By Fire, By Water by Mitchell James Kaplan
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE CANNON BLASTS and church bells had finally ceased. In place of their infernal noise, the wind howled, a child cried, a door creaked. The city of Almeria was all but destroyed. Here and there, fires still smoldered in the burnt-out shells of homes, mosques, and shops. Cannonballs, stones, and the remains of fallen buildings littered the narrow streets and the small, irregularly shaped plazas. Mothers sat on the ground, their children in their laps, some wearing all that was left to them. Fathers—the proud in silk robes, the humble in tattered tunics—gathered in the squares, wondering what would become of them now that the fighting was over. They would have to wait until dawn to learn of King Fernando’s intentions.
In a tent outside the city, the king consulted with Fray Hernando de Talavera, the prior of Prado. What should he do with the residents of Almeria? Should they be slaughtered? Should they be forcibly converted to Christianity?
A man of great learning, Talavera was known as a rival of Tomás de Torquemada. This was, indeed, why Fernando had invited him. The king had begun, of late, to loathe the inquisitor general, despite the queen’s admiration of him.
Father Talavera combed his long, forked beard with his fingers, considering his response to the king’s questions. “Sire, your goal should not be to conquer cities; your goal should be to win the hearts of your new subjects. And to accomplish that, you must be generous.”
“How so, generous?”
“You mustn’t allow your soldiers to plunder Almeria, to rape women and murder children. Offer the people the rights and privileges of your best citizens. After all, that’s what you hope they’ll become.”
Fernando poured wine for himself and his guest. “Plunder. Rape. Murder. You pronounce these words as if you were talking about Satan, Father.”
“I am talking about Satan.”
Fernando observed Talavera’s face. Like caves under a cliff, his dark eyes sat deep within his high forehead. A semicircle of curly gray hair covered the sides and back of his tonsured head, but his forked beard, which reached the top of his chest, was still brown. Overall, the mismatched look of a man who cared little about his appearance but to whom God had given a set of handsome, symmetrical features.
“But isn’t it proper to annihilate evil?” inquired Fernando. “Is it not correct to demolish the pride of people who think themselves superior, but who are, in truth, only misguided?”
“To demolish their pride is merely a way of asserting your own pride.”
“Take care with your tone, Father. If we don’t humble them, and undermine their certainty that God is on their side, Almeria will become a breeding ground for heresy.”
“Heresy,” countered Talavera, “is not sin; it is error. And it is best corrected not through torture, but through love.”
Fernando had never heard a man of the Church speak this way. He wondered whether Hernando de Talavera might not himself be guilty of heresy. Yet he also admired the man’s courage. He drained his cup and refilled it.
“They hate us,” said the king. “When you’re too generous with those who hate, they’ll take whatever you give them and use it against you. I can’t risk having to quell rebellions while I’m trying to advance my front line.”
“Then exile them,” suggested the monk. “Separate them. You can’t have a mass rebellion when there is no mass. Offer them houses to replace the homes you’ve destroyed. The good Lord knows, the New Inquisition has seized enough villas and manor houses. Give some to the people of Almeria. Transform your enemies into loyal subjects. Is that not what Your Highness desires?”
Apparently, this man was not going to adjust his views to those of his audience, even if his audience was the king. “Thank you, Fray Talavera. It is late. We have much to accomplish in the morrow.”
The next morning, a crowd gathered behind the city’s main gate as King Fernando and two hundred of his troops entered on warhorses. All was silent save the clatter of armor and the clop of hooves as spectators exchanged wary glances with the horse-mounted soldiers.
“Citizens of Almeria,” announced the king, “we are not here to destroy what’s left of your splendid town. Almeria will remain. Almeria will be rebuilt. Almeria will be more beautiful than ever.” A translator shouted his words in Arabic.
“But Almeria, and the entire emirate of Granada,” Fernando continued, “will be Christian. We ask that you save your souls by accepting baptism willingly.”
The crowd listened. A baby cried. A man coughed.
“After you have accepted the rule of Christ, you will be free to settle elsewhere in the land of Castile. In many cases, we will help to find you homes. In no case will the citizens of Almeria be permitted to keep their homes or shops, or to remain here.”
During the night, he had come to admire Fray Talavera’s wisdom no less than his fiber. The citizens of Almeria would be spared; they would be free to live elsewhere.
“No Moorish man or woman, however, will be forced to become Christian. Those who refuse the sacrament of baptism will be free to settle in any other kingdom that will have them.”
The king ceased speaking. He thought his offer remarkably, even historically, generous. Others might have had every resident of a conquered town, a town of infidels, hewn to pieces and fed to dogs.
The people of Almeria did not thank him. Some spoke quietly to one another. Others silently left the plaza, as if to say: You have destroyed our homes and our places of worship. You offer us exile and a religion we despise. How shall we thank you?
With a gesture, Fernando sent his soldiers into the city. He turned his stallion around and trotted back through the city gates, accompanied only by Hernando de Talavera.
“Victory is sweetest when tempered with compassion, like wine spiced with cloves. Is it not, Father?”
To Hernando de Talavera, it sounded as if the king was trying to convince himself. “Just so, Your Highness. And victory, like wine, can go to one’s head.”
“I received a letter yesterday,” said the king, ignoring the gibe, “from my chancellor, Santángel, in Zaragoza. You know him, do you not?”
“I know of him.”
“It seems our friend Torquemada has arrested his brother, a tax farmer whose services are much in need at present. I was wondering whether you could investigate this, Fray Talavera. Discreetly, of course.”
“As you wish, Your Highness.” Talavera tried not to display his pleasure.
“Please make it your priority. I can’t have the workings of my government disrupted. Not during a war.”
“Of course.”
Fernando kicked his horse into a gallop. There were other battles to fight—Guadix, Baza, ultimately Granada. The plague had broken out in Sevilla. A shattered land cried for direction.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
FOR JUDITH MIGDAL and her family, life in Granada became arduous. The Christians’ advance had eroded support for the emir, Mohammed bin Sa’ad al-Zagal, among the people. The emir’s nephew, Abu Abdullah, perceiving another opportunity to seize the throne, attacked not the forces of King Fernando, their common enemy, but those of al-Zagal. For three months, Islamic soldiers on both sides fought in the streets, cousins and brothers, both praying to the same God for victory. Blood flowed in the gutters; stones flew over the city’s ramparts. Civilians stayed indoors, their homes closed up like clamshells.
Then came the news that Almeria had fallen. Al-Zagal abdicated in disgrace. Abu Abdullah, known to the Spaniards as Boabdil, took the throne. For three days, on orders of the new emir, soldiers and citizens celebrated in the streets, although there was no legitimate cause for celebration. The Christian onslaught had not subsided.
Orders for wine cups, silver candleholders, mirrors, platters, and mezuzah cases ceased. Burdened with too many unsold wares, not enough revenue, and an ailing Baba Shlomo, Judith made a decision.
Over a breakfast of dried fruit, nuts, and buttermilk, she told Levi about Baba Shlomo’s dreams and desires. The old
They would travel on foot, just as Baba Shlomo had done so many years before, in the opposite direction. They would transport a minimum of supplies, salted meat and other victuals, on the back of one mule. A second mule would carry clothes, silver objects, and Baba Shlomo himself, whenever he became too tired to walk. They would sleep in forests, in fields, and whenever possible, in the homes of Jews.
They would not leave at once. They would wait until spring. There was much to prepare. Not only would they need to purchase two mules and supplies, but Judith wanted to transport a number of silver trays, cups, and other objects, and sell them en route. She knew the Christians prized the Arabic style of silverwork.
Two months later, Baba Shlomo awoke her well before dawn. Judith dressed and awoke Levi. The mules and bags were ready. Silently, they ate a light meal of fruit and nuts. They snuck out of the city in darkness.
Judith had rarely glimpsed the town of Granada beyond the gates of its Jewish quarter. Now, valleys, mountain passes, plains, villages, and cities lay before her like stars dotting an astrologer’s sky after a lifetime of clouds. Scents of grasses and flowers suffused the warming springtime air.
Near Guadix, they spread their blankets on the floor of a musty cave and rested through the day. They would pass into the kingdom of Castile under cover of night. Baba Shlomo told them stories about the world that awaited them.
“You hear those crickets, Judith? Levi? Well, in Gan Eden, instead of chirping, the crickets chant very softly, like a choir, in Hebrew.”
“But where is this place?” asked Levi. “Where is the Garden of Eden? Is it here in our world, or somewhere in the heavens?”
“You know, my son, it is both. In the Torah, there is the story of the land where Adam and Eve lived. It’s still there, in the Far East, guarded by angels and a flaming sword. Some day, when the Messiah comes, we’ll be able to go back.”
“And what about the other paradise?”
“That one is in the world to come. Only a few have been allowed to go there alive, and return.”
“What is it like?” asked Judith.
“When you arrive there, the angels take away your clothes and wrap you in a robe of mist. They lead you to a valley filled with rose and myrtle bushes. They give you a room on the hillside. Outside each room there’s a fruit tree. On every branch of this tree, there’s a different fruit. When the wind rustles in its leaves, the sound it makes is the sound of words, and the words are more wonderful than anything we can understand, here in Andalusia.”
Tall and ungainly, Levi fell asleep with his head on Baba Shlomo’s lap, his mind full of images of a place where he would go, one day, where nature and mankind spoke the same language.
It was still dark when Baba Shlomo awakened Levi and Judith for their crossing into the Christian side of Andalusia, the realm of Castile. As they groggily led their donkeys out of the cave, the lush valley before them glowed under a three-quarter moon. Animals and spirits grunted, whistled, and brushed against leaves in the near distance. The three travelers huddled close and talked little, so as not to attract attention. “We’re lucky,” remarked Baba Shlomo. “These demons hide in the shadows, and the moon is bright. If we stay on the path, out of the shadows of the trees, they won’t attack us.”
In truth, the old man was no less frightened than his companions. When he heard the almost inaudible flutter of an ethereal being’s diaphanous wings, Baba Shlomo was the first to stop. Trembling, he shouted the incantation, “Die and be cursed, you child of mud and clay, like Chamgaz, Merigaz, and Istema!” Only when the noise died, as if withered by his imprecation, did he permit his companions to continue on their way.
The border crossing itself was uneventful. No gate or customs house marked the frontier. At dawn, they met up with a family of farmers pushing carts of produce to the nearest town and noticed they spoke in Castilian. The two small groups of travelers cautiously ignored each other.
In the marketplace of Jaén, for the first time in their lives, Judith and her nephew saw pigs hanging by their feet, to be roasted and eaten. They saw opulently attired merchants and noblemen’s pages devouring blood sausages. They saw monks in dark robes and women in showy dresses, their breasts bulging upward like bloated fish gasping for air.
They witnessed a death parade. Musicians playing hurdy-gurdies, bladder pipes, and drums led a procession of black-robed monks swinging incense burners through the town’s main square. Black-hooded undertakers pushed a cart heaped with putrescent human corpses, whose stench the sweet odor of the monks’ incense hardly masked. Men, women, and children, some wearing crudely painted masks, others bearing flowers, danced wildly behind.
They had indeed entered the realm of the heathen. All they saw confirmed Judith’s impression that Christianity was a death cult, with no sense of what was clean and what was unclean. Even Baba Shlomo, who had spent some of his childhood in this other world, felt ill at ease.
That night they prayed in a small synagogue, a room filled with painted arches and candelabras, with a balcony for the women. After the service, the rabbi and his wife invited them home, where they gave them ill-fitting local clothes, showed them how to wear them, and advised them to avoid speaking Arabic in any town.
Baba Shlomo sometimes felt dizzy and weak. He drank cool lemon water, which provided a measure of relief. Following more weeks of travel, while they were traversing a long path through seemingly endless fields, he slumped forward and fell off his mule. He appeared to be sleeping but when Levi tried to wake him, he discovered his grandfather was not breathing.
Tradition dictated that a corpse be buried as soon as possible. Judith and Levi found a stand of oak trees, moved the old man’s body there, and stretched it upon the ground.
“Take Baba Shlomo’s mule into Daroca,” Judith instructed Levi. “Sell it for a shovel and a few yards of linen. I’ll stay here with Baba …” She caught her breath. “With Baba Shlomo.”
She tore a small gash in the side of her dress as a sign of mourning, sat on the ground, and pondered the ways their lives would be different. Baba Shlomo had come to occupy a central place in her life, becoming her living connection with the past, with the land she and Levi were nearing.
Her family had come from the north centuries ago. His had emigrated from the east hundreds of years before that. Her mother’s ancestors had dwelled in the Jewish quarter of Zaragoza with Baba Shlomo’s ancestors, attending the same synagogue, eating the same food. Their paths had surely crossed many times over the centuries. By comparison, Judith’s life in Granada, as well as Baba Shlomo’s, had been but a moment.
Baba Shlomo had bequeathed to Judith a livelihood, and to Levi a tradition. Although Levi had guided the blind old man almost everywhere, in truth Baba Shlomo had been guiding him. Without Baba Shlomo’s gentle, protective presence, Levi would have had no man to look up to following the death of his father. With whom would Levi have discussed, over the Passover seder, the issues of slavery and freedom at the heart of the Jewish tradition? Who would have chanted the prayers in their home, before Levi himself mastered them? Judith still heard Baba Shlomo’s voice twisting through those ancient melodies.
After Levi finally returned with a small cart, a shovel, and a length of linen, he began digging without a word. Lovingly, weeping, Judith wrapped Baba Shlomo in the white cloth.
At last the hole was deep enough. Through his tears, Levi began reciting the Aramaic words of the Mourner’s Kaddish.
Yitgadal … veyitkadash … sh’may rabah …
&n
Oseh shalom bimromav, hu berahamav ya‘aseh shalom aleinu … “May He who makes peace in heaven, in his mercy make peace for us.”
Levi and Judith took turns shoveling dirt onto the coffin.
V’imru, amen. “And let us say, amen.”
Luis de Santángel awoke to the noise of Iancu rapping on his bedroom door. The Moldavian informed him that two foreigners were waiting outside, with a donkey.
“Did you ask their names?”
“Migdal, my lord. A woman, a boy.”
“Migdal?” He had not heard the name pronounced in almost two years, except in his own mind. Why would she be here, in the kingdom of Aragon, at his door? Then he reminded himself: it would do no one any good if he were to be seen with her.
“Tell them I’m in Barcelona,” he instructed Iancu.
While buttoning his pourpoint, he wondered what purpose could have driven a family of silversmiths all the way from Granada to Zaragoza. He saw them through the window, walking up the narrow street with their overburdened burro. Judith looked leaner, her skin a shade darker. She had lost none of her beauty, but Time, reflected the chancellor, wove a veil of sadness over every mortal’s countenance. Or perhaps that veil covered his own eyes, causing him to see the ravages of experience all around him. Despite his better judgment, he finished dressing and hurried through the alley behind his estate. As he emerged to the street, Judith saw him and stopped.
“Chancellor, I thought you were in Barcelona.”
“I apologize. I’m eager to learn what brings you to Zaragoza. Unfortunately, I cannot be seen with you. Not here. Not now. I hope you understand.”