The Ghost of Hannah Mendes

by Naomi Ragen

  “Shouldn’t we be looking for a hotel?” Francesca asked.

  He didn’t answer, making a sudden turn around a traffic circle. With a swift transition she found almost impossible to conceive of, she found herself face to face with one of the most remarkable sights she had ever seen in her life. “Stop the car, please!”

  She got out and stared: a city on a hill, too old to be real, entirely surrounded by an ancient wall, set off by bridges and moats and gates over a swiftly flowing river. It was so very beautiful, she thought. But it was not that which left her breathless. It was that the mists of history had suddenly grown flesh.

  Marius stood beside her, his arms crossed. “‘G-d fashioned Toledo before He made the world. Only then did He set the sun to shine above it, like a crown.’ This is what it’s like.” He nodded toward the incredible view. “That moment when you climb into some attic covered with ash and dust and find a pile of exquisite books, wonderfully preserved, as if they’d been waiting patiently for hundreds of years just for you. Waiting to tell you some matchless secret.”

  She searched his face. The arrogance was gone, and there was a shyness she had not noticed before, like a mischievous young boy caught in some secret act of kindness. And then, without warning, a look of sadness spread over his features. “It almost makes me wish I didn’t know,” he said softly.

  “Know what?”

  “Never mind. It’s getting late. We need to check into our hotel and make some phone calls.”

  She followed him silently, wondering.

  It almost makes me wish I didn’t know, she repeated to herself voicelessly, a sudden chill spreading down her spine.

  The hotel had suits of armor in the lobby, and red carpets and coats of arms hung over a huge fireplace. It had a touristy feel to it, Francesca thought, but in a welcoming, Disneyland kind of way. It did not prepare her for her room, which was full of lovely, polished antiques and marvelous old Spanish prints. Best of all was the small wooden balcony off the bedroom, facing the back of the hotel. Francesca stepped out and took a deep breath. Below her were the ancient green-red tiles of Toledo’s houses, the dark, fog-drenched valley and church spires, silent in the afternoon siesta. Here and there, she heard the soft hum of a distant car motor working its way along the modern highway back to Madrid. But aside from that, she seemed to have left the twentieth century behind.

  It was two o’clock, the heat of the day. She drew the drapes and shed her sweaty clothes, walking naked through the room, feeling the sensuous comfort of an animal shedding its winter fur. The shower caressed her. She closed her eyes, giving herself up to the pleasure of it.

  Without her quite understanding how it had happened, her body was no longer the enemy. She looked down with satisfaction at the womanly expanse of flesh, not wishing there were less or more, satisfied with the glowing youth of her skin, the healthy fullness of her limbs. Youth and health, she thought with gratitude, the image of her grandmother suddenly flitting through her consciousness.

  How was it she had not regularly thanked G-d for both?

  She lay down on the clean, soft sheets, carelessly letting her wet hair soak into the pillow. They were to meet in the lobby in a hour to set out for their first call: a Señor Luis Perez de Almazan.

  I will wear something casual, she thought drowsily, something bold and summery that makes me look like a young girl, instead of a CEO. And in her mind, she could already see Marius’s eyes lighting up with that same look of appreciative hunger men always managed to have when they looked at Suzanne.

  What does she have that I don’t? she mourned, dozing off before she found an answer.

  “Uh-oh,” Marius said when he saw her. “You look beautiful.”

  “Then why the ‘uh-oh’?” She looked down at her form-fitting jeans and halter top.

  “Francesca, we are in a very conservative Catholic city. We are going to be visiting a prominent professor, and perhaps some churches as well. Please put on a dress.”

  “American women don’t take much bossing,” she snapped.

  “I wasn’t trying to! Why can’t Americans ever understand that when they travel, they have to adapt themselves to the places they visit, and not vice-versa?”

  “And I suppose you look perfect,” she challenged.

  He looked down at himself, surprised. “What?”

  “That beard…”

  He caressed his face as if to protect the precious growth from imminent harm. “You don’t like it?” He seemed stricken.

  “Actually, it’s none of my business. It’s a personal choice, and it would be rude of me to demand you change your appearance for my sake.”

  “You mean you do like it?” he asked hopefully.

  “That’s not the point.” She shook her head, exasperated. “I didn’t say that, either, although it’s not so bad. But it’s…the point is…”

  “Is the rest of me all right?” He looked down at himself, suddenly concerned.

  “Well, you’ve got on a jacket, but no tie….”

  “I hate ties. They feel like a noose. But let’s get back to the point. Are you going to change? Because there is no way we can go through Toledo with you dressed like that.”

  “Are you going to put on a tie?”

  “I don’t own a tie,” he apologized. “Please, Francesca. I’m honestly not trying to be overbearing. It’s simply necessary.”

  “Oh, all right,” she relented, feeling suddenly foolish. “I guess I overreacted. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  She rummaged through her suitcases and found a pretty summer dress the color of golden topaz, and a matching wide-brimmed summer hat.

  Not her style at all, she thought, wondering what in heaven’s name had possessed her to buy it in the first place. It was the salesgirl, she suddenly remembered. She’d suggested it might be fun to buy something that wasn’t “her” at all.

  She held it against herself, looking into the mirror. Pretty, modest, and irresistibly feminine, with a tiny waist and a full skirt. It would have made her teeth ache if she’d seen it on another woman.

  Slowly, she slipped it over her head, then stared at herself in the mirror. It was certainly not sensible Francesca Abraham, New York subway commuter and bank employee. More Scarlett O’Hara Abraham on her way to the barbecue, she thought sheepishly, pinning on the hat. Her eyes looked back at her, pleased, gleaming like amber out of her fair, narrow face.

  He might laugh, she considered.

  Whatever.

  There was no way she was changing again.

  When she got out of the elevator, he was sitting directly across from her. He got up slowly, his step hesitant.

  “Francesca?”

  His face lit up with a familiar look, an expression she recognized immediately: it was the one men had when they looked at her sister.

  22

  Something about him was different. The collar of his shirt was high and chafing against his tanned skin. He wore a pale blue tie.

  “Gift shop,” he mumbled.

  She nodded, trying not to laugh out loud.

  He offered her his arm with old-fashioned courtesy. She took it with a sudden shyness. Surprisingly, she did not feel the least absurd. He was very broad-shouldered, but not really that tall, she noted, looking up at him with satisfaction. She hated men who towered over her, putting her in their shadow.

  It was surprisingly cooler in the shadowy old cobblestone streets that twisted into narrow walkways and quiet courtyards. They left the car in front of the hotel, deciding it would be almost impossible to navigate through these ancient labyrinths.

  “Can you tell me who this person is and why we’re going to see him?”

  “Señor de Almazan is a professor of history at the local university. He also has a strange hobby. He makes ritual objects: menorahs, spice boxes, mezuzah holders. He has a store where he sells these things, and other rare objects, including manuscripts of Jewish interest.

  “Is he Jewish?”

>   “I highly doubt it. But his interest isn’t surprising, considering he’s a Toledano—that is, a citizen of Toledo. Toledo had the oldest Jewish settlement on the Iberian peninsula.”

  She looked around at the old Moorish alleyways, the gloomy houses dark with age. A sudden inexplicable shiver ran down her spine despite the summer heat. “What happened here, Marius?”

  He hesitated. “Where should I begin? With the Visigoths back in 305 A.D., those lovely barbarians who murdered men, beheaded women, kidnapped small children, and then declared everyone not of their religious persuasion slaves—all for the glory of Christ? Or with the Almohades, who did the same—and worse—for Mohammed? Or maybe we should start with the Inquisition, since that lasted the longest.”

  “Did they burn people here?”

  “Of course. In the square near our hotel. But I’ve always thought the worst part of the Inquisition wasn’t the burning, it was what happened before. Wives testifying against husbands, children condemning their own mothers and fathers, their own brothers and sisters.”

  “How is that possible?” She shook her head with disbelief.

  He shrugged. “Let’s not ruin a lovely day.”

  She didn’t press him, wondering if she really wanted to know.

  They walked quietly along the pleasant bustling streets filled with families and tourists licking ice cream cones and chattering in front of store windows. Then they turned off the main thoroughfares into the quiet alleyways of old stone buildings. Exquisite, wrought-iron railings held overflowing pots of red geraniums, which spilled over and down, brightening the old facades.

  “Calle de la sinagoga” she read from the street sign, startled. “Can that mean what I think it does? ‘Street of the Synagogue’?”

  He nodded.

  “Does that mean there are regular Saturday services?”

  He smiled. “There hasn’t been a Jewish community in Toledo for over five hundred years.”

  “Then why keep calling it the ‘Street of the Synagogue’?” she asked, feeling inexplicably irritated.

  “It’s part of Toledo’s history. They can’t bear to part with their Jews after all. They say Franco himself was a descendant of conversos. He took a strange interest in restoring these buildings. This one especially was in great disrepair. It had been used as a barracks, an ammunition dump, and then a convent for fallen women.”

  She looked around, startled. “I don’t see any building.”

  “Behind you.”

  Broken steps led to a narrow opening, almost hidden from the street. She stepped inside and was enveloped by a fragrant garden of roses and acacias. A row of cypresses led to the imposing doorway of an ancient building.

  Francesca heard the creak of massive old wood beams as the door swung open. They stepped over the threshold. It was nearly pitch dark inside.

  “Uno momento,” someone said. They heard scurrying footsteps. A few yellow lightbulbs suddenly went on.

  The sight was startling: Dozens of octagonal columns, each graced by an intricate carved capital, crowded the huge space. Graceful Moorish arches spanned the room, leading one’s eyes upward toward the ceiling paneled with carved rosettes, fleurs-de-lis, and medallions interwoven with the Star of David.

  Francesca looked up with a dizzying sense of disbelief. It had a strange, ancient beauty that seemed to rise from the mists of imagination.

  “What is this?”

  “It is called the Church of Santa Maria la Blanca now. But it was originally built in 1259 by Yoseph Ibn Shushan as a synagogue.”

  Francesca wandered through the hall, reaching the Christian altar at the other end. Its gold leaf and statuary were clearly a foreign element in the Jewish-Moorish structure.

  They stood before it.

  “It’s so hard to make sense of any of this. A synagogue that looks like a mosque and is now a church…”

  “On the contrary, it makes perfect sense. For hundreds of years there was this apache dance: First, Christians, Jews, and Muslims danced cheek to cheek, and then bloodied heads were thrown against the walls. And it was always the same: forced baptisms, ultimatums. Convert or lose all your property, your homes, your jobs, your children, your freedom. The Christians did it to the Moors and Jews, and the Moors did it to the Christians and Jews. Whichever religion was in power made the other two suffer.”

  “But it makes no sense! Didn’t they all believe in the same G-d, really? In loving your neighbor, in goodness? Where did all this hatred in the name of the G-d of love start?”

  “It’s even worse than that. All three monotheistic religions were founded by blood relatives. It was brother against brother.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, Abraham was the founder of Judaism. His concubine, Hagar, gave him a son, Ishmael, who fathered the Muslims. And his grandson, Esau, fathered Edom, which is Rome and Christianity.”

  She sat quietly, reflecting on the story. There was something terribly wrong about the place. It was like one of those hybrid monsters in Greek mythology, with the tail of a fish and the head of an ox.

  “Let’s go, Marius.”

  “Sure?”

  She nodded.

  They walked farther up the street. “Here’s the second one.”

  “Second what?”

  “Synagogue.”

  “Was this one also converted to a church?”

  “Yes, but it isn’t used for services anymore. It’s part of a Sephardic Jewish museum. It’s called El Transito. It was the private family synagogue of the King’s wealthy treasurer, Don Samuel HaLevi Abulafia. When he built it about six hundred years ago, he defied all the laws about synagogues being smaller and lower than churches, and plain of decoration. He put his whole soul into it. Poor man.”

  “Why? What happened to him?”

  He sighed.

  “Another horrible, depressing tale?”

  “Are you sure you want to know?”

  “No, I’m not,” she murmured. “Okay. Tell me.”

  “King Pedro the Cruel was a fickle playboy. After Don Samuel had filled his coffers with collected taxes, the King accused him of treason, confiscating all his money and ordering him tortured. Don Samuel was so outraged at the injustice of his treatment that he never uttered another word, either to protest his innocence or to condemn the King. He died on the rack in silence.”

  She let out a deep breath. “I don’t think I can stand going inside now that I know!”

  “It’s one of the most beautiful places you will ever see in your life.”

  She followed cautiously behind him.

  There were guards, and modern lighting, and tickets to be purchased. She felt the sense of having entered some well-preserved work of art, beautiful but without function. But when she passed the outer doorways into the single-nave hall, all her listlessness left her.

  It challenged all her previous conceptions of beauty. The workmanship, the symmetry, the exquisite design and execution of the most intricate patterns imaginable—everything pointed to man paying homage to the glory of heaven. Even the walls seemed to sing with prayer.

  The ceiling was hand-carved larch wood. Two bands ran across all four walls. On the first were blind and open windows, covered with magnificent latticework. Beneath was a band of intricate, carved lettering and floral motifs, intertwined with the shields of Castile and Leon. Both bands were framed by Hebrew letters.

  She studied the richness of the decoration, the foliate interlacings in colors of red, green, blue, white, and black. The eastern wall was the most magnificent of all. Stucco work of an endless pattern of rhomboids competed for the viewer’s admiration. In the center was a carved-out niche.

  “That would have held the Torah scrolls,” Marius pointed out. On either side were carved inscriptions.

  “What do they say?”

  “‘To Don Samuel, a man raised to the highest, may his G-d go with him and extol him. He has found grace and mercy under the wings of the mighty, great-winged eagle, warr
ior valiant among all others, the great Monarch our King and master, the Great Don Pedro,’” Marius translated from the Spanish museum guide.

  She shook her head. “The great Don Pedro, indeed! And what about those?” She pointed to the frieze of Hebrew letters that ran all around the room.

  “They’re verses from Psalms, Chronicles, and Kings, about the joy of serving G-d and the everlasting value of prayer.”

  It was unimaginably beautiful.

  She thought of the kind of man who had conceived it and had possessed the power to oversee and finance its construction. What a remarkable human being was Don Samuel! Quick tears came to her eyes, imagining his final days, the courage of his silent contempt for those who would degrade him.

  On the south wall were great windows facing an overhanging balcony. She knew, instinctively, it must be the women’s section.

  She wandered up the steps and stared at the glass cases holding wedding rings and traditional Sephardic bridal robes. Suddenly, her mind filled with the strangely vivid image of pews filled with wives and grandmothers, aunts and sisters, prayer books in their hands as they looked through the latticework at their men. And there, in the place of honor at the eastern wall, she could see a great, dignified personage sitting next to the rabbi, holding the Scroll of Law.

  She heard all the voices rising and mingling, one shout of joyous homage to their Maker. And then, as in a dream, someone whispered in her ear:

  Pan y bino beo

  En la Ley de Muysen creo

  Dios no a benido, mas Dios bendra

  Dios que me hizo, Dios me salbara

  It was a woman’s voice, husky with emotion, and she was practically singing.

  Francesca turned, startled. But except for a few Japanese tourists and their guide at the other end, the gallery was empty.

  Her face went white. She hurried down the steps.