Yiddish for Pirates Read online

  Like that joke that is itself older than creation: Lord, it took only six whole days for you to create heaven and earth, but even you had to wait for the weekend.

  Nervously, Moishe walked through the vast front doors. A fully rigged ship could pass through such doors, if the captain could get the crew to shlepp it.

  We plunged into the candlelit twilight of the cathedral. The aurora borealis of stained glass: our brainstems replaced by kaleidescopes.

  It was the inside of a huge city square, the vaulted ceiling unreachable as heaven. Each stone block in the vast walls was a square meal, an unfed belly, a tangible monument to what the church had and the people did not.

  And, takeh, I wasn’t thinking incense.

  We walked down the main nave toward the rumble of prayer and distant singing. Toward the altar, there was a sea of candles, each flame a bright wave.

  Even the dried-out beef-jerky soul of an alter kaker parrot became dazed by the intoxicating lotus-scented pong of Mother Church in such a Xanadu of thurible-fumed fantasmagoria.

  Nu? Isn’t it time for a thurible pun?

  “As the sea rages, my soul is jubilant,” Moishe muttered to an ancient stooped beadle. He stared blankly back at us, then motioned to the candles, offering Moishe the opportunity to light one.

  “Crazy? Then try faith,” the beadle might have been thinking.

  Another man stepped out of a shadowed archway.

  “As the sea rages… Moishe began.

  “My soul is jubilant,” the man continued. “For my ship draws near to the sanctuary of her God.” The lock clicked. The right key in the right lock. The man began walking away. The light was dim at the far end of the transept.

  A Madonna, large as an ogre and made of dark wood. The man made sure the coast was clear, then touched his hand to the smooth underside of Mary’s foot, and extracted a key, a heretical splinter hobbling the Mother of God.

  “In the other foot, a mezuzah,” he whispered. “The lady, she is our doorway. Come with me.” As we walked by, he touched the mezuzah foot and murmured a prayer. We followed him behind the statue where he unlocked a small door. We stood together on a landing. He locked the door behind us. The right key, the right lock. We were in darkness.

  “My name,” he said, “is Samuel.”

  We felt our way down the stairs.

  Our final step was into a soft uneven floor.

  “Sand,” Samuel said, “so we make no noise.”

  We crossed the room in the twilight that fell from an opening above. Another door and we had entered a room bright with menorah candles and torchlight.

  Moishe looked amazed at this subterranean synagogue.

  “The fox doesn’t look for chickens in his own foxhole,” Samuel said.

  Half a dozen men sat around an immense table.

  “Our souls should be quite jubilant today,” Samuel said to them. “Look what washed up.”

  At the end of the table, a desiccated figure stitched from driftwood, a cloud, and an old saddle. Standard issue ancient rebbe and the doppelganger of the rov in Lisbon. Rabbi Daniel.

  “You brought a friend from Africa?”

  He meant me.

  “We can trust him? In Ecclesiastes, it says, ‘A bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter.’ And this particular matter is highly secret.” The rebbe eyed us intensely.

  “I wouldn’t want this bird to trade our lives for a cracker. Unless it were matzoh. Ahh, that I could understand. I could be Judas myself for a bisl matzoh.”

  He smiled, then offered Moishe a seat. “You’re a brave boy. The officers of the Inquisition are everywhere: the thousand faceted-eyes of an excremental fly.”

  We were brought some bread, wine and soft cheese. “Eat.” Moishe set me down on the table and tore off a shtikl bread.

  The men looked on approvingly as we noshed.

  “And now,” the old rabbi began. “The books. It is as they say, if you drop gold and books, pick up the books, then the gold. So, show us.”

  Moishe reached around to take the books out of the shouldersack that he’d hidden beneath his smock.

  A look of shrek horror. Oy Gotenyu! The sack was gone. He had had the books when he rode into the city. A broch—the horse! He’d abandoned the horse, tied up near the quemadero. In his horror, he’d run without any thought of old dobbin. Without any thought at all. By now, some gonif had rode off with the nag.

  But the books?

  Before we’d dismounted and went to watch the auto-da-fé, Moishe had hidden behind a wall, taken the books from the saddlebags and stuffed them into the concealed sack. But the sack was gone.

  Rabbi Daniel and the other men looked at Moishe expectantly. He looked from the old rabbi to the floor, considering what to do.

  “I … I must find the books.” He scooped me up and ran to the stairs. “Diego,” he whispered hoarsely. “The cutpurse must have robbed me when we klopped into him.”

  It was the oldest trick in the book. Here, would you like to buy these flowers? And while you were leaning in, snorting their scent into your shnozz, you were relieved of the responsibility of your gold. Only it was the pretty pink flower of Diego’s fist that went up my beak, and he had swiped something more valuable—and more dangerous—than gold.

  We were in the dark at the top of the stairs. Moishe grabbed the handle but the door wouldn’t move. Vo den? Of course. It had been locked behind us. For safety.

  “The books?” Samuel was behind us. “Where are they?”

  Moishe burbled an explanation.

  “If the Inquisitors find them—and they generously grease the hands of those who place such things in their grasp—then we will—you will—be in great danger. They will search for you and your end will not be good. Was there anything beside the books? The letter?”

  Moishe felt for the small pouch that was tied inside his pant leg. Ach, but the letter was stowed between the pages of one of the books. Still, he could hope. One can wish for a leak in the tub of the firmament when the flood begins.

  “It’s gone,” he said.

  “We will talk to the rebbe,” Samuel said. “We will make a plan. There was already great danger. Now this danger knows where to find us.”

  We waited in silence in the dark at the top of the landing. Only the sound of Moishe not breathing.

  “The letter says ‘meet in the Catedral,’ but not where,” I said. “The Inquisitors would think it only a place of rendezvous. For now, keneynehoreh, they don’t know what goes on behind the back of their Virgin.”

  We returned to the cellar with all the enthusiasm of a cow being led to the shochet, knowing that soon it would be brisket.

  And why was I worried?

  I was a bird. I could not be brisket.

  But Moishe was my family, my mishpocheh. The only family I had, Oy Gotenyu. God help us.

  “Sit,” the rabbi said.

  Moishe sat.

  “We are not Israelites, or Hebrews,” the rabbi began. “We are Jews. We are Jewish wherever we are and with whatever we have. Do you know when the first time this word—Jew—was used?”

  Moishe did not.

  “The Megillah. The Book of Esther. You remember in Persia, the Prime Minister—“

  “Haman,” Moishe said.

  “He who convinced the king that all Jews should be killed.”

  “But they were saved,” Moishe said. “By Esther.”

  “Yes. The Jewish queen. Since the beginning, they have tried to kill us Jews, but ha-Shem—God—gives the story a little, what you would call, a drey, a twist, and then somehow, we aren’t destroyed. Until the next time.”

  “And each time,” Samuel added, “we make a new holiday to remember.”

  “Purim,” Moishe said.

  “Soon the calendar will be filled up with festivals,” the rabbi said. “Adonai will have to forge us another year. A whole year just for these days of remembering.”

  Samuel shrug
ged. “We remember, but then we eat.”

  “And so we survive,” the rabbi continued. “Though we must hide. One of the stolen books was the Book of Esther. They tried to destroy us then, but did not. Perhaps they will fail again.”

  Rabbi Daniel’s plan. Moishe would lead them to where Diego had taken the books. They would try to buy the books back. One who speaks for money, listens to money.

  Then Moishe would be hidden in a house where he would be safe. When the Inquisitors became less inquisitive and thoughts of Moishe and the books had faded, he would leave Seville.

  Of course, if they couldn’t find Diego, or he had already taken the books—and the letter—to the Inquisition, then the story would be different.

  The world could be a dangerous library. For a book or a Jew.

  “And Moishe,” Samuel said, “We’ll give you new clothes. You need a disguise.”

  “So get rid of the bird,” Rabbi Daniel said.

  Nu, they didn’t have a disguise for a bird?

  Feh.

  They can take the bird out of the story, but the story stays in the bird.

  They gave Moishe a long brown cape, green leggings, and a red hood. He put on the leather boots that belonged to one of the cathedral Jews. To look like a gnome, that was his disguise?

  But his right shoulder—my shoulder—was to remain unadorned.

  “What else can I do?” the shoulder shrugged.

  Zay gezunt. Be well.

  We’d meet again.

  I knew it was right. Moishe had to go alone. Together, it was like waving a talking, grey-feathered African flag.

  They didn’t leave the cellar all at once. First, two climbed the stairs, speaking quietly to each other. Next Moishe, the rabbi, and Samuel. And then a few more. They blew out the candles, extinguished the torches. I was left alone in the dark, save for the dim light coming from the ceiling of the first room.

  How many parrots does it take to change a light bulb?

  That’s okay. You go out and enjoy yourself. Who needs light? Just leave the door a bisl open. Don’t worry about me.

  I waited, wondering what to do.

  They would return.

  Eventually.

  I tried my wing. Gevalt. It didn’t hurt like hell. It hurt like much of which happens before that.

  But I could still take to the air, if only for short hauls. I didn’t need to fly to heaven. Just into the cathedral. A Christian way station.

  The light in the first room came from a chimney shaft in the ceiling. It led either outside or into another part of the Catedral. I emerged from this stone cloaca, smoke, a farshtunkeneh cloud, a pipe dream with claws.

  Now what?

  It was to be Parrot vs. World.

  The world that I was now born to was small, musty, and bounded by shadows: I was in some kind of cloakroom. Dark red capes lined the walls; above them, like a butcher shochet’s wet dream, hoods hung from hooks.

  Some Hebrew letters at the room’s dim far end. Hebrew books of some kind.

  Since I was invited out of Africa, I have learned many words from the pretty, poxy, scurvy, or sweet mouths of mariners, princes, brigands, maidens, nebbishes, shlumpers and shlemiels, but nothing from their pens.

  Nu, what words would I have had if I’d not been snatched from my parrot life in the scintillation of leaves high in the African forest? I was but a fledgling taken straight from nest to mast and knew little beyond the nutritive regurgitations of my parents—halevay if only, what would they have been like? I would have learned but a beakful of words for rotten fruit and cloacae, for a thousand shades of green and the little wings of my pinfeathered offspring.

  I’d have been a different bird.

  Still with holes in my head, but different holes. In a different head.

  And still, I’d have wanted to get out of this room. And to find Moishe.

  There was a door. Plain as the nose on my face. Azoy, as the breathing holes in my beak.

  But it was locked.

  A broch.

  But then I noticed a small window.

  Open.

  Escape.

  Chapter Eight

  I wasn’t outside but found myself behind the altar. Bells began to ring. Nice of them to celebrate my freedom. I flew up into the vault of the nave. The light was startling and I bumped into the diamond-shaped panes of the leadlight windows several times before I adjusted. One of them was open and I flew out and above the slate roof. The city was a vast ocean around me, Moishe a tiny craft adrift in the narrow alleys between its waves.

  I flew in a large circle, unsure which way to go. There were few people out in the streets. Because of the plague, they kept out of public places, except when absolutely necessary, for example, to perform their civic and religious duty in the witnessing of a good life-affirming stake-burning.

  I saw one of the men—I remembered his name as Avraham or Abraham—from the secret basement talking furtively in a nearby square. I landed on a roof to listen. He was speaking to a red-robed priest about a stash of books. Jewish books. Moishe’s books. They were negotiating a price.

  How did he get the books? Did it have anything to do with Diego?

  There are advantages to being a bird.

  Flight.

  Feathers.

  Enticing little feygelehs with pretty wings.

  The ability to play dumb.

  I flew down, landed on Abraham’s shoulder and tried to look stupid.

  So, nu, not such a stretch for me.

  “Hello. Howaya? Hello.” I imitated first-rate parrot repartee.

  They were both surprised. They may have thought I was an idiot, but I was exotic, more unusual than your Generalife-garden variety idiot.

  “How did it …?” Abraham began. “Stupid bird.” He was worried that somehow I might compromise the negotiations. If they went awry, instead of being served a hearty helping of gold he could end up as Jewish barbecue himself.

  “Hello,” I said. “Howaya? Hello.”

  They hurried through their discussion, not wanting me to draw attention to them.

  Their plan: Abraham would meet up with the other hidden Jews and produce the books. Then the priests of the Holy Office would burst in and the red-capes would catch them right-to-left-handed with the forbidden books. They were supposed to have been New Christians, converted Jews. To set eyes on anything but the Gospels was heresy and would certainly mean death by fire.

  Unless they repented. In which case, as I’d just seen, they’d be killed twice. First by strangulation. Then fire.

  Choke and smoke.

  The Catedral wasn’t going to be the meeting place. They wanted to preserve it as a trap for the future. For now, the books would be both lure and hook. Abraham would arrange a meeting in a “safe” place.

  The two men parted. The priest in the blood-red Inquisition robes strode confidently across the square. Abraham slithered furtively, checking over his shoulder.

  “Hello,” I chirped from his other shoulder. “Howaya? Hello.”

  As soon as the priest was out of view, Abraham slapped at me. “Leave, vermin,” he said, and I obliged, flying up above the gables, following him like the conscience he didn’t have.

  The priest navigated his jagged way forward through the illogical, dark and narrow alleys.

  He must have been navigating by faith.

  Like that priest who walked into a bar.

  There’s a few Inquisition guys playing cards and they invite him to join them.

  He asks, “What’s the ante?”

  “Ten silver pieces,” they say.

  Priest says, “I’m gonna get burned at those stakes.”

  So, nu, I lost Abraham as he walked under some awnings and, before I could find him again, he slipped into—I think—a building attached to the Catedral. Me and God. We can’t think of everything.

  By now it was dark; it was doubtful I’d find Moishe. I’d flown to where I’d gone head-to-knuckle with Diego and then to the qu
emadoro, where there was nothing left but ashes and shadows instead of people. The grandstand stood mute and fraught with expectation, a psychopath waiting for another touch of those silk-covered tucheses.

  If I didn’t find Moishe and the hidden Jews, by next week they’d be the entertainment, the puffs of sweet human smoke that the Sevillano audience would breathe as they cheered.

  Chapter Nine

  Next morning as I flew over the city, searching for Inquisitors or wine merchants, hidden Jews or Moishe, I spotted the rabbi and Samuel walking down a narrow alleyway. At the corner they ducked under a low archway and through a battered green door. No one else arrived. Ten minutes later the door opened: three unkempt men and a shlumperdikeh woman singing and staggering with what appeared to be a generous filling of good spirits. A tavern, I deduced, marked only by these doddering processions.

  I waited. After half an hour, Samuel and the rabbi emerged from the green door. They sang too loudly, slurring their words. It paid to be seen not Judaizing, but instead, having a good Christian mug of unkosher wine. They walked through a complex plait of alleys, eventually entering a building beneath a sign carved with images of wine barrels. I slipped through the back door and flew along a narrow hallway piled high with casks. Voices spoke indistinctly. In the dim light, I followed stairs down to the cellar. I walked along the top of casks that filled most of the room, keeping close to the wall, remaining invisible. I would first understand what was going on.

  And whom I could trust.

  The centre of the cellar: the rabbi, Samuel, and others around a table. Jugs of wine, decks of cards. A mixture of kibitzing, davening, and, if you can use this word for Jews, pontificating. Where was Moishe? Ach. It was better he wasn’t here. They didn’t know it, but they were like animals gathered at a watering hole, not knowing that the red silk lions were ready to pounce.

  At one end of the table, a young woman. The pretty girl, the sheyneh maideleh, from the auto-da-fé, listening gravely to the men. I tried to get a better view, and knocked over a few corks. They fell to the floor, a muted explosion. The men, absorbed in talk, didn’t notice but the girl looked up.