In my innocence, this seemed a reasonable assertion. Jews were plainly a disagreeable people.
Being a monstrously insistent young lad, I then asked if there wasn’t even one last member of this tribe in Porto whom I might secretly study. Inhaling another dusting of snuff, Raimundo snapped, “Not that I am aware of, but you would do well to ask your mother.”
I considered that a strange comment, but since he refused to utter another word on the subject, I resolved to do as he suggested.
When I asked her, she calmly replied, “No, John, there are neither Jews nor New Christians residing in Porto at the present time.”
She presumed that Raimundo might have wrongly believed her familiar with such matters since the home we lived in, which had been in her mother’s family for generations, was at the heart of what had once been a small Jewish quarter prior to the Inquisition. My father was present for this explanation and puffed on his pipe without saying a word.
It was atop these slanders and fanciful images that the necromancer’s accusation of my being Jewish now found awkward footing. Giving in to my worst fears, I begged Daniel to search my head and nether regions for indications of unsightly growths of any telltale sort. He took to this task with admirable solemnity. We must have looked a sight with my breeches down and him squatting to gaze at my hindquarters. To my solemn relief, he soon dismissed my fears.
While hunting with Daniel for discarded bottles and trinkets on the riverbank that afternoon, I began to think that a life without close friends was not an inevitability for me. I remember being quite literally shaken by this knowledge when he grabbed my hand without warning and said, “I’ve found something, John, hurry!”
He raced ahead, shouting that he’d spotted a tabletop sticking out of some mud and that it was perfect for carving. “Run! Come on! Faster!” His green eyes were aglow with the pleasure of having me share in his discovery.
So excited did he become when we had safely unearthed his treasure that he began flapping his hands as though to brush away bees. A year or so later, he would offer the tabletop, intricately carved with the mischievous faces of children hiding in trees, to a young girl called Violeta. He would place me right at the center, replete with a beaked nose and gaping mouth.
I understand now that Daniel, more than anyone I ever met, saw through the surface of objects to what lay hidden beneath. Would it be an exaggeration to say that he was capable of seeing the potential in me, as well, and that I loved him for it?
I remember when we first pulled the tabletop out of the mud that afternoon, he stomped around as though seeking to create footprints so deep they could never be washed away by the river. Perhaps what he most wished with his carving was to offer a permanent impression of himself to the world.
We were too young to know that he had already — in only a few days — created deep and lasting marks in me. And even if we’d known, I do not believe we’d have spoken of it.
At the stroke of four o’clock we returned to New Square, to follow the bald birdseller to his home. It was nearly an hour later when he and his wife loaded their cages into the back of their wagon and headed off. On the far side of the Gate of Oaks, they turned toward the town of Valongo and soon stopped at the Douro Inn, a grim- looking establishment. When they resumed their journey a half hour later, we continued our eager pursuit. But the birdseller now lashed his mares into a gallop and we were soon left shielding our eyes from the dust they threw up in their wake. Daniel turned this disheartening situation to our advantage by returning to the Douro Inn and making inquiries of the innkeeper, who told us that the birdseller and his wife were in the habit of stopping there for a drink every Tuesday and Saturday, prior to the market and occasionally afterward. The lad made a point of asking about St. John’s Eve, and we were told that they generally came to the inn early that morning.
Outside, Daniel put his arm around my shoulder and whispered conspiratonally, “Kidnapped, wrapped, and delivered … Now, listen, John. We’ll have to come back here at dawn on the Twenty-Third. Which means we have only” — he counted by tapping his fingers on the top of my head — “five days. So starting tomorrow, we paint.”
I later discovered that Daniel, on returning home, placed the dead woodpecker on his bed, sat on the floor beside it, and got to work with his tools and pinewood. His goal was to create at least ten carvings before St. John’s Eve, which he estimated would occupy him from sunup to dusk on each of the next five days.
That afternoon, Senhora Beatriz interrupted his feverish work with a knock at his door. Her puffy eye was bruised blue and yellow and had nearly closed. She walked with a limp. Two of her ribs had been broken and she breathed with noticeable pain as well. Remaining in the doorway, she thanked Daniel for coming to her rescue. He received her thanks with a downcast gaze, worried that his knowledge of their kinship might overwhelm him should he look her directly in the eye.
He would later tell me, “My heart was thumping so hard I could hardly hear a thing. But you’d have been proud of me, John, I didn’t make a single peep. And I didn’t ask her for nothing. What would have been the good of asking, anyway? Things’ll always be like they are.”
When Senhora Beatriz left, he started carving again, using his knife with such force that he made a deep gouge in his woodpecker’s tail.
At home I discovered my mother and grandmother embroidering in our sitting room. Grandmother Rosa smothered me in her perfumed bosom, then asked after my new friend’s father, plainly intending to evaluate his station in life. Mama gave me a sidelong glance to say,
From many such experiences of my childhood, I learned that Mama wished to keep me away from her mother. In addition, I almost never saw her two elder brothers, though they lived only thirty miles away in Aveiro.
When she came to kiss me good night, I asked her to stay for a moment and to close the door. “Grandmother is still here and has fine hearing,” I whispered.
Mama covered her mouth to stifle a laugh. After easing the door closed, she sat by me and placed her hand on my chest.
My agitation banished all possibility of tact. “Are we Jews, Mama?”
“Goodness! Where did that little cannonball come from?”
“Something happened today.”
“What? Tell me, John.”
“There was a man preaching in New Square. He came to talk to Daniel and me. And he said that … that we were Jews.”
“You and Daniel? He said you and Daniel were Jews? How odd!”
“No, you, Papa, and I. Mama, he knew our names.”
She gasped. “Who was he? Did you find out
“Lourenco. He did not tell me his family name. I saw him once before. Then he had long oily hair and wore a horrid cape. But this time he was changed. He wore expensive clothes. And his hair was brushed. I think he’s a magician. Or a necromancer. He did tricks.”
“John, he didn’t hurt you or Daniel, did he?” she asked anxiously.
“No, but he said you ought to take me away from here — to Scotland.”
“How perfectly odd. And what did you say?”
“I said I was Portuguese — and that I was born here.”
“Good for you. And then?”
I sat up. “And then Daniel told him to leave, but he wouldn’t go. He said we would be burnt. He even held out a lighted candle to us.”
She sprang up and clasped her cheeks, closing her eyes. “Goodness, oh, my goodness …”
“And, Mama, he put a tiny finch in his mouth. He was going to bite its head off.”
Taking out her silk scarf, she reached out to the wall, then dabbed at her forehead. I rushed to her and led
