The Last Song (9 page)

Christmas was lonely without Papa. Mama and I spent our time wondering what he was doing.

A week later, Luis was back in Toledo. He didn’t waste time calling on us. He cornered me in the sitting room.

“Did you miss me?” he asked, running a finger down my arm.

“Of course, my lord.”

I stood up and tried to pass him, but he grabbed my wrist and pulled me close. Although I pushed him away, he was much stronger than I.

“Let me go!”

“Aren’t you going to welcome me home?” He lowered his head to kiss me and his sour breath made my stomach turn.

“My lord, you forget yourself.” I stared over his shoulder. “Mama, I am so glad that you are here!”

He jumped back and dropped my hand. I picked up my skirts and ran out the door.

“You’ll regret this!” he called after me.

C
HAPTER 8
 

T
he sun was low in the sky when I followed Yonah through the El Cambron Gate leading into the Juderia. We wore long cloaks with the red and white badges on them. Both of us were dressed in white boys’ garments underneath. Again, I hid my hair under the pointed hood.

The shutters were closed tight over the shop windows, and the narrow streets of the Juderia were almost empty. We crossed in front of the El Transito Synagogue. The sound of praying wafted out through its open door. We turned down a street of narrow two-storey buildings, some of which had balconies decorated with six-pointed stars outlined in mosaic. The delicious odor of cooking food came through the windows we passed.

“People are at home, preparing for the first seder,” Yonah said.

He stopped in front of a narrow house at the end of the street. When he rang the bell, the door was immediately opened by a small woman swathed from head to toe in voluminous clothing. Her plump face was wreathed in smiles.

“Come in,” she said, pulling us inside.

I pulled off the hood of my cloak and curtsied.

“Good evening, Rebbetzin Abenbilla. It’s so kind of you to invite me and Isabel to your home for Pesach,” Yonah said.

The Rabbi’s wife looked around the hall in an exaggerated manner. “I don’t see an Isabel here, but both you and your friend Yaacov are welcome to join us to remember the exodus of our people from slavery in Egypt.” She walked over to the window. “The sun is setting! Follow me.”

She led us into a small chamber full of people. A rough-hewn table was covered by an embroidered white cloth and set with pretty pottery dishes. Seven unlit candles stood on the table.

Rabbi Abenbilla sat at the head of the table. Seated to his left was his son Shmuel, who couldn’t have been more than ten years of age. I recognized the others as the anusim from our study group. Everybody was dressed in white.

“Hello, Isabel,” said a familiar voice behind me.

It was Yehudit. I hugged her. Alberto followed her in, the hated sambenito flung over his arm. He dropped it onto the back of a chair.

“I was afraid that I wouldn’t get here before the sun set. My mother asked me to run errands, and I couldn’t get away earlier,” Yehudit said.

“I had to tell my mama that I was visiting my friend Brianda and that Sofia, my slave, was chaperoning me.”

The rabbi’s wife invited us to sit down and we crowded around the table.

She carried in from the kitchen the Passover plate of traditional foods with great ceremony and set it down on the table in front of her husband. Then she lit the seven candles and her husband began reading the Passover service from a beautiful illustrated Haggadah that tells the story of Passover. He stroked the colorful pages with gentle fingers.

We named the plagues by which God forced Pharaoh to allow his Jewish slaves to leave Egypt. We broke the matzo in its center and dipped it twice into wine. Every person around the seder table whipped the wrist of his neighbor with the stems of green onions while we sang “Dayenu,” a song that gives thanks to God for leading the Jewish people out of slavery in Egypt. The sound made by the onion stems reminded
us of the whipping our ancestors received in Egypt at Pharaoh’s cruel hands. Yonah was chosen to represent Pharaoh and he walked around the table wearing a crown of clay to witness the whipping of his “slaves.”

Rabbi Abenbilla tied the
afikomen
, a piece of broken matzo, into a large napkin and gave it to young Smuel. The boy slung the napkin over his shoulder and left the room. When he knocked on the door, requesting entry, the rabbi addressed him.

“From where do you come?”

“I come from Egypt,” Shmuel said.

“Where are you going?” the rabbi asked.

“To Jerusalem.”

“What are you taking with you?” asked his father.

Smuel pointed to the matzo in his napkin.

Then all of us began to chant. “Why is this night different from all other nights?”

I looked around the table. The flickering candlelight lit the smiles on the faces of my new friends. Yonah’s hand slipped into mine. I closed my eyes. For a moment, the smell of incense filled my nostrils and a memory of the crown of thorns on the head of Christ made my heart ache.

“Welcome home,” Yonah whispered.

My eyes flew open. I shook my head to chase away the ghosts, and I squeezed his fingers.

It took me a moment to realize that Yehudit was speaking to me from my other side. “Let’s help Rebbetzin Abenbilla.”

Yehudit and I carried trays piled high with different kinds of delicacies to the table until there was no more room for anything else. I tasted, for the first time, a dish of
huevos haminados
, brown eggs cooked in the oven for a whole day over low heat. They were delicious. The Rebbetzin told me that they were eaten every Passover. Next came roasted lamb, baked fish with vegetables and rice, and, finally, almond cakes. Oranges, bananas, and pomegranates filled a bowl.

Yonah and I did not dare to stay until the end of the seder. I didn’t want to be home late and have my mother start asking questions.

Sofia was waiting for us at the city gate.

“You were gone so long!” she cried. “Doña Catarina wanted to know where you were.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That I went with you to Doña Brianda’s house. I said that they invited you for supper.”

“Did Mama believe you?”

She nodded. “She sent me to bring you home. We must hurry!”

I bid Yonah good-bye and he set out for his home in the
Aljama
, the Juderia. I followed Sofia through the
city gates to the countryside, toward our estate.

Luck was on my side. Mama was in the kitchen berating one of the maids when I arrived home. Sofia and I snuck up to my room, climbing the back staircase the servants used. She helped me change into a gown and dressed my hair before I went downstairs.

My mother scolded me for being late.

“No guest should outstay her welcome,” she said. “Juana is much too polite to ask you to go home. She’ll think that I didn’t teach you good manners.”

“I am sorry, Mama. It won’t happen again,” I said meekly.

C
HAPTER 9
 

T
he sun shining through the wooden shutters woke me up. Half asleep, I pulled the covers over my head until I suddenly remembered what day it was. I bolted up. It was my birthday! I was turning fifteen today, no longer a child. Old enough to marry. I pushed the thought out of my mind determinedly. I didn’t want to think about Luis. Not today. I wanted to enjoy my birthday.

Papa had finally come home. He had been gone for over four months to help the queen and the king in the Reconquista of the Kingdom of Granada, the last stronghold of the Moors in Christian Spain. Mama and I had counted the days until his return. How we had worried about him! To our great delight, he had returned last night from their majesties’ court. He had been muddy and exhausted but not too tired to engulf
Mama in a hug and to spin me around the room.

After he had washed, he called for wine to be brought to us in the courtyard. He was bursting with wonderful news. On the second day of January of our Lord in 1492, he had ridden with the armies of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand into the Alhambra Palace in the Kingdom of Granada. The fortress palace was now occupied by their Catholic majesties and their royal court. The Spanish army had been victorious over the Moors.

Though it was very late, Papa had described the palace to us. “I give you my oath that I will take you both to the Alhambra some day. It is paradise on earth. It is different from anything that you could possibly imagine.”

He described halls with walls of tiles painted vivid blue, red, and golden yellow, and he spoke of high, high arches and ceilings that looked like the honeycombs of bees. He talked of cool courtyards and fountains with stone lions that spouted water.

“The most amazing of all,” he said, “are the gardens – so lush, so beautiful, so full of birdsong. The gardens are so vast that you can lose yourself in them. There are roses, oranges, myrtles, and reflecting pools of utter stillness. My soul felt at peace whenever I rested beside one of them.”

He described how Boabdil, caliph of the Moors, had handed the keys to the palace to their Catholic majesties on a bent knee. The winter sun gleamed on Queen Isabel’s crown of eagles. Tears were running down Boabdil’s face as he rode away with his defeated army.

Papa stayed in bed most of the day. We hushed the servants and spoke as quietly as we could until he woke refreshed and energetic and calling to his Moor to bring him warm ale.

There was to be a feast to celebrate both Papa’s return and my birthday. Brianda and her family were invited. They would be spending the night with us because the gates to Toledo would be locked by the time the celebration ended. Unfortunately, Luis would be there, too. It couldn’t be helped.

I had arranged to meet Yonah under our orange tree after my birthday celebration. How I wished that he could be with my family! However, I knew that Mama and Papa would never allow our friendship. All I could do was hug my secret to my heart and count the minutes until I saw him again.

Mama was in the kitchen giving instructions to Sofia and to the other servants. She had asked the cook to
bake almond tarts, like the ones we had eaten at Tia Juana’s house.

“I am certain that you can bake cakes that are more delicious than those from Doña Juana’s kitchen,” she wheedled. “Doña Juana always claims that her household is better run than mine, that her cook is more skilled than you. We’ll show her how wrong she is!”

The cook bobbed a curtsy. “My lady, if I bake the almond tarts, I won’t have time to go to Farmers’ Alley. We need dates and pistachios and apples from the farmers’ orchards.”

“Send one of the scullery maids,” Mama said.

“Sofia and the other girls are preparing the chambers upstairs for our guests. There is nobody to send except Yussuf. He has never gone to the market by himself. He won’t know what to buy.”

“I’ll go with Yussuf, Mama. I’ll help him pick good fruit.”

She shook her head. “I don’t like the idea of you on the street with only the Moor for protection. I’ll go, although I have so much to do.”

“I can go, Mama. I’ll be safe with Yussuf.”

Sofia appeared in the doorway. “Doña Catarina, could you please come upstairs? Those stupid girls won’t listen to me!”

Mama looked at me and then at Sofia.

“It won’t take me long to buy what we need,” I promised in my most reassuring tone.

There was a loud bang over our heads.

Mama threw her hands up. “All right, but you must be back in an hour or I’ll come looking for you.”

She hurried out of the kitchen, followed by Sofia.

“We’ll save time if we cross the Plaza de Zocodover,” Yussuf said.

I followed him to the square. When we turned the corner, we came to a sudden stop. The plaza was filled with people. Two stands had been built at the back of the square. One was occupied by clergy and nobility in rich garments, the other by dirty wretches in sambenitos. Linking the two stands was an altar draped in black, with a cross attached to it. I barely noticed the stands. My eyes were riveted on a pyre in the middle of the square. Men and women were tied to stakes and being burned alive. It was an auto-de-fé, an act of faith, the public burning of heretics convicted by the Inquisition. I had never seen one before. I closed my eyes, but when I opened them again, I saw the same dreadful sight. Screams of agony filled the air. A lout, carrying a burning staff, ran up to one of the victims and lit the wretched man’s beard on fire. The crowd roared.
How
can they be so cruel?
I wondered. I hugged myself tightly.