The Debt of Tamar (3 page)

“No,” José leaned forward. “I am the Señor of the house.” His voice was calm and cool. “I will decide.” For once, the widow was stunned to silence. José pulled her into his embrace.

“I am the Señor of this house,” he repeated quietly.

She pulled away and looked into his eyes as though peering into the future. “You’re a fool,” she whispered.

“Then you’ll have it arranged?”

“I suppose I must.” She shrugged. “You are the man of the house.”

Several days had passed since the issue of faith had been raised in the Mendez household. José took his breakfast on the terrace while reading the latest book he had acquired, a translated edition of
Kitab al-Manazir
, The Book of Optics. It was blasphemous. It was wondrous. Could it be possible that light traveled at a particular speed? Alhazen, the 10
^th
century Arabic philosopher thought so. If it were true, the implications would be staggering. As he sat contemplating the possibilities, an elderly man with a hunchback and a trim grey beard approached with a stack of books in his arms.

“I’m your new Latin tutor.”

“What happened to Don Miguel?”

The man shrugged. “I do not know Don Miguel.” He clutched his books as a moment of silence passed between them. The old man began to back away. “I see you were not expecting me.”

“No,” José said. The two were silent for a moment before José bid him farewell in Latin.

The old man’s blue eyes darted about in confusion. He shifted from one foot to the other then turned away hurriedly.

“Wait,” José called out. He was puzzled that the man did not speak a word of Latin. “Did my aunt send for you?”

The elderly man hesitated.

José gestured for him to sit. “Join me.”

Don Carlos did not reply but placed his books on the ground and quietly sat down.

“Please, eat something.”

Don Carlos picked up a bread roll and took a courtesy bite. “I’m not here to teach you Latin.”

José downed the remainder of his tea and returned his glass to its coaster. He turned the glass around and watched the sun’s rays glisten off the crystal surface. Their eyes met and exchanged a knowing look. “I figured as much.” José leaned forward. “I was hoping you could teach me something far more valuable.”

The man nodded slowly. He slid a leather book across the table towards José. “Do not open this until later tonight when you are sure all the household is sleeping.”

Over the next few weeks, Don Carlos and José met each morning on the pavilion. Don Carlos brought books with binders indicating the study of Virgil, the collected works of Julius Caesar and the first century historian, Tacitus, but beneath the false book covers lay a secret world of ancient Hebrew texts, beginning with Portuguese translations of the Old Testament. José plowed through them in a matter of weeks, approaching his studies methodically, studying for hours each day, searching, always searching. José was on a mission.

Dark circles formed beneath his eyes and his once robust frame began to wither. José was losing weight and losing sleep. Don Carlos began to grow concerned about his new pupil. “Why are you doing this?” Don Carlos asked one day.

José laid down a recently completed volume of the Prophets. “Another,” he instructed Don Carlos without bothering to answer his question. Don Carlos returned to their next lesson with volumes of the
Mishna
and
Gemara
translated from Ancient Hebrew and Aramaic.

“My boy, why are you doing this?” he tried for the second time.

José did not bother looking up. “I can’t stop.” His voice was raspy as his eyes moved along the words of the text.

“José!” Don Carlos brought his fist down hard causing the table to shake.

Startled, José looked up. He could feel his eyes burning, glazed and bloodshot. “I can’t stop,” he repeated himself. “I need to know why my parents left me.”

Soon he was delving into metaphysics and once again, astronomy, through the mystical teachings of the Zohar. Never before had his mind operated on so many different planes simultaneously. It was as if Kabbalah was a language stored in his memory before birth and the process of learning was merely an exercise in recollection.

One dark night, he walked along the beach with Reyna by his side. He took her hand and they lay out on the cool sand beneath the stars.

“What if one of the servants discovers your books and reports you?” Her voice was serious, even angry. “You don’t need to do this.”

“Of course I need to do this.” He was disappointed she did not understand.

“It’s not too late to go back to the way it was.”

“Go back?”

“Yes. Burn your books. Forget all this.”

“Can you do that? Can you forget what you saw? Can you really pretend that nothing’s changed?”

She folded her eyes away from view.

“People are being massacred. My people,
your
people. I need to know what they’re dying for.” He shook his head. “I think I’m starting to understand.”

“What is it?”

José thought it over. “It’s something I wouldn’t let anyone take away from me. I can’t explain it.”

“Try.”

He shook his head. “I can’t teach it to you any more than I can teach you the feel of this sand…” His voice trailed off. “You have to touch it, to ever know it.”

She sat up and caressed the sand in her fingers. “I don’t care about any of it. I just don’t want to lose my best friend.” They sat quietly for a few moments.

“See that.” José pointed towards a cluster of stars that took the form of an archer and his bow. “Do you see?” he said still pointing.

Her eyes scanned the night sky.

“I’m not sure they are actually there,” he explained.

“But they’re so bright?”

“They only appear that way. Those stars burned out long ago. It took some time for the light to reach us.”

When she didn’t reply, he tried to explain further. “What you see is their legacy. It’s what’s left behind.”

Her eyes scanned the bright sky.

“There is something real. Something true,” he continued. “It never fades. It never dies. It keeps giving even when it’s gone.”

She twisted her body towards him and rested her cheek on the cool sand. “I won’t lose you?” Even in the darkness, her eyes glistened brightly.

“Never.”

For a time, the sound of crashing waves filled the silent lull between them. Then, they slept undisturbed until they awoke at sunrise to the cries of seagulls. They hurried home and returned to their beds with sand in their pockets and the taste of the sea in their mouths.

In the morning, a messenger arrived with a scroll of parchment secured by the dagger in his belt. It was a month to the day since Doña Antonia had been called to the palace to discuss the matter of Reyna’s marriage. “The King and Queen request that you relay your blessing upon the betrothal of your daughter, Doña Reyna Mendez to Prince Alfonso of Aragon, cousin to the Emperor.” He handed her a gilded mirror encrusted with rubies, diamonds, and pearls. “A gift from her Majesty as a token of her affection. I take it I may relay your blessing to the King and Queen?”

Doña Antonia swallowed the knot rising in her throat and tried to quiet the tremble in her voice as she spoke. “With great sadness, I am forced to decline this proposition, with all due respect to the King and Queen. We cannot let our blood mix with that of the holiest of Christendom. That would be a sin in itself. We are common people, of no importance. We could not bring honor to the royal family any more than a candle could bring light to the sun. Our place in this world is at the feet of her Highness, as loving and loyal servants, but we dare not try to rise above our station. For such ambition is not favorable in the eyes of the Lord.” She did not wait for a response, but turned from the messenger and hurried up the steps with her skirt bunched up in her fists.

She made her way into the grand foyer and rang the servants’ bell. An elderly maid appeared just moments later. “Find Reyna and José and tell them I’d like an audience with them in my study.”

José observed his aunt from the upper landing of the grand mahogany stairwell. She gathered the hem of her skirt and hurried into her study. He followed and watched as she sat, then stood, then sat again, then paced for a time before realizing he was standing before her.

A moment later, Reyna arrived, an occurrence that seemed to startle Doña Antonia.

“Sit down,” she instructed the two of them. She continued pacing, though her voice was calm and cool.

“You’ll both pack a small bag. Only essentials. Whatever you may need for a short journey.”

“Where are we going?” Reyna sounded worried.

“There’s no time to explain.” Doña Antonia was resolute. “Now pack up your things. It’s all been planned.” She turned to José. “Are you hearing me?”

José held out a small sack before him. “I’ve been prepared for some time.”

Doña Antonia blinked incredulously.

“They’re coming for everything.” Doña Antonia continued pacing. “If it can’t be through marriage it will be through confiscation.” She looked up. “I’ve been transferring our assets overseas for some time. I thought it might come to this.” She rang the servants’ bell and instructed her maidservant Isabel to gather the household. It took only a few moments before the entire domestic staff was gathered before her.

Doña Antonia began by doling out a small fortune in gold ducats to each one of them. “Some of you may have realized something is amiss in this household. Leave Lisbon for a while if you can. Return to your families in the countryside. You are no longer safe here. I trust you will keep anything you may have heard to yourselves. I want to thank you for your loyalty.” She paused for a moment, then dismissed the stunned staff.

Once they had gone, she turned her gaze toward the sea. For the past two days, people were flocking to the shore to have a look at an enormous, beached whale. Onlookers stood about tossing water from buckets over his mammoth frame. His narrow, black eye was glazed over with fear. Doña Antonia prayed the tide would sweep the majestic beast away, back into the luminous dark from which he had emerged. She prayed, though she knew her prayer was in vain.

That evening, King James and Queen Catharine ordered Doña Antonia’s house raided. Doña Antonia, José, and Reyna lodged at the edge of town under false names while the authorities stormed up the marble stairs leading up to the grand villa. They broke down the door to discover absolute stillness, the house in perfect order, not a soul in sight. They scoured all four wings of the mansion.

Outside, a young soldier was holding a glowing torch when he heard his heel click against some type of unnatural element. He crouched low to the ground and swept away some loose strands of grass and dirt with his free hand. Beneath that small mound of fresh, cool earth, he discovered a hidden door manned with an iron lock from a jailer’s dungeon. He shouted out to his superiors, “Over this way!”

They smashed the lock and descended the stone stairs to the damp, subterranean lair. Amidst sprouting mushrooms and festering mold, beneath the flickering glow of their outstretched torches, they discovered scores of Hebrew scrolls. High-piled heaps of prayer books, a spectacular menorah of solid gold, prayer shawls, countless Torah’s scrolls, and within an innocuous wooden crate, a broken mirror encrusted with rubies, diamonds, and pearls.

With the help of the Jewish Underground, Doña Antonia managed to arrange the escape of her family. They were smuggled out of Portugal en route to Spain. From there, they met with a band of persecuted Gypsies. The leader was happy to take them into his flock for a few ducats as the caravan fled east towards Italy to escape Spanish persecution.

Doña Antonia looked about the filthy tent they shared with a young couple and their baby. Soiled diapers were piled high in a corner and the room smelled putrid. This was the only space available in the crowded caravan. “In spite of our surroundings, we will keep our self-respect.” She picked up a small heap of clothing. “I’m going out to wash our linens.”

“
Tia
, no.” José held out his arm to block her. “We’ve been warned that the Papal authority has gotten wind of our arrival. Best to stay indoors until we move on from Ancona.”

“I won’t live like this.” She pushed his arm aside. “Reyna, have this place tidy when I get back.”

Several minutes had passed when Reyna stopped sweeping and looked up at José. “Do you hear that?”

José froze for a moment then made his way towards the tent’s entrance. He stood with his ear pressed to the outside world. Suddenly, he could hear the screams of women and the shouting of what he could only imagine to be soldiers.

“Quickly, give me your finger.” José turned to Reyna.

“What’s happening?”

“The authorities! They must know we’re here. They’re raiding the camp.” He took hold of her hand and withdrew his dagger.

“What are you doing?”

He said nothing, but made a small slit along her fingertip with the tip of the blade as she winced in pain. José then did the same to his own finger. “Look up,” he instructed a bewildered Reyna. Her eyes were glazed over. She was filthy and exhausted. He spread the blood from his fingertips across her cheeks, nose and forehead.

“José?” Her voice was raspy as she spoke.

“I’m darkening your skin. You should appear to be Roma when they find you.” He continued to blot the blood across her face until she appeared noticeably darker.

He quickly did the same to his own face while the commotion outside their tent grew louder. Mothers and babies were crying as the authorities stormed the tents, one at a time.

Suddenly, a hulk of a man burst into their tent wielding an enormous bludgeon in one hand and a sword in the other. The red-haired man grimaced at Reyna and José, took one look at their Roma complexion and stormed out as violently and suddenly as he had burst in.

Reyna let out a deep gasp and could not catch her breath. José tried to calm her. “You’re all right.” He tried to sound convincing.