The Last Song (7 page)

“I do, Papa.”

“If we were imprisoned by the Inquisition and Torquemada found out about this letter, he would let us go.”

“Because we are his relatives?”

“No, Isabel. He would free us if we threatened to expose his Converso background. The letter is our proof.”

“Have you lost your senses, Enrique?” Mama asked.
“You don’t threaten a man like the Grand Inquisitor. If we said anything about the letter to him, he would have us tortured until we ‘confessed’ that it was a forgery. He is so cruel that he can make anybody confess to anything. And then when they do confess, he burns them at the stake.”

Papa shook his head. “You’re wrong, Catarina.” He turned back to me. “Don’t listen to your mother. Torquemada wouldn’t want people talking about this letter behind his back. They might believe what it says despite a ‘confession’ that states that it is a forgery. If we ever found ourselves in the clutches of the Inquisition, the letter would be our only weapon.”

Mama’s hands were clasped tightly in her lap. “Torquemada is without mercy. God forbid that we should ever find ourselves in such a terrible position.”

Papa pulled a beautifully carved bench away from the wall and sat down facing me and Mama. He leaned so close to me that I could see every pore, every wrinkle in his face. “Forget for now that you ever saw this letter,” he said. “You must not use it unless it is absolutely necessary. Unless it is a question of life and death. Do you understand?”

“I do.”

“Promise me that you will never tell anybody about it.”

“I swear, Papa. I won’t tell.”

Not even Yonah. It’s safer for him not to know of its existence
, I said to myself.

C
HAPTER 6
 

“W
here are we going?”

“Just follow me,” Yonah said.

He led me down Potters’ Alley, past vendors selling clay dishes of every type. Urns to hold wine competed for space with plates that would grace the tables of the residents of Toledo. He was walking so fast that I had to run to keep up with him. By the time we got to Tanners’ Row, I begged him to slow down.

“Wait for me!”

“We’re almost there.” He stopped so that I could catch up.

We turned the corner to Bakers’ Lane. The aroma of fresh bread made my mouth water. We passed the large building that housed the public ovens and stopped in front of a bakery. Yonah looked in both directions,
but nobody in the street was paying attention to two Jewish boys out on an errand. He was in a homespun cloak with a pointed hood that Jews had to wear. I was dressed in a similar garment. Sofia had bought it for me at the market. Both Yonah and I had the badge of the Jews on our shoulders.

We slipped into the shop. It was small and dark. A table in the middle of the room was covered by loaves of bread of every shape and size. Wooden racks along the walls displayed more bread. Large bins full of bread dough were scattered all over the shop. Flour covered everything, including the grim face and clothing of the old man kneading dough in a corner. He threw us a glance.

Yonah’s eyes darted around the shop. When he saw that we were alone with the man, he gave a sigh of relief. “How goes it, Pedro?” he asked.

The man grunted.

An old woman in tattered clothes came into the shop. The baker gave her an oily smile.

She picked up a small loaf from one of the racks on the wall. “I don’t know how you can charge for such poor bread,” she whined.

“You know that you really love my loaves, Mother,” the baker said in a jolly voice.

She pressed a few coins into his palm and waddled
out of the bakery.

“Stupid, old witch,” the baker murmured as he dropped the money into the greasy pouch hanging around his neck. “You’re late,” he said to Yonah. He nodded toward the floor. “The rest of them are already here.” He walked over to the door leading to the street and blocked it with his bulk.

Yonah pushed a wooden chest away from the wall, revealing the outline of a trapdoor on the floor. He lifted the trapdoor and climbed into the opening. I knelt and peered into the darkness below. Yonah was at the bottom of a ladder attached to the underside of the shop’s wooden floor.

“Come down,” he whispered.

As I climbed down after him, I heard the trapdoor shut above my head and the scraping noise of the chest being dragged over it. I groped for the next rung with my foot.

It took a few minutes for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. A single lit taper flickered in the middle of a rough-hewn table in the center of the room. It cast flickers of light that danced over the faces of the people sitting around it. Most of them seemed to be near my age. A man with a long, white beard sat at the head of the table.

“Welcome, Yonah,” he said. “Who do you bring
with you?” Even in the gloom, the red and white patch was bright against his cloak.

Yonah pulled the hood of my cloak off my head.

“Her name is Isabel, Rabbi. She is one of the anusim, the forced ones. We thought it would be safer if she disguised herself as a boy. She wants to know more about us.”

I leaned close to his ear. “Why do you call me an anusim?”

“Because your family was forced to convert by the sword. They had to convert or die.”

“Were you careful? Did anybody follow you?” a woman asked, her voice muffled by the hood of her cloak.

“We were cautious. Nobody was paying us any attention.”

“I am Rabbi Abenbilla, child,” said the man with the beard. “So you want to learn about the Jewish religion?”

“I do, Rabbi.”

As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew that I was telling the truth. At first, I had agreed to accompany Yonah because I wanted to be with him. Now, despite my fears, I did want to know more.

“You’ve come to the right place. Welcome to our little group. We come together every fortnight to study Torah.”

A pretty girl sitting next to the rabbi smiled at me warily. “My name is Judit. Here I am called Yehudit,” she said. “I am an anusim.”

A boy piped up across the table. “So am I! My name is Alberto.”

“Time to get back to our studies,” the rabbi said. “Who can tell us what happened to the Jewish people after they escaped from slavery in the land of the pharaohs?”

Alberto stood up and adjusted his fine silk collar. “Moses went up Mount Sinai – ”

Suddenly heavy footsteps boomed overhead. Alberto fell silent. We could hear banging and loud men’s voices, but we couldn’t make out what they were saying. Rabbi Abenbilla snuffed out the candle. We sat in the thick darkness, afraid even to breathe. Over and over, I murmured the Hail Mary to myself. I was glad of Yonah’s hand sneaking into mine.

After what seemed like hours but couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, it was quiet again. The trapdoor lifted and Pedro’s face appeared.

“You can come up now!”

When I reached the top of the ladder and came to stand with the others, I saw that Pedro was bent over, clutching his stomach. Blood ran down his face from a cut above his eyes, staining his clothes. The little bakery
had been destroyed. The table that had held the freshly baked bread was on its side, its legs broken. The bread dough had been hurled against the walls and ceiling.

“What happened?” Rabbi Abenbilla asked, looking around at the shambles.

“The Inquisition was here,” Pedro said in a hoarse whisper. “Three familiars came into the shop. They asked me if I sold bread to Jews. When I said that I did, they beat me with their clubs. After they had their fun with me, they took their clubs to my shop. May the bastards be cursed!” He spat on the floor. “They said that if I let Jews into my shop again, I would have to appear before the Inquisition.”

Rabbi Abenbilla took a handful of coins out of his pocket and held them out to Pedro. “I am sorry we can’t stay to help you clean up. It would be too dangerous. The money will help rebuild your shop. We will find somewhere else to meet.”

The baker pushed aside the rabbi’s hand. “I don’t need your charity,” he said gruffly. “I don’t need to be paid to help you. You can come back here. Just be careful.” He shook his hair out of his eyes. “Those bastards might return. Go now! It would be worse for all of us if they found you here.”

As we made our way through the busy streets, I was glad of Yonah’s arm under mine, guiding me. I took a deep breath and held my face up toward the sun. The world seemed a more vivid, a more colorful place than ever before. My body felt light, as if I could fly, without my heavy velvet clothes to weigh me down.

Yonah stopped when we arrived at the Bisagra Gate at the walls of Toledo.

“Look!” he whispered. Amid a noisy crowd, the town crier and a familiar in distinctive black clothing were nailing a proclamation to the gate.

“Attention, one and all!” shouted the town crier.

The familiar pulled out a rolled-up document from beneath his doublet. He undid it and began to read. “Citizens of Toledo! I speak to you on behalf of the holy Inquisition. I bring you this Edict of Grace at the behest of the Inquisitor General Fray Tomás de Torquemada. The Inquisition requires those of you who have fallen away from Christ to come forward out of your own volition and to confess your heresy in front of the holy Inquisition. Their excellencies have given you a term of grace of thirty days. If you admit your wrongdoings in front of the holy Inquisition in less than thirty days hence, you will be allowed to repent and you will be treated mercifully by their excellencies, the Inquisitors of Toledo. Only voluntary confession will
save your souls from everlasting damnation and the long, just arm of the holy Inquisition.”

When he paused to clear his throat, excited chatter erupted in the crowd. He held up his hand for silence before nudging the town crier in the ribs with his elbow.

The town crier turned to the proclamation on the gate and began to read. “It is your duty to report the transgressions of false Christians to the holy Inquisition. You will know that your neighbor is a heretic if he is a Christian who lights candles on Friday nights before sunset. You will know that your neighbor is a heretic if he bathes before the Jewish Sabbath. You will know that your neighbor is a heretic if he is a Christian who wears clean clothes and does not light a fire in his abode on the Jewish Sabbath. You will know that your neighbor is a heretic if he is a Christian who refuses to eat pork. You will know that your neighbor is a heretic if he is a Christian who blesses his children without making the sign of the cross. You will know that your neighbor is a heretic if he is a Christian who celebrates the Jewish festival of the unleavened bread. It is your duty as good Christians to report to the holy office heresy committed by your family, by your friends, and by your neighbors.”

After he finished reading the proclamation, the
familiar grabbed his horse’s bridle and swung himself into the saddle.

A man pushed his way to the front of the listeners. “Master,” he asked, “can you tell us if – ”

“I will tell you nothing more!” the familiar cried.

“Bastards!” Yonah muttered.

The familiar threw a coin at the boy who was holding his horse and then he was gone. The town crier left hot on his heels. The boy scrabbled around in the dust, trying to find the money.

“Let’s go home! I want to tell my mama and my papa about this.”

“How can you? They would ask where you heard it. You’ll have to come up with a good excuse.”

“I’ll think of something.”

We had just passed through the city gates when the clop-clop of galloping horsemen made us scurry to the side of the road. Everything happened so fast that the riders had already reached us by the time I realized that Luis was leading the pack. Before I could turn away, I felt his eyes on my face. Then he was gone.

I tugged at Yonah’s sleeve. “That was Luis! He saw me!”

“How do you know?”

“He looked straight at me! He must have recognized me.”

“How could he?” Yonah squeezed my hand. “Don’t worry. All he saw was a Jewish boy – not the pampered Doña Isabel.”

I tried to tell myself that he was right, but the memory of Luis’s cold eyes horrified me. We melted into the crowd around us in case Luis decided to return. He did not come back.