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Summary
Summary
Joseph, a literature student at Berkeley, is the son of a Jewish mother and a Muslim father. One day, a mysterious package arrives on his doorstep, pulling him into a mesmerizing adventure to uncover the tangled history that binds the two sides of his family. For generations, the men of the al-Raqb family have served as watchmen of the storied Ibn Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo, built at the site where the infant Moses was taken from the Nile. Joseph learns of his ancestor Ali, a Muslim orphan who nearly a thousand years earlier was entrusted as the first watchman of the synagogue and became enchanted by its legendary-perhaps magical-Ezra Scroll. The story of Joseph's family is entwined with that of the British twin sisters Agnes and Margaret, who in 1897 depart their hallowed Cambridge halls on a mission to rescue sacred texts that have begun to disappear from the synagogue.
The Last Watchman of Old Cairo is a moving page-turner of a novel from acclaimed storyteller Michael David Lukas. This tightly woven multigenerational tale illuminates the tensions that have torn communities apart and the unlikely forces-potent magic, forbidden love-that boldly attempt to bridge that divide.
Praise for The Last Watchman of Old Cairo
"A beautiful, richly textured novel, ambitious and delicately crafted, The Last Watchman of Old Cairo is both a coming-of-age story and a family history, a wide-ranging book about fathers and sons, religion, magic, love, and the essence of storytelling. This book is a joy." -Rabih Alameddine, author of the National Book Award finalist An Unnecessary Woman
Author Notes
Michael David Lukas is the author of the internationally bestselling novel The Oracle of Stamboul, which was a finalist for the California Book Award, the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association Book of the Year Award, and the Harold U. Ribalow Prize and has been published in fifteen languages. He has been a Fulbright Scholar in Turkey, a student at the American University of Cairo, and a night-shift proofreader in Tel Aviv. A graduate of Brown University, he has received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal . He lives in Oakland, California.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this evocative novel, Lukas takes readers to Cairo at three different points in its history. One thousand years ago, Ali ibn al-Marwani, a Muslim orphan, becomes the night watchman at the Ibn Ezra Synagogue. In 1897, English twin sisters, Agnes Lewis and Margaret Gibson, arrive in Cairo to assist Cambridge scholar Solomon Schechter in acquiring the ancient scrolls held in the synagogue's storage area. And in the present, Joseph, a Berkeley graduate student who is half-Jewish, half-Muslim, receives a mysterious package from his recently deceased father, which sends him to Cairo to unravel the secret behind the unusual bequest. What binds all three stories is the legendary 2,000-year-old Ezra scroll, purported to be the most perfect Torah scroll ever created and supposedly stored at the synagogue. Over the centuries, Ali finds that love and duty don't mix, Agnes and Margaret traverse a bureaucratic labyrinth to arrive at the Jewish Holy of Holies, and Joseph goes from clue to clue to unlock his father's past and his own future. Like a contemporary Lawrence Durrell, Lukas (The Oracle of Stamboul) turns the Egyptian city into a tantalizingly seductive place of mystery. And although the story is dramatically diffuse, it is redeemed by the author's vision of a more hopeful world where Jews and Muslims come together over a shared cultural heritage. Agent: Nicole Aragi, Aragi Inc. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Lukas' (The Oracle of Stamboul, 2011) lyrical novel draws readers into a classic tale of family secrets, forbidden love, and religious rivalry that spans generations. When Joseph, the son of the doomed union between a Jewish mother and a Muslim father, receives a mysterious package after his father's death, he travels to Cairo to unravel the tangled history of his family, a history that reflects, in many ways, the centuries-old conflicts plaguing the Middle East. Though generations of al-Raqb men were charged with guarding the Ibn-Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo, it takes a journey into the past for Joseph to understand their unflagging commitment. The initially parallel stories of Joseph's voyage of self-discovery and the 1897 quest of British twin sisters and scholars Agnes Lewis and Margaret Gibson to rescue the synagogue's endangered sacred scrolls intersect at a crucial juncture as family legends unfurl, coalesce, and enlighten.--Flanagan, Margaret Copyright 2018 Booklist
Kirkus Review
An American student with a Jewish mother and Muslim father explores his family's tangled roots in the history of Cairo's ancient synagogue.When he receives the bequest of an ancient document fragment after the death of his Egyptian father, Berkeley grad student Joseph al-Raqb embarks on a search to discover its provenance. His journey unfolds, for the most part, in an extended visit to Cairo, where he learns more details of his family's nearly 1,000 years of continuous service as night watchmen for the city's Ibn Ezra Synagogue. In a dusty attic space, the synagogue once contained a geniza, a storeroom filled with hundreds of years of discarded documents, from records of mundane commercial transactions and routine legal disputes to sacred texts. It was a treasure trove that shed light on a broad swath of life in Cairo's once-thriving Jewish community. Blending his fictional creations with real charactersincluding Rabbi Solomon Schechter, the scholar who persuaded the leaders of the remnant of the Cairo Jewish community and Egyptian authorities to allow him to export a substantial portion of the contents of the geniza to Cambridge University in 1897, where most of it remains to this day, and Agnes Lewis and Margaret Gibson, the British Presbyterian twins and antiquarians who inspired his effortLukas creates a thoroughly credible mystery, centering on the whereabouts of an apocryphal text of the Torah known as the Ezra Scroll, without sacrificing any of the complexity and subtlety of a work of character-centered literary fiction. In Joseph's voice, Lukas (The Oracle of Stamboul, 2011) also reveals, through quietly moving scenes, the challenges of identity posed by the ambiguity of his protagonist's own heritage, as the son of a Muslim father and a Jewish mother who never married each other. And in his exploration of some 10 centuries of Cairo's history, including times when the city's Jews and Muslims lived side by side in relative harmony, Lukas at least hints that another era of peaceful coexistence is not beyond imagining.An appealing family drama illuminates the fascinating story of a famous repository of Jewish documents, the Cairo Geniza. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
A package arrives at Joseph's apartment in Berkeley three months after his father's death in Cairo, unleashing a torrent of memories from his youthful visit to Egypt, including his father's fantastical tale of a perfect Torah, the mystical Ezra Scroll, protected by Muslim men for over 1,000 years. Drawing on the true story of the Geniza documents uncovered in the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo, California Book Award finalist Lukas (The Oracle of Stamboul) entrances readers with an account that spans generations, beginning with Ali al Raqb, a Muslim orphan trusted by rabbinical leaders to be the first watchman of the temple and its contents, a sacred duty accepted by Ali's descendants down to Joseph's father. We meet the adventurous scholars Agnes Lewis and Margaret Gibson, twin sisters who traveled to Cairo in 1897 on a quest to search the synagogue's attic storeroom for the ancient scroll. With their friend Solomon Schechter and help from another al Raqb watchman, they ultimately forward trunks full of valuable papers to Cambridge University for safekeeping. VERDICT Lukas enlivens a fascinating epoch when Jews and Muslims bridged cultural divides for a common cause. Part mystery, part character study, yet historically accurate, this book should appeal to a broad swath of readers. [See Prepub Alert, 10/5/17.]-Sally Bissell, formerly with Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Fort Myers, FL © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
1 A long, long time ago, before Mubarak and the revolution, before Sadat and Begin, before Nasser, the Free Officers, and the Suez Crisis, before the Suez Canal, before Herzl, before Dreyfus, before Solomon Schechter and the Cambridge University Library, before Ismail Pasha and Muhammad Ali Pasha, before the British, the French, the Ottomans, the Mamluks, and the Ayyubids, before the Great Plague and Saladin, before Maimonides the great sage--may his memory be a blessing--our story begins before all this, in the reign of al-Mustansir, when Cairo was still two cities and the Jews but a tribe among them. It was late summer in the forty-eight-hundredth year of creation, four centuries after Muhammad's migration to Medina and more than a thousand years after the birth of Jesus. The Nile had crested a few days earlier, and its entire shallow valley shone with damp brilliance. Beneath the purple silhouetted swoop of storks, the clang of an eager blacksmith mingled with the call to prayer and the smell of baking bread. That particular morning there was another smell too, something sharp and unfamiliar at first. No one could put a name to it until, bleary-eyed and still warm from bed, they stepped out into the day and saw that neat black thread of smoke rising from the Ibn Ezra Synagogue. Before long a crowd gathered in the courtyard of the synagogue: women and children, dyers and glassblowers, pharmacists, money changers, and fishermen. For most, this was their first glimpse of the newly reconstructed synagogue. Still unfinished, still unconsecrated by prayer, and already this beautiful new building was blackened by fire. It was a terrible thing, and yet it could have been worse. Apart from the smell of smoke in the prayer hall, the damage was limited to a shadow of soot beneath the scaffolding where the fire had started. Who would do such a thing? Some more hopeful members of the crowd thought they saw signs of an accident, a stray coal or a clumsy housewife. Others insisted that the fire would turn out to be the work of petty vandals. And then there were those who regarded it as something more sinister, a reminder and portent of things to come, not that anyone needed reminding. Who could forget the reign of al-Hakim the Horrible? Who did not shiver to think of that sister-loving false prophet who had destroyed nearly a dozen synagogues and churches, including the original Ibn Ezra? Who could forget that hateful despot who had gone so far as to outlaw molokhia, the leafy green vegetable also known as Jew's mallow? He was gone now, al-Hakim, dead for nearly twenty years, and the current caliph, al-Mustansir, had proven himself to be a friend of the Jews. Still, one never knew. This discussion about the cause of the fire went on for some time. And all the while, Ali ibn al-Marwani was standing at the edge of the courtyard, waiting for the right moment to step forward. Fingering the sleeve of his robe, he tried to recall what he had been told to say, whom he was supposed to seek out. But in the effort to remember the directions to the synagogue--a right at the old palace, a left at the Abu Serga Church--he had forgotten what he was supposed to do when he got there. Eventually, as the crowd was beginning to disperse, someone noticed him. All at once, he felt the balance of attention shift. They were talking about him--an unfamiliar boy, thin cotton robe and cheap sandals, no older than thirteen--and as the murmur of insinuation collected to a boil, a circle formed around him. For a moment, Ali was alone in the middle of the courtyard. Then a young man stepped forward and grabbed him by the scruff of his robe. "Did you do this?" the young man demanded, forcing Ali's gaze toward the remnants of the fire. Ali opened his mouth, but he was not able to speak. "It is said that a thief returns to the scene of his crime," the young man continued. "Could not the same be said for our arsonist?" There was a buzz of agreement followed by a few muttered calls for revenge. "Why does he not respond? Why did he not announce himself? What is his business with us?" The young man paused and looked out over the crowd as if expecting an answer. Instead, the silence was punctured by the sound of an older man clearing his throat. "Shemarya the Pious," someone said and everyone stepped aside, making way for a hunched man with a mane of white hair tangled in his beard. When he got to the center of the circle, he addressed himself to the young man, who was still holding Ali by the scruff of his robe. "Amram," he said. "Is it not written that we should judge everyone from his most favorable side?" "Yes, Father, but would you not--" "Release him," Shemarya the Pious said, then turned to Ali. He did not smile, but his eyes crinkled with compassion. "Tell us your business here, my child." There was a long silence before Ali could bring himself to speak. "I have a message from Abu Saad," he said finally. The crowd grew ever more silent as Ali produced a note from the sleeve of his galabiya. Abu Saad was chief adviser to the caliph and the Jews' most important ally inside the palace. Correspondence from Abu Saad was always important, but on this day of uncertainty the Jews of Fustat were particularly eager for his reassurance. "You are not Abu Saad's usual messenger," Shemarya the Pious observed. "What is your name, my child?" "Ali ibn al-Marwani." "You are Muslim." Ali nodded. "And your father's profession?" "He was a water carrier, but he died before I was born. I live with my mother's brother near Bab Zuwayla." "May God protect the orphans," Shemarya the Pious said, and a murmur of assent rippled through the crowd. Once Ali's business, name, faith, and patrimony were established, Shemarya the Pious unfolded Abu Saad's note and read through it twice. He closed his eyes for a moment to think; then he pulled a reed pen from his pocket, requested a bit of ink, and composed a reply on the reverse. "This is for Abu Saad," he said, handing the note back to Ali. "You must not give it to anyone else. Do you understand?" "Yes," Ali said, and he returned the note to the folds of his sleeve. Shemarya the Pious concluded the exchange by addressing himself to the assembled crowd, though his words were clearly intended for his son Amram. "We should not stoop to unfounded accusations, especially not today. There is too much work to be done." While the Jews of Fustat scrubbed soot off the light-gray stones of their synagogue, Ali ran back to Qahira with the message for Abu Saad. Through the jumbled crowd of pack animals outside Bab Zuwayla, past his uncle's house, past the market of the coppersmiths and the students congregated around al-Azhar, darting between food vendors, camels, magicians, and slaves, he cut across the market of the money changers and made his way around to the back entrance of Abu Saad's palace. Larger than all but the most magnificent of mosques, the residence of Abu Saad was one of the grandest buildings in all of Qahira, its outer walls decorated with turquoise banners and a thick band of calligraphy carved so intricately that the letters looked like a nest of snakes. Earlier that morning Abu Saad's usual messenger--Ali's neighbor--had lifted his head from his sickbed to describe the palace's back entrance, a tall cedar door at the end of an unremarkable side street, home to a butcher, a knife sharpener, and a few unscrupulous-looking money changers. Approaching the entrance for the second time that morning, Ali caught his breath, stepped up to the door, and knocked. He waited for some time before knocking again, louder this time. As he did, the door swung open to reveal an enormous guard wearing a white linen robe trimmed with turquoise of the same shade as the banners hanging outside. This guard was much more imposing than the one Ali had spoken with earlier that morning, and much uglier. "What do you want?" "I have a message for Abu Saad, from Shemarya the Pious." The guard stuck out his hand and Ali took a small step backward. "Shemarya said I must not give the message to anyone but Abu Saad himself." "To you, I am the same as Abu Saad." Ali stared at the guard's meaty palm and felt the sun on the base of his neck. As he tightened his grip on the note, a drop of sweat slid down the valley of his spine. "Shemarya said I must not give the message to anyone but Abu Saad himself," Ali said again. It was a bold request, but he had his instructions and he intended to follow them. "Abu Saad himself," the guard growled. A few moments later, Ali found himself standing less than an arm's length from Abu Saad, the chief adviser to the caliph. He was a short man with an enormous stomach, and he wore a fine purple silk caftan embroidered on the collar with white and turquoise flowers. He introduced himself, took the note from Ali's outstretched hand, and returned several minutes later with a tightly folded piece of vellum. "The note is for Shemarya the Pious," he said. "And this is for you." A servant stepped forward and presented Ali with a silver cup, filled to the brim with a deep-red liquid. "Pomegranate juice," Abu Saad explained, noticing Ali's hesitation. "In appreciation of your discretion. May it give you strength." Over the course of the day, Ali ran seven times back and forth between Fustat and Qahira. Dodging donkey carts, refuse, and stray dogs, he delivered dozens of messages from the Jews of Fustat to their coreligionists, business partners, and other supporters throughout the city. Ali carried notes to tradesmen, qadis, merchants, and priests. Cutting through rank back alleys slick with sewage, squirming under locked gates, and sneaking across the shaded courtyards of great mansions, he delivered messages to the Hanging Church, the market of the glassblowers, the Garden of Kafur, and the secret inner sanctums of al-Azhar. In one day, Ali saw more of his native city than he had seen in his entire life. All day, Ali performed his duties with the utmost discretion and care. He always announced himself forthwith, never lingered or made inappropriate eye contact, and never once considered opening any of the notes he was carrying. Then, at the end of the day, as he ran back to Fustat with a final note from Abu Saad, Ali tripped over an exposed root and cut his hand on a pebble. He didn't notice the wound at first, but when he pulled Abu Saad's note from his sleeve, he saw that the top edge of it was smeared with red. "I'm sorry," he mumbled to Shemarya the Pious, mortified by the sight of this elegant paper stained with his own sticky blood. Sinking into a dim corner of the courtyard, Ali watched the note pass among the council that governed the affairs of the Jewish community, from Shemarya to his sons, Amram and Ephraim, to a Tunisian spice merchant known as Ibn Kammuna, then on to Doctor Mevorakh, the scribe, the head cantor, and finally to al-Zikri, a barber who also served as guardian of the synagogue. Ali held his breath, bracing himself for their censure, but none of the men seemed to notice the bloodstain. They were more interested in the message itself. While the council deliberated, speaking in hushed but urgent voices, Ali relaxed and let his gaze wander along the façade of the newly reconstructed synagogue. Aside from the subtle stonework just below the roof, the building's only exterior decoration was the main entrance, two heavy wooden slabs adorned with the image of a grapevine twisting around four large Hebrew letters arranged in a square. Lost in his inspection of the mysterious script, Ali did not notice that a silence had fallen over the council. When he glanced up, he saw that the men were all looking at him. "We have a proposal," said Shemarya the Pious. "We have decided," Ephraim ibn Shemarya continued, "that it would be beneficial to employ a night watchman for the synagogue. We have al-Zikri, of course, but he cannot be responsible for watching the building day and night." "Since you have proven yourself to be trustworthy and discreet," Ibn Kammuna said, "we would like to offer you the position. In addition to three dinars a month, you would be free to live in the old schoolroom at the other end of the courtyard." "I imagine it should suffice for your purposes," al-Zikri added as he motioned toward the small structure, "and with a fresh coat of paint it will be very hospitable." "Thank you," Ali said, unsure how else to respond. Three dinars was more than he made in six months as a water carrier, and the schoolroom was larger than the house he currently shared with his uncle's family. It was an unexpected and generous offer, a stroke of good fortune, but Ali had learned to be distrustful of fate and, although the Jews had treated him well, he knew nothing of them or their practices. While he could not see anything wrong with the offer, he was not ready to accept the position outright. Naturally, the Jews of Fustat understood such caution. It was to be expected, valued even, and only confirmed the good sense of Abu Saad's suggestion. "There is no need to make your decision now," said Doctor Mevorakh. "Sleep will be your best counsel." There was a murmur of agreement, and it was decided that Ali should send word the next morning with his answer. Ali stayed up late that night, staring at the mud walls of the storage room where he slept. He wanted very much to leave his uncle Rashid and aunt Fatimah's house. Although he was fond of his cousin Fawziyah and would always be indebted to the family that had raised him, life in his uncle's house had been quite difficult for some time now. A few years earlier, an errant donkey kick had crippled his uncle's right hand, leaving him unable to practice his trade as a blacksmith. The family became dependent on charity, and Ali was forced to work as a water carrier. Meanwhile, Uncle Rashid had grown increasingly bitter. He spent most of his days at the neighborhood café, chewing seeds, drinking palm wine, and gambling away any money he was able to obtain. The Jews' offer seemed like the perfect solution to Ali's problems. Even so, he was wary. He didn't know if he could trust them--he didn't know anything about them, really--and either way, he wasn't certain how his uncle would react. Following the night shadows across the ceiling of the storage room, Ali prepared a long list of answers to the questions his uncle might ask. In the end, however, all that was unnecessary. Once he learned how much Ali would be paid, Uncle Rashid had only one question; whether he would continue to contribute to the welfare of the poor relations who had so kindly taken him in. "A small price," he said as he chewed over a mouthful of taamiya and pickled turnip, "to repay all we've done for you." Eventually, Ali agreed to provide his uncle's family with one dinar a month, a portion of which was to be reserved for the dowry of his cousin Fawziyah. It was nearly twice as much as he currently contributed to the household and he knew most of the money would disappear into his uncle's vices. Still, his uncle was right. It was a small price to repay all they had done for him. "I will be forever indebted to your kindness," Ali said, and so it was settled. He sent word to Fustat, and the following afternoon he departed. Waving farewell from atop his donkey cart, Ali felt as if he were a prince leaving home for distant battle. It was a luxury for him, traveling by cart. His possessions--a few changes of clothes, some bedding, a basket of food, and an old teapot Aunt Fatimah had given him as a parting gift--could easily have fit on the back of a donkey, but at the last minute he chose the cart, and he was glad he had. Following the east bank of the Nile past the Siba bridge, Ali leaned back against his bedroll and watched the midday sunlight reflect white off the sails of ships lining up to unload their cargo. It was a beautiful day, and he felt that all was right with the world. His only regret was leaving his cousin Fawziyah behind. He knew how much she hated being alone with her parents and, homely as she was, she could not count on marriage to deliver her a better situation. She was only fourteen, and already the matchmaker was trotting out widowers and cripples. If anything, Fawziyah's married life would be worse than her current circumstances. Ali wanted to help his cousin, to give her some piece of the good fortune he had stumbled upon, but aside from contributing to her dowry, there was nothing he could do. He was starting a new life in Fustat, and there was no room in it for Fawziyah. Excerpted from The Last Watchman of Old Cairo by Michael David Lukas All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
