Most saw the eclipse as a portent. The monk Savonarola declares it yet another sign that a conqueror is coming from the north to sweep away corruption in the Church. Ha’shem knows it is corrupt, with a pope who keeps mistresses and elevates his children to high office. I am sure the nuns never speak of that, but only of his Aragonese birth and his friendship with King Ferdinand. But we have had enough of conquerors too! Indeed, we celebrate Passover as a yearly reminder that in every age, oppressors have tried to destroy us. Perhaps the rabbis will add a chapter to the Haggadah telling of our own Exodus, this cruel banishment from a land that we called home for a thousand years. But as Papa says, we must not let our anger become lasting bitterness. As always, we Jews survive. Im yirtzeh Ha’shem, with God’s help, we will make this new land our home.
All my love, Mama
Chapter 5: Joanna
The gray fog shrouding the docks was beginning to lift when Joanna stumbled after Belmiro and Imaculada, her new “parents,” toward the ships. They had been given dry bread and a meager measure of sour wine the night before and bidden to lie down and sleep where they stood on the rough planks, with the sea below them slapping at the thick posts and stinking of seaweed and rotten fish. Shmuel and Benji, baruch Ha’shem, had been given to a crony of Imaculada, a woman named Felicidade, who did not bother to chide them when they hurried to Joanna with glad cries. The boys had huddled all around her like kittens in a basket, their sobs and whimpers fading into sleep. So she had been warmer than she might have been. But the night air was damp, and her linen dress was soaked. She shivered, wishing she had her thick wool cloak. But it had been left at home, neither her parents nor any of the neighbors dreaming for what reason the king had summoned all the Jewish families to the harbor. It was a small cruelty on top of the greater cruelties that none of the children had so much as a poppet or a keepsake to remind them of their mothers.
Six sailing ships lay at anchor not far offshore, two towering carracks and four graceful caravels that danced upon the waves and tugged at their moorings as if impatient to be off. The boarding was well organized. Soldiers sorted out each group of degradados and children and directed them to one boat or another, herding them as if their pikes were shepherd’s crooks. Sailors loaded them onto boats and ferried them out to the waiting ships. Their rough voices, shouting orders to this group or that, held no malice, but Joanna could detect no pity in their eyes.
“Hey, soldier!” Imaculada called out to one burly fellow as they reached the front of the line. “That’s a stout pair of arms you’ve got on you. What else have you got that might be to my liking?”
The soldier laughed.
“Too bad we didn’t meet a week ago,” he said. “It would have been my pleasure to show you.”
“And mine to keep you up all night,” she said with a lascivious wink, “and leave you so sore that you would have been abed this morning, not reporting for duty.”
Belmiro stepped up behind her, placing a possessive, hamlike hand on her shoulder.
“How about a coin, soldier?” he wheedled. “My lady doesn’t give her smiles for free.”
The soldier laughed again. He took Imaculada by the arm and pushed Belmiro toward the waiting boats.
“And how has pandering profited you, you rogue? You’re lucky to be transported and not hanged. You’ll have little use for coin where you’re going and less luck selling your lady’s favors. Have you not been told there’ll be black African slaves for all of that? Are all of these brats yours?”
“These two are those they dumped on me,” Imaculada said carelessly. “The smaller two are my friend’s. Are we bound for Africa, then?” She tugged at Joanna’s hair as the most convenient way to move the children along. Simon clung to Joanna’s hand and the two little ones to the back of her dress.
“They didn’t tell you?” the soldier said. “We’re bound for São Tomé. It’s an island off the Guinea Coast. The king’s navigators discovered it years ago, but the colony’s not been much use to him till now. Captain Caminha will whip it into shape. Come on, girl, you too,” he added as Felicidade sauntered up to him. Her man, Mateus, followed her, a wiry little fellow whose small, red-rimmed eyes never rested, but darted to and fro as if constantly on guard against danger or seeking advantage.
As Joanna helped the children to clamber aboard, Felicidade asked the soldier, “Do you sail with us, then? If so, my friend Imaculada and I might yet offer you a ride you’ll never forget.” She tossed her head, then licked her finger and ran it slowly over his jawline.
Mateus appeared to be no more offended than Belmiro by this offer. The soldier glanced briefly at him as if wondering whether he too would demand coin, but he did not.
“When the slaves arrive from the barracoons of Elmina on the mainland, we’ll be needed to make sure they behave. There’ll be a thriving trade in no time. Some will work the plantations, but the rest will be sold off to fill the king’s coffers, and we won’t lose by it. Why, some say they’ll even pay our wages in slaves. I’ll stay a year or two and make my fortune. You lot had better say your farewells to Lisbon, because they’ll never let you set foot in Portugal again. But look on the bright side. In five or ten years, you may not want to. You may be rich plantation owners and fine ladies by then.” As he turned away, signaling to sailors on shore to loose the ropes and the steersman to give the rowers their stroke, he added, “There are worse fates than transportation.”
Joanna had listened to this whole exchange with burning resentment. At the same time, she wanted to hear all she could about the unknown land ahead of them. Africa was hot, was it not? Perhaps she would not miss her woolen cloak. She must keep her wits about her if she wanted to keep Simon, Shmuel, and Benji safe. What a fool she had been to think Riva the worst mother in the world. She could count on no help from Imaculada in making her way. At best, she prayed the woman would remain indifferent to the children with whom she had been so unwillingly saddled. If they only left her alone, she could manage. She knew she could! As for her gentle, weak father, she regretted every impatient or critical thought she had ever had of him. She had been given one of Adonai’s great blessings—a father who loved her—and she had been too stupid to be grateful. He must be in agony now, with all four of his children lost. She closed her eyes.
Please, Adonai, she prayed, comfort him, I don’t know how, but somehow. Let him remember me with love.
Her eyes flew open as she felt a jolt. The boat had reached the ship. Its side loomed above her, high as a castle wall. Above it, she could see the very top of the biggest mast with a kind of bucket, big enough to hold several men, swaying near its tip. The sailors aboard the boat threw stout ropes up and over the side. Sailors on the deck above, visible only because they were leaning over the rail, tossed more ropes down. Was that swaying, knotted web a ladder? Could she possibly climb up it? She had no choice. Could the children manage? Benji was not yet five. She’d better make a game of it.
“Come on, boys. Let’s pretend the ship is the apple tree in our garden. Remember how we used to play the apple tree was a ship? And now we’re sailing for real.”
What about children who were too small to climb? Would they hoist them up somehow or throw them into the sea? She must teach the boys self-reliance. Every skill they could learn would better their chances of survival.
“Simon, you go first. Hold tight. That’s right, put your hands above the knots so they cannot slip. Now one foot on the rope that goes across, like a step or a low branch on the apple tree. Go on. Pull with your hands, and bring up the other foot. That’s my brave boy! Benji, you go next. Here, I’ll lift you onto the first rung.”
She helped Shmuel onto the ladder behind Benji, boosting him with her hand under his bottom. She grasped the ladder, her hands closing on it just below Shmuel’s. She leaned forward so he could feel the heat of her body.
“Go on, boys,” she urged, making her voice sound cheerful and confident. “I’m right behind you.”
By the time they all reached the deck, the fog had lifted completely. The light, crisscrossed by shafts of shadow from sails and rigging, dazzled as it bounced off the water. It would be a beautiful day.
Joanna hardly had time to look around before Imaculada said, “Come along! And keep those brats moving. No telling what them soldiers will do if they get underfoot.”
The degradados and the children were ushered through a low, dark doorway and down a narrow wooden ladder. Tall Belmiro cracked his head on the lintel.
“Mind the hatch,” a sailor said, a well calculated second too late. Cheerful and half naked, with a ring glinting in his ear, he grinned and winked at Joanna.
Imaculada peered into the gloom.
“What is this?” she demanded. “You’re putting us in the hold? Are we cattle, to be stowed away in the dark? And are those pigs I see?”
Joanna ducked under her arm to look. A couple of hanging lanterns cast a dim light on the area near the ladder. Straw was strewn on the planks. A water barrel stood in one corner with a battered tin cup perched atop it. At the far end of the chamber, fenced off by a lattice of planks, forty or more pigs milled about, snuffling loudly as they jostled one another for space. The farmyard smells of straw and fresh manure fought the sea scents of salt air and fish for dominance.
Imaculada stood at the foot of the ladder with arms akimbo.
“If we’re to be lords and ladies on the island, we deserve better!”
The sailors above ignored her. Felicidade, descending the ladder behind Joanna, nudged Imaculada forward.
“Don’t be a fool, woman,” Felicidade said. “We’ll have plenty of room. Why, my new gentleman friend from last night—”
“Already?” Imaculada uttered a harsh crack of laughter. “You are a quick worker! A soldier?”
Felicidade grinned, displaying a stained and incomplete set of rotting teeth.
“I said a gentleman, did I not? One of Captain Caminha’s household. He had a room over a chandler’s shop.”
“And a fine feather bed?” Imaculada asked, hovering between envy and sarcasm.
“A straw mattress with only three other gentlemen to share it and no more than a handful of fleas. He told me much. On the smaller ships, the Lisbon folk must bed down on a plank or coil of rope on deck. We’re better off down here, and we can still come and go as we please. Why, he told me they’ll load ten times our number of Negro slaves, once they catch them, in this same space. We’re neither bound nor crowded, so stop complaining!”
Sniffing, Imaculada turned away. After inspecting the entire hold, she chose a corner as far as possible from the pigs. At her command, Joanna and the children set about collecting heaps of straw and forming them into rough beds. Belmiro and Mateus went back on deck to watch Lisbon harbor recede in the distance as the ship departed. The two women busied themselves in arranging their possessions, for unlike the Jewish children, each degradado had been allowed to bring a small bundle on the journey. Felicidade produced a horn comb, evidently a great treasure, and she and Imaculada took turns combing out each other’s hair. This process included picking out a quantity of prison lice, with many insults and much bawdy banter.
“You could tell the girl to do it,” Felicidade said. “I can lend my comb, though I’ll box her ears if she damages it.”
“Let her be,” Imaculada said. “I’ll have a use for her soon enough.”
Toward evening, Imaculada cornered Joanna. They had eaten a meal of gruel and ship’s biscuit with water from the barrel, and the boys had gone to investigate the pigs.
“Well!” the degradada said.
“Senhora,” Joanna responded warily.
Imaculada snorted.
“Good enough!” she said. “At least you don’t expect to call me Mamãe.”
“No, Senhora.”
“Do you bleed yet?” Imaculada asked abruptly.
“Yes, Senhora.”
“How long? When did your courses start?”
“A year ago, Senhora.” Joanna’s bowed head and respectfully lowered eyes concealed such a blaze of rage that she would not have been surprised if Imaculada had burst into flame. But the woman noticed nothing. She could ask intrusive questions, interrogate Joanna like the Inquisition itself, but she would never know her thoughts. Never!
“Let’s see what kind of tits you’ve got on you.”
Joanna shrank away as Imaculada seized the neck of her gown and tugged it down, exposing the gentle swell of her breasts. The woman grunted with satisfaction.
“You’ll do.” She turned away, no longer interested for the moment.
Joanna, shaking with fury, pulled her gown back up to cover her breasts.
“Go fetch those boys and order them to bed,” Imaculada said without turning. “You too. I’m going to douse the lantern. It’s asking for a fire to leave it on all night, a wooden ship with all this straw and God knows what stowed elsewhere, wine and olive oil and the like, no doubt. And before you think to whine about the lodging, it’s bigger than a prison cell in Lisbon, I’ll tell you that. And I doubt the rats are hungrier than prison rats.”
“Rats?” Joanna’s throat was dry, her voice a gasp.
“Aye, every ship has rats. Are you stupid, not to know that? Hear me well, my girl. You’d better make the best of your condition, because it could be worse.” She turned and smiled at Joanna, her eyes glittering with malice. “Indeed, I can guarantee it will get worse.”
Chapter 6: Diego
As soon as Doña Marina had retired for the night, Rachel, Hutia, and I trooped down to the kitchen, where we found Javier sitting on the scarred oak table—a liberty my aunt’s formidable cook would have allowed no other—devouring bread, cheese, and paper-thin slices of cured ham while he regaled his audience, every soul in the place except my aunt herself, with an embellished version of his adventures. He leaped off the table and offered Rachel and me a hasty bow.
“Don’t be silly, Javier!” Rachel said. “Go on with your story.”
Javier swallowed the lump of food that bulged in his gullet with an audible gulp.
“Yes, my lady. You know that the French king assembled an army of twenty-five thousand men and built a navy as well, the better to press his claim to the throne of Naples. We did not reach France until autumn, when we learned that King Charles had already crossed the Alps. By then they had with them several thousands of Swiss mercenaries, terrible men as big as giants, who train for war their whole lives and will fight for whoever pays them. We set out after them. Winter comes early in the mountain passes, and I was lucky to fare better than most in that treacherous terrain, thanks to my boyhood in the Pyrenees, which of course we had already crossed.”
“Get on with it, lad,” Esteban said. “You are not slogging through the Alps but telling a story. Did you catch up with them? Did they give battle?”
“The battle came later,” Javier said. “We almost caught up with them in Genoa, for the Genoese gave them safe passage. But we did not. In mid-October the French and their Milanese allies sacked Mordano, a fortress near Bologna.”
“I thought Milan was our own ally,” Hernan said.
“It is now,” Rachel said. “Doña Marina heard it at Court. She said the Milanese themselves are hard put to know which side they are on.”
The servants laughed at this.
“It is no matter for jest,” Javier said, with the most solemn visage I had ever seen him wear. “Do you fools not know what a sack is?”
The youngest scullery maid shook her head.
“Do not tutor me in warfare, boy,” Esteban said. “When soldiers besiege a town and win, they must have booty. Everyone knows that.”
“Have you ever seen a sack?” Javier challenged him. “Have you even gone to war?”
“Both Esteban and Hernan there came to my lady’s service fresh off the farm,” the cook said.
“I had training in arms!” Esteban said. “So did we both. If you wish to challenge me, I will gladly cross swords
with you, once you’ve had a chance to fatten up and get your strength back.”
Javier shook his head.
“A sack is not a feat of arms,” he said. “It haunts me that if we had moved faster, we might have arrived in time to relieve the siege and prevent the sack. Once they had breached the walls, they fired and destroyed the fortress and put every surviving man, woman, and child to the sword.”
“They killed children?” the cook asked. “What kind of monsters would do that?”
“Such monsters as your countrymen, my friend,” Hutia said in Taino. “It happened in Quisqueya.” He and Rachel exchanged a speaking glance.
“Tell me, Javier,” I said, “what did you hear of Firenze?”
“The people there opened the gates to King Charles,” he said, “and cast flowers in his path.”
“Doña Marina told us,” I said, “that the Medici had to flee. Did that not cause turmoil in the city? Did the Florentines take advantage of the unrest to loot and fight among themselves?”
“Oh, no,” Javier said. “The people welcomed the soldiers, and there was no unrest at all. The only disturbance was a few attacks on Jews.”
The Third Letter
July 1493
Dearest children,
At last! At long last we have news of you both, thanks to your Aunt Marina’s connection with the Medici bankers. We shed tears of joy to know that Diego has returned safely from his perilous voyage on the Ocean Sea. But the news from Spain is troubling. Can they not be content with having banished us? Must they continue to hunt us down? It appears they are suspicious even of those who did as they wished and embraced the Christian faith. We fear especially for Rachel. By the time this letter arrives in Barcelona, if indeed it does, I pray that Diego and my good-sister between you will have found a way to restore our precious girl to us. We all long to see you too, Diego, but we understand you must remain with the Admiral while his star is high and his favor protects you.
Journey of Strangers Page 3
