The Mapmaker's Daughter (37 page)

“Oh no! Some crumbs fell on the floor!” Elianita—or Nita, as we now call her—says in mock horror when they have finished, and together she and the little ones wipe the spot clean.

Passover begins this evening, and all traces of hametz, unleavened bread, must be removed from the house before sundown. The children are too young to know how unlikely it is to discover a cookie—and an undusty one at that—atop a cabinet any time of year, but the women have worked so hard there would be nothing for the children to find now unless it was planted. Despite the rain flooding the streets and the mud encroaching on the entryway, the feather will be as white at the end as when the ritual started.

Nita is eight now, and already she is so much a part of our traditions that it is hard to remember that she once wore a crucifix. Three years after witnessing the deaths of her mother and father, she receives her new father’s blessing at the start of every Shabbat, as if she has been with us her whole life. Perhaps it is the love of a merciful God that makes children’s memories fade, but I am still haunted by the screams coming from the human torches that were her parents and the animal ferocity with which she fought off Samuel, unable to imagine anyone could mean her any good.

She has a special affection for Samuel, who from that terrible day took her deep into his heart. Samuel and his older brother attend a yeshiva in Guadalajara, where they live with my daughter. Though Samuel and Nita do not see each other often, when they are together, they form a community of two, just like Eliana and Isaac did.

When I see them building our sukkah, lighting the candles at our Festival of Lights, and wishing each other a sweet week with a sniff of the spices and a taste of membrillo, I can’t help but imagine the future. Wouldn’t it be strange if their story ended up like my daughter’s—a second Eliana taken into a family and ensuring its legacy through the children she bears?

Isaac comes out of his study and laces his boots on a stool near the door. “It’s time to go to the synagogue for the minyan,” he says to his youngest son.

“I found some hametz on the cabinet,” my little grandson says, patting the feather.

“No, you didn’t,” Nita tells him. “The feather’s just getting ragged.” She looks worried. “Can you check, Nonna?” she asks me. Just as with my Eliana, everything needs to be exactly according to our law.

As he waits for Samuel to lace his boots, I watch Isaac with the same admiration I always feel for him. During the bleak days of our escape from Portugal, we sewed gold coins and jewelry into our hems and left with a few boxes on a cart. Now, thanks to Isaac’s acumen and the will of the Holy One, the Abravanel family has several houses in Alcalá and another in Guadalajara, where Isaac can be closer to his patron, Cardinal Mendoza. Eliana and Isaac’s house in Guadalajara is small because only they and two of their sons live there. Their three older children, Judah, Leah, and Hadassah, have their own homes in Alcalá. Judah and his wife Samra have no children yet, but Leah and Hadassah have five between them.

We are happy now, and safe from want, but no Jew is foolish enough to be certain any day will end as well as it starts. We all understand that a time in which the only problems we face are keeping a curfew and wearing a badge must be counted as a good one.

I feel at peace in Alcalá, living in Judah’s house, surrounded by my grandchildren and my first great-grandchildren. Perhaps these little ones will live in a better world than I have known, a better one than Nita witnessed.

“Ken yehi ratzon,” I whisper in Hebrew. “May it be so.”

ALCALÁ DE HENARES 1492

Church bells clang as heavy flakes of snow drift to the stones of the plaza and melt under our feet. It is almost five years later—the sixth of January, 1492, the Feast of the Epiphany. We knew that the Caliphate of Granada would not survive Ferdinand and Isabella’s resolve to destroy it, but the reality stuns us. Granada has fallen. The Catholic Majesties have entered the city and settled themselves in the Alhambra.

For years, a civil war raged in Granada between two rivals for the caliph’s throne. Their armies were so busy inflicting damage on each other that the border slowly inched in, as one village after another was claimed by Spain.

When, after a long siege and great bloodshed, the port city of Málaga fell to the Spanish army, the last supply route for the Caliphate was cut off. Renegados, Christians who converted to Islam and fought for the Caliphate, were tied to stakes while mounted Castilian soldiers used them for target practice, throwing spears made of cane stalks into their bodies. Every Muslim—old and young, male and female—became a prisoner of war. Those who could not pay ransom were sold as slaves.

All the conversos were burned at the stake. There were no accusations, no trials. Being anusim was enough to warrant death. The Jews were all taken prisoner, and of course, we ransomed them.

I have had one thing on my mind since the fall of Granada. Where is Jamil? Is his family safe? There are so many valiant men among the Muslim dead, and I know he would prefer to be one of them than live with dishonor in a defeated Granada.

For the Jews of Spain, there’s not much in the fall of Granada to celebrate. As the Inquisition drags on, the mood of the country has become more hostile. Absurd stories inflame hatred against us. In LaGuardia, a Jew was burned at the stake, accused of having participated in the crucifixion of a four-year-old boy. Though there was no evidence the boy ever existed, under torture, the poor man admitted all sorts of vile acts, and he died for no other reason than being a Jew with the bad luck to have come to the authorities’ attention.

As Judah and I watch people dancing around bonfires on this winter day, we stand at the top of our street so we can escape quickly if the celebration turns hostile. Though the townspeople seem joyous today, there’s no way to know about tomorrow. The church has always fanned hatred, and the monarchs have beaten it down, insisting Jews are their property and demanding the rule of law.

Ferdinand and Isabella are friendly to the Abravanel men, both Isaac and Judah. I would go so far as to say they are sincerely fond of them. They behave the same toward Abraham Seneor and his brother, who have been financiers and royal advisers for decades. Seneor is the chief tax collector for Castile and one of the wealthiest men in Spain, owning houses, estates, and land throughout the country. His family and ours are among the few exempt from the restrictions on Jews, and though the Abravanels don’t flaunt their wealth, Seneor lives in a mansion in Segovia and travels like royalty with a retinue of thirty servants and guards.

Secretly we wonder whether Seneor’s wealth and power has made him drift too far from his people. He’s the official court rabbi, the supreme judge of Jewish law in Spain, appointed not by Jews but by the crown. He’s friendly with the most rabid Jew-haters at court, and recently he bought a house for next to nothing after its Judaizing owner died at the stake.

I give my grandson a sidelong glance. He’s twenty-nine years old and a physician—a royal physician no less, for when the king or queen are here, he attends them. Judah is the most striking member of our family, although, as with all Jewish men, his face is covered with a beard. His nose and cheekbones give him the appearance of a hawk, and from a distance, he has the fierce look of an ancient prophet.

Close in, the ferocity vanishes. He has the same gentle ways I remember in the Judah for whom he is named. He is a worthy successor to his father Isaac, and with the birth last year of his first child—named Isaac like his grandfather, according to our custom—he has begun to ease into his role as the future patriarch of the family.

“What do you think will happen now?” I ask him.

He shrugs. “Isabella promises to unite all Spain as a Christian country,” he says, looking across the plaza. “These people won’t be thinking any more about Muslims in some little part of the south they’ve never seen. They’ll be thinking about the Jews in their midst now.”

“Anusim, you mean.”

“It’s beyond that. Ferdinand and Isabella want to be popular—and they are at the moment, because of Granada. But this popularity won’t last beyond their first big mistake, and I suspect Torquemada is trying to convince them that allowing Jews in Spain is just that.”

“Allowing us? We’ve been here forever!” I splutter with astonishment. “Surely they can’t hope to convert us, not after we’ve seen how they treat the anusim. How else will they get rid of us? Kill us? Make us leave?”

“They expelled all the Jews of Andalusia. That didn’t make sense either.” Judah takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly through his nose, a habit when he is thinking. “I think we’re safe, though. Jews pay more taxes than anyone. Just our family adds millions of maravedis to the treasury every year. The king and queen may wish we were Christians, but I suspect they’re resigned to letting us be what we are.”

The bonfires bathe the square in a golden glow as evening settles in. The falling snow fills my mind with images of ash fluttering over corpses tied to stakes.

“But you never know,” Judah says. “You never know.” He looks at me. “You’re shivering, Nonna. Let me take you home.”

***

The winter of 1492 passes uneventfully in a euphoric Spain. Bards compose poems extolling Ferdinand and Isabella, nobles claim their spoils, and churches fill with music praising God for the victory. Even the Inquisition seems to die down as the country celebrates. Then, the thunderbolt.

Shortly before Passover, Isaac arrives unexpectedly in Alcalá, his face ruddy from his gallop through a cold rain. It is Friday, and although he left Guadalajara at dawn to make sure to arrive before the beginning of Shabbat, the roads are muddy, and he gets here with only a few minutes to spare.

“Where’s Judah?” he asks without greeting us.

“At the synagogue for the minyan,” Judah’s wife Samra says. We look at each other, puzzled.

“Isaac, what’s wrong?” I ask.

“I must find Judah.”

“My daughter—” I insist, grabbing his sleeve as he heads for the door. “Is she all right?”

“Eliana is fine. She and our sons will be coming here when Shabbat is over.” Isaac pulls his arm away and leaves without saying more.

We stare at the closed door and then at each other. Isaac is mild and contemplative, rarely abrupt, and I am astonished that his behavior toward me would ever cross over into rudeness, as it just had. “What in the world…?” I ask, my voice tinny with concern.

“We’ll know soon enough.” Samra holds her year-old son Isaac in one arm and lays out silverware with the other. “They have to be back before sundown when we light the candles.” Though she is only twenty, Judah’s wife amazes me. I know many women who would be out in the cold right now, beseeching Isaac to share the news right then before they died on the spot of worry. Not Samra. She’s strong and resilient, taking the bad and the good with an even temperament. What women we have in this family, I think, and what a lucky man Judah is to have such a wife.

“We’ll know, unless your father-in-law decides that the news will disturb the Sabbath, and he makes us wait until tomorrow.”

“Would he do that?” Underneath her calm, I can see she is worried.

“I suppose he knows our Sabbath peace is already disturbed by whatever brought him here,” I reply. “I imagine he’ll tell us.”

Leah and Hadassah’s families arrive for the evening meal before Isaac and Judah return. The children get out the Shabbat box, which is filled with special toys, while we tell the women about the unexpected visit.

“What could be so bad?” Hadassah wonders, holding up her pregnant belly with her hands. “The church bells would be tolling if the king or queen were dead.”

We hear men’s voices outside, and Judah opens the door. Isaac comes in next, followed by Leah’s and Hadassah’s husbands. They scrape the mud from their boots and rub the soles on the fresh straw by the door, studiously avoiding the anxious faces of the women.

“Tell us, Isaac,” I demand. “We’re faint with worry.”

Isaac shakes his head. “Shabbat will not wait for us. Samra must light the candles.”

Samra’s arms tremble as she puts the flame to the wick, and Leah comes to her side to help her finish the ceremony. After the last child has received its father’s blessing, we turn to Isaac.

“I will share my news before we bless the wine and bread. Then we will have our dinner as if nothing has happened. Shabbat is a time of joy. Is it agreed?”

We all nod. The children, sensing the mood, have not drifted off as usual. The youngest beg to be picked up, and the older ones nestle in their mother’s skirts. Nita, now twelve, comes to stand by my chair and puts her hand on my shoulder.

Isaac pulls a piece of folded paper from his jacket. “I spent several hours copying this last night,” he says. “Cardinal Mendoza received it yesterday. It won’t take long for the news to spread, and since people look to our family to lead them, I thought you all should know about it first, rather than being surprised in the street.”

I see Judah’s lips moving in silent prayer.

“It’s an edict of expulsion,” Isaac says. “Ferdinand and Isabella have given the Jews four months to leave Spain.”

I’m not sure what happens next. The room swims in front of my eyes, and my mind goes blank. When I can focus again, Leah and Samra are sobbing in each other’s arms, and Hadassah has been helped to a chair to keep her pregnant body from collapsing to the floor. Baby Isaac is screaming, and Nita is doing her best to comfort him until Samra is ready to take him again.

Isaac is speaking. “They say the only way to save the anusim is to get rid of the Jews.” He consults the paper in his hand. “‘They steal faithful Christians and subvert them to their own wicked belief and conviction,’” he reads, “‘persuading them to observe the law of Moses, and convincing them that there is no other law or truth except for that one.’”

He lets out a deep sigh before continuing. “‘We commanded them to leave Andalusia, but neither that step nor the passing of sentence against the guilty has been sufficient remedy. So there will be nowhere to further offend our holy faith and by diabolical astuteness wage war against us, we must banish the Jews from our kingdoms.’”