Yiddish for Pirates Page 7

  Me, I’m dangerous. And except for my tail, the colour of twilight and unknowing. A creature of darkness and mystery.

  So I’m grey, and hard to see in dim light.

  She squinted behind the barrels where I was attempting my shadowplay.

  “I’ve seen you before,” she whispered.

  “Hello,” I tried. “Howaya? Hello.” Best not to brandish the bright blade of my considerable eloquence.

  “You were with the boy. Moishe,” she said almost inaudibly. “At the burning.”

  “Hello,” I said again, idiotically. “Howaya?” Any moment now she’ll offer me a piece of matzoh.

  “I know you understand,” she said. “I am named Sarah. He gave me a letter. I was to watch for you.” She glanced over at the men speaking at the table in the centre of the room, then took a scrap of parchment from the pocket of her apron.

  “He’s safe. They’ve hidden him with Doña Gracia de la Peña. My father used to say there’s safety in numbers if the numbers mean large sums of money. The Doña has plenty of those kind of numbers.”

  Was this a trick? Moishe knew I couldn’t read.

  “My uncle—Abraham—works for her. As I do. Last night, though I wept, I did the washing. I saw Moishe brought to the Doña. She agreed to hide him. I came here to say prayers for my father. My uncle doesn’t know. It’s no place for girls and women but the rabbi took pity.”

  She unfolded the note. “Your Moishe asked me to read this for you. The letters are Spanish, but the words are in the Jewish of your village.”

  She read haltingly and without understanding, only parroting the sounds the letters spoke:

  Arie: I’m safe, keneynehoreh. For now.

  The books are gone. No sign of the mamzer Diego. But still I must hide.

  Don’t know what he’ll do. They pay well for exposing Marranos.

  The girl is as beautiful as the seven worlds. Already I dream of her arms and other places. She’ll show you Doña Gracia’s, where I am hidden. The Doña is a powerful and wealthy Jew. A trader. She will take us to safety.

  Don’t speak. They tell me not to trust anyone. Even them. M.

  It was a bittersweet trick, having her read how pretty she was when only an Ashkenazi—or his parrot—would understand.

  But every language is bittersweet to those who don’t know it.

  There was a new voice, speaking at full volume from the foot of the stairs. The men around the table stood.

  “I have something. You’ll be happy.” It was Abraham. He was cradling Moishe’s sack of books.

  Sarah ducked behind the barrels to hide.

  Her uncle walked into the centre of the room, opened the sack and spread out the books on the table.

  The men held their breath. As if they were looking at a pile of rubies, their first-born sons or the shadow of the Messiah himself. The people of the book needed their books.

  Rabbi Daniel began to pray. “Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu …”

  “Omein,” the others sang as he finished. They all sat and the rabbi positioned a book before him, stroking its cover as if the idea that it could exist in the same physical world as him caused both tender sadness and great joy.

  He opened it and began to read out loud.

  His passionate, hypnotic voice. The murmuring of assent by the men. The flicker of the candlelight.

  Then the sudden thud of boots on the steps as if we were inside a Golem’s vacant heart.

  The men scrambled to gather and hide the books. They picked up cards and tried to look natural, a few friends, some wine, the Ace of Cups hidden up one of their sleeves.

  Two Inquisition priests and half a dozen soldiers stood in the sand at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Dominus vobiscum, the Lord be with you,” the rabbi said and crossed himself, hoping to mimic the Christian piety of discovered gamblers.

  The priest did not reply, “Et cum spiritu tuo, and with thy spirit,” as would be customary, but rather, “Ecce Homo, Behold the Man.” The words of Pontius Pilate presenting the thorn-crowned Jesus to the crowd. In this case it meant: “I’m going to crucify your Jewish tuches.”

  Abraham stood up and motioned to the books concealed beneath the table. Two soldiers held the rabbi, another two held Samuel. Then a lanky soldier with a greasy moustache pushed past a small man still clutching a hand of cards, and crawled under the table. He emerged embracing a stack of books. The second priest lifted one off the pile and opened it.

  “Hebrew,” he spat.

  “Heresy!” the priest hissed, playing his part with high drama, as if this hadn’t all been arranged. “Converso Judaizers! You shall burn.”

  From behind the barrels, an involuntary gasp from Sarah. Her uncle’s duplicity had condemned these men to die. Immediately, two soldiers rushed to look between the rows. They grabbed her arms and roughly dragged her into the centre of the room. Weeping, she shuddered between them, unable to stand. I squeezed out of sight between a barrel and the stone wall.

  Abraham seemed entirely taken aback. “Sarah?”

  “You know this girl?” a priest said.

  “My niece.”

  “The girl will come with us,” the priest said. “But, because you have been helpful to us, we will give you a choice.”

  “Yes,” the second priest said. “We will take her. Unless you want to go in her place?”

  Abraham looking steadily at Sarah.

  Sarah sobbing.

  “Take her,” he said.

  The others looked at Abraham but said nothing. The soldiers then hauled them up the stairs and to a jail cell that would give them a taste of where they would spend the rest of their eternally damned lives. As if what they had just experienced wasn’t enough of an amuse-bouche.

  The sound of great tumult after they left. The few short candles burned down. Leaving dark cellars was becoming my speciality.

  If I didn’t know better, I would have thought that upstairs looked like the result of a Bacchanalia. It was a cooper’s nightmare of smashed and splintered casks, hogsheads, firkins, puncheons, pipes, butts and breakers intermingled with wine spilled everywhere like blood. A man lay dead near the back door, real blood running from the corner of his mouth and spreading from a dark wound in his side. I flew through the open door and over the city. Moishe was a hidden Jew, hidden even from me. But Doña Gracia, whoever she was, I would find.

  And before Abraham and his red-caped fathers.

  In Seville one was allowed to be a Jew the way one was allowed to be a leper: somewhere else. The Inquisition was for New Christians, heretics, Moriscos, and all those once baptized who, like addicts, had returned to illicit Judaizing. And the Inquisition was for money. For nu, what’s the intoxicating draft of organized hatred without a chaser of profit?

  But where to find former Jews?

  I flew toward what had once been the Jewish market. It wasn’t hard to find. I looked for a tall building that had a cross on it, but where you could see, like a healed-over wound, the scar of what had once been a Magen David. The Jewish star.

  The old synagogue.

  And in front of it: the market.

  Flying between stalls, I beheld untold riches of nuts and fruit. Overripe pears and oranges fallen onto the cobbles and singing a hungry parrot’s song. Delicious almonds held in the open hands of children so I could nosh and delight and amaze. For this, I was happy to play my part. But I was watchful of the slices of melons and other morsels their parents offered me, for just as a cap and a ball on a stick can be sold for amusement, so too can a captured parrot. Even more than losing Moishe, I had little fancy for the clipped wings, the jess and leg-band of the kept parrot.

  It wasn’t long before I heard the name of Doña Gracia amidst the confusion of vendors’ songs, gossip, and the convoluted stories with their ay-yi-yi’s and laughter. She was the richest converso in the city, and so in the market many repeated her name. I flew about until I found someone in her employ: a man carrying an armful of brea
d to her kitchen. And so I followed him.

  Chapter Ten

  Doña Gracia’s house was a grand affair, an appropriate dwelling for such an important balebosteh, with decorated terracotta archways onto the street, and leadlight windows high above the street. The man pushed open a bright blue door with his shoulder and then backed in with his armload of bread. He couldn’t touch the mezzuzah on the door, but he did say a quiet blessing.

  “Hello, pretty bird,” a woman said as I flew in behind him. “You’ve brought a friend,” she said taking some of the loaves from the man’s arms.

  “She’s been following me,” he said.

  “She must want some of this lovely bread,” the woman said.

  Why is it that people think some animals are male and some are female, as if we don’t come in both flavours? So was I going to explain my noble ambitions regarding procreation and the love of a good parrot maiden?

  Not yet. I had found it best to wait until you really know someone.

  The woman broke off some crust and offered me a nosh. Really, I’d had plenty at the market, but I received her kindness with what I considered a manly grace and delicacy.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Miguel,” I said. “Miguel.”

  “Miguel! How pretty!” the woman said.

  The man broke off some more bread. “Funny name for a girl parrot.”

  “Why don’t you bring Miguel to the painter? Maybe he’ll put her in the new portrait of Doña Gracia?”

  Likely the painter was closer to the action than these two crusty bread breakers, so I was quick to jump at the opportunity. I hopped onto the offered forearm of the man and we walked further into the house.

  House. It was more like a galleon planted in the ground. A palace.

  We walked down many halls, up countless steps, past innumerable rooms.

  It was a small world but who would want to paint it?

  We entered a hall lined with colourful tapestries depicting seas of curling waves, great ships balanced on the foaming cowlick peaks. A man in a spattered red smock, his white beard itself like ocean foam, had rolled out many painted canvasses on the floor and on the dock-sized oak table in the centre. He was speaking solicitously to an impressive lady dressed in furs and a fine brocade robe.

  Doña Gracia.

  Tall, dark, full, her hair plaited elaborately above her, like the dark red leaves of an autumn tree.

  The painter pointed at the canvases. “My Doña, the hills of Tuscany behind this prince, the Grand Canal behind this Pope’s nephew. Each painting tells its story not only in the faces of these noble people—a small curve of the lips, the stage play of the eyes, the angle of the nose and forehead—and not only in finery of their dress and jewels, but also in the landscapes behind them, stretching out over the unreachable horizon of the canvas.”

  Doña Gracia examined the paintings dispassionately.

  “Doña Gracia, I would paint you before an ocean teaming with boats, the wind bulging full in the sails, the barques sunk low with the rich prizes of your trade.”

  She remained impassive.

  “Doña,” he said, suddenly quiet, whispering conspiratorially, “you would appear so strong and beautiful, so haughty and so rich, that the King and Queen of almost-all-the-Spains would wet their Catholic britches and despair.”

  At that, Doña Gracia smiled broadly, the bright sparkle of a diamond twinkling where an incisor once was. And then she began to laugh, which made her appear all the more strong, beautiful, haughty and rich.

  “Señor Fernandez,” she said, “you paint a pretty picture with your tongue, and more than a portrait of me, I would rather relish this picture of Their Almost Spains in their sodden bloomers.”

  She then caught sight of me and clapped her hands together. “Señor painter, is this your ghost-grey Polly? Something flown out of a painting? Speak, Polly!” she said to me.

  As I have said, I know on which side of the brain the bread is buttered.

  “Doña Gracia,” I said. “My gracious greetings, Doña Gracia, hello. Hello. Howaya?”

  She nodded gracefully at me and then turned to the painter and smiled wryly. “You’re a sly old brush slinger, canvas-monkey,” she said. “You’ve brought me a courtier to speak pretty as if I had my own court. To make me puff like a sheet in a gale.”

  “Miguel,” I squawked. “Miguel.”

  “Indeed, painter-Polly,” Doña Gracia said. “I had that thought also.”

  She turned back to the kitchen servant, on whose forearm I rested.

  “This will keep the boy busy until we make arrangements for him,” she said. “Take the bird to Miguel and tell him to teach it to pray. When we are all gone, at least the parrot will remember our prayers.”

  The servant bowed once, then together we walked through a neighbourhood of hallways and down a hillside of steps. Eventually we arrived at a large wooden door that led from a courtyard, in the middle of which was a fountain in the form of a fish.

  The man opened the door with a large and rusty key attached to his belt by a rusty chain. We walked into the room.

  Moishe.

  He stood up, beaming. I flew from the man’s arm onto his shoulder. My shoulder. The light shone in from a high window and so my shadow fell where it should. Across Moishe’s skinny chest.

  A bookmark without a book doesn’t know where it is. Moishe was my slim volume, my scrawny story. My shoulder.

  And he radiated joy and relief. If he could have hugged me, he would have.

  “Whips. Sinking ships. The Inquisition. Someone doesn’t want me to have a parrot.”

  He scratched my neck and it was pure delight. I became an idiot chicken.

  “Pretty girlfriend you’ve got there,” the bread man said.

  “Thanks,” Moishe replied. “His name is Aaron.”

  We told each other our stories, Moishe explaining how they wandered the streets looking for Diego, Moishe like a dowser, trying to lead them to the alleyway, following only his intuition and the nervous beating in his chest.

  “I knew I was near,” Moishe said. “But after awhile, the corners all looked the same, like the corners of a circle. And I knew if we kept wandering around, we’d be discovered. So we gave up and they brought me here.”

  I told him how Abraham, like Judas, had betrayed us. How he had betrayed Samuel, the rabbi, and even his own niece. About the wine that was blood after the raid of the merchant’s cellar.

  “Ptuh!” he spat. “That mamzer Abraham is the one that deserves blood and fire. And since he won’t save his own niece, I will. And the others, too.”

  Since we’d been apart, it seemed Moishe had had his Bravado Mitzvah. His chutzpah was impressive. It had taken root and had been growing since he’d held that knife to the thieving youth’s neck. And like me, he was a bit of foygl too. A wise guy.

  He looked around the room and up at the high window as if he were imagining escape.

  “But I have no idea how.”

  I told him about how the room filled with red capes and Hebrew books.

  “So, nu, how will the rabbi and his Jews fly from their prison?” he asked.

  “Red wings,” I said, spreading my own grey ones impressively. “Not a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but sheep in red silk. Catholic wolves. We’ll dress them as Inquisition priests.”

  “You molodyets of a bird,” he said. “You clever rascal. An impressive plan.

  “Especially the part where they’re still locked in a dungeon, but just better dressed.”

  We agreed that there were some details that remained to be worked out.

  There was a knock on the door. “Perhaps it’s the Messiah,” I said. “Our prayers are answered.”

  Nu, it was the bread man telling us that Doña Gracia wanted to see us.

  Chapter Eleven

  He led us along a covered hallway and into a small inner courtyard. Doña Gracia was sitting by a pool with another fountain, surrounded by greenery. Broad le
aves, hibiscus flowers, palm trees, and twittery birds with the brainpower of flowers.

  It felt like home.

  Doña Gracia received us like a queen.

  Moishe bowed slightly as he stood before her, and so, whether I intended to or not, I bowed also.

  “I see you and the bird have become friends,” she said.

  “Yes, Doña Gracia,” he said. “We’ve had a few minutes together. He’s taught me all he knows.”

  She laughed but then added gravely, “Flight should be something on your mind. Even with my gold, it will be hard to keep the Inquisitors satisfied without you. They are not planning to bother themselves with even the pretence of a trial. On Friday they intend to burn those they have already taken.”

  “Like Shabbos candles,” I said without thinking.

  What a pisk I have sometimes. A big mouth.

  “You have taught this bird not only davening, but about Shabbos candles, too?” Doña Gracia looked at Moishe with some amazement.

  “He needs to know. For his Bar Mitzvah,” Moishe joked, covering for me.

  “And similes?” she said. “You taught him similes?” She was a clever bird herself. She knew.

  “Once I had a husband,” she said. “He was a smart man. Even when he was alive, he never disagreed with anything I said. But I’m told that when the opportunity arose and he was called upon to make his own decisions, he had a mind of his own. I suspect that it’s this way with this parrot. That’s good. We can use him.”

  What was I saying about being press-ganged?

  “You can be of great help in rescuing our friends,” she said to me. And then, businesslike, she moved on, evidently believing it best not to question intelligence in this time of folly.

  A prominent merchant from a family of hidden Jews, her husband had been murdered by zealots. Since then, the Doña had sworn to help Jews or conversos escape. They’d be taken on as extra crew or cargo on her trade ships that sailed for Morocco. The ships would return with a new Moroccan crew and fruit, wheat, slaves, copper, iron and African gold—gold-embroidered caps, golden saddles, shields and swords adorned with gold, and even dogs’ collars decorated with gold and silver.