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It’s January 1492, and the king and queen of Spain
have issued an order expelling all Jews who refuse to convert to
Christianity. With one day remaining to comply, 67-year-old
Amalia Cresques waits alone in a room empty except for the chair
she sits on. She is waiting for her grandson to arrive. Together,
they plan to go into exile. She cannot bring her most treasured
possession, a handmade atlas created by her her. As she
contemplates her imminent departure, Amalia reviews her long and
varied life as wife, mother, family matriarch, and converso, a
Jew forced to hide her faith and live as a Christian. Corona
(Penelope’s Daughter, 2010) brings to life one of the most
tumultuous periods in European history. Her Amalia is the perfect
character through which readers will experience these turbulent
times as she spends a lifetime struggling to honor her faith and
survive. Vividly detailed and beautifully written, this is a
pleasure to read, a thoughtful, deeply engaging story of the
power of faith to navigate history’s rough terrain. --Carol
Gladstein
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Review
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"[A] loving re-creation of the details of Jewish
life ... Fans of C.W. Gortner's The Queen's Vow may especially
enjoy getting a different perspective on Spanish monarchs
Isabella and Ferdinand" - Library Journal
"Well-researched, evocative, and a pleasure to read, The
maker's Daughter ly and convincingly portrays
important players in the reconquest of Granada and the expulsion
of the Jews from Spain." - Mitchell James Kan, award-winning
author of By Fire, By Water
"A riveting, often heart-rending tale set against the tragic
backdrop of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. Laurel Corona
has crafted a heroine for all ages in Amalia, whose choices
define an era of religious upheaval, courage, and sacrifice that
still resonates today" - C.W. Gortner, author of The Queen's Vow
"A close look at the great costs and greater rewards of being
true to who you really are. A lyrical journey to the time when
the Jews of Spain were faced with the wrenching choice of
deciding their future as Jews---a pivotal period of history and
inspiration today." - Margaret George, NYT bestselling author of
Elizabeth I
"I love The maker's Daughter: its compelling, very human
characters; its exciting story of exile and love; the
heartrending look it provides into the trials and tribulations of
being Jewish and its empowering message of being true to oneself.
Author Laurel Corona has described Jewish rituals and values -
honoring family, community, and God - in detail that, as a
non-Jew, I found utterly fascinating, and which made me envious."
- Sherry Jones, author of The Jewel of the Medina, and Four
Sisters, All Queens
"The ghosts of the past are never far in Laurel Corona's
hauntingly beautiful tale of a woman whose life spans the Spanish
Inquisition and the fall of Muslim Granada. Yet despite the dark
times, a powerful love story ignites these pages, making the
reader yearn for more as they come to know Amalia and Jamil, two
of the most compelling characters in recent historical fiction.
An absolute must-read!" - Michelle Moran, author of The Second
Empress and Madame Tussaud
"Laurel Corona authoritatively gives the Jewish oppression in
fifteenth century Spain a human face and heart in Amalia Riba,
forced to make soul-defining decisions as her world rolls
inexorably toward the Inquisition. Peopled with historic figures,
her story soars from loneliness to love, tenderness to horror,
and from despair to courage. Sentences of startling, hard-won
wisdom leap from the page and command our memories not to forget
them. Compelling, complex, and compassionate." - Susan Vreeland,
NYT bestselling author of Clara and Mr. Tiffany and Luncheon of
the Boating Party
"Amalia is the perfect character through which readers will
experience these turbulent times ... Vividly detailed and
beautifully written, this is a pleasure to read, a thoughtful,
deeply engaging story of the power of faith to navigate history's
rough terrain." - Booklist
"Amalia is a character readers cannot help but like and admire:
she is courageous, stubborn, and smart, and she accepts
responsibility for her choices. Corona explores the unfamiliar
world of Renaissance Spain, painting vivid pictures of the court
... A very good read" - Historical Novels Review
"[Corona] is an excellent writer, with a knack for research and a
flair for description." - San Diego Jewish World
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About the Author
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Laurel Corona is the author of three novels: Finding
Emilie, Penelope's Daughter, and the Four Seasons. She graduated
from the University of California, Davis, received her MA at the
University of Chicago, and her Ph.D. at Davis.She has taught at
San Diego State University, UC San Diego, and San Diego City
College. She lives in San Diego. www.laurelcorona.com
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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
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1
Sevilla 1432
I hold my hands up for my mother's inspection. "They're not
dirty enough, Amalia," she says. Pinching off a burnt candlewick,
she smears the black powder around my nails. "There," she says.
"That's better."
Little daylight remains on this tawny afternoon as she hands me
an empty basket small enough for my six-year-old arm to carry.
"You know what to do. And you'd better hurry."
She shuts the door behind me, and I start up the narrow street
on the edge of Sevilla, stopping in the apothecary's doorway to
smell the scented air. The owner sets down her pestle. "Wait a
minute," she says, breaking off a sprig of rosemary, which she
tucks behind my ear to protect me from the Evil Eye. Farther up
the street, the air reeks from the greengrocer's fly-ridden pile
of rotting vegetables and spoiled fruit, and I hold the rosemary
to my nose, breathing hard through it to cover the smell as I
turn the corner toward the butcher shop.
A severed pig's head looks out into the street with an oddly
cheerful grin. The butcher wipes bloody fingers on his apron as
he turns to serve me. "Two pork sausages and a few scraps of ham
for soup," I tell him, remembering to make sure he sees that, as
Friday sundown approaches, my hands are still filthy.
Soon the houses give way to a rocky field. The wildflowers reach
my waist as I go down a narrow path of bent and broken stalks.
Just before I reach a stand of poplars, I take the meat from my
basket, noting with disdain the mosaic of white and pink
as I fling it all as far as I can into the tall grass.
Spreading my fingers to avoid the feel of the grease, I make my
way through the trees to the edge of a small pool. From time to
time, someone must come here or there wouldn't be a path, but it
is easier to get water from the pumps in the squares than from
the springs around Sevilla. In warm weather, my mother brings me
with her to stand guard while she immerses the way she is
supposed to after the blood stops flowing from between her legs
each month, and I think of it as our private place.
A frog splays his legs as he crosses the pool. "Don't be afraid,
little fellow," I say as I crouch to rinse my hands of the
grease. Mayyim hayyim, my mother calls this pool. Living water,
though it makes my fingers look as pale as the dead.
"Baruch atah Adonai," I whisper. "Eloheinu Melech ha'olam."
After blessing the Holy One, I add the words for the ritual of
washing hands, watching the swirls of water disturb the grass on
the edges of the pool. "Vetzivanu al netilat yadayim."
When my hands are so clean they squeak, I splash water on my
face to come home looking fresh for Shabbat. I imagine the
sausage hidden in the grass, and since there is no blessing for
throwing forbidden meat away, I whisper the words I often hear my
mother say. "Please accept that we honor you the best we can." I
stand for a moment in silence before picking up my basket to head
for home.
Valencia 1492
I look at my hands, half expecting to see them pink and
glistening from the spring, but instead find them corded and
rippled. Sixty-six years old. I am a daughter, wife, mother,
widow, lover, grandmother, but I sit now in an empty room in a
hostile city because I am a Jew. I have been expelled by King
Ferdinand and Queen Isabella from the land of my birth for that
simple fact.
I should be more precise. I am caught between two impossible
choices. I can go to the church whose clanging bells disturb my
and allow some cruel-mouthed priest to pour water on me.
After he pronounces me restored to God, I will live at the mercy
of neighbors suspicious I am not Christian enough. That, or leave
Spain with my daughter's family and wander until more hospitable
people take us in.
I do not appreciate the service Ferdinand and Isabella think
they have done by offering Jews their paradise. Need I say that I
prefer the life of comfort and dignity they have torn from me? Or
would the fact that I am in the sole chair on a bare floor in an
empty room in the port of Valencia say it for me? Isaac, my
son-in-law, says that their Catholic Majesties didn't really
intend the Jews to leave. They simply want Jewishness to melt
away in Spain, forgotten by our children's children for lack of
practice.
How little they understand. There's a knowledge deep in our
s that some lines cannot be crossed without becoming
unrecognizable to ourselves-the only death truly to be feared. I
know who I have been. I know who I am. I know who I will remain.
I am Amalia Cresques, though I have had other names. A Christian
name disguised my Hebrew one at my birth. "Ama-lia," my mother
would say, deliberately mispronouncing my name so I wouldn't
forget. "God loves Leah. That's what it means. It's your real
name, the one known to him."
It was the first of many deceptions by which my mother and I
secretly lived as what Jews call anusim, the forced ones. "There
are two kinds of anusim," she told me. "The ones who say, ‘I give
up,' and the ones who don't." The ones who don't are called
Judaizers, living outwardly as Christians but keeping to the old
ways in secret.
Conversos, New Christians-that's what families like the one I
grew up in are called. In private, the good Christian folk of
Spain call us reformed blasphemers, repentant Christ-killers,
unworthy prodigal sons. Even their holy water cannot replace the
degeneracy they are sure is in our blood.
"He that fleeth from the terror shall fall into the pit; and he
that getteth up out of the pit shall be taken in the trap; for I
will bring upon her, even upon Moab, the year of their
visitation." The words of the prophets come easily to mind, for I
have been awash in them most of my life.
We are the new Moabites, and the year of our visitation has
come.
I shut my eyes and feel the memories crowding in again. My
breath leaks out and time goes backward with it.
Sevilla 1432
The sky is coral with sunset, but the shadows are so deep, I
recognize my her only by the slight hitch in his gait. I run
down the street to meet him and give him the basket to hold, so I
can slip my hand in his.
We're late, but I know better than to say so. "Vicente Riba
doesn't have any obligation at sundown on the Sabbath," he would
snap. "I'm a Christian, and so are you."
At the threshold of our house, he puts his fingers to his lips
and touches a crucifix in the doorway. He looks out of the corner
of his eye, hoping someone passing in the street sees him make
the sign of the cross.
"Rosaura?" he calls out.
My mother comes to the door, looking like the last bloom of
summer drooping heavily on its stem. "You worried me. It's almost
dark." She takes the basket and turns around. "Susana! Luisa!
Come here!"
My twelve-year-old sister Susana comes from the kitchen with my
little sister in tow, chewing on a piece of bread the servant
girl has given her. "Come along," my mother says, taking an oil
lamp from a sideboard. "I need your help." My her's face grows
stormy, but as usual, he says nothing.
In the basement, my mother sets two candles on a stool in the
middle of the floor, away from anything that might catch fire.
Fishing a splinter of wood from her apron pocket, she lights one
end from the lamp and touches it to the wicks. "Blessed art thou,
Lord God, king of the universe," she says in a voice between
singing and speaking, "who sanctifies us with his commandments
and commands us to light the Sabbath candles."
I shut my eyes when she does, taking in the moment. Quiet time
with my mother is rare, even if I do have to share it with
Susana, who is twice my age and not my friend. I try to make her
think I don't notice she's there by crouching down to talk to
Luisa, who just turned three. "Baruch atah Adonai," I repeat
slowly, emphasizing each syllable. "Rook tadonai," Luisa says
solemnly, and my mother smiles.
Susana shifts from foot to foot. She hates coming down here for
the weekly ceremony that begins Shabbat. She wants to be like her
Old Christian friends, with their honey-colored hair and pale,
heart-shaped faces. I catch her glowering into her looking glass,
tugging at her drab, brown locks as if they have done something
wrong. She wears her crucifix to bed, though my mother tells her
she'll strangle on it someday.
"We can't be down here so long," Susana scolds. "Don't you think
people can figure out what you're doing?"
I reach for my mother's hand. "Avla bien para ki ti venga bien!"
I say, repeating one of her favorite sayings.
Susana glares at me. "Mother, are you going to let her talk to
me that way?"
"Amalia is right," Mama says. "Speak well so good will come to
you. Ken savi los ke estan sintiendo?"
Who knows who is nearby? Susana should not be so careless. Evil
spirits are always lurking, and they might whisper to our
neighbors that we secretly light Sabbath candles. The sheddim are
happiest when our own words give them ideas about how to hurt us.
We refer to them aloud as los mejores de mosotros, the best of
us, because it's important to distract them with flattery.
Mother hands Susana a bottle of wine and gives Luisa and me
oranges from a basket, to make it seem as if our trip to the
cellar was just an errand. I go up behind my sisters, but sensing
my mother is not behind me, I turn at the top of the stairs. She
is still in front of the candles, her lips moving as she talks to
the circles of golden light.
***
Luisa slips one hand in mine and wipes the from her eyes
with the other as we leave the house the next morning. The
lingering cold of winter brushes my cheeks, but the April sun is
already warming the air. We hurry behind Susana and my mother,
their strides growing longer and faster as they continue a hushed
argument that began at the house.
"They act like Jews, Mama. It makes me uncomfortable. You know
it does." Mama hunches silently over the covered basket she
carries, as if she has not heard Susana's comment.
We arrive at the stables and, after hiring a driver and cart, we
are soon in the countryside amid fields of red poppies, dotted
with splashes of blue, yellow, and white, as chaotic and wild as
if they had been painted by a blind man. Black-and-white magpies
fly with wings so shiny they look dipped in water. The scent of
newly tilled earth teases my nostrils until I sneeze.
My legs jiggle in anticipation of the chance to run in the open
air and to use the loud voice I have to hush at home, calling out
to whomever will listen, even if it's just the ducks in the yard
or the clouds already billowing in the immense blue sky.
Luisa is squirming, tired of bouncing along the rutted dirt
road. "Go to ," I tell her. "We'll get there faster that
way." She lays her head in my lap, and though I want to stay
awake, the jostling makes my head slump, and we doze until the
barking dogs in the village wake us.
My grandher is waiting at the gate to his farm, catching
Luisa as she jumps out of the cart. Brushing back a stray wisp of
her blond hair, he kisses her forehead. I jump down just as
Grandmother hurries up the walk. "Shabbat shalom," I whisper so
the driver will not overhear. I feel her arms tighten around me,
and my breath is hot against her skirt.
Mama hands our parcels to Susana before getting out herself. "Be
back before dark," she tells the driver. He nods, and with a
flick of the reins, he heads off toward Sevilla.
"Shabbat shalom, her," Mama says when the driver is beyond
hearing. "Shabbat shalom," she repeats to Grandmother, giving her
a kiss on the cheek. Her voice is so loving that I always forget
they are my her's parents, not hers.
Luisa and I run ahead to the chicken coop to check if eggs are
still in the nests. Just inside the gate, tiny cheeps come from
puffs of bright yellow scampering on the dirt floor. "Hold it
gently in your palm," I say, picking one up. Luisa's face glows
as she holds the chick near her face and talks to it.
Some are still breaking free of their shells, their feathers
clinging to them like wet, brown spines. One is making a pitiful
little sound, and thinking it might be cold, I blow on its
feathers. At the feel of air on its body, it looks around, dazed.
I can hear Luisa's soft breath as she puts her chick in the nest.
"Pio, pio," she says, imitating them.
"Pio, pio," I repeat, taking her hand.
"There you are, my little radishes!" Grandher comes up behind
us and picks Luisa up in his arms. He puts his other hand on my
shoulder. "How do you like our new additions?"
"They look like they've drowned when they first come out."
"And then, before you know it, they're like old mother hen here,
with chicks of their own."
"Grandchicks," Luisa says.
He laughs with a great roar. "Grandchicks," he repeats.
"Pollititos." The sound of the word makes us giggle, and we make
it a game as we walk back to the house. "Pollitititos.
Pollitititititos," we say, stopping only when our tongues get
tangled up in the sounds.
Inside the house, Grandmother has laid out a of olives next
to the embroidered cloth covering two loaves of challah and is
removing hot cinders from around a kettle of stew. She wipes her
hands on her apron, and stands next to my grandher. He pours
wine in a silver kiddush cup. "Blessed art thou, Lord God, king
of the universe, creator of the fruit of the vine," he says
before taking a sip. He offers the cup to my grandmother and
mother before lowering it to me. My cheeks pucker in anticipation
even before I taste it.
Luisa stands next to me. "It tastes awful," I whisper, as
Grandher puts his finger in the wine and touches it to her
lips. She matches my grimace and shudders the way she always
does, causing a ripple of laughter from the adults.
Except Susana, who wants nothing to do with these rituals. "The
stew smells delicious, Grandmother," she says, looking away.
"I made your favorite," Grandmother says to her after we have
blessed the bread and are seating ourselves on benches around the
table. The scent of cloves and cinnamon wafts up from saffron
broth as grandmother fills our s with white beans, chickpeas,
and cubes of beef.
For a while, no one speaks as we enjoy Grandmother's adafina,
kept warm from yesterday, because cooking is work, and work is
forbidden on Shabbat. We eat the first bites hurriedly but
eventually slow down, because Shabbat meals are meant to be
savored, and no one will be leaving the table until we have
talked about our week, sung a few songs, and eaten all that our
stomachs will hold.
A loud knock startles us. "Who's there?" I hear the alarm in
Grandher's voice as he goes to the door.
Grandmother hurries to hide the remainder of the bread, and my
mother covers the pot of stew and takes it out the back door. A
stew kept warm on a dying fire and a braided loaf means that we
are observing the Jewish Sabbath, and no one must know. But it is
just neighbors, Bernardo and Marisela, come with a flute and
tambourine to be among their own kind making music on Shabbat
afternoon.
The bread and stew are brought back to the table, and though we
all cl to have had enough, the pot is soon emptied with small
tastes, sopped up with the remaining bread. Susana has
disappeared, using the excitement of the new arrivals to slip
outside.
"You mustn't be so hard on Susana," Grandmother says. "Girls get
moody when it's their time to become a woman."
"But she's so scornful!" My mother's eyes glisten. "She says, ‘I
was born a Christian.' What kind of talk is that? As if we can
choose our ancestors?"
"Sensible talk," Grandher replies, raising his eyebrows. "We
are Jews who cross ourselves, eat pork when a Christian puts it
on our plate, and buy leavened bread during Passover even though
we feed it to the chickens when no one is looking." He shrugs,
but his eyes flicker with pain. "We've left behind so much of who
we are, perhaps it's no longer worth the trouble to keep to our
old ways."
"Jaume!" Grandmother is aghast. "Such talk coming from you?"
"Such talk? I have spent my life paying the price for letting
them splash me with their water when I was a young man living in
Mallorca. Surely you should know where my heart lies." Above his
gray beard, his face is mottled with anger. "I was afraid-I
confess to that! I did it to save my life, but I am not one of
them. My knees may bend when they wave their crucifixes in front
of me, but my mind never will."
He exhales with a snort so loud and horselike I might have
giggled if the subject were not so serious. "Stupid fools if they
think I believe that nonsense about their Hanged One and their
sacred wafers and that wine they say turns to blood that he wants
us to drink in his memory." His lip curls. "Drink his blood? What
kind of barbarians would do that?"
He stops momentarily, but I know he isn't really asking us to
answer. "We live in a terrible place, a terrible time," he goes
on. "And if the Holy One means us to survive, how exactly does he
mean us to do it?"
I hate these conversations because I know, even at six, that a
threat hangs over these afternoons. To Christians, we are
Judaizers. To Jews, we are traitors to the faith of Moses,
Marranos, swine. I fight back tears. "Can't you unbaptize
yourself?" I say, hearing the huskiness in my voice. "Can't you
say, ‘I've changed my mind and I'd rather be a Jew?'"
My grandmother smiles wistfully. "I wish it were that simple,
little one, but Christians believe that once they've wetted you,
there's no turning back."
My mother looks at me, and I know what she is thinking.
Immediately after my baptism, she told me she took me to our
spring to wash away the water and restore me to our people. The
following year, the church burned down and the record of my
baptism was destroyed. Mama says that makes me still a Jew in
God's eyes, but it's not something we should mention to anyone.
Cleansed with living water and my baptism purged by fire. I
return Mama's smile, warmed by our secret. If I should need to
say I have never been baptized, no one could disprove it. If I
said I was, no one could disprove that either. I don't understand
why this is important, but Mama says every secret Jew might need
a story someday.
"Best to marry Susana off quickly," Grandher is saying. "She
has excellent prospects. She's y, and the Riba family has
the means-"
"But she's so young," my mother protests. "She hasn't the hips
for childbearing yet."
"Perhaps you haven't noticed," Grandmother says gently. "I think
she is growing them now." She pats my mother's hand. "And she'll
make you a grandmother all the sooner, if it's God's will."
To avert my mother's darkening mood, we stand for the blessing
after meals, after which we burst into song.
Bendigamos al Altísimo,
Al Señor que nos crió,
Démosle agradecimiento
Por los bienes que nos dió.
I have practiced all the verses in bed so I know the song by
heart. "Let us bless the Most High, the Lord who raised us. Let
us give him thanks for the good things he has given us," I sing,
loudly enough to draw the smiles I crave.
Grandher unfurls his fingers in a loud and decisive strum of
the guitar he has fetched from the corner, while the others pick
up tambourines and flutes. Eventually Susana comes back inside
and stands next to me, clicking castanets with my mother.
Watching her, I wonder why Susana wants to be a Christian when
Jews have afternoons as wonderful as this.
Grandher plays the first notes of Luisa's favorite, and we
jump to our feet. "Dance, Rachel, and Mojonico sing! The rats
clap their hands." The song creeps as slowly as a burglar at the
start, and we act like statues coming to life. Each verse speeds
up, until Luisa and I are waving our arms and leaping in wild
circles. At the end of the last verse, we dive into pillows on
the floor, holding our bellies and squealing with laughter.
Even Grandmother is persuaded to dance. Though she complains
that her joints are stiff and she is too old for such things, I
watch her feet flutter like birds taking off from their nests.
Finally, Grandher puts down his guitar. "Praise to the One who
has such things in his world as music," he says, signaling our
afternoon rest. Bernardo and Marisela leave for home, and Luisa
flops on the pillow, her hair plastered brown at her temples with
sweat.
Mama and Susana go with Grandmother to lie on the bed while
Grandher settles into his favorite chair. I'm tired, but I
don't want to . "Will you show me the atlas?" I ask,
widening my eyes in hope Grandher will find me irresistible.
He musses my hair. "All right, but just for a minute. An old man
needs his Sabbath nap."
The book is so big it knocks against my ankles as I carry it to
him. He sets it alongside his chair and waits for me to hop in
his lap. "Tell me the whole story again," I say.
"You've already heard it a hundred times."
I twist my head around to look at him. "But not for a while. I
think I might have forgotten something."
He laughs. "You, my little radish, never forget a thing!"
"Tell me anyway," I say, wiggling my legs down between his
thighs as he stretches his arms around me and rests the open
atlas on his knees.
The six vellum panels in the atlas are almost as long as my
grandher's arms, and as I sit on his lap, the top of the world
looms over my head. "Our king, Pedro, knew that the king of
France wanted a of the world. Catalan atlas makers were the
best, and my her was best of all. I was a cartographer too, so
we made this atlas for Pedro to give to his friend."
"Your her was Abraham Cresques," I interrupt. Now that I've
gotten him to show me the , I want him to know how much, not
how little, I remember. "That means Cresques should be my name
too."
"Except that in 1391, mobs started killing Jews all over Spain,
and I was baptized against my will. They forced us to take
Christian names, and I became Jaume Riba. But Jehuda Cresques is
my real name, just like yours is Leah even though everyone calls
you Amalia."
"Ama-lia," I correct him with a smile.
"Ama-lia," he repeats. "And when I am gone, I hope you will
remember me as Jehuda Cresques, even if that won't be on my
tombstone."
"I will, Grandher."
He doesn't seem to hear my promise. "It was too terrible a
thought never to see our work again-may the Evil Eye not punish
me for such pride-so we secretly made this copy, which we've kept
all these years."
Grandher thinks for a moment. "We imagine we are on top of
the ball of the world but they feel the same in China or Africa."
He kisses the top of my head. "Never forget that making a round
world that no one falls off is easy for the Holy One. So next
time you look around and say, ‘this world doesn't make any
sense,' just remember that it does to him and be grateful that no
one else is really in charge, even those who wear crowns."
"Yes, Grandher."
The large page scratches my belly as he turns it to reveal the
next panel. I know what I'm going to see, but it takes my breath
away nonetheless. Navigational lines radiate outward in an ocean
of lapis lazuli, like frost on a window against a brilliant blue
sky. On the right is Spain. "Sevilla," I say, "Toledo, Salamanca,
Valencia." I point to each city in turn, as Grandher nods with
pride. "If I ever need to make another ," he says, "I know who
to ask for help."
Mama comes from the bedroom. "Have you kept Grandher up?" she
scolds, but she doesn't mean it. She takes the atlas from his
hands despite my protest that I have seen only one page. "It's
time for us to get ready to leave. The cart should be here soon."
I crawl down from Grandher's lap and go to wake up Luisa.
"Come on," I say, "unless you want me to say good-bye to the
chickens without you." We make a quick trip, and on our way back,
we see the cart and driver stopping at the gate. Inside, everyone
is gathering around the table for the habdalah ceremony that ends
Shabbat.
Grandmother brings a special, braided candle to the table, its
tip flaming. "Blessed art thou, Lord God, king of the universe,"
Grandher chants, "who separates the sacred from the ordinary."
He pours wine into the silver cup until it overflows, then puts
the candle out in it. We break out into laughter, not because
it's funny but because that's what we're supposed to do to make
the start of the week happy.
Grandher takes off the lid of a small carved-ivory jar, and
the aroma of cloves and cinnamon wafts through the air. After
massaging the dried spices between his fingers to release more of
their scent, he puts the jar under my nose. "May you have a sweet
week," he says.
Susana inhales the heady blend next and holds the jar under
Mama's nose. When it has passed to everyone, we stand around a
plate of membrillo, taking turns spooning out a morsel of the
sweetened quince paste and sighing as it melts on our tongues.
Mama and the others start down the path, but Grandmother motions
to Luisa and me to stay. She dips her fingers in the remaining
wine from the silver cup. She touches behind our ears for ,
in our pockets for wealth, and on the backs of our necks for the
quick arrival of the Messiah.
As we walk to the gate, Grandmother picks a blossom from a
quince tree and tucks it behind my ear. "Have a good week, my
beloved Leah," she says. Its fragrance fills the carriage all the
way home.
Valencia 1492
I wake to the faint scent of quince blossoms and cinnamon, and I
think for a moment it is Shabbat and I am in Grandher's lap. I
feel his spirit breathing on my neck. "You kept it safe," he
says.
"Yes, Grandher," I whisper. "I showed it to my daughter, to
my grandchildren, and my great grandchildren, just as you shared
it with me."
I don't want to tell him I can protect it no further. Jews may
take no more from Spain than they can carry. Take something
useful, my daughter has told me. A little more clothing, or a
piece of leather for new soles for our shoes. Sell the atlas and
sew into my hem the few coins it will bring. I see the pain
behind her resolve. The book is as much a part of her as it is of
me, no easier to leave behind than an arm or a leg.
I don't know what I will do when my grandson Judah arrives later
today to take me to the boat. I could take the vial of poison I
bought from a gypsy on the road to Valencia and pour it down my
throat to save myself the decision of whether to go or stay
behind, but the thought of Judah finding my body on a day already
full of unspeakable loss restrains me.
"Go to the end," my grandher says, still behind me. I open my
mouth to protest that I am already at the end. Go, stay, die,
live-it's all the same.
"I mean the atlas," he says, annoyed at my incomprehension. "The
last panel, the one that was your favorite." I turn to the Asia
of Kubla Khan, a lumpy circle, with people and places lining its
perimeter. At the top, the figures are painted upside down, or so
I thought when grandher first showed them to me. "When people
think there's only one right place to stand, they say foolish
things like ‘you're doing it wrong.' All you have to do is go to
the other side and look again at how many ways there are to see
the world." I am not sure if the solemn voice I hear is a memory
or a whisper. "You must act in their world, even when every
choice seems as impossible as riding a horse upside down."
I touch the empire of Magog, at the summit of Asia. "Behold a
swarm of locusts were coming," the prophet Amos said, "and one of
the locusts was Gog, the King." He could hardly be more fearsome
than Isabella and Ferdinand. If a maker painted Spain now, it
would have boats sinking, refugees drowning, doleful lines of
Jews on dusty roads, bonfires with black corpses hanging from
stone pillars...
"Grandher, help me," I plead. "I don't know what to do."
"Go with your heart. You cannot do otherwise."
"But I don't know what my heart is telling me!" I want to
protest that I am a confused old woman who can't think straight
anymore.
He cuts off my complaint. "It's buried in your memories. Go find
out."
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