The Apprentice's Masterpiece (17 page)

So I look, once again, at Amir.
He looks back, closely,
as if he's divining
the book of Hafiz.

I have no answers for him.
Nor he for me.
But this very blankness—
is it not a new page
upon which to begin?

Epilogue

THREE EVENTS OF HISTORIC IMPORTANCE took place in Spain in one year, 1492. Granada, the last stronghold of the Muslims in Europe, was conquered by the armies of Queen Isabella and King Fernando: all of Spain was now Christian. Months later, Spain's remaining Jews were expelled from all of her kingdoms. And explorer Christopher Columbus, backed by Isabella and said to have been financed, in part, by conversos, set sail to discover a passage to China over the Ocean Sea.

Countless Jews lost their lives in the aftermath of the expulsion. Some of the boats they were crammed into did indeed burn before they'd even left shore; others were set on fire deliberately while at sea. Jews, including women and children, were robbed, beaten, and killed by pirates at sea and by bandits on land. And while some did receive hospice in places throughout the Muslim Ottoman Empire, others were chased away from the shores and towns where they landed. Many Jews settled in Portugal, where at first they were welcomed. But King Manuel ordered the forced conversion of all Jews in that country only five years later, in 1497.

In the 1500s, the Inquisition turned its attention to Spain's remaining Muslims. There were towering bonfires of Muslim books, as there had been of Jewish books a century before. A sweeping campaign of forced conversions was undertaken throughout the country, and by 1526 the Muslim religion had officially ceased to exist in Spain. The Moriscos, as the Christianized Muslims were now called, became the next focus of the Inquisition, and many thousands were tried and sentenced. But even this failed to satisfy Spain's quest for Christian purity. In 1609, the expulsion of all remaining Moriscos in Spain was decreed.

Ironically, Spain's Golden Age did not survive these expulsions. Many historians speculate that it took centuries for Spain to recover from the great loss of skill, strength, and knowledge that went along with the expulsion of the Muslims and the Jews (not to mention the murders of so many conversos).

The Holy Office of the Spanish Inquisition was not fully abolished until 1834, making it the longest-enduring Inquisition in history. Through the more than 350 years of its existence, it took the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Spanish subjects.

Like the clerks of Nazi Germany, the archivists of the Inquisition kept voluminous records. But how can we trust, ask historians, confessions that were exacted under torture, or under fear of terrible repercussions if the all-powerful Inquisitors did not hear what they wanted to hear?

To walk today through the winding, history-soaked streets of Cordoba—indeed, of any Spanish city—is to witness the truth of Spain's mixed cultural heritage. It lives on today in the faces of its citizens, in its food, art, music, and architecture. All of these bear the fascinating influences of the Muslim and Jewish peoples and remind us of the time before “the Spain of three cultures” was lost.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For valued assistance during the writing of this book, I wish to thank the following organizations and people: the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council's Writers' Reserve program, the Markin-Flanagan Distinguished Writers Program at the University of Calgary, the Banff Centre for the Arts, the City of Ottawa, the Ottawa International Writers Festival, Dean Cooke, Roberta Major, Doug Little and Louise Thibault-Little, Susan and Edward Norman, Lise Rochefort and Adrian Jones, Dianne Bos and Harry Vandervlist, and, at every step, Peter Norman. And the deeply generous Stephen Brockwell, who sent me to Spain.

Special thanks for vision, talent, and faith to everyone who made this book a reality, especially Barbara Pulling, Heather Sangster, Shelagh Armstrong, and the entire truly remarkable team at Annick.

Hundreds of excellent books and articles were consulted in the researching of this book, but the two books I returned to again and again for both inspiration and direction were
The
Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth-Century Spain
by Benzion Netanyahu and
The End of Days
by Erna Paris.

My research would not have been possible without the Ottawa and Calgary public libraries and the university libraries of Ottawa, Carleton, and Calgary.

Please support libraries!

About the Author

Melanie Little has been hailed as an author who might “very well become the Alice Munro of our generation.” She has won numerous awards for her essays and short fiction. Her essays for young adults have appeared in two anthologies by Annick Press,
Certain Things About My Mother
and
Nerves Out
Loud,
which received the Book of the Year Award from
ForeWord
magazine and was included in The New York Public Library's Books for the Teen Age list.

Her highly acclaimed short-story collection,
Confidence,
was named a
Globe and Mail
Best Book and was shortlisted for the Danuta Gleed Award. In 2005–6, she was the Markin-Flanagan Canadian Writer-in-Residence at the University of Calgary. She continues to work with other writers through workshops, classes, and consultations. This is her first book for young adults.

Little currently lives in Calgary.

© 2008 Melanie Little
Annick Press Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyrights hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical— without prior written permission of the publisher.

Edited by Barbara Pulling
Copy edited by Heather Sangster
Proofread by Elizabeth McLean
Cover and interior design by Irvin Cheung / iCheung Design, inc.
Cover and interior illustrations by Shelagh Armstrong

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for our publishing activities.

Cataloguing in Publication
Little, Melanie, date-
            The apprentice's masterpiece : a story of medieval
Spain / Melanie Little.
Novel written in verse.
ISBN 978-1-55451-117-4.— ISBN 978-1-55451-190-7
            1. Inquisition— Spain —Juvenile fiction.
2. Jews— Spain —History—Expulsion, 1492—Juvenile
fiction.  I. Title.
PS8573.I857A66 2008           jC813'.6           C2007-905467-6

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www.annickpress.com