This book mixes the contemporary and the historical worlds in a bold tale of clashing cultures. The love story between a Muslim and a Jew, documentary film director Aisha and historian Benjamin, is set in modern Spain against the vibrant and colorful background of a film festival, the location shoot of a Hollywood epic, the seductive intentions of a movie megastar, and the violent actions of terrorists who wish to reclaim that country for Islam.
“For those of us who have followed Robert Rosenstone's writing career, Red Star, Crescent Moon hits a new peak: a novel with deep historical roots that is also filled with action, romance, and intricate plotting.”
—Louis Breger, author of Freud: Darkness in the Midst of Light
“Red Star, Crescent Moon: is not just about the kaleidoscope of history and politics and pop culture: it’s about what being human means in the face of terror.”
—Leslie Brody, author of Red Star Sister
“Like all great love stories, Red Star, Crescent Moon takes place at the dangerous intersection of passion and all that threatens to destroy it.”
—James Goodman, author of Stories of Scottsboro
Author bio
Robert Rosenstone, a professor at Caltech, has published a dozen books, including biography, history, fiction, criticism, and memoir. Among them are the award winning Romantic Revolutionary: A Biography of John Reed, used in part as the basis of the Academy Award winning film, Reds, on which he served as historical consultant; The Man Who Swam into History, a book of family stories; and King of Odessa, hailed by the San Francisco Chronicle as “an astonishingly confident first novel from a historian with a whole new career ahead of him” and chosen by Barnes and Noble as part of the Great New Writers series.
Copyright © 2012 by Robert A. Rosenstone
Published in eBook format by Scarith/New Academia Publishing
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ISBN-13: 978-0-9855-6983-9
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2010930937
An imprint of new Academia Publishing
P.O. Box 27420, Washington, DC 20038-7420
Part of the chapter entitled “Dolores” first appeared in Reviews in American History, Volume 37, No. 4 (Dec. 2009), pages 647-654. © 2009, The Johns Hopkins University Press.
For my Sitara
ever shining in my heart
TERRORISTS TAKE MANY HOSTAGES RAISE FLAG OVER SPANISH TOWER
CORDOBA, SPAIN–An armed group of terrorists today seized control of the ancient Calahorra tower on the South Bank of the Guadalquivir River, took an undisclosed number of hostages, and raised an Islamic flag over the Spanish city of Cordoba for the first time in over seven hundred years.
Police who were called to the scene backed off when they were met by men with automatic weapons. “We withdrew rather than start a fire fight,” said Captain Julio Montero. “This is a situation which clearly must be handled at the national level. We immediately contacted the office of the Guardia Civil and Prime Minister Jose Aznar.”
According to one officer, the men shouted the police away in two different languages. A policeman of Moroccan descent said that one of them was Arabic but he did not understand the other language.
News of the seizure brought crowds of locals and tourists out from the old center of the city. When some started to cross the Roman Bridge to reach the tower, they were turned back the Cordoba police and the Guardia Civil. Authorities set up a perimeter some 250 meters from the tower and evacuated hundreds of people from hotels and apartment buildings within that area.
The reasons for the seizure, the number of hostages, and the demands of the militants are not yet known. Captain Montero told the press that he understands that officials from the government are assembling a delegation to negotiate with those who are holding the tower. The office of the Prime Minister had no comment other than to say that the cabinet was in session to decide what to do about the situation.
Local residents at first did not pay much attention to the crescent moon flag on top of the tower. Juan Gomez, an insurance salesman, says that when he first saw it he thought it was “part of some public performance like a play or a pageant.” Maria Theresa Hernandez, a maid in one of the nearby hotels, was happy to see the flag for she believed it signaled the beginning of a holiday.
Built in the 13th century to protect the Roman bridge which then led to the main entrance to Cordoba, the tower has in recent years housed a museum devoted to the three religions that flourished in Spain from the eighth to the twelfth century, Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. It seems likely that the hostages include a number of tourists who were in the tower when it was seized. Three empty tour buses are parked in the lot close to its entrance.
In the tenth century, Al Andalus, as the peninsula was called in Arabic, was declared a Caliphat of Cordoba. The ruler of the time claimed to be the true successor to the prophet Mohammed. The great Muslim thinker Averroes and the Jewish philosopher Maimonides, both from Cordoba, are depicted in exhibits in the tower, along with 16th century Spanish King Pedro the Wise.
1
Benjamin
Were I making a film and not writing a memoir, you would see a black Mercedes pull up in front of the stone bulk of a medieval tower as words on the lower right hand of the screen read: Cordoba, Spain. Five men wearing ski masks and carrying assault weapons burst out of the vehicle and race up its front steps two at a time, guns at the ready. Roughly they disarm the two uniformed guards at the entrance, then push them inside the building while their colleagues round up a bunch of cowering tourists, men with gray hair sticking out beneath baseball caps, bellies hanging over their belts, women in shorts, sandals, and straw hats, and herd them all into a cement basement room crammed with cardboard cartons, wooden crates, empty glass fronted display cases, stacks of posters advertising art works, ethnographic shows, tourist sites in Andalucia. Two of the masked men hurry up the winding staircase to the roof, haul down the red and gold Spanish flag, and run up a white banner with a green crescent moon in the upper left hand corner. As it flaps above them in the breeze, they pull off the masks, give each other high fives, and turn to gaze across the Guadalquivir River towards the bulk of the Grand Mosque and its soaring bell tower that once upon a time was a minaret
In this ancient medium of words, we have to make do with a headline, a newspaper story, and your imagination. On screen a director might fade to a slow panning shot across the expanse of a large European square surrounded by elegant, historic buildings. Again words tell us where we are: Plaza Mayor, Madrid. A late afternoon sun slips behind the rooftops in a blaze of digitally enhanced color, providing more than enough light to show it’s the end of a warm day, the men in short sleeve shirts, jackets over their arms, the women who aren’t wearing jeans clad in light skirts and blouses. The camera comes to rest on your narrator, wearing a wrinkled, khaki summer suit, leaning back against of one of the plaza’s four circular stone benches. Don’t expect me to describe myself. I’ll leave that daunting task