depart.
WHERE ARE YOU GOING?
I am going. This place, this city, has ended for me.”
“Where are you going?”
“I only know that I am going.”
JOSÉ MARÍA
Priest, son of a priest, I come to the end of the road. And I repent. Of what? Of not having been a good Christian. Of not having been a good Jew. Of not having accepted the destiny of my people. What do I repent of? Paco, my son, look at the name you also took on becoming a priest. Without knowing that your father is the son of “Marranos.” A thousand times I have said that it is over, that the obligations have ended, the debts, the sacrifices. I tried to be a good Christian but I saw my mother in my dreams, looking at me and crying, and when I ask her why, she is crying, she cries even more, and every time I say something she cries even harder. So I learned that when the dream appears, I simply have to stay seated in silence in front of her. She never stopped crying.
And if you were to ask me who will pray the Kaddish at my tomb? Worse yet, who will pray the Kaddish at my tomb? That is what I ask myself what I ask you, even though you are not at home, It frightens me that you will hear what I say, It frightens me that you know I am a convert, even knowing that you know it we both know it, but one doesn’t talk about that. How many priests have children? Only among the converts can there be three generations of priests. But if I don’t talk about this to you now, when will I do it? At least there is something good in that you are a priest. And that is that you won’t father more Christians. That you won’t have descendants. That with you the Christian line of the family ends. The shame ends with you. Others will continue on, others in other countries. Now I need warm contact with a woman, your mother. She died thirty years ago and I haven’t again had contact with a woman. I only gave myself hand-jobs. Like today, the old masturbator, priest who remembers his wife and expects an erection, the last one, the greatest one, at the moment of his death, with the one which no woman could enjoy. I have seen them confessing before me of the adulteries and fornications but at the moment of death, as though wishing to cling to one last moment of pleasure see the enormous erection as though to say I have won, I have beaten all the laws of all the gods and I have fornicated without end or without principles, I have died but I still hold up, I hold up with what I have. After an erection like that, who will pray Kaddish for me?
I remember, I remember my brother at age six. He went to Lisbon with an uncle. I was too old. Many years have gone by but only I only remember from when he was six, surely he has a son who knows how to recite the Kaddish at his tomb. Or maybe he died on the voyage. And now we are here in Vinaroz, at the end of this world, fleeing from the big city so I won’t be recognized, a priest for the simple people, Here at the end of the world, but my soul has no rest for me.
I cry and keep crying. Who will pray the Kaddish for me?
MIMÓN
I have to close the pharmacy and emigrate to Israel. Since Independence, Tangier is no longer what it was, there are increasingly more Moors with no money to buy medicine. Yesterday the cousins from Tetuán came, the Benarroch. The one who is my namesake comes frequently. He’s at the point of marrying the daughter of the Chocróns. He gave me an invitation so we’ll go to the wedding.
Here the strangest people are a group of Americans who come to buy all kinds of unusual medicines and hallucinogens. I think they’re all homosexuals and writers. The youngest is called Jack Kerouac or something like that, He speaks a bit of French with a strange accent. He is convinced that he will write the best books in the world. The oldest one is a Bowles. His wife also seems a little strange. One day I saw her in the alley hugging a Moor. There is a Williams who does heroin although I don’t sell it without a prescription,
WHERE ARE YOU GOING?
I am going. This place, this city, has ended for me.”
“Where are you going?”
“I only know that I am going.”
JOSÉ MARÍA
Priest, son of a priest, I come to the end of the road. And I repent. Of what? Of not having been a good Christian. Of not having been a good Jew. Of not having accepted the destiny of my people. What do I repent of? Paco, my son, look at the name you also took on becoming a priest. Without knowing that your father is the son of “Marranos.” A thousand times I have said that it is over, that the obligations have ended, the debts, the sacrifices. I tried to be a good Christian but I saw my mother in my dreams, looking at me and crying, and when I ask her why, she is crying, she cries even more, and every time I say something she cries even harder. So I learned that when the dream appears, I simply have to stay seated in silence in front of her. She never stopped crying.
And if you were to ask me who will pray the Kaddish at my tomb? Worse yet, who will pray the Kaddish at my tomb? That is what I ask myself what I ask you, even though you are not at home, It frightens me that you will hear what I say, It frightens me that you know I am a convert, even knowing that you know it we both know it, but one doesn’t talk about that. How many priests have children? Only among the converts can there be three generations of priests. But if I don’t talk about this to you now, when will I do it? At least there is something good in that you are a priest. And that is that you won’t father more Christians. That you won’t have descendants. That with you the Christian line of the family ends. The shame ends with you. Others will continue on, others in other countries. Now I need warm contact with a woman, your mother. She died thirty years ago and I haven’t again had contact with a woman. I only gave myself hand-jobs. Like today, the old masturbator, priest who remembers his wife and expects an erection, the last one, the greatest one, at the moment of his death, with the one which no woman could enjoy. I have seen them confessing before me of the adulteries and fornications but at the moment of death, as though wishing to cling to one last moment of pleasure see the enormous erection as though to say I have won, I have beaten all the laws of all the gods and I have fornicated without end or without principles, I have died but I still hold up, I hold up with what I have. After an erection like that, who will pray Kaddish for me?
I remember, I remember my brother at age six. He went to Lisbon with an uncle. I was too old. Many years have gone by but only I only remember from when he was six, surely he has a son who knows how to recite the Kaddish at his tomb. Or maybe he died on the voyage. And now we are here in Vinaroz, at the end of this world, fleeing from the big city so I won’t be recognized, a priest for the simple people, Here at the end of the world, but my soul has no rest for me.
I cry and keep crying. Who will pray the Kaddish for me?
MIMÓN
I have to close the pharmacy and emigrate to Israel. Since Independence, Tangier is no longer what it was, there are increasingly more Moors with no money to buy medicine. Yesterday the cousins from Tetuán came, the Benarroch. The one who is my namesake comes frequently. He’s at the point of marrying the daughter of the Chocróns. He gave me an invitation so we’ll go to the wedding.
Here the strangest people are a group of Americans who come to buy all kinds of unusual medicines and hallucinogens. I think they’re all homosexuals and writers. The youngest is called Jack Kerouac or something like that, He speaks a bit of French with a strange accent. He is convinced that he will write the best books in the world. The oldest one is a Bowles. His wife also seems a little strange. One day I saw her in the alley hugging a Moor. There is a Williams who does heroin although I don’t sell it without a prescription,
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