Read In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist for Free Online Page A

Isaac?”
    The Israeli guide took another slug from his canteen. “Yes, that’s true.” He wiped his lips against his upper arm. “But one difference: in the Muslim version, it takes place in Mecca and they wing their way back here.” His hand looped in and out, showing a complicated journey. “Goes to show you, a good story makes the rounds among the religions.” He smirked, and the crowd nodded along with him and exchanged mocking looks. “Now drink, drink! You don’t want to get dehydrated up here.”
    Mustafa watched as they traipsed after the guide into the Golden Lady shrine. He lunged at a paper bag stirred by a rare breeze and stashed it into his rucksack.
Ya’allah
, that crazy Israeli didn’t know anything about the Koran and probably nothing about his own Torah, either.
Yahudi majnoon!
Another crazy Jew. He spat into his rucksack—or tried to. It took effort to gather the saliva in his twisted throat.
    Now it was time to clean the washing fountain between the Golden Lady and the Gray Lady mosque. A foolish woman rinsed her feet under a spigot for everyone to see, and he pointed her south, toward the women’s mosque. He hardly ever spoke to women, except now and then to his sisters and his mother, and when he was a boy, to the Christian woman. He missed the good lady. She was clean and beautiful, like the mother of Isa. Maryam. Whenever she had taken him to church, he would tilt his head back and stare up at the great lady, Mother Maryam with her smooth cheeks and gentle, sad mouth. He would say, “Do not cry, oh lady with cheeks like white apples. I would gladly sweep for you until the end of my days.”
    One day when he was fourteen, the Christian lady told him she had an illness and had to go back to England. She left so fast, she didn’t have time to give her address. Maybe the priest had said to her, “Waste no more time with this rude Muslim boy.” Maybe Mustafa had asked a bad question, but was it so bad to ask how Allah had put the seed into Mother Maryam to make the baby Isa? When Mustafa returned to the church, without the Christian lady but with more questions, the priest had shouted, “Leave here!” So he got out and never came back. The Christian lady must have died, he decided, because he never saw her again. Strangely, her name had faded in his mind. Till this day he thought of her as Maryam.
    He sprayed down every stoop that surrounded the El Kas washing fountain and even the base. He scrubbed the stone floor and scratched with his nail at the neglected corners. Holding a blue bottle of cleanser, he squirted fluid on the fancy green fence that circled the fountain.
    He stepped back a moment to appraise his work and saw Sheikh Tawil passing under the Gate of Four Arches. The sheikh tapped a cane in front of him as he carefully climbed down the stairs.
Tock, tock
. “Very nice, Mustafa,” said the sheikh, poking the fence with his cane.
    It was true. Each green spoke and swirl stood out sharp in the sun, and the whole fence shone like a bracelet of filigree. Mustafa smiled with happiness. Usually the Waqf officials said nothing about his work, and never his name.
    The sheikh pushed his cane into the ground to leverage the steps. Mustafa clambered after him, emboldened by his boss’s good compliment. “Please, honored sheikh, I have a question for you. About the Koran.”
    The sheikh patted his wispy gray beard. “Yes, what’s your question.”
    “Ah.” Mustafa stopped, momentarily arrested by the sheikh’s dark, sleek cane. “Forgive me, I want to know. Isn’t it a pity that we Muslims don’t have any priests?”
    “On the contrary,” said the sheikh. “We don’t need any priests.” He grasped his cane and hitched up his robe a bit with his free hand. “Now carry on.” Away he went.
Tock, tock, tock
.
    Too bad, Mustafa thought. A Muslim kohein would have been nice.
    Thoughts of the tall rabbi stirred within him as he vacuumed the rugs inside the Golden Lady. He