By Fire, By Water by Mitchell James Kaplan
Levi could not bear the isolation. He had questioned his aunt. He had accused her. Finally, Judith had admitted that the child she was carrying was the chancellor’s. He resented the man who had seduced and abandoned his aunt, the man who had brought her so much pain.
Colón interrupted his thoughts. “I’ll need a translator.”
“What sort of translator? On your ships?”
“When we reach the Indias, I’ll need a man who speaks Arabic. And when we reach Jerusalem—Hebrew.”
The offer seemed preposterous. Colón was obliging the chancellor. Both men knew as much.
“What would I do during the crossing?”
“Over the years,” said Colón, “I’ve collected many texts. Some in Hebrew, some in Arabic. Many of them, I’m sure, contain knowledge that could be useful to me. Will you come?”
“I cannot say, just yet,” said Levi.
“Of course not.” Colón bowed. “It has been a pleasure, doing business with you and your aunt.”
The two men took their leave, both wondering whether their partnership had ended, or was just beginning.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
TOMÁS DE TORQUEMADA had instructed the soldiers and monks detaining Luis de Santángel to treat him with the dignity his station merited, to leave him alone with his conscience as much as possible, to be prepared for unusual situations. None, however, foresaw a visit from the king himself.
He rode up shortly after dawn one morning, unaccompanied, wearing a floppy cap, a laced-up white blouse, velour trousers, and high boots, demanding to be shown to Santángel’s room.
“Sir,” explained the guard, “this house belongs to the Holy Office. No visitors allowed, except with special permission.”
The king dismounted. “Then give me that permission.”
“If you’d like to speak with the rector … Whom should I announce?”
“Fernando the Fifth, king of Aragon,” replied the king. “And if you refuse to show me at once to the penitent’s quarters, I shall personally see to it you never forget your impudence.” He held out his hand so the guard could have a good look at his gold ring, which bore the royal seal as well as his etched profile. No one else would have the temerity to possess and display such a signet. To do so, except for its legitimate wearer, was a capital crime.
Stunned as much by the king’s imperious manner as by this insignia, the guard fell to his knees and begged pardon. “Had I suspected, Your Highness, I would never have questioned you.”
“Get up and show me to the chancellor’s lodgings.”
As the king entered, he found Santángel standing at his reading table, studying another passage from Isaiah:
For behold, he creates
new heavens and a new world.
Former things shall no more be remembered
nor shall they be called to mind.
Closing the door, Fernando considered drawing his dagger and killing his chancellor, or perhaps strangling him. Santángel closed his Bible and turned to him.
“Your Highness. I’ve been expecting you.”
Although the king had no qualms about murdering an old friend, he preferred to leave that sort of work to others. “Tell me what you know, Santángel, and how you learned it.”
“I know how to keep a secret, Your Highness, as I have proven all these many years.”
“Where did you learn it?”
“That is a secret, Your Highness.”
The king wrung his hands, a gesture Luis de Santángel had only witnessed once or twice before. Fernando hated the chancellor’s words, but admired his courage. “Tell me what you want.”
“My release,” the chancellor stated calmly. “And I’d like to request that the Jews not pay for the supposed sins of conversos like me.”
“For that, it’s too late.” King Fernando looked around for a chair, then contented himself with standing eye-to-eye before his chancellor.
“Too late? Allow me to remind you, Your Highness: you are the king. Your word is law.”
“Luis, a certain parchment has got my lady all agitated.”
“A parchment?”
“The Gospel of the Jews. Yeshu something. I’ve rarely seen her so troubled.”
Santángel crossed his arms.
“The Jews have already received their sentence,” continued the king. “It can’t be reversed. As for your incarceration here, and loss of liberty, I’ve had nothing to do with any of it. Indeed, I would have prevented it, had I been consulted. But, Luis, I cannot suffer to be threatened.”
“Then, Your Majesty, let us pretend none of this happened.”
As the sun rose through the clouds in the east, a ray of light shone on the king’s weary face. “And why should I, the king of Aragon, take orders from you, a marrano, a moneylender?”
His viciousness hardly surprised the courtier. “This marrano may be languishing in jail, Your Highness, but he’s no fool. He’s taken precautions to ensure that if anyone were to murder him, the truth would be known.”
“The truth,” repeated the king.
Santángel nodded, not daring to repeat the words aquae serpentis.
The king thought for a moment. Finally, Fernando extended his hand. “I shall talk with Torquemada,” he growled. “Consider yourself free. And let me never hear another word of this.”
“Sire, you know what my pledge is worth. And you have it.”
The king looked at him long and hard. Without another word, he turned to leave. He felt sure Luis de Santángel would not betray him. The chancellor of Aragon knew better than to test him a second time.
On a Sunday morning dark with rain clouds, the monks returned Luis de Santángel’s purse and the unostentatious clothes he had been wearing on the night of his arrest. He hurried out of his rural prison, toward the main route. He came to a fork in the path, above a wide valley. Looking down, he beheld a sight he would never forget.
Along a small, rural road, little more than a horse trail, thousands of Jews trudged toward the port, spilling over its edges into the surrounding fields. Some in this vast, untidy herd were praying, chanting softly to themselves or in small groups. Some talked with their neighbors. Some fed their children or ran after them. Others plodded forward in silence.
Small children babbled and wailed. Mothers breast-fed their babies. Young Talmudists carried satchels of books. Old men leaned over walking sticks, their wives hobbling beside them. Musicians among them plucked and sawed Tisha B’av laments, commemorating the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, on lutes and violas d’amore. Some chanted along.
Throughout Iberia, uncounted multitudes of human souls, many with their mules, proceeded out of their neighborhoods, out of their beloved cities, to the main highways that would lead them south and east to the coasts, west to Portugal, or north to Provence. The roads swarmed with exiles. Young friends and lovers embraced one last time and parted in tears. Homes that had been occupied by one family for uncounted generations now stood empty.
At night, hordes of city-dwellers camped in forests, in empty fields, on the banks of rivers and streams. Smoky bonfires dotted the broad vegas. Strangers shared meals. Men from distant regions prayed together, exchanging information about foreign lands and their rulers. Which kings were good to their Jews? Which languages were easiest to learn? How long was the voyage to Greece? Was one likely to encounter pirates?
Late at night, highwaymen picked through travelers’ knapsacks. Fights broke out. Men and women died. And here and there, in villages throughout the land, good innkeepers, feeling pity for the exiles, allowed some to spend the night for whatever small change they could spare.
Luis de Santángel descended into the valley to try to lose himself among the emigrating Jews, hoping against all probability for a glimpse of the woman he loved. In humble garb, with the beard he had grown while in detention, he hardly seemed out of place. He listened to their voices, their melodies, their determination, their resignation.
&nbs
“No.”
“Neither have I.”
“It must be wonderful to behold,” said the older woman’s husband. “Endless and flat, reflecting the sun like a mirror.”
“Where are you going? Do you know?” asked a young Talmudist.
“We’ll try to make it to the Holy Land,” answered a distinguished-looking man.
“And what of the present rulers of that land?”
“We’ll have to get along, won’t we?”
The student turned to Santángel and eyed him from head to toe. “And you, sir, from which region do you hail?”
“Zaragoza.”
“Zaragoza! It must have been an arduous journey.”
“Arduous. Yes.”
The student looked at him, nodding to himself as they continued along their path.
Most of the Jewish quarter’s residents had already departed. The chancellor ran to the synagogue, which was open, its window shutters splintered. Peasants pillaged the benches and candleholders, pulled out the rugs, removed the intricately carved doors of the ark that had sheltered the community’s Torah scrolls. Santángel watched, dejected, his mind contrasting this spectacle with the image of the synagogue as it had looked on that evening, long before, when he had first set foot there looking for the Jewish silversmith.
When at last he reached Judith’s home, he found a carpenter and his family moving in. They had accepted baptism three days before. A special commission, set up by the king and queen to oversee the exodus and the transfer of wealth, had awarded this family Judith’s residence. A donkey pulled their cart into the courtyard, and as the carpenter and his son unloaded rugs and brass ornaments, he explained to Santángel that the former occupant had left the previous day for the port.
Salubaña, the port of Granada, was more than a day’s walk distant. By horse, Santángel knew he would arrive there at the same time as Judith, if not before. He purchased a dappled Lusitano, found his way out of the city, and kicked it into a canter.
By the time he reached the port, a light drizzle was falling. The wharves teemed with voyagers, vendors of amulets, priests offering Jews a last chance to choose baptism, thieves, border officers whose impossible task was to inspect every emigrant for contraband materials, including coins. Those suspected of exporting gold or silver were taken to nearby homes, ordered to remove their clothes, inspected head to toe, sometimes raped, occasionally murdered.
Scholars, moneylenders, and barbers who had never seen the sea toted heavy trunks up wobbly gangplanks. Parents called to their children. Cousins clasped their cousins, uncles their nephews, brothers their brothers, bidding each other farewell forever. Through this tangle of human distress, Luis de Santángel wandered like a drunkard searching desperately for his home in the wrong town, losing any hope of finding Judith; increasingly prepared, if he found her, to follow her onto any ship, bound for any destination.
Finally he saw her, wandering alone, some distance away, looking fragile and wet. His heart pounding, he pressed further into the throng. In his haste, he bumped into a large man in a fez and almost fell. Scrambling to his feet, he looked where Judith had been.
When he again caught sight of her, she was standing before a three-masted galleon, seeking shelter from the rain, shivering, rubbing her arms. He quickened his pace, almost running.
As he approached, she seemed to see him, but so briefly he could not be certain. He thought he must have been mistaken, for she turned and walked in the opposite direction. The chancellor called her name, but in the hubbub of shouting mothers and children, authorities trying to maintain some semblance of order, sailors rigging the ships, she did not hear him. He hurried along the docks. When he caught up with her, he gently took her arm.
She stopped and turned. Her eyes traveled down his face to his graying beard, his modest clothes, his hand on her arm.
“Why are you here?” Her voice was low, perplexed, cold. “This is no place for the chancellor of Aragon, a Christian, third generation.” She removed his hand.
“I came to see you. At my first opportunity.”
“Your first opportunity?” she repeated incredulously.
“Señor Colón didn’t speak with you?”
“I sent my nephew. They spoke, but …”
“I’ve been in a jail of sorts.” Santángel smiled a little nervously. “Now, I’m out.”
She observed his sunken cheeks, the beard he had grown, the note of humility in his pleading half-smile—a humility Judith had never seen in him. “In jail? The powerful chancellor of Aragon?”
“Better to have no power, and some security—or at least, an illusion of security.”
“What good is an illusion?” asked the fruit merchant’s daughter.
Santángel’s thirsty eyes drank in her presence: her black, sopping hair, her eyelashes, her lips, her clothes clinging to her body. Then he noticed it—the firm, well-defined roundness of her belly. She placed a hand on it.
His eyes rose to meet hers. He swallowed. Their regard communicated what their mouths could not. Their child. Together, half-deliberately, they had tied a knot.
“I’ve had time to think,” explained Santángel. “I’ve done a great deal of thinking. Praying. Remembering.” He glanced at the slate-gray sea. “I spent hours, calling up every detail.” He delicately ran his hand along the rim of her ear, down her cheek, under her jaw. “From the first words I heard you pronounce …”
She removed his hand from her face, but held his forearm. “What were they?”
“‘Allah alone conquers.’ The inscription on those beakers you made for the vizier.”
“Yes.” She nodded with a nostalgic smile. “Allah alone conquers. Even the most powerful of us, we have little control over our destiny.”
“Then our only choice is to embrace that destiny.”
“Embrace it? Look around, Chancellor. Look around.”
Exiles all around them, some emaciated from long travels, many filthy, tried to board ships, pleaded with sailors, appealed to authorities. As he observed all this despair, Luis de Santángel felt more powerless than ever. His mind reviewed his years in the royal court—the perfidy of some, the loyalty of others, the sacrifices, the battles, the triumphs, the fears, the losses. For what good?
“No, Chancellor. Our only choice,” said Judith, “is not to embrace our destiny in this world, but to hope for a better world.” Her eyes glided to the galleon behind him.
“Then I shall accompany you into that world.”
“And leave everything behind?”
He nodded slowly, his eyes boring into hers, expectant, tender, cautious.
“That is not possible.” And there was that sweet smile again. Except that now, Judith was weeping, her eyes pressed closed. He took her head to his shoulder until she swallowed and wiped away her tears. He caressed her shivering arms, her drenched back.
“I wish you well, Chancellor.” She tried to pull away, but he held tight. She forced herself out of his grip.
He frowned, uncomprehending. He searched her face.
“I’m glad you came here,” she finally offered. “I’ll feel better about the memory.”
“It needn’t be only a memory. Why?”
Behind him, Judith saw someone. She smiled.
Santángel turned to see a distinguished man, with a slight stoop and a close beard, emerge from the crowd.
“Ah, my beloved wife, there you are.”
She advanced toward the man. He kissed her forehead and stretched an arm around her shoulders to shelter her from the rain. He looked into her eyes. He observed Santángel. “Are we ready?” he asked Judith gently.
“Yes, Isaac. We are ready.” She glanced again at Santángel.
“Please,” the chancellor pleaded. “Please … contact me. At the court of Aragon. From wherever you should land.”
She cast her eyes downward to hide her tears. H
He stood on the wharf, the rain blinding him. He watched them ascend to the main deck of the galleon, which reminded him of the Giustizia and his trip from Rome with Cristóbal Colón, even if this more modest vessel was battered, its paint chipped and fading, its wet sails sagging.
Long after the talisman vendors, preachers, and guards went home, he stood there. Two longboats, each manned with ten oarsmen, slowly dragged the overcharged galleon to sea. Santángel searched for Judith in the multitude onboard, but could not recognize individual faces through the curtain of weather. He wondered whether she was peering back toward him.
He reflected that for the first time, sadly, he was without obligations or attachments. His son was gone; his staff dead and dispersed. When he had suggested to Judith that he would leave Spain with her, abandoning everything he possessed and everyone he knew, he had passed beyond a precipice he thought he would never approach. Now he stood on the other side, reflecting upon the ethereal threads that wove human souls together.
How far could those threads be stretched without breaking? Across seas and continents? Across the invisible boundary that separated the living from the dead? Could the waters between him and Judith wash away the empathy they had shared, the sense that in some incomprehensible way, despite their differences, they understood each other’s sorrows and dreams? Could the fields and mountains that separated him from Gabriel undo all they had lived through—the bedtime stories, the disagreements, the moments of frivolity? Could death obliterate the tower of memories he and Estefan had built, stone by stone, over the course of their lives?