Henna House (37 page)

*  *  *

What was happening?

It was not the first time that the Jews of Aden were attacked, nor would it be the last. This time the origin of the pogrom would be traced to a poorly thrown stone down at the docks. The Adeni Jews were among the greatest scribes and scholars in history. Throughout the ages, the Adeni sages had kept up-to-date on the intellectual outpouring of European scholarship by posting scouts to stand in the harbor and wait for ships to come from Germany or France. When a ship in Crater harbor arrived bearing Jewish merchants en route to India, the scribes of Aden would borrow the scholarly texts and copy them while the ship was in harbor. The rabbis of Europe often asked the wealthy Jewish merchants to carry texts to and from Arabian ports. In this way, the
Jews of Aden not only amassed great libraries, and felt the breath of the sages on their faces, but also sent their own scholarship west, ensuring an intermingling of ideas in communities otherwise distant.

Although it had been many centuries since the great Rashi's commentaries on the Talmud were acquired from passing boats, the illustrious scribal houses of Aden still kept up the tradition of sending a novice to wait at the harbor for the arrival of ships from the West. Especially those ships known to be carrying Jewish merchants. And so that is how all the trouble began. A novice scribe named Selah Bir Ami had been waiting in the sun at the docks of Crater Harbor. He had been there since morning prayers and he was hungry. Selah Bir Ami had no money to purchase a crusty roll or a piece of fruit, and was doomed to wait until his replacement came—and the boy was not expected until long after lunch. A ship was due to come in from France, and the last time a ship had come in, a rival scribal house had had an apprentice there, and they had been the ones to copy the Responsa of the Great Chatam Sofer. On the passenger manifest of this ship was none other than a Mr. August Lohn, whose library was among the most important of Bavaria. Supposedly, he had brought with him a copy of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch's commentary on the Bible—with the generous understanding that he would leave it in Aden and pick it up on the way home, after his sojourn in Bombay. But Selah Bir Ami was bored. He had been at the docks four hours already. He was hot and thirsty. He began throwing stones. This is a well-known fact—for an Australian botanist who came off a ship from Socotra saw him. According to the botanist, Selah picked up a handful of pebbles and threw them at the gulls fishing in the shallows. But one of those stones accidentally landed near a group of three young Arab men mending sails on the beach. No one actually saw Selah Bir Ami hit one of the Muslims in the eye, and no one treated the young man for an injury, but there is little doubt that the stone-throwing ignited the incident. The botanist watched aghast as the three Muslim dockworkers charged the boy, knocked him off the pillar, and beat him to death in the sand, bashing in his skull with a big rock. Their unchecked fury was contagious, and it spread through the harbor like a kerosene fire.

*  *  *

Hani and David's house was the closest. When we reached their door and pounded, Hani opened it, grabbed me, and pulled me in. When she
saw I wasn't alone, she urged Binyamin to follow us over the threshold. He refused. “I must make my way back to my barracks,” he insisted.

“But Binyamin,” I protested, “it's not safe!”

He shook his head and motioned to the lapels of his British army uniform. “My uniform will keep me safe from the thugs.”

He turned on his heels and departed. Hani bolted the door behind him. She was pale, shaking.

“Where were you, Adela? Down by the docks? I feared for your life! Thank Elohim you are safe. But who was that? How do you know him?”

“He was my friend, Hani, my old friend Binyamin Bashari from Qaraah.”

“Ah,” she remembered, “the boy from the cave, all dressed up like a Brit. But enough prattling. It's not safe down here.” I followed Hani upstairs to the roof, where the family had sought refuge. Little Mara was already there, sitting on Nogema's lap. Nogema and her sons were there too, three little boys. But her husband—the British Petroleum man—was at work in the refinery.

The riots lasted for three terrible days. We later learned that in addition to Selah Bir Ami, three other Jews had been killed that morning. The mob slit the throat of a butcher with his own knife. A lampmaker was trampled and died in the Prince of Wales Hospital, and a young jeweler was shot defending his shop from looters. And of course there was that poor little British boy. By nightfall thirty additional Adeni Jews had been injured. Two more succumbed to their injuries the next day. Seven Jewish houses were burned, twenty market stalls ravaged. I joined Hani and Nogema and her boys in the center of the roof, but every so often I went to the edge and looked down at the mayhem below.

From her roof across the street, Hamama yelled to us. She was frantic for her husband. He had been at his stall when the riot started. Was he okay? Was he even alive? We had no way of knowing. Hani shushed her. “We must be quiet,” she said. “We must not let them know we are up here.” I looked about—all around us the roofs had filled with Jews like us, taking refuge. When I think back to that day, I see us as shipwreck survivors. The roofs were our rafts, the streets a shark-infested ocean, our prayers the gentle waves that buoyed us aloft until the storm had passed.

Thank Elohim, the rest of our family was safe. My sisters-in-law and their children all escaped unscathed. My brother Menachem's nose was
broken and Nogema's husband was bashed in the head with a club, but he recovered. Uncle Barhun and Mr. Haza were safe in their warehouse. Aunt Rahel had taken refuge with a neighbor. Hani's husband, David, and his fellow students took shelter on the roof of a nearby mosque—the cleric had opened his door to so many Jews that day that ever after he was known as “righteous Absalom.” He never paid for a pair of shoes, a tailored djellaba, or a basket of fruit again—that is, until the Jews left Aden forever. We didn't come down from the roof until the next morning. The Aden Protectorate Levies were sent to restore order, but not before the riots had mostly died out.

Years later, when the Muslims of Aden rioted again and the Jewish community of Aden was viciously and irreparably attacked—leaving eighty souls dead, scores wounded—people would remember the earlier catastrophe. They would say, “It is just like when that boy was throwing rocks at birds.”

I would remember too. I would remember how Binyamin Bashari had pressed me into the alley wall, and how I struggled against him until I realized who he was. I would remember how in our fear, the alley became a kind of cave, a sister to my mountain aerie, holding us in the cupped hand of kindness until we garnered the courage to emerge.

*  *  *

Binyamin came to visit me a week after the riots. We sat in my aunt and uncle's parlor. Remelia darned socks across the room. We were quiet together for a long time. As a boy Binyamin never had many words, but now I could see he was full to the brim with them. He needed to speak, but it was hard for him.

He opened his mouth, shut it again. More silence. And then finally he spoke.

“That day . . . that day I came to say good-bye to you in your cave . . . I didn't want to leave home without saying good-bye.”

“I know. And I have always regretted that we never really took leave of each other. Hani . . . Hani got in the way, didn't she?”

Binyamin shook his head.

“Your wife?” I said softly. “How does she fare?”

“My wife died giving birth to her first child. The child died too, two years ago in Sana'a.”

“May you be comforted amongst the mourners of Zion.”

He nodded his thanks at my recitation of the ritual words. Then he confessed to me that although he mourned for the child, he had not loved his wife. That from the very beginning she belittled him for being unsophisticated, for coming from a mountain village. She had eyes only for a neighbor, a jeweler—and Binyamin suspected that the baby she had carried wasn't even his own. He was ashamed of these dark confidences and he spoke looking down, his cheeks under his beard flushed in the moonlight.

“I am so sorry for your sorrows, my friend,” I murmured, then added, “What a lucky coincidence that we are now both in Aden together. Now tell me, why are you in a British uniform?”

He didn't answer and seemed suddenly very self-conscious, fingering the top button of his uniform and then adjusting his cap. That's when I noticed that he had cut off his earlocks. Before this, I had assumed they were hidden under his cap, but now I saw that they weren't there at all. All boys and men from the Kingdom had long earlocks, but some Adeni Jews didn't. My brothers still wore theirs, as did Uncle Barhun. I took a good look at Binyamin. Without his earlocks he looked bolder, and freer, as if someone had filled in his features with more vivid strokes and colors.

When he finally spoke he said, “I am sorry for
your
losses. You lost both mother and father in such a short time.”

I nodded. “Elohim spared them the long journey south.”

“And your cousin, did he, did he ever . . .”

“Come back for me?”

“You aren't wearing a ring . . . or a lafeh cloth. . . .”

I blushed that he had noticed these things about me. Now it was my turn to look down at my feet. I heard my own voice, as if from far away, and for the first time since coming to Aden I heard myself speak the truth about Asaf. “I wait for Asaf every day down by Crater Harbor, but he never comes for me. Who knows, maybe when the Messiah comes to Aden I will be very forward, and I will ask if He has seen my intended in some other corner of the world. But no, I don't want to talk about Asaf Damari. Tell me why you are here. And why are you in that important uniform?”

He patted his lapels and broke into a wide smile. “I am in the service of a British major who has a fondness for the traditions of the East. He found me in Sana'a and brought me to Aden. I am part of a troop of
Yemeni musicians in a little ceremonial unit that performs for visiting dignitaries. Would you believe I played my khallool for the Prince of Wales's cousin?”

We sat for a little while in silence. Then Binyamin took out a handkerchief and wiped his sweaty brow. He explained that he had been down at the docks on an errand for his major when the violence broke out. He was running to get out of the way of the mob when he saw me. “I called your name first, but you didn't hear me. I wasn't even sure it was you. You forgive me, don't you? For pushing you into the alley like that.”

“I forgive you, Binyamin Bashari. If you'll forgive me for ruining your face.”

He reached up and patted the sore spot on his face. “Ruined? Is it that horrible?”

We were sitting quite close together, and I shifted slightly away, but then I broke custom and leaned back toward him. I reached up to pat the red streaks on his face where I had raked my nails. I touched him softly, and murmured, “No, not horrible at all.”

T
wo weeks after the riots, Binyamin Bashari came for Sabbath dinner at my aunt and uncle's house. The riots had cast a pall over the Jews of Crater, but I was not gloomy at all. In fact, I found myself walking with a little bounce in my step. It was Aunt Rahel who urged Uncle Barhun to invite “the young gentleman from Qaraah.” At dinner, Uncle Barhun peppered Binyamin with questions.

“Does your major meet with Mr. Ah-Tabib of the Zionist committee? And is he encouraging regarding the refugee situation?” My uncle had recently become involved with the Committee for Jewish Settlement in Palestine. Uncle Barhun made up his mind to either like or dislike the British officers in Aden depending on their views on the subject. He had even refused to do business with an officer who was heard saying that the refugee problem could be settled quickly and efficiently by having the Jews sent to settle the Red Sea Islands—barren, waterless chunks of black stone. We knew that there were British officers who scorned us Jews and would just as soon see us tumbled into the sea. But there were also those who looked sympathetically on the plight of the Jews of Yemen, and saw themselves as having a rare historical and geographical opportunity to help us escape the grip of the Imam and the drought and poverty of the north by aiding in our efforts to go to Palestine, where at least our fate would be of our own making.

Binyamin reassured my uncle that his major was sympathetic to the plight of the Jews, then steered the conversation to other subjects—the decommissioning of the lighthouse on Perim Island, a triple murder among the camel drivers who brought firewood into Aden, and finally, the impending visit to Aden by a cousin of the King of Sweden. After grace, Binyamin took his leave of us, promising my aunt that he would come back to share our table. He was true to his word, and was the
perfect suitor. When he came to court me he blushed and mangled his words, he cracked his knuckles, and acted in all ways uncomfortable and desperately in love. But in private, in those tiny moments when we had a cushioned alcove to ourselves, with only a cousin or a sister-in-law minding her own business on the other side of the room, he wasn't any of these things. He was confident, kind, and full of all the words he didn't have as a boy. He looked me in the eye and said that he wanted to move to Palestine. That he longed for a home he had never known. That the Torah he had learned as a boy seemed like a road map to him, and his heart was the compass, pointing to Jerusalem. He told me that he had a recurring dream in which he was walking through a city of golden stones, holding a big ring of keys.

“And where do the keys let you enter?”

He shrugged. “It's a mystery. But in the dream I'm not bothered by it. I walk with curiosity and confidence down a street named for the Angels of Redemption, under an arch, around twisty corners, past bakeries and shoe shops and spice stalls. I turn right and left and right again. As if I know where to go.”