The southern coast was farthest, and Málaga was the likeliest departure port for North Africa.
Of the 207 families in the aljama, 40 converted; another 40 chose to go to Portugal, hoping the king there would relent and let them stay—or that the Spanish monarchs would change their minds and allow them back in; 12 families set their sights on Navarre and 11 on North Africa. The rest, 104 families, 524 Jews—some elderly, some ill, some children, some pregnant—no doubt influenced by Belo’s possible presence there, decided on the kingdom of Naples.
Our number swelled to 532, counting the Moorish servants who chose to go with their families. Of our servants, only Aljohar elected to come. More might have, if not for Mamá. Hamdun wanted to stay and buy his land and goats and find a wife.
I hugged Aljohar when I found out. “You’re the best comfort this family has.”
She sniffed. “If pirates eat us for dinner, so be it.”
I couldn’t help laughing. “I don’t think pirates are cannibals.”
She said darkly, “They may be.”
The town council decided that everyone would leave together for the port of Valencia on July 1, which would give us thirty days to get there, buy provisions, pay our departure tax (really, there was such a tax!), and meet our shipmasters. Papá had written to a ships’ agent to arrange transport for everyone.
On Wednesday, June 27, Papá and I stopped settling our business affairs and joined the servants and the rest of the family in packing. I wrapped Belo’s books in layers of linen.
On June 30, after we’d sat down with the whole family to our Sabbath dinner, someone pounded on the door. Papá went to answer it himself.
He returned alone. His face frightened me—eyes wide, with the whites showing all around. “Loma, Don Rodrigo is here. He says you have to go with him to the inn of the hermandad.”
The prison!
39
Hasdai hummed loudly. I stood.
Samuel stood, too. “I’ll come with you.”
Hasdai didn’t stand.
Ledicia said, “Why does she have to go?”
“Don Rodrigo didn’t say.”
Papá said he’d go with me and Samuel should stay.
Don Rodrigo bowed when I came out. “I’m sorry, Paloma.”
I curtsied. “You’ve always been kind.”
He had three guards with him, but no one touched me.
Who had ordered this? Would I be tortured, like Pero had been?
My steps lagged, so Papá held out his hand for me, meaning I had to keep up. In the hermandad, the small room I was conducted to was furnished with a table, a bench, a bed, and a chamber pot. No windows.
A bed! They were going to keep me here? “Don Rodrigo, the aljama is leaving tomorrow.”
“I’m sorry.”
The room’s walls were white stucco. A crucifix hung next to the door. The floor was large paving stones. The smell: vomit, sweat, excrement. I remembered Pero’s cell.
“I’ll stay with her.” Papá’s Adam’s apple bobbed in and out as he swallowed again and again.
Don Rodrigo repeated his apologies. “She is to be left alone.”
“I can have a lawyer, can’t I?”
“Don Martín has offered to represent you,” Don Rodrigo said.
A converso attorney who owed us money and hadn’t paid.
He didn’t visit me that day. I wasn’t tortured, either. No inquisitors came. What was this about? Not knowing, not even being able to guess, was its own torment. Did they imagine I had crucified a Christian child?
I walked around and around my cell, counting my steps, listening to my heart clip-clop and my stomach grumble. They might have let me eat dinner before taking me.
In the evening, Papá brought me Sabbath dinner leftovers. He hadn’t been able to discover why I’d been imprisoned. “No one will talk to me. I’m a ghost, already gone.”
Belo would have made them talk.
Papá said that he and Samuel had persuaded the families to delay departure for a day in hopes that I’d be released, but I didn’t expect that I would be. The Christians wouldn’t do anything on their Sabbath, and they didn’t.
Early on Monday morning, I had visitors. I heard Hasdai humming before the door opened and he and his father, Judah Rosillo, came in.
Hasdai produced a paper, rolled and tied with twine, from the folds of his robe. “Papá says I have to do this. He says you and I can get married again.”
A get, a writ of divorce, and not a conditional one.
Hasdai and I had been married for less than eight weeks. Our lips had never met.
Papá Judah, now Señor Judah, said, “We hope you agree.”
I nodded.
“You were a good wife.” Hasdai became more talkative than I’d ever heard him. “I’d like you to be my wife again. You are”—he hummed—“sweet and pretty. Please be well. Please do whatever you have to do to be safe.”
Convert? Was that what he meant?
“Thank you. I wish you a safe journey. Please eat a lot whenever you can.”
He smiled. “I’ll try to get fat.”
They left. I tugged off my wedding ring and buried it in my purse. A moment later, all the adults in my family entered. The children, who were being protected from seeing me here, had been told that I was traveling and would join the caravan later. Wise, but I was deprived of saying farewell and hugging them and breathing them in.
Everyone wept, even Mamá.
My sisters and Samuel had spouses and children, so they had to leave. I didn’t want Mamá to stay with me, but Papá might have remained for a while and then caught up with the caravan.
He said, “Your mamá needs me.”
Your daughter doesn’t?
Mamá said, “Your papá paid Don Rodrigo a fortune.”
Papá put a hand on Mamá’s shoulder. “He’ll see that you’re comfortable and well fed.”
“If—” I gulped. “When I’m released, how”—my voice rose—“how will I get to you? There won’t be anyone to travel with.”
“I’ve spoken with Don Martín and—”
Mamá broke in. “He’s been paid well, too.”
Papá put his hands on my cheeks. “He’s promised to arrange an escort for you.”
My lawyer who hadn’t visited me yet.
Samuel said, “We won’t set sail until the last day if you haven’t come.”
What do you say to your family when you may never see them again? Nothing is right; nothing is enough.
“Asher,” Mamá said, “they’re going to leave without us.” She started for the door.
Everyone else hugged me and followed her out.
An hour later, even through the hermandad’s stone walls, I heard singing and tambourines shaking. The aljama was leaving the city and taking my joy with it—the littles.
A week passed. No inquisitors. Don Rodrigo’s men were polite, and I was fed food a Jew could eat.
Don Martín didn’t come. No one told me the charges against me.
I had one faithful visitor: Hamdun, who came every morning and every evening. He had found work at a livery stable at the edge of the city.
On the morning after my family’s departure, he came with three perfect black figs. “Two for you, one for me.”
I protested the unequal division but he insisted.
“I thought you were going to buy land and goats.”
“I can buy them anytime.”
“And find a widow to marry.”
“I can find her later, too.”
I hugged him.
“You don’t deserve this.”
I gestured around my cell. “It’s not so bad. It isn’t raining.”
We both chuckled. He asked if I was getting enough food. I said I was. A few minutes later, he left. In the evening, he brought his backgammon set, and we played by smoky lamplight. He won more games than I did. I hoped I wouldn’t be here long enough to learn his tactics. As a great kindness, he let me ke
ep the set.
“You can return it when you leave.”
Two weeks passed from the day my family left. No inquisitors. No Don Martín. No charges. Only faithful Hamdun. In seventeen days, I’d have to convert or be executed.
40
I spent most of my days praying, pacing, counting, playing backgammon with Hamdun, and missing the littles.
Once, Hamdun asked if I had decided against accepting baptism.
“I don’t know. Since God made me, which do you think He’d like better, that I usurp His power and unmake myself or that I convert and worship false gods?”
“Or pretend to worship them. I don’t want you to die. There are enough martyrs.”
By Monday, July 23, eight days remained until the final one. If the charges against me were miraculously dropped, there still might not be time for me to reach the coast. But despite Samuel’s promise to wait until the last day, our ship might already be underway. Masters, as I had learned, sailed by the winds.
In the afternoon, I had visitors: a handsome, serious-looking young man, whose expression and apparel were too somber for him to be a secretary, and Don Solomon, or the converso who used to be Don Solomon, whose name had become the grand eight-syllable Alonso López Salazar. The young man held a bulging linen sack. When they entered, the guard closed the door, but the lock didn’t click.
My heart pounded. Had Don Alonso won my release?
“Loma!” Don Alonso’s eyes were merry, as if we were in our living room with Belo before any of this had happened.
I curtsied.
He held his arms out, and I went into them. No need to say how much I hated him until I knew his purpose. He smelled of garlic, onions, and saffron. I remembered how the room stank and how, by now, I must reek, too. He murmured, “I miss your abuelo,” and let me go.
I stepped back.
The young man bowed, straightened, and smiled, revealing perfect white teeth. He was more than handsome: clean-shaven with cheeks like satin, a firm chin, full lips, clear brown eyes, a straight stance, and—God forgive me!—shapely legs in blue hose. After he smiled, his expression became gloomy again.
I was wearing my rose-colored gown with the gray pleated sleeves. It was one of my best, a Sabbath favorite, but I’d been wearing it for twenty-four days.
“May I introduce my great-grandson, Fernán Pérez Salazar?”
Was this the great-grandson he’d mentioned five years ago as a possible husband for me, whose Jewish name had been Nattan?
“Isn’t she lovely, Fernán?”
“Very lovely,” he said, holding the sack out to me. “For your enjoyment.”
I took it. Why were they here?
“Please open it,” Don Fernán said.
I untied the velvet string, but I knew its contents by weight and softness. When I emptied the sack on my table, there were, as I expected, figs, six of them, nice, but not perfect, like the ones Hamdun brought me every day.
“Thank you. You’re very kind.”
“We’re happy to present them.” Don Alonso widened his stance. “We guessed you haven’t tasted figs in a while.”
“Please share them with me.” I gave one to each.
We were silent while we ate.
“Delicious!” Overripe. “Please sit.” I gestured at my bench. “I regret not having a chair with a back.”
“This is fine.” Don Alonso lowered himself stiffly.
Don Fernán sat easily.
I sat on my bed and leaned toward them. “Don Alonso, no one has told me the charges I face.” I couldn’t help sounding resentful. “My lawyer hasn’t visited me.”
“Don Joseph is charged with usury fraud. The court considers you his agent.”
Usury fraud meant charging someone too much for a loan and hiding the extra charges. The accusation was nonsense.
“He never committed fraud! You know that. Who’s accusing him?” I calmed a little. Usury fraud had to be a lesser crime than crucifying a child. “On what loan?”
“For a house and an olive orchard near Mérida.”
I remembered. The borrower was Señor Mejía, an Old Christian, who hadn’t paid Belo back—along with all the others who also hadn’t paid us.
The accusation may have reached royal ears and set my imprisonment in motion.
“Señor Mejía is lying.”
I thought Don Fernán would think me unwomanly for saying it so baldly, but he smiled briefly before his face became grave again.
“No doubt,” Don Alonso said. “We came when I heard of your trouble. Fernán accompanied me as you used to go with Don Joseph. I hope the journey lightened his grief.”
I turned to him. “I’m sorry for your sorrow.” Whatever it was.
“His wife died giving birth to their daughter, who is healthy.”
Mention of the baby captured me. “How old is she?”
Don Fernán said, “Six months. She’s with my good sister, who has a son her age.”
They were so sweet at six months! “What’s the baby’s name?”
“Regina.”
A Christian and Jewish name. “Pretty.”
If I converted and married this handsome man, as I believed Don Alonso (and possibly his great-grandson) wanted, I would have a baby instantly. And I would certainly be released. A lump formed in my throat.
The littles would be lost to me, but they probably were anyway.
Don Fernán might never care for me. He may have doted on his dead wife, but that didn’t matter. I might never care for him, either. I’d love his child.
“She needs a mother,” he said.
Ah, he did want it.
Don Alonso added, “She needs the kind of mother you’d be. Fernán needs your kind of wife.”
An educated converso woman who adored children and knew Jewish law.
“I’m divorced.”
Don Alonso chuckled. “We’re told your husband was just past childhood, and he was supposed to protect you.”
Don Fernán opened his hands the way Belo did when he was about to bribe someone. His voice was soft. “I’d protect you.”
No one could protect anyone. Only God could, and He hadn’t so far.
Don Fernán sprang up. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
I saw the queen and the princess behind all this. But how important could I—just a woman—be in their plans? Did they think Belo would return to Spain and convert if I stayed?
Don Alonso may have put that idea in their heads.
It made sense, especially if they believed that boatloads of Jews would follow him.
No one knew if he was still alive!
Don Alonso loved him. The queen seemed to, too. They hoped he was alive—but not nearly as much as I did.
While Don Fernán was gone, Don Alonso said, “Your children with Fernán will be, if not kings and queens, the powers behind kings and queens, the wealth that keeps Spain rising. Our blood will have its revenge for what was done to us.”
Us, the Jews? Revenge by strengthening our enemies? By becoming our enemies?
Don Fernán returned with a scroll tied with a silk ribbon. My writ of divorce had been tied with plain twine.
He gave it to me with another bow. “Please read it.”
The document proved to be a bill of exchange for 17,600 maravedis.
I looked in wonderment at Don Fernán. “What does it mean?”
“I bought Señor Mejía’s debt. There was no usury fraud. Señor Mejía just wanted to avoid paying. The money is yours.”
They wouldn’t have called it buying me, but they were trying to.
41
I recited the Shema. The two New Christians joined me—softly.
If they were heard, would Don Rodrigo run in, take them to another cell, and summon the inquisitors?
Would my converso children, the future powers of Spain, have to whisper in corners what they believed most deeply? Would I have to teach them to?
Belo spoke in my mind: Don’t convert!
Think, Loma! You can live and remain a Jew. Think!
The door to my cell hadn’t been locked, because the charge against me had been dropped. Don Alonso and Don Fernán, whether they realized or not, had given me freedom and the means to reach my family in time—with luck and God’s help.
Belo would give them something in return.
What? Not my jewels. They had plenty of jewels.
What?
In all Belo’s and my visits to New Christians, our hosts longed most to be treated as if they were still Jews.
“Thank you.” I felt obliged to curtsey. “God willing, when I’m reunited with Belo—”
“Loma!” Don Alonso cried.
I held up my hand and stopped the words, whatever they were going to be. “I’ll tell him what you did for me. I’ll tell him that righteousness still lives in Spain, and that you’ll do whatever you can to help the fleeing families. And, later, as you can, you’ll aid the ones in exile.”
Don Alonso looked thoughtful.
God forgive the lie I was spinning. “Your conversion was good for the Jews, because now we have a powerful ally in you and the descendants Don Fernán will surely have. You’ll keep alive our traditions.”
Don Alonso nodded, his eyes moist. He would tell the monarchs something about me that would satisfy them.
His grandson was looking sad again. I wanted to give him a gift, too.
Belo or God sent me inspiration. I wet my lips. “Don Fernán, the sort of man you are, your offer of protection . . .” I forced myself to say the next words, because they were true, and he would like them. “. . . your person—” His handsomeness that lit up the room.
He blushed.
“—I’ll treasure the memory forever.” I touched his hand. “If I live to be old, I’ll think of you and how happy we might have been together.”
He bowed.
I curtsied and turned to Don Alonso. “Will you help me again?” I held out the bill of exchange and asked him to use it to pay for an escort for me to Valencia. I doubted that my lawyer, who had done nothing, would come forward with the money he’d been given for this.
He waved away the paper and promised that horses and guards would be at the judería gate in the morning.
A Ceiling Made of Eggshells Page 22
