By Fire, By Water

by Mitchell James Kaplan

  “If I knew where paradise was,” answered the scribe, “would I be sitting here with you?”

  After Father Cáceres left, Santángel posed another question to the scribe. “But what of that other document? The rolled-up parchment, very ancient.” He remembered its letters floating in the air.

  “Ah, yes.” Serero nodded slowly. “I’ve placed it elsewhere. For safe keeping.”

  “What is it? What does it say?”

  “That parchment would be better left alone.”

  “The sailor who gave me these,” insisted Santángel, “urged me to report back to him. It wouldn’t be decent for me, or you, to hoard this knowledge.”

  “The parchment.” Serero nodded, scratching his ear. “I knew of this document long before I had the privilege of setting my eyes on it. I was under the impression not one copy remained. Because of this text, many Jews have been massacred. The Christians searched out every copy and burned them in auto-da-fés, along with their owners.”

  The Thirteenth Meeting

  AS SERERO AND CÁCERES ENTERED Santángel’s study, Felipe set a pine box on the table. “I have spent many, many hours struggling with this.”

  “What is it?” asked Santángel.

  Felipe opened the box and removed a sculpture, about a foot high. Two men wrestling, mirror reflections of each other. Delicate curves of cherry wood formed their hair, mouths, hands, calves, feet. Their facial muscles and eyes conveyed not only intense concentration, but also awe, as if both figures were astonished to find themselves embracing in combat.

  “Jacob wrestling with the angel.”

  “Please put that away,” said Serero.

  “Why?” asked the chancellor’s aide.

  “It is a graven image.”

  Felipe frowned. “But it doesn’t claim to be a representation of God.”

  “I don’t want to see that. Please take it out of here.”

  “You showed us a book, a Passover Haggadah, with people drinking, talking, eating. Were those graven images?”

  “An illuminated Haggadah,” explained the scribe, “is not the same as a depiction of people and scenes from the Bible. I know how proud the Christians are of their statues. But I don’t have to look at them.”

  “Why not?” asked Raimundo de Cáceres.

  Felipe de Almazón slowly, deliberately replaced the statue in its box, then carried the box to another room.

  “The Bible,” explained Serero, “is made of words. Words exist in the same realm as ideas. A physical form is another matter. Images and words affect the soul differently. The Muslims understand this. The Christians don’t.”

  “I do,” said the priest. “And I am a Christian. You’re talking about Neoplatonism.”

  “I am not talking about that,” said Serero, “whatever that means.”

  Felipe de Almazón returned, but hardly said a word the rest of that evening. His lips tight, a small crease above his chin, he listened.

  After the others left, Santángel again detained Serero. “Did you not say, life is more sacred than ritual? That if a life is at risk, a Jew should even violate the Sabbath?”

  “Without a doubt,” replied Serero. “That is the principle of pikuach nefesh.”

  “I’m afraid that principle escapes Felipe.”

  “His statue,” said the scribe, “is not a danger to anyone’s life. And Felipe is not a Jew.”

  “I’m not speaking of the statue.”

  The chancellor told Serero about the Sabbath invitation, the elaborate meal, Felipe’s clumsy attempt at Hebrew prayer. “I fear he believes that these meetings … that we’re trying to convert him.”

  “We have been clear,” said Serero. “We’re discussing ideas. We’re not telling anyone what to believe or not to believe. That is our agreement.”

  “But why this Sabbath invitation?”

  “Felipe seems to …” Serero searched for the words. “He seems to cherish the secret. The common ground he shares with you. You’re like a father to him.”

  “What common ground? Neither of us is a Jew. He doesn’t even understand the purpose of these rituals.”

  “Chancellor, I agree. Señor de Almazón is not a Jew. But according to Jewish law, you are a Jew.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” said the chancellor irritably, ushering the scribe outside and locking the door.

  Over the next few days, Felipe removed every unfinished angel from his workshop and every sculpture from his office. He placed them carefully in a pine box. On top, he nested Jacob and the angel. He buried this coffin in his courtyard, vowing to himself never again to make or even regard an image of holy beings. He would survive as well without their protection.

  The Nineteenth Meeting

  SERERO SHOWED THEM another ancient text, a bulky tome with a well-worn leather binding and ornate Hebrew lettering on its spine, in gold. “The Zohar,” he explained, opening the volume on the table. “The Book of Splendor. Tell me if this doesn’t have something to do with what we’re witnessing, in this terrible time.” He translated from the Hebrew: “The gazelle of the morning star … that most compassionate of animals … goes to find food for others … and in the darkness before dawn … feels the pain of exile. Like one who’s giving birth … she cries out in pain.” He read silently a moment longer.

  “What does this mean?” whispered Santángel.

  “More than I can say,” answered the scribe. “But this much even I, with my limited understanding, can tell you. The gazelle is the people of Israel, as it’s written in Psalm 42: As the gazelle thirsts for the brook, so my soul thirsts for you, O God.”

  “And this gazelle,” asked Father Cáceres. “This people, what is the text telling us about her?”

  “She goes out into the world.”

  “Out into the world. Into exile. The people of Israel. Yes.” This, the priest understood. The Jews had been a wandering, stateless people for centuries.

  “Exile, yes, but not forever. In the darkness of the morning. By the light of the morning star.” Serero placed a hand on the priest’s arm. “Which is to say, daybreak is surely coming. But for now, this gazelle, this people, is crying out in pain. Like one giving birth.”

  “Who’s she giving birth to?” asked Felipe.

  “What we are talking about,” said Serero, “are the birth pangs of the messianic age. The time when Israel will return from exile and all the nations will be at peace. The time of the true Messiah.”

  He closed the massive volume with a thud. “That is what I wanted to show you. We’re living in strife, darkness, and exile. But it won’t last forever.” He turned back to Santángel. “You, of all people, Chancellor, must hold that in your heart. If anyone is in a position to help bring this about, you are.”

  “How so?”

  “You are one of the few who can change this world. You are a messenger. That is the meaning of your name.”

  “If I ever had that kind of influence, and I’m not sure I ever did, I fear I no longer do.”

  “You can change this world,” Serero repeated. “And God knows, it needs to be changed. Utterly. That is our hope. Please, whatever happens, don’t forget all we have learned together. Don’t forget the purity of our intentions. I know I won’t.”

  The Twentieth Meeting

  FELIPE ARRIVED LATE. He probably would not have come at all, he explained, had he known what was best for him. That morning, two constables of the Santa Hermandad, “Holy Brothers,” had appeared at his door. They carried lances and wore long white tunics with black crosses emblazoned across their chests. With a hand that Luis de Santángel saw quake, Felipe produced the summons the constables had delivered.

  In it, the Reverend Pedro de Arbués, canon of La Seo Cathedral and Inquisitor of Aragon, demanded that Felipe de Almazón appear for questioning. Santángel studied the document. Who had denounced Felipe? Was it one of their group? A suspicious servant who wondered why she had been given time off on a Friday? A neighbor who had witnessed Catali
na preparing the Sabbath dinner? And beneath these questions, a slithering heap of half-formulated worries: When would the Hermandad come for the rest of them? Would their high positions and powerful associates be of any avail? What would become of their wives, their children, their friends? He thought of Gabriel, already wanting a mother—the shame he would bear if Santángel were publicly implicated in heresy. He handed the summons to Father Cáceres in silence.

  “I wouldn’t despair,” Raimundo de Cáceres advised Felipe when he finished reading. “Remember, all they want from you is confession. And repentance. Tell them the devil tempted you. You looked for truth in Judaism, but now you know better.”

  “Father Cáceres, I’m no fool,” Felipe answered. “I’ve seen what has gone on in Cordoba and Sevilla.”

  The priest held up his hand. “I’m not saying there aren’t abuses. Egregious abuses. Horrifying abuses. I’m as angry as any of you. Perhaps more angry.” He shook his head in frustration and concluded, “Just confess. Repent and be done with it. They’ll jail you for a time, then they’ll release you. I shall do all I can to ensure that.”

  “As will I,” added Santángel.

  Felipe turned to Santángel. “With all the esteem and affection I hold for you, Chancellor, I beg you, do not attempt to defend me, or we’ll all end up dead.”

  “None of us will die,” insisted Father Cáceres. “Just confess and repent. Ask Christ for forgiveness. They’ll spare you.”

  “How can I ask Christ for forgiveness,” asked Felipe, “when I don’t believe in him?”

  Luis de Santángel had been puzzled when Felipe de Almazón asked to join their group. He had been disconcerted when Felipe invited him for a Sabbath dinner. Now he was utterly bewildered. There was more to this man’s behavior than courage, or foolishness, but he did not understand what was driving the young aristocrat to behave in this manner. He prayed it was not his own example.

  Abram Serero finally spoke up. “Don’t speak nonsense. Your life is holy. Created in the image of God. I wouldn’t want to feel responsible if you lost it.”

  Felipe turned to Santángel. “Chancellor, I hope you understand.”

  “I do not. Tell them what they want to hear,” Santángel advised him. “Submit to the Church’s authority. To the Church’s love. Do penance. I, for my part, vow to you I shall do my best to put an end to this madness.”

  Night after night, week after week, Luis de Santángel prayed fervently that the Inquisition treat Felipe de Almazón with the mercy due an aristocrat and an associate of the king’s court. That even under torture, Felipe de Almazón never accuse Father Cáceres. That he never breathe a word about the ancient, dangerous manuscript Abram Serero possessed. That he never allude to secret meetings. He trusted Felipe as much as he trusted anyone. He also knew what his former aide was facing.

  Despite Felipe’s warning not to intervene on his behalf, the chancellor worked hard to free him from the ecclesiastical jail, and thus to advance the longer-term project of crippling the New Inquisition in Aragon. He discussed the matter with others among the king’s advisors, some of whom tried to help in subtle ways, always anonymously. He visited Felipe’s wife, the beautiful Catalina de Almazón, assuring her no harm would come to her husband. But as the weeks passed, it grew more difficult to appear confident. Silences punctuated their conversations. The pauses grew longer, the words fewer.

  Four months after his arrest, Felipe de Almazón was dead, reportedly having succumbed to an illness that made his teeth chatter and his mouth foam.

  Felipe’s confession, according to the ecclesiastical authorities, had been incomplete. To make the point, a half-dozen constables of the Santa Hermandad dragged his corpse into the Plaza de la Seo, where, before Sunday Mass and the entire city, they hacked it to pieces and fed it to dogs.

  To ensure that Felipe’s soul would rise to heaven despite his perfidy, Pedro de Arbués presided over a postmortem “reconciliation ceremony” on a platform before the cathedral, even as the hounds growled and yapped over their supper below.

  The sight of these jackals, sinewy, coated in hues of streaked and mottled mud, chewing off the face of the aide who had become the chancellor’s trusted friend, pulling at the tendons of his shoulders, ripping the flesh of his ears and nose, rooting in his entrails, caused the floodgates of revulsion, contempt, and rage to swing wide open in Luis de Santángel’s heart. Standing with other dignitaries at the front of the crowd, his cheeks wet with tears, he closed his eyes to distance himself from the event. The Latin sacrament falling from the canon’s mouth beat upon his eardrums like an enemy army thumping at the city gates.

  When he opened his eyes again, he observed the expression on Canon Arbués’s fleshy face. A look of contentedness and serenity.

  Across the immense divide between them, the canon’s gaze met the chancellor’s. Pedro de Arbués’s composure dissolved. In the set of his jaw, Luis de Santángel now saw ardor, determination, and accusal.

  Late that night, Father Cáceres entered the chancellor’s house through the back door. He found Santángel sitting on his bed, lost in thought.

  “Please be assured,” the priest told him, “I loved Señor de Almazón. His thirst for knowledge. His sincerity. His search for God.”

  “I … I should never … have allowed him …”

  Cáceres placed a hand on the chancellor’s shoulder. “He would have found a way, with Abram Serero or someone else.”

  The chancellor swallowed, his shoulder tensing under Cáceres’s grasp. “Father, I and many others have fought battles in the cortes. I’ve pleaded with the king. Others have pleaded with the queen. I’ve even appealed to the pope, personally.”

  “I too have tried, Chancellor. I’ve written to my university master, Hernando de Talavera, who shares our sympathies. For now, we’re powerless against … against him.” It seemed to Santángel the young priest did not wish to pronounce Torquemada’s name, for fear it might contaminate his faith.

  “Talavera, yes, the scholar. Please, Father, sit down.”

  Cáceres sat in a chair before him. “The records of Señor de Almazón’s testimony, Pedro de Arbués is guarding them like holy relics. Keeping them, as far as we can determine, in his private chambers. I have that from the canon’s servants.”

  “But do we know if there’s anything in them? Anything that …”

  “… that might incriminate us? Señor Santángel, how could there not be?”

  Indeed, Santángel himself had never heard of anyone who failed to provide names under torture. “These records, these logs of Felipe’s deposition …”

  “It’s all in one log,” the priest corrected him. “And soon, sooner than you think, if we don’t act, this book will find its way to Torquemada.”

  The chancellor looked at the window. It was as black as the Strait of Gibraltar at midnight, separating two continents in his life—all that had come before, and all that would come after this day.

  “We must recover that book. The log of his testimony.” Turning back to the priest, he affirmed aloud what they both knew. “And the canon, he must die. Pedro de Arbués,” he nodded slowly, “must die before he destroys you, me, and our associates.”

  Cáceres lowered his voice. “I know the man to do it. A horseman. A Basque. A skilled assassin.”

  They looked into each other’s eyes. It occurred to Santángel that if he had ever felt anything akin to Christian love, it was in this moment, in their shared hatred.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  RETURNING FROM THE MARKETPLACE on a bright, cool afternoon, Judith found her home deserted. She began preparing supper.

  An hour later, the meal was almost ready. Baba Shlomo and Levi still had not appeared. She searched through the streets of the quarter until she discovered the old man sitting on a stone bench near the synagogue.

  “Where’s Levi?”

  Baba Shlomo shook his head. “This is what happens when women run a business. You ignore the children, soon they don
’t need you.”

  For religious purposes, having passed the age of bar mitzvah, Levi was a man. For practical purposes, he was still a boy. When his studies prevented him from working in the shop or accompanying Judith to the marketplace, Judith expected him home for dinner.

  She wandered out of the Jewish quarter to the vast Arab marketplace, where children sometimes made mischief running between the stalls or stealing fruit. She remembered her brother Yossi and the mysterious gash on his thigh, incurred here all those years ago. Panicking, she visited all the vendors.

  She paused at a fountain, telling herself there was no cause for alarm. “The wind that blew on the Red Sea will never blow on the Middle Sea.” History never repeated itself. Whatever had happened to her brother would surely not happen to Levi. She sat down.

  A young Muslim woman sat down beside her, placing her sack of vegetables on the ground. A scarf covered her hair, but her exposed face, with its refined features and pale skin, brightened in a warm smile. “It is a lovely day, isn’t it?”

  The sky was azure, the air crisp and clear. The sun, nearing the horizon, cast long shadows as shopkeepers packed up. “I suppose it is.”

  “What are you searching for?” asked the Arab woman.

  “What makes you think I’m searching for something?”

  The Arab woman laughed. “Why else would a Jewish woman be running from stall to stall in the Arab marketplace, as if possessed by a djinn?”

  “My nephew,” said Judith.

  “Don’t worry: If you lost him here in the marketplace, no harm will come to him.”

  Judith turned to her and smiled, appreciating her intent. No Muslim, she knew, could understand the feelings of gratitude and fear that mingled in the soul of a subjugated people.

  “Go home,” the woman told her. “A child’s journey, you’ll never fathom.”