Fric

excerptTHE CREATION WORK (1715) When he spoke to Aaron Juda Hartman, the rabbi from Spain, the one who had diplomas from Paris and Tripoli, driven to Peloponnesus to look after his poor relatives but also to take care, unimpeded by anyone, in a dusty room heated by the sun of the peninsula, of Kellippot, the enveloping worlds of the little mean-minded devils that hover about us and stir our body and mind, I say, both Fric and Aaron Judas Hartman agreed that everything that would happen in this book belonged to the miraculous and that, if anyone was to write about what had been, they should name him, undisputedly: The Creation Work. But also, said Aaron Juda Hartman, rabbi, shohet, mohel and hazan altogether, but even more, the explorer of the Kellippot worlds: "To the right, to the left and beneath these three inferior worlds there stretches a land known as Kellippot, or the Enveloping Worlds. This is a phenomenon created by forces and forms that are outside balance, that have no more a conscious control or a constructive function in the universe. The cabalists confer to them the symbolic identity of demons and archdemons, symmetrical to the level of the angels in Yezirah and of archangels in Beriah." But also, besides The Creation Work, The Splendour Book, a Zohar comparable to everything that had happened, grinning and saying:"And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness."He moved his rabbinical arms and from an arm a fish scale came off and floated in the air, oh!: because Aaron Judas Hartman dealt also with the fish dissection, assisted by Fric and by Marion de L'Orme, Fric, the richest of them, would buy the fish, sometimes Marion would, and the poor fish served to illustrate the chain of beings and and and In the evening, they would eat the fish and talk until it was morning again and perhaps they drank wine. When the sun rose, they left for the square where, on the southern wall of the palace, the latest decrees were posted, they read them, from Coroni the sun widened towards them, they were so to say in June, the Turks were already on their "way: Demotica, Cavala, Doiran, Salonika, Olympus, Larissa, Thebes, Megara, arriving on the June 13^th in Corinth with an army of 110 364 people," oh: and after they read the decree they descended idly, the sun in their eyes, towards the fountain called Dejanira where, her hair like flames and looking unabashed at the soldiers guarding the fountain, they gave her water, made jokes with her breaking the regulations, Orjen was waiting for them, she who is now twelve and wears short skirt: Fric kissed her on the forehead and his black hair blended with her red hair, the soldiers watched the group they formed and couldn't make up their mind to break it: with unimaginable powers Aaron Judas Hartman made the almost dry fountain overflow on the dusty road metals of the small square and grinning, he said:"God made the water, you are guarding it!"The soldiers shot into the air and at the same time the churches started swaying their bells.Fric said:"The time has come!" and together with Marion and with Orjen they left for God knows where.Aaron Juda Hartman remained alone in the mud and in the sun and said:"Look, the Greeks are watching us!"The fountain overflowed then even more, its cold waves turned into a brook, flowing towards the thirsty mouths of the citadel's inhabitants, those with the guarded fountain, they hurried to fill their tubs with water and bless Aaron. They didn't love Aaron Judas Hartman, but without minding this, he said:"Rule among your enemies!"He laughed unabashed, stopped the water, then he headed towards the pub of Evemon Notarades, Corinth Captain, one-eyed and bandy-legged:"You ganged up with Fric, the Armenian monk, and not only, with his whore as well. Marion de L'Orme. As if we didn't know who Marion was.""There is also Orjen!" Aaron Judas Hartman said."That little red-haired witch," said the Corinth Captain, he brought wine, the wine was from Monamvasia.Then he brought fried fish:"They left, the monks I mean, why didn't Fric leave, too?""I don't know, he may have left and we don't know about it."The pub was empty because officially it had been closed for more than two weeks. The sun was now above the white, silent houses slightly translucent in its light. The whisper of the sea became completely inaudible and you could imagine that the afternoon had enveloped the fortress.But when they met, towards the evening, in Aaron's little room, Fric went on with the tale:"After Mekhitar's departure, it might have been the next day, I climbed down among the rocks up to the seashore and after I washed my feet in its limpid water, then the body, I lay back and watched the clear sky." Fric committed suicide the day after the Mekhitarian monks left and it was as late as the third day after the incident that Orjen found him, rotting on the seashore. She sensed the smell and then she saw him."Here is a dead man with his bowels hanging out of his belly and being turned white by the cold sea water."In a priapic way, Fric had died with his phallus raised like a mast and dangling in the wind. She drew near and looked at him and knew he was dead, to his toes multicoloured snails had fastened and the bowels that the water was washing were pecked by swordfish."Here is a dead man, but more dignified than others in this circumstance!"The lips were bluish and the tongue hung swollen over them, small and agile flies stung it greedily and sucked its vim."He stinks and his manliness is dangling in the wind, it is still alive and yearning for slim young body." Polirom, 2003


by Ştefan Agopian (b. 1947)