The Jewel Trader of Pegu
Page 18
—A Brief Account of the Kingdom of Pegu, 1605
EPILOGUE
He kept his cousin’s letters in the drawer of a small chest next to his bed. They were bound with the same black ribbon and in the same worn leather bag in which they had been delivered. On Rosh Hashanah and Abraham’s birthday, Joseph sat by the window and read these letters one after the other, along with the letters that had been sent earlier in his journey. He slowly unfolded and folded the letters, careful not to tear or crumble the yellowed paper. Some of the letters, impersonal in their rich description of strange peoples and exotic places, he had given to his uncle, who in the early days reread them with great pleasure. Now when an aunt or cousin would reminisce about Abraham at a holiday dinner, his uncle’s eyes would mist, and he would turn the talk to other things or smother their memories under a cloak of silence.
Joseph’s wife had lived in Ferrara before their marriage and had never met Abraham. Wanting to know her husband better, she was curious to learn about his cousin, as close to him as a brother. She asked Joseph to read the letters to her and tell her of their lives together and his adventures in distant lands. But soon she grew bored of thrice-told tales. With the birth of her son, she had more important matters to attend to than spending her time listening to stories woven by a lonely fabulist.
His uncle had done well with the jewels that Abraham sent. He hadn’t wanted to check the goods, stone for stone against Abraham’s list, trusting the good faith of the man who had saved his nephew’s life and who had honored his word by enduring much to deliver them. But this stern fellow would not leave the house until his uncle had counted and examined every stone, down to the smallest spinel. His uncle knew right away the profit that could be made from the jewels and generously rewarded this Israelite, whom he thanked God for being true to his blood. The fellow took the pouch, heavy with gold coins, and put it in his coat pocket without even looking inside. He had dinner with the family and left for Lisbon the next day.
The treasure from Pegu was soon the talk of goldsmiths along the Rialto. Joseph’s uncle had more suitors than a rich widow, and the jewels soon adorned the necks, wrists, and fingers of the rich and the hilts and scabbards of the powerful. All but one—the pigeon-blood ruby.
Joseph saw the ruby once and only once. His uncle took it from a simple silver box and placed the stone on a piece of black felt. The ruby pulsed with life, its red glow bathing crimson the walls of the small room. Word of the magnificent stone traveled from one workshop to the other, gaining carats and becoming more brilliant with each telling. Those who had never seen it spoke with assured awe of its beauty. But his uncle refused to sell it. Agents from all over Europe left Venice empty-handed. Bishops of the church, princes, and pashas all were rebuffed, their dreams of the mythic stone disappointed. “I will sell it when my nephew returns,” his uncle said. “It was his eye that saw its value.”
His uncle was certain Abraham would come to his senses. He could not imagine that he would not return to his family and the life he had led. Some nights, when everyone in the house was asleep, Joseph’s uncle would take the silver box from its hiding place. He would sit at his desk in the flickering candlelight, holding the ruby in the palm of his hand. Its beauty comforted him.
Abraham would return. The old man waited.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Among the many sources I consulted to try to inhabit the worlds of Mya and Abraham, several were especially helpful: Anthony Reid’s Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450–1680; Robert Bonfil’s Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy; Mark R. Cohen, editor and translator, The Autobiography of a Seventeenth-Century Venetian Rabbi: Leon Modena’s Life of Judah; and Melford E. Spiro’s Buddhism and Society: A Great Tradition and Its Burmese Vicissitudes. All of this research would have come to nothing without the help of others: Cathy Song’s early encouragement and advice, Mike Levine’s unsparingly constructive reading of an early version of the manuscript, and Rabbi Barry Kenter’s thoughts on Renaissance Jewish beliefs and practices. I am grateful to Michael Radulescu for his early and continuing faith in the book. I am forever indebted to my agent Marly Rusoff. She believed in the book; she was my ally and advocate and her comments have made it better. Stephen Dunn has written that he would “be happy in this world / to be quietly significant / like a good editor.” I am happy to have in Jennifer Brehl an editor whose advice, comments, and support were beyond good. Last, I want to thank my wife, Mee-Seen Loong, and my daughter, Lixian, for their patience and encouragement—they are the jewels of my life.
About the Author
JEFFREY HANTOVER has written on social issues, art, and culture for publications in the United States, Europe, and Asia. He and his wife make their home in New York City.
www.jeffreyhantover.com
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Credits
Jacket design by Ervin Serrano
Jacket photographs: woman by Jerome Tisne/Getty Images; landscape of Myanmar by David South/ImageState/Jupiterimages
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE JEWEL TRADER OF PEGU. Copyright © 2008 by Jeffrey Hantover. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition December 2007 ISBN: 9780061864926
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