The Mapmaker's Daughter (15 page)

“I haven’t given it much thought.”

He shrugs. “Most people don’t. They settle for the flattering idea that God must have two legs and one head. But of course, that’s not possible, because God is formless. If he looked like something, there would have to be other things he did not look like, and of course there is nothing that God is not.”

He makes a circle with his finger over the page. “This garden, as you put it, represents the ten aspects of God, the sefirot.” He touches the circle at the top. “This is Keter—the crown. Part of Ayin.”

I recognize the word. “Nothingness?”

He nods. “In this state, God is understood only as whole. It is his different aspects that complicate things for our feeble minds. I suppose Keter could be called ‘everythingness,’ but then we might picture it crowded with things, when really it is simple, pure, all.”

He gives me a moment to think before going on. “The sefirot correspond to parts of the body. The arms, the legs”—he points to four of the circles—“and the womb and phallus, because God encompasses both masculine and feminine.”

“We’re walking symbols of the Holy One,” I whisper, in awe of the staggering thought.

Judah is obviously pleased. “Made in his image.” He touches the two sefirot immediately below the crown. “Some think the Zohar is only for men, but they misunderstand. This is wisdom.” He touches the circle on the right and then draws his finger to the left. “And this is the womb—Binah—the understanding that flows from wisdom. Many of my friends disagree, but how could the Holy One not be telling us that those with wombs are wise enough to understand the Zohar?”

He points to other circles. “The Zohar speaks of love and power, and how when they are in harmony, the result is Chesed, compassion.”

Simona looks up from her work and smiles at her husband and then at me.

Compassion, I realize, is why this house glows. It’s the reason I always go away stronger than I came.

“Love that crumbles in the face of power is not compassionate,” Judah goes on. “You have to be brave when people are taking sides against each other—or against you. You have to assert yourself to avoid snuffing out your own light.”

Simona puts her work away. “Speaking of snuffing lights, it’s time to go to bed,” she says. Judah yawns and gets to his feet. “We don’t have an extra bed,” he says. “You’ll have to push Chana and Rahel over a little, but they won’t mind.”

I go into the little room the girls share and marvel at their lovely heads on the pillows, their fresh faces at once so substantial and ethereal. Judah and Simona have protected them well, but soon they will go out to face the surprises of being a woman, just as I am doing. I sigh and settle in bed beside them. Their softness and warmth envelop me as I drift off to sleep.

***

The jostling of the two girls getting up wakes me the following morning. I lie in bed for a moment after they have gone, thinking about all that happened the night before. The mikveh in the fountain, the Zohar—somehow all the threads tied themselves together as I slept, for I now know clearly what I must do.

My small traveling chest had been brought into the house the night before, but I put on the same dress I was wearing rather than bothering to open it. It’s Friday, and Simona is in the kitchen cracking eggs to make the Shabbat loaves. “I’m going back to Lisbon,” I say. Simona does not look surprised, nor does she urge me to stay.

A carriage is brought, and the chest is put aboard. I hug Simona and the girls and give Isaac a kiss on his ruddy cheeks. Judah watches with approving eyes, but he keeps his hands clasped behind his back, in case I forget that touching him would be inappropriate.

The trip to Lisbon is not long, but December days are so short that I can’t linger, and the coach is off the moment I sit down. Just yesterday, I would have dreaded my return, but now I’m ready to start over, to walk into that house in Lisbon as a married woman, not a girl crying and cowering in bed, not a specter wandering around lost.

Diogo is taking his dinner elsewhere. After all, he is not expecting me. I ask the cook to prepare me something simple, and when I have eaten, I take a two-pronged candlestick from a shelf and bring it and two new candles to my quarters.

I close the latch behind me. After lighting the candles, I motion the warmth toward me as my mother did. I’ve been away too long, I tell the Holy One. I haven’t honored him the best I can.

The candles flicker, releasing black tendrils of smoke. “It will be different now,” I whisper. “I won’t forget you again.”

9

LAGOS 1445

Diogo is gone again before the first buds form on the trees, saying only that the prince has chosen him for a new mission in Africa. Within a few weeks of his departure, I wake up ill every morning and realize I am with child from one of his brief nocturnal visits.

By the time my belly has begun to swell, Diogo has summoned me to the port town of Lagos, near Prince Henry at Raposeira. He tells me to bring only Catellina and enough to stay through the summer. After the baby is born, we will move the household to Lagos because it is more convenient for his voyages.

I arrive on a day sparkling with hope. Shorebirds dive and swirl over a bay dancing with whitecaps, and the breeze is warm enough to hint of the languid summer ahead. Diogo has bought a small house, situated about halfway between Lagos and the lighthouse at Ponta da Piedade, which he intends to expand to befit a man of his rising stature at court.

The point is long and narrow, making Lagos, on its lee side, one of the most sheltered harbors in Portugal. From my new home, I can walk west a few steps and see the windward coastline in the direction of Sagres and the vast sea beyond, or walk east the same distance and see the busy port on the other side. Already Diogo has workers building a lookout at one end of the house, and soon we will be able to see everything in all directions without leaving our home.

The years I spent in Sagres as a child made me comfortable with my own company—a good thing, because I see almost no one. There’s little reason for townspeople to come out here, and the only passersby are the lighthouse keeper’s family and the sentries manning the bulwark at the point.

I touch my stomach at the flutter in my womb. Things will be better here, I tell myself as I rest each afternoon in the shade of wind-sculpted trees inside the garden walls while Diogo is off at sea. Mornings I walk out to Ponta da Piedade, where waves crash onto spiky rock pillars in astonishing hues of ochre, rust, maroon, and violet. I walk back along the edge of the cliff, looking down at tiny beaches that no one can reach except fishermen in boats tucked among rock arches and pinnacles in the jewel-like blue water.

On one such walk, I notice several dots on the horizon, which over the next few hours turn into sails with the square cross of Prince Henry’s Order of Christ emblazoned in the middle. My belly is still small enough to disguise my condition under a loose-fitting dress, so I ready myself to go down to the docks.

By late afternoon, the first of three ships my husband commands has entered the harbor. Two boats put down anchor, and I wait at some distance while dockhands struggle with heavy lines to get the third secured at the wharf. When the gangplank is laid, Diogo walks off the ship to greet several of Henry’s courtiers.

He nods to a group of men approaching the boat, clubs and whips in hand.

I don’t understand what I am seeing. Naked people, black from head to foot, are coming down the gangplank. Most are men, but a few women and girls are scattered among them. They keep coming and coming until sixty or more of them are standing bewildered on the dock. The men are yelling at them, shoving them into a single file column before marching them away into the blinding light of the square.

Diogo looks pleased to see me when I finally come to him. “Successful, very successful,” he says before turning back to Henry’s courtiers. I look back toward the ship and am surprised to see there seems to be little else to unload. I know about slaves, but surely bringing back people is not the only reason Diogo would brave the sea.

I wait until Diogo and I have had supper and are settling in for the night. “So,” I say, swallowing hard, “tell me about your voyage. You said it was a success.”

“A few more like it and you can have any house in Lisbon your heart desires.”

“I rather like it here,” I tell him.

“Good. That will make it easier for me. We can get to the coast of Guinea from here in less than three weeks, now that we know the way. Henry plans one voyage after another, now that everything is in place.”

“In place?”

“The gathering point on the coast. The captives are brought there. No more going up the river to find them ourselves, like we did with the first few. Henry is planning a new design for the hold so we can bring back more each time.”

“Your only cargo is people?” My heart sinks. “You aren’t looking for gold anymore?”

“Not people,” he says smugly. “Slaves.”

“Diogo!” My jaw drops. “What have they done? Were they captured in battle? Are they hostages?”

“Just unlucky, I suppose.” He shrugs. “Guinea is full of them.”

He notices my crestfallen look. “Just wait,” he says. “Before too long, you’ll see them the way I do, a row of gold coins marching off the boat straight into my pocket.”

I stand up to get away from him. “It’s not right, Diogo. It’s not—compassionate.”

He laughs. “Compassion toward beasts? Save your compassion for lepers and orphans.” He shakes his head. “Since you are feeling so compassionate, you should remember that we are saving their souls. Don’t you think that’s important?”

“I didn’t see priests taking them to church.”

Diogo’s face grows stony, and he points to my belly. “Show some compassion for the child. If God wishes to provide a better life for our family, are you refusing the gift?”

I shut my eyes to try to quiet my mind, but all I feel is a deep, stabbing ache behind my eyes. “Perhaps you’re right,” I say, desperate for the conversation to end. He must be too, for he gets up with a yawn and heads off to his bedroom, using the baby in my womb as an excuse for not touching me.

***

Diogo is gone again within a few weeks. He and Lançarote de Freitas are competing for the admiralty that will go to the one who brings back the most slaves in the first year of Prince Henry’s new project in Guinea. Soon, square sails with red crosses again appear on the horizon, and Freitas’s boats are in the harbor. I am ready for them this time.

I have arranged for barrels of water to be brought to the docks on donkey carts. My household staff comes with me, and as the first slaves come off the boat, we call out to offer them water. One man with wide, desperate eyes is struck across the back with a club for approaching me, and I wince not just at his pain but because I have caused it.

Enraged, I stride over to the men herding the slaves. “They need water,” I say, “and you are not marching them off until they get it.”

The leader makes a move as if to strike me, but then he remembers who I am. “Does your husband know you are doing this?” he asks.

“Does Prince Henry know his cargo is dying of thirst?”

His eyes flit to the other men, who look equally perplexed. “Well then,” he says, “at least let’s be orderly about it.”

The slaves are herded into a line, and each receives a ladleful of water from Catellina and me at the first barrel and another from the servants at the second. We’re not all bad, I want to tell them, praying it won’t be the last time they see evidence of that.

To my surprise, Diogo is not angry when he returns. Henry heard what I had done and told the nuns at the convent in Lagos to take charge. I no longer risk my health in the summer heat by coming to the dock, which is just as well, for I could not bear to watch the priest, on a newly erected platform overlooking the procession, making the sign of the cross and thanking God that light has come to those who lived in darkness.

I sleep most of the afternoon now. It’s July, and Diogo is preparing to leave again. He’s the only energetic person in the house, thinking of one last-minute need after another and making me pity the servants who have to do his bidding. I am too lethargic to do anything in this heat, and even the baby isn’t moving much anymore. I press my hand into my side to see if I can get it to respond, but it just slips away as if it is too tired to play such games.

Diogo and his friends go to a tavern in the cool of the evening. As his departure approaches, the carousing spills over to our home, lasting well into the night. The noise in the house often keeps me from sleeping, and I lie in bed drenched in sweat from the lingering heat. The only remedy is to take a walk to cool down and shake the discomfort of my massive belly from my bones.

Wisps of clouds drift across a nearly full moon as I look down on the harbor. A gust of cool air caresses the damp hair clinging to my neck, and I brush it free with my fingertips. Boats bob at anchor in water dancing with moonlight, and Diogo’s ship is a faint silhouette as sailors prepare for departure by the glow of lamps.

The quiet of the world is broken by the sound of my husband roaring with laughter inside the house. Time to go back, before I embarrass him by having his friends see me outside in my condition. I close the garden gate behind me, and as I reach the house, a ragged urchin I’ve seen on the docks runs out. He collides with me, and a coin drops from his fingers.

Through the open doorway, I see one of Diogo’s friends adjusting his private parts before fastening his belt. Diogo and Lançarote de Freitas stand next to him, their faces red and glistening.

“Dios mio!” I whisper. Suddenly I know why he can only penetrate me when he rushes in from his parties. How could I have been so oblivious to the reason he is not interested in me?

I am the perfect wife for him, I realize with a horrified, convulsive shudder. I have neither dowry nor beauty, no family to cry to, no one to make demands on my behalf. Peace in the house. He could count on it. And Henry, with all those pretty young men going in and out of his private chambers. What might Diogo have offered to make the prince favor him?