Journey of Strangers
Page 12
Everyone knew that the slaves were there not only to work, but to breed. It was a slow way to build a labor force, but every African woman was pregnant within a short time of her arrival. Although Joanna was seldom called upon to service the Portuguese, she had not forgotten that the Jewish children were intended to mate with the Africans. Along with the anger that never left her, she carried a simmering dread that she would be ordered to leave the snug hut where Imaculada allowed her to live with her brothers and several other children young enough to need supervision and cohabit with an African man selected by Belmiro, who would own any children of the union. But most of the children were still too young for marriage to be an immediate prospect, so nothing had been done so far to implement this item on the king’s agenda.
Natan was the only other Jewish child in the settlement old enough to copulate. As he had told Joanna he would, he quickly improved his status by becoming first scribe and record keeper, then plantation manager, to a young Portuguese who was willing to pay him for his services in slaves of his own and eventually hand over enough land for a small plantation. Joanna saw him at church every Sunday, since attendance at Mass was mandatory for the whole community. They seldom spoke, since Natan was always gossiping and joking with the younger planters he considered his peers and Joanna regarded his apostasy with scorn.
There was a communal celebration when the first sugar cane was harvested in conjunction with the opening of the first sugar mill. Several pigs were slaughtered to mark the occasion. Since all the Jewish children were now Christians, their participation in the feast was expected as a matter of course. The priests, who took seriously their task of keeping any of their flock from straying, kept a sharp eye on those children old enough to remember the tenets of their former faith. Joanna weighed her disgust at eating pork against her strong desire to avoid being conspicuous. She hardly knew why she so carefully husbanded her resources for survival, since escape was impossible. An island was a perfect prison, especially one whose forests were impenetrable and whose rocky heights, south of the settlement, were uninhabitable. But something drove her to acquire new skills, steal and cache tools, and avoid notoriety of any kind. So she chewed a few mouthfuls of the forbidden flesh, which was indeed sweet, thanks to the pigs’ diet of cane husks, and managed not to gag on it.
Joanna was not completely invisible, because she took over from the priests the task of tutoring some of the slaves in Portuguese. While the fazendeiros could communicate all they wished to with the field hands by cracking a whip and gesturing, they also needed overseers, household servants, and craftsmen. Joanna volunteered to help so that her mind, deprived of books and rational conversation, would not atrophy. Being seen as a teacher also offered respectability, while concealing the real Joanna, the seething rebel that she knew herself to be. Another advantage was the special connection she hoped to make with some of the Africans. Along with her inchoate need for skills and tools for a goal not yet determined, she needed allies. She found one in a woman named Yenenga.
Yenenga already spoke some Portuguese when she arrived on São Tomé. A slave ship captain had kept her in his cabin for the length of several voyages before passing her on to the settlement. He had chosen her not only as a bedmate but because she was a feiticeira, a sorceress and healer.
“He sick,” she told Joanna one day as they shared a meal of fried bananas and manioc root pounded to a heavy paste and spiced with pepper sauce. “He keep me for fix bad juju.”
“What kind of juju?” Joanna asked. “The sweats? Ship fever? The squits?”
Yenenga had taught her this word for magic or any symptom or misfortune that might be caused by magic. Around her neck, Yenenga wore a grigri, a fetish or talisman consisting of a small leather pouch whose contents no one was allowed to see. She had carried it from Africa, moving it from hiding place to hiding place in the orifices of her own body.
The feiticeira furrowed her brow, trying to think of how to describe a condition for which she had no word. She pointed to her own crotch and pumped the air above it with her fist to convey the slaver’s male anatomy. Then she pursed her fingertips and indicated several different spots on the imaginary member.
“He had sores,” Joanna guessed. “Some kind of pox. Did they hurt?”
Yenenga shrugged.
“Just ugly. First dey go away for a while.” She snorted with amusement. “He tink I got de power for real. Den body start to hurt.”
She shook out her arms and legs, tossed her head from side to side, and moaned.
“He ached all over?”
“Yes. Den hair fall out, sore come back uglier. He get red here and here.” She slapped her palms and the soles of her feet. “White feiticeiro come, bleed wit leeches, do no damn good. So captain beg me make bad juju go away.”
“And did you?”
Yenenga shrugged again and spat.
“Not dat kind of juju. Dis ting go man to woman, woman to man. White man bring it, but it kill black and white. It go away again, so he tink he don’t need me no more. It come back soon, den he die.”
Thus Joanna was the first white on the island to hear, before ships from Portugal brought word of it, of what all of Europe called the French disease. It should have been called the Spanish disease, for Spanish sailors who had lain with the savages in the newly discovered Indies. But sailors go everywhere, and many who had served with Admiral Columbus had tired of eternal sunshine, limited supplies of strong drink, and the lack of pretty ladies who wore dresses and spoke civilized languages. Seeking new berths, they flocked to France, where King Charles was assembling a fleet for his Italian invasion, as did soldiers ready for real warfare after slaughtering the island folk for their fabled stores of gold. The dockside whores of Toulon and Naples, with their customers’ enthusiastic cooperation, did the rest.
“Don’t you go wid no men,” Yenenga warned her. “Black folk get it from soldiers in Elmina, give it to dey own family. Soon everyone on São Tomé get it too. Dey all die.”
Joanna shrugged in turn. She could only hope that the few Portuguese who still occasionally sought Imaculada out to buy her body did so precisely because they did not wish to lie with Africans. Most of the white men deemed the compliance of the black women among the chief blessings of the slave trade being based on São Tomé. Yenenga told Joanna that this compliance had little to do with slavery. Back in Africa, the men of many tribes ensured young girls’ docility by removing that portion of their genitals that the sailor who had taken Joanna’s virginity had aroused so briefly. She occasionally achieved a shameful pleasure by touching it herself. The mutilated African women could experience no such sensation. Perhaps, Joanna thought, as if trying to imagine a city on the moon, if one had a husband one loved . . . But it was not worth thinking about.
The men of São Tomé regarded the pox as a tale of the troubles of faraway Europe, along with wars and the quarrels and alliances of kings. Their mission was to populate the island for the greater glory of Portugal, and the only way to do that was to couple with the women. Given the abundance of women slaves in the settlement, they did not think of the sailors’ shore leave every time a ship came into port as affecting them in any way. Both settlers and sailors lubricated their desires with palm wine, which the Africans were skilled at making—another benefit of the slave trade. Joanna tried to warn Natan about the pox, but he would not listen. He had recently earned his first slave, a young woman seven or eight years older than he, who was teaching him the art of love, as he boasted to Joanna. So Joanna had to content herself with dire warnings to Simon, who had not had his growth spurt yet but was beginning to look at girls. The glossy breasts and haunches of the black women were always on display, and some of the more modest Jewish girls were beginning to develop bosoms and cast demure looks from under their lashes at the older boys.
“I do not see,” Simon said, cross at her for these repeated admonitions, “how I can die from touching Leah’s breast. Anyhow, she wanted me to.”
“According to you,” Simon said, “I’ll never be older if I touch Leah’s breast. I’m going to the swamp to spear frogs with Nissim and Caleb. You’re no fun to be around these days.”
Chapter 20: Diego
The explosion on my right, like a crack of thunder, startled me. I nearly lost my footing. Luckily, my opponent, startled too, fell back a pace. I heard a scream and the crash and clatter of the other swordsman’s fall. Rachel had shot him with the arquebus that had been hanging from the horse’s saddle. She must have secured it before she slapped the horse and sent it running off. We now had only one foe, but recovering quickly, hecame at me with a snarl of rage. He had a longer reach and the seasoning of battle. I was tiring fast. I could not see what was happening behind me. The arquebus had a recoil like the kick of a mule. I had not thought Rachel had the strength to fire it, and she had probably been knocked to the ground in the process. Hutia would be trying to get in a crossbow shot at the soldier without hitting me.
A red-feathered arrow took my opponent in the leg, a crossbow bolt in the shoulder. As he faltered, I lunged, putting all my force into the blow aimed at his heart. Blood spurted as he fell. Trembling, I lowered my sword. I was bathed in sweat and so winded that I could barely draw a wheezing breath. Leaning on the sword, I turned. Hutia was just lowering the crossbow, still looking fierce although all three of our enemies were dead. Rachel sat on the ground, her face white. She was trembling even more than I. She had indeed been knocked over by the recoil of the arquebus but had had the presence of mind to drop it, seize her bow, and shoot from a seated position.
“We have all just saved one another’s lives,” I said.
“I am about to be sick,” Rachel said.
She held out her hands to Hutia and me, and we helped her rise and stumble several paces away from the carnage. As she bent and vomited up her fear and horror, a shaky hand upon the sturdy trunk of a tree for balance, my own gorge rose. I squared my shoulders and quieted my stomach by murmuring soothing words to Rachel until she was ready to compose herself.
“Water, please.”
Hutia silently handed her his water skin, which had remained slung across his shoulder throughout the struggle. She rinsed her mouth and spat, then swallowed one mouthful of water and handed it back.
“We must drink as little as possible,” she said, “until we find a spring or a stream.”
“First, we must find the horse and the mules,” I said. “Hutia, are you all right?”
“I have killed before,” he said. “Evil men, like these.”
I knew Hutia was thinking of the Spaniards Admiral Columbus had left at La Navidad, who had forced the Taino women and held them captive. One of them had murdered his sister.
“Were these men indeed evil?” Rachel said. “Now I wonder if we could have avoided bloodshed, if we should have tried to talk with them.”
“Do not think it, Rachel,” I said. “They were fresh from battle and primed to kill and to take what they could: our food, our mounts, our weapons, and the gold they would have found on our persons had they killed us. Nor would they have spared you, had they discovered your gender. We did what we had to.”
“It is well that carnage distresses you, Rachel,” Hutia said. “After what happened in Quisqueya, my heart is like a stone—except when I think of what might have befallen you.”
“As you saw,” she said, “I can defend myself.”
“We had better take their weapons with us,” I said.
“Let us do as they would have done to us,” Hutia said, “and see if they have valuables about their persons.”
“I must find my hat,” Rachel said, turning away, “and with it, one more crossbow bolt in case of need.”
Hutia and I exchanged a glance.
“Do not bother to retrieve my arrow,” she added. “I can do that myself. I am not afraid of blood.”
“We do not doubt your courage,” I said.
Rachel indeed had enough stomach to cut away the flesh to free her red-feathered arrow. But she averted her eyes from the ugly sight the ball from her arquebus had made of the second swordsman’s head.
We found the mules cropping grass no more than a mile away, the horse a half mile farther on with its rein caught in a bilberry bush. The horse, having shaken off its saddlebags in its efforts to free itself, was placidly munching berries when we came upon it. Rachel ran to free the rein. It greeted her with a soft whinny and nuzzled her as she scolded it like an exasperated mother whose child has gotten into mischief. We found a stream shaded by alders not far away. All of us, animal and human, drank thirstily, and we were able to refresh ourselves and rid our clothing and the weapons of blood and dirt.
Three days later, we glimpsed the Adriatic in the distance, the horizon a blue blur where the sea met the sky. We led the animals down out of the hills, for the terrain was still rough underfoot. As we descended, the slopes were more and more thickly studded with trees about the height of olive trees, though the leaves were not silvery but a glossy dark green.
“These must be the strawberry trees Signor Pesaro told us of,” Rachel said. “So the town we see is indeed Ancona. But I am disappointed. He said the tree bears fruit and flowers at the same time.”
“It is the wrong season,” I said. “Look, you can see the fruit just beginning to set and clusters of buds that will be the flowers.”
“If we find your parents settled here,” Hutia said, “you will be able to see this marvel in a couple of moons.”
Rachel’s face brightened.
“Do you really think they may be here? Let us mount, so we can get there faster.”
Ancona nestled in a tumble of red tile roofs between two arms of the promontory of Monte Conero. It was beautiful, a city seemingly untouched by war, its streets thronged with citizens going about their business with an air of ease as well as purpose. The sky was as blue as any I had seen in Andalusia or the Indies. The sunlit air had that special clarity that blesses ports and villages built near water. The air smelled of jasmine and baking bread. We quickly found the white stone cathedral with its dome and the square white bell tower, also domed, rising above the rooftops. We made our way through the narrow streets toward these landmarks, from which Signor Pesaro had given us directions to the house where we might find his agent, Signor Bianchini.
We had to ask the way of a woman selling oranges and again at a tavern before we found the right house. It was a narrow building of the same white stone as the cathedral, crammed between two others on a crooked street with laundry festooned on lines across it at one end and a fishmonger’s shop at the other. The door of the house we sought stood hospitably open, with a prosperous-looking orange cat sunning itself on the step.
“This is it!” Rachel kept her voice low, but she sounded excited. “Look!”
A mezuzah was fastened to the doorpost. I touched it lightly. Rachel did the same, her eyes filled with tears.
“What is it?” Hutia asked.
“It is a prayer to bless our comings and goings,” Rachel said, “and it is holy.”
“҅Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One,’” I said. “That is the prayer within the case. But it is more than that. The mezuzah says, ‘This is a Jewish home.’”
“Knock, Diego,” Rachel said.
I knocked twice, as hard as I could, on the wooden door. The orange cat rose, stretched elaborately, yawned, and strolled away down the street to the fishmonger’s. I knocked again.
A man no more than ten years older than I emerged from an inner room. Well but simply dressed in dark green doublet and hose, he had freckled skin and auburn hair. As he approached us, his keen eyes taking in our faces and our disheveled state, he broke into a grin.
“You must be newly arrived fr
om the west. And before that, from Spain? Or perhaps Portugal. Welcome, welcome! I am Aldo Bianchini. You will celebrate Shabbat with us this evening. Come in, come in! You are safe here.”
That evening, for the first time since 1492, Rachel and I sat down to a true Shabbat dinner. Her face glowed in the light of the Sabbath candles as she regarded me across the table. Hutia sat beside her, so she could whisper an explanation of the unfamiliar aspects of the rite. Signora Bianchini had lit the candles, cut the challah, and was now bustling back and forth with heaping platters of fish, vegetables, and flat strings of flour paste boiled and flavored with fresh herbs. Fruit and wine had been set out on the gleaming white linen cloth. The signora had already whisked away our clothes to launder and insisted on giving Rachel one of her own dresses. Four little Bianchinis, two boys and two girls, stared solemnly at us.
Signor Bianchini had asked no questions, insisting that we spend the time until sundown bathing and resting. He had sent a boy with the horse and mules to a stable the next street over, where he assured us they would be well cared for, and refused our coin.
“After dinner,” he said, “you will tell me your story, and we shall consider how I may help you.”
The children begged to be allowed to stay up late to see more of the visitors, but their eyelids were already drooping with fatigue by the time the meal was over. Signora Bianchini ordered them off to bed, promising them a story if they were good. The smaller of the girls insisted that Hutia carry her to her bed. The signora apologized for this liberty, but Hutia assured her that he would like nothing better. He held her tenderly, breathing in the clean scent of her soft curls as he bore her away to the chamber where the children slept.
Signor Bianchini shook his head when we asked if he knew the name Mendoza.
“There have been so many refugees. There may have been a family of that name. If so, they have moved on.”