The Columbus Affair: A Novel

confession, and baptized their children. Inwardly, and at night, they kept their Hebrew names and read from the Torah.

“So much depends on this journey,” he said to his friend.

And so much depended on de Torres.

He was the voyage’s interpreter, fluent in Hebrew, formerly in the employ of the governor of Murcia, a city that once possessed a large Jewish population. But those people were either gone or converted and the governor had no further need of a Hebrew interpreter. De Torres, like a few others in the crew, had been baptized only a few weeks ago.

“Do you think,” de Torres asked, “that we will find what you seek?”

Columbus stared out to the dark water and the ships, lit by torches, where men were busy at work.

The question was a good one.

And there was but one answer.

“We have no choice.”

“Are you saying Christopher Columbus was Jewish?” Sagan asked.

“He was a converso. That is part of the great secret your father knew. He never told you any of this?”

Sagan shook his head.

“I am not surprised. You are not worthy.”

“Who the hell are you to tell me what I’m worthy of?”

“You renounced your entire heritage. How could you possibly understand things such as honor? Tradition? Duty?”

“How do you know I did that?”

“Is it a lie?”

“And you?” Sagan said. “A kidnapper? Things like honor mean something to you?”

“I have staked my fortune and my life to its fulfillment.”

Zachariah reached into his jacket pocket and found the folded documents. “I need your signature. These will allow lawyers to petition a judge for an order of exhumation on your behalf. I am told it will not be a problem, provided the closest living relative consents. Your daughter has already signed, as the estate’s representative. Of course, she had little choice.”

Sagan refused to accept either the papers or the pen he offered.

“There are but a few minutes remaining for me to call and stop those men.”

He watched as his ultimatum sank in.

Finally, Sagan snatched the pen and papers and signed.

He retrieved them and started to leave. “I will need you at the cemetery, in the morning, at 10:00 A.M. An heir must be present. I will have a representative there on my behalf. Do as instructed. Once the exhumation of your father is complete, your daughter will be released.”

“How do I know that will happen?”

He stopped, turned, and apprised Sagan with a curious glare. “Because I give you my word.”

“I feel better already.”

He pointed at Sagan. “See, there still is some wit left in you.”

“I need my gun.”

He held the weapon up. “You can have it back in the morning.”

“I would have pulled the trigger. I’d be dead right now, if you hadn’t come along.”

He wondered whom Sagan was trying to convince. “Please, do not fret. You will have another opportunity, after tomorrow morning.”

CHAPTER TEN

BENE WAITED AS ONE OF HIS MEN DUG OUT THE GRAVE. HIS DOGS had returned and now lay placid beneath the trees, basking in the broken sunlight, satisfied from the hunt. His animals were thorough, a talent bred into them long ago. His mother had told him about the chasseurs from Cuba. Small, swarthy men who’d worn open checked shirts, wide trousers, and light straw hats with shallow crowns and broad rims. But it was their shoes that set them apart. They would skin the thighs and hocks of wild hogs then thrust their feet into the raw hide. The pliant became a kind of short boot, which fit close, and lasted for weeks. They wore crucifixes around their tanned necks and were armed only with a machet, sharpened on one side, the other used to beat the dogs. They first came in 1796, forty of them with their hounds, imported to hunt down the Trelawny Town Maroons.

Which they did.

With no mercy.

Hundreds were slaughtered, and the fear of the dogs was born.

Which he intended to resurrect.