The Ghost of Hannah Mendes

by Naomi Ragen

  I would like to emphasize that while I have made every effort to be true to historical facts in a broad sense, this book is a work of fiction, and all characters and events described are works of the imagination, including those based on true historical material. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.

  The true descendants of the house of Nasi-Mendes are numerous, and include many distinguished members all over the world, who continue to do credit to their remarkable legacy.

  NAOMI RAGEN

  JERUSALEM, 1998

  For my dear mother and father,

  Ada Fogel Terlinsky and Louis Terlinsky.

  May their memory be forever blessed.

  Man comes forth like a flower and withers,

  He flees like a shadow which fades….

  But there is hope in a tree,

  That if it be cut down, it will sprout again.

  Its tender boughs will not cease

  though the root grow old in the earth,

  and its trunk dies in the ground.

  Through the scent of water it will bud again,

  Putting forth leaves like a sapling.

  JOB, 14:2-9

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Epilogue

  Preview

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  From: Carl Mershwam’s Tagebuch einer Reise nach Konstantinopel und Kleinasien, 1553-1556. (Munich, 1923.)

  In 1553 a Portuguese woman came from Venice to Constantinople with her daughter and attendants. The Jews seemed to feel she was a very important person, and she has that difficult race practically bowing to her. The Hebrews are not in agreement as to who her husband was and what his name was; some say that he was called Diego Mendes and his brother was Francisco de Anversa, some claim the opposite. She is reported to have escaped with great wealth from Portugal to Venice after her husband’s death, which she flaunts shamelessly; she is said to have a sister who was supposed to come here, but has somehow been jailed or detained in some way. The Jews are very proud of this woman and call her Señora. She lives in luxury and extravagance; she has many servants, serving wenches also, among them two from the Netherlands. Like all her kind, she is reported to be gluttonous, lawless and godless. She is said to have been formerly a Christian who defiled herself with Mosaic depravities, profaning the sacraments of the Holy Mother Church, and performing witchcraft, until finally openly declaring herself a Jewess. The Venetians are reported to have arrested her and to have refused to let her go. She is then said to have intrigued with the Sultan’s physician, who had a son and hoped she would give him her daughter. The Sultan is then supposed to have taken the part of the señora and they had to let her go from Venice. They allege they have left much wealth behind them, and also that some is following them by sea. They gave the pashas a lot and distributed several thousand ducats to the poor Jews and their hospital….

  Manuscript pages, memoirs of Doña Gracia Mendes, circa 1568. Handwritten, India ink on parchment. Private Collection. 1-10, 23 × 33 cm. Isle of Naxos (?).

  Caminando de vía en vía

  Penando esta alma mía

  esperando alguna alegría

  que el Dio me la de a mi

  My days of wandering are over. I can allow my feet to rest on silk footstools, exquisitely shod in gold embroidered slippers that hardly touch the ground these days. And many times, as I look at the calm waters of the Bosphorus dappled in brilliant sunlight outside my palace window in Galata, it seems to me that I have won.

  Then why do I force my old and weakening hand to take up quill and parchment, to write this full and passionate accounting of my days? The reason is this: I do not wish my enemies to own my history. I know what they will write: that I betrayed my religion with the worst blasphemy. That I bartered my people and my king for wealth. That all that was ever dear to me were riches. I can see their portrait now: the rich Jewess weighted down in gaudy gold trinkets, riding in her golden carriages toward her ill-gotten palaces of wealth….

  Like the worst lies, that description too contains its truths. Although the priests who baptized me in my mother’s arms in the great Portuguese cathedral of São Vincente de For a would be outraged to hear me described as a Jewess, for me, it has always been a fact as well as an honor. Nor can I deny that I am rich. I was—indeed, I am—the richest and (many would accuse me) the most powerful woman in the world. Kings borrowed from me and were loath to repay. Thus the royal penchant for playing matchmaker, inundating me—the helpless, beautiful young widow in need (they assured me) of male protection—with their asthenic cousins, their effete courtiers, and greedy Old Christian aristocrats; anyone, I am sure, who pledged their monarchs a generous portion of their future dowry….

  They did not know with whom they dealt. There has been only one, passionate love in my life. Even death could not separate us. The only other who came close to finding a place in my heart was a man very different from those chosen by kings and princesses. But enough. This is for later on. I shall write of this later on.

  Although I was bothered frequently by suitors, each one in his turn was thankfully brief. Sooner rather than later, they tired of their impossible task, as did their royal go-betweens. Instead, they began to pursue my daughter, my Reyna.

  I do not think it would be a mother’s foolish pride to insist that, in this pursuit, desires other than wealth took part. Reyna possesses a beauty that is forbidden for me to describe, as the Evil Eye lurks waiting for such boasting to free it to its task. I will say only this: Even I, so practiced in the ways of human deceit, believe that at least some of those who professed love for my daughter were sincerely enamored of her delicate young charm and loveliness, rather than her heiress’s dowry. With some, I even sympathized. They were heartbroken.

  Nevertheless, a marriage is more than mutual desire. It is a union of interests, a partnership in which every member of the family, living and dead, takes part.

  She was and is my only child. G-d gave her to me and Francisco to carry on not only the family name, but its honor, all that was dear to us in this life. I knew exactly the kind of man she would marry. I plotted it to the last detail. But, as it is written: If the counsel be made in heaven, no wisdom or wit on earth can prevail.

  Nothing I planned came to fruition.

  And I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.

  I also achieved full victory in routing lovers and fortune-hunters. For there never was a personage—royal or otherwise—possessing so little sense and such excess of foolish courage who
dared pursue either me or my daughter once I put it to them plainly that I could envision a coffin with far more joy than I could themselves inside a marriage bed.

  When the monarchs didn’t succeed in laying their hands on my wealth and person through the delicate slavery of marriage, they sent the Reverend Inquisitors, hoping that the grasping arms of the Church would succeed where their own had failed. That, too, was a courtship of sorts. Except the Church had no wish to bed me, simply to burn me. Had the black-robed ones succeeded, the yellow Sanbenito would have been my bridal costume, the torture rack my marriage bed. I imagine consummation would have come quickly in the body-licking flames of the auto-da-fé. Brideless, the Papal Office would no doubt have consoled itself handsomely with the bride’s matchless dowry—gold castellanos and precious stones enough to choke even the deepest papal and royal coffers.

  Oh, in what beautiful guises you all pursued me, my enemies! Courting noblemen in the richest garments of gold brocade; religious mentors in holy black robes; lovely queens, princesses and duchesses in your beautiful partlets and graceful, wide farthingales…. How noble, how gracious you were, wanting only to help me, to befriend me! I was beautiful, you told me. Desirable. I listened to your whispers and read your notes sealed with the finest wax and the most royal of insignias. Oh, how clever and persistent and cruel you were! And how you very nearly succeeded.

  I have not, nor will I ever, forget Venice. The icy wetness of the filthy dungeon floor; the stinking smell of the rancid water outside the high, barred windows; the shadows, like dancing demons, brought up by the foul, smoking tapers. Not knowing what you had done to Reyna, where my sweet child slept, if she wept for me. And yes, despite everything, my heart ached for my Little Gracia, too. After all, she did not choose her mother. And worst of all, knowing Brianda was in the next cell, knowing it was she who had betrayed me and the children….

  And yet I, a pampered girl whose tender feet had known only the most delicate of gold-embroidered silk slippers; a young, inexperienced widow with one precious child managed to outrun you all: informing traitors, soldiers, priests, kings…. I had a secret, a weapon, that was stronger than any you brought against me. Something so powerful it was beyond your comprehension.

  Witchcraft, some of you called it.

  I called it something else, as did my parents, who bequeathed it to me.

  You never understood what it was. Which is why I succeeded and you failed.

  How I should like to lay my hands on you now, my enemies! To bring you here to Constantinople, to Galata. How I should like you to rest your heads a moment on the exquisite softness of my beds and on the sofas of rare, carved woods and Florentine lapidary; to feast your eyes on the portraits painted by Raphael, Bellini, Titian, and Bronzino; to ogle my jewels and my gowns, which have always been so richly envied and so poorly copied by your tasteless queens and their noblewomen.

  Often, I allow myself to dream of you standing out there among the crowds of ordinary folks who doff their caps respectfully as I pass in my beautiful carriages. I imagine the arrogance in your eyes fading to despair as you begin to fathom how thoroughly you have been routed and foiled, not only in your greed, but in your creed—the gospel that it is G-d’s will that unconverted Israel wallow in tortured poverty and unspeakable degradation; a gospel you have spared no effort to realize.

  But because you are not out there and cannot see, I must ask you then to picture this: As I write these lines my head rests on silk harem pillows, my hands heavy with bracelets and rings of priceless rubies, diamonds, and sapphires. Around my neck is a string of glowing matched pearls the size of pigeons’ eggs. Cocooned in unimaginable wealth, luxury, and happiness, the India ink in my quill flows easily over the pressed parchment as I write these words: I, Gracia (Hannah) Nasi Mendes, falsely known to you as Beatrice de Luna, did wash the baptismal waters from my daughter’s head, as my parents washed them from mine. I observed the Sabbath on Saturday and donned clothes worthy of a holiday and took my ease that day and went to visit kinsmen. During Lent, I ate meat of sheep whose throats were slit by a Jewish scholar. I kneaded and baked and ate unleavened bread during season. I cooked my food on Friday for Saturday. And in the books in my home the words “Adonai” and “Merciful One” appear, and not Jesus Christ. I did these things, knowing full well that for each such act you have torn tender young girls apart on the rack; serrated the flesh of mothers with iron combs; filled the lungs of living men with putrid water, and then, finally, burned them.

  And what then, shall you do to me? I am beyond the reach of your torture chambers, your holy acts of faith now. My life has been my trial. G-d has judged me.

  I have described to you His sentence.

  But I am no fool. I understand that every triumph is temporary, and that the terrible game of pursuer and prey never really ends. Nor can one ever predict which lull following what battle signals the end of the war, not simply some regrouping of the enemy.

  As I near the end of my life, I find I have no great fear of death. But what I do have is a vision of hell which terrifies me more than all the burning pits and screaming damned of the Pope’s creation. This is my vision: my body turned to dust in my beautiful marble sepulcher, while above my enemies, born anew, break through my barbicans and drawbridges, climbing over my castle walls to destroy my unsuspecting progeny.

  My soul yearns to protect them!

  Wealth, cunning, powerful friends—many have possessed all three and been annihilated, root and branch. There is only one thing I can leave behind to defend you. In these pages, I reveal and bequeath it to you, my children. Guard it well.

  Thrice now the physicians in my antechamber have sent in my lady’s maid, importuning me to end my labors, to lay down and rest. Good advice, I know, which of course I shall ignore. I must finish, and quickly. While I still can.

  Do not confuse this with commendable industry. I am a spoiled old woman, used to her luxuries. There are two reasons for my haste and diligence. The first, I am loath to admit, is simply this: Of late, my mind begins to break down. Not in the sense of vapors or fits, but simply like someone on a pleasant stroll, enamored of field and sky, unaware of a small hole in the pocket through which belongings silently toss themselves to the pleasant decay of earth and wind. It is very pleasant, this fading of details, colors, dates, sounds, smells. I—who for so many years felt my past was a series of highly finished oil paintings, each detail vividly in place—find the images and colors blurring like watercolors, becoming lovelier still.

  This is not to be permitted. We do not want to leave the prettiest picture behind. For the artist who straightens protruding teeth—who flattens stomachs and paints on priceless jewels when the fat, buck-toothed matron wears none—does no favor to later generations, who will not understand why the child is overweight with bad teeth and where the diamonds are.

  Who embroiders the truth to enhance it becomes a liar. And that I have never been.

  The second reason is that by month’s end, I must leave here, probably forever. I know I may not survive the journey—but it is one I have waited for all my life, and that can be put off no longer. It is, therefore, my duty and obligation to leave behind this document, fully finished, and as truthful as I can make it. For as our sages say, truth is a tree of life. From it shall you be nourished all your days.

  Let then these pages be my true resting place, my ineradicable epitaph. Even as my body is trapped beneath the earth, its powerful truth shall wander free, entering the hearts of all my children’s children, as far into the future as G-d shall grant me offspring.

  Just as the rain or snow comes down from heaven and does not return to it without accomplishing its task…so shall be this good word of mine…. It shall not return to me void, but shall accomplish everything that I want it to do, and shall make you, to whom I sent it, prosper.

  ISAIAH, 55:10-11

  This is my story.

  1

  New York City, March 1996

  The
street felt cold after Dr. Emil Weinsweig, Jr.’s elegantly overheated offices on Fifty-fourth Street and the Avenue of the Americas. Catherine da Costa crossed her arms, hugging her coat around her. It was soft, brown suede lined with shearling and very warm. But somehow it did nothing to stop the chills that ran up and down her spine. It was early afternoon. The Manhattan sky was a pale gray mist with no hint of sun. Almost instinctively, she raised her arm to hail a cab, then thought better of it, burrowing her hand into her warm pocket. It clenched into a fist.

  It wasn’t fair, she thought, a single tear sliding down her cheek. She dabbed it with her glove, then rubbed the makeup off the black kid.

  There was no point in hurrying home. Only the phone was waiting for her, staring with a dozen menacing, insistent demands. Call Janice. Call your lawyer about the will. Call your broker.

  Call Suzanne. Call Francesca.

  She crossed the street like a dreamer, falling behind the brisk crowd who almost ran across, New York style, like people on their way to pick up long overdue checks. Cars honked at her, pulling up short. One taxi driver, his hair disheveled and matted to his forehead, even leaned out and shouted, “Move it, old bag!”

  She hurried then, her heart pounding as she reached the sidewalk, shocked with insult.

  She was a woman who for more years than she cared to remember had been spoken to in the deferent, low tones of Harvard-educated retainers, men who wore expensive suits and combed their hair in front of crystal mirrors in the bathrooms of beautiful old houses. Men who flattered her and overruled her only in the most solicitous, charming way.