“Cowards! Cowards, all of you, to attack someone weaker than yourselves!”
Gabriel roared and dropped the walking stick; his hands went to his eyes. He lumbered about blindly long enough for Antonio to recover the stick and wallop him behind the knees.
Gabriel fell face forward onto the soft dirt in front of the olive tree, only an arm’s length from his shivering victim, who now sat crouched, knees to chest, as he pressed against the knotted trunk.
A palpable beat of silence passed, during which time Antonio draped the cloak over the gasping old man’s shoulders and pressed the scarf into his hand; Gabriel’s blows had done the poor Jew such harm that he could not stand. By then I was wriggling my way through the crowd; every male was gaping at Antonio, utterly spellbound. Desperate to reach my friend before the tide turned against him, I pushed harder as I forced my way past distracted, motionless boys.
The crowd suddenly caught its collective breath, and one youth giggled, then another; abruptly, the cul-de-sac filled with the Eagles’ and Lions’ derisive laughter. Beet faced, Gabriel rose to his hands and knees, clearly smarting from the blow, his teeth gritted with hatred and pain. As he rose groaning to his feet, he shot an accusatory glance at his teammates.
But the other boys were fickle; the Jew would provide sufficient entertainment once Miguel returned with the knife. Until then, they found sport in the slightly more even contest between Antonio and Gabriel.
“Fight!”
one of them shouted, and the rest of them gleefully took up the chant:
“Fight fight FIGHT!”
Antonio moved away from the Jew and the olive tree, and, gripping the heavy walking stick at the base with one hand, held it like a swordsman ready to parry. Gabriel squared off against him—a hulking Goliath against a lithe, armed David—and charged, bellowing. By then I had made my way past all but the outer ring of sweating boys and stopped to stare and pray silently for Antonio’s sake.
Antonio’s free hand moved so quickly to his tunic pocket that Gabriel, focusing on his opponent’s weapon, did not notice—not until Antonio flung more sand into his eyes and
thwack
ed the side of his head, just above the ear, with the tip of the stick.
The audience roared—some with approval, others with encouragement for Gabriel, who cursed the blue of the Madonna’s veil and the Holy Crimson Blood as he rubbed his eyes. The injured Jew had by then retied the scarf to cover his missing nose and his mouth; I fancied that he was smiling beneath it, perhaps because I smiled involuntarily myself.
My grin immediately faded as Gabriel, still half-blinded, grabbed two large handfuls of dirt and pelted Antonio in the face with them. Antonio ducked his head, though not in time. He reached one-handed for his stinging eyes, keeping a firm grip on the walking stick, and swiped randomly at the air.
It wasn’t enough. Gabriel recovered faster and caught hold of the stick; all too easily, he wrested it from the smaller boy’s grip—then threw it aside and charged Antonio, knocking him to the ground.
Gabriel’s bulk collided with Antonio’s shorter, slender frame with an ominous
thud,
and Antonio released a sharp, wordless vocalization as his back struck the ground, forcing the air from his lungs. By then, I had screamed and was already pushing my way between the two avid spectators that separated me from the fighters. In less time than it takes to draw in a breath, Gabriel was on his knees, his left arm wrapped tightly around the prone Antonio’s neck, his right terminating in a fist that struck the younger boy’s head again, again, again. Antonio tried to lift his head, and I caught sight of his face: His features were even and pretty, childlike in proportion, with his straight nose still too short, his eyes still too big for his head. He would grow up to be a handsome man—at least, if the damage Gabriel wrought that day was not too great. At the moment, one of Antonio’s eyes was swelling shut and blood trickled from one of his perfect nostrils.
I bolted from the crowd, aware not of Gabriel’s massive fists but only of Antonio and his wounds. I ran directly up to his tormentor, who, kneeling, was now at my eye level, lost in an animal fury, unaware of his surroundings. Forgetting all but my rage at his cruelty, I shoved my face in his and screamed:
“Gabriel! Let him go!”
My cry broke the spell. Gabriel looked up at me, startled, as if I were an avenging angel who had spontaneously materialized before him; I suppose it was the first time I’d ever called him by name. My gaze still locked with his, I placed my head between his fist and Antonio’s crown and watched in amazement as all anger drained from his homely features and was replaced by an odd, reverent tenderness. Yet beneath the tenderness lurked a guilty sensuality, the look of a penitent who finds himself lustfully beguiled by the Madonna’s beauty. His thick arm slowly uncoiled itself from Antonio’s neck and dropped.
Antonio immediately rolled into a sitting position.
“Marisol!”
he cried. His bottom lip was cut and bloodied, causing him to lisp, and his red-blond bangs were now dark copper and stuck to his sweat-slicked forehead. His tone held no welcome or gratitude, only disapproval, as if to say,
You might have gotten yourself killed!
But he took the arm I proffered him, and I helped him stand just as the mob went silent.
“Back to your houses!”
a man cried sharply. I glanced up to see the kickball players quietly dispersing. The cul-de-sac began to empty quickly, as a commanding voice emanated from the gate of the Hojeda house.
“Gabriel, come inside at once!”
Don Jerónimo’s voice was thin and reedy yet conveyed such steely authority that every child in the street fell quiet, while Gabriel hung his head. I squinted at don Jerónimo’s figure, stark black, stooped and featureless against the blinding coral of the setting sun. The slightest exertion left the elderly Jerónimo winded, but he was not gasping and breathless, as he would have been had he been notified of the violence and rushed to quell it. Clearly, he had been watching the entire time.
“Come away, Gabriel,”
he repeated, in a voice that pierced the sudden quiet.
“Come away from that filthy little
marrana
!”
Marrana,
he called me. A female pig, a sow. Although the term had been directed at my mother,
I
had never been called that name before—the ugliest name you could call a
conversa
in those days—and it cut to the bone.
I stood, stunned and smarting, as Gabriel headed into the dying sun to join his father; as they disappeared behind the gate, Gabriel let go a sharp yelp.
The instant don Jerónimo was gone, the children remaining in the square slowed and turned toward me and began to chant in a scathing singsong:
“Marrana! Marrana! Marrana!”
In their eyes was the same hatred I’d seen in the butcher’s eyes when he had refused to sell anything but pork to my mother.
Sobbing, I batted away Antonio’s protective embrace and ran home, passing my father in the street as he shouted for the children to stop. Later I learned that a family servant saw Antonio home, while one of our drivers took the elderly Jewish man to the hospital. But I went straight to my lonely room and curled up into a ball, weeping. A few moments later, my father entered and tried to comfort me.
“Those boys did terrible things,”
he said, sitting down on the bed beside me; I wouldn’t look at him.
“And what they said to you was horrible.”
“But why do they say it?”
I demanded.
“Why do they hate me and Mamá so much? What did we ever do to them?”
My father let go a long sigh and, for the first time, began to look old.
“They hate what they don’t understand. They’re afraid, because your mother’s ancestors were apparently … Jewish.”
“But why is that so awful?”
I demanded.
My father drew in a breath and looked away, toward the door. And then he began to explain to me that some Old Christians were afraid of New Christians because some of the monks—most notably, Gabriel’s older brother—preached that New Christians weren’t really Christians but were secretly practicing Judaism, and that, of course, was heresy.
I’d heard this story many times from my mother but feigned ignorance.
“What were they doing that was so bad?”
I asked.
My father began to explain to me the actual heretical practices, which involved only meals and holidays, not the slaughtering of Christian babies or Devil worship—and when he came to the lighting of the Sabbath candles on Friday evening, which was done by Jewish women, I looked out the window at the sun’s last rays and stopped listening.
Not much later, my father embraced me and left, realizing that there was nothing he could say to soothe me. I immediately went to my mother’s room, thinking to confront her angrily, but to my surprise, her door was bolted. When I knocked, Máriam eventually opened the door a crack; her dark face was stern and her attitude dismissive, but I saw pity in her dark eyes. From behind her came the muffled sound of weeping. My mother must have heard the shouts in the street; perhaps she’d even seen from her balcony that they had been directed at me.
“Your mother isn’t well right now,”
Máriam said in her low handsome voice.
“It will pass, and she’ll be happy again soon. But she doesn’t want you to see her like this.”
I dropped my gaze and swallowed furious tears; Máriam suddenly stepped out into the loggia and hugged me fiercely. I pulled back in surprise; she was sparing with physical affection.
In the next instant, she was back standing behind the cracked-open door.
“It’s a cruel thing this world does to children,”
she said. Her tone lightened.
“Go to Cook and tell her to make you a sweet. Tell her that your mother wants her to do so.”
With that, she closed the door. I didn’t turn away until I heard her slide the bolt shut.
The next Friday afternoon, when my recovered mother came to find me, I went with her into her bedroom and waited until all the servants had left and we two were alone. As Magdalena was fetching the key to open the trunk where she hid the golden candlesticks and prayer shawl, I told her coldly that I wouldn’t tell anyone about what she did on Friday evenings, but I would no longer join her. I would listen to no more tales of Sepharad,
conversos
or Jews, or utter Hebrew prayers or listen to her songs.
I don’t remember the precise words I used; they were forgotten, replaced in my mind by the look of heartbreak on her beautiful face.
I was faithful at keeping my promise; in fact, I kept it too well. Not only did I avoid Magdalena’s chamber on Friday evenings, I also took to walking far behind her when she went to market or to church, ashamed to be associated with her, and I shunned her public displays of affection. When I helped her paint ceramics in the studio, I spoke little. I began to identify more with my father and took to avoiding other
converso
children, instead trying to ingratiate myself with Old Christians. I looked forward to the day I would marry Antonio and be free of my mother’s heritage.
I was young and stupid enough then to believe the other children would forget the day don Jerónimo had called me
marrana.
I told myself that no one would notice my darker hair, olive skin, or hazel eyes, or judge me by them if I prayed faithfully enough, went to Mass often enough, trusted Jesus and the Madonna hard enough. And I was all too oblivious to the deep pain my rejection caused my mother.
After several months, when Magdalena realized I would never change my mind, she privately explained that she had given up the lighting of the candles, because she hadn’t realized the practice was heretical. She had begged God’s forgiveness, she told me, and received it, and would behave from then on as a pious Christian for love of me.
I shrugged when she told me this, and left without saying a word, because she’d already proven herself capable of lying. I still loved her dearly but was too busy erecting an invisible wall between us to tell her so.
* * *
As the years passed, I grew to love Antonio more and more, and he loved me; I’d never met anyone so fearless, so generous with his affection, so consistently joyful. His parents and mine began to act as if our marriage was inevitable. But the day he turned seventeen, Antonio announced at a gathering of friends and neighbors that he would obey his father’s wish by getting a degree in canon and civil law at the University of Salamanca, so very far away. But he said not a word about marrying me.
Even though he’d often spoken about going to the university, I’d secretly hoped he’d stay in town with me. I was fifteen, old enough to marry. That night, I cried myself to sleep thinking of the four years—a lifetime!—we would spend apart.
I hadn’t been asleep long when my mother appeared in her nightgown and leaned over my bed.
“Marisol!”
she said, shaking my arm.
“Get up! Hurry!”
I woke with a start. I would have been terrified if she hadn’t been laughing.
“What is it, Mamá?”
I couldn’t imagine what had been so comical that she’d been moved to disturb me at such a late hour.
“You’ll see!”
she answered, grinning.
“Put on a shawl; come!”
I picked up my everyday lightweight shawl—it was spring, cool but not cold.
“No, no!”
my mother said.
“Not that one!”
She hurried to the closet and pulled out my best dress shawl, fine black lace shot through with gold.