A Ceiling Made of Eggshells

by Gail Carson Levine

When we got home, candles and oil lamps were bright in every room, and the whole family was assembled in the living room.

  Papá set me down. “She’s all right, Violanta.” Violanta was Mamá’s name.

  She whirled on Yuda, who stood next to Ledicia. “God will punish you for doing this to me.”

  His face reddened. “I’m sorry, Mamá, Papá, Belo. Please forgive me, Loma.”

  “I forgive you.” If he’d gotten in trouble because of me, I was in danger.

  “Good.” Papá picked me up again. “That’s settled.”

  But it wasn’t, because Mamá added, “A bad child is a viper in the nest.”

  Silence followed this until Vellida asked, “Where did you go, Loma?”

  I didn’t want to say in front of everyone, and now it seemed silly to tell them I’d left to protect Belo. And I’d lost Bela’s pendant. My tears started again.

  Papá said, “We’ll sort it out in the morning.” He carried me to bed. For once, I had the same bedtime as Vellida, who followed us down the corridor.

  When he left, she sat up. “Yuda will take his revenge on you.”

  I said, “What did he do?”

  “They didn’t realize you were gone until I went to bed and you weren’t there. They looked all over the house.” She giggled. “Even in places that were too small for a cat!”

  I laughed, too, imagining my head sticking out of a pitcher. This was nice, the two of us talking at night, as if I were Vellida’s age, as if I were important. I watched her black shape against the lighter window behind her.

  “When Belo came back,” Vellida said, “Papá told him you were missing, and Yuda said he’d seen you follow him out. I could tell he expected them to thank him, but they were furious that he didn’t say anything right away. Even Papá was angry.”

  Yuda always hugged his secrets close and waited for the most dramatic moment to reveal them. This time, he’d gotten it wrong.

  “Where did you go?”

  I wanted to tell her, but I would have had to reveal that I had Bela’s amulet, so I didn’t answer.

  “Stupid baby! I knew you wouldn’t tell.” She dropped down with a thud.

  I dreaded the interrogation that would come in the morning, but Yuda’s vengeance arrived first.

  5

  Yuda waved me to the bench where he sat with his breakfast. I went because I had to, or he’d make my punishment worse. No one had come yet to sit shiva with us.

  “The stars made Bela die, Lizard.”

  Ugly Camel Head, she died because I had the amulet.

  “I remember when you were born.”

  He’d been five.

  “Papá and Mamá had your chart done.”

  My horoscope. They’d had charts made for all of us, including the girls, but they never told us what the stars predicted.

  “Mamá was angry when they came home.”

  As always.

  “Do you want to know what she said?”

  “No.” But I did.

  “She told Bela the stars predicted you wouldn’t have children. I heard her. She said, ‘Cursed! Just a baby, and Paloma is cursed.’”

  I wouldn’t cry. “You’re lying.” Bela said I’d have many children.

  “Ask Mamá or Papá.”

  I’d never caught Yuda in a lie. He sought out terrible truths and squirreled them away. He’d held this one for seven years.

  I wanted a husband and children more than anything, just as Vellida did. Samuel wanted a wife and children most. Family was paramount. Because of Mamá’s bad example, a happy future family was everything to me.

  As soon as I’d eaten my breakfast, swallowing tears with my bread and cheese, Fatima came for me and delivered me to Belo’s study.

  My heart galloped. Belo sat in his folding leather armchair, facing away from his desk, which was piled with books. His elbows rested on the chair’s arms; his hands supported his chin, making a sharp triangle above which he peered at me.

  Papá and Mamá stood next to him, on the other side of the desk from the door. Fatima left.

  Papá came to me and crouched to my level. “Little bug, we’ve wondered where you went when we couldn’t find you.”

  A corner of me was confused by being called an insect. I didn’t answer.

  Mamá broke out. “We spent hours looking for you!”

  Papá interpreted. “Your mamá was very worried.”

  Belo said, “Loma, Señor Rodrigo needs to know what happened, so he can protect you.”

  The chief constable of the hermandad—the police! A Christian! I started to cry.

  “She won’t tell us anything.” Mamá circled around me and stalked out of the room.

  I sniffled. No one spoke.

  After a few moments, Papá took my hand and led me out, too. I hoped that was the end of it, but he went downstairs with me to our courtyard and lifted me onto a wooden bench, though I could have sat on it without aid. A decorative nailhead pressed into my thigh.

  A parrot squawked in the myrtle bush. The parrot is Mamá, I thought. More melodious birds lilted in the lemon tree. Both bush and tree grew out of big stone tubs.

  Papá sat next to me. “When I was your age, my belo fell off a ladder. I was afraid he’d die, so I hid. As long as I didn’t know, I reasoned he could still be alive.” He grinned. “I hid really well.”

  “Where?”

  “You know the chest in Mamá’s and my bedroom? In there!” He sounded triumphant. “It was your belo’s and bela’s before your bela gave it to me. Nobody looked in it, because it was kept full of linens, which I artfully stowed elsewhere.”

  “Had your belo died?”

  “No. He broke his ankle, which I learned a day later when I came out.”

  A whole day!

  “I would have stayed longer if I hadn’t been hungry. Your belo snores. I counted eighty-five snores before I fell asleep.”

  “I do that, too,” I said.

  “Do what?”

  “Count.”

  “Ah.” Papá proved his cleverness with his next question. “Did you count anything last night when you were outside?”

  “Steps.”

  “In a staircase?”

  I shook my head.

  “Footsteps, little bug?”

  I gathered my courage for a bit of discord. “Loma.”

  Papá frowned. “Yes, I asked you, Loma.”

  “A bug can’t talk.”

  “You’re right. Footsteps, Loma?”

  “Yes.”

  He kneeled in front of me. “Li— Loma, please tell me about last night. No one will be angry.”

  Belo would be.

  “Not even Belo. I’ll talk to him. Tell me your adventure.”

  Adventure was a good word. I began. He returned to the bench. I watched his face to make sure he wasn’t angry. He didn’t seem to be until I mentioned the Christian man, and I knew he wasn’t mad at me. When I said the man wanted to take me to the church, I feared he was going to explode.

  At the part when Señora María said they couldn’t keep me, he said, “At least someone could think.”

  I started crying again, and finally the worst came out: that they’d taken the amulet, that I shouldn’t have had it in the first place, that Bela would still be alive if she’d kept it. Or Haim or Soli or Rica, if she’d given it to one of them.

  Papá lifted me onto his lap and murmured over and over into my hair, “Not your fault. You aren’t to blame.” He held me until I’d cried myself out.

  “Better?” He wiped away his own tears.

  I nodded.

  “Loma, I’ll never stop missing my mamá, but the amulet didn’t save you. It doesn’t have that power. Your abuelo says it was your stubbornness that made you get well.” He put me back on the bench. “I have one more question: How did you find your way back to the judería?”

  I told him about counting steps and keeping track of turns. “I knew my steps weren’t as big as Señor Mateo’s even though
I made mine as long as I could.” I wondered why Papá’s eyebrows were climbing up his forehead. “I decided three of my steps made two of his.”

  “Do you like numbers, little— one?”

  I smiled. “I love them.” I paused. “Papá, last night, why were Christians running down the street? Why were they angry?”

  “They think we poison their wells and that’s why they get the plague worse than we do.”

  “Why do they?”

  Papá shrugged. “We’re not even sure they do. Who counts?”

  I would count!

  He went on. “The Almighty may protect us, or the air may be better in our juderías.”

  “Did the Christians hurt anyone? Are Señor Osua and the butcher all right?”

  “They are. Just a few bruises. Your abuelo ran to the hermandad, and the constables came before any real harm was done.”

  “Why did they help the Jews?”

  “Your abuelo and I donate to the hermandad, so they like us and protect the judería.”

  Oh.

  Papá added, “And the king and queen don’t want anything bad to happen to us.”

  That was good, and surprising. “Does the amulet protect anyone, really?”

  “I don’t think so, but your bela believed in its power. She could list a hundred disasters it had averted, which may not have happened anyway.”

  I had to think about that.

  “Would you be able to show me the house of Señor Mateo and Señora María?”

  “Yes.” I took a deep breath. “What would have happened if they took me to church?”

  He hesitated. “A priest would have baptized you and made you a Christian. Once a Christian, a Christian forever, even if you were forced.”

  A peep of fear erupted out of me.

  He put his arm around my shoulder. “This is a lesson for you: You’re safer at home. Don’t run away again, if you please.”

  Safer but not safe, since the mob had come to our door. Jews weren’t safe anywhere. A ceiling made of eggshells could fall down, even if it hadn’t so far.

  6

  After the noon meal, I led Papá and Belo to Señor Mateo’s house. I worried that the señor would hurt us, but he just stared when he opened the door.

  “Señor Mateo?” Belo’s voice sounded like velvet. He opened his hands, palms up.

  My kidnapper nodded.

  Belo waved us away, so we waited across the street while he spoke to Señor Mateo. After a minute or two, Belo opened the purse on his belt and took out some coins. Señor Mateo disappeared back into his house but returned quickly with Bela’s amulet and my rings.

  Belo gave me the rings but not the amulet. “I’ll keep it until you’re older.”

  I decided Papá was wrong. It did have power, or Belo would have let me have it.

  On the day after we finished sitting shiva, Mamá let me help in the kitchen, an unexpected kindness.

  I followed her, hurrying to keep up, because she was always in a rush. We flew down the fourteen wooden steps to the vestibule and then behind the stairs to the door to the courtyard. Thirty-one of my quicksteps took us to the kitchen, which was behind the house.

  Inside, Vellida sat on a stool, slicing onions, with a tear hesitating on the tip of her chin. Two eggplants and a bunch of parsley lay on the worktable beyond her cutting board. Aljohar, on another stool perhaps four paces away, was mashing garlic and basil, according to my nose. Both of them smiled at me.

  “Teach her!” Mamá told Vellida, and left.

  My sister fetched another stool from the pair under one of the two windows that looked out on our back garden. She set it down between her stool and Aljohar’s, right up against her own. “Sit.”

  We both did.

  She took my right hand in hers and folded my fingers around the handle of her knife. “It’s sharp. The goal is to have ten fingers at the end.” Her voice was smiling, so I smiled and felt unafraid.

  Vellida held the onion in her left hand. Our right hands rose and fell.

  “Mamá likes the slices to be even.” Vellida whispered, “The casserole doesn’t care.”

  I giggled, but for once I agreed with Mamá. They should be regular. I foresaw many opportunities for counting in cooking. Vellida and I finished the onion, and she let me transfer the slices into a bowl, which I did without losing any.

  Our new servant, Hamdun, entered from the back door to the garden, bearing two wooden buckets of water. Thin as he was, I wondered if he could manage them, but from the steady way he set them down in front of the fireplace, I saw he was strong. When he straightened, he blazed a smile at Vellida and me. I couldn’t help smiling back. I was happy to be cooking, anyway.

  Then I remembered our dead and felt guilty.

  When it was noon and time for dinner, Aljohar told me I’d done well. She said there would be more to do after we ate.

  But when we’d finished and Belo had intoned the prayer, he said I should come to his study.

  I sent a look of appeal to Mamá, who didn’t see, because she was glaring at Yuda (the only expression she ever had for him). She couldn’t have helped me anyway, even if she wanted to. Belo was the patriarch.

  I followed him out of the dining room. From the courtyard balcony, we passed the living room and turned the corner to the next door, which led to his study.

  Inside, filtered light came from the windows above the desk and the door we’d just come through. Bright sunlight poured in from the two windows that faced the street and lit the book on his desk that was open to Hebrew letters bordered by gold-and-brown flowers.

  Belo turned his chair away from his desk. Holding me by my shoulders, he positioned me and sat so that I faced him, which made me feel like a thief or a gambler brought before the aljama council.

  “Your papá says you love numbers.”

  I nodded cautiously.

  “You’re seven now. How old will you be in two years?”

  He knew. Why was he asking me? “Nine.”

  “If you had twenty-five grapes to divide between Yuda, Samuel, and Vellida, how many would you give to each one?”

  I didn’t have to think. “Twenty-three to Yuda, one apiece to Samuel and Vellida.”

  His mouth hung slack for a moment, and then he erupted in shoulder-shaking laughter.

  I smiled uneasily.

  When he stopped, he said, “Twenty-five evenly among the three of them.”

  Ugly Camel Head would be mad. “Eight to each, with one left over.”

  “What would you do with that one?”

  Eat it? “Belo, a grape is small and squishy.”

  “True. Imagine they’re oranges.”

  “I’d peel the last orange and count the parts.” Parts didn’t seem like the right word. “Most have ten. Three and a third parts to each, but the thirds would be squishy.”

  “Excellent.” He leaned over and tipped up my chin. “Your bela used to say you were a cabinet with hidden drawers.”

  I felt uneasy at his scrutiny, and the mention of Bela brought me close to tears.

  “There’s the stubbornness drawer. You saved yourself twice—once from the plague, and once from baptism. And there’s the drawer full of numbers. What else?”

  I couldn’t answer. Bela had known me best, so if she said I was full of drawers, then I was. I understood they weren’t real drawers, but, still, my urge to count made me wonder how many. Six drawers? A hundred?

  Belo stroked his beard and asked me if I could read yet. “Yuda teaches you, like a good boy, yes?”

  “Samuel.” He was the good boy. I didn’t mention that I helped him with his math problems.

  Belo took a prayer book from the books on his desk and waved me close. He opened it and pointed at a passage in Hebrew. “Read this to me.”

  I liked to read, though I felt more comfortable with numbers. I’d been reading for only two years, but I’d been counting for as long as I could remember.

  “Good.”

  Not e
xcellent.

  “Can you read Castilian, too?”

  Castilian, the language we spoke. Samuel had started reading it just a month ago. “A little. I’m better at Hebrew.”

  He gave me a letter written in Castilian. In the first sentence, I could make out only three words.

  “Mmm. You’ll learn.” He went to the shelf on the wall across from his desk. “Ah. There it is.” He handed a book to me. “Poems in Hebrew. If you see a word you don’t know, memorize it to ask your brother later. Don’t ask me. You can sit there.” He indicated a red leather floor cushion. “Your bela used to sit here with me sometimes.” He returned to his chair and began to read.

  Belo’s book weighed as much as a pitcher full of milk. I wondered what Vellida was doing in the kitchen. Still, I was excited—books held secrets. I opened it to the middle.

  Traps in my mouth, on my tongue,

  waiting; on my lips, spiders’ venom;

  the important lords and honored dons,

  my elders, refusing to repent, have clung

  to deceit. They sing their wicked song.

  I wasn’t sure what deceit meant. This poem wasn’t for children. I turned pages and saw that none were. Even more exciting. My sisters were educated, as Jewish girls in wealthy families were. All the girls in poor families could read Hebrew at least. But I doubted that any of them—rich or poor—had read these poems. I memorized words I didn’t know and continued to read about kings, gardens, God, men’s feelings, women’s beauty.

  But after half an hour, I grew drowsy. I snuggled into the cushion and fell into a dream of stirring a stewpot and counting the times my spoon went around.

  A pattern began. In the morning—and much of the day if Belo was away—I helped in the kitchen. Out of kindness, at other times when she could, Vellida took it on herself to teach me to spin, weave, and embroider. I loved the care that each task called for. What I didn’t like was choosing colors. I couldn’t tell which was pleasing and which ugly.

  “What’s your favorite color?” Vellida asked.

  People had a favorite? “What’s yours?”

  “Green. Yours?”

  I frowned. “Orange?”

  Vellida told me not to worry. “The fate of the Jews does not depend on the hues in a cushion cover.”