Journey of Strangers

by Elizabeth Zelvin

  “It symbolizes the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem,” Baba Efraín had said. “In the centuries since that happened, we have been forced to carry our history with us, so we have rituals to help us remember.”

  “If that does not seem to you reason enough to break the glass,” Rachel suggested, “think of Quisqueya as you do it. Think of the yucayeque and the people we loved there and how the soldiers shattered it.”

  The Jewish people, Ümīt thought now, deem marriage important because it replenishes Jewish seed and keeps the Jews alive as a people. The Muslims went further and considered failure to marry shameful. But in reality, his seed was Taino. Rachel had loved the Taino as he did, and when Taino and Jew mingled in their children, they would be keeping his people alive.

  Akiva had reached the last blessing. It pleased Ümīt that he could follow the Hebrew. His Judaic studies had not been wasted.

  “Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu melech ha’olam . . . who created joy and gladness, groom and bride, mirth, glad song, pleasure, delight, love, brotherhood, peace, and companionship . . . Blessed art Thou who bestows rejoicing on the groom with his bride.”

  Now he was supposed to break the glass. They had told him someone would bring it, wrapped in a linen napkin so slivers of glass would not go flying around no matter how hard he stamped. A murmur arose around the room among the assembled guests. Rachel gasped. Ümīt saw an incredulous look of joy upon her face. She was not looking at him, but over his shoulder at something or someone else. As he turned, the chuppah dipped and restabilized. Diego, thin, deeply tanned, and heavily bearded, had taken the pole from Nahum’s hands. His blinding grin was mirrored in every face in the room, including Ümīt’s.

  “Go ahead, my brother,” Diego said. “Break the glass. We have waited long enough to shout ‘Mazel tov’ and celebrate!”

  ###

  Afterword

  In researching this sequel to Voyage of Strangers, my previous novel about Diego and Rachel, I found that I had a lot more material to draw on, particularly about the French invasion of Italy in 1494 and the Jews in the Ottoman Empire. In Voyage, however, about half of my cast of characters was taken from history, including Christopher Columbus. The basic armature on which I constructed Voyage was the timeline of known events between 1493 and 1495. I had to integrate the story of my fictional characters with precisely where Admiral Columbus and the other historical characters were and what they were doing on any given date. In Journey of Strangers, most of the characters are fictional, and what happens to them in the course of the novel is entirely the product of my imagination. My challenge was to make their journey fit within the broad sweep of historical events. (See Historical Timeline, below.)

  The abduction of the children of São Tomé is fact, but little known and not well documented. It was one of those stranger-than-fiction true stories that the historical novelist is occasionally lucky enough to turn up in the course of research. Like many stories in history, it differs depending on who’s telling it—in this case, Portuguese or Jewish sources. The same is true of the other historical threads of Journey. The emphasis and even the facts differ, depending on whether the source is Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, European or Ottoman, ancient or modern.

  For example, take the contrast between two books about the janissaries, Balkan Christians taken in the devşirme as boys and raised as Muslims: Konstantin Mihailović’s Memoirs of a Janissary, a sixteenth-century bestseller by a supposed janissary who escaped and converted back to Christianity, and Robert Colburn’s The Sultan’s Helmsman, a twenty-first-century novel about janissaries in the Ottoman navy during the reign of Bayezid II. Modern scholars have suggested that if Mihailović really were a janissary who had completed the full course of training in the enderun school, he would have been better educated and more loyal to the sultan; he may have been merely some kind of auxiliary or servant. Colburn is an American who has competed internationally as a member of a Turkish rowing team; his admiration for Turkish culture, Sultan Bayezid II, and the enderun school inform his story, along with his detailed knowledge of Ottoman seamanship. Mihailović states repeatedly that the sultan never had the slightest intention of keeping his treaties with Christians, a point that would have confirmed the opinions of his medieval European audience. Colburn, through his janissary protagonist, insists that it was the Christians, not the Ottomans, who had a habit of breaking treaties.

  Considering such discrepancies, I have given myself literary license to pick and choose from the historical record for the sake of telling the story I wanted to tell, while trying to avoid florid inaccuracies and anachronisms. For example, much of the iconic architecture of Istanbul was not built until the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, Bayezid’s grandson, so in my Istanbul, Hagia Sophia has only two towers, not four, and the Blue Mosque does not exist. On the other hand, while the documentation on Jewish kiras to the harem begins in the sixteenth century, I have chosen to invent a couple of fictional kiras in the late fifteenth century as well. I have also taken some liberties with the organization of the Ottoman harem.

  In Bayezid’s time, the harem was located in the Old Palace, not the New Palace (not called “Topkapi” until the nineteenth century), which was the sultan’s residence and the seat of government. It is unlikely that any of the sultan’s women had a sexual relationship with him once they had borne a son. It is also unlikely that the mothers of sons who had reached manhood—i.e., over the age of sixteen, would have remained in Istanbul. In Bayezid’s time, such sons were appointed governors of provincial capitals, and their mothers accompanied them to these posts. My fictional version exists because while writing Journey, I had not yet read Leslie P. Peirce’s brilliant book, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire. In order to correct these details, I would have had to dismantle and rewrite the middle third of my novel. As this would have enhanced historical accuracy without necessarily embellishing the story, I chose not to do it.

  When I was growing up, most Americans believed the story that George Washington confessed to chopping down a cherry tree because he could not tell a lie. I think most people know now that the tale is apocryphal. It was invented by Mason L. “Parson” Weems in his 1800 biography, The Life of Washington. I found not one but two stories of this kind as I researched Journey of Strangers—i.e., myths that have been repeated over and over, gathering momentum and credibility over time, until everyone takes them for fact.

  Many sources, starting with the helpful but often unreliable Wikipedia and including scholars who should have known better, quote Sultan Bayezid II as publicly criticizing King Ferdinand of Spain for expelling the Jews in these words: “You venture to call Ferdinand a wise ruler, he who has impoverished his own country and enriched mine!” He never said it. The story first appeared in Rabbi Elijah Capsali’s 1523 book Seder Eliyahu Zuta. Although the book is considered a primary source, Capsali, a historian and chief rabbi of Candia, Crete, was only nine years old in 1492 and never visited Turkey. Bayezid did welcome the Spanish Jews and send his navy to rescue some of them, but the famous one-liner is fiction.

  I had almost completed the first draft of Journey of Strangers when I discovered that part of the story of São Tomé (now the independent nation of São Tomé and Principe) that I had drawn on from several sources, including the prestigious Encyclopedia Britannica, as well as scholarly sources, was a myth. The Angolares are a subpopulation on São Tomé who are said to be descended from slaves from Angola who escaped to shore when the slave ship carrying them was wrecked off the island. They are supposed to have built their own community, of which the Portuguese settlement remained unaware for at least twenty years. Amador, the leader of a slave revolt in either 1586 or 1595, was said to be the “King of the Angolares.” According to scholar Donald Burness, a founding member of the African Literature Association and expert on Lusophone African literature, the shipwreck was a colonial myth “created in the nineteenth century by Portuguese authors based on an oral trad
ition that appeared in the early eighteenth century.” The shipwreck was too good a story to throw away, so I used it. However, I was careful not to use the term “Angolares,” since the Portuguese had not yet given the colonial name Angola to that region in Africa.

  My treatment of foreign words and names may appear inconsistent, but all spellings and uses of italics were carefully considered. In some cases, I chose to use the form with which modern American readers would be most familiar—e.g., Hagia Sophia. In others, I used the form that people of that time and place would have used—e.g., Firenze. I did not italicize words in foreign languages that are used frequently in English—e.g., harem, seraglio, dervish, janissary, while I did italicize somewhat less familiar words—e.g., condottieri, haremlik, selamlik, hammam. In some cases, I followed forms I found in the course of my research—e.g., hatun, Kizlar Agha. In Hebrew, I used the Sephardic spellings and pronunciations that the Iberian Jews themselves would have used—e.g., tallit, brit. In some cases, I tried to match formats for similar terms; for example, because rabbi, cantor, and priest are in commonly used in English, I did not italicize the perhaps less familiar gabbai, imam, muezzin. Where I had a choice of forms, I occasionally picked the one I encountered first in my research or felt most comfortable with—e.g., Bayezid, Mehmet. A note on modern Turkish spelling and pronunciation appears at the beginning of the Glossary.

  In Chapter 22, my fictional character, Moshe ben Nahman, laments the loss of his children in quotations from the Old Testament. Most of these appear in Samuel Usque’s Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel, a prose poem on the history of the Jews written in 1553 by a Portuguese Jew who lived in Ferrara, Italy, and later in Safed in what is now Israel. Usque quoted these biblical passages from Psalms, Deuteronomy, and Jeremiah specifically with reference to the children of São Tomé. Rather than rely on the available translation of Usque’s work from Portuguese to English, I used the King James version of the Bible (1611). It’s anachronistic, but you can’t beat the beauty and power of the language.

  Historical Timeline

  1453

  Sultan Mehmet of the Ottomans conquers Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire and renames it Istanbul; Mehmet institutes the sürgün, relocating significant numbers of Jews to Istanbul from forty cities in Anatolia and the Balkans.

  1454

  Trade treaty between the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Venice

  1463–1479

  First Venetian-Ottoman War

  December 1470

  Portuguese navigators discover the uninhabited island of São Tomé in the Gulf of Guinea, off the coast of West Africa.

  January 1479

  Treaty of Constantinople: Venice cedes territory to the Ottomans and agrees to pay 10,000 ducats per year for trading privileges in the Black Sea.

  1481

  Sultan Bayezid II ascends the throne of the Ottoman Empire.

  June 1482

  Dispute between Bayezid and his brother Cem over the sultanate ends when Cem is imprisoned by the Knights of Rhodes.

  1486

  First Portuguese settlement is established on São Tomé.

  August 1490

  Friar Girolamo Savonarola begins preaching in Firenze (Florence), calling for reform of the Church and accusing Lorenzo di Medici of tyranny.

  April 1492

  Lorenzo di Medici dies; his son Piero becomes de facto ruler of Firenze.

  August 1492

  Columbus’s first voyage begins; all Jews are expelled from Spain on pain of death; their possessions are confiscated.

  1492

  As many as 120,000 Spanish Jews take refuge in Portugal.

  1492

  Sultan Bayezid sends Ottoman ships under his admiral Kemal Reis to Cadiz to rescue expelled Spanish Jews and relocate them to the Ottoman Empire.

  March 1493

  Columbus returns to Spain with two ships, the Niña and the Pinta, having discovered islands in the Caribbean that he believes are part of the Indies.

  1493

  Eight months after allowing the Spanish Jews to enter Portugal, King João expels all except for a limited number of families who must pay an enormous tax; the king orders two thousand Jewish children taken from their families, baptized, and sent as slaves to São Tomé.

  July 1493

  Alvaro de Caminha is named donatario of São Tomé—i.e., he is granted the island’s governorship.

  September 1493

  Columbus’s second voyage begins.

  Fall 1493

  Alvaro de Caminha sails for São Tomé with a band of settlers including degradados, men and women culled from the prisons of Lisbon, and the abducted Jewish children.

  1493

  A Hebrew printing press is established in Istanbul—the first printing press in the Ottoman Empire.

  1494

  Duke Ludovico Sforza of Milan invites King Charles VIII of France to Italy, promising to support his claim to the crown of Naples.

  February 1494

  Columbus sends twelve ships from Hispaniola back to Spain.

  September 1494

  Mutineers take three ships from Hispaniola back to Spain; King Charles VIII of France invades Italy with 30,000 troops.

  1494

  First cases of syphilis appear among the French troops; the disease quickly spreads.

  October 1494

  The French sack Mordano.

  November 1494

  The French enter Firenze; Piero di Medici goes into exile; Firenze declares itself a republic.

  February 1495

  Four caravels leave Hispaniola for Spain with a cargo of Taino slaves; Ottoman prince Cem dies in exile; King Charles VIII of France enters Naples.

  March 1495

  The League of Venice, a.k.a. the Holy League, is formed. It is an alliance between Pope Alexander VI (born Rodrigo Borgia in Aragon), Ferdinand II of Aragon (a.k.a. King Ferdinand of Spain and Sicily), Emperor Maximilian I of the Holy Roman Empire, the Republic of Venice, and Duke Ludovico Sforza of Milan, for the purpose of driving the French from Italy; Venice claims that its purpose in joining is its plan for a future crusade against the Turks.

  May 1495

  King Charles leaves Naples, leaving a regent to govern on his behalf.

  July 1495

  Battle of Fornovo; both the French and the League of Venice claim victory.

  December 1496

  King Manoel I of Portugal orders Jews and free Muslims to leave Portugal within ten months, all Jewish children to be baptized, and all Hebrew books to be burned.

  October 1497

  King Manoel forces 20,000 Jews to be baptized and expels all Jews from Portugal on pain of death or slavery.

  April 1498

  King Charles VIII of France dies after cracking his head on a doorjamb in his château at Amboise.

  July 1499

  Governor Alvaro de Caminha dies in São Tomé; both his will and a letter from the settlers request that his cousin, Pero Alvares de Caminha, be made governor, but the king of Portugal appoints someone else.

  1499–1503

  Second Venetian-Ottoman War; the Turks win.

  1512

  Sultan Bayezid II is forced to abdicate and is succeeded by his son, Selim.

  Glossary

  A note on Turkish pronunciation: The modern Turkish alphabet, which I have used for Turkish names and words, did not exist in Diego’s time, when Turkish was written in a variant of Perso-Arabic script. In the modern alphabet, the letter ç is pronounced “ch” as in “chair,” the letter ş is pronounced “sh” as in “shop,” the letter ī is pronounced “ee” as in “beef,” and the letter ü is pronounced like a shortened “ew” as in “yew,” with the lips pursed and the tongue against the palate.

  Hebrew

  bar mitzvah

  in Judaism, coming of age; literally, son of obligation

  Baruch atah Adonai

  Blessed art Thou, O Lord

  Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu melech
ha’olam boray pri hagofen

  Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who has given us the fruit of the vine

  Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu melech ha’olam shelo asani isha

  Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, for not making me a woman

  [sometimes translated as “who did not make me a woman”]

  Baruch atah Adonai shomei’ah tefilah

  Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who hears prayer

  baruch Ha’shem

  thank God

  Beit Din

  a Jewish rabbinical court

  B’ezrat Ha’shem

  God’s will be done

  b’rucha

  a Hebrew blessing or prayer

  brit

  in Judaism, the rite of circumcision

  chas v’shalom

  God forbid

  chuppah

  in Judaism, the marriage canopy

  gabbai

  the sexton of a synagogue

  gerush

  exiled

  im yirtzeh Ha’shem

  God willing; with God’s help

  kabbalah

  Jewish mysticism

  Kaddish

  the Jewish Prayer of Mourning

  (the prayer is mostly in Aramaic)

  ketubah

  in Judaism, the marriage contract

  Mazel tov!

  Good luck! Congratulations!

  marrano

  a convert to Christianity who secretly practiced Judaism; literally, “swine”

  mezuzah

  a small scroll on which prayers are written, placed in a decorative case and fastened to the doorway of a Jewish home as a blessing or protection

  mikvah

  in Judaism, the ritual bath

  minyan

  a quorum: in Judaism, the ten men required for prayer