The Portugal Story by Reid Gómez by Eleven Eleven

The Portugal Story by Reid Gómez

He could not imagine his husband leaving him. He slipped on a shirt. Over that a

vest. And over that the waist length jacket Refugio had woven over 20 years ago. The wood burnt down to coal. He took pieces from a cardboard box and added them to the embers. Then he bent over to stretch his hamstrings. His hair fell forward an inch until the knot sat against his skull. Night stood outside on thick legs in the snow's first fall. He took a breath of everything: their smell, the piñon, and the coffee he would insist on drinking for breakfast. His ké were piled next to the door frame: a pair for the corral, a pair for the Chapter House and his everywhere else rawhide moccasins with their buttons on the side. He put those on. Every morning was the same even when it would be different. He opened the door and slid out, careful not to allow too much cold to enter and settle on the sheep skins. He walked a few feet, stood upright, and took several breaths. His eyes were open to everything. His mind slow; he had a tendency to linger. The stars overhead had seen him become a man. He tried to clear his mind. He had made plans and lists all summer. The wind passed by and touched his ear; the dawn would be here soon, traveling on blue horses. He bent down and washed his hands in the dirt, soaking them in the earth. There was no snow at his feet. The recent storm had left only dust that remained in patches. His hands were the color of earth. He stood. The cold made no impression. His mind was becoming clearer. He sought this moment— alone with himself—every morning. He needed it. Before prayers and before breaking

fast, his own and the sheep, every one could wait; there was nothing more beautiful than this. He turned his head, seeking familiar shapes and shadows. He knew what was in the distance: he didn't want to leave but he knew he had to. Eventually he would say what he knew should be said. But since he was nine he rose early and used his own words first. "Watch over Refugio while I am away. He is my most beloved. I am afraid for him while I am gone. I am accustomed to seeing his needs are cared for. My field is going to sleep. The sheep are lambing. They are like us, they will need more, and I am leaving. I do not know how long this will take. I have never been away from him, and I am leaving. I will return. Set in motion. I am arriving. I am returning." He bent down and washed his hands in the dirt again. His mind was flooding with images. He could not untangle the words. He wanted symmetry. Refugio. The medals. Each saint. Each feast day. They were not rawhide knots. They were not even recipes. They were sediment and water, poorly mixed they weren't even good mud. He stood up again. Spoke aloud: "San Estéban, San Buenaventura, San Agustín, San Diego, San José, San Francisco, San Lorenzo, Nuestra Señora de Guladalupe, San Felipe, San Ildefonso, San Juan Bautista, San Antonio de Padua, Santa Ana, Santa Clara, Santo Domingo, San Gerónimo, San Diego de Alcalá, Nuestra Señora de la Asuncion, shidine'é, shik'47, shich'00n7, shighan, t0, t['7z7, dib4. Shi[ h0zh=. Shii h0zh=. Shaa h0zh=. " He finished and spoke his final words: "S3'ah Naagh1ii Bik'eh H0zh=." The dawn arriving in that moment.

He turned. Breath from the hooghan rose into the sky. The fire took hold and would burn good. He walked to the corral. They had spent most of the night caring for a black lamb with a shock of white at his crown. This early in the season they already had 13 births. He stepped inside; they made space for each other. Some of the youngest still had pollen on their crowns, so alike they were to us. Humans. Nihook11 Dine'4. The earth surface people. He did what work there was to do. Refugio would be there the first week of mornings alone, at that time he'd send for their daughter. She was the only child they have given a name for. The work was old. Everyone knew how to do it. They'd all started when they first took to walking upright. The youngest followed behind. Child's work, he did it alone, now that they were the ones who no longer traveled. By the shape of their head or the temperature of their wool, each one felt different to the touch. He memorized them as they were, each pair of eyes, each color and pattern of wool; he would recognize them when he returned. He laughed out loud. "You're such a sentimental fuck." Refugio came upon him as he was laughing. "I made three guesses. They all led me here. " They stood together under the slowly moving sky. "What a perfect morning for your journey." He handed Carnero a cup of coffee he would eat like pudding. They led the sheep out into the yard, the sheep dog trailing behind and driving them into the open. The men stood arm to arm while the sheep spread around them.

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They did not talk. They knew. When they spoke it was only to hear each other's voice. They were so unalike and had retained their shape, even after they had worn each other smooth. Their edges made a good fit, one man into another. He'd heard about the collector one winter, over seventeen years ago. They'd met for stories and spinning and he'd gone along. Everyone thought they'd lose the habit of following the other. Here they were, the same men in love and unable to keep a distance. Refugio's hands filled a galvanized tub and rinsed wool that one of the other women had spun, while her son told stories. Most of them were familiar. One, though, was a stranger. This story was short and many didn't even hear it. The words passed quickly from the son's lips, right when many were standing to stretch their legs. Their asses flat stones they sat on. No one wanted to give their seat away so they moved the legs of their chairs to the left and then to the right and then collapsed on it. Refugio laughed like the old ladies, with his hand cupped over his smile. Only a few knew its beauty. Between the scratching of butts and the movement of chairs on the floor the woman's son finished his story. The next one began and another woman took the wheel. Refugio sat beside her and carded the wool handed to him in fluffy fists. Everything was as it always is, even when it is different. Carnero heard nothing except the boy's voice endlessly repeating his story. There was a man from Linz. He was a collector of many things, including holy objects. He wasn't a believer. He was a collector and fornicator. He started collecting stamps that were used for postage. Next he collected pictures, then anything that could be collected. His collection began to become so big it was clear it would never reach

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completion. He decided to limit himself to the collection of amulets and pilgrimage medals, from pilgrimage tracks in lower Austria and Bavaria. To most people these things are worthless, not good silver and not good smithing. But some of them had good drawings. When he was not fornicating he wrote. He wrote laboriously about each one. Some say he was the first person to make such work of writings. He developed a system with points for reference and those that collected but did not write were angry he had done both, the collecting and the writing. He was an authority and they wanted authority too, but all they had were collections. People would come from all directions in search of his opinions. His voice, alone, they wanted to hear it. When travelers arrive they always ask first, "Are you collectors?" Carnero would go and meet him. The teller did not tell his name, but he was known to the Prague Jew Kafka. Linz was not far from Prague. He would go first to Bohemia. He knew this place from the infant Jesus. Every daughter in Refugio's family was given her own when they left to live with their husbands. They'd managed to negotiate theirs down to the size of new corn. Refugio put it on the shelf with his weaving tools, knowing it would protect them from fire. He'd known never to ask for explanations. What was necessary would unfold. There was no need to push or shove. Things broke when you pulled them. He would tell the collector the story of the big house. Four sacred mountains: each one forming a post. People: Navajo and Pueblo, all of them living inside. Fighting. Trading. Together in drought and rain, they prayed for water and good relations. Among them, each one, living inside this magnificent hooghan. Everything outside, the world

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beyond the sacred mountains—Sis Naajin7, Tsoodzi[, Dook'o'oos[77d, Dibe Nitsaa—had no importance to them. People living together. They dwell inside a house of beauty. Then a day arrived and the Spaniard arrived upon it. He took the blanket that formed the door, one of mist, a rainbow of protection, and threw it open. A wind from an enemy sky rushed in. The Gambler had come back. He stood there, favored by the moon who took pity on his fate. He had returned and was walking boldly among them. The Pueblo revolted. The Spanish tried to kill their religion. They arrested 47 medicine men, hung 3 and whipped the survivors. They planned to send them to Old Mexico in chains. Kafka told about waking up a monstrous vermin; they were part of the same history of extermination. To scorch the Earth and round up the remaining. We had no more life as a people before us. Seventy Tewa warriors marched to Santa Fé and rescued the men. Po'p'ay, one of them, of San Juan, began a plan for it. A fight for their freedom, he worked for 5 years, earning the trust of the other Pueblos: Cochiti, Santa Domingo, San Marcos, Pecos, San Cristobal, San Felipe, Zia, Santa Ana, Jemez, Laguna, Acoma, Zuni, Isleta, and Sandia. He sent runners from Taos. Each one with a knotted rope, one rope for each Pueblo, one knot for each day until they attacked. The Pueblos decided to burn everything Christian: churches and rosary beads. They would even exchange their approved wives for the ones they chose themselves. The Spaniards caught two of the runners at Tesque Pueblo. They tortured them. The runners spoke. The Spaniards killed them both. The revolt traveled faster than the Spanish. The Pueblos did not wait, they attacked at once, together on August 10, 1680. Fighting spread into Old Mexico, across Tejas, into Comanche and Apache lands. The

Spaniards fled and for twelve years they remained distant. When they returned things were not the same. The Pueblos were no longer sweet grass they pulled from. Taos, Tau-Tah, The Place of the Red Willows. San Geronimo. Picuris, Pikura, Those Who Paint. St. Lawrence. San Juan, Ohkay Owingeh, Village of the Strong People. St. John the Baptist. Santa Clara, Kha'p'o, Valley of the Wild Roses. St. Clare. San Ildefonso, Po-Who-Ge-Oweenge, Where the Water Cuts Through. St. Ildephonsus. Pojoaque, Po' Suwae Geh, Water Drinking Place. Our Lady of Guadalupe. Nambé, Mound of Earth in the Corner, St. Francis of Assisi. Tesque, Te-Tsu-Geah, Cottonwood Tree Place, St. Didacus. Laguna, Ka'waika, St. Joseph. San Felipe, Katishtya, St. Phillip. Sandia, Tuf Shurn Tia, Green Reed Place, St. Anthony. Cochiti, Ko-Tyit, St. Bonaventure. Santa Ana, Tamaya, St. Anne. Zia, Our Lady of Assumption. Acoma, Haak’u, People of the White Rock, St. Stephen. Isleta, Tue-I, St. Augustine. Jemez, Walatowa, This is The Place, St. Didacus. Santo Domingo, Kewa, St. Dominic. Zuni, A:shiwi, Our Lady of Guadalupe.

He was fascinated with what people made out of the terms and conditions they were given: Po'p'ay, the Tonto Naipero, and his own line of Carneros. He would follow his dream—at night returning to where he'd left off, each morning departing from where he woke. Shoes, he would sleep with them on his feet. It was dangerous to lose them, even worse to walk with unprotected soles. Wars were fought over footwear. He thought of running into Erwin. They could discuss their work: Max's rooms, the Yiddish language, his spring game of Monte, and the retablos hosted by the Pueblos. What were they doing? Archivists or repatriators. He was only certain of the connection. Bosque Redondo: America's concentration camp. He'd heard someone mention that Hitler studied that reservation, its plan and administration, in his early work on extermination. They were both descendants of exterminated people. The gods had been used against them. The gods of the Father, the Ghost and the Holy Spirits. The Saints sent as envoys. They could be used. They were not without power of their own. His people were a landed people. He was leaving his house of beauty.

Refugio made blue corn mush; they ate outside and listened to the morning. He took their bowls and went inside. Carnero sat on a box with a soft bottom mat. His knees formed a perfect right angle. The wind was soft against his face and his ears continued to clear themselves for the journey. He heard bich'oon7 approach him from behind and slowly undo his hair knot. He passed the wool over Carnero's left shoulder. Their bodies moved with one mind; there was no need for talk between them. Refugio slowly laid his hair down, one fold following the other. Each strand forming a grey scale. His own hair was black jet.

They were perfectly unlike the other. He slid an old comb from his back pocket and began to comb Carnero's hair into shape. His left fist closing around the hair as it came directly to the center of his head, where it sat for more than five decades. When each strand was in place he exchanged the wool for the comb and wrapped the long strings tight against Carnero's skull, securing the hair with it. Carnero took hold of one side while Refugio wrapped the wool around the base. When he finished he took the other end and wrapped it horizontally around the middle, leaving some of his hair above and some below. He secured both ends into the knot the gods taught them to wear every moment they were living. His hands slid to Carnero's shoulders; he stood up bringing his hands with him. They had a lot to do but they only wanted to linger. He was reluctant to leave. They went inside. "T0. Corn. Hay for the lambing." Refugio listened to Carnero list off every resource he'd gathered to address his absence. They were things that needed to be said only because he needed to say them. He spoke the way he would speak to a stranger. These words might give him the distance he needed. Refugio let him begin. He let him continue. He was already a part from this place they had emerged from. "T0. Wood. They would do a wood haul in a few weeks. Go down to the Chapter house." By then everyone would realize he'd left them. He kept appreciating the gravity of his plan as it required his absence. Gravity, it held you to the earth. She was his

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mother. He would remember that as he left their hooghan, beneath the door blown open by the Gambler. This was the season of stories. They walked among them. People had to address what happened. What happened to their mother. Without stories they were lost. Without them they were strangers with no ancestors to guide them. He knew books could rule the world, books like the Spaniard's bible. They thought his life was one generation from disappearing, because he failed to keep records in writing. He would carry what he needed on his person, in grinding songs and weavings. "I'm taking the paper that says 'Baby Boy Gómez'." His great grandfather rode up from Zacatecas, a miner and a smelter. People say he brought the green eyes with him. Turquoise stones set perfect, Carnero was one of the Gómez children born with them. He sought silver, this great grandfather, this miner. His descendant seeks silver now. The earth, they mine her. He got up confronting his life. He kept documents in a box. When he was required to travel he let the false papers speak for him. All the children were given the same names: Baby Boy and Mary. One of their sons supplied them with any document they needed. They laughed. He took a photograph from the national archives, "seated Navajos allegedly accused of counterfeiting ration tickets." He tacked it to the lid. Every time he opened the box he'd point to the photograph and say, "Shiye'. There he is. Already an important man. Hastiin Tsoh. They even took his picture." Baby Boy Gómez, Census #8-10-1680 United States Citizen.

He would carry everything on his person, including his blanket. Refugio had woven him a Phase One Chief's Blanket to take on the journey. He wove it slow, taking good time to make a good blanket. Carnero stood and walked outside. He checked the gates, the water storage, the fuel for his chidí and for the hooghan. The nights would be cold without him. No coyote. No bear. He knew they would not come near, but it made him easy to walk through his day the way Refugio slid the weft through the warp, patting each line down with his batten. The pattern appeared as he wove it. He stayed outside till just before dusk. He went in and hung his coat on the pile that grew near the door frame. Then he started cooking. They would eat only knowing they must. Refugio rose from his loom, another blanket in process. Butterfly Woman's house. He rarely wove pictorial rugs. He preferred to work in the style of the Moqui. While he wove Carnero cooked. Ni[ch'ih and his companion darkness entered together. No one could perceive a space between them. They are. The four of them, alone, eating green chile and mutton. Carnero stood and walked to a small pile of clothes that Refugio laid out. He took off his vest. He removed his shirt. He slid his jeans down to his ankles and then unbuttoned his moccasins. He stood naked, the way Refugio loved him. It was cold. In winter it was always cold, but he took everything off before changing. His shoes were the last to go; he had a fear of losing them. He would wake up sometimes from a deep sleep and ask, "where are my shoes?" Refugio would answer, "K==. Nizh0n7. K==." And he would lay back into his arms not waking. Carnero peeled his underclothes off and stood for a moment. Refugio watched each movement. He had a scar beneath his right rib where a Gallup cowboy stuck him

with a pencil. The drunk didn't like fags. The graphite made him ill, but was not as strong as the hate that left a scar in the shape of a nickel. Thirty years ago, they would dance and pretend boyfriend. Girls, they each took one so no one would know who didn't already know. Everyone knew. Their bodies moved in a unison that revealed them. His shoulders were narrow. His nipples squash blossoms. He loved him more than he loved anything. He thought that might be wrong—the intensity somehow out of balance. He would see. He was waiting to see. 35 years he had been waiting. His mother told him not to review his life each night. He was a good man and loving him was a good thing. His arms were dark from the shirt sleeves down. After so many summers, they would remain that way. He dressed slow, into velveteen pants and a cloth shirt woven and decorated by Refugio's sister. He put the vest back on and finally, he walked barefoot to his husband. Refugio handed him a small pouch filled with piñon and pemmican he prepared for Prague. They stood face to face and took each others breath in.

He started on the BNSF lines that cut south of 40. Dwight D. Eisenhower laid the interstate during the war. Old Ike, everyone wore a declaration of approval pinned to their clothing. I like Ike. Their son liked the name and took it for himself. Isaac Dominic, like Santo Domingo, he told the people to call him Ike. He jumped the rails, boxing and dancing, hopping trains to California, going past Acoma where they all sung their song, "Californ-eeee-yaah. Californ-eeee-yaah. Californ-eeee-yaah. Californ-eeeeyaah. E-eh. A-ah." He liked the men at Deetseyamah; they called old Ike Aishtenhower.

He'd go there looking for butterflies. Old Acoma had the most beautiful ones. He remembered how they came into existence. A young girl wanted some mush; she was little. She wanted the hardened crust that curled at the edges. Her mother refused her, telling her they had no wood. If the little girl would fetch the wood, the mother would make it. "Go down the mesa and bring home wood. When you do I will make corn mush and you can eat the crust that hardens and curls." The little one left happy, gathering wood into her basket; she returned and called after her mother. She had collected wood, all shapes and sizes. She laid her basket down and the wood was crooked snakes. Her mother started screaming. "Take them back. Take them back." The little girl returned the snakes from where she took them. She was hurt and refused to return home. So painful it was to pick up snakes instead of wood pieces. She could not recover. She would drown herself. She set off for the water, to drown. On her way she met an old man and told him where she was going. Running so fast, she told him. He was hollering after her "child, where are you going?" She answered. He wanted to know, why was she going to drown herself in the lake. She told him, her mother had refused to make her corn mush, the hard edge curling on top. She ran while he implored. Stop. She must not continue. He was not able to grab onto her so he returned as swiftly as he could. He ran to the mesa and her mother. He told her the child was leaving for good; she was going to drown herself in the water. Her mother immediately cooked the mush, the one she did not cook before, the hard crust curling on top. As it cooled she gathered the girl's clothes, manta and kĂŠ and bundled everything in yucca. She descended the mesa and saw her child at once. She called out. She had made the curled crust. Please return home. She continued calling

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loudly. The daughter refused to turn. She continued wailing, "I am going to drown. My mother refused to make any of the curled crust; she does not want me to have it." Her mother continued to plead and the daughter continued, not turning from her plan to drown herself in the water. When she arrived to the edge of the water she stood with a feather tied to the top of her head and she leapt. She was just beyond the hand of her mother. The feather turned in a spiral as the little girl fell into the depth. She was surrounded by darkness. Her mother, in her despair, returned to old Acoma, the pueblo. She stood at the edge of the earth and dispersed the child's things, discarding them to the four directions. When her clothes, her manta, her ké, and her curled crusted mush dropped from her mother's hands they transformed into butterflies. Red, white, blue and yellow, each took flight as they do today on Acoma mesa. Children required parents to love them. They were like her. They were children of earth. She cared for them, feeding them and clothing them. He left old Acoma, its church inlaid with the bodies of the men who built it. Acoma men, some with only one foot, others sold as slaves, the rest left undisturbed by their descendants today on the mesa. Carnero was not one of those who felt ashamed of their subjugation. Some of these people could speak of Pueblos and Hispanos with an adoration for La Herencia de Nueva España. They claimed the passion of Christ motivated them to pardon and love and enter an era of reconciliation. These devout spoke of rogues piercing hearts leaving the punctured confused and desperate for solace and consolation. They turn their faces to the retablos and bultos painted and carved by their santeros. Holy images and devotional

panels venerated by believers who prostrate themselves before the idea that heathens can be reborn in baptismal waters. Carnero was not looking for forgiveness. He switched trains and made his way beyond the protection of sacred mountains. Mt. Taylor to the south and Blanca Peak to the north east. He knew his place. He was leaving it, just as his ancestors had fled the world beneath this one. Their gods were not so cruel to expel them from their homes, their grazing lands, or their gardens. On every ascent from a world below they brought insects, animals, sacred stones and mists, rainbows and finally handfuls of earth to create their mountains. They were a people who knew their origin; they did not search for it in distant regions. He rode the rails without knowing their schedules. Ni[ch'ih told him where to disembark and which door to board. Within a month he arrived in the city of Alchemists in search of Kafka's collector, the man from the diaries. He sought the saints of the various pueblos to call forth another rebellion. He was looking for a man to send rain clouds, the people were worried about the climate. The changes were affecting their lives, the herdsmen and farmers. Between grazing permits and water rights there was no room for them to live. While Refugio bore the burden of keeping the sheep alive he set out on the cobbled streets in search of light and shadow. He could hear the people talk and he could understand; even without his word lists and translations. He ate the food Refugio prepared and packed. Their food sustained belief. He left to find Sudek crawling into his black bag to change the negative plate in his 1894 Kodak panoramic. He walked among the people and kept his distance from the 167 churches. He recognized the necromancers and destroyers; they spread religion and civilization in every corner of the world.

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He knew to avoid the chapel of All Saints, the ossuary at Sedlec, it reminded him of Acoma. They flew the pirate flag. The land filled with people who wanted to be buried under earth taken from the foot of their Christ Jesus' crucifixion. This image made them sick with fear; they were consumed by it. A Cistercian Monk carried the soil back from the crusades and believers sought burial beneath it. There were more people than the soil could cover and in a hundred years another monk was assigned the position of disinterring the old to accommodate the new. Applications for entry continued to be filed and filled. He selected the remains of 40,000. After almost 500 years, the chapel had been bought, and the owners hired a local carver. He was to shape the bones into decorations. All saints require decorations: urns, bells, chalices, crosses, monstrances, a full size working chandelier, crucifixion scenes, portraits, and a coat of arms for the new owners who financed the project, complete with a crow plucking a bone eye from a Turk, the family Schwartzenburg. The artist signed his work in bones: Frantisek Rint. He wanted nothing to do with it, the mining town, Kutná Hora or the chapel.

Carnero was easy to recognize, even in this city of style. He belonged somewhere else so completely. He wore the vestments of Diné Bikeyah. He wasn't a stranger; he walked with an easiness strangers didn't posses. His footsteps were soft. Strangers slapped the earth, one at a time, killing something with each step down. Forever moving forward. His purpose for arriving was distilled. Prague was a city of saints. They were everywhere: in the astronomical clock and on the Charles Bridge. He knew when someone recognized him. Their energy changed. Their pace quickened. Their gate took on a purpose—to be seen in turn or to remain invisible.

Recognition required intimacy, swelling or shrinking the space between them, like the hours of Babylonian time. They had to accommodate their size and shape. As they moved close they displaced the weights and measures that divided ordinary people so easily from one another. They found comfort when they allowed themselves to relax, releasing what they held tight. Rivers of mud slid over their bodies. Erwin Siegelbaum walked directly toward him. They made right angle turns simultaneously and began walking down Na Mústku, turning right onto Rytířská, continuing on past the Stavovské divadlo, Theatre of the Estates. They walked around the theater in the direction of the European clock and spilled onto Ovocný trh, the Fruit Market Street. They passed by the Carolinum, through the Myslbek shopping center and onto Celentá, where they stood for a moment before the House of the Black Madonna. At the far end of the street stood the Prašná brána, the Powder Tower. They continued walking, not stopping much; they spoke the language of silence. Prague is a difficult place to avoid the dead. They were entombed in churches, where severed limbs sometimes hung like jerky. They both quickened their pace as they passed Kolstel Su Jakuba, St. James, the patron of butchers. They turned and went beneath an archway entering Týn Court, restored with an eye to resurrecting its history and beauty. From the 11th Century to the 16th, the court held an inn, a church and many brothels. The economy was driven by the skins of animals, the flesh of plants and the backs of men and women. Hides. Spices. Slaves. They stood for a moment, thinking, in Yiddish and Diné Bizaad.

People found each other even when they were not looking. They were engaged in simliar pursuits; they had similar motivations. The powers compelled them. They loved phenomena that ran together, especially along parallel lines. Never touching, never intersecting, never, forever, they were connected. Something unkown joined them. It was Christ. They kept him at a distance with their collections, but he continued to pursue them. Christ was everwhere; he wanted them dead. He would not stop until he killed them. He had to go home. These crucifixes were making him crazy. A voice whispered in his ear "Hu' hu' hu' hu'. My Grandson, do something for yourself. What is wrong. You must do something for yourself." He knew he would return for the card game. He would leave from Lisbon. He wanted to see that point of departure. The Gambler returning on a wooden boat and cloth sail. They were a people of lost origins. He needed to walk. He missed his sheep. Sheep is life. Diné bé Iiná. He missed grazing them in solitude. Nothing was more perfect practice then taking the flock out just after dawn; the sky opening up around them. He would arrive with a thin silver ring, with the medals hanging from it. One for each pueblo. He would walk up to Refugio, and lay out his hand, the bundle of medallions laying in the center. They were keys to locks that needed to be opened. They needed to walk together. They turned, and made their way through the narrow passage, coming close but never touching. Careful to maintain the space between them, respect, decency, honor,

understanding, they had these values, one for the other. The passage opened into the Old Town Square. At a distance stood the astronomical clock and its representation of the four evils that plauged the ancients: vanity, greed, death and pagan invasion. Significantly they stood there now, the Jew and the Diné, symbols of evil, recepticals of hate. They turned off the northwest corner of the square and entered Josefov, the Jewish Ghetto. The people say they arrived in Prague after the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. A Papal Ordinance required a wall be erected to separate Jews from Christians, creating the Ghetto, in 1179. The wall was built. The people prospered. The Jews were people, thriving amid molestation and torment. No ending to their condemnation, Joseph II abolished the confinement, 602 years later. He was not pursuing liberation. He wanted assimilation: destroy their culture, destroy their language. He forbade Hebrew. He forbade Yiddish. They were forced, the people were forced, to translate their names into German. They stood on Pařžská street and allowed the absence to overwhelm them. Emptiness remained. They could see the Old-New Synagogue. They covered their heads and entered. Erwin walked down the stairs. He stood on the synagogue's floor, laid in the 13 Century. Carnero let him stand there alone. Rabbi Loew's Golem was in the attic. Services are held today, as they've been held for 700 years. 1941. 1942. 1943. 1944. 1945. The Nazi occupation forbid them. Erwin returned. They went outside. The Old Jewish Cemetery was straight ahead. They walked to Maiselova Street; one block ahead was the synagogue Mordechai Maisel built, one piece of the Prague Jewish Museum. Work. Everyone has their own: Erwin, Carnero, the Nazis. The Nazis were creating a

Museum of an Extinct Race and set out to collect sacred objects from Bohemia and Moravia. Their holdings are thought to be the largest collection of sacred objects in the world: menorahs, kiddush cups, holy books, goblets, Torah pointers, knives for circumcision. Collecting could make you crazy. It happened to Rudolf. They did not stay to see what was inside. Erwin had held hundreds of similar objects in his hands, during his repatriations. Carnero did not like the smell they employed for preservation. Objects were made to have power: he intended to use it. They walked past Kafka's temple, the Pinkas Synagogue. It had undergone conversion, and is a WWII memorial. They use the shul for storage. Children's art from Terezín is on view. The names, birth dates, and dates of dissapearing are inscribed on the walls. 77,297 names. Underneath them the oldest mikveh. Prague's oldest ritual waters. They walk past. They will seperate, among the saints they parade through. Old Town behind them, Carnero on the right, they pass the Madonna and St. Bernard. Erwin on the left with St. Ives, the Patron of Lawyers and Orphans. Then Sts. Dominc, Thomas Aquinas and another Madonna, across from Sts. Barbara, Margaret and Elizabeth. Then the Pietá followed by the Hebrew Jesus. They walked in silence, looking around without moving their heads. Sts. Cyril and Methodius and St. Francis Xavier triumphing over the four pagans. St. John the Baptist stood opposite St. Christopher, the Patron of Travelers, along with a baby Jesus. Nearly midway across the bridge Sts. Norbert, Wenceslas and Sigismund across from St. Francis Seraphinus the Patron of the Poor and Abandoned. They walked not knowing who was who, past St. Anthony of Padua, St. Vincent Ferrer, St. Jude the Patron of Lost Causes, St. Nicholas of Tolentino the patron of Holy Souls, St. Augustine, St. Luitgard, St. Cajetan, St. Adalbet,

St. Philip Benizi, St. John of Matha and St. Félix de Valois, St. Vitus, St. Wenceslas Patron of Bohemia itself and the brothers Sts. Cosmas and Damian. The city knew religious warfare; the people loved statues and figurines. Many collapsed in chaos. Prague knew the world horror of Holy Wars as intimately as they did themselves: Erwin and Carnero. They went their own way at the foot of the Charles Bridge in Malá Strana, a place that showed no change for hundreds of years, for thousands. Carnero had an itinerary, first to Linz, and finally to Lisbon. He had a handful of names he could ask for if he needed one. Erwin disolved into the silence; Prague absorbed him.