She saw my face.
“They love you! You’re Bela to them, even though you’re Tía Loma.” She sobered. “And you’re young, and you survived the plague, so they’ll have you for a lot longer.”
We all still missed Bela.
She added, “Beatriz wants to sleep in the snood you brought her.”
I smiled. It was pretty, a silver net sprinkled with tiny pearls.
Samuel turned thirteen. The entire family, including Yuda and Dueyna and my married sisters and their families, came for dinner.
How deep Samuel’s voice sounded when he thanked his well-wishers. As little as a week ago, it was still cracking sometimes. Perhaps God had waited for this day to entirely give him a man’s voice, a rabbi’s voice. Anyone would be rapt, hearing teachings delivered in such a voice.
Mamá, Ledicia, and Vellida balanced their babies on their laps. My lap felt empty, but my niece and nephew had clamored to sit next to me, six-year-old Beatriz on my left, and four-year-old Todros on my right.
Beatriz slipped her hand into mine and tilted up her chin. “Tía Loma, I—”
I whispered into her curls. “You don’t like meat. I know.”
She nodded solemnly. I glanced at Mamá, who was scolding Jento for wearing what she called an angry face. He began to wail. Papá took him, and he quieted.
Aljohar brought out the Sabbath stew, which I had prepared—Samuel’s favorite. The recipe came from Mamá’s mamá of blessed memory. I loved the spices—the saffron, pepper, ginger, and cinnamon—which made the lamb taste, to my mind, like gold, if gold were edible.
I’d prepared extra against gluttonous Yuda, so there would be enough for a big helping for Samuel. The bowl went around the table. When it reached me, I took enough for me and Beatriz and pushed the meat to the side.
Everyone but Belo gave the traditional compliments on my cooking: the flavors were perfect; nothing over- or undercooked; my husband would be lucky to get me; my children would thrive on such meals—though in Yuda’s mouth the words seemed to mock. Belo never praised my cooking, though he often praised Aljohar’s.
Papá announced that he had hired a scholar from Ocaña to teach Samuel.
Belo said, “I’d like your opinion of my essay on history, Samuel. I should hear what the future rabbi thinks.”
Samuel blushed and said he looked forward to it.
Belo added, “Come to my study after dinner.” He didn’t include me, which was right. This was Samuel’s day. Still, I felt left out.
After dinner, I descended to the courtyard and sat on a bench. The March sun was sweet, and the myrtle had buds. Samuel’s bar mitzvah had me thinking of my future. I was eleven. In as little as three years I might have my own baby.
I barely heard the footsteps. Yuda.
He sat next to me. “Dueyna is too timid with her spices, but I pay her the same compliments everyone paid you.”
That was disloyal to his wife, and he meant that some of my compliments hadn’t been sincere. He could stir up two kinds of discord in a single sentence.
“She may be barren. Mamá keeps asking about grandchildren. She doesn’t know the pain she causes.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Not painful to me. To Dueyna, who is a dutiful wife.”
What else would she be? Didn’t he want children?
“What does my clever sister think of Jesus?”
I frowned. “Me? I don’t think of Jesus.”
“Do you think God could have a Son?”
I shrugged.
He waited.
“God can do anything.” I shifted on the bench. “He could have a daughter.” The idea surprised me.
“He wouldn’t. Suppose He did have a Son, His Son would be a gift, like the Sabbath is. People who believed in His Son would be His people, don’t you think? God would be angry at anyone who didn’t believe. He takes better care of Christians than He does of us. We may be feeling His wrath.”
Why was he telling me this? “Do you believe in Jesus?”
“I don’t know. I asked you for wisdom.”
He didn’t mean that, but I tried to think of a wise answer. “God gave us His law.”
“And gave the Christians His Son.”
I could hardly bring out the words. “Are you going to convert?” Belo might have an attack again. Papá would be beyond grief.
“Maybe.” He stood and left.
A hoopoe pecked at a stripe of earth between two tiles. God made the hoopoe.
“Do you believe in Jesus?” I asked it.
It flew away.
Yuda would have relished knowing that his words poisoned my thoughts for a long while after we spoke. Were Jews wrong about everything? Would we all go to the hell the priests shrieked about?
16
The Christians’ war to win all of Spain from the Muslims continued. Belo and Papá wanted the monarchs to win. Papá said that the Jews would pay lower taxes if there were peace. Belo said there would be new wars but that God had given us these rulers, so we should be on their side.
I wanted the Christians to lose, as a sign that God wasn’t on their side.
In mid-August, Belo was summoned to the city of Málaga, which the monarchs had captured from the Moors. Papá argued against my going with Belo: the fighting was barely over; the soldiers would still be armed; I was too young.
Mamá alarmed me by wondering who would marry a girl as worldly as I would become, indeed already was.
Jento cried when I mounted my horse.
We traveled through the province of Andalusia, where no Jews had been allowed to live for four years. I looked for signs of God’s favor on this Christians-only land, but the olive trees and the grape vines, laden with fruit, were no heavier here. The sky was the same relentless blue, and the heat grew more oppressive as we rode south.
I begged for a sign. Show me, God, I thought. If Jesus is Your Son, show me, and I’ll convince Belo, and he’ll convince the whole family. We’ll be perfect Christians. The Inquisition will have no cause to accuse us.
We slept in tents in fields, since there were no juderías, but our tent was beautiful: on the outside, tan canvas; on the inside, brocade in green, coral, and ivory thread. Hamdun spread carpeting and smoothed out the bumps.
One night, I massaged Belo’s feet while he used his knife to repair his pen.
“Belo? Why do the Christians care if Muslims and Jews convert?” I worked in the clove oil Fatima had given me. The tent filled with the bracing scent.
“Christians push us to convert because they’re acting out God’s will. The Almighty sends tribulations to test us.”
I stopped kneading in surprise. “God makes them want us to convert?”
“Didn’t He harden Pharaoh’s heart?”
Did God make Yuda tell me his ideas about Jesus and Christians to test me?
No. I wasn’t that important.
“Please don’t neglect my left foot, which has to walk, too. Loma, why do you think our converso friends wish they could be Jews again?”
I changed feet. “Because of the Inquisition?”
“Why else? What do the priests tell us in synagogue every week?”
“That we’ll burn in hell.”
“Do we think they’ll burn in hell?”
“I don’t know.” Samuel’s books, which I’d read, were mostly about how to worship and what to do every day, like massaging Belo’s feet—not that his feet were in the Bible, but honoring parents was. “I haven’t read about hell in Torah.”
“Exactly. Keep thinking.”
“It’s good to be Jewish because we don’t believe in hell?”
Belo took another tack. “Do you like Sukkoth?”
I nodded. Everyone loved Sukkoth.
“Do you like the story of Esther? Do you like Purim?”
I nodded again and began to understand. “It’s more”—Was this the right word?—“enjoyable to be Jewish?”
“Yes! The law isn’t about s
taying out of hell. It’s about the way we behave and feel before we die. That includes joy. We don’t have to wait to be blissful until we’re dead and have entered their heaven—after torment in their purgatory.” He put his penknife away, reached for the folio on the carpet next to him, and began to write.
I hugged Belo’s words when I went to bed. It made people happy to be Jewish.
But I sat up with a new thought: Yuda wasn’t happy. The comfort melted away.
Early the next afternoon, we began to cross the hills that watched over Málaga, passing through forests of elm, juniper, and evergreen oak. Because the tide of people was against us, we proceeded in single file, a guard in the lead, then Belo, then me, then Hamdun, followed by the other guards.
Soldiers in loose groups trudged past us, this one with his arm in a sling, that one leaning on a crutch. I counted fifty-three soldiers and then lost track. Parties of nobles and their attendants trotted by on their destriers, the horses’ gay trappings dulled by dust. A squire in a red-and-gold doublet, the colors of Castile, carried out a tired pantomime: drooped in his saddle, jerked awake, rode erect, drooped again.
Occasionally, snatches of song broke out among the soldiers, but mostly they were a silent horde, grimly marching back to their interrupted lives. The loudest sounds were footfalls, hoofbeats, neighs.
I sensed our guards’ Jew badges, the bright red meant to draw Christian eyes. (I knew by now that Belo and Papá paid a fee so our family didn’t have to wear them.) Belo waved his hand in greeting at everyone. I kept swallowing my fear. The Christians stared but didn’t accost us.
In late afternoon, a pair of oxen filled the road ahead of us, with more oxen behind them. We swerved onto the grassy margin. The first pair went by, linked to the next by iron chains. More oxen followed. I began to count. Drovers walked beside the beasts, keeping the chains from tangling. What were they pulling?
After thirty pairs, a wooden cart grumbled toward us. In the cart was an iron tube big enough for plump me to slide inside. Belo told me later that the tube was a lombard—a cannon.
Behind the cannon were more oxen, pulling, as we discovered, another lombard. And more oxen after that. No wonder the Moors of Málaga had been defeated.
Late in the afternoon, we crested the final hill. Belo reined in his horse and held up his hand for us all to stop.
Below us spread the conquerors. A forest must have been chopped down to make room for this billowing, pulsing sea of tents, interrupted by aisles crowded with horses, mules, donkeys, people.
Past the tents stood Málaga itself, guarded by the Alcazaba, the city’s stone-and-mortar fortification, which glowed orange-pink in the sunset. It looked indestructible, with its high, sheer walls.
But, of course, it had been taken. Another sign of God’s favor toward the Christians.
Beyond the city sparkled the innocent sea.
I lowered my eyes to the scene nearby. “Are those prisoners, Belo?” I pointed at three corrals to the right of the tents—one enormous, one big, and one small, each holding people crowded together, with soldiers patrolling around them. From here, I couldn’t see the people clearly.
“Yes, Loma.” He pointed from the largest to the smallest. “Muslims, then Jews, and then, I’m guessing, conversos who went back to being Jews because the Moors let them.” He spurred his horse. I spurred mine; the guards and Hamdun followed. The stink of the camp engulfed us. My eyes stung.
Skirting the tents, we trotted to the corrals, low palisades of vertical sapling trunks. From one corral to the next, the prisoners looked the same. Most were women; all were skinny, with knobby arms and wrists, stick legs below their tattered robes, and cheekbones making holes in their faces.
I remembered what Ledicia had said. Papá wouldn’t have let me see the captives. Now was when I needed to be older than my age.
Among the prisoners were children but no babies, which I would have noticed no matter how old I was.
Babies aren’t hardy. Had they all died?
17
The Jews surged toward us, extending their bony hands.
Belo asked a prisoner closest to us something in Arabic, which these Jews spoke, and which I knew little of. The man answered. I caught the word for bread.
A different man said in Spanish, “First food in a week and not much before that.” He smiled, revealing a gap next to his front teeth. “A tooth stayed in the bread. Thanks to the king and queen for their bounty. Will you speak with them?”
Belo nodded. “I will.”
“Tell them we’ll be good subjects, loyal. We’ll work hard. They won’t be sorry.”
Belo promised. He turned his horse, and I followed him, but I kept looking over my shoulder.
No matter how kind the monarchs had been with food, it was their war that had starved the prisoners.
Belo reined in his horse to ask a soldier where to find Don Solomon’s tent.
“The Jew?”
Belo nodded, and the soldier told him the way.
As we went, Belo said, “The monarchs want money again, Loma.”
Don Solomon’s grand tent was an outpost on the edge of the tent city. As soon as we entered, my eyes went to a big man, large-featured, blond, ruddy-complexioned, about Papá’s age, who sat on a cushion across a low table from Don Solomon.
Smiling, Don Solomon heaved himself out of his cushion. The man rose, too, in a lithe surge despite his size, and stood head and shoulders taller than his host.
Belo bowed, and I curtsied.
The man bowed, too, not as deeply as Belo had. Christian? He wore no badge, but neither did we. His green woolen doublet fell in sharp pleats from the neckline to the hem just above his knees. His only jewelry was three silver rings.
Holding out his hands, Don Solomon went to Belo. His robe today was violet silk, and his hose was a dusky red. On his head was an orange turban stitched with silver.
Belo and he embraced.
When they pulled away, Don Solomon said, “Allow me to introduce Don Christopher Columbus, who also has been summoned here. You know his purpose.”
I didn’t know.
Belo kindly explained. “Don Christopher proposes to sail west to where he’s sure the Indies will be, and return with treasure.”
“Treasure for the kingdom and my financiers.” Don Christopher sounded hoarse, as if he’d been shouting.
“He’ll use Abraham Zacuto’s tables for navigation.” Don Solomon smiled. “I’m one of the financiers. Treasure is always nice, and I want Don Abraham to be renowned.”
Don Christopher crouched in front of me. “Zacuto’s Perpetual Almanac will bring us there and back, sweet child, and never let us go astray—if we can find the funds to sail at all.” He touched Bela’s amulet. “Give me this, and I’ll return it tenfold. The chain will be gold, the jewel as big as your fist.”
I drew back. He couldn’t have it!
Belo put his arm around my shoulder. “You’ll do better to apply to me, Don Christopher. The pendant was a gift to Loma—”
“Then I do apply to you.” He towered over Belo, too. “My contributors will be known as men who recognized greatness, and my wealth will restore the coffers of the Jews.” He bowed again and left.
Don Solomon whispered, “He’s a pauper now, but he’ll be rich. Some men are magnets for fortune.” He chuckled. “Their puffed chests pull everything toward them.”
I looked around the tent, which was as big as our living room at home. Cushions were scattered across the rugs. I smelled rosemary. A burly manservant stood at another low table on which rested a platter of roasted eggs, a wheel of yellow cheese, a loaf of bread dotted with sesame seeds, and a bowl brimming with sugar cookies. I thought of the starving prisoners.
Don Solomon held out his arms to me. Surprised, I went into them.
Releasing me, he said, “You’re a pretty girl. Still your abuelo’s favorite?”
“She’s my best girl and better than the boys, too.”
I blushed and wished I was somewhere else.
Don Solomon helped himself to an egg. “The monarchs like her, too. Tomorrow morning she has an audience with the infanta.”
“Oho!” Belo said.
The infanta was Princess Isabella, Queen Isabella’s oldest daughter.
Why did she want to talk to me?
“It’s a great mark of favor for you, Joseph,” Don Solomon said.
Followed by disfavor if I did or said something wrong. My fingers felt icy.
“Loma will make a marvelous impression,” Belo said.
How would I do that? If I didn’t, how disappointed he’d be in me! What would I say to her? How would I produce words at all?
While I worried, Belo and Don Solomon talked about their journey here. I hardly listened until Don Solomon said my name.
“I have a great-grandson Loma’s age, a thinker with a head for numbers.” He filled a bowl and brought it to Belo. “We must talk.”
Oh! Was this how it would happen—a conversation, and my future (if I survived the audience) happily secured, babies likely, despite my horoscope?
And me, still only eleven.
Was the great-grandson kind and gentle, as Bela had promised my husband would be?
Belo said, “She’s too young. There’s plenty of time to talk.”
“Don’t wait long. A dozen mamás have their eyes on my Nattan.” He chuckled. “They squeeze his cheek, as if he were a young bull.”
“I’ll remember,” Belo said.
I touched Bela’s amulet. What if Belo forgot even though he said he wouldn’t, and this boy would have been the perfect father for my children?
Soon after dawn, a secretary, fashionable in silk and fragrant with rose water, came to our tent to announce that the princess yearned (he stretched out the word) to entertain me in her tent in two hours.
I dressed in the best gown I had with me: pale blue with daffodils embroidered in gold thread. On my head went a tight-fitting hood bordered with lapis beads. Don Solomon loaned me a heavy gold chain with a ruby pendant from which dangled a pearl. I’d never worn anything that weighed so much. My neck ached.
A Ceiling Made of Eggshells Page 9
