The Apprentice's Masterpiece (3 page)

Next Easter, there is to be
a royal joust. Though it's many months off,
the boys in the quarter think of
nothing else.
We practice with great concentration,
as if there's a chance we'll be knighted
tomorrow and asked to compete.

Our lances are branches
we've stripped from a tree.
But with my pumice stone
I sharpen their tips, just a bit.

Lope is taking things too much
to heart. Manuel has him down
and shouts, “Die, Jewish dog!”

Lope springs up as if scorpion-stung.
“Don't you dare call me that, you—
Marrano pig! Your mouth stinks of garlic,
the food of the Jews!”
“Well,
you
just plain stink!”
And that does it. The retort is so feeble
we all three start laughing.

But later that day I remember their faces
and long for sunrise.
To get back to work,
where words are safe.

Dinner Guests

They don't always leave
the spying to us.

One Friday, three men
storm in as we sup.

Fridays are fast days:
no Christian eats meat.

They peer into the pot
with such somber scowls,
I swallow a laugh.

It's only fish.
You can see they're upset
it's not adafina
—
Jewish meat stew.
Or—better yet—the head
of a bishop or two.

Then they leave.
No Goodnight or God Save You or even
a grunt.

Sliding

I've heard whispers.
Some New Christians err.
“Backsliding,” it's called.

They may hide Jewish objects—
menorahs or prayer shawls, perhaps—
in their homes.

Or maybe they light candles on Fridays,
to prepare for a Saturday Sabbath—the choice
of the Jews.

And they might say, “Dio,” not “Dios,” meaning:
only one God.
That's Jewish too.

My parents don't do
any of this.
They are good Catholics.
Mama prays to the Virgin
even when no one is there
to take note.

But—
In the tiny, dark room
where both of them sleep,
there's a hole. You can't see it
unless
you know where to look.

I know.

I went past one night.
I heard a faint scrape.

Looked through the keyhole.
I wish I had not.

Papa was crouching down near his bed,
replacing a stone in the wall.
His movements were careful, as if
he were sliding a delicate loaf
of fine bread into an oven.

Perhaps the stone had come loose.
He was just mending it.
It is, after all, a very old house.
But my heart tells me no.
There is something inside
the recess in the wall.

The scariest part?
Because of that Edict of Faith
we pledged to at Mass,
I'm under oath
to find out just what.

Shoes

Father Cuesta, our priest,
is gone from the church!
A new man, Father Perez,
preaches the sermon.
He's stiff as a shirt
that's been dried in the sun.

The rumors are flying.
They say Father Cuesta,
a converso, you see,
was praying with Jews.
And not only that:
he wore, so they say, the communion host—
the incarnate body of Christ—in his shoes!

The new Father listed
the tortures of hell.
I peeked at Papa.
I know hellfire and demons
aren't things he believes.

I heard they pulled off his shoes in the square.
Father Cuesta's, that is.
Two bloody circles, red on white, were in there.

He swore they weren't hosts.
He'd given his
life
up to God:
why would he want to torture his son?
The circles of white were just
morsels of cotton to ease his sore feet.

So they said he was blistered
from going barefoot on
Pesach
,
the Passover fast of the Jews.

Poor Father Cuesta.
(He's sentenced to burn.)
The moral is this:
you're doomed if they start
to think of your shoes.

Guilds

I'm not your best guide
to how these things work.

All I know is you sure can't avoid them.
There are guilds for every Cordoban trade—
or just about. Guilds for breadmakers.
Guilds for blacksmiths. Guilds, even,
for cleaning latrines
where men shit.

From what I can tell,
these guilds are like clubs.
They have meetings and rules.
There are fees.
What's most important,
at least so it seems: each guild
has its own robes for processions.

We haven't had a guild in a while.
But things are changing. There is talk
of a printing press coming to Spain.
Scribes will lose work. They must organize.

That's all well and good.
I like fancy clothes.
Yet that's not all there is to the rumor.
Guilds are known for prizing
pure blood.

There'll be no parades
for conversos like us.

Sure Enough

The guild of the parchmenters
is well established.

Its members have heard
of this new guild of scribes.
And been persuaded the guilds
must work together.
Business is business.

The short of it is, they've been told
not to sell us their wares.
Parchment must be saved
for true Christian scribes.

And we're not true Christians?
Do they think we mix our
“Jewish blood” with the ink
in order to write invisible lies?

Papa is livid.
What will we write on, our foreheads?
A scribe without parchment, he says,
is just like a voice
in a world with no ears.

Baptisms (2)

Here's what I don't get.
They once were obsessed
with baptizing Jews.

My ancestors did what they wanted.
Those of us who remain
are all Christians now.
There is barely a Jew left in al-Andalus.

Why do they hate us so,
still?

Auto-da-fé

I dream that flames kiss
my kneecaps.

Or a man strangles me
while a crowd shouts for blood.
Peace be with you, Benveniste!

But most often I dream of the man with the eye.
He was strangled before he was burned—
out of mercy. In the end, he'd repented.

But his eyes remained open.
We stood and watched.
When the flames reached his head,
you couldn't see much.
His hair, catching fire, haloed smoke.
Yet after a while I did notice something
dropping to the ground.

We were far back in that crowd.
By decree, the whole of Cordoba was there
to witness the spectacle.

In the dreams, though, the eyeball returns in
horrid detail.

It's as close as a pea might be,
on my plate.

Little Lies

When I wake from these dreams
I am sweating and shouting.
Mama hears and comes in.

She is angry, I know.
Not with me. At the fact
we're all made to watch
these foul shows.

Yet she consoles me.
We even try
to make it a joke.
“Did you see the eyeball?” she'll ask me.
“Was it red and bloodshot from his drinking
too much for his last hurrah?”

Once or twice I have woken in tears, like a child.
Mama tells me, those times, that I'm safe.
We're all safe.
Everything will be fine.

She knows I don't really believe it.
Neither does she.

But there's something amazing
about those bland words.
Those little lies that claim
our lives are normal.

To say them, to hear them,
feels gutsy. It's as close
to rebellion, maybe,
we will ever come.

Parchment

Now Yuce Tinto is gone!
No one has seen him
for one month at least.
Not even in church.

He is the man
who sells us our parchment.
He has a kind heart.
His prices are always
too cheap by half.

Papa sends me. Yuce
has no wife. Maybe he's ill,
helpless in his bed.

No one's there.
His home's been ransacked.
Shreds of parchment and paper
lie strewn like plucked feathers
all over the floor.

Everything points to the Inquisition.
Yuce, too, is a converso.
And I once heard him say
that Jews and Muslims can
go to heaven, if they are good people.

Who knows to whom else
he's said such rash things?
Poor Yuce.
He had a big mouth—
and many friends.
Both spell danger.
But together…

Mama cries when she hears it.
“What will become of that poor,
gentle man?”

I'm selfish. Our one source for parchment
has just disappeared.
Without it, we can't do our work.
So it's like we've no food.

What will become, my poor, gentle Mama,
of us?

Collecting

First, it was dead butterflies.
For a while, Roman coins
I'd find in the earth.
But
this
type of collection?
It doesn't suit me.

At long last, I can roam
through these streets. Yet I'd rather
be home in my room.

No one likes to pay debts.
Not even clients who once mussed my hair
and brought me sweet treats.

They make promises.
(Those come cheap.)
One gives me a barren old hen
in exchange for a prayer book
that took eight days to copy.

I pass by the mansion
of Don Barico.
He owes nothing.
In fact, he always pays in advance.
Often he'll even add wonderful gifts.
Plump partridge pies.
Candied almonds. Soft leather covers
for books.

I sigh. The word
candied
haunts me
all the way to our door.

Gift

I'm scarcely inside
when I hear a knock.
There stands Don Barico himself,
as if he's been conjured
by my wishful thoughts.

But what twisted magic is this?

There's no partridge pie in his arms.
Instead, at his side, stands a boy.
Well, I think he's a boy.
There's a thin line of hair
just above his top lip.
(There's more above mine.)

But the rest of him—lost
in a mountain of cloth.
His robes touch the ground,
hiding even his shoes.
His hair in his turban could be
long or short or painted magenta,
for all I can see it.

There are two things, though,
you can't miss.

On his robe, just below his right shoulder,
the red patch of the Moors.

Above it, on his cheek, a black
S
.
Inked or burned, I can't tell,
right into his nut-colored skin.

Don Barico hasn't brought us a present.
He's brought us a slave.

Monkeys

I love Mama's laugh.
And God knows, it's a rare enough creature
these days.

But this time, it's wrong.

“Look at them stare at each other,” she says.
“Like two nervous monkeys
peering over their barrels!”

No,
I
was just looking, not staring.
He
's the one who won't quit.
Like I'm the strange one.
The stranger.

We Are Four

Never mind what we'll do with a fourth mouth to feed
when there's barely enough for ourselves.

What will we do with two more working hands?

No commissions, no parchment,
not even much ink.

Plus, he's another
person to fear.

I've heard of some slaves, malcontents,
behaving like spies.

One insult from their masters:
they run to the Office.
They tell the first tale, no matter how false,
to enter their minds.

Papa, it's true, is a master scribe.
As am I, for that matter.

Most masters have servants.

Who cares?

We've always done fine
on our own, thank you kindly.

Papa's no fool. It won't be a day
before he sends this Moor back.

Arabic

“Amir is still learning
his Spanish, Ramon. You
must help him.”

“Yes, Papa.”

Ha.

My friends and I talk
about him
even though
he's right here.
Like speaking aloud
with a donkey around.

He looks at us, straight.
Sometimes he blinks
like a fly's flown too close.
But even
could
he decode
what we say, well,
aren't his ears
tucked too tight
in that turban of his?

Shoo

Mama and Amir
now rule the kitchen.

I brood by the hearth—
it's just me sitting here, so it hasn't
been lit—and try not to listen.

Even with Mama,
he doesn't say much.
But she doesn't give up.
She babbles on, drowning
his silence with streams
of her talk.

When Papa or I try to help
with the meals, she just shoos us.
We are clueless and clumsy.
But Amir can
do
things.

Well, wait till I tell
the boys in the quarter
he can cook like a girl!

Strut

Amir drops
the docility act
when we're out of doors.

Everyone knows he's our slave:
I've told them.
But he struts like an equal.
He holds his head high.

They all can see it.
This kid, Paco, said,
“He makes like he
is the master of
you!
”

Companion

One thing I'll say:
with Amir here, Mama and Papa
don't nag me as much about going out.

I know why. They think I can't
get into trouble
with him as their spy.

What do they fear? That I'll scale
the high wall of a convent
if I'm left alone?

We're sent to the market;
I choose a route so roundabout
I feel dizzy. (If I'm stuck
with this guy, I vow to have fun.)
Amir narrows his eyes
but says nothing.
What can he say?

The streets wind like serpents.
For some reason I think of
a story I know, of Hercules.
As an infant, he cast
a swarm of snakes from his cradle.

He
must have owned slaves.
Did he permit them to walk
by his side, as I do?

Retort

We turn from some alley
(I admit it: we're lost)
right into their midst.
A long line of men in fine robes.

On their shoulders, a dais.
There, clad in silk, sits a tall Virgin Mary
just as if she were real, and a queen.

The men seem to glow in their pride.
Women stand alongside,
throwing petals of roses at the men's feet.
From a high window nearby
someone wails, “
Nuestra Señora!”
Our beloved lady!
The voice is so full
of both sorrow and joy
it prickles my neck.