Gateway to the Moon_A Novel

by Mary Morris

  Beatrice of the Moon.

  Luna was the name of the town her family came from in northern Spain. It was not uncommon for conversos to take on the last name of the town from which they’d been expelled. But to Benjamin it was as if she came from the moon itself. She has long been the light that shines in his darkness.

  Beside him Leonora shifts her weight. The new child will be born soon. He must think of his family first. It is strange for him to feel that what happened today was the deepest secret he will ever have to bear. Deeper even than the prayers he whispers and the candles he lights.

  * * *

  Beatrice de Luna, who will soon go by her Hebrew name, Dona Gracia Nasi, sits up in her room, cradling Ana in her arms. She will not sleep tonight. Within the hour she will return to her place beside her husband’s body. She has seen to it that his body has been washed in cool water, his nails trimmed. She watched the servants wrap him in white linen cloth. And she has ordered one of them to sit with his body until her return so that he will not be alone. If the servants whisper to the priests, she does not care. At least for now the exemption from the pope will remain. Neither the Vatican nor the king can afford to live without the subsidies from the House of Mendes.

  But she must come up with a plan. She must decide what is best for Ana and herself. How long will the pope continue to protect her and her family? And what about the other conversos who depend on her to secure their safe passage elsewhere. The king will do whatever he can to prevent the Jews from leaving until he has at least had a chance to confiscate their belongings upon arrest because “everything they have must be given back to the true God.”

  Beatrice leans back onto the bed where her husband often visited her. She can still smell him on her pillow. Tears slide down her face. She has never felt so utterly alone. She takes a sip of the hot chocolate that grows tepid at the side of her bed. Ana breathes heavily beside her. Her forehead is hot the way a child’s forehead tends to be when they sleep, but Beatrice panics. What if her daughter grows ill too? What if she has caught her father’s fever? But she cannot allow herself to think of such things.

  Instead, lying there in her bed Beatrice knows that she must get used to this—her widowhood. She cannot ever marry again for she will give up all of her holdings. And she cannot take a lover, or even have a dalliance, for fear of blackmail. Beatrice de Luna is twenty-five years old and her bed will be a cold and empty one for the rest of her life.

  Three days later the grand procession weaves its way through the streets of Lisbon. The funeral carriage is led by six sleek black horses and accompanied by a dozen soldiers dressed in white, riding pure white horses on either side. Dressed in the finest black silk, Beatrice de Luna and Ana follow in their carriage. Along the way, jugglers, clowns, fire-eaters, flute players, carts selling sausage and chickens roasting on spits, and throngs of spectators line the road. All of Lisbon has come out to see Francisco Mendes make his final journey to the great cathedral where he will be given a true Christian burial. Almost thirty years later Beatrice de Luna will keep the promise she whispered to her husband on his deathbed. She will have his bones disinterred and brought to Jerusalem where he will be buried as a Jew.

  Not long after the funeral Beatrice receives a letter from the king’s emissary, making a generous offer. The king requests that Ana be sent to the palace to be raised like royalty by the queen herself and with the promise of an advantageous marriage for her in the future. Stunned by this request, Beatrice contemplates what she must do. She realizes that Ana has already become a pawn in a game she has no intention of playing. She replies that she would be honored to have Ana raised at the palace but first they must go to Antwerp on business and she will send Ana to the queen upon her return.

  Beatrice knows that she must act swiftly and in stealth. She packs whatever they might need for a short journey. The rest of her clothing and possessions she will leave behind. She sends word to Diogo in Antwerp that he must arrange safe passage for her and Ana to London via Calais, and then they will travel overland. It is the only safe way to go. A week before she is to leave, she sends word to Benjamin to come and see her.

  He arrives as soon as he hears from her and is let right in. He finds her sitting in the shadows of her room. Beatrice is dressed all in black and seems paler and thinner than he remembers when he last saw her the night Francisco died. He cannot bear the reminder of Francisco, fighting back. That feeling as the life left his body. And a strange memory that will not leave him as if once someone had tried to smother him as well. Benjamin would give anything to banish such thoughts forever from his head.

  “You asked to see me?”

  Beatrice nods. “I did. I am going to tell you something and I trust you will keep it to yourself.”

  “Of course. I have always given you my full loyalty.” He trembles slightly but tries not to show her.

  “I am leaving Lisbon in a week’s time. You must tell no one. I can arrange for you and your family to come with us to Antwerp. You will have work there for the rest of your days.” She looks tired and already worn by the demands made upon her.

  He can’t begin to imagine all that she must bear. He will never know of the thousands she will help escape. How many she will aid in their passage to Antwerp, across the treacherous Alps where many will die, to Venice where boats will carry those who survive to the Ottoman Empire and a place called Tiberias where they will be free. If he goes with her, he will never be free. He will always love her. He will spend his life wanting her. His marriage will be loveless. He does not think that he can bear to be near her for the rest of his days and not make love to her. He would be her loyal servant, but nothing more. And his life would be wasted.

  Instead he makes his decision right then and there. Ever since his mother brought the sweetened liquid to his lips he has been fascinated with cacao. He was born in that part of the world where the cacao trees grow. The sea is in his blood. He does not want to travel north. He believes that there is a future for him in chocolate. While Beatrice de Luna prepares to leave Lisbon, never to return, Benjamin Cordero makes his plans to travel to the New World.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  ATONEMENT—1992

  "We’re going to be late,” Nathan says. He always says that. It doesn’t matter where they need to be. A movie, dinner, an outdoor barbecue on a lazy summer day. Even the beach. Nathan hates to be late. Rachel knows this, and at times she wonders if she isn’t late on purpose, if she doesn’t do it just to get under his skin. That is one of the things about her that drives him crazy. As a pediatric cardiologist, Nathan has to be precise.

  But it seems to Rachel as if she always has a million things to do. Just this week she has to help Jeremy build a cardboard boat for the Columbus quincentennial celebration on Monday. Five hundred years since Columbus discovered America. Davie needs a costume for the reenactment. Jeremy is supposed to build the Pinta along with two of his friends, and Rachel hasn’t even looked at the design, though she’s had the cardboard from the refrigerator they purchased in the garage for months now.

  This drives Nathan mad. He can’t tolerate the chaos in their lives—the piles of laundry that never seem to get into the hampers, let alone into the washer, the things that need to be fixed that never get fixed. Small things that it would be easy enough for Rachel to do. A lightbulb, for god’s sake. The meals that don’t get prepared, the groceries that never make it from the shopping lists into their cupboards and shelves. Rachel can come home with smoked salmon, pesto, and pumpkin ravioli, but forget the coffee, butter, milk for cereal. Nathan will say to her, “Can’t you remember the staples?” She’ll stare at him blankly. “You know,” he’ll explain, “the things we need every day?”

  “I’m coming, I’m coming,” Rachel shouts as she kisses the boys goodbye on the tops of their heads and gives Miguel last-minute instructions about what they can and cannot watch and where they can and cannot go. She totters in the doorway in her black sleeveless blouse, her pen
cil skirt and heels, a shawl thrown over her arm. Miguel wonders if they are going to a funeral.

  “Rachel,” Nathan calls again.

  She signals with her fingers: two minutes. Even though Rachel and Nathan are fasting, she can’t expect two little boys to fast as well. They’d thought of bringing the boys with them. There is, after all, the playgroup, but it means the boys will be stuck there all day and, given Davie’s ADHD and Jeremy’s tendencies to what she has to admit to herself is borderline bullying, it just seems better if they stay home rather than having to go through the trouble of introducing them into a new playgroup with strange kids.

  As they pull off their dirt road and onto the highway, Nathan says. “You sure you can trust that kid with our boys?” Today is one of the few times he has seen Miguel and it is always in passing.

  “Oh, he’s spent a lot of time alone with them,” she lies. In fact most afternoons Rachel is home.

  Nathan shakes his head. “He drives a lowrider with flames painted on the door and you’re okay with that? Rachel, what do you really know about him?”

  Rachel stares straight ahead at the mountains, the city of Santa Fe appearing just over the crest of the hill. “I know enough,” she says. It is a day of fasting; of making the world right. Tikkun, it is called. Putting the pieces back together. It is what Rachel tries to do. She often fails, but she does try to make the world a better place. She doesn’t understand how people can be so callous and cruel. She practices kindness whenever she can. “He’s a good kid, Nathan,” Rachel goes on. “The boys like him.” Nathan purses his lips in that way that makes Rachel uneasy. He is practiced at making her doubt herself. He makes her start to put question marks at the ends of her sentences. He is a good kid, isn’t he? And the boys like him a lot, don’t they?

  It is packed in the shul and hot. Very hot for October. It wasn’t this warm last night for Kol Nidre (when they had brought the boys with them), but that was because the desert breeze blew. Now it is the heat of the day. The High Holy Days usually come earlier, but this year they are late. Still the heat is unusual. Rachel can make no sense out of the Jewish calendar. All she knows is that now they are stifling. When she enters the synagogue, she keeps her shawl around her arms, but as the large room fills with perhaps five hundred people, atoning for their sins, she drops her shawl. Nathan takes off his jacket. Then he looks around at the other men and takes off his tie.

  The service has already begun. The prayers, the recitation of sins, the beating of breasts. And then the Torah portion, but Rachel’s mind drifts back to Rosh Hashanah—the sacrifice of Isaac. And the rabbi’s endless sermon, “What Sacrifice Will You Make?” Rachel always wonders why God asks Abraham to kill his own son. What is God testing? On the holy days, they are asked to make a sacrifice. How much would you give up for God? What if God asks for your son? Anyway it didn’t go over very well with Isaac. He never spoke to his father again.

  But at last the Torah portion is done and the rabbi’s talk, and then comes the haftorah, and that recitation seems endless as well. It takes so long that Nathan leans over and whispers, “It feels more like the full Torah to me.”

  Rachel stifles a giggle, putting her hand over her mouth. She is glad that her husband said something funny. That he whispered into her ear. He seems happier, his mood lighter of late. “That is good,” she whispers back, her lips grazing his ear. She has a sense that perhaps now, at last, things will be better. Perhaps even all right. Today is a day of tikkun, isn’t it?

  Someone is opening the large sanctuary windows, letting the hot breeze in. And the doors, they too are wedged open, but still it is boiling inside. No one can remember it being this hot for the holidays. Suddenly there is a bustling. People moving around her quickly. Behind her she can see that someone, an old man perhaps, is slumped over. A hush comes over the room. The rabbi ceases his prayers. Someone calls out, “Is there a doctor in the house?”

  About thirty men stand and rush to the back of the room. So it’s not just a joke about Jewish doctors. The room is full of them. She turns to say something to Nathan but he has slipped from her side. She doesn’t even feel him sliding away from her into the sea of doctors. Her eyes scan the room until she sees that it is Nathan who is tending to the man. It makes sense, of course. Nathan is a cardiologist—for children, it is true, but still. From the chair where she sits she can see her husband holding the man’s hand. Gently he bends over the man, asking him questions as he checks his vitals. He takes his pulse. He prods the man’s chest, his throat. He examines his eyes. Water is brought and Nathan cradles the man’s head so that he can sip. She sees the look of concern in her husband’s face.

  She studies Nathan’s every movement because it occurs to her that he hasn’t touched her, in a very long time, as tenderly, as patiently as he is touching that elderly man. It has been months since he has stared at her with those same, focused eyes.

  * * *

  Back in Colibri Canyon it is hot in the house and the natives are restless. They’d gone through at least three rounds on the Game Boy. They’d watched all the Looney Tunes that Miguel can find on the TV and a DVD of Dumbo and Snow White, which Jeremy described as “idiotic.” What a smartass seven-year-old to call something idiotic. He’s idiotic. But Miguel can’t tell him that. He will learn it himself soon enough. But Miguel doesn’t like the way Jeremy pushes his brother around, and Davie still won’t fight back. Just an hour ago Jeremy got a wild look in his eyes just before he hit Davie over the head with a Wiffle ball bat. It is plastic, but still it made Davie cry his eyes out and run around like crazy. Jeremy had a mean look in his eyes that chills Miguel to the bone.

  Miguel stands in the long corridor, staring out through the yard and into the desert beyond. This day he knows is a special one for the Rothsteins. He doesn’t entirely understand it, but he knows that it is a holiday and that he is being asked to spend the day with the boys—something he’s never done before. And now he’s at a loss with what to do with them. At the edge of the property there is an arroyo and beyond that he’s seen a trail that appears to head off into the desert. He hears the shouting from the living room. These boys need to burn off some steam, and Miguel decides that they should go for a hike. He wouldn’t mind getting out of the confines of the house as well.

  He goes back into the living room where Jeremy is flipping channels and Davie keeps saying, “Let’s watch this one. Let’s watch that.”

  “Boys,” Miguel says, getting their attention. “I have an idea. Let’s go for a hike.”

  They look up at him, bewildered. “What’s a hike?” Davie asks. And Jeremy nods. He’s only heard the word used once before when another babysitter told him to go take a hike, but he’d never learned what it meant.

  Miguel stares down in disbelief. “It’s when you go for a long walk outside.”

  “We’ve never been on a hike,” Jeremy says. Miguel looks out the window at the vast expanse of desert and mountains, a picture window onto the Southwest. They’ve lived here for six months and they’ve never been on a hike. He wants to ask if their father has ever taken them anywhere, but he is pretty sure he knows the answer. “Well, you’re going on one now.”

  Miguel hesitates for only a moment. Mrs. Rothstein has never said that he can take the boys beyond the yard but she’s never said he can’t either, and they will all be climbing the walls soon if they don’t get out. The house has a small fenced-in yard with a swing set and slide, the kind you pick up at Home Depot and assemble in an afternoon. He thinks a doctor can afford a better swing set and probably even a bigger yard, but no matter.

  He helps the boys put on long pants and sneakers. Jeremy complains that it is too hot for long pants, but it is a warm day and snakes can be active. Miguel finds a stick that will serve as a walking stick, but also in case he needs it to prod or poke something. He also carries his pocketknife with him as always. It has a four-inch blade.

  “Can we bring Baxter?”

  Miguel shakes his head
. “No, no dog.” It is enough to take care of the boys without being responsible for a dog as well. This is a good plan. Miguel likes it. He’ll take them for a half-hour hike, no longer, but it will get them tired out. And then they’ll be exhausted all afternoon. “We’re on a mission,” Miguel says, “so it is very important that you follow my instructions exactly.”

  Davie jumps up and down. “What mission? What mission?”

  Jeremy shakes his head. “There’s no mission, dummy.”

  “Yes there is,” Miguel says. “I’ve just received a message. There’s a missing ship and we’ve been asked to find it.”

  Davie leans toward him. “What kind of a ship?”

  “An intergalactic spaceship,” Miguel whispers into his ear.

  Jeremy shakes his head. “I’m staying here.”

  “No,” Miguel replies. “You are my second-in-command.”

  He knows that this will all be lost on Jeremy, who has long ago taken a deep dislike to him, but he doesn’t care. Miguel goes into the kitchen where he fills two water bottles and grabs snack packages of Fig Newtons. He puts baseball caps on the boys and slathers them in sunscreen, especially Jeremy who is so pale. He doesn’t bother putting sunscreen on himself. He’s lived in the desert all of his life. Besides he is dark-skinned. All that happens to him in the sun is that he grows darker.

  At last they are ready. As they step out, they are greeted by the blistering sun. A wave of heat. Jeremy shakes his head, turning to go back inside but Miguel turns him around. “Come on. You’ll get used to it. Okay, you’re both going to follow me and stay on the trail. Jeremy, you bring up the rear. Single file—Indian style.”