The Lines Between Us

by Rebecca D'Harlingue

  In Castile, they adopted a new name and were able to purchase false papers showing the family’s purity of blood. This was kept a secret, and your mother’s grandmother, not knowing her true name or background, and having been born here, thought herself of the purest lineage. Her parents had raised her in the teachings of Holy Mother Church, lest the family be persecuted by the Holy Inquisition. I cannot but believe that for them the Jewish faith remained ever the true one, but this sacrifice they made. They buried their faith in their own breasts, never to teach it to their children, for the danger it could bring them.

  And so the secret was to pass from bride to bride, each sworn to secrecy, until her own eldest daughter’s wedding day. The menorah was passed down as well, a physical reminder, so that the truth would not be lost, though it would be forever hidden.

  Your mother was much distraught when she learned that she was not of purest blood, as she had always believed, but what could she do? Even had her pledge not required her to keep this knowledge secret, whom could she tell? A groom she barely knew, and who had been deceived by her family’s false papers of purity?

  She kept the secret locked within her heart and endeavored through her actions and feelings to love and honor your father in all things, to pay in part for this deception. I must admit that at first I was shocked to learn of your mother’s heritage, but she was a true believer, and kept Christ’s law within her heart.

  Oh, my child, it pains me yet to think on those dark days! The authorities of the Holy Office took your mother. She was charged with apostasy. The object was enough to cause her condemnation, and no one would come forward to give testimony to her true beliefs and practices. She had expected Sebastián to come to her defense, but he did not. He forbade any of his household to testify on your mother’s behalf, threatening that he would denounce any who did. He raged at the betrayal by her family and said that he would never have married her had he known she was of impure blood. He turned his back on her, and she was lost.

  Nor did I come forward, and for this I have reproached myself and set myself many acts of penance, but never will I make clean my sin of cowardice. I tell myself that the Inquisition would not have accepted the assurances of a woman, especially when Margarita’s own husband would not speak for her. I tell myself this, but I do not know whether I believe it.

  Still, though betrayed by all she knew, your mother did not lose faith with them. Twice she rejected the chance to ease her course, because she wished to prove to your father that she was not guilty of the accusations. She could have stated her repentance and been given a much lighter sentence, but this would have been to admit guilt. Because of what was seen as her recalcitrance, she was condemned to the severest punishment, though accusations against her were light compared with those who were held for such offenses as defiling the holy crucifix.

  I will never forget the horror of that day, of the auto de fe, when she was to be submitted to the fire. I saw her walking in the procession with the dozens of others, her body deformed, from what horrors only Our Lord knows. She wore the yellow sackcloth sanbenito, worn by all who were accused. But from its style, we knew she was to die. On it were fearsome and gruesome pictures of flames and devils. What holy hand had depicted these atrocities? Around her neck was a rope, which also held her arms in place. On her head was a conical hat, as though to mock her.

  Each of the accused was brought before a tribunal, though in fact their fate had already been determined. We heard the charge against her, that she had practiced the Jewish faith. She insisted that she was a true daughter of Holy Mother Church, though her ancestors had been converts. Each time, the enraged Inquisitor raised the Jewish object for all to see. If she did not still harbor the Jewish poison in her heart, why did she keep such signs of the devil within her? She told him she kept it only as a family remembrance. But what were family or loved ones compared with duty to the Church?

  Even at the last moment, if she had confessed and repented, she could have saved herself the agony of dying by the flame. For betraying all that she had said before, she would have been granted the favor of being strangled before she was burned. But even this she did not allow herself. Thus she wished to prove to your father her love, her innocence, and her defiance. Though I myself could be sentenced to this day for what I am writing here, I do question the justice of the Holy Office. May God have mercy on our anguished souls!

  Your father was spared the customary confiscation of his goods, as he had done valuable service to the king, and because he so vehemently cursed your mother and her family. Still, though no one dared mention the horror in Sebastián’s presence, it was not forgotten. Many pretended to be his friends, but they did so only for their own advantage, as the king so favored him.

  It was because he knew of this ignominy that Don Lorenzo refused to marry you, although the stain did not guard you from his bestial desire. When he threw it in your father’s face, Sebastián lost all use of reason, and the old tyrant honor ruled again. You were your mother’s daughter, after all, and once again his honor was destroyed. It had been restored for him by the Holy Inquisition, which had burned it clean. Now the retribution would be at his own hands, and, though he had loved you, he went mad at seeing the old shame once again, and nothing could have saved you from his wrath. You were doubly guilty, from your birth to a tainted mother, and from your violation by a brutal man.

  One last thing I would say. Do not believe that your father did not suffer all his life for his treatment of your mother. I believe that many times in later years he did ask himself if what he had done was truly out of honor, or even duty to the Church. If he had tried to help your mother, he could also have been accused. And so, perhaps to mask his suspicion that cowardice had prompted him, he made for his conscience a shield of honor to protect him against his own misgivings. He could tell himself that it was her family’s falsity that had wounded his honor and caused him to abandon her. I think it was this self-deception that he saw threatened when you were defiled. It had become his all, and he had to defend it, even against you, his only love. Perhaps it was the old doubts, too, that caused him in the end to submit to his own demons.

  As you have seen, I send you another document here. It is a translation of a letter your mother received from her mother, and the night that she told me her history, she entrusted the original to me. Even then the paper and ink were deteriorating, perhaps from the many miles it had traveled, and the conditions in which it had been hidden. I decided to have the letter translated into Spanish from the Portuguese, so that at least I, if no other, could understand the message there. Some words I guessed must be Hebrew, and so I was in a quandary about whom I might approach to translate it for me. I finally decided to ask a man who had been one of your Tío Emilio’s friends. Though he was already quite advanced in years, he was a scholar who was fluent in Portuguese. I knew that he would do this favor for me, and keep it secret. I do not know how he was able to translate the Hebrew words. Nor do I understand what he tried to tell me about using the name God in his translation, so that non-Jews would understand what was meant.

  Having told this tale, I am now truly spent. I have at last fulfilled my word to tell you of your family’s heritage and Margarita’s unjust fate. Of my own life, there is not much to tell. I continued with my work with those who needed my help, using what I had learned from Emilio to ease their pain. I have lived to grieve for all whom I once loved. I rejoice to know that you live, and that you have a daughter, but how I wish that I could have spent my life with you! It is so long that I am alone. Now I am quite ill, and I know that when this letter reaches your hands and eyes, I will not be found among the living.

  So, my child, I tell you go with God for now and ever. I have faith that one day you and I shall meet your mother, and we will be restored to one another in that place that the Lord reserves for those who have truly kept His law of love. My blessings upon you, Juliana, all your life.

  Your loving tía,

 
; Ana Torres López

  17 May 1687

  42

  RACHEL

  A secret heritage. Even as I sat holding Ana’s letter in my hand, it was as though I looked at myself from another place and time. Juliana’s mother, too, had kept a secret, but hers was a dangerous legacy. I knew from my study of seventeenth-century Spain that what had happened to Juliana’s family was a possibility, but we can distance ourselves from what is learned from literature and history. We can’t clearly conceive of individuals whose beliefs and ways of being are so different from our own. They are so distinct from us in our modernity. It’s easy to think of them as having never existed, not as we exist.

  My mother had read these papers, and she said that she had failed, as Ana had failed. Ana blamed herself for not finding Juliana, but did my mother judge her so harshly? And for what perceived fault did my mother blame herself?

  Was my mother’s task the same as Ana’s had been: to pass on secret knowledge, the truth of Juliana’s heritage? I longed to be able to tell her that she hadn’t fallen short, that I had found her papers, that I had discovered the secret. Yet, why hadn’t she told me any of this sooner? Why had she left me to fumble on my own? And why had she addressed the papers to an unborn granddaughter?

  I had to know Juliana’s reaction to this news, and what was contained in the other letter Ana had sent her.

  43

  Juliana

  22 October 1687

  I believed that, cocooned within these walls, I was sheltered from all outside harm. What could happen in the world that could encroach upon my refuge? Once again, life has taught me that our assumptions are but vanity. Though she was taken from my life before I could know her, the manner of my mother’s death torments me more than ever her absence did. It hangs about and chokes me, as the lingering smoke from an auto de fe.

  I grieve for my tía, who shall soon be gone from this world, but at least she dies of a natural cause, and who better than she, who strove to help those in pain and sickness, to know that illness and death overtake us all? I grieve for Silvia, who never returned to those whom she left in Madrid. I can only try to shape my mind to believe that she found some happiness in the countryside, a retreat that must have seemed foreign to her. For my father, I cannot grieve; though I once thought I forgave him, his treachery was far greater than I could ever have surmised.

  My beloved tía would have me understand, and forgive, perhaps so that the poison of his betrayal does not finish the carnage that he began so long ago. Yet I find no room for mercy inside this heart, which has withered to a thing that serves me only to preserve that which we call life, for want of a better word.

  25 October

  I have put off reading the translated letter that my tía sent me. Since it is from my mother’s hidden heritage, I cannot help but think that it will be a tale of sorrow, but I must read it, for she would have wished it.

  44

  Solomon

  Last Will and Testament of Solomon Abravanel

  Lisboa, 1512

  Dear Ones,

  I leave this testament for your children’s children and beyond, that they might know who I have been and who they are, being proud of the ancient blood of our fathers that runs through our veins, and the faith that is in our hearts. I fear for them, for it seems that our God has said that for His chosen people, nothing shall be easy.

  All my earthly goods, which number few here in this land, I leave to you, my beloved children. As you read this, do not grieve for my death, for the sorrow of this life and your dearest departed mother have long since called me to my grave. You know, my children, that this patrimony is not great. It seems that whenever we have prospered, the Lord has found ways to remind us that this is not what matters. What I bequeath to my descendants is the testament of my life. You know of this, my children, because you have lived the sacrifices with me. To this day, I carry within my mind, as a hidden brand, the image of my poor little children holding on to the cart I pulled, with all that remained of our earthly goods, bags upon your small, bent backs, because a bit more food could mean we would survive. More than sorrow, your faces wore bewilderment, and you looked to me for answers that I did not have. To this day, I do not comprehend the evil in men’s hearts, and perhaps I should rejoice that I do not.

  To all who come after me, know that we are one, for as we trace our lineage back, so too do we trace it forward, and I love you, though you are yet unborn. For who would not love the seed of his seed? Know that for our people, study and wisdom in the service of God are the greatest good. Strive always to learn and understand, and when you study our sacred writings and ways, you perform your duty twice over. Cherish knowledge above all but God, for your thoughts cannot be taken from you.

  If ever you are forced to leave your home, look for company in those who have gone before you, and know that you share a suffering that we have endured for generation upon generation. Has it never struck you that Moses is one of our most revered fathers, he who led us out of misery, only to wander for forty years and never to be allowed entrance to the Promised Land?

  Our family has for many generations lived on this peninsula, yet even here we have not found a home, for nowhere have we discovered a place that welcomes us. Five centuries ago, fleeing the Muslim conquerors in Andalucía, our great poet Moses ibn Ezra wrote, “I am weary of roaming about the world, measuring its expanse; and I am not yet done. . . . My feet run about like lightning to the far ends of the earth, and I move from sea to sea. Journey follows journey, but I find no resting place, no calm repose.”

  My grandfather, as a boy, saw the great massacre of 1391. Both parents brutally murdered before his eyes, and he saved only by the “mercy” of a Christian who did not wish to kill a child but whose conscience did not prick him to release an orphan into the cruel world. This child, along with his older sister, fled Sevilla, but the disease of hatred and murder spread over the land. Córdoba, Toledo, Barcelona, Valencia, untold thousands killed. The Dominicans and the Franciscans stirring up hatred against the Jews. The Muslims then were not as prosperous as we, so we alone were named sorcerers and devils.

  In the year of my father’s birth, 1412, the Pragmática imposed a formal quarantine against Jews throughout Castile. We had always chosen to live with our own people, for comfort and safety, but what had been choice became law and smothered us. Live in walled ghettos, do not leave the country, do not move to another town. Clerk or judge, you are denied your place. Physician, do not minister to Christians. Housekeeper, do not work in Christian homes. Wear a black coat, adorned only with a red “Jew badge.” A litany of rules like a cruel mockery of the Lord’s commandments.

  Denied a way to support ourselves, we were reduced to miserable poverty. Faced with starvation, my father’s family mortgaged their communal lands and then pawned their Torah crowns. This was the cruelest turn of all. They denied us our goods, our lives, and they sought to deny us our very selves. All Jews over the age of twelve were required to attend conversionary sermons three times a year. And with many, our enemies succeeded.

  Thousands submitted to baptism while their faithful brethren wept. Some, perhaps, believed, but most could no longer bear the hardship and humiliation. The “redeeming” waters were their only escape, and many who withstood the pressure did not condemn them for their weakness, for who is so strong that he knows he will not succumb tomorrow? As our great poet Solomon Bonafed wrote, one could not “erase these pleasant names from my doorposts,” for “their names are engraved upon my brow.”

  Many “New Christians” chose to retain their old ways, and we did not shut them out. The learned men of the faithful debated with the apostates. Even among our own wise men there was disagreement over whether those who had accepted the new religion to save their lives, whom we called anusim, might yet retain their Jewishness, unlike the meshumadim, who had apostasized for different reasons. We shared courtyards and friends, and many conversos participated in our festivals. They observed t
he Sabbath and slaughtered their animals according to the Law of Moses. They did all of this, and also climbed into positions within the government and prospered in their business ventures. At times they sought to atone, with the rituals of their new religion, the abandonment of their old.

  Yet I must accept that some came truly to believe in their new faith and changed their hearts as they changed their names. Names like Santángel, Montoro, Valladolid, González, San Pedro, de la Torre, Goto became their new selves, and many gained fame and fortune from them. Solomon Halevi became Pablo de Santa María, and Joshua Halorki, Gerónimo de Santa Fe. Even in my time the people spoke of these two men, though Halevi, at forty years of age, had converted when my father’s father was but a child.

  Halevi had been wealthy and respected, erudite in Talmudic studies and Maimunist philosophy. Many called him Rabbi. Yet he forsook all of this and became a priest, a doctor of theology, and bishop of Burgos. They say that his writings reveal his true belief that Jesus was the Messiah we all awaited. Halevi and Halorki engaged in a literary debate that lasted for years, and finally, in the year of my father’s birth, Halorki came to believe that Christianity was truth. Kaddish services were intoned for him. Yet those who mourned him were not dead for him, for he worked against his people all his life. It seems he was sincere, and this shook our people mightily. Those conversos who spoke against us from their own sense of shame, we could understand and reject. Those who were sincere caused some to doubt their own belief. Perhaps we were awaiting a Messiah who would never come, for he had already died upon a cross.