Copyright © 2014 by Laurel Corona
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Cover design by Lynn Buckley
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Contents
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Reading Group Guide
Suggestions for Book Club Activities
A Conversation with the Author
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Back Cover
In honor of the mikveh and the countless Jewish women who have restored their strength and optimism in its waters.
1
SEVILLA 1432
I hold my hands up for my mother’s inspection. “They’re not dirty enough, Amalia,” she says. Pinching off a burnt candlewick, she smears the black powder around my nails. “There,” she says. “That’s better.”
Little daylight remains on this tawny afternoon as she hands me an empty basket small enough for my six-year-old arm to carry. “You know what to do. And you’d better hurry.”
She shuts the door behind me, and I start up the narrow street on the edge of Sevilla, stopping in the apothecary’s doorway to smell the scented air. The owner sets down her pestle. “Wait a minute,” she says, breaking off a sprig of rosemary, which she tucks behind my ear to protect me from the Evil Eye. Farther up the street, the air reeks from the greengrocer’s fly-ridden pile of rotting vegetables and spoiled fruit, and I hold the rosemary to my nose, breathing hard through it to cover the smell as I turn the corner toward the butcher shop.
A severed pig’s head looks out into the street with an oddly cheerful grin. The butcher wipes bloody fingers on his apron as he turns to serve me. “Two pork sausages and a few scraps of ham for soup,” I tell him, remembering to make sure he sees that, as Friday sundown approaches, my hands are still filthy.
Soon the houses give way to a rocky field. The wildflowers reach my waist as I go down a narrow path of bent and broken stalks. Just before I reach a stand of poplars, I take the meat from my basket, noting with disdain the mosaic of white fat and pink flesh as I fling it all as far as I can into the tall grass.
Spreading my fingers to avoid the feel of the grease, I make my way through the trees to the edge of a small pool. From time to time, someone must come here or there wouldn’t be a path, but it is easier to get water from the pumps in the squares than from the springs around Sevilla. In warm weather, my mother brings me with her to stand guard while she immerses the way she is supposed to after the blood stops flowing from between her legs each month, and I think of it as our private place.
A frog splays his legs as he crosses the pool. “Don’t be afraid, little fellow,” I say as I crouch to rinse my hands of the grease. Mayyim hayyim, my mother calls this pool. Living water, though it makes my fingers look as pale as the dead.
“Baruch atah Adonai,” I whisper. “Eloheinu Melech ha’olam.” After blessing the Holy One, I add the words for the ritual of washing hands, watching the swirls of water disturb the grass on the edges of the pool. “Vetzivanu al netilat yadayim.”
When my hands are so clean they squeak, I splash water on my face to come home looking fresh for Shabbat. I imagine the sausage hidden in the grass, and since there is no blessing for throwing forbidden meat away, I whisper the words I often hear my mother say. “Please accept that we honor you the best we can.” I stand for a moment in silence before picking up my basket to head for home.
VALENCIA 1492
I look at my hands, half expecting to see them pink and glistening from the spring, but instead find them corded and rippled. Sixty-six years old. I am a daughter, wife, mother, widow, lover, grandmother, but I sit now in an empty room in a hostile city because I am a Jew. I have been expelled by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella from the land of my birth for that simple fact.
I should be more precise. I am caught between two impossible choices. I can go to the church whose clanging bells disturb my sleep and allow some cruel-mouthed priest to pour water on me. After he pronounces me restored to God, I will live at the mercy of neighbors suspicious I am not Christian enough. That, or leave Spain with my daughter’s family and wander until more hospitable people take us in.
I do not appreciate the service Ferdinand and Isabella think they have done by offering Jews their paradise. Need I say that I prefer the life of comfort and dignity they have torn from me? Or would the fact that I am in the sole chair on a bare floor in an empty room in the port of Valencia say it for me? Isaac, my son-in-law, says that their Catholic Majesties didn’t really intend the Jews to leave. They simply want Jewishness to melt away in Spain, forgotten by our children’s children for lack of practice.
How little they understand. There’s a knowledge deep in our bones that some lines cannot be crossed without becoming unrecognizable to ourselves—the only death truly to be feared. I know who I have been. I know who I am. I know who I will remain.
I am Amalia Cresques, though I have had other names. A Christian name disguised my Hebrew one at my birth. “Ama-lia,” my mother would say, deliberately mispronouncing my name so I wouldn’t forget. “God loves Leah. That’s what it means. It’s your real name, the one known to him.”
It was the first of many deceptions by which my mother and I secretly lived as what Jews call anusim, the forced ones. “There are two kinds of anusim,” she told me. “The ones who say, ‘I give up,’ and the ones who don’t.” The ones who don’t are called Judaizers, living outwardly as Christians but keeping to the old ways in secret.
Conversos, New Christians—that’s what families like the one I grew up in are called. In private, the good Christian folk of Spain call us reformed blasphemers, repentant Christ-killers, unworthy prodigal sons. Even their holy water cannot replace the degeneracy they are sure is in our blood.
“He that fleeth from the terror shall fall into the pit; and he that getteth up out of the pit shall be taken in the trap; for I will bring upon her, even upon Moab, the year of their visitation.” The words of the prophets come easily to mind, for I have been awash in them most of my life.
We are the new Moabites, and
the year of our visitation has come.
I shut my eyes and feel the memories crowding in again. My breath leaks out and time goes backward with it.
SEVILLA 1432
The sky is coral with sunset, but the shadows are so deep, I recognize my father only by the slight hitch in his gait. I run down the street to meet him and give him the basket to hold, so I can slip my hand in his.
We’re late, but I know better than to say so. “Vicente Riba doesn’t have any obligation at sundown on the Sabbath,” he would snap. “I’m a Christian, and so are you.”
At the threshold of our house, he puts his fingers to his lips and touches a crucifix in the doorway. He looks out of the corner of his eye, hoping someone passing in the street sees him make the sign of the cross.
“Rosaura?” he calls out.
My mother comes to the door, looking like the last bloom of summer drooping heavily on its stem. “You worried me. It’s almost dark.” She takes the basket and turns around. “Susana! Luisa! Come here!”
My twelve-year-old sister Susana comes from the kitchen with my little sister in tow, chewing on a piece of bread the servant girl has given her. “Come along,” my mother says, taking an oil lamp from a sideboard. “I need your help.” My father’s face grows stormy, but as usual, he says nothing.
In the basement, my mother sets two candles on a stool in the middle of the floor, away from anything that might catch fire. Fishing a splinter of wood from her apron pocket, she lights one end from the lamp and touches it to the wicks. “Blessed art thou, Lord God, king of the universe,” she says in a voice between singing and speaking, “who sanctifies us with his commandments and commands us to light the Sabbath candles.”
I shut my eyes when she does, taking in the moment. Quiet time with my mother is rare, even if I do have to share it with Susana, who is twice my age and not my friend. I try to make her think I don’t notice she’s there by crouching down to talk to Luisa, who just turned three. “Baruch atah Adonai,” I repeat slowly, emphasizing each syllable. “Rook tadonai,” Luisa says solemnly, and my mother smiles.
Susana shifts from foot to foot. She hates coming down here for the weekly ceremony that begins Shabbat. She wants to be like her Old Christian friends, with their honey-colored hair and pale, heart-shaped faces. I catch her glowering into her looking glass, tugging at her drab, brown locks as if they have done something wrong. She wears her crucifix to bed, though my mother tells her she’ll strangle on it someday.
“We can’t be down here so long,” Susana scolds. “Don’t you think people can figure out what you’re doing?”
I reach for my mother’s hand. “Avla bien para ki ti venga bien!” I say, repeating one of her favorite sayings.
Susana glares at me. “Mother, are you going to let her talk to me that way?”
“Amalia is right,” Mama says. “Speak well so good will come to you. Ken savi los ke estan sintiendo?”
Who knows who is nearby? Susana should not be so careless. Evil spirits are always lurking, and they might whisper to our neighbors that we secretly light Sabbath candles. The sheddim are happiest when our own words give them ideas about how to hurt us. We refer to them aloud as los mejores de mosotros, the best of us, because it’s important to distract them with flattery.
Mother hands Susana a bottle of wine and gives Luisa and me oranges from a basket, to make it seem as if our trip to the cellar was just an errand. I go up behind my sisters, but sensing my mother is not behind me, I turn at the top of the stairs. She is still in front of the candles, her lips moving as she talks to the circles of golden light.
***
Luisa slips one hand in mine and wipes the sleep from her eyes with the other as we leave the house the next morning. The lingering cold of winter brushes my cheeks, but the April sun is already warming the air. We hurry behind Susana and my mother, their strides growing longer and faster as they continue a hushed argument that began at the house.
“They act like Jews, Mama. It makes me uncomfortable. You know it does.” Mama hunches silently over the covered basket she carries, as if she has not heard Susana’s comment.
We arrive at the stables and, after hiring a driver and cart, we are soon in the countryside amid fields of red poppies, dotted with splashes of blue, yellow, and white, as chaotic and wild as if they had been painted by a blind man. Black-and-white magpies fly with wings so shiny they look dipped in water. The scent of newly tilled earth teases my nostrils until I sneeze.
My legs jiggle in anticipation of the chance to run in the open air and to use the loud voice I have to hush at home, calling out to whomever will listen, even if it’s just the ducks in the yard or the clouds already billowing in the immense blue sky.
Luisa is squirming, tired of bouncing along the rutted dirt road. “Go to sleep,” I tell her. “We’ll get there faster that way.” She lays her head in my lap, and though I want to stay awake, the jostling makes my head slump, and we doze until the barking dogs in the village wake us.
My grandfather is waiting at the gate to his farm, catching Luisa as she jumps out of the cart. Brushing back a stray wisp of her blond hair, he kisses her forehead. I jump down just as Grandmother hurries up the walk. “Shabbat shalom,” I whisper so the driver will not overhear. I feel her arms tighten around me, and my breath is hot against her skirt.
Mama hands our parcels to Susana before getting out herself. “Be back before dark,” she tells the driver. He nods, and with a flick of the reins, he heads off toward Sevilla.
“Shabbat shalom, Father,” Mama says when the driver is beyond hearing. “Shabbat shalom,” she repeats to Grandmother, giving her a kiss on the cheek. Her voice is so loving that I always forget they are my father’s parents, not hers.
Luisa and I run ahead to the chicken coop to check if eggs are still in the nests. Just inside the gate, tiny cheeps come from puffs of bright yellow scampering on the dirt floor. “Hold it gently in your palm,” I say, picking one up. Luisa’s face glows as she holds the chick near her face and talks to it.
Some are still breaking free of their shells, their feathers clinging to them like wet, brown spines. One is making a pitiful little sound, and thinking it might be cold, I blow on its feathers. At the feel of air on its body, it looks around, dazed. I can hear Luisa’s soft breath as she puts her chick in the nest.
“Pio, pio,” she says, imitating them.
“Pio, pio,” I repeat, taking her hand.
“There you are, my little radishes!” Grandfather comes up behind us and picks Luisa up in his arms. He puts his other hand on my shoulder. “How do you like our new additions?”
“They look like they’ve drowned when they first come out.”
“And then, before you know it, they’re like old mother hen here, with chicks of their own.”
“Grandchicks,” Luisa says.
He laughs with a great roar. “Grandchicks,” he repeats. “Pollititos.” The sound of the word makes us giggle, and we make it a game as we walk back to the house. “Pollitititos. Pollitititititos,” we say, stopping only when our tongues get tangled up in the sounds.
Inside the house, Grandmother has laid out a bowl of olives next to the embroidered cloth covering two loaves of challah and is removing hot cinders from around a kettle of stew. She wipes her hands on her apron, and stands next to my grandfather. He pours wine in a silver kiddush cup. “Blessed art thou, Lord God, king of the universe, creator of the fruit of the vine,” he says before taking a sip. He offers the cup to my grandmother and mother before lowering it to me. My cheeks pucker in anticipation even before I taste it.
Luisa stands next to me. “It tastes awful,” I whisper, as Grandfather puts his finger in the wine and touches it to her lips. She matches my grimace and shudders the way she always does, causing a ripple of laughter from the adults.
Except Susana, who wants nothing to do with these rituals. “The stew smells delicious, Grandmother,” she says, looking away.
“I made
your favorite,” Grandmother says to her after we have blessed the bread and are seating ourselves on benches around the table. The scent of cloves and cinnamon wafts up from saffron broth as grandmother fills our bowls with white beans, chickpeas, and cubes of beef.
For a while, no one speaks as we enjoy Grandmother’s adafina, kept warm from yesterday, because cooking is work, and work is forbidden on Shabbat. We eat the first bites hurriedly but eventually slow down, because Shabbat meals are meant to be savored, and no one will be leaving the table until we have talked about our week, sung a few songs, and eaten all that our stomachs will hold.
A loud knock startles us. “Who’s there?” I hear the alarm in Grandfather’s voice as he goes to the door.
Grandmother hurries to hide the remainder of the bread, and my mother covers the pot of stew and takes it out the back door. A stew kept warm on a dying fire and a braided loaf means that we are observing the Jewish Sabbath, and no one must know. But it is just neighbors, Bernardo and Marisela, come with a flute and tambourine to be among their own kind making music on Shabbat afternoon.
The bread and stew are brought back to the table, and though we all claim to have had enough, the pot is soon emptied with small tastes, sopped up with the remaining bread. Susana has disappeared, using the excitement of the new arrivals to slip outside.
“You mustn’t be so hard on Susana,” Grandmother says. “Girls get moody when it’s their time to become a woman.”
“But she’s so scornful!” My mother’s eyes glisten. “She says, ‘I was born a Christian.’ What kind of talk is that? As if we can choose our ancestors?”
“Sensible talk,” Grandfather replies, raising his eyebrows. “We are Jews who cross ourselves, eat pork when a Christian puts it on our plate, and buy leavened bread during Passover even though we feed it to the chickens when no one is looking.” He shrugs, but his eyes flicker with pain. “We’ve left behind so much of who we are, perhaps it’s no longer worth the trouble to keep to our old ways.”
“Jaume!” Grandmother is aghast. “Such talk coming from you?”
The Mapmaker's Daughter Page 1
