The knowledge that Farid’s father, too, must be dead, prompts me to run to Senhora Tamara’s bookstore and home in Little Jerusalem—to find out about the ‘storybook from Egypt’ which was offered to her.
There comes no answer to my knocks at her door, however. My feet turn me toward home. My body has the emptiness of a cavern, and the night air resonates inside my chest as if inside a leaden bell. I must eat something and pray for
At home, I wash my face, eat some stale matzah and two apples, then sit in front of the hearth and chant.
Beyond my prayers, solitude and slumber descend, catch me in their net.
Suddenly before me are Uncle’s hands, gesturing wildly at the back of the hearth in a language I cannot fathom. Sweat beads on my forehead. A face suddenly leans toward me. Distended with dancing shadows, it burns with an orange light. My heartbeat leaps. I rear back, jump to my feet.
“Berekiah, I’ve brought the man I told you about.” It is Diego, lit by the hearth. He unfurls his hand. “This is Isaac of Ronda.”
I take deep breaths to calm myself, see that Diego’s bodyguard stands with his back to us at the kitchen door. Isaac himself has the gaunt, dim face shared by so many of the New Christian merchants. Draped in scarlet robes, his shoulder-length straight hair is topped by a crested purple cap from which a long dark plume is arching back. When we shake hands, he stares boldly into my eyes as if trying to convince me of his strength or beckon me to share his bed. Peasants sometimes behave in such a way, and I realize that he may have only recently come into money.
My sudden descent from the dreams of half-sleep has left me heavy in body. I light two more oil lamps above our table to give me time to recover my strength. “Have you seen my mother or Esther?” I ask Diego, confused about the time and place into which I have awoken.
“Undoubtedly, they are asleep,” he says. “Dawn will be with us in a few hours. I thought it was safer to come now, however. I suspected you’d still be up.”
The illumination from the lamps has given our shadows more restful, human proportions. I beckon my guests to sit. “Some brandy, perhaps?”
My offer is accepted. Isaac clamps his lips onto his cup, jerks his head back and downs his drink as if it were water. “Toothache,” he says. “Dulls the pain.”
“We have some oil of cloves if you’d prefer,” I say.
“Thank you. But I’ve got some myself.” He reaches in his pouch, takes out a vial and rubs the liquid across his gums. His hands are thin, elegant, his nails immaculately pared. As of yet, it seems, only his hands have had time to adapt to riches. Soon, his lips will learn to caress the wine from his cup, and when he shakes hands, his will descend like a peacock feather in a soft breeze.
“Diego, where have you been?” I ask. “I went looking for you.”
“With a friend. I thought it was safer than going home.”
“It was. That Northerner…I saw him outside your townhouse.”
“A Northerner?” Isaac asks in a voice of surprise.
“Blond, tall, with a rawhide riding whip of the kind made in Castile,” I reply.
Diego shrugs. “I shall not go home. Perhaps he will grow weary of waiting for me and simply leave.”
“What do you suppose he wants?” Isaac asks.
Diego brings his hands up over his face and shudders, stares me straight in the eyes with a look of dread. “We suspect that he wants to kill me. Some enemy whom we, the friends of Master Abraham, have made without being aware of it.”
Isaac fiddles nervously with the hair falling over his ears. “I was sorry to hear of your Uncle Abraham’s death,” he says. His Andalusian accent is thick, his voice deep, slow and graveled like many of his kinsmen.
I say, “I have heard that you have a
He paraphrases one of the poet’s most famous verses: “‘I shall not rest until the blood of the prophet Zechariah finds peace.’” He gives me a probing look which seems to seek understanding of my own motives.
“My uncle was interested?” I question, wondering how to categorize this Isaac of Ronda.
“Very,” Diego says.
Isaac adds, “He said he would raise enough money to pay me for it over the next few days. But now I…”
“How did you get the
“It was always here. I bought it from a friend in Porto. He was about to burn it. I couldn’t let that happen. I’m sure you understand.”
“If you don’t buy it, Berekiah, I’m afraid another person may get it who doesn’t have your understanding of its importance,” Diego observes.
“So you’re no longer considering it at all?” Isaac asks Diego.
“I was really only interested in order to help Master Abraham until he raised enough money. I prefer Latin manuscripts, myself. Far safer. So I must defer to Berekiah.”
“Was anyone else interested in the book?” I ask.
“I have made several contacts,” Isaac replies. “But no one seems ready to make an offer.”
“Not even Senhora Tamara, the bookseller in Little Jerusalem?” I enquire.
“She wanted nothing to do with it. Isn’t buying anything in Hebrew at present—not even translations from Hebrew. After what happened, you understand.”
Diego says, “Simon, among others, seemed to believe it could fetch a large price elsewhere. In Genoa or Constantinople or Ragusa. Even in Morocco.”
“Simon Eanes, the fabric importer?” I ask.
“Yes,” Diego replies.
My heartbeat sways me from side to side. Were they in competition over books? Was that it?
A perverse desire twists in my gut and rises through my mouth as a devilish prayer that the murderer not be Simon—that I may be granted the privilege of revenge.
Diego pats my shoulder and continues in a wistful tone, “Hard to believe so much effort for manuscripts that we once could take out from our libraries. Our heritage seems to be falling into private hands. One day, all our writings will belong to Christian nobles and be locked away in golden chests and glass display cases.”
“I’m willing to sell it cheap,” Isaac says. The pitch of his voice jumps in order to tempt me. “Or to make a trade even. A silver candelabrum at this point would be enough. I want no more delay in getting back to Ronda.”
“You understand that I can’t fulfill any verbal agreement my uncle may have made,” I explain. “We’ll need all our savings just to eat. But tell me this—did he say who was helping him buy his manuscripts and smuggle them from Portugal?”
“Don’t you know?!” Isaac asks.
“No. My uncle wouldn’t say in case he was ever exposed. The less we knew the better, as far as he was concerned.”
Farid suddenly shuffles into the room. With his hands, he says, “I didn’t realize…”
“Doesn’t matter,” I signal back. “Sit with us if you have the strength.”
Diego and Isaac stand, bow in Farid’s direction. He nods his head, drops next to me and rests a heavy hand on my arm. “My friend is deaf,” I say. “He will read our lips. There is nothing you could say to me that couldn’t be said to him.”
“I’m afraid we didn’t speak of your uncle’s methods,” Isaac continues. He rises to his feet. His smile seems practiced. “And if you’re not interested in purchasing the book…?”
“No.”
“Then I’m afraid our meeting is at an end. Thank you for the brandy.”
At the door, he hooks his arm in mine. In a delicate whisper, as if trying to enchant a child toward sleep, he recites verses of a poem by Moses Ibn Ezra: “‘My night is plunged into a silent, waveless sea of darkness, a sea that has no coast, no shore for those who voyage. I do not know if this night is long or short. How can a man oppressed with grief know such a thing?’” To my ear alone, he whispers, “Have courage!”
