Blood Secret

by Kathryn Lasky

  After Annuncia clears the bowls, she brings in a plate of figs and grapes.

  “So how goes the piece for the archbishop?”

  “Oh, I am just doing the sleeve trim lace now. The sisters at the convent will do the hem.”

  “That’s because the sleeve lace must float, and everyone knows Mama’s lace is the most filmy,” Reyna interjected.

  “Don’t brag, Reyna. I wouldn’t have time to do the hem. The sisters do a very fine job.”

  “Ah, show it to me,” Don Solomon said. “You know how I love to see your work.”

  This is a game that Don Solomon and Mama play. Mama shows him a piece of lace, and he guesses what gave her the idea for the pattern. They rise to leave the table and go to the front room. By the largest window there is a chair with a stand and on the stand a dark pillow. Pinned to the pillow is a gossamer web of lace, and radiating from its edges are the fine silk threads tied to dozens of bobbins made from bone.

  “My good woman, how many bobbins are you working with on this one?”

  “Oh, forty pair,” Doña Grazia replied. “It’s a very complicated design.”

  Don Solomon holds a candle close to the pillow. “Let me see now if I can guess that design.” Don Solomon scratches his chin, then adjusts his velvet cap. His brow furrows.

  “You’ll never guess,” I say. “And I am the one who found it!”

  “Found what?” Don Solomon asks.

  “The thing that gave Mama the idea. But I can’t tell you until you guess.”

  “A spiderweb.”

  “No, Don Solomon. Every time you guess a spiderweb.”

  “But my dear Miriam, do you know how many different kinds of spiders there are and how many different kind of webs they weave? And do you know what the best spiderweb is for dressing a wound and stanching the bleeding?”

  “No,” Reyna and I both say at once.

  “An orb weaver’s web. The silk is the best. Only laudable pus follows, nothing fetid. It is the best way to dress a wound or ulcers. Such a creature should be celebrated in lace.”

  “But it is not a spider’s web, Don Solomon,” I say, pointing at the lace on the pillow. “Come on now, take another guess.”

  He thinks another moment, scratches his chin again. “Ah!” he says, lifting one finger. “The veins of a butterfly’s wings.”

  Mama laughs. “Miriam, run get your inspiration.”

  I go to the cupboard and take out a small box and open it. “See!” Don Solomon squints into the box. An insect with translucent wings lies dead on a piece of cotton. “A dragonfly.”

  “Yes.” Mama nods. “Miriam found this one dead, floating on the water of the cistern in the square.”

  “But look, Don Solomon,” I say. “Look at the little designs. They are like tiny tiles but clear as glass. Look at their pattern. Are they not the most beautiful? And you see the shapes are not all the same. They all differ just a tiny bit and nothing too perfect, too sharp or square.”

  Don Solomon stands back and looks at me with deep, penetrating eyes. “You should become a student of geometry.”

  “What is geometry?”

  “Why, it is the study and measurement of the shapes of things. There are laws, rules that when applied to points and lines and planes help one calculate the dimensions of space. One can map a dragonfly’s wing or perhaps the world using geometry.”

  “Oh, I want to learn! Please.”

  “Don Solomon.” Mama raises her finger. “Please don’t put any more ideas into this child’s head. She’s already making a nuisance about learning how to read.”

  “But I want to,” I whine.

  “We have enough troubles in the quarter without little Jewish girls learning to read. That’s all that crazy Friar Martinez needs to hear, that we are teaching girls in the quarter to read.” Mama quickly clamps her mouth shut. She had not meant to speak of the friar or any of the troubles. But now I know I am going to be sent to bed so they can speak of such things. They can’t wait to get me off to bed. But what they don’t know is that I shall still hear them. Yes, in my bedroom on the second floor there is an air vent. This vent not only brings up the warmth from the fire in the winter and the cooler air in the summer, but their voices as well. With my ear pressed to this hole, I can hear everything!

  “I think, Doña Grazia…” There was a pause. “No, pardon me, I know that you and your daughters must leave Seville immediately.” I almost gasp and press my ear closer to the grate of the vent.

  “What? Leave Seville?”

  “It is no longer safe.”

  “But the walls of the Jewish Quarter here are guarded. It won’t be like in March.”

  “You are right. It will be worse.”

  “Worse? How can it be worse?” Mama says in a voice so low I can barely hear her.

  “They will burn the gates.”

  “But did you not talk with the archbishop? The archbishop is sympathetic, no?”

  “Of course he is sympathetic. The king is sympathetic. He has a court full of Jews—Jews like me, physicians and scientists. His best tax farmers are Jews, his chief accountant is a Jew, as is the secretary to the king.”

  “So why can’t he and the archbishop stop it?” Mama hisses in frustration.

  “Why? Because what is happening is the work of the mobs, the lowest classes. That is Martinez’s genius. How he rouses them! Now tonight they are demanding the police chief’s removal because he jailed that rabble who tried to burn the synagogue, and it is said that even the nobles are split on this. You must leave tomorrow.”

  “Where? Where does a widow with two daughters go?”

  “Toledo. You have family in Toledo.”

  “Will Toledo be any better? What if this spreads?”

  “It won’t spread that fast. Just get out, Doña Grazia. I can arrange a wagon. I shall come in the morning.”

  I cannot believe what I am hearing. Mama is right—where would we go? It is exciting but scary. Suddenly I hear something, louder than Mama’s voice or Don Solomon’s. At first I thought it was a wind, the cold north one that sweeps down in winter from the Sierra Nevada. But it is hot now and this wind comes with shrieks and shouts. I start to shake. I cover my ears. Horrible, horrible words like needles in my ears. I press harder with my hands. “Muerte a los Matadors de Christo.” “Death to the Christ Killers.”

  There is a terrible crushing sound and a storm of feet in the street. Then the smell of burning wood. The gates of the quarter must be on fire! This cannot be happening. I think that somehow I can make this unhappen. I feel the violet crinkle in my pocket. “Here,” I say to myself, “I am going to make a little bargain.” I slip the violet crinkle into my mouth and clamp my hands over my ears. This is the bargain: If I can keep the sound from my ears and the sweetness in my mouth, Mama, Reyna, Don Solomon, and I shall all live. But now there is a terrible scream, like flames in my head it roars. My hands fall from my ears. The violet sugar seeps from the corner of my mouth. I am losing this bargain.

  No hay cruces. There are no crosses hanging in the air as Ruta said there were in Córdoba, but here I am in the church of Santa Catalina de la Blanca. There is blood on my dress and a streak of blood on Mama’s face. It is the blood of Don Solomon. Reyna too wears his blood. The mobs have taken us. We rode them like a wave to the church. We did not walk, no. We were seized and then told at sword point to march. “Agua o espada,” water or sword. We had then no idea what they were talking about. Mendez the apothecary, his wife, and two little ones rode the wave as well. And then there was the old man who sells pomegranates on the Street of the Levies, Señor Piñero. He died before they got him to the church. One of the mob snatched the lace from Mama’s stand. I thought she was taking it for herself, but this is strange; she is now coming up to me with the lace. She is babbling sweetly to me. It is almost baby talk. This same woman who kicked Don Solomon in the face as he lay dying on the floor of our house is now murmuring to me as if I am the most adorable child.
She pinches my cheeks softly and coos at me. “La muchacha linda…pequeña querida…. Pequeña dulce…pretty girl…little cutie, little dear one, little sweetie.” Yes, little sweetie with violet sugar crinkles and blood on her face. The woman is taking the piece of lace that Mama made for the archbishop’s sleeve. It too has blood on it. She is placing it on my head and she is leading me to the altar.

  A man with a smile like a thin blade speaks. “Niña, Bievenida a la fe verdadera….” “Child, Welcome to the true faith.” I know who this man is, even though I have never seen him before. I know it is the friar, Friar Martinez. His eyes are pale brown, almost yellow. His skin bloodless. The yellow eyes peer at me over the beak of a nose as if he is looking at an insect. But there is something coiled within him like a snake. It is pure hatred. I see it.

  The woman placed the lace on my head and now he removes it and the woman puts it on my shoulders and he begins to mumble some words in a language I do not understand. There is a stone bowl of water on a pedestal. He waves his hands over it and then he pours some oil on his fingers. He presses his oily thumb to my head and my chin and then on each cheek. All the while he is muttering in the strange language. The woman hisses in my ear that each time she pokes me I am to say “sí”—“yes” to the friar’s questions. So I do. I feel her finger in my side, but I can see my mother. Her face is the color of the stone bowl. Reyna’s eyes are wide and fixed. It is like a death stare. He pours a cup of water on my head. He sprinkles some on the white lace around my shoulders, and finally he gives me a candle. I don’t know what to do with it. Then he says in Spanish, “Maria. Su nombre esta Maria ahorra. Uno buen nombre Cristiano…nombrado de la vir-gen bendecida Maria.” “Your name is Maria now. A good Christian name…the name of the Blessed Virgin Mary.”

  And now it has been four hours since I was baptized in the church and Reyna and Mama as well. We had no choice. Agua o espada. Now we know the meaning. “The holy water or the sword.” The streets run with the blood of those who did not choose the water. Mama now takes that same piece of lace that I wore and she scrubs the tops of our heads. I want to cry. “No, Mama.” She scrubs so hard it burns. I shall have no hair left there. She does the same to Reyna. And then herself. Finally she throws the lace, which is tattered now, into a corner. The lace that has Don Solomon’s blood. Tomorrow, she says, we shall go to Toledo. There is nothing left for us here.

  This is the last night we shall ever spend in our house. Everyone is asleep now. But I cannot sleep, so I have come downstairs just to sit, I guess. There is this deathly quiet that lies across the quarter as thickly as the smoke from the gates that still smolder. I think I came downstairs really to see the place where Don Solomon had lain dead. Mama would be so angry if she knew I was down here. Or maybe she wouldn’t. Does anything really matter anymore?

  I cannot taste violet crinkles in my mouth. I cannot even remember their taste on my tongue. I feel a warm, sick feeling rising in the back of my throat. I swallow hard and feel my forehead turn hot. There is no holding this in. And now I stand in my own vomit in the very place on the floor where Don Solomon died. Not five hours ago.

  I’ll go sit in the chair by the window. In the distance I can hear the town crier. He is calling for Jews, any Jews still alive, to come immediately to the church. There will be another group baptism. Suddenly my eye catches the piece of lace Mama had thrown away in disgust after our baptism. I’m going to keep it. I don’t know why, but I need to keep this scrap of lace stained with the blood of Don Solomon. I find a strand of my hair is still entwined in the threads. Maybe this will always connect me with Don Solomon in some way. My head still burns where Mama rubbed it with this lace. I keep touching the place on my head. I can’t get rid of the burning feeling. I am going to keep this lace forever and ever. I swear it.

  I will never forget this night of holy water and blood and vomit and oil and the friar with a smile like a knife’s blade. Just because they call me Maria does not make me Maria. And I’m not just a New Christian because they told me so. No. Not at all. No, you know what I have become? An old woman. Can’t get rid of that burning feeling on top of my head. From the window by Mama’s lace-making stand I can see a star rise over a rooftop. This morning I was ten years old. Tonight I am older than the stars.

  Chapter 9

  JERRY PRESSED HER hands against her eyes as she climbed the stairs out of the cellar and into the frail light of the dawn kitchen. She would come out into this new morning and everything would somehow make sense. She wasn’t sure what had happened down there. But it certainly didn’t make sense, and there was no room for nonsense in her world. Silence defined the world of Jerry Luna. This had to have been a dream. If it were a dream, it would not scare her, not really. She would just consign it to that place of scary dreams. And this was definitely a scary dream. That was all. But she had no desire to explain it.

  She closed the door to the cellar firmly behind her. She even pressed her fingers along the edges as if to seal the crack between the door and the frame. She knew it was stupid. But those things that she had heard needed to be buried. They needed to remain down there. She was up here. Up here in her aunt’s kitchen. The can of putty that she had brought up for her aunt the previous day, when she had last gone to the cellar, stood accusingly on the counter. How could she have forgotten to take it back down after her aunt had used it! Well, tough. She wasn’t going back down for a stupid can of putty. Let Constanza do it. She walked over to the kitchen sink and washed her hands. Her fingers had a light film of dust. She held them under the faucet, watching the amber swirl down the drain. But she had left streaks on the bar of soap. So she rinsed that and then her hands once more. There, it was all gone.

  She glanced at the clock on the wall. Nearly five o’clock. She would take a shower and get dressed. She would go out in the cook yard and help Aunt Constanza. She would try to say words. Yes, she was going to be normal. In the shower Jerry scrubbed herself hard. She wanted none of that amber dust clinging to her. And she tried to practice saying the few words she had spoken. I hope they never get into your bread. And she had gasped Aunt Constanza when her aunt had said that shocking thing to Sister Evangelina. But the words wouldn’t come out. Her throat began having that funny weak feeling again. She felt a blackness rise in her stomach as if she had just been punched hard in the gut. It felt like dread, and it rose and spread slowly like a shadow in her mind: The words were creeping back down into the cellar, through a trapdoor. They were her words, but they were separate from her. They would take on a life of their own—down there. It was a devastating thought.

  Jerry crouched on the shower floor and let the hot water beat down on her. I’m mute. I’m not crazy. I’m mute I’m not crazy. She repeated these words in her head over and over to the rhythm of the beating water. They roiled in her head like a chant, nearly breaking up in meaning and becoming a kind of senseless song: I’m mute. I’m not crazy I’m mute not crazy mute not crazy mute not crazy older than the stars not crazy older than the stars mute stars not crazy stars…

  But Jerry did not even realize what she was silently saying when the stars slipped into song. She did not even know that some of the words she chanted were spoken by the other girl in another place, in another country, in another time, more than six hundred years ago.

  By the time Jerry dressed and went into the cook yard, she felt good, in control, calm, and most important, normal. It had been a dream. She knew this. It would dissolve like the dust particles in the stream of sink water. It had already swirled away. She picked up one of the long-handled wooden pallets and began to slide the round loaves into the ovens.

  “Thank you, Jerry. My, you’re up early again,” Aunt Constanza said, her head half in a dead oven that she was repairing with something she called “Aunt Constanza’s mixit up stickit up fixit up,” which she claimed had the hair of a prairie dog mixed with cactus juice and dried cow patties, and was perfect for sealing cracks in a horno.

  The next morning, M
onday, Jerry was early for school. She went to her homeroom and began to work on her English assignment. It was not due for a week. They were supposed to select their favorite passage from Romeo and Juliet and explain why they loved it. There was a passage she kind of remembered. It was in act three after Tybalt has been killed by Romeo, and Juliet finds out that Romeo has been banished and she is all torn up. She is even imagining what would happen if he were to die. Poor Juliet. “What to do? What to do?” The words bounced around silently in Jerry’s head as she flicked the pages of the play searching for the passage. Too bad she couldn’t get hold of the Cliffs Notes. But Miss Lafferty flunked anyone caught with Cliffs Notes. Ah, there it was, scene two. Jerry began to read the words. And although she did not realize it, her lips tried to move around the lovely shapes. “For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night, / Whiter than new snow upon a raven’s back. / Come gentle night, / Come, loving, black-brow’d night, / Give me my Romeo, and, when he shall die / Take him and cut him out in little stars / And he will make the face of heaven so fine / That all the world will be in love with the night, / And pay no worship to the garish sun.”

  The meter flowed into her senses and into the very core of her mind. And then she stopped. She could not read it, nor copy it. She did not want to think of the stars, those stars older than Juliet, and Juliet soon to be older than the stars. Jerry clamped her eyes shut and flipped quickly back through the pages. She made a deal with herself—whatever page she turned to, she would look at, point her finger, take the quote closest to her finger, and write about it.