Tilda's Promise

by Jean P. Moore

  “Good for you. I’m glad to see they’re still teaching about maps in school, now that you kids all have a GPS device in your pockets.”

  “Oh, I didn’t learn it in school. Well, I mean, I learned it a long time ago. My grandfather taught me. He told me about the Age of Discovery because his family was from there—Portugal, I mean. That’s why I wanted to see the maps.”

  This was news to Tilda. And she wondered why Tilly hadn’t told her.

  The elderly man explained that the maps were made from explorers’ tales of their travels. The mapmakers made them to sell to their rich clients, he said. “Getting these maps was like being first with the latest iPhone, very impressive,” he added, grinning and obviously proud of his analogy.

  “If the explorers didn’t use maps, what did they use?” asked Tilly.

  “Are you going to the virtual reality exhibit? That may answer some questions for you. And when you get home, look up Abraham Zacuto.”

  After the exhibits, Tilda and Tilly went to the cafeteria for some hot chocolate and pastries. They found a small table by a large window overlooking the park, its trees now bare, the ground mottled with patches of gray snow, lingering from the latest storm. Tilda looked at her granddaughter, who was gazing into her cup and then taking a sip. Intent on her chocolate, she reminded Tilda of days gone by, not that long ago, when she was a little girl, even then capable of great concentration. And now with her boyish short hair brushed over to one side, she looked a little like a stranger.

  Tilda had been surprised by several things on this day, the haircut the least of it. She’d known that was coming. No, it was Tilly’s interest in the maps, her desire to see them because of Harold, a wish she had not shared with Tilda. Sometimes I don’t know who she is. And this feeling of estrangement was the hardest. Did anyone really know what this child meant to her? From the day Tilly was born, Tilda had felt a love she didn’t know existed. All she knew about the experience of having grandchildren before Tilly was that people who had them were incessantly showing pictures of average-looking babies to people who didn’t really want to see them.

  But Tilly changed everything, for her and for Harold. He too was smitten. The new grandparents eagerly anticipated each visit, looked forward to babysitting. Once the young parents were gone, after what seemed like hours of instructions, the new grandparents were content to hover over the crib for hours it seemed, doing little but staring at this miracle, this sleeping baby.

  “I’ve figured it out,” said Harold one day after a long afternoon with Tilly when she was two and a handful by any measure. “It’s from some vestigial part of our brains, when the old people looked after the babies while the young ones went out hunting and gathering. They took care of the babies because their brains made a chemical that made them do it.”

  “Whatever are you talking about?” Tilda had asked.

  “How else do you explain it? I’ve been on my knees picking up Cheerios all afternoon. Why?”

  “I don’t know, Harold, but I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Maybe it took generations for the love potion to work, to ensure the survival of the species.”

  “It’s a love potion now.”

  “I think so.”

  “Okay.”

  Some time later they laughed when Tilda came across an article online entitled, “Grandparents and the Love Hormone.”

  “You were right,” Tilda told Harold. “Your love potion is a hormone the brain makes when you’re in love. Apparently, it works for grandparents, too. It says, ‘The role of oxytocin is particularly important to ensure that grandparents bond with their grandchildren.’ How did you know? You’re an accountant, not a psychologist.”

  Harold joined her at the computer, the blue light shining in his eyes, and said, “Huh. Look at that. I just figured there was something going on, so the love potion theory.”

  “Well, I’m impressed,” she had said.

  Tilly was still drinking her hot chocolate in silence.

  “Til . . . Harper,” she said. “I didn’t know you and Grandpa talked about the Age of Discovery—and that was the reason you wanted to see the maps. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t think about telling you, but I didn’t mean not to tell you?”

  Tilda noticed the question that was not a question, the inflection most kids her age used but that Tilly did not, usually.

  “Does that make sense?” Tilly said, fidgeting a little in her seat.

  “Well, sure, I guess. I mean, it must’ve been a very personal memory for you, then.”

  “Yes, exactly,” said Tilly.

  Tilly seemed relieved to have had an explanation handed to her, and Tilda let it go. “How did you like the virtual reality?” Tilly asked.

  “I liked it, but it made me dizzy.”

  Tilly laughed. “I know, I don’t get dizzy, but it was weird when it moved around a lot. I loved it,” she said, her eyes wide. “I mean, it’s so big.” She paused to clear a catch in her throat. “It’s almost scary—the whole sky with so many stars, and you have to figure out where you are—and where you want to go. It seems so unreal.”

  Tilly’s eyes narrowed. “But it was good, Grandma. I enjoyed it. Thanks.” Then she went back to her hot chocolate, now nearly gone.

  Tilda wondered what was going on behind those green eyes, whose shading seemed to go from light to dark with each new thought.

  That night, after the museum outing, Harper put her plate in the sink and asked if it would be all right if she went to her room.

  “Everything okay?” asked Laura.

  “Yes,” she answered. “I have a project for school I should work on.” Once in her room, she shut her door and kicked off her sneakers. She grabbed the laptop on her desk and sat down with it on the edge of her bed. She looked up the Age of Discovery and scrolled through a few sites, some showing maps like the ones at the museum and like the ones her grandfather had shown her. Without reading much, she closed the lid and lay back on a pillow, one arm crossed over her head, the other over her heart.

  She was ten when he had pulled out an old cardboard box stored in her grandmother’s office, way in the back of the closet. “These were mine when I was a kid, not much older than you, Tilly,” he told her. “These are like Wikipedia, only books, I guess you could say.” They were old encyclopedias, he told her. “These were what students used to do research back in my day.”

  She remembered going into the living room with him. He was carrying one book, “P, for Portugal,” he told her, opening to that page when they sat down. She snuggled in under one arm and nestled against his chest as he began to read to her. She felt warm and safe and happy as he read to her, his voice deep yet soft, she remembered.

  “‘Portugal, under Prince Henry the Navigator, dominated the high seas and ushered in the Age of Discovery. Desirous of discovering new trade routes, the prince was determined to reach the Indies by sea, although no explorer had yet proved such a route existed.’

  “Was it possible? If it could be done, there would be riches beyond your wildest dreams, all from spices. Nutmeg, worth its weight in gold. Pepper, cinnamon, cloves—they all were valuable, like rubies, emeralds, and pearls,” he said, nudging Tilly, as though asking her to imagine it. “Bet you didn’t know that once upon a time pepper was as valuable as jewels,” he said before continuing to read to her.

  “‘The prince encouraged exploration along the western coast of Africa, longing to know what lay to the east, around the Cape of Good Hope. . . . Prince Henry died in 1460, the trade route to India not yet found.’

  “And who would finally discover the open-water route to India? Do you know, Tilly?” She put a finger to her closed lips and thought hard before shaking her head no.

  “It was Vasco da Gama,” he said.

  “Oh, I remember. We studied him and Christopher Columbus,” she said.

  “But he was the first to get beyond Africa, to get into open water off Africa’s east coast.
See, look,” he said, tracing the map in the book with his finger down the west coast of Africa, around the cape, and out into the Indian Ocean. He stopped tracing the route near the southwestern edge of India. “That’s where he landed, somewhere around here, not far from the place where he would meet with the Indian king about the spices. It was an amazing discovery. But Prince Henry didn’t live to see it. He sure was ahead of his time, though.”

  “How did he do it, when nobody else could?” Tilly had asked.

  “Da Gama? He had new tools to guide him, better maps, and new ways to navigate by the stars,” her grandfather had replied.

  Of course. She was jolted from her dreamlike state and sat up with a start. It was celestial navigation, but there was something new, new ways to do it. She remembered the man in the library and the name he had given her.

  She reached for her laptop and looked up Abraham Zacuto.

  Chapter Twelve

  THE AGE OF DISCOVERY

  The pool at the women’s Y in Water Haven was a thing of beauty. It was glass enclosed, full of light, and warm as summer on this January day. Swimming there in the winter reminded Tilda of her days at the beach in Miami. As she was emerging from the pool after a satisfying morning swim, she had a thought: instead of stopping for tea at the Y’s café as she usually did, she would rush home to look at the calendar she had marked in the kitchen, which had the dates for Tilly’s winter break.

  As soon as she got home, she checked the dates and called her daughter. “Laura,” she said, breathless with enthusiasm, “Harper’s February break is coming up. What do you think she would say to taking a trip with her grandmother, to Portugal?”

  There was absolute silence on the other side of the phone, after an initial gasp.

  First came some redundant questioning: “To where? Portugal? When? Her winter break?” Then Laura asked an essential question: “Why?” To which Tilda replied with what she was certain were the essential reasons: “Because she was so interested in the museum’s exhibit on the Age of Discovery. Because I think it would be educational.”

  When Laura’s “uh-huh” let it be known she was not convinced, Tilda realized she wasn’t convinced by her answers, either.

  “And because I think it would be good for her to explore her roots . . . because she’s interested in Portugal . . . because of her grandfather.”

  With this, Laura’s questioning became more practical, if not less full of doubt.

  “She doesn’t even have a passport.”

  “It can be expedited.”

  “She has schoolwork during the break.”

  “She can work on the plane.”

  “She can’t miss her therapy sessions.”

  “It’s just one week and two weekends.”

  “Maybe she won’t want to go.”

  “Let’s ask her at Friday night dinner.”

  “Well, what do you think, Harper? Would you like to go?” asked Laura at Shabbat dinner that Friday, looking first at Tilly and then at Tilda, who had arrived an hour earlier with a warm challah from the local bakery. They had just finished the blessing and had begun to eat when Laura could wait no longer and blurted out her question.

  “Me, go to Portugal with Grandma over the break?” asked Tilly, eyes wide.

  Her eyes filled with tears. “I can’t believe it. Yes! I’d love it. Thank you, Grandma,” she said, rushing to Tilda and throwing her arms around her.

  So it was decided. Tilda’s heart swelled every time she relived her granddaughter’s joy when she heard the news about Portugal. Tilda went into high gear to make the trip a reality. The Friday night of the dinner, Tilda had gone to bed renewed with hope for the future. She dreamed that she had presented her granddaughter with a passport with the name Harper Jordan written next to her picture. When Tilda woke up, she knew she could not make the dream a reality—that would take a legal name change—but there was one thing she could do. She could set the name Tilly aside as a memory of the past and from that day forward know in her heart that her granddaughter was Harper.

  Tilda was able to arrange for an expedited passport. She made the flight and hotel arrangements, but it was George who had researched tour guides and had found Paulo Mendez. Tilda became convinced he would be the right guide for her granddaughter after reading the reviews on TripAdvisor. He received high marks for his “sensitivity and ability to relate to teens.” After several attempts, she was able to reach him by phone. He listened intently and told her he had a trip coming up that would fit in with her dates. “I think I can make this trip special for your granddaughter, Harper,” he had said. That had sealed the deal as far as Tilda was concerned.

  Tilda didn’t mention anything about their history, the death of Harold, or about Harper’s recent change in identity, but she liked Paulo and felt she could trust him to be as sensitive as his reviews had indicated.

  They would be on a trip with five others, an older couple and another couple traveling with their adult daughter. The itinerary would take them from Lisbon to Sintra, then north to Porto, then south again to Évora, before heading back to Lisbon.

  “Since she is interested in history, I’m sure she will enjoy this trip,” Paulo had emailed Tilda, as follow-up to their phone conversation.

  Tilda wrote back, “We will be there.”

  The passport arrived. Packing decisions were made. If they were lucky, the temperature would be in the fifties and sixties, the sky sunny. If not, it would rain and be cloudy, with temperatures in the forties. “Pack rain gear, a jacket, and several sweaters,” Tilda had told Harper.

  The tearful Laura of her childhood returned at JFK’s international departures terminal. It was a cold Friday night, threatening to snow, but there were no travel alerts from Delta, so it looked as though there would be no delays.

  “Don’t worry,” said Tilda, reaching into her coat pocket for a tissue to hand to Laura.

  Mark put his arm around Laura, now blowing her nose into the tissue, and gave her a tight reassuring hug. He seemed to be stifling some tears himself.

  “Harper, say good-bye to your mom and dad before they dissolve into a puddle,” Tilda said, hoping to lighten the moment.

  “I’ll text you every day,” Harper said, hugging them before reaching for her bag and backpack.

  “We’ll be fine,” said Tilda as she and Harper walked toward the departures entrance.

  On the plane, Harper sat near the window, although it was too dark to see anything. After takeoff, she began digging into her backpack.

  Seeing a textbook among her things, Tilda asked, “Are you really going to do homework?”

  Harper looked at her. “It’s not really homework, Grandma. It’s my reading from the AP list. Mom made me pack it.”

  She handed the book to Tilda, who began to leaf through it.

  It’s pretty big, isn’t it? But Moby Dick is a great book. I didn’t think they read the classics much these days,” she said, handing it back.

  “It’s not required. It’s for extra credit, but you know Mom.”

  They both laughed, and Harper put the book away. “Maybe on the way back, but not now. I’m too excited.”

  “Oh, that’s good. You had me worried there for a minute. What teenager does extra-credit reading at the beginning of her first trip to Europe?”

  Harper laughed again and took her iPad out of her bag. “I downloaded a bunch of movies,” she said, putting her earphones in.

  “Good idea,” said Tilda. And a good idea, this trip, Tilda said to herself, hopeful, as she closed her eyes and let her head fall back onto the headrest.

  Almost nine hours later, in a daze and jet-lagged, the pair checked into the Hotel Santa Justa near the historic elevator that separated lower and upper Lisbon and that rose almost 150 feet in the air. The hotel was near Rossio Square, where the group would begin its tour in the morning. In spite of the convenient location, and though they had the rest of the day ahead of them, Tilda and Harper were in desperate need of so
me rest, which turned into a very long nap. They wandered around in the late afternoon and had a light dinner at the hotel before showering and going to bed, though neither of them slept very well.

  “You snore, Grandma,” complained Harper.

  “I’m sorry, but can you stop pulling the covers off and hitting me every time you turn over?” asked Tilda.

  They were a little cranky by the time they met Paulo and the group in the lobby in the morning, but the sun was shining and it promised to be a seasonably warm day in the sixties.

  Maybe it was the pattern of waves in the black-and-white limestone pavement in the square (the “Largo Mar,” or “wide sea,” effect), or maybe it was lack of proper sleep, but by the time Tilda and Harper and the tour group sat down for lunch at several tables under the awning at the Café Nicola, Harper was looking a little peaked.

  “Are you okay?” Tilda asked, pushing a glass of water in her direction after the waiter had taken their order.

  “I’m okay. Really. I’m fine,” she said.

  Tilda put Harper’s reticence off to her reluctance to talk in front of Paulo and the others. The elderly couple were from Chicago, John and Sandra, probably in their early eighties but already proving to be tireless walkers; the other couple were Mitch and Connie, traveling with their unmarried daughter, Louisa, who appeared to be about thirty and who was very quiet.

  Paulo, the guide, probably in his mid-thirties, seemed a little worried that Harper wasn’t looking too happy, but Tilda had hope that his ability as a tour guide would include his lauded skill in recognizing and handling the moodiness and sensitivities of teenagers. And he had already shown promise that morning, quickly noticing that Harper, with her short hair and wearing no makeup, baggy jeans, and a loose-fitting white shirt under a shapeless brown cardigan, was defying easy gender identification.

  “And, Harper, tell us something about you and your interests,” he had asked during the morning introductions. When she replied slowly and quietly, “I don’t know. I’m a dancer. I guess that’s all,” he didn’t jump to conclusions.