Shoot Me, I'm Already Dead

by Julia Navarro

  He had spoken very quickly, almost without breathing, and suddenly he realized that he had spoken in French. The man had not understood anything, and Samuel thought the old man would not understand even if he tried again in English. However, he replied in a mixture of French and English.

  The man invited them in and asked them to sit down in a large, cold drawing room, with a fire in the big wooden fireplace. He introduced himself: “I am José Gómez.” His tired eyes shone with curiosity.

  Samuel did what was expected and introduced Miriam and his children. Dalida held out her hand to the old man, but Ezekiel was shy and hid behind his mother.

  “I’ll go and fetch my wife.”

  “How could you!” Miriam said to Samuel as soon as they were alone.

  “Didn’t you want to see the house? Well, here we are. He’s a very nice man and I don’t think it’s too odd a request for us to want to see the house.”

  They fell silent as a woman, who was as old as the man, came into the room. The woman smiled at them and Miriam calmed down.

  “My wife, María,” the man said.

  “So you are related to the Espinosa family. They were the owners who later left. My forefathers were also Jews but they converted, and although they suffered a lot they were allowed to stay. Of course, some of them ended up on the bonfire for not having convinced the Inquisition that their conversions were sincere enough,” María said.

  Miriam was surprised that this woman should speak of something that had happened five centuries ago as if it were an event from the previous day.

  “Which one of you is from the Espinosa family?” María asked.

  Samuel indicated Miriam.

  “So you are the Espinosa . . . My name, María, is the Spanish form of Miriam. Do you want to know how we got this house? I’ll tell you what my grandfather told me, what his grandfather told him. Although the Jews who were expelled always thought about returning, that was not something that entered into the monarch’s plans. All that the Jews had possessed passed into the hands of the nobles. With time, some of the converts managed to get their hands on some of the property that had been owned by their friends and neighbors. My family was a family of translators that was held in high esteem among the court at Toledo. They were wise men whose wisdom benefitted the Castilian kings. I know that my family got hold of this house around about the seventeenth century, and that it has been our family home ever since. It is a house that’s filled with memories, the memories of the Espinosa family and of our own family.”

  She stopped and looked at Miriam’s tense face for a while.

  “Come with me, we have some of the old family portraits in the cellar; they are covered in dust, but at least you’ll be able to see what your grandfathers’ grandfathers looked like.” The old woman made a gesture for them to follow her.

  José Gómez protested.

  “Woman, we haven’t been down into the cellar for years, and the stairs are not in good condition. I’m sure the rats have eaten the pictures you’re talking about.”

  The woman paid him no attention and insisted that they accompany her. They followed her through the house’s dark passageways until they reached a door where the hands of some artisan had carved flowers and a verse from the Bible. Ezekiel said he was cold, but Dalida pinched him and told him to be quiet. María opened the door, which creaked alarmingly.

  The stairs down to the cellar groaned and Samuel worried that they would break. It was clear that no one had been here for a long time. The walls were damp, and the flagstones, as well as being worn, seemed to be eaten away in places.

  Miriam was surprised that this woman could move around with such agility, rummaging around near broken chairs, legless tables, and all kinds of abandoned utensils. Finally she seemed to remember where the pictures she had spoken about were kept.

  “I think they are here, in this chest. My mother must have locked them away, she didn’t like them, she said they seemed to be scolding us for having taken over the house.”

  With Samuel’s help, they opened the chest and took out half a dozen canvases, carefully folded.

  “Put them on the table, it’s big and we’ll see them better that way,” the old woman told them.

  Samuel and Miriam took the canvases and went upstairs to the drawing room.

  “Put them on the table, it’s big and you’ll see them better that way,” the old woman said.

  None of the canvases was larger than a meter, and when they were spread out they found six faces that seemed to look directly at them.

  “I don’t know who they are, but they are from the Espinosa family; if you want you can take them with you,” the woman said.

  Miriam smiled gratefully. She seemed to be living through an unreal dream, thanks to these two old people who had invited them into their house with no suspicions, and who had even given her these canvases that returned to her a past she had not known. She found it a pleasant surprise that the Spaniards understood old Castilian, the language that her ancestors had spoken when they were expelled from Sepharad. Miriam had made sure that Dalida and Ezekiel both learned it, but the two children, although they understood it, rebelled against speaking it.

  The couple insisted that they all eat with them.

  “We are very old and our life lacks any interesting surprises, so it is quite an adventure for us to have you here,” the man said.

  María had left them in the room while she went to the kitchen to see what she could make for these unexpected visitors.

  José Gómez claimed to be of old and pure Castilian stock, and he joked with his wife about her Jewish origins. He told them that he was a Jew and that in his youth he had visited Paris, where he had a relative who worked in the Spanish diplomatic corps.

  Miriam seemed stunned to hear María telling stories of Sepharad, and Samuel listened to José’s explanation of the final cause of the expulsion.

  Dalida and Ezekiel were barely able to hide their impatience. They were bored. They didn’t like this foreign language that their mother sometimes used to speak to them, and Señor Gómez’s French was too rudimentary: He had to stop every third word to think of what to say next.

  The next few days they spent discovering Toledo in the company of the Gómez family, who had awarded themselves the role of hosts. The elderly couple even insisted that they leave the hotel and come stay in their house. Miriam would have happily accepted, but Samuel objected.

  “Whatever they say, it is not your house, and we would not be comfortable.”

  “When I think that my ancestors lived here, that I come from this dry ground, from this city filled with mysteries . . .”

  “Mysteries? Where are the mysteries? Come on, Miriam, don’t let your imagination run away with you. The past is past. It’s good for you to enjoy this trip, but you are Palestinian, you have very little to do with the Spaniards.”

  “I am Spanish and Palestinian!” she replied angrily.

  “Yes, and Turkish and Greek, given that your ancestors took refuge in Thessaloniki when it was Turkish, and now it’s Greek.” Samuel was mocking her.

  “You feel Russian, Samuel, why don’t you let me feel moved when I tread this soil?”

  “I have never allowed soil or religion to define my identity. I am a man who wants to live in peace, and I don’t mind where.”

  But for all his pretenses, Toledo was leaving its mark on Samuel as well.

  After a week he said he had to go back to Madrid to sign his agreement with Manuel Castells. Miriam asked him to let her stay in Toledo with the children.

  “You won’t need us there, we’ll only be a burden. We’ll wait for you here.”

  “Haven’t you had enough of Toledo?”

  “And you, Samuel, have you stopped missing Saint Petersburg?” Miriam asked, looking her husband straight in the eye.

  He didn�
�t reply and allowed his wife and children to stay in Toledo. Until Samuel left, Miriam had not realized that she preferred to be there without him.

  Dalida and Ezekiel would have liked to have returned to Madrid with their father. They were bored of their mother’s endless talks with the old couple every day, and they were tired of crisscrossing this city that turned in on itself and lifted itself up proudly above the river that flowed at its feet.

  Miriam had an unquenchable thirst to know, to find out, to understand, and José Gómez and his wife answered all her questions patiently. María convinced her to come hear Mass sung in the cathedral.

  “But I’m Jewish!” Miriam protested.

  “And that stops you from participating in a beautiful ceremony that honors the Lord Almighty? What does it matter where we pray and how we pray if we all worship the same God?” María replied.

  “Have you never felt the urge to return to the faith of your ancestors, to return to Judaism?” Miriam asked with interest.

  “I’ve already told you, my family converted out of self-interest, so that they would not have to leave Toledo, but I suppose that over time they learned to be good Catholics. The past is past; I was born into the Catholic faith and I will die in it. Hearing someone sing a Mass doesn’t commit you to anything. You’ll like the ceremony, it’s a sung Mass today,” she insisted.

  José Gómez offered to take Dalida and Ezekiel for a walk. Miriam accepted gratefully, as she knew that her children would not sit still during the service and she didn’t want to have to scold them.

  The cathedral overwhelmed her. If it had been impressive on the outside, then the interior left her dumbfounded and the endless ceremonies with all their symbolism fascinated her, so she did not think it inconvenient to carry on going to church with María.

  However, all her strolls through the city ended up at the same place, the synagogue, the synagogue they now called Santa María la Blanca. She felt at home there. She closed her eyes and imagined her family in the same spot centuries before. If only they could see her there, to know that an Espinosa had come back to that corner of Sepharad, the old city that had been theirs.

  Some nights she cried. She thought of her sister Judith, of how much they would both have enjoyed walking through the streets of Toledo. But they would never do that now. Judith had recovered neither her mental nor her physical health since that fateful Nabi Musa.

  She was upset that the judería had been Christianized, but María reminded her that the winners always impose their laws and customs on the losers. “In the past it happened as well,” she said. “Men adored their pagan idols and then substituted them for God.”

  When Samuel came back a few days later, Miriam felt desolate. She knew that she could not stay in Toledo, but the mere thought of abandoning the city made her feel strangely ill. She knew she would never return.

  She cried when she said goodbye to the Gómez family, and asked them from the bottom of her heart to look after the house that she felt was her own.

  “When we die the property will pass on to my son, who is a doctor in Barcelona. And he will sell it. His life is in Barcelona, he is married and has children. He only comes to Toledo every now and then to see us.”

  “But anyone could buy it!” Miriam protested.

  “We won’t care when we’re dead. And you shouldn’t worry. You have a family and a life elsewhere, you can’t change the past,” José said.

  On the journey back to Paris, Miriam seemed to be absent from all that surrounded her. Samuel could not get her to join in any conversations with him, for all that he tried to interest her in the convulsive situation in Germany. She, who always showed herself so interested in what he said, and who often gave him advice, now only looked at him as he spoke, and Samuel knew that Miriam was absent.

  They returned to normality in Paris, little by little, or at least that’s what Samuel thought. He returned to the laboratory and renewed his journeys to London to meet with Konstantin. She looked after the children and had a lot of free time to think; she seemed to have returned to that peaceful, bourgeois way of life that Samuel seemed to enjoy so much. But normality included Katia. For all that Samuel had decided to put distance between them, it was impossible. When he was with Katia he recovered his childhood and recovered himself.

  Even so, he tried to maintain the difficult balance between the loyalty he owed Miriam and the irresistible attraction he felt for Katia. This impelled him to take Miriam and the children with him on one of his journeys to London. Konstantin insisted so much that they be invited that eventually Samuel said yes.

  Konstantin and his wife Vera did all they could to make Miriam feel comfortable. Even Gustav seemed to be happy to see Dalida and Ezekiel.

  Vera was the perfect hostess, wanting Miriam to enjoy the London season. She took her shopping, they went to a few museums with the children, they took tea at a friend’s house and exchanged little unimportant confidences. But the presence of Katia was like a dark cloud over Miriam’s head.

  Katia, so beautiful, so perfect . . . They went to the opera one evening and Miriam noticed that Samuel seemed bothered by the gazes of appreciation that Katia seemed to provoke. “He’s jealous,” she thought, and realized that Samuel had never been jealous on her behalf. Of course, for all that she made herself up, she would never have the natural distinction that Katia did.

  The evening before they went back to Paris, Miriam overheard a conversation between Vera and Katia. Samuel and Konstantin had gone out to meet some clients, and the children were in Gustav’s playroom. Miriam went down to the library to put back a book she had borrowed. She was going to walk in, but she stopped dead when she heard Katia talking about her.

  “I feel sorry for Samuel, what bad luck he has with his wife!”

  “What do you mean?” Vera said reproachfully. “Miriam is a good woman.”

  “I’m not saying that she isn’t, but she is so . . . I don’t know . . . I find her so graceless. She should have learned something about French chic by now. She doesn’t seem to care about clothes, and short hair doesn’t suit her . . . Well, maybe the Palestinians are all like that.”

  “I think she’s attractive; at least she’s different, she’s got personality,” Vera replied.

  “That’s what my brother says! Come on Vera, don’t parrot Konstantin’s opinions.”

  “He likes her a lot,” Vera said, referring to Konstantin.

  “My brother likes everyone, he’s a good man; he can find something attractive even in a woman as charmless as Miriam. Don’t you see that she feels uncomfortable in heels? And when she put a scarf on . . . Poor thing! She looked terrible.”

  “I’m surprised, Katia, you’re not normally so catty, but you don’t like Miriam, right?”

  “I don’t care! I’m just upset that Samuel has hitched his horse to that particular wagon. He deserves a lot more.”

  Vera looked at her sister-in-law. She knew that she had loved Samuel ever since she was a girl, and now she should stop running after him, but she didn’t dare say so. She preferred not to have any conflict with Katia that could affect their relationship and make Konstantin unhappy.

  “I don’t share your opinion, Katia. Miriam is a woman with many good qualities and Samuel is a lucky man to have married her. And now, shall we call for tea?”

  That night Katia deployed all her seductive skills. Samuel looked at her, dazzled. Miriam was hurt by the gazes that Samuel exchanged with Katia, and the way he laughed. She thought that Toledo had been nothing more than a pause, a goodbye present. Katia was right—she was out of place. Her home was in Palestine. She said nothing to Samuel until they were back in Paris. She didn’t even make a show of unpacking her bags.

  “I’m going, Samuel, I’m going back to Palestine. You know as well as I do that I have no place here.”

  Samuel protested sincerely, asking her not to go,
expounding on the advantages of living in Paris for Dalida and Ezekiel, asking her to give them another chance.

  “That’s what I’m going to do, give us a chance. Both of us deserve to have a life, Samuel, a life where we can love, laugh, share a full life. Respect me, Samuel, don’t insist on turning me into nothing more than a mere presence, whose only job is to look after your children. I have a right to live. I want to live. That’s why I’m going home.”

  Samuel could not convince her, and so he had to give in, feeling overwhelmed and relieved at the same time. He said to himself that the separation would only be temporary, that he would go to Jerusalem, or she would come back to Paris, but he knew he was lying to himself. The only point on which he was entirely inflexible was that he would go with them to Marseilles to make sure that they set off comfortably.

  Dalida and Ezekiel waved goodbye to him, leaning on the rail of the passenger deck. His children had cried saying goodbye and he had needed to make an effort to hold back his tears. He sought out Miriam with his eyes but she preferred not to say goodbye, and stood away from the rail. It was at this moment that Samuel realized that Miriam was departing from his life, and would never want to return.

  12

  Palestine, the Thirties

  “Ezekiel sighed. He seemed to be seeing himself on the deck of the ship that was taking him back to Palestine. Marian watched him in silence, giving him time to come back to the present. Then he looked at her and smiled.

  “Well, I’ve told you another chapter of the story.”

  “You know what? I’m surprised that you talk about yourself as if you weren’t really you. You talk about Ezekiel as if he were someone else . . .”

  “Well, that Ezekiel was someone else. What could remain in me of that little boy? Also, I like to distance myself from the facts, to see them as if I were someone else.”

  “It’s not possible,” Marian protested.

  “Yes, yes it is. When I think about the day that Dalida and I left to go back to Palestine with my mother, I see two scared children on the deck of a ship, crying as they leave their father behind on dry land. I’m moved by the scene, but I don’t feel a part of it. Well,” he added with a touch of tiredness, “now it’s your turn.”