The Mapmaker's Daughter (18 page)

Sukkot has so excited Eliana that she is unable to nap, and by nightfall, she is crying at imagined slights and acting as if every touch hurts her. We eat quickly, and after I pack up the papers I am working on, I take her by the hand. “Say good night,” I command, ignoring her wails of protest.

The full moon bathes our path with light as we return to our house. The crisp air calms my daughter, and by the time we have closed the door behind us, she is too tired to help me get her undressed. She flops in the bed we share, pleading for me to lie down with her until she falls asleep.

I hold Eliana close to me in bed, cradling her small shoulders in the pit of my arm and taking in the hint of dust and sweat in her hair. I shut my eyes, marveling how a power as strong as love doesn’t burst us open like melons, spilling its sweetness into the world, because to keep it inside even for another moment is more than we can bear.

When I open my eyes again, I realize I have slept. I get up and put on a thick robe, shivering a little but glad the night is not so cold it will numb my fingers. I leave the door to our bedroom open in case Eliana wakes, and I put a log on the fire. I watch the bark glow before breaking into tiny filaments of gold that caress the wood and coax it into flame, and then I open my portfolio and take out several sheets of paper.

Judah tells me the Duke of Braganza is a great lover of poetry. I don’t like the way he treated Pedro, but Judah finds it hard to believe anyone who appreciates poems could have a truly dark soul. When Pedro declared Arabic poetry to be the finest of all, Judah tactfully disagreed, explaining that he might feel otherwise if more Hebrew poetry were translated into Portuguese.

Delighted, Braganza challenged Judah to convince him, but my friend doesn’t have the ear for such work himself, or the time. He showed me a book by Samuel Hanagid and asked if I could try my hand at it.

I open the book and read the poem I had been working on earlier at Judah’s desk.

Think: the skies are like a tent,

Stretched tight by loops and hooks;

And the moon with its stars,

A shepherdess on a meadow

Grazing her flock;

And the crescent hull in the clouds

Looks like a ship being tossed;

I dip my pen and continue.

A whiter cloud, a girl in her garden

Tending her shrubs;

And the dew coming down is her sister

Shaking water from her hair onto the path…

How could anyone have such beautiful thoughts? I have been holding my breath at the sheer magic of his lines, and suddenly I need to go outside to see the night sky for myself.

In the still air, the sting in my nostrils hints of approaching winter. The sky does look hooked overhead, and there she is, the shepherdess moon tending her flock of stars. Feathery clouds streak across the sky like a girl on horseback, her hair loose in the wind.

I wish there were someone to tell how I used to be that girl. I wish that person were a lover. The thought ambushes me with its cruel clarity. The only man I have known in that way would not have stood with me looking at the clouds, and I would never have risked sharing any private thoughts with him.

I pull my robe tight around me. Don’t ask for too much, I tell myself, remembering the treasure who lies sleeping in the house and the refuge I have with the Abravanels. “I’m sorry,” I whisper into the night. “Please don’t think I’m ungrateful.” Still, as I go back in the house and take up my pen to finish Hanagid’s poem, my heart cries out with every beat for something more, and I cannot make it stop.

I put the translation aside and take out a new piece of paper. I stare into the dark room, composing my thoughts. Then I write.

The clouds blanket the cold moon,

saying, “My love will warm you.”

The trees cast shade on the panting doe,

saying, “My love will cool you.”

The sun beats down on spring mud,

saying, “My love will firm your steps.”

The grass covers the parched soil,

saying, “My love will soften you.”

And I, by turns too cold, too hot,

too heavy, too soft.

Where is the love to comfort me?

I don’t know if my first poem is good. I only know it’s mine. My eyes sting from the low light, and I am suddenly so tired I have to summon new strength to go to bed. I crawl in next to Eliana and put my hand on her arm, just to be touching her, as I lie awake, aching and restless, until dawn.

***

Over the next few days, I finish the poems for Judah. Only after he leaves do I realize that in the rush of his departure, I accidentally included my own. I fret for a day or two, wondering if Judah will be upset by what he will think is my presumption. Or worse, if he will laugh. Still, there’s so much to do after Sukkot, and with Isaac’s departure for his yeshiva in Lisbon, Eliana is so clinging and needy that I have little time for any thoughts at all.

Simona and I are making the last preparations for Shabbat when we hear Judah’s voice in the courtyard. We drop what we are doing and hurry out. Eliana is dancing in circles around him. “Shabbat shalom!” she sings as she reaches out to grab each of our hands in turn to wish us the peace of the Sabbath. “Where’s Isaac?” she asks, looking toward the gate. The sun has nearly set, and if he doesn’t arrive soon, he will not arrive at all, since traveling is forbidden by Jewish law from Friday to Saturday sundown.

“Sorry, little one,” Judah says. “He said he couldn’t get here, but to be sure to give you this.” He pinches her nose, and she wiggles away laughing.

As we head back inside the house, Judah asks to speak with me. I see the quizzical look on his face and my heart sinks. The poem. It must be about the poem.

“Did you include something extra in the portfolio for Braganza?” Judah asks. Before I can explain it was an accident, he holds up his hand to stop me. “From the way the duke was sniffing about the poems, I was sure he didn’t like them. Then he started reading one aloud, and I wondered why I didn’t recognize it. Then it came to me that it wasn’t one of Samuel Hanagid’s at all.” By now, Judah is seated at his desk and he leans back with a chuckle. “You, my dear, are the Duke of Braganza’s favorite Jewish poet.”

“Mama? A poet?” Eliana giggles.

I stare at Judah, dumbfounded. “No, Mama’s not a poet,” I tell her. “I wrote one poem, and the duke saw it by accident.”

“You’ve never written another?” Judah asks.

“It just came to me one night. I did it to see if I could, that’s all.”

“Braganza’s favorite Jewish poet has written one poem!” Judah laughs, but I can’t manage a smile.

“Did you like it?” I ask, my voice nearly a whisper.

Judah turns to my daughter, his face suddenly serious. “Eliana, would you see if your grandmother needs some help?”

He waves me toward a chair after Eliana has run off. I perch stiffly and wait for him to answer my question. “It’s a fine poem,” he says. “I pondered it all the way home.”

“Please don’t think that I feel unloved,” I rush to say. “I am the luckiest woman in Portugal, to be part of your family, and to have my daughter—”

Judah doesn’t seem to hear. “The duke wants you to write poems for him. And when I told him more about you, he is most eager to make your acquaintance.”

“Meet me?”

“I think you should say yes. No one can force you to write poetry if you don’t want to, but it would be good to make yourself known at Braganza’s court.”

“I—” This whole conversation is so unexpected it is making me dizzy.

“You’ve been hiding in Queluz long enough,” Judah says.

“Hiding?”

“I don’t mean it as a criticism. You had wounds to heal, and you needed a place where you were truly welcome, among people you could trust. You had to learn to be a mother, and a Jew. You’ve done all those things now. We’ve been enjoying your company so much that we haven’t noticed that God’s gifts are being squandered here in Queluz.”

“Squandered?” From someone else, I might take this as an insult, but Judah speaks with such love and wisdom that I lean forward, intent on what he has to say.

“Squandered,” he repeats. “I remember you as a girl, turning Arabic, Portuguese, Castilian, even Latin into signs, so your father could understand the people around him. I remember you on that horse, speaking Hebrew as we rode back to Sintra. And your translations of Hanagid—they’re superb.”

I look down at my hands, embarrassed at such attention. “I haven’t given up on the duke’s literary tastes,” Judah says when I don’t reply. “I hope you’ll translate some of Halevi’s work next, or perhaps Moses ibn Ezra’s. Braganza may eventually come to see there are good Jewish poets other than you.” This time I smile with him.

“Amalia.” Judah’s voice is commanding. “Soar, don’t settle.” I recognize the first words of a poem by Judah Halevi.

Soar, don’t settle for earth

and sky—soar to Orion;

And be strong, but not like an ox or mule

that’s driven—strong like a lion.

We recite the poem together, falling silent when we have finished. Finally Judah speaks. “I hope you’ll continue to write,” he says. “In Hebrew or Portuguese—English, for all I care, if you choose to learn it. Use your voice. I imagine the Holy One is pleased finally to hear it again.”

***

I use that cold and rainy winter as an excuse to stay home to write. Eliana goes back and forth to the Abravanels, heedless of her mud-caked boots and soggy hems, leaving me precious hours to write a few words, pace, poke the fire, pace some more, and write another line.

By the time the hills are green again and the swallows are building their nests under my eaves, I have ten poems I am willing to share with the duke, and many more I am not. I feel different now, less lonely, as if the true Amalia had knocked and the shadow I had been was opening the door to let her in.

I bring the poems to the duke a few at a time, whenever I have cause to make the two-hour trip to Lisbon. One day in early May, Eliana and I have come on errands and stop first in the aljama to visit Chana, Rahel, and their children. We pass through the gate and I am struck, as always, by how different it feels to be inside among the Jews. Children chase each other down the crooked streets, avoiding by a hair’s breadth the wares outside the greengrocer’s and the other shops. On a balcony, a woman is shaking a rug from a window while gossiping with a neighbor in the window across the narrow street. It’s a warm day, and through the open window of a yeshiva, I hear the voices of boys chanting the Torah.

Though Lisbon’s streets are familiar to me now, the aljama is the only place where I feel at home. Here, being a Jew is ordinary. Every store is kosher. The holiday greetings are for our festivals—Rosh Hashanah, Passover, Shavuot. The smell of meat stews and challah fills the air on Fridays, while silver is polished and fresh clothing is put on. The streets on Saturday are filled with people singing as they come from the synagogue to dinner with family or friends. Men converge on a door leading to a small synagogue to form the minyan for prayers. It’s a place with a wall that works both ways: to keep us in, and to keep out those whose fondest hope is that such sights, smells, and sounds will vanish from Lisbon soon, and forever.

Judah has come with us, and once we leave Eliana with Rahel, he and I start the climb to the palace. My visit does not take long. I read my poems and leave them with the duke’s secretary for copying. After a few pleasantries, I excuse myself so the men can continue their business.

I sit waiting for Judah on the shaded walkway between the palace and the outer fortress walls, so we can enjoy the walk back to the aljama together.

Behind me, the city of Lisbon stretches out along the banks of the Tagus, which shimmers in the mellow light of late afternoon. I’ve brought along a book of poetry by Todros Abulafía that I’ve been working on for the duke, and I pull out a folded piece of paper on which a messy tangle of words, my first attempt at a translation, are strewn.

My thinking wove a song of purple and blue

For God, as manna and nectar were spun on my tongue.

I strung pearls of verse in his name, like a necklace…

I skim the words until I reach the end.

Your fear is over, Todros. Rise, and know

Your time and day and hour soon will come.

The voices of men walking up the path startle me. One is wearing clothing in the Moorish style—loose silk pants under a tunic belted at the waist with a brightly patterned sash, his turbaned head cloaked in a hooded burnoose. I float unaware to my feet. The paper and book fall to the ground. The man must hear it, or perhaps the same force that bid me stand causes him to turn around. His skin is bronzed, and his turquoise eyes lance me with a look so intense I feel it all the way to my loins. My hand comes to my heart, as if I must hold it inside my chest to keep it from escaping with the next beat.

He comes over to pick up what I dropped. “You are a poet?” he asks, scanning the words on the paper. He leans in toward me almost imperceptibly, as if my answer will be news he has long waited to hear.

“I’m a translator for the Duke of Braganza.” I want to impress him, so I switch to Arabic. “I write a little myself,” I say, “but nothing as good as this.”