Church bells clang as heavy flakes of snow drift to the stones of the plaza and melt under our feet. It is almost five years later—the sixth of January, 1492, the Feast of the Epiphany. We knew that the Caliphate of Granada would not survive Ferdinand and Isabella’s resolve to destroy it, but the reality stuns us. Granada has fallen. The Catholic Majesties have entered the city and settled themselves in the Alhambra.
For years, a civil war raged in Granada between two rivals for the caliph’s throne. Their armies were so busy inflicting damage on each other that the border slowly inched in, as one village after another was claimed by Spain.
When, after a long siege and great bloodshed, the port city of Málaga fell to the Spanish army, the last supply route for the Caliphate was cut off. Renegados, Christians who converted to Islam and fought for the Caliphate, were tied to stakes while mounted Castilian soldiers used them for target practice, throwing spears made of cane stalks into their bodies. Every Muslim—old and young, male and female—became a prisoner of war. Those who could not pay ransom were sold as slaves.
All the conversos were burned at the stake. There were no accusations, no trials. Being anusim was enough to warrant death. The Jews were all taken prisoner, and of course, we ransomed them.
I have had one thing on my mind since the fall of Granada. Where is Jamil? Is his family safe? There are so many valiant men among the Muslim dead, and I know he would prefer to be one of them than live with dishonor in a defeated Granada.
For the Jews of Spain, there’s not much in the fall of Granada to celebrate. As the Inquisition drags on, the mood of the country has become more hostile. Absurd stories inflame hatred against us. In LaGuardia, a Jew was burned at the stake, accused of having participated in the crucifixion of a four-year-old boy. Though there was no evidence the boy ever existed, under torture, the poor man admitted all sorts of vile acts, and he died for no other reason than being a Jew with the bad luck to have come to the authorities’ attention.
As Judah and I watch people dancing around bonfires on this winter day, we stand at the top of our street so we can escape quickly if the celebration turns hostile. Though the townspeople seem joyous today, there’s no way to know about tomorrow. The church has always fanned hatred, and the monarchs have beaten it down, insisting Jews are their property and demanding the rule of law.
Ferdinand and Isabella are friendly to the Abravanel men, both Isaac and Judah. I would go so far as to say they are sincerely fond of them. They behave the same toward Abraham Seneor and his brother, who have been financiers and royal advisers for decades. Seneor is the chief tax collector for Castile and one of the wealthiest men in Spain, owning houses, estates, and land throughout the country. His family and ours are among the few exempt from the restrictions on Jews, and though the Abravanels don’t flaunt their wealth, Seneor lives in a mansion in Segovia and travels like royalty with a retinue of thirty servants and guards.
Secretly we wonder whether Seneor’s wealth and power has made him drift too far from his people. He’s the official court rabbi, the supreme judge of Jewish law in Spain, appointed not by Jews but by the crown. He’s friendly with the most rabid Jew-haters at court, and recently he bought a house for next to nothing after its Judaizing owner died at the stake.
I give my grandson a sidelong glance. He’s twenty-nine years old and a physician—a royal physician no less, for when the king or queen are here, he attends them. Judah is the most striking member of our family, although, as with all Jewish men, his face is covered with a beard. His nose and cheekbones give him the appearance of a hawk, and from a distance, he has the fierce look of an ancient prophet.
Close in, the ferocity vanishes. He has the same gentle ways I remember in the Judah for whom he is named. He is a worthy successor to his father Isaac, and with the birth last year of his first child—named Isaac like his grandfather, according to our custom—he has begun to ease into his role as the future patriarch of the family.
“What do you think will happen now?” I ask him.
He shrugs. “Isabella promises to unite all Spain as a Christian country,” he says, looking across the plaza. “These people won’t be thinking any more about Muslims in some little part of the south they’ve never seen. They’ll be thinking about the Jews in their midst now.”
“Anusim, you mean.”
“It’s beyond that. Ferdinand and Isabella want to be popular—and they are at the moment, because of Granada. But this popularity won’t last beyond their first big mistake, and I suspect Torquemada is trying to convince them that allowing Jews in Spain is just that.”
“Allowing us? We’ve been here forever!” I splutter with astonishment. “Surely they can’t hope to convert us, not after we’ve seen how they treat the anusim. How else will they get rid of us? Kill us? Make us leave?”
“They expelled all the Jews of Andalusia. That didn’t make sense either.” Judah takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly through his nose, a habit when he is thinking. “I think we’re safe, though. Jews pay more taxes than anyone. Just our family adds millions of maravedis to the treasury every year. The king and queen may wish we were Christians, but I suspect they’re resigned to letting us be what we are.”
The bonfires bathe the square in a golden glow as evening settles in. The falling snow fills my mind with images of ash fluttering over corpses tied to stakes.
“But you never know,” Judah says. “You never know.” He looks at me. “You’re shivering, Nonna. Let me take you home.”
***
The winter of 1492 passes uneventfully in a euphoric Spain. Bards compose poems extolling Ferdinand and Isabella, nobles claim their spoils, and churches fill with music praising God for the victory. Even the Inquisition seems to die down as the country celebrates. Then, the thunderbolt.
Shortly before Passover, Isaac arrives unexpectedly in Alcalá, his face ruddy from his gallop through a cold rain. It is Friday, and although he left Guadalajara at dawn to make sure to arrive before the beginning of Shabbat, the roads are muddy, and he gets here with only a few minutes to spare.
“Where’s Judah?” he asks without greeting us.
“At the synagogue for the minyan,” Judah’s wife Samra says. We look at each other, puzzled.
“Isaac, what’s wrong?” I ask.
“I must find Judah.”
“My daughter—” I insist, grabbing his sleeve as he heads for the door. “Is she all right?”
“Eliana is fine. She and our sons will be coming here when Shabbat is over.” Isaac pulls his arm away and leaves without saying more.
We stare at the closed door and then at each other. Isaac is mild and contemplative, rarely abrupt, and I am astonished that his behavior toward me would ever cross over into rudeness, as it just had. “What in the world…?” I ask, my voice tinny with concern.
“We’ll know soon enough.” Samra holds her year-old son Isaac in one arm and lays out silverware with the other. “They have to be back before sundown when we light the candles.” Though she is only twenty, Judah’s wife amazes me. I know many women who would be out in the cold right now, beseeching Isaac to share the news right then before they died on the spot of worry. Not Samra. She’s strong and resilient, taking the bad and the good with an even temperament. What women we have in this family, I think, and what a lucky man Judah is to have such a wife.
“We’ll know, unless your father-in-law decides that the news will disturb the Sabbath, and he makes us wait until tomorrow.”
“Would he do that?” Underneath her calm, I can see she is worried.
“I suppose he knows our Sabbath peace is already disturbed by whatever brought him here,” I reply. “I imagine he’ll tell us.”
Leah and Hadassah’s families arrive for the evening meal before Isaac and Judah return. The children get out the Shabbat box, which is filled with special toys, while we tell the women about the unexpected visit.
“What could be so bad?” Hadassah wonders, holdi
ng up her pregnant belly with her hands. “The church bells would be tolling if the king or queen were dead.”
We hear men’s voices outside, and Judah opens the door. Isaac comes in next, followed by Leah’s and Hadassah’s husbands. They scrape the mud from their boots and rub the soles on the fresh straw by the door, studiously avoiding the anxious faces of the women.
“Tell us, Isaac,” I demand. “We’re faint with worry.”
Isaac shakes his head. “Shabbat will not wait for us. Samra must light the candles.”
Samra’s arms tremble as she puts the flame to the wick, and Leah comes to her side to help her finish the ceremony. After the last child has received its father’s blessing, we turn to Isaac.
“I will share my news before we bless the wine and bread. Then we will have our dinner as if nothing has happened. Shabbat is a time of joy. Is it agreed?”
We all nod. The children, sensing the mood, have not drifted off as usual. The youngest beg to be picked up, and the older ones nestle in their mother’s skirts. Nita, now twelve, comes to stand by my chair and puts her hand on my shoulder.
Isaac pulls a piece of folded paper from his jacket. “I spent several hours copying this last night,” he says. “Cardinal Mendoza received it yesterday. It won’t take long for the news to spread, and since people look to our family to lead them, I thought you all should know about it first, rather than being surprised in the street.”
I see Judah’s lips moving in silent prayer.
“It’s an edict of expulsion,” Isaac says. “Ferdinand and Isabella have given the Jews four months to leave Spain.”
I’m not sure what happens next. The room swims in front of my eyes, and my mind goes blank. When I can focus again, Leah and Samra are sobbing in each other’s arms, and Hadassah has been helped to a chair to keep her pregnant body from collapsing to the floor. Baby Isaac is screaming, and Nita is doing her best to comfort him until Samra is ready to take him again.
Isaac is speaking. “They say the only way to save the anusim is to get rid of the Jews.” He consults the paper in his hand. “‘They steal faithful Christians and subvert them to their own wicked belief and conviction,’” he reads, “‘persuading them to observe the law of Moses, and convincing them that there is no other law or truth except for that one.’”
He lets out a deep sigh before continuing. “‘We commanded them to leave Andalusia, but neither that step nor the passing of sentence against the guilty has been sufficient remedy. So there will be nowhere to further offend our holy faith and by diabolical astuteness wage war against us, we must banish the Jews from our kingdoms.’”
“Four months,” Samra whispers. “When we’ve been here for centuries.” She looks down at her son, who is calm now and growing droopy-eyed at her breast. “What has this baby done to them? What have any of us done?”
Isaac holds up his hand. “Enough! Talk will change nothing. The king and queen will listen to reason. We must have faith in that. I have already written to Abraham Seneor asking him to go with me to try to persuade them.”
“Dinner smells delicious,” Judah tells Samra, “and Father has been riding all day.” His shoulders are squared and his voice is unwavering, but even as an adult, my beloved first grandchild cannot hide his fear from me.
He helps me to the table. “Look at me,” I command him, but he will not.
***
Hadassah’s baby comes into the world scarlet and howling. He roots at his mother’s breast and falls asleep quickly, while we admire his thick black hair and beautiful features wordlessly, to fool the Evil Eye. Isaac and Judah miss the circumcision because they are still at Madrigal, where Ferdinand and Isabella are currently in residence, but our celebration has added joy, for they have sent word that the edict has been temporarily suspended.
“Ferdinand wants time to think it over,” Judah writes. “Father spoke as I imagine Moses must have, and I could not help but smile at the thought that the Holy One has so inspired him that this time, the pharaoh may be persuaded to let our people stay rather than go.”
From Madrigal, Judah and Isaac travel from court to court, soliciting nobles to support the lifting of the edict. The next we hear is from Guadalajara, where Isaac has returned to discuss the situation with his patron.
“Cardinal Mendoza thinks we are wasting our time,” Isaac writes. “Ferdinand may yet be swayed, but only by money. I am willing to offer our family treasure, confident that the Jews of Spain will repay us if we are successful, but Mendoza tells me Ferdinand is unlikely to accept such tribute. Taking money to let the Jews stay might make people think their majesties care more about gold than Christ.”
Are the Abravanels to be poor again? At least this time, it would be our choice and, knowing our men, it would not be for long. The women discuss these things as we work together to ready each of our homes for Passover. My job is to watch little Isaac, who is just learning to walk and must be kept from underfoot. No wonder I feel something special for him. He is the first son of my first grandson—the boy who, if it is God’s plan, will carry on the family legacy. He’s a beautiful child, with his father’s dark eyes and his mother’s calmness, and of course I am sure he is the smartest baby in all Castile.
When we finish the other houses, we return home to clean our own. Samra goes into the study to dust the bookshelves, while Eliana heads for the kitchen. I take Isaac into the courtyard, turn him on his belly at the fountain, and laugh with him as he splashes his chubby fingers in the water.
When he starts to fuss, I bring him inside. The house is unnaturally quiet, and I find Eliana and Samra in the study weeping. “We were talking about how we may be doing this for the last time here,” Eliana says.
“I don’t think I can bear it,” Samra whispers. “I started moving Judah’s books to dust underneath them, and I thought—” She dissolves into tears on Eliana’s bosom.
“Do you remember cleaning before we left Queluz?” I ask my daughter. “We did it for—” I think a moment. “For the sacredness of it. I was touching everything like a blind person, using my hands to print that house in my memory.” I shut my eyes. “And that’s what happened. I can call that house up in my mind right now, to every last detail, as if I will open my eyes and be standing in it.”
I stroke Samra’s shoulder. “It may be our family’s lot to lose everything again, but let me show you how to keep from saying good-bye.”
***
Isaac and Judah arrive home the day before Passover with news we don’t want to hear. Ferdinand turned down Isaac’s money. “The only glimmer of hope,” he says over supper, “is that the edict is still suspended. Apparently they aren’t sure what to do.”
“He says Isabella feels more strongly than he does,” Judah adds. “If we can convince her, Ferdinand says he will go along.”
Isaac and Judah will be here only for the first two days of Passover, before going back to Madrigal to see Isabella. “Perhaps all this time, we’ve been talking to the wrong person,” Judah says.
Isaac strokes his silver beard. “And then again, perhaps the king’s dinner was waiting, and he just wanted to get rid of us.” He thinks for a moment. “Torquemada has his claws sunk into her. It’s hard to imagine getting much help there.”
Samra and Eliana get up to clear the table, but Isaac asks me to stay behind. “Isabella reminded me that you had been her tutor years ago. I don’t think she liked realizing so much time has passed that you have a thirty-year-old grandson.”
“The queen’s a grandmother herself.”
“Yes, but I suppose even queens wonder where the years have gone. She said she’d like to see you and Eliana again, and I think she meant it.”
“Why don’t the two of you come with us to Madrigal?” Judah asks. “Perhaps if she sees the fate she’s decreed for an old friend, she might decide she doesn’t want to go through with it.”
“I’m sixty-six,” I tell them. “Why can’t Eliana go for both of us?” I can see Judah’s
idea taking hold in Isaac’s mind, and my heart sinks. He’s going to tell me to do it for the Jews. He’ll say how much his bones have ached from these weeks of traveling and make me feel guilty for not being willing to suffer the same way for our people.
But he doesn’t. “If you don’t think you can do it, that’s the end of it,” Isaac says. Still, I know they are disappointed, and I go to bed wondering if I can bring myself to take on such a journey even if they aren’t going to ask.
***
We have just doused the flame from the habdalah candle at the end of Shabbat a few weeks later when there is a bang on the door. Judah opens it to see a soldier of the Santa Hermandad, the Inquisition’s police. “You are ordered to come to the synagogue,” he barks. “His Reverence Tomás de Torquemada will speak to you there.” The guard looks over Judah’s shoulder. “All the Jews must come.”
Isaac stands in the doorway, shaking a fist and thundering at the soldier sauntering down the street. “What is this about, that you disturb the peace of the Sabbath?” It’s not really true—Shabbat ended the moment the candle was put out—but Isaac does like dramatic effects. Besides, it doesn’t really end like that. Shabbat lingers, even as we get back to the ordinary work of cleaning dishes and stoking fires.
“We should refuse to go,” Eliana says. “Torquemada has power only over Christians.”
Judah shakes his head. “It’s unwise to provoke him, especially with the king and queen pondering our fate.” He’s right of course. We throw on our shawls and go out into the damp chill of the early spring night.
Upstairs, the women’s gallery is so crowded we can hardly breathe. Eliana, my granddaughters, and great-granddaughters are squeezed against the rail, looking down. A buzz grows among the men, and they turn to see the Grand Inquisitor’s guards clearing a path toward the tebah. Torquemada’s burning eyes, obscured by his hood, look out from under thick eyebrows. Dangling on his chest is a massive silver crucifix, the only thing distinguishing him from the two priests flanking him.
He ascends the steps of the tebah and, tossing back his hood, he glowers at the crowd. His flattened, lumpy nose disfigures his face, and his bald pate, fringed with a circle of dark hair, looks oily in the golden light of the lamps.
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