The Salt Covenants

by Sylvia Bambola

  And that is why I am angry. Because in matters like this it is always easier, even for decent people, to pretend nothing is wrong.

  Doctor Diaz’s potion has given Beatriz a peaceful night’s sleep. I know, because I stayed in the room with her; watching her for hours, listening to her gentle, rhythmic breathing. And this morning she even had a bowl of chicken broth before the midwife came.

  The midwife, who is a converso and knows much about the healing arts, understands right away what has happened to my sister. “There are still signs of the violence done her.” She speaks only to Mama. “But your daughter is healing well . . . in body.” There is a frown on the midwife’s face as she applies a salve of alkanet to Beatriz’s wounds. “Do you wish me to administer a broth of iris flowers, dittany root and pennyroyal leaves? To cleanse the womb?”

  Beatriz, who has been silent until now, wails so loudly Mama is forced to sit on the bed and cradle her like an infant in order to quiet her. Finally Mama shakes her head “no” in response to the midwife’s question.

  Even before the midwife came, this matter was settled. “The baby will be part of our family,” Mama and Papa decreed. Their courage makes me proud, but a little frightened too, for I am not sure I can love any child of Fray Alonso’s.

  The midwife does not press the matter. Instead, she busies herself by straightening the covers then scatters fennel on the floor to sweeten the air and discourage the presence of evil spirits.

  Gradually, Beatriz calms. And after Mama eases her onto the pillow and tucks the sheet beneath Beatriz’s chin, she is able to extract from her a promise to see Don Sebastian tomorrow.

  The meeting will be difficult, and more than likely have a sad ending for them both. But I am greatly encouraged, for this is the first time Beatriz has shown any interest in resuming her life.

  May the Merciful One make it so.

  Before the bells finish chiming Prime, I am out of bed, throw on an old chemise and race to Beatriz’s room to tell her that shortly I will help with her hair. Today, she must look her best. Not only for Don Sebastian, but because it is important she begin feeling like herself. I know it will take more than pretty dresses and braided hair to make Beatriz forget the injustice she has suffered, but I am certain these small victories can, over time, garner the larger victory of having our Beatriz whole again.

  I tiptoe past Mama and Papa’s room, not wanting to disturb, for I know Papa is laying tefillin about now. At Beatriz’s door I knock softly, then enter before she can answer. “Come, sleepy head. Up and about!”

  No response. Perhaps Doctor Diaz’s sleeping potion of two nights ago has sufficiently broken Beatriz’s anxiety and enabled her to sleep like she used to, for Beatriz was always the last out of bed in the morning. I decide to let her sleep while I dress, so I turn to go. That is when I see it, the large red spot on her bedding. I tiptoe closer. No, it cannot be. I stretch out a shaking hand to touch the spot, and feel it is wet. Oh Merciful God! With one jerk, I pull back the linens. Blood covers Beatriz’s body. It saturates the bedding beneath her. One of Mama’s kitchen knives lies beside her. It, too, is streaked with blood.

  Beatriz’s face is as white as a shrike’s breast. I scan her body and stop at the slash lines across her wrists. I hear myself scream. Then I shake my sister, calling out her name again and again. But she does not stir. And when I put my hand to her nostrils, I feel no air. I moan like a wounded animal as I pull her thin limp body up into my arms, and hold her. We are cheek to cheek; my round, warm cheek pressed against her cold, sunken one. Her blood runs down my arms, and the blood on the mattress soaks my chemise as I rock back and forth. Then the door flies open, and Mama and Papa enter.

  I know not what happened after that, or how they were able to pry my arms from Beatriz’s body, but suddenly I find myself in a chair by the large table full of Beatriz’s tiles, listening to Mama’s anguished cries and to Papa saying between sobs, “Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, Holy, Holy, Holy. May His great name be blessed forever and to all eternity.” It is part of the prayer of mourning.

  And then he covers my beautiful, gentle Beatriz with a sheet.

  Someone has taken Beatriz’s tiles off the long table in her studio and pulled the table into the center of the room where Beatriz now lies beneath a fresh coverlet. Another fresh sheet drapes her bed, and I am grateful I cannot see the blood-soaked mattress. Mama stands by Beatriz’s head while I stand by her side. We must prepare her for burial.

  Mama begins by gathering Beatriz’s long loose hair into her hands. She will wash it with hot water, then brush it out while I wash Beatriz’s body. It will be just us two attending my sister. Before the Expulsion, Mama and Papa would have hired professional keeners to wash Beatriz while they sang dirges and lamentations. But I am pleased it is only Mama and I, for our hands will be more loving in our work.

  I slip my cloth beneath the sheet and begin by washing my sister’s arms, then her chest, and am startled by the sharp protrusions of her ribs which I feel even through the wet cloth. She is thinner than I imagined. Next, my cloth moves across the bones of her hips. They too are protruding and hard, like the knobs of a stew bowl. But between the bones, there is a barely perceptible rise, and I think of the baby who has died, a baby Beatriz could not let the midwife destroy even while she herself lacked the strength of soul to bring it into this world.

  Babies who die in their first year are not greatly mourned for it is all too common. But I mourn Beatriz’s baby now, and wonder how I ever questioned loving it. It is, after all, Beatriz’s. I indulge my grief over the baby because it keeps me from the larger grief, that grief which is so great and dark and deep it makes me feel as though I have fallen into a pit, and I know not how I will ever climb out.

  Mama is feeling her own anguish. Her face is as tight as the hide on a tanner’s frame. Neither of us speaks, and in the quiet I wonder what the next days and weeks will bring. Will Mama cover the mirrors and place a bowl of water on Beatriz’s bed along with a towel, a saddler’s needle and lit candle so Beatriz’s soul can come to bathe? Will she ban meat for a week and set a place for Beatriz at table, or keep food around Beatriz’s bed? I fear she will, thus giving our servants more fodder for the Inquisition. And alongside my fear sits shame for being such a coward.

  Mama finishes washing Beatriz’s face then takes a coin from somewhere inside her bodice and places it into my sister’s mouth. And while she winds a long strip of cloth under Beatriz’s chin and around her head to keep the mouth from opening, I finish my job. Then we carefully wrap Beatriz in a white muslin shroud. After the men bring the coffin, and put her in, we will place a small pillow filled with virgin earth beneath her head.

  Then Beatriz will be ready for burial.

  Our large procession makes its way to the Jewish cemetery. Because my sister has taken her own life she cannot be buried with the Christians. This does not grieve Mama since it saves her the trouble and danger of secretly burying Beatriz with her own people, then sending a weighted coffin to the church. The procession is made up of me, Mama, Papa, all our servants—including the young scrawny daughter of our cook who wails uncontrollably—all our converso neighbors, and even some Old Christians, including Gonzalo Vivar, his wife and three sons. Doctor Diaz also walks with us.

  We follow the plain wooden coffin that is carried by Don Sebastian, his father Señor Villarreal, Señor Nuñez, and one of Señor Nuñez’s sons, and wind through streets full of causal onlookers and noisy vendors and merchants too busy to stop and look at all. Down Abbots Street we move, passing houses and shops, loaded donkey carts, and lame beggars squatting on corners. Then we pass the walls of the Jewish Quarter until at last we enter the cemetery where a sad picture of neglect and desecration greets us.

  The cemetery has not been used since the Expulsion, except secretly by crypto-Jews brave enough to do so. The once well-tended field is now overrun with weeds and refuse. Many of the gravestones have been broken by vandals; some completely destroyed. Off
to one side is a freshly cleared patch of ground, the work of Don Sebastian—who refused to allow the servants to do it.

  The men lower the coffin into the open hole, while one of the conversos, a former rabbi and himself a crypto-Jew, begins to recite the Ninety-First Psalm. People moan and cry and throw dirt over their shoulders. And when it is over I am the only one who has not shed a single tear.

  After the burial everyone comes to our house to eat the burial meal. According to tradition, this meal of mostly round foods such as olives and hard boiled eggs, is “symbolic of the roundness of the world and the mourning which comes to us all.” Mama even paid the baker to deliver a basketful of round bread. To this we added red bream and herring.

  It pleases me that we do not sit on the floor, as is the custom. Mama has had benches and stools and every available chair brought out for our guests and placed near the tables laden with food and wine. With Old Christians present, it is dangerous to follow our customs too closely.

  It is fortunate that Mama understands this, especially since Enrique Vivar follows me everywhere with those dark brooding eyes of his. Does he hope to entrap me or my family in some way? Even now, as he pushes chunks of herring into his mouth, his eyes are on me. And I cannot escape for I am speaking with Doctor Diaz who has sought me out and positioned himself in such a way that my back presses against the table’s edge while he himself blocks me in front.

  “. . . and naturally I understood your sister’s physical condition, but one cannot always know the condition of the soul for it is not available for scrutiny as are the bodily humors. But I never expected . . . .” Doctor Diaz’s voice breaks.

  I know he is telling me he is sorry that Beatriz has died, and perhaps even sorry he did not do more. I smile and say, “I understand,” but not out of a heart of forgiveness but because I am weary of Enrique’s gaze and see that a space has opened up through which I can make my escape. I use the excuse of wanting to find my friend, Blanca Nuñez, and dart through the opening, only to be stopped seconds later when a hand, rough and calloused, touches mine. I am surprised to see that the hand belongs to Maria Vivar, Gonzalo’s wife. I do not know Maria well. I have only spoken to her a few times since whenever I am at the groves she is always scrubbing clothes or cooking or working the vegetable gardens.

  “I am so grieved, Doña Isabel.” Her brown eyes, set amid a worn leathery face, are full of kindness.

  I nod and smile, for her kindness sake, and because she seems sincere.

  “You do not understand.” When she puts her face closer I see something true and loving and wonderful in her eyes. “I am grieved that your sister was called to the Holy House. Grieved about the prosecutor, the police, the nuncio, the . . . inquisitor. It makes me ashamed. So ashamed I feel I must ask your forgiveness. Please forgive me. Please forgive all of Spain’s Christians.”

  My heart jumps. Never have I heard such words. Many good Christians have spoke out against the Inquisition and the treatment of Jews; venerated men such as Hernando de Talavera, confessor to the Queen; Alonso de Oropesa, General of the Spanish Hieronymite Order; and Cardinal Juan de Torquemada, uncle of the hated Tomas de Torquemada. But never have I heard a Christian ask my forgiveness.

  Before I can say a word, Maria squeezes my hand and disappears.

  It is late but I do not sleep even though a pleasant breeze sweetens the air in my room, and even though I am exhausted from the day’s sad events. I have lain in my bed for hours trying to gather courage. The bells chime Martins, telling me I can delay no longer. I force myself up, quickly dress, then pull a white linen handkerchief from beneath my pillow. Tied in it are hundreds of lavender seeds which I have been saving to make a garden by our home in the groves. Now, I have a new home in mind.

  I tiptoe down the hall, past Mama and Papa’s room, relieved to see the door closed and that all is quiet. But before exiting the house I head for Beatriz’s room; I think to bolster my sagging courage by reminding myself why I am about to do this mad thing.

  Suddenly, Mama’s soft trilling voice sputters through Beatriz’s door. What is she doing here? I hesitate. Discovery will end my plans. Even so, I open the door slightly. Mama’s back is to me. She sits on the floor facing Beatriz’s bed, singing guayas—dirges of sorrow and affliction. The sound is utterly mournful.

  To my surprise I see Papa, too, just a sliver of his back because he is in the part that Beatriz used as a studio. When I open the door wider, more surprise. He has fired a brazier. But on such a hot night what need was there to warm himself ? It is difficult to see what he is doing, so I open the door as far as I dare, and stick in my head just as he pulls his tefillin from his tunic. It is long past the time for prayers. Even so, I expect to see him strap one leather box to his forehead, the other to his hand. Instead, he places them on the brazier. No . . . impossible . . . he would never burn his tefillin. But yes, that is exactly what he is doing. The leather smolders, and a small flame ignites one of the thin straps. Unable to watch any longer, I close the door, then dart from the house into the street.

  A half moon hangs in the sky, providing enough light to see large objects, but not enough to see the sludge that runs through the streets. I keep close to the buildings. Already my shoes—an old pair of leather ox-mouths—are damp.

  The nearer to the Guadalquivir River I get, the windier it becomes. My hair, which is not bound or netted, swirls around my face. It is madness to be out at such an hour. If someone sees, surely I will be mistaken for a prostitute or some unfortunate beggar. I pray to the Merciful One and ask His protection, then quicken my pace. And God is merciful, for I encounter no one.

  It is a long walk, and I keep to the shadows until at last I stand in front of the cemetery. Many consider it bad luck to visit a grave twice in the same day, but I care not. I think only of Beatriz. Even so, it will be difficult getting to her grave. Between us is a littered field of headstones, pottery shards and refuse. I move slowly, taking teetering child-like steps. Before I reach Beatriz’s grave I fall twice, tear the hem of my skirt, bloody my hands, and rip my shoes.

  But I forget all this when I see the mound under which my sister lies. I kneel beside the freshly turned earth then pull the handkerchief from my pocket and lift it, asking God’s blessing before scattering the seeds over the mound. Now, instead of a tangle of weeds, my gentle Beatriz will lie beneath a blanket of lavender.

  After tucking the empty handkerchief in my skirt, I place my hands on the frayed neckline of my bodice and rip it. Then a sound—a mix of words and sobs both strange and terrible—fills my mouth as I begin the Kaddish of mourning.

  Mama said we must go to the auto de fe. The thought of leaving our house today, especially to see that vulgar display, is unbearable, but I did not argue. By the fearful look on Mama’s face, I am beginning to understand why Papa burned his tefillin. Now, instead of looking forward to the prospect of staying in my room behind closed doors, I must dress in finery; I, who am as shattered as the pottery that pierced my feet last night. And amid the velvet and brocade swirls my fear that in addition to destroying his tefillin, Papa has also destroyed his prayer book and Tanakh.

  The bells have just chimed Tierce, and my hair is braided and hidden beneath a netted halo-headdress. But I resist putting on my farthingale and red undergown and grey velvet dress with dagged sleeves, the longer to keep my pained feet soaking in a basin of hot water.

  “Come, Isabel, do not tarry,” Mama’s voice sputters through my partially open bedroom door. I dry my feet, then wrap them in strips of cloth to protect the torn and tender skin. Then I put on my red hose and red velvet shoes, and finally my dress. And before Mama can call me again, I am in the hall.

  It is plain, by the look on Mama’s face as well as Papa’s, that they take little pleasure in this outing. But like yoked oxen to a plow, we are driven by the hand of the Inquisition, and there is little to be done except walk the rut.

  Mama, Papa and I stand in the Plaza Mayor beneath the vaulted walls o
f The Church of the Savior. There is little room to maneuver, for we are a sea of people all here to witness what our priests call “a necessary tool.” Even the window seats in the buildings surrounding the Plaza are filled. Many have been sold at a good price to others who desire a comfortable view. For the enterprising, money can be made even from an auto de fe.

  The Tribunal likes its auto de fes to fall on holidays in order to ensure large crowds. Today is not a holiday. Still, the people have come, and some, like us, wear fine clothes as though attending a grand festival. I despise the hypocrisy. It would be better if we were in sackcloth and ashes.

  We all form a large semi-circle around two wooden platforms that stand in the center of the Plaza. On one platform is the cloth standard of the Inquisition, picturing a green cross, an olive branch and a sword. The standard is veiled now by a black cloth, and was carried to its place of honor yesterday while we were burying Beatriz. All night, monks and soldiers have guarded it. On the second platform stands the civil executioner. Since the Church has no authority to execute anyone, condemned heretics must be handed over to the secular arm. It is on this platform that the prisoners will stand.

  Papa has secured us a place in front, the better to be seen by the Inquisition’s spies. Perhaps one will report what good Christians we are. And though it is easy to understand why Papa has forced us to come, it makes me burn with shame. My feelings are irrational. But how can you control emotions that are as raw as the entrails of the dead pig Mama ordered from the butcher this morning?

  We have never had pork in our house, though many crypto-Jews make a practice of keeping a few pigs for show. But I am deeply offended and sickened by the thought, and do not understand the extreme turn my parents have made. What good can come of all this?

  The sun climbs higher, striking the whitewashed walls of the church, and I think of how Seville, this gleaming whitewashed city, has soiled herself by erecting platforms of shame.