The Mapmaker's Daughter

by Laurel Corona

  “Me?”

  “When Diogo was alive, my heart ached for you, but now there’s so much you can decide for yourself. Go, stay, take a lover, live alone. It’s up to you. Living here in Queluz should be your choice, not just something where you say, ‘Oh, look where I ended up,’ without knowing how it happened.”

  Simona works her way through another strand of my hair. “I’d hate to see you use your confusion as an excuse not to take the gift of freedom God has granted you. Stay here if that’s what you want, but not because you can’t decide what to do.”

  She touches my shoulders. “Relax,” she says. “I can see how tense you are.”

  Her loving hands make it impossible to worry about anything. To my surprise, that’s all I need.

  “I have to go,” I murmur.

  Simona stands up straight and looks toward the door. “Did you hear horses? Is he here?”

  “That’s not what I mean,” I say. “I have to go to Granada.”

  14

  SEVILLA 1452

  Jamil, Eliana, and I set sail down the Tagus River in November. We travel south, and I strain with a tumult of emotions to see the vague outline of the promontory at Sagres, before we turn east and continue to the mouth of the Guadalquivir River on the southern coast of Spain.

  Passing Sagres, I told Eliana every story I could remember about my life there, but as we near Sevilla, the city of my childhood, I fall silent. How could I explain that I once made the sign of the cross and stood in line for communion? But how else will she know what wonderful women are in our family, and how important my mother and grandmother’s conspiracies were to who I became and to who she is now?

  On business in Sevilla for the Caliph of Granada, Jamil will reside at the palace of my father’s former employer, the Count of Medina-Sidonia, but Eliana and I will stay with some of Judah’s relatives. When we dock, Jamil sends a messenger to the address Judah gave, and before long, a young man approaches us, wearing a yellow circle on his chest. “I am Yakov Abravanel,” he says. “My uncle Judah told us you were coming, and we’ve been worried you wouldn’t get here by sundown.” It must be Friday, I realize. On the water, I lost track of time.

  “What’s that circle on your coat?” Eliana asks.

  “All the Jews wear these,” he says with a shrug.

  “Where are ours, Mama?” She thinks the circle is an honor. Edicts for Jewish dress were not enforced when I lived here, and I feel a wave of uneasiness at what else I might find changed.

  “We need to get some circles right away,” Eliana says, sounding at six like a little housewife. “We can sew them on when Shabbat is over.”

  She takes my hand and says no more because, as far as she is concerned, there’s nothing to discuss. What could possibly be wrong with being a Jew? I say a silent blessing that she has been so well protected within the bosom of Judah and Simona’s family.

  Once the carts have left with our things, we set out on foot for the Abravanel’s home. The Jewish quarter lies near the cathedral, whose massive towers are visible everywhere, and as we come through a covered arch next to the Alcazar, the church bells in the Giralda Tower ring out the hour.

  Eliana stops to cover her ears, looking up at the astonishing mass of the cathedral. “They built a palace for God?” she asks, looking puzzled. I squeeze her hand, remembering how I stood miserably with my mother, watching with a sympathy so great it made me cry, as birds that had flown in through open doors flung themselves against the glass, unable to comprehend why they could not escape.

  “I suppose that’s what they thought they were doing,” I reply vacantly, feeling the weight of the past pressing in around me.

  We follow along the walls of the palace until we reach the tiny Jewish quarter. I expect the Abravanel’s home to be large and stately, and I am surprised when we stop in front of a door indistinguishable from any other on the dilapidated street. “They’re here!” Yakov says, throwing open the door, and we hear happy voices even before we pass the threshold.

  An old man with a stooped back and a long gray beard clears his throat. In a gravelly voice, he intones the blessing for travelers. “The Lord preserve your going out and your coming in,” he adds, “from this time forth and forever.”

  “Ken yehi ratzon,” I whisper. “May it be so.” I put my arm around my daughter’s tiny shoulder and pull her to me.

  “The candles, Ester,” he says to a woman in her thirties who must be the mistress of the house. The moment they are lit and the blessings said, the whole family bursts into song. Eliana joins in at the top of her voice, wanting everyone to see that she knows the words by heart.

  ***

  The block I lived on as a child burned a few years ago, I am told, but both my sisters live not far from here—Susana, with her rock-hard soul, and Luisa, who hasn’t written to me since she took vows. They don’t know I am in Sevilla. We are nothing to each other except shared blood, but of course that is enough. I intend to search for them, though I can’t imagine any of us will be pleased with what we find.

  On Sunday, I give one of Ester’s sons Susana’s address, to inquire if my sister will see me. He comes back with grim news. She has been dead a month, stricken by a malady that wasted her to skin and bones within a year.

  I leave my daughter with Ester and go to pay my respects to Susana’s family. Her sister-in-law is a dour-looking woman with a face as long and thin as a horse but with none of its beauty. “You are the other sister,” she says with no enthusiasm. I wait for her to say more, but she doesn’t.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner,” I say. “I would have liked to say good-bye.”

  Before she can reply, a young man and woman appear in the doorway. It takes a moment to recognize Pablo and Ana Maria, who came to visit Papa and me at Sintra. Pablo, who was six then, is now fourteen, and Ana Maria twelve.

  “I’m sorry about your mother,” I say.

  “Everybody dies,” Ana Maria says, looking away with a shrug.

  “Yes,” I say, not sure whether her reaction is indifference or the shock of her loss. “But she was still quite young, and so are you, to have to go on now without her.”

  Ana Maria stares at the ground, her face a cold, silent mask.

  “I wish I had something to give you to remember her by,” I say to both of them, “but I don’t have anything of hers.”

  Ana Maria comes to life. “Her things are ours now,” she leaps to say, as if I might be suggesting that she give something up so I could have a remembrance too.

  “I don’t want anything,” I tell her.

  “Well, if you find any jewelry, it belongs to me.” Realizing how harsh and grasping she sounds, she pastes on a wistful smile. “It will help me remember her,” she says in a cloying voice so like her mother’s I feel the hair rise on my arms.

  Pablo can’t wait to get back to whatever he was doing, and at the door he turns, as if he has just remembered he should say good-bye. “Thank you for coming.” His tone is stiff and distant. I recognize in the curl of his lip the same barely disguised scorn with which Diogo beheld the world, and I know we are all relieved we are unlikely to see each other again.

  ***

  My next visit will be far more pleasant. On the second Shabbat Eliana and I are in Sevilla, I hire a cart and driver to take us to my grandparents’ house. My grandfather died a year ago, so I know it will not be the same, but I ache to see my grandmother with such intensity my heart runs ahead of the decrepit horse pulling us down the road.

  Grandmother’s weathered face lights up like a child’s, and she greets Eliana as if she has seen her many times before. I am struck by how ancient she looks, but it has been sixteen years since I’ve laid eyes on her.

  Suddenly shy, my daughter clings to my skirt. “Come now,” I tell her. “This was my favorite place when I was your age.” Grandmother asks her if she wants to try some of the cookies that were my favorite when I was her age, and I know if there’s anything that can coax a res
ponse from my daughter, that’s it.

  She releases her grip on my skirt and allows herself to be led into the house. “Can I see the atlas?” she asks the minute we are inside. “Of course,” Grandmother says. “After you’ve eaten your dinner.”

  She sets a plate of cookies and a mug of cider on the table for Eliana, and as I help her get ready for our meal, I fall in step as if I had never been gone.

  “We taste very good.” Eliana jiggles one of the cookies as if it is speaking. “Do you mind if I eat you?” she asks. “No! Eat him instead,” the cookie replies, and without further conversation, she polishes off both of them.

  Grandmother smiles. “She’s a beautiful child.”

  “Yes,” I say. “I am very blessed.”

  She changes the subject. “I’m glad I still have the atlas to show her. Susana wrote twice to ask for it.” Grandmother puts a serving bowl down so heavily I am surprised it doesn’t crack. “She claims it would be safer in her house. Only after her grandfather is dead does she worry about that? All these years, it could have been stolen or burned in a fire, she doesn’t say a word. Now she cares? Of course, she tells me how much her children will appreciate such a beautiful thing, and how educational it will be, but I’m sure she plans to sell it.”

  No one bothered to tell her the news, I realize with shock.

  “Grandmother,” I whisper, “Susana’s dead a month now.”

  She shuts her eyes. “Baruch dayan emet,” she whispers. “Blessed be the True Judge.” She sits down on a stool by the hearth. “And me talking about her that way?” Her eyes brim with tears. “I always told myself it’s never too late for a person to change, but now it is.”

  She looks over at Eliana’s empty plate. “I think her dinner can wait. Suddenly I’m not hungry.” She goes over to a familiar chest set against one wall. “Ven aqui, Eliana,” she says. “There’s something I want to show you.”

  I spend several hours in Grandfather’s chair looking at the atlas with Eliana in my lap. After dinner, we light the candle for habdalah and end the Sabbath with a song I taught my daughter as soon as she was old enough to learn.

  “Let us bless the Most High,” Eliana sings in her lovely child’s voice, “the Lord who raised us. Let us give him thanks for the good things he has given us.” She and Grandmother sing to the end without me, as my voice is swallowed up by tears.

  At the last notes, we hear a whinny at the gate. “I don’t suppose I’ll be seeing you again,” Grandmother says.

  I don’t want to end the day with a protest or a lie, so I force out words I don’t want to say. “No, Grandmother, probably not.”

  She puts one hand on my head and the other on Eliana’s. “May God make you like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah,” she says. “May God bless you and watch over you, and may He grant you peace.”

  “And also to you,” I whisper. My heart glows with pride as Eliana returns the Hebrew blessing without prompting.

  The horse nickers outside the gate. My daughter scrambles aboard the cart, and when I am seated next to her, Grandmother hands me the atlas, wrapped in a shawl and tied with twine. I clutch it in one hand while I stroke Eliana’s sleeping head with the other, all the way back to Sevilla.

  ***

  I tell Eliana we don’t need to sew on badges because only the Jews who live here get to wear them, and I take her out with me the next morning to show her the spring. The winter sky is bright and clear, and our breath forms clouds in front of us as we go down the path through the broken, frost-ravaged stubble.

  When we reach the pool, I tell her about standing guard while my mother did her mikveh, and about the day I sat with my grandmother and mother, dangling our feet and making up blessings. Eliana gets down on her knees and wets her hand. “Brrrr!” she says, shuddering dramatically. I put my fingers in the water and touch them to her cheek, saying a silent prayer. She responds by breaking into one of her favorite songs.

  “Mayyim hayyim,” she sings in her off-key chirp, “the gift of living water.” Singing makes her want to dance, but as she scrambles to her feet, she lets out a cry. I whirl around and see two men standing a few steps away. Neither is smiling, and one has a menacing grip on his walking stick.

  “Jews?” one of them asks. Eliana is clinging to my skirt, her face hidden except for the eye she is using to watch what is happening.

  How could I have been so stupid as to bring her here? I have a heartbeat’s time to come up with a plan to get us home unharmed, and, Baruch Hashem, something comes to me. I look confused and answer them in Portuguese. “I am from Lisbon,” I tell them. “I don’t understand what you said.”

  They hear the word “Lisbon,” and their expression softens. “Foreigners,” one of them says.

  “We thought you was Christ-killers when we heard the girl singing. It sounded like that Jew talk to us.” One of them pats his walking stick. “We know how to take care of that when we see them without their badges, don’t we?” He grins at me, assuming I agree.

  “We must—” I try to look as if I am thinking of a word in Castilian. “Andar a la casa?”

  The men now bob their heads in a respectful bow. “We was just walking by and thought you was Jews,” one of them says, gesturing to Eliana. “Sorry if we frightened the girl.”

  I walk past them as casually as I can with Eliana still clinging to my skirts, and when we reach the middle of the field, I gather up Eliana in my arms and break into a run toward home.

  ***

  “Why did they want to hurt us?” Eliana wails once we are safely inside.

  I pull her close. “Christians don’t understand why we aren’t Christian too, and rather than try to get to know us, they—” I don’t want to use the word “hate.” Not about my daughter. “They think it’s all right to be mean.”

  “It’s not all right!” Eliana’s eyes flash.

  “Yes, I know. Sometimes people grow up without learning good manners, and when they think they can get away with it, they do whatever they want.”

  “But God watches all the time!”

  “He must be very disappointed with those men,” I murmur into her hair. “I suspect he thinks they should know better.” Eliana relaxes on my lap as I croon a Hebrew lullaby she loves. When she has drifted off to sleep, I put her down for a nap, and Ester retrieves a bowl of sugar. She coats her finger, then draws it across Eliana’s mouth. “Milizina para tu spantu,” she whispers in her ear. “Medicine for your fright.”

  She sprinkles sugar in a path from the bed out the back door and lays down a bowl of water in which she sprinkles a little more. “Los mejores de mosotros will follow the trail of sweetness,” she says. “They’ll jump in the water and be dissolved, and she’ll wake up as if nothing happened.”

  We take our places at the worktable, and Ester looks up from the onion she is chopping. “You must have forgotten the way things are here,” she says, blinking her eyes. “Onions. How can something smell so wonderful when it’s cooking and so awful when it’s raw?”

  “Actually, my mother and I were living as anusim here in Sevilla,” I tell her. “Nothing bad happened to us. Nothing like today.”

  Ester puts down the knife in astonishment. “You’re a converso living as a Jew again?”

  “No one bothered me in Portugal,” I add, “and Eliana was never baptized.”

  “Here, people die for what you’re doing.”

  “I’ll be gone from Sevilla soon.” I try to sound unconcerned. “Judah told me if anything happened, the connection to his family would protect me.”

  “Basta que mi nombre es Abravanel,” Ester says with a wry smile. “That’s what our men all say. They think the family name will get them out of anything, although I think Judah forgets it’s been a long time since we’ve been able to do any service to the crown.” She gestures around her shabby home in case I wonder why.

  “Judah and his family are well protected in Portugal,” I say, “even when things get bad.”

  �
�May it always be so,” Ester says, in a tone that implies she wouldn’t put much faith in it. She gets out some cumin and gives it to me to grind, while she takes a galingale root and chops it to a paste. The peppery aroma fills the kitchen, mingling with the smell of carrots and onions sizzling in the pan.

  She adds small morsels of chicken to the pan and covers the mixture with water just as one of her sisters comes in for a visit on her way home. “Good,” Ester says. “There’s something Amalia and I must do.” She asks her to watch the pot on the hearth and care for Eliana when she wakes up. After pouring sugar into a kerchief and knotting the corners together, she puts on her mantle and borrows her sister’s for me. “You’d better wear one with a badge,” she says.

  Puzzled, I follow her out of the house. “Show me where you went today,” she demands. “It’s part of the medicine, and you have to finish it.”

  Though I never want to go there again, she is resolute. I point the way, and she follows me to the spring. “What were you doing when you first saw them?” Ester asks.

  When I tell her that Eliana was singing, she orders me to start the song myself. “Mayyim hayyim, the gift of living water,” I sing, but my throat is so tight it comes out more like an anguished croak.

  “Good,” Ester says when I finish. “Los mejores de mosotros are here now because they know you’re back. We need to talk to them.” She opens the kerchief and cradles the sugar in her palm. “Tell them you didn’t do evil, and evil should not be done to you.”

  “Ni mal ize ni mal ke me aga,” I say.

  She holds out the hand with the sugar. “Sprinkle it three times and walk backward. I’ll tell you when to stop.”

  I do as I’m told, and she walks next to me, counting my steps and stopping me at fifteen. “Vos du dulsuria ke nos desh sultura,” she says. “Tell them that.”

  “I give you sweetness that you may release us.” Above me, the sun shines pale in the early winter sky. A wisp of breeze shakes the bare twigs on the poplars at the spring. “Do you see that? They’re gone,” Ester says. “You’ll be safe now.”