Hunting Midnight

One of the tricks I had taught Fanny was to brace her hind paws on my shoulders and forepaws on my head, so that her head rose far above my own. In this way, she resembled a goddess on the prow of a sailing ship, except for her wagging tail thumping on my back. She could stand this way for five minutes or more without the least discomfort.

I had also discovered Midnight was strong enough to walk with me on his shoulders.

In our garden, combining these two tricks produced a most spectacular effect; by covering ourselves in the sheets, we appeared to be a sphinx more than seven feet in height, with the feet of a man and the head of a Border collie. I had practiced with Fanny so that if we ever lost our balance she would be able to spring to her side and land safely.

We called the others out to see us. Mama gaped from the doorway while Papa shook his head and laughed.

“You are insane, John Zarco Stewart!” Mama declared. “You are going to fall. And you will break your neck!”

“Let them have their merriment,” said Papa, drawing her close. “He will be young only once. And we must not let today’s misery ruin our evening.”

“This is madness,” she moaned. “Utter madness, I tell you.”

“Indeed it is,” Papa agreed, but his eyes were radiant with glee.

*

Midnight and I could see only directly ahead through our eyeholes, so Papa steered us around the stray filth on the street. Praise shouted by neighbors lifted our spirits, and children ran after us screeching with glee. After a hundred or so paces, Midnight grew tired and let me down. Senhora Beatriz kissed me and whispered that Daniel would have been overjoyed to see such a clever performance. Unfallen tears turned her hazel eyes to liquid, and I saw in her unsteady movements how she had weakened over the last year, shrinking under the weight of her grief. Likely we were both thinking how much better my trick would have been with Daniel walking on his hands down the street to herald our arrival.

Mama insisted on holding my hand now so that I would create no more “wayward miracles,” as she referred to my mischief. And so, as a family, we headed toward the Rua de Cedofeita, where the street musicians had assembled for the festivities. We soon discovered that Lourenco Reis was standing there on a wooden platform, preaching to a crowd.

“There he is,” Papa said to Benjamin.

Mama gripped my hand tighter. “Come, let us keep going.”

“Why hasn’t he been arrested?” I asked.

“We shall do better than that,” Papa told me. “Just give us a few days, son.”

We hurried away. But before we had gone another fifty paces, he appeared before us. Blocking our path just a few feet ahead of Benjamin, he declared, “‘I come not to send peace, but a sword!’”

Benjamin, God bless him, replied, “You, sir, are no Jesus of Nazareth, and you may sheath your sword up your arse, where it belongs.”

“Devilish Marrano!” he spat in fury.

Papa grabbed Benjamin’s arm and glared at Reis. “Sir, I know who you are and what you have done this day, and I tell you now to let us continue on our way with no further trouble or you shall forever regret it.”

“We shall chase you foreigners from Portugal!” the hateful preacher bellowed. “You shall not have this city — not while I draw breath.”

Given Mama’s anxious nature, I’d not have expected her to speak, but in her tense, quavering voice, she said, “You may scream all you want, sir, but we are longtime residents of this city, all of us. And you shall not win this battle. Not while I draw breath.”

Reis pointed his staff at her. “Sinful Jewess. Your very presence is offensive. You must die so that Christ may live!”

She gasped at his effrontery. Father steadied her and shouted, “You cowardly bastard! I have half a mind to strike you here and now.”

“Let it go, James,” said Benjamin. “Please, let us return home. Midnight, come here and help me.”

“Make no mistake, we shall burn you all!” the necromancer cried. “We shall burn them for Christ, shall we not? And we shall send their smoke to Him on this holy night.”

With my heart beating so loud that I could hear little except my own fear, I screamed, “You are the foreigner here! And you are the one who will die!”

Pointing a damning finger at me, he exclaimed, “You are the devil. You shall not tempt me. You shall not win a victory in this City of God. I shall see you burned at the cross!”

This was too much for Papa to bear. He raised his cane above his head and was about to charge at him. More powerful by half than Lourenco Reis, I believe he would have beaten him senseless had he not been restrained by Benjamin and Midnight.

“I shall kill you!” Papa was shouting.

“No, James,” Benjamin said firmly. “Not now. I shall deal with him at the right moment. And when I get him, I shall send him straight back to hell. I promise you that.”

But Papa would not be dissuaded. “I shall murder you, you coward!” he swore.

The necromancer smiled, then raised his staff over his head and shouted, “Let us burn them now! Let us send their smoke to God.”

*

With Midnight’s help, Benjamin steered Papa back to our street. Something shattering had happened and no one could find the words to put the encounter into perspective. Mama had gone completely pale and stopped speaking altogether. We considered it best to return home.

There, with all the worry over Mama, Papa and Benjamin did not seem to notice Midnight slipping out of our house with his quiver and a basket, but I did. He held up a finger to his lips as he crept outside.

Mother leaned on Father as he walked her up to their room, where he put her to bed. Benjamin started a fire in our hearth, and he told me that when he was close to my age, he had witnessed an Act of Faith in Lisbon in which more than fifty shackled Marranos had been marched around a square and jeered at by the crowds. Three of them had been burned at the stake. “I never plan to smell burning Jewish flesh again,” he said, almost to himself.

That night, I heard Papa and Benjamin whispering about having Lourenco Reis expelled from Porto by the civil authorities. It was fairly clear that this was not their first such conversation. This was when I first began to believe that Midnight might not have been acting on his own in slipping out of our home and that he and Papa might have been involved in a conspiracy that Benjamin had started weaving days — or even weeks — earlier.

*

Midnight told me of his clandestine activities the next day when, at dawn, I heard him creeping up to the Lookout Tower. Yawning in his doorway, my eyes still heavy with slumber, I asked him where he had been. He took me back to bed. Sitting by my side, he said, “Mantis spoke to me a few weeks ago in a dream. He told me that a beast would drink up all the water in Porto and create a terrible drought. Many of us would die. When I saw the preacher, I understood. So I took my quiver and arrows and hid them in a basket.”

The Bushman told me that he had watched Lourenco Reis ranting to ever larger crowds until, at the stroke of twelve, the evil man climbed down from his stage and strode off toward New Square.

Midnight tracked him through the lantern-lit night. At each of three successive festive sites around the city, Reis succeeded in raising furious cries against the Marranos. A short time past three in the morning, he ceased his rabble-rousing and strode off alone toward the river. After rapping on the door of a large stone mansion, he was hastily admitted. From Midnight’s description, I was able to identify this building as the Dominican monastery.

“Presumably, he is still there now,” Midnight told me.

“So what will you do?”

“I have a favor to ask you, John. You must tell Benjamin that I shall not come to work today. Tell him that Mantis has asked me to do an errand for him.”

“Will you follow the necromancer?”

Midnight nodded.