’s death. I still make the atrocious faces when I go shopping, and I receive those who come here to buy honey covered with insects, so they go on thinking it’s Abraham. I never buried our father.”

As the family was moving in, she led Teresa to the barn. Among the honeycombs, from which came a buzzing similar to a requiem, was the bathtub filled with honey with the smiling corpse beneath its yellow surface.

“Honey is sacred, sister. It preserves flesh eternally. He never wanted to leave. I feel him stuck to me. He’s waiting for me.”

As she said that, Fiera Seca took off her clothes. She revealed her naked body, a delicate structure with a skin so fine that the pattern of her veins, like those of a leaf, could be seen. A thick, animal-like pubis contrasted with that angelic delicacy: it was so black it emitted blue sparkles and covered her belly up to her navel.

“I shouldn’t abandon the bees. They are the reason I remained in this world. That’s what he asked me to do. But now you’ve come, and I can leave. I’m leaving these wise animals in your care. If you look after them carefully, they will feed your whole family.”

And with no further explanations, she leapt into the tub, embraced her father, and allowed the honey to cover her. She made no signs of drowning and seemed neither to suffer nor to die. She simply became forever immobile, her eyes wide open, staring into the open eyes of the other cadaver.

Teresa felt as dead as her father or her sister. Only her obligation to her family kept her alive. And hate as well. Especially hate. It was a source of energy that allowed her to tolerate the world only so she could curse it. In all things she saw the presence of a cruel, despicable God. There was nothing that didn’t seem absurd, impermanent, or unnecessary to her. The plot line of life was pain. She could detect the incessant fear hidden in laughter, in moments of pleasure, in the stupid innocence of children.

For her the world was a prison, a charnel house, the sick dream of the monstrous Creator. But what infuriated her most (a rage that made her curse from the moment she awoke until the moment she fell asleep) was knowing, without wanting to admit it to herself, that this hate disguised an excess of love. In her childhood she learned to adore God above all things, and now, in her absolute disillusionment, she had no idea what to do with that immense feeling. She could not channel those fervent oceans toward her husband or children because they were condemned to die prematurely.

Just as the Dnieper flooded its bank and carried José away, some accident or other would exterminate them. Security was fragile. Nothing lasted. Everything shrank to nothing. Unthinkable evils were possible. A rock could fall from the sky and smash her family; an ant could lay eggs inside their ears, where armies of tiny beasts would be born that would devour their brains; a sea of fetid mud from down the mountainside could cover the city; mad hens could become carnivorous and peck out the eyes of the children; anything could happen.

What was to be done with that unclaimed love building up in her bosom, shaking her heart so violently that its pounding could be heard up and down the street at night, drowning out the chorus of snores? Suddenly, without being able to understand why, she discovered the only thing deserving of her love in this world: fleas! She remembered a circus act she’d seen in her childhood and decided to train those insects. She always carried out her tasks as wife and mother. She provided her family with a clean home, she cooked and ironed, all the while delivering insults. Before her four children went to bed, she made them get down on their knees and recite: “God does not exist, God is not good. All that awaits us is the cat who will urinate on our grave.” And when they slept under the huge eiderdown next to the brick stove, she, hidden in the cold basement, dedicated herself to domesticating her fleas.

When she fled her father’s house, Teresa stole his pocket watch, the only souvenir she wanted to keep. Now she emptied it of its movements, removed the white dial with its Roman numerals and hands like a woman’s legs, and pierced its cover with holes so that her pupils could get the required oxygen. There were seven of them. To each she gave a different territory to suck blood: her wrists, behind her knees, her breasts, and her navel. She bought a magnifying glass and other necessary instruments and made them costumes, decorations, tiny objects, furniture, and vehicles. She reduced her sleep time and spent entire nights teaching them to jump through hoops, to fire a miniature cannon, to play drums, to swing, to play ball. Little by little she got to know them. They had different personalities, subtly different bodies, individual forms of intelligence. She named them. She communicated better with them than she had with dogs. The link was profound. After a long while, she could speak and plot with the fleas against God.

She compared the affection of fleas with what she got from the Jews, and her revulsion against them intensified. She wanted to change her race, to go off and live with the goyim. But her last name, Levi, was like a six-pointed star carved into her forehead. My grandfather — who was still seeing the Rabbi from the Caucasus, though he never admitted this to Teresa, wishing to forestall those flights of rage that were so strong they shifted the furniture — found some nobles of Polish origin who did not want their only son to do his military service with peasants. The family supplied him with official papers bought from a venal functionary so he could join the army in the place of the delicate heir. It happened his name was Jodorowsky. With that Polish last name, he and his family could move to another country, cross borders without major problems, dissolve among the non-chosen races in just five years, when his enlistment was over.

While waiting for her husband to return, Teresa supported her family by selling honey and sweet rolls shaped like moons, towers, and crabs. At night, she relieved her solitude by working with the seven fleas to create — by reading the lines they traced while dancing on a dusting of flour — a method that would allow her to read the future.

The Rabbi was not much help to Alejandro in the army. The soldiers’ world seemed impure, and when he saw my grandfather in the mess hall devouring pork chops or other forbidden foods, his face became even yellower and from his slanted eyes poured tears as immaterial as his body.

“If you don’t understand me, Moisés, bless him, will. I have to eat this Russian garbage because if I don’t, they’ll figure out who I am. It’s hard enough to cover up my circumcision. Leave me in peace. What do you know about the pain in my gut when your intestines aren’t even solid? If all you want is to add more suffering to my sorrows, I’d rather you stopped speaking to me.”

During those arduous five years of military service, the Rabbi said not one word more.

Alejandro had other problems. Whenever he held a rifle he went white as a sheet, fell to the ground, and vomited. Tired of trying to cure him with kicks and whippings, the officers made him a kitchen helper and bootblack for the squadron. He also had to clean the latrines and stables. Instead of feeling depressed, he decided, accustomed as he was to the blows of life, to turn his disgrace into an apprenticeship. God had put him here to peel stunted vegetables, to polish smelly boots, to clean up human and equine shit in order to teach him something important.

Amiable, calm, smiling, he peeled tons of potatoes, carrots, and cucumbers. Though what was demanded of him was quantity and not quality, he tried to do it all rapidly but well, taking care that the food was clean, the potatoes free of eyes and rotten parts, the vegetables not dried out. He was constantly honing his skill in eliminating skin without sacrificing the slightest bit of meat. And it was in this constant separation of dirt-covered surfaces that he ended up seeing himself, as if in each day’s work he were pulling from his own memory old skins, pains, rancor, and envy. Every vegetable that sparkled naked and clean in his hands gave him the sensation of an internal birth. During his final months of military service, he carried out this task singing with the innocence of a child.

Also with innocence, but that of a thousand-year-old man, he cleared the excrement. Horses and men were one in those evacuations. An immense pity that transformed into tenderness filled his spirit when he purged the latrines. That fecal matter was a testimony to the animal nature of the soul, of the soul’s ties to the flesh. And he marveled when he thought about how in those bodies that produced this fetid magma, faith also could manifest itself, as well as love and so many other delicate feelings. He learned to respect excrement, to consider it his equal, to see things from that humble level. He opened his heart as he emptied the receptacles, trying to be a true servant, one who sees the work of God through misery and who works to make it shine. He recognized in himself the presence of the Divine Superior and desired, with ecstatic joy, to obtain the blessing of being useful to Him. It was there, in those places of defecation, where he learned to pray sincerely for the first time. If a being like himself, an excrement gatherer, was worthy of entering into a relationship with the Supreme Being, the door was opening for other men who had — all of them — more merit than he.

After shinning boots and shoes for almost five years, thousands and thousands of times scraping off filthy crusts; applying polish, oiling, using a cloth; patching soles; flattening rebellious nails; over and over, hour upon hour, he began to like the work. “The feet,” the instructors would always say, “are the most important part of the military. A soldier with badly fitting boots is a soldier lost.” During cold weather, on the incessant marches, during the many combat maneuvers, the infantry had to have its lower extremities very well protected.

Alejandro imagined life as a spiritual war and felt an almost unbearable sorrow for the poor men who advanced barefoot or suffered from shoddily made boots. Being a shoemaker was a profession that fit his modesty. If he were meant to serve, he would transform his labors into works of art. Those who previously only walked would dance in his shoes. This he decided the day that a captain, loudly guffawing through aromatic waves of kielbasa and vodka, gave him a pair of boots stained with Jewish blood. For an hour he polished them, not to make them shine but to erase from them that painful image. He swore he would only make fine shoes that would be as soft and durable as faithful animals, to give health to the body. A man who dances can sing, and all songs, human and animal, exalt God.

As soon as they were liberated from military service, the Rabbi smiled again. After five years of silence among uniformed goyim, he went merrily along with Alejandro toward the Jewish neighborhood. His joy quickly made him fly like a grand crow above the rooftops. When he saw the sparrows flee, my grandfather realized that they could see the phantom. That removed a weight from his mind because, for him, it proved he wasn’t insane.

He shouted to the Rabbi, “Hey, my friend, come down here! Now I know that you are not a hallucination! Let’s resume our conversation.”

The man from the Caucasus left the company of a dead leaf that was being wafted about, landed, and spoke to his companion: “Mr. Levi — pardon me, I mean Mr. Jodorowsky. During these past years, not being able to speak with you, I dedicated myself to reviewing, within myself, the sacred books I know by heart. I had the idea I should summarize them in a single volume. Then, in a single chapter, then in a single page, and finally in a single sentence. This sentence is the greatest thing I can teach you. It seems simple, but if you understand it, you will never have to study again.” The Rabbi recited it. And life, from that moment on, changed for Alejandro. “If God is not here, He is nowhere; this instant itself is perfection.”

Teresa received my grandfather shyly, hugging the twins to her body. Shorn of moustache, beard, without curly payot hanging next to his ears, without long hair, wearing goyish clothes, Alejandro was unrecognizable. His smile had become a meaningless contraction. His wife had put on weight, and his children had grown. The boys were almost seven, the girls around six. Benjamín was completely bald. Fanny had curled her hair and dyed it an aggressive red. Jaime and Lola, he muscular and she spectrally thin, were as alike as two drops of water. My grandmother, aside from being three times her original size (the result of eating only honey in order to save money, she said later), boasted a skull covered by a thicket of gray hair. Her round, young face with ruddy cheeks contrasted violently with those white hairs.

Alejandro burst into tears, sobbing loudly. He fell to his knees. My grandmother recognized him. She pushed the boys into his arms and ran from the room. The children wriggled out of their father’s embrace, flailing their arms every which way, and ran to a dark corner, cringing like frightened chickens. Under no circumstances would they ever accept this intruder.

The Rabbi spoke to him: “Hold back your tenderness. Wait. It’s one thing to give it, but quite another to force someone to accept it. Little by little, they’ll come to you.”

Teresa came back wearing a clean dress and a black, well-combed wig, carrying some pieces of honeycomb in a clay bowl. With a single shout, both fierce and kind, she sent the twins to the barn. While Alejandro ate voraciously, spitting out bits of wax, Teresa got into bed.

With her brow deeply furrowed, she said, “Tell you-know-who he should also leave.”

Alejandro, with great dignity, retorted, “I don’t have to. He left with the children.” And with that, he jumped on top of her, tearing her dress and underwear to pieces. They possessed each other with such passion that the bed collapsed. When it fell, it knocked over a brazier. The burning coals scattered over the floor. The wood began to burn. Enormous flames devoured furniture and walls. My grandparents noticed nothing. Not for an instant did they interrupt their caresses. Perhaps because the sweat from their bodies soaked the sheets, perhaps due to divine intervention, the fire never touched the bed. After the final orgasmic explosion, they returned to reality and found themselves resting in a house reduced to smoking ruins.

“No regrets,” said Teresa to my grandfather. “Things happen when it’s time for them to happen.”

“That I know,” he answered, “because when you’ve got faith, all things happen for the better.”

“Well then, follow me. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

In the stone barn at the far end of the yard, the children, who were pretending to be statues of salt under a cloud of bees, hadn’t noticed a thing. Teresa clapped her hands three times like a circus ringmaster, and the children, grimly, began to bottle the honey as the bees resumed their duties within their little cells.

“Take a good look at the hives, Alejandro. Do any look odd to you?”

No matter how hard he looked, my grandfather could find nothing abnormal.

“Ask you-know-who.”

Obeying his wife, he thought of his friend from the Interworld. The Rabbi, who was floating around in the shape of a tiny cloud, recovered his human form and walked over to point to a hive much like the others.

“Something tells me it’s this one, Teresa.”

“And in what way is it different from the others, Alejandro?”

My grandfather swallowed hard and glanced obliquely toward the Rabbi, who told him, “There are fewer bees entering and leaving through its door.”

“You’re right! You’re a great observer! It took me four years to realize it.”

“Can you tell me why?”

“Because it has a false bottom, Teresa.”

“Bravo! Congratulations, Alejandro! That is the case.”

This praise was a painful blow to my grandfather’s humility. Embracing her judgment as his own, his eyes filled with tears and his throat with sobs.

“You’re more of a child than the children,” said my grandmother. “When will you learn to accept your merits? Being just serves only to make you unaware of those who humiliate and take advantage of you!” And to console him, Teresa sank his face between her bosoms.

To him it seemed that his nose traced a mile of cleavage before it touched the warm depth that vibrated with each beat of her enormous heart.

“Come along with me!” she said.

My grandmother led him by the hand to the hive. She pulled out a few nails and freed up the rear door. Within the hiding place was a leather coffer. When she opened it, Alejandro stopped weeping, lost control of his facial muscles, and opened his eyes so wide that his eyeballs were ready to pop out. The jewel box was filled with gold coins!

Teresa burst into a nervous giggle. “Yes, my friend, this cramped neighborhood, filled with bearded fanatics and bald witches, is finished! We’re going to a free world where we don’t have to believe in that cruel God who demands our absolute adoration and rewards us with massacres!”

“But Teresa, where did all this wealth come from?”

“I’m going to read you a letter from my father that I found under the coins.”

I’m writing this in case some day you find this treasure, which for me has been useless. For three generations or more we’ve been building it up by making huge sacrifices. Moisés, my father, received a large part of it from David, my grandfather, who was a state tax collector in Hungary. That was the only position the gentiles allowed Jews to occupy, because for them it was despicable to debase oneself by charging money. He lived, destroying wealth, between the hatred of the people and the contempt of the aristocrats. One day, after counting up his savings and looking at himself in the mirror, he was so disgusted by his reflection that a tumor sprouted in his left eye. In less than a month, he was blind in that eye. Then his hands became covered with warts, his back with sores. He stopped eating until he died, skinny and white, like a paraffin candle. My father received the leather coffer, two-thirds full, as his inheritance. After burying David, he fled toward the Ukraine and settled down in Odessa as a moneylender. The gold coins multiplied at the same rate as the rancor of his debtors. Finally, a nobleman who refused to pay had his hounds bite my father and his servants daub him with hog excrement. Moisés, naked, foul smelling, and bloody, reached the synagogue looking for consolation. In despair, he recited Psalm 102: I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am like an owl of the desert. The rabbis chanted along with him: I watch, and am as a sparrow alone on the roof. Mine enemies reproach me all the day. Moisés, counting on the support of his coreligionists, who covered him with a tallis, bellowed out the end of the psalm, straining his vocal chords, while the white silk became blotted with red. Just at that moment, a bee flew through the window and, after fluttering around the sacred candelabra, landed on the chest of the wounded man and for no apparent reason — he made no abrupt movements, concentrated as he was on communicating with God — buried its stinger in his heart. My father felt that all his blood had settled in that organ, then that his chest was exploding, and then that a boiling flood washed over his brain. He fell to the floor, trembling like an epileptic. For half an hour he howled and then lost consciousness for three seconds. When he awoke, he was a different man. His narrow personality split open, allowing a sensitive, much vaster being to appear. He announced that God had given him a message by inoculating him with a love for bees. The filthy money he obtained from loans would be exchanged for perfumed honey. He forgave all debts and became a beekeeper. He hid the jewel box full of gold in a hive, promising himself he would never use it as long as the honey business gave him enough for him and his family to live on. His wife, Ruth, could not accept the change, felt terrified about the future, and after converting to Christianity, ran off with a Cossack, leaving her only child, me, in the cradle. The brutish Cossack, during one of his drinking sprees, realized that she was drunk on a Saturday and cut off her head with a slice of his saber. I think it was then that Death put on my mother’s face as a mask. And from then on, Moisés lived covered with bees in order to erase his body from the world. For me, he was only a blur of vibrating insects. I can’t even tell you what color his eyes were, so hidden were they by the shimmer of beating wings. When did he die? I never knew. One day, I realized that the human form composed of bees was empty. Perhaps when he felt himself dying he asked the bees to eat him. I went among them, filling the space my father had left and taking my turn. I never had to use a single one of those coins.

— Abraham Groismann

Alejandro and the Rabbi were moved. They could not imagine how my grandmother clung to the leather coffer.

“Let’s just leave things as they are, Teresa. We’ll use only a few coins to rebuild the house and put the rest back into the hive. Let’s live off the honey, the miracle of these bees, organized and peaceful as perhaps human beings will one day be if they learn to work together.”

“Enough!” interrupted Teresa. “I am not a professional victim. If we stay here, they’re going to slit our throats, with Adonai’s good wishes. The Union of Russian People is accusing Jews of stealing blood from Christian children, and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is being published in every city. The whole country is sharpening sacrificial knives. And what is it you’re defending? A black suit? A fur cap? A beard and sidelocks? A rest on the Sabbath? A few festivals based on fairy tales? A few prayers in a dead language? A severed foreskin? Is that what it means to be a Jew? Bah! We’re just as disgusting as everyone else! So, why not blend in? We’ll move to the United States. There, all citizens live in palaces and have their teeth plated gold. Nobody pays attention to your name, and no one asks you where you’re from. Their only interest is how much you have. And we have a fortune. We will be welcomed. We can apply for permits to leave today. Let’s cut our roots!”

That afternoon, they brought the tub with the two enraptured corpses down to the Dnieper and slipped it into the water. Like a small white ship, it was carried by the current toward the reddish sun. The bees, in a compact black cloud, went along with it.

Alejandro, Teresa, and the four children abandoned the empty hives and left Odessa with the clothes they were wearing — and the jewel casket my grandmother hung between her breasts. Then they rented a hotel room in Elisavetgrad. Thanks to Alejandro’s Polish name and the magic of a few gold coins, they had no trouble acquiring an exit visa.

“I grant the present certificate to the subject Alejandro Jaimovich Jodorowsky, thirty-six years of age, native of the district of Zlatopol, Administrative Department of Kiev. This certificate confirms that there exists no impediment with regard to the Municipality of Zlatopol to the aforementioned Alejandro emigrating along with his wife, Teresa Jodorowsky, maiden name Groismann, thirty years of age, and their children Benjamín and Jaime, born on July 25, 1901, and Lola and Fanny, born on July 4, 1902. In accordance with the protocols of the municipality, it has been determined that the aforementioned Alejandro Jodorowsky and his family have committed no crimes, criminal or civil. I, Vladimir Grigorievich Shevchenko, notary, in my offices located on Upenchaya Street, number 27, in Elisavetgrad, delivered the original and the copy of the aforementioned document to the Jodorowsky family, who reside in the vicinity of the third commissariat of Elisavetgrad. On this day, the 14th of March, 1909.”

What immense joy! With that scrap of paper they could get to the other side of the world! A series of stamps, seals, signatures, and sonorous words that conferred freedom: Code, Document, Certificate, Subject, Power, Family, Crimes, Commissariat, Administration! “This Vladimir is a ridiculous madman,” Teresa observed after an attack of happiness, and she led the family into a large store to dress her entire family in the style of the goyim.

They bought third-class tickets and, after filling a couple of baskets with food, they boarded a train that would leave them in Paris. There they would obtain visas for the United States and take a ship leaving Marseille. On the ship, they would learn English and forget Yiddish and Russian forever.

They ate cream herring, blinis, pickles, and apple pie. Only when their stomachs were full did they raise their eyes to observe the other passengers, the goyim. What they could plainly see, and the fact upset them, was that the car was filled with miserable-looking Jews. Pretending that the emigrants didn’t exist, Teresa belched, sighed with satisfaction, and hugged the precious coffer even more tightly against her chest. She first made sure the children were asleep, and then, to attract her husband’s attention, she pinched his leg.

“It’s going to be a long night, Alejandro. Now that we’re well on the way, I’ll have time to tell you what your children have been up to these past five years.”

It took my grandfather an hour before he could concentrate his wife’s stories. Seeing so many Jews piled up on the narrow benches, carrying packages wrapped in faded shreds of cloth, dignified in their misery, some with bandaged heads, others with their arms in slings or with black eyes or broken noses, doubtlessly fleeing some pogrom — it all filled him with an overwhelming sadness. Oh dear! Those maternal women with huge, wrinkled hands, licking the wounds of their children with dog-like love! Oh dear! Those underfed and beaten men with their eyes burning with religious zeal! Oh dear, those children dressed in black, immobile and wise, wrapped up in their Bibles, which they already knew by heart! All of them like a tribe of the just, suffering because of the crime of loving God above all things! The Rabbi lamented not having a real body so he could give the fugitives warmth with his embraces, so he could kiss the wounds on their feet. He flew from one place to another, emitting heartbreaking moans at the sight of his compatriots’ plight.

Alejandro, repeatedly pinched by Teresa, was absorbed little by little by her tale. The personalities of Benjamín and Jaime were exactly opposite. Each felt a strange need to differentiate himself from the other. Jaime (the one who would become my father at twenty-eight) was interested in manual labor, in violent games, in killing sparrows, cats, and ants. He became an expert in stamp collecting and in smashing the faces of the neighborhood brats. Benjamín observed the life of the bees, collected fairy tales, and made great efforts to learn how to read them as soon as possible. He liked to water flowers, always slept with a candle burning beside him, and did not play with boys; the slightest contact with harsh cloth wounded the fine skin on his hands.

The same thing happened with the twin girls. Lola was taciturn, to such a degree that it seemed she knew just two words: “yes” and “no.” She ate little, liked to bathe every day, even in cold water, and painted beautiful landscapes on the honey labels. She hated to help her mother in the kitchen, but she adored setting the table, lighting the candles, and embroidering tiny birds on napkins. Fanny was violent, funny, and voracious. She happily twisted the necks of chickens and peeled potatoes with astounding speed. Her pudgy fingers worked the darning needle with disgust. But doing carpentry work, digging, clearing the chimney, and, in summer, robbing fruit from the neighbors’ trees — all that, she adored.

The boys got along badly with each other, as did the twin girls. They formed two mixed couples: Benjamín, the delicate boy, was fond of the company of the mischievous Fanny. She quickly took control of the duo and protected her brother in street fights. She knew how to punch and kick better than the scamps wearing trousers. When he was with Lola, the vigorous Jaime would change. The nervousness that caused him to move around ceaselessly — little leaps, wiggles, roughhousing — would disappear, and he would stand there observing his younger sister in a state of astonishment. Contact with that feminine refinement revealed in him unsuspected desires, subtle feelings, delicate tendencies that anguished him. He would finally bellow to break the charm and run for the street, where he would give a bloody lip to the first boy he met.

Teresa, half asleep, half awake, went on talking as the train sliced through the rough wind — snorting like a dying bull, emptying itself of steam clouds — and stopped for eternities in dark stations. More emigrants got on. Fat policemen passed through checking passports and cutting open packages, treating the Jews with a mocking disdain. If they found even the slightest error in the papers, they would order entire families off with rifle butts and kicks. Other groups would quickly fill the empty spots.

All around the Jodorowskys, who passed as goyim under the Administrative Code thanks to the Certified Document, formed a perimeter of respectability. The fugitives, fearful of abuse, did not dare look at them. The soldiers, seeing that magic document, clicked their heels noisily, saluted energetically, and grimaced sympathetically, apologizing for the abject neighbors such honorable passengers were obliged to put up with. Throughout the third-class cars echoed dialects from all parts of Europe: the Yiddish of Lithuania, Poland, the Ukraine, Crimea, Bulgaria, Austria, and Hungary. Poor people with no homeland, fleeing to who knew where.

Teresa made a point not to acknowledge any of this. Speaking Russian slowly and carefully so she wouldn’t reveal her Jewish accent, she made her words into a shield that separated her family from a reality that had become, for her, an old nightmare.

Tugging on Alejandro’s left earlobe, she whispered:

“If you want to survive, you’ll have to change. Forget the others and watch out for us. They are to blame for whatever happens to them because they’re going around disguised as the righteous, believing in superstitions. God gives them bad luck. Death feeds on good fools. Follow the example of the goyim: everyone works for himself, and the one with the wettest mouth swallows the most beans. Stop daydreaming and listen to the story of how Benjamín lost all his hair.

“One spring morning, a circus wagon painted like a carriage from the funeral parlor pulled by two skeletal horses decorated with black plumes passed along our street, heading for the town square. A man wearing a skeleton costume held the reins. Next to him sat a female dwarf dressed as the Angel of the Last Judgment, playing a sad melody on an old trumpet. Attracted by their sinister looks, we ran to see the performance.

“Those trapeze artists really knew how to seduce the audience. A show that was merely jolly could never compete with Nature, which was emerging exuberantly from its winter lethargy. Between the invasion of multicolored butterflies and the blossoming of lascivious flowers, the abject levity of a few acrobats couldn’t have interested anyone. But decked out this way, gloomy and toothless, miserable remains of the glacial cold, they gave us the chance to feel healthy, well fed, and safe.

“The starving clown fighting with a rag-doll dog over a piece of kielbasa made us shriek with laughter, as did the rubber man disguised as a worm, who was making all sorts of contortions inside a coffin and threatening us in a ferocious voice that one day he’d eat us. The female dwarf unrolled a carpet in the center of the square and put a basket down on it. A thin black man, probably the one we’d seen dressed as a skeleton, decked out in a turban, a robe, puffy trousers, and slippers whose toes curled upward, all in a golden-red color, kneeled before the basket and began to play a flute that was long and had a ball at one end.

“We’d never seen human skin like that, as black and shiny as the boots the Cossacks wore. Nor had we ever heard a sound like that. It seemed like the hooting of an owl combined with the wail of a woman giving birth, plus the screech of a metal door. He spoke an incomprehensible tongue, which the dwarf lady said was Sanskrit, the magic language of Hindustan. For the first time in Russia, the illustrious public would witness the taming of a cobra, queen of venomous beasts. To encourage the Hindu prince, she asked that we generously fill her trumpet with coins.

“As we dug into our pockets and shed, with difficulty, a bit of money, the melody resounded continuously, without silences, drawing us closer to the land of dreams. When the collecting was over, the dwarf lady, causing her paper wings to chatter, opened the basket. Out came a huge serpent hissing like an angry cat. It flared its hood and struck at the black man, who expertly dodged it and intensified the undulating rhythm of the flute. The snake, like us, fell under his spell and just stood there, stiff, erect in a terrified beatitude.

“I have no idea what happened to Jaime. I still don’t understand. We were all frozen with terror, hypnotized by the Hindu and his serpent. We practically didn’t even dare to breathe. Then Jaime stepped forward into the empty circle, and with a big grin he stretched his hand out toward the cobra and began to pet its head.

“The lady dwarf tensed up, and signaled to us not to move. The animal, hearing the slightest whisper, could reassert its aggressive nature. The flautist, terror on his dark face, went on playing the same phrase again and again. Jaime kissed the serpent’s snout. Then he picked it up and, staring at it with tenderness in his eyes, delicately danced, while hugging the snake to his bosom. Since the serpent was much longer than he was, its tail dragged along the tiles of the kiosk’s floor, making a metallic sound. What it sounded like to me was the chattering of Death’s silver teeth.

“Jaime stopped opposite Benjamín and with cruel innocence offered him the snake. Benjamín was covered in sweat from head to toe, but since his brother had brought it so close that he’d actually put the serpent’s snout next to his mouth, he held back his tears and his nausea and took hold of the cold animal. ‘Dance! Dance!’ cried Jaime. Benjamín, awkward, his legs stiff, his mouth wide open, his breath short, tried a few steps. The lady dwarf made more and more signals to us not to move. Our desperate silence spread to the entire neighborhood — you couldn’t hear a cart, the birds stopped singing, the wind left the leaves still. The whine of the flute filled everything. Benjamín made slow circles, staggering like a fatally wounded bear, with the deep gaze of the cobra fixed in his eyes. A yellow liquid ran down his legs and a coffee-colored stain marked the seat of his short pants.

“Jaime pinched his nose shut and burst into laughter. The snake went mad. It began to smack its snout against Benjamín’s forehead. Transfixed by terror, he didn’t let go. Luckily, as we found out later, the cobra had no venom and no teeth. But the blows it gave as it tried to bite were as hard as a hammer. With his face lowered to avoid the pounding, Benjamín took the punishment on his skull.

“The Hindu tossed aside the flute, ran to the boy, and tried to tear the snake out of his frozen hands. The cobra, feeling strangled, tried to get free by striking harder and harder, not only with its snout but also with its tail, dangerous lashings that kept us from getting too close. The rubber man took out a knife and prepared, at great personal risk to himself and the child, to cut off the snake’s head. I didn’t know what to do. Once again, God was stealing one of my children. I began to curse Him. Lola, with a calm like Jaime’s, picked up the flute and started to play.

“Even though the cobra, as we found out later, was deaf, it instantly calmed down. Benjamín finally opened his fingers. From his hairy scalp, marked by a lattice of cuts, poured a red cascade. The Hindu brought out some powdered clay, added water, and covered Benjamín’s head with the greenish paste. The blood stopped flowing, and we all calmed down.

“Fanny was clinging to one of the black man’s legs and began to cry, saying ‘Papa!’ He took her in his arms and rocked her. She immediately fell asleep, smiling.

“The black man said to us, ‘In a former life, far off in time, I really was her father, a good king. She was a wise prince named Rahula. One day, I decided to test his filial love. I summoned two thousand soldiers, whom with a mantra I transformed into kings identical to myself. The vizier gave my son a ring and, pointing to the multitude of identical monarchs, among whom I was standing, ordered him, “Majesty, go and put this ring on the ring finger of your father’s right hand.” Without a moment’s hesitation, Rahula entered the group and came directly toward me. His true love could not be beaten by two thousand illusions.’

“The black man had a coughing fit. When he recovered, he returned Fanny to me and went on talking: ‘Now we must leave. Soon, sick as I am, I will give up the ghost. When this little girl turns seventeen, she will be my mother. But I, worn out after so many reincarnations, will only live nine months in her womb. I shall be stillborn.’

“During many mornings, Fanny would run off, go to the plaza, sit down in the center of the kiosk and start to cry, whispering ‘Papa.’ Her hair began to curl and to take on a reddish color similar to the Hindu’s costume. I had to buy Lola a wooden flute. She discovered that the only thing that interested her in life was music. When we finally removed the clay shell from Benjamín’s head, we were dismayed to see that he was completely bald. We thought he would be sad, but to the contrary, he was happy.

“‘Mama, when I grow up, I don’t want to have a single hair. I want my eyebrows and lashes to fall out, I want nothing to grow in my armpits or on my pubis, and I don’t want teeth or nails. I’ll be happy when I have no animal traces on my body.’

“The only comment Jaime made was the promise that when he grew up, he’d be a tamer of lions, tigers, panthers, and elephants in a circus.”

Teresa, with great difficulty, finished her last sentence with a long and soft “ciiircuuus” and fell asleep next to the twins. The Rabbi took that as an opportunity to show Alejandro a grandfather, father, and young son praying, wearing the black horn of the tefillin on their foreheads. Next to them a ravaged woman gave her breast to an anxious baby. Just beyond, to the right, to the left, throughout the car, men were imploring God. From each one of those genuine families, all sharing in the suffering, arose a peace bestowed by permanent contact with the Truth.

Alejandro, deeply moved, and following the Rabbi’s insistent counsel, very carefully removed the coffer from between Teresa’s breasts and replaced it with one of his shoes. Then, limping along, he went over to one of the religious Jews, opened the box, showed the contents, and whispered, “I will exchange gold coins for any kind of money.” He went about from group to group distributing his treasure and getting in return copper or nickel coins and banknotes of little value.

Weeping with gratitude, they tried to kiss the foot wearing the shoe, but he silenced the poor wretches out of fear my grandmother would awaken. He distributed the greater part of the gold, leaving only what was strictly necessary for the voyage, that is, the price of passage to the United States and the cost of living in France while waiting for the ship to sail. He checked the weight of the coffer. It was lighter now, so he put in a Bible he’d hidden away. When he pulled out his shoe, it almost burned his hands — that’s how hot Teresa’s huge breasts had made it. Then he put the jewel box back in its place.

His wife woke up a few seconds later, insulted God as was her custom, and went back to dreaming. It started to snow. It stopped snowing. It rained. The sun came out. They changed trains again and again until they lost count of the changes. Jaime and Fanny traded punches. Benjamín and Lola insulted each other. In Germany, a large number of Jews left the train. The remaining refuges were met in Paris by the Universal Israelite Alliance.

Alejandro, with deep nostalgia, watched his fellow Jews embrace and kiss, weeping with emotion, as if they’d known one another since childhood. He felt a pang in his heart when he realized he was no longer part of that family. Alone in that immense train station rocked by violent gusts of cold air, disoriented, he, his wife, their four children, the Rabbi: branches without a tree, swallows without a flock, severed hands floating in the void.

Alejandro regretted using the Holy Book to compensate for the weight the leather coffer had lost. He wanted never to move again, to become as immaterial as his friend, to sink his nose into the text and remain there, a deaf mute, reading forever. Teresa and the children, impressed by that monumental and horribly alien train station, clung to him. Where could they go without an address, without speaking a word of French? The Rabbi began to recite Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the cries of my anguish?” And suddenly an answer came.

An elegant man — with a monocle and walking stick, a fur coat, gaiters, and a top hat — mopping the perspiration from his face with a silk handkerchief, trotted up to them and said in refined Russian, “Pardon my tardiness, dear compatriots. I am the envoy of the Russian Committee, whose mission it is to guide the subjects of our noble land through the Parisian labyrinth. A free service provided by the government. Here is a list of hotels, restaurants, museums, stores, theaters, money exchanges (with all prices clearly marked).” And, kissing Teresa’s hand, he introduced himself, “Count Stanislav Spengler at your service. What is the name of the family with whom I have the honor of speaking?”

Alejandro began to cough, pursed his lips, and stared at his wife with eyes that begged for help. If he pronounced a single word, his Jewish accent would betray him. Teresa made her mouth small to imitate the aristocracy, assumed a pardoning air, and, imagining herself as a countess — that is, wearing clothes dripping diamonds, emeralds, rubies, gold medals, and spangles— burst out in a high, nasal voice:

“We are the Jodorowsky family — Alejandro, Teresa, Benjamín, Jaime, Lola, and Fanny. We’re from Odessa, honey merchants, but with noble Polish ancestors, people with lots of money!”

And moved by some obscure impulse, she extracted the coffer from her cleavage; tossed it around, making a huge sign of the cross; and then restored it to its refuge. The Count’s monocle dropped from his right eye. An embarrassed silence ensued. Jaime broke it by walking over to the train to squirt out a yellow arc that splashed among the steel wheels. In a dry voice, the envoy of the Reception Committee asked to see their official papers. He examined them carefully, smiled, and said, “Well, I’ll be frank with you. No matter how many Polish last names you may have, madam, by your manner of speaking it’s obvious you’re Israelites. I’d appreciate your not wasting my time by denying it. All we need to prove it is the penis of the boy we saw urinating.”

Teresa shot a furious glance at Jaime. Fanny and Benjamín laughed. Lola looked at them all with disdain. Alejandro could only think about the Count’s boots. He’d never seen footwear that fine, and that cruel perfection terrified him.

“You are all very lucky, because even though I’m of noble birth, I don’t harbor anti-Semitic feelings. Quite the contrary, I think of Jews as old friends. My father amused himself in the desolate winters of White Russia studying dead languages, which is why he took an interest in Hebrew. One day, he discovered that Jews kept that ancient tongue alive. From then on, a steady stream of rabbis, bankers, and Jewish doctors passed through our mansion. We received them with the respect the bearers of such a marvelous culture deserve. So don’t worry. While this makes my task more difficult — you cannot be received by our committee, which is only for Russians — I’ll put myself at your service. We will speak more comfortably in a private room in the restaurant next to the station. Come with me.”

Relieved, smiling, they followed the Count, who for his part imitated a tourist guide and gave them a thousand and one explanations of insignificant details of the great city. Then, seated opposite bowls of onion soup and a platter of fried potatoes in a discreet corner, they talked calmly. When Stanislav Spengler found out they wanted to live in the United States, he shook his hair cream — coated head from side to side, sighing in discouragement. “Because of the legend now spread all over Europe that three hundred Jewish magnates secretly dominate the world, hundreds of thousands of Israelites have been forced to flee to America. It’s almost impossible to get visas. Nevertheless, I have a good friend in that consulate, the secretary general, who can do us that favor. But it will cost a lot of money, perhaps more than you have!”

Teresa, a smile on her face, answered, “Your price is our price.” And she placed the leather coffer on the table. The Rabbi fled out the window. Alejandro’s face took on a greenish tinge. With great pride, my grandmother raised the lid.

The Count peered into the interior and said, “A Bible? Perhaps, madam, you’re confusing earthly goods with cultural treasure?” Teresa, completely wild, clutched the book in her tremulous hands, threw it to the floor, observed the filthy banknotes and copper coins, and emptied the contents of the box onto the table.

She separated the few gold coins from the miserable rest. She bellowed, staring at my grandfather, “Who did it? You or the ghost? Or was it the two of you together? What did you do with the bulk of the gold? Don’t tell me! I can guess for myself. You gave it away to that pack of mangy beggars! Oh dear, oh dear! Why did I ever marry a righteous man? A lunatic, an idiot! He protects strangers before his own family! But he’s innocent. It’s the fault of that damn book!” She picked up the Bible, ripped its pages, spit on it, threw it toward the street, and began to cry in her husband’s arms. Unable to say a word, he covered her face with kisses.

The Count, pushing around the gold coins with the corner of his monocle, counted them. “Well, we have enough for your passage and something more for the hotel. And if we pick one of the lowest quality, we might even have a little bit left over for a gift to my friend. The secretary general owes me a few favors. I’ll try to convince him to be charitable this time and to help a family with a father of such saintly generosity.” The Count dried his eyes with his silk handkerchief. “Let’s not waste time. It’s still early. We’ll go straight to the American Consulate.”

A streetcar dropped them opposite a luxurious building, where the venerable flag waved its stars and stripes. The aristocrat asked them to sit in the waiting room while he went to the offices on the second floor to speak with his friend. He went toward the stairway and stopped. He came back. “Madame Teresa, a good idea just occurred to me. I’ll tell my friend the marvelous story of your husband’s saintly generosity. Let me borrow the coffer for a minute, so I can show the secretary general the gold coins and the worthless money of the emigrants. That more than anything else will convince him. I’m sure he’ll reward Alejandro’s open-handedness with his poor racial brothers and give us the visas for nothing.” Teresa ceremoniously put the jewel box in the Count’s hands. He clicked his heels as a soldier would and, with all dignity, entered the elevator.

They waited and waited. The Count never returned. When the buzzer sounded announcing the imminent closing of the consulate, they ran up the stairs to the second floor. There were no offices, only a huge, empty salon for cocktail parties. They did see an emergency exit. They understood.

There they were, on the street, desperate, without a penny. My grandmother’s world collapsed. She kicked the luggage, sat down on the ground, closed her eyes, and said, “Take care of yourselves the best you can. I’m no longer here.”

“In that case,” observed Alejandro, “if you’re no longer present, then I’ve recovered my right to summon the Rabbi. He’ll get us out of this fix.”

“Bah! More stupidity. I’ve already told you the Rabbi doesn’t exist. It’s only your imagination.”

“Imagination or whatever it is, the Rabbi is the Rabbi. If he doesn’t come, there’s nothing I can do.”

“All right then, call that thing. I’d be surprised if he could do anything for us.”

She must have been shocked, because the Rabbi gave them the only reasonable solution: “Look for a commercial street. Examine the stores. If any one of them belongs to a Jew, you’ll certainly find some sign of our religion. Speak to them in Yiddish.” And that is exactly what they did.

Walking aimlessly along, they found a street lined with shops. On a shelf in a jewelry store, they saw a seven-armed candelabra. They walked in. Moishe Rosenthal clearly spoke Yiddish. Since Teresa hated being Jewish again, she pretended to be mute. Alejandro only told part of his miseries and, ashamed, finished the tale with lies. Disguised as goyim, they’d fled a pogrom, and now they were lost in Paris, with no money, with no idea what to do, and hungry, especially the children.

The first thing Moishe did was feed them in the kitchen behind the shop. Then he left his wife in charge of the jewelry store and accompanied them to the Jewish neighborhood. After offering them a little money, which Alejandro accepted, kissing Moishe’s hands, he presented them in the offices of the Comité de Bienfaisance Israélite, founded in 1809. There they were treated with maternal care. They were housed for two days in a modest but clean and Kosher boarding house. From there they were sent on to Marseille, where they were put, along with other refugees, on a ship sailing for South America. They were given the only visas anyone could get — Chilean. Teresa knew nothing about Chile, but she was sure that in such a country, located at the end of the world, the citizens did not live in palaces and did not have gold-plated teeth.