By Fire, By Water by Mitchell James Kaplan
“Just an upset stomach,” said Judith. “I’ll be fine, Baba Shlomo.”
Two days later, a mule-drawn cart clopped to the gates of Granada. The Khevra Kaddisha, the burial committee of the synagogue, waited, as did several other curious souls, Jewish and Islamic. Death fascinated so many.
The driver was an emaciated peasant from the borderlands who spoke both Castilian and Arabic, but neither with ease. Despite her preoccupation with the cart and its contents, Judith felt pity for this man. Who but the most desperate of mortals would accept an occupation like this, which involved handling that most upsetting of all things, decaying human bodies?
He swung his leg over his mule, dismounted, and opened the lid of his wagon. Before Judith lay two human corpses thrown haphazardly one atop the other, covered with flies and worms, vulture-pecked, sickeningly malodorous, largely decomposed except for their hair, fingernails, and parts of their noses and ears. On an intact portion of one thigh, Judith recognized an ancient scar.
She covered her mouth as a shriek burst from deep within. Staggering from the corpses, sobbing, she felt a tentative hand on her back and turned to see Isaac Azoulay.
“Allow me to walk with you.”
Judith shook her head.
Walking home alone, she had to make decisions, many of them, and quickly. She had no idea how to tell Levi and Baba Shlomo. Nor did she know how they would live. Most women in her position, she knew, would hope to find a suitor. Judith had survived other losses. She had learned the virtue of patience. What she desired from marriage was more than mere survival, or even friendship.
At present, she needed to sit in Yossi’s workshop, to bathe in his presence, mourn his absence, and await an answer. She picked up some of his silver-working instruments and glanced at his account books, reflecting upon his life and hers.
When Judith was Levi’s age and Yossi was eight, they had slipped out of the Jewish quarter together, into the Arab city, so contrastingly alive with horses, jugglers, water bearers, blue-veiled women, and wealthy foreigners in plum- and saffron-colored robes. They peeked inside a mosque, where prostrate men prayed. They listened to the ballad of a troubadour who claimed to have sailed to the far edge of the world, a place utterly magical. They lost each other in the crowd at the souk, where a Malagan farmer proudly encouraged Judith to taste his dried fruits, nuts, and breads.
When she turned around, Yossi was gone. She ran the length of the street, between donkeys and goats, bags of dried beans and jars of honey, calling his name. At last she found him sitting on the ground, crying, his clothes torn and wet with blood. He refused to tell her what had happened.
The scar on his thigh never disappeared. To this day, Judith felt responsible for that injury, which now branded an inanimate chunk of flesh.
Yossi never distinguished himself in learning or business, but always maintained an attitude at once stoic and affable. The order from the Great Synagogue of Cairo, the very transaction that had led to his demise, had been a beacon of hope. He had spent weeks in this smoky, lonely chamber, twisting silver wire into intricate arabesques with the tiny pliers Judith now held in her hand, marrying these wires to cones and cylinders of silver, bending the edges into smooth lips, buffing, polishing. Judith knew that his exquisite work had been Yossi’s answer to the world’s chaos.
If only for the sake of Yossi’s memory, she had to keep his shop alive. She would nurture his legacy and offer the same quality of merchandise that her brother had produced. She would begin by filling, once again, the order from the Great Synagogue of Cairo.
And then she shook her head at her own folly. To acquire the necessary skills, not only silver-working, but adding and subtracting, reading and writing, and all that was required to transact business, would involve intensive training. To master the craft, as her brother had, would require more than training—a gift. She put down his tools and went out, shutting the door firmly.
However, five days into their period of mourning, she asked Baba Shlomo for instruction in silver crafting. They were alone in Yossi’s workshop, where she replaced pincers and hammers in their cubbies.
“That’s impossible,” replied the old man.
“Is it because I’m too old to learn, or because I’m a woman?”
“It’s because I have no desire to teach you.”
“I’ve watched Yossi for years. I’ve assisted him.” She knelt to remove ashes from the smelting oven. “We don’t have many choices. We can live on handouts, we can starve to death, or we can try to resurrect Yossi’s shop.”
“How do you think it feels?” Baba Shlomo muttered. “Losing not just my only child, and my son-in-law, but also the shop I created with these two hands? What do I have to live for, now?”
“What do you have to live for? Your grandson, Levi. That is what you have to live for. Who knows what will become of him? He’s our future, Baba Shlomo. Our hope.”
“To teach you everything … There’s so much more to it than pretty necklaces.” He wiped his face with a trembling hand. “Even putting aside your lack of qualifications, what about my lack of qualifications? I’m blind. There are few in Granada who know how to do what I once knew how to do.”
“All the more reason you should pass it on.”
Baba Shlomo turned his head slightly, as if to hear the sound of Judith breathing, of her heart beating. Judith knew that beyond his crippling grief, he understood how delicate and fragile their precious little world was.
The flowers, creeping vines, and fruit trees of Granada bloomed, a riot of yellows, whites, greens, and reds. In the workshop attached to Judith Migdal’s home, Baba Shlomo taught her to transform black stones of raw metal into finished, gleaming objects of beauty and value. He guided Judith as she fashioned a beaker, beginning with the melting of ore and the separation of molten silver, through hammering, cutting and shaping disks and wires, filing, buffing and polishing.
To purify the lumps of raw silver, Judith placed them, together with a few grains of lead, over a layer of ash in a white crucible. Baba Shlomo pumped the oven coals with bellows until they glowed brightly. Holding the crucible with tongs, Judith set it inside. The impurities and lead floated to the top of the molten silver. Judith skimmed them off with a stick. When the silver was pure, she removed the crucible, sprinkled a pinch of salt into it, and poured its contents into a hot, circular mold.
When this circle of silver cooled, she removed it from the mold, centered it on the end of an anvil, and folded it away from herself, over the anvil. She beat the metal with a round-headed hammer, striking it in soft concentric circles to an even thinness, until it took the form of a cup, then filed it inside and out and around the lip to smooth it.
“All the beauty,” Baba Shlomo told her, “will be in the details. But you can’t master the art of filigree until you learn to write.”
The waves and curls of silver that had adorned Yossi’s pieces were characters of the alphabet, spelling words like jewelry spilling over the edges of a bowl or serving dish. When the filigree did not represent letters, it resembled the distilled essence of Arabic writing. Judith longed to receive that essence, like a potion of knowledge, but it eluded her.
Although Baba Shlomo was unable to see her creations, he measured her progress by running his fingers over her work, or feeling it with his cheek.
“It’s lopsided.”
“How can I fix it?”
“If you hammer it, you’ll destroy the filigree. You’ll have to re-melt it and start all over.”
Judith took the beaker from Baba Shlomo and turned it lovingly in her hands. She dutifully picked up the mallet and began crushing the beaker, folding its sides over each other so it would fit into the crucible.
Again, Baba Shlomo stoked the flames while she held the crucible in place with long iron tongs. Because the oven was low, she had to stoop, causing her back to ache. The heat brought beads of sweat to her face. Removing the tongs from the fire, she burned her arm.
Ag
Four days later, the second beaker was finished. Baba Shlomo held it to his cheek.
“The filigree doesn’t seem right.” He felt it with his fingers. “The slope of these wires. Too wide. It’s not symmetrical.” He handed it back to her.
Judith pushed the beaker to the side, lowered her head onto her arms, and wept silently.
Dina Benatar, the mother of Levi’s friend Sara, was the only woman of Judith’s acquaintance who knew how to read and write. She had grown up in Fez, where her father exported cinnamon, ginger, pepper, “dragon’s blood,” and other spices. Like Dina, her father spoke Arabic, but when he wrote to Jewish vendors in other lands, he used a stylized Hebrew alphabet. After his brother, who was his business partner, died, he taught his daughter to write in Arabic using either Arabic or cursive Hebrew letters.
Judith offered to pay for lessons, but Dina refused compensation, saying she would relish the opportunity to spend more time with the fruit merchant’s daughter. “It will be an honor to get to know you.”
Judith laughed. “An honor?”
“You’re raising a child, taking care of an old man, learning a difficult craft. And all without a husband to provide for you.”
Stout and ungainly, wearing an elegant robe the color of robins’ eggs, she led Judith into her scriptorium to show her the work of well-known Arabic and Jewish calligraphers. “Since you’ll have both Arab and Jewish clients, you’ll have to learn both alphabets. But we’ll start with Hebrew.”
In some of her precious texts, the letters bent into each other, over each other, and through each other, forming complex geometries. In others, the words rippled, ebbed, shivered, and flowed across the page like water. For Dina, these writings were a pure, rarefied art not of the body but of the mind.
“Calligraphy is the highest art form,” Dina told Judith. “There are so many styles of writing, you can’t hope to master even a small fraction. Look at the proportions, the balance, the firm grace of the writer’s hand. The shape of the letters says almost as much as the words. They are blades of grass, bending under a spiritual breeze.”
Dina showed Judith the tools they would use: a reed pen, a knife for shaping the pen, an ink bowl. “Is this an acceptable daleth?” Judith asked, trying her best to copy Dina’s model.
“That’s good, but write from top to bottom, like this, or you’ll get in trouble later.”
At the end of every lesson, the two shared a cup of lemon water, almond milk, or pomegranate juice and spoke of matters neither broached to others. Dina’s husband, Yonatan, a spice merchant like her father, traveled almost all the time. He communicated with her as much in writing as face-to-face. Dina spoke of the frustration of raising her daughter alone. Judith talked about the unanticipated duties that had fallen upon her, her responsibility for a heartbroken child and a defeated, helpless old man, and how unprepared she felt.
After eight months of training, Judith sat beside Baba Shlomo, proudly holding a decorated silver alms box. “I’m ready.”
“You’re not ready,” the old man told her. “Ready for what?”
“To fill the order from the Great Synagogue in Cairo.”
“Too much time has passed.”
“But they deserve an explanation, and a gift.”
“How would we pay for the materials? The transportation? You’d be better off selling trays and cups in the marketplace.”
“I’ll borrow the money.”
Baba Shlomo shook his head. “Getting further into debt, just when you’re starting a new enterprise, is not good business. That’s why I said: This is not a job for a woman. Business sense, women are not known for.”
“Nevertheless,” insisted Judith, “we do owe them an explanation. And a gift.”
She borrowed three thousand dirhams from Isaac Azoulay. “My money is as safe in your hands,” the physician assured her, “as in my cabinet. Perhaps safer, since no one knows it’s there.”
“I owe you nothing, then, but the principal?” Judith wanted to establish that this loan did not imply anything beyond mere friendship.
“That is perfectly correct.”
She set about procuring the silver ore and fashioning each of the nine pieces, one at a time, comparing her models with the best she could find and adding touches to improve on them. She refashioned many of the pieces several times. Three weeks into the ordeal, exhausted, coughing, her hands chafed, she considered taking a few days off to recover her strength, then dismissed the thought.
All the while, she shopped, prepared meals, and accompanied Levi and Baba Shlomo to synagogue. More than once she asked Levi for help, but he ignored her. One battle at a time, she reflected.
With Dina she spent a week composing the letter that would accompany her gift to the Great Synagogue of Cairo. She began by describing what had happened to the previous order, what had befallen her brother and his wife, and went on to explain her decision to honor the contract again. She conveyed the respects of her rabbi to the rabbi of the Great Synagogue. Finally, she provided a brief summary of the situation in Granada. “The rattling of sabers near our borders,” she concluded, “as well as the brutal rivalry between our emir, here in Granada, and his nephew in Malaga, has all of us, Jew and Muslim alike, lying awake at night in fear.”
Dina suggested they celebrate the completion of this missive. “For once, we’re all together,” she said, glancing at the doorway. “Stay for dinner. We’ll have carrot salad, lamb, and dates stuffed with almond paste.”
“A most delicious suggestion,” came the sonorous, booming voice of Dina’s husband, Yonatan, from behind Judith. She turned to see him filling the doorway. He waved her over and hugged her, practically lifting her off the ground.
“Tell Levi and Baba Shlomo to join us,” insisted Dina. “There’s plenty for everyone.”
“All right, then. I’ll fetch them.” Judith turned to go.
“Can I walk with you?” asked Sara, Dina’s daughter, appearing from behind her father.
Exquisite, with sparkling green eyes, Sara was every bit as vivacious as Judith had been at twelve. As they walked the two blocks to Judith’s house, the girl noticed the slipper-shaped filigree pin on Judith’s dress. “Oh, I love that.”
Judith touched the slipper-pin. It had belonged to Yossi’s wife, Naomi. “Thank you. You know what’s inside?”
“There’s something inside?”
“A tiny Hebrew scroll. It has the Shema written on it.”
“How could anyone write that small?”
“Not many people can. They’re specially trained scribes. All they do is make tiny scrolls like this.”
“Does it bring luck?”
“I don’t know,” said Judith. “When I’m wearing it, there’s no way to know how lucky or unlucky I’d be if I weren’t wearing it. I’d have to live the same day twice, once without it and once with it, to really know for sure.”
Sara giggled.
Fourteen months after her brother was murdered, almost two years after the Great Synagogue of Cairo placed the order, Judith sent off her work and letter in the care of Yonatan Benatar. Unlike Judith’s late brother, Yonatan possessed not an iota of naïveté. When he traveled, he hired armed Islamic guards for protection. “Jews are good at many things,” Yonatan explained, “but wielding sabers is not one of them.”
Following so many months of study and feverish production, Judith bade good-bye to the nine pieces of silver into which she had poured her heart and her labor. She went up to her bedroom and lay down, although it was not yet evening.
The silver objects she had fashioned for the Great Synagogue of Cairo refused to leave Judith’s mind. In her imagination, she continued turning them over and upside down, running her fingertips across their surfaces. She told herself the whole project had been a wager on the direction of the wind. Yet she could not prevent he
She awoke before dawn to the sound of a child softly whimpering, or a cat mewling under the floorboards. She knew that spirits roamed the world at night. Perhaps they wanted to frighten her. She would show them she was not daunted.
Her warped door neither closed nor opened all the way. It creaked loudly as she pushed it. She followed the noise to Baba Shlomo’s room. The old man lay on his mattress, his lips slightly parted, uttering muffled, at times almost inaudible howls. Judith shook him. He opened his eyes and stared.
“Were you having a nightmare?”
He answered in the Aragonese dialect of his childhood. “A nightmare, no.”
Judith responded in the same tongue. “I could hear you from my room.”
“It was nothing. Go back to bed.”
“I won’t go back to bed,” she reverted to Arabic, “until you tell me what you were dreaming.”
“It isn’t of any importance.”
He turned onto his side. Judith waited. Finally, Baba Shlomo rolled onto his back. “My parents, of blessed memory. They were standing before me, here in this room.”
“What did they tell you?” She took his hand.
“Strange things. Things beyond my comprehension. The wind blowing over the aljama of Zaragoza, after the riots. After they died. The world beyond.”
“What about the world beyond?” She squeezed his hand.
He shook his head. “It was gibberish. Incomprehensible. Frightening.”
“It isn’t good, then,” said Judith, as if Baba Shlomo’s dream were the final word on the afterlife.
“That, I can’t say, since I couldn’t understand what they were saying.” Baba Shlomo sighed. “But I would like to visit their graves. I’ve never seen them. It’s all that’s left.”
“Go back to sleep, Baba Shlomo. We have to attend the military procession in the morning.”