The Ghost of Hannah Mendes

by Naomi Ragen

  We drove to the Cathedral São Vincente de Fora. The King, Queen, and Court were in attendance. Gowns and jewels glittered in the sun, blinding me as I stepped down, looking for Francisco.

  He had come on horseback. I could see the black mare gleam with sweat as she cantered to a stop, her gold caparison dazzling in the morning light. I was almost afraid to look at him, my heart was so full of fears. And yet his unseen gaze compelled me.

  Oh, my Francisco. My love. An emperor triumphant never sat so tall, nor commanded more honest homage from all he surveyed! But he was too far away for me to read the message in his eyes, to decipher the expression on his face. He quickly disappeared inside the great, wide doors.

  Soon I would be his wife. A sudden stirring of confidence and joy replaced my dire imaginings. The love I would give him would so fill him to the brim that he would have neither desire, nor need, to seek another.

  My father walked beside me as the mighty organ blasts stormed the air, filling the immense space with sound. Up ahead, beyond the sacristy, dressed in his finest sacred robes, the King’s own confessor waited patiently to perform the marriage ceremony.

  To another, the magnificent artistry and somber majesty of the cathedral would have been a precious gift, uplifting the spirit and ennobling the soul for the holy ceremony that was to follow. For myself, it could have been so only if I denied my blood and forgot my past.

  Never had the duplicity of my double life been more vivid or more degrading than at that moment. I could feel neither the spirit of my grandmother, my mother, nor any one of my ancestors beside me as I walked toward my beloved down the long nave beneath the vaulted cathedral transepts. I tried to focus on my beloved, to erase the bejeweled altar with its great bronze candlesticks, diamond-studded monstrance, and reliquary triptych. To forget that it would be here, amid those graven images that were an anathema to my heart and spirit, that I would pledge my most sacred troth.

  At last, I reached him. I felt his hand take mine and hold it. And suddenly, I felt his finger trace my palm. At first it seemed a random caress. But then he repeated it, more insistently, and I realized he was writing letters. The more I concentrated, the clearer those letters became: aleph, daled, nune and yud, the Hebrew letters making up the name of the G-d of Abraham. The G-d who had written in that tome delivered to Abraham’s descendants—those former slaves, that stubborn, desert-wandering people: “For thou art a holy people unto G-d, thy G-d, and thee hath G-d chosen to be a people belonging exclusively unto Him, out of all the people that are on the face of the earth…”

  Quick tears came to my eyes.

  The voice of the priest was chanting above us:

  Sanctificetur nomen tuum, in nobis: humilitatis, obedientiae et charitatis tuae spiritu; et te in eucharistia cognosci, adorari at amari ab omnibus faciamus humiles et devoti….

  I looked up at Francisco. Somewhere, sometime, our eyes vowed to each other: We shall relive this day. We shall enter a synagogue, and climb up to the tevah and stand beneath the prayer shawl, and hear the hakham say in the ancient language of our fathers: “Soon may you hear in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of joy and gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who makes the bridegroom to rejoice with the bride.”

  My knees ached and the diadem that crowned my head felt as sharp as thorns. And all at once I understood why my grandparents had abandoned centuries of wealth and position, accepting those dreadful and never-imagined horrors that are the fate of the exile. Wealth without liberty is worthless. For the largest castle surrounded by drawbridges and barbicans cannot give one sanctuary if one’s heart melts with fear within. And even the rarest and sweetest old wine becomes poison if poured down one’s throat with force. True wealth is freedom, the power to live in harmony with the deepest desires of one’s soul.

  As the ceremony ended and the cathedral bells began to peal, Francisco took my hand and we hurried down the long, dark aisles. Swiftly, he lifted me into our carriage, closing the coach door behind us.

  I wept.

  He called me “my bride of gladness,” whispering the words almost fiercely, and cupping my cheek with his palm to wipe away my tears. “Now,” he said, “you will understand my need for wealth. It is not for gaudy baubles, or even vast estates. It is simply for power, for us and for all Gente da Nação. Only wealth, and nothing else, can keep us safe until we can shed this masquerade and join our people openly. One day, Gracia, you and I and all our children and their children shall pretend no more. Upon my life, I swear it!”

  And I asked him: “When?”

  He looked at me with a strange smile and said: “It has already begun.”

  It was only much later that I discovered the shocking truth behind that smile.

  Later, in the windowless passageways beneath his house, Father quickly read the ketuba, drawn by the Hebrew scribe according to the Law of Moses. And in that marriage contract, my name was enscribed as Hannah Nasi and my husband’s as Semach Benveniste. My father read the seven benedictions. After each, we answered, “Amen.” I removed the jeweled ring that Francisco had placed upon my finger just hours before. Peering into my eyes in the shadows, Francisco murmured: “Haray at mekudeshet li b’tabat zu ki daath Moshe V’Yisrael.” And then he took the gold band and slipped it once again upon my forefinger.

  We took the cup and sipped the wine. How sweetly it went down our throats! Then, to my surprise, and my father’s clear approval, Francisco smashed the empty glass upon the floor at our feet. “It is a reminder,” my father explained, “of the destruction of our temple and our exile.”

  I did not need to be reminded.

  My marriage to Francisco Mendes began in the way of all good fairy tales: with castles, and golden coaches, and jewels beyond compare. The home to which he brought me was vast and imposing, a fine stone castle rivaled only by the apartments of the King himself. There were enough servants to have formed a small army, should we have found ourselves under siege: porters and packers, wheelbarrowers, reapers, coopers, tailors, furriers, bakers, butchers, shoemakers, candlemakers, blacksmiths. Not to mention a harem of ladies’ maids, cooks, and serving girls.

  “Francisco!” I begged him in dismay. “What am I to do all day?”

  He laughed. “You, my dear, are the general of this army.”

  “Don’t mock me! How shall they listen to me, and I half their age?!”

  He looked at me quite seriously, taking my hands in his. “Gracia, my beloved. Do you remember what I told you? An increase in wealth brings an increase in power. With your vigilance, our properties shall increase in value and expand in size. You must be sure there is no waste, and that our hand is ever open to the needy, for the generous hand is not cut off. In all we do we must commend G-d’s blessing.”

  And so, I set to my tasks, grateful for once for my aunt’s tortures. It was my job to see that the house was in repair, the bread baked, the corn grown and ground for meal. Meat needed to be salted and stored, and the salt supply kept adequate. Clothing for the household needed to be spun and sewed. And in Francisco’s absences, which were numerous, I had to be prepared to fight his lawsuits, collect his taxes, and ransom him (G-d forfend!) should the need arise.

  For all these tasks, I found that I needed a cool head and a clever tongue that knew how to caress as well as lash. And I began to realize that while strength of body and natural power were given to Adam, Eve’s understanding and her careful eye gave her equal power. There was more than one way to rule.

  My husband’s long absences were the bane of my existence. Each time he voyaged farther and farther. My heart was sorely tried as I endured the lonely nights. How great was my joy at his return, the sound of his footsteps running up the hard granite steps to our chamber were to me a gift of princely tribute.

  I tried not to complain. I understood that he labored not simply to multiply castellanos and gold doubloons, but to win us that secret, priceless
gift for which our souls did yearn. Soon, the household was running like one of my husband’s four-masted square rigs with the wind at its back.

  I was as hard as nails with the tradesmen who short-weighted our goods, and exacting with housemaids who neglected their duties. Yet, I remembered always to pay a man or a woman their wages on time and in good measure, and did not hold a tight fist around a just reward. And if anyone of my household fell ill, I tended to them as if they were my very kin. I won thereby their loyalty, if not their love.

  Soon, the household was not enough for me.

  “Please,” I begged my husband, seeing how wearily he returned from his exhausting journeys to the East, “let me help you in your business as well.”

  Another man would have laughed. Francisco looked at me thoughtfully and closed the door of his study. He began to explain to me the intricacies of the pepper trade, which was about to make him the richest man in Europe.

  He described the vast triangle of the central Indian Deccan Plateau that stretched from the Vindhya Mountains in the north to Cape Comorin in the south; the narrow, fertile lowlands along the coast, the rolling Ghat Mountains, whose rugged peaks rise to nine thousand feet. Between the mountains, streams and rivers flow down to the lush tropical forests, overflowing with rice and coconuts, that fringe the Arabian Sea.

  How beautiful it was there! Francisco said quietly, describing the green and golden treetops, the flashes of brilliant, sunlit mist swirling down from the hillsides. It was the kingdom of Krishna Diva Raya, or as he was better known, the Pepper King, who ruled supreme over that wild coastal area. Just to reach the fields, one had to have the permission of the rulers of the neighboring fiefdoms, who demanded tributes in the form of foodstuffs, cloth, and finely worked tools. And then there were the Jammkar: the landowners, rajahs, and Brahmins who rented out the land to small farmers for a sum of money and a two-thirds share of the crop.

  It was a pity, Francisco said. The farmers who did the work were so poor that some were even forced to sell or barter their entire share of the crop to middlemen for paltry sums or a bit of cotton cloth.

  They were a villainous group, these middlemen; Francisco scowled. Even if the crop failed, they demanded to be paid in full, asking not the price they paid, but the full price of the ripened crop at its worth at the ports! And if the harvest was good, the middlemen took it by cart or ox or riverboat to the coast and sold it for a hundred times their cost. It was terrible how those men fleeced the poor growers!

  And I suddenly said, “Francisco, describe it to me!”

  “What?”

  “The pepper!” I demanded, needing to envision it.

  He looked at me, curious and amused.

  “Please!” I begged.

  He laughed, stroking my brow. “It is a large vine with small, sharply pointed leaves that burn like a betel. The berries grow in small, green clusters, ripening ruby red. Inside, it is as limpid as glass, a soft core surrounded by pulp. This is the red pepper. To make black pepper, the whole, ripened berry is crushed and dried in the sun. White pepper comes from the core only.”

  “And how do the farmers plant it?”

  “First, they plant those trees on which to train the vines: areca nuts, mangoes, or betel palms in orderly racks six to eight feet apart. The pepper is grown from cuttings at the foot of the trees in June, just before the heavy rains. They take three years to bear fruit, twining around the trees like clasping arms. The first buds appear in March, the first fruits in May. By December, the berries change color, and soon after, they must be harvested. They are delicate and easily harmed.”

  “How long may they be stored?”

  “Months.”

  “And how many years is each plant fertile?”

  “Ten to twelve,” he said, shifting impatiently in his chair. “What are you getting at, my dear?”

  “Francisco, would it not be more just and compassionate, as well as more profitable, for us to buy the unripened crops in March from the growers, then send our own porters to collect it in January, delivering it directly to our carracks? We could also provide the growers with new plants, easing their expense and expanding their produce. We could pay them less than we pay the middlemen, yet much more just a price than they now receive. Would this not both ease their burden and increase our profits?”

  He looked at me oddly, shaking his head. At first I was ashamed, thinking he mocked my childish prattle, but then I saw his eyes. “My love! My Gracia. El mundo pertenese a los pasensiozos! Each day I waited for you was an investment of greatest profit!” He clasped my face in his hands and kissed me most tenderly. “My love, if only….” He paced the room, his hands grasped behind his back as he always did when he was excited or thinking of solutions to difficult problems.

  “The middlemen, they are a violent group. We would need soldiers to protect our porters. But I am sure the King would arrange that. And it would mean a great risk—buying the entire crop at fair prices before it ripens. If the crop should fail…”

  “But if it should succeed! Just think, Francisco!”

  “Yes, we would own it all, everything. All of Europe would have to wait for our ships, and all who longed for pepper would pay almost any price. The profits would be unimaginable! It would mean…”

  It was I who voiced it, that wondrous word, that greatest desire of both our hearts and souls: “Freedom.”

  25

  The worst thing, the very worst, Catherine thought, was the smell, that mixture of sour hospital antiseptic and cold machinery. A smell that made it impossible to pretend that one was simply suffering through a temporary inconvenience, like accommodations in a bad hotel.

  She reached over for the crystal atomizer filled with her favorite perfume, spraying her hair, her throat, the backs of her wrists. She closed her eyes, breathing in the delicate, alluring fragrance, remembering evening gowns fresh from Bonwit’s drifting over her head, and little jeweled purses holding tickets to the ballet….

  She wanted her life back. She wanted to go home. And the more the doctors and technicians sat on her bedside and smiled encouragingly, explaining the Inquisitorial tortures they expected her to undergo bravely, the more she wanted to flee.

  Why prolong it? Why not, as the good doctor from the talk shows with his little “how-to” best-seller on self-destruction suggested, simply lie back in a warm bath and let the darkness cover you? Why not “go gently into that good night”?

  Life had been so lovely, so very pleasant and easy so much of the time, she thought. Why ruin it all with a sad and tortured ending? Pills, injections, bedpans, pain. Terrible pain. That was all she had to look forward to.

  Janice was coming this morning. Again.

  She was trying to be helpful, Catherine sighed, wondering how much of her empty chatter (the intricacies of wallpaper selection, the difficulties of finding a decent carpet installer…) she would have to endure before sending Janice away with the feeling that she’d done her duty by her difficult old mother.

  Janice, of course, wanted her to endure the tortures.

  They all did.

  She lifted up her hand and touched her still thick hair. Bald and sick and unable to eat—one of the few pleasures age still allowed one—for weeks, they said. And if she was lucky, the enemy would be routed for a little while. But he would be back, storming the barbicans. This, too, was clear.

  If they could only assure her she’d live forever. You’d go through just about anything for that, wouldn’t you? But a few extra weeks, a month or two. What was the point?

  She’d known that her body was going to reach this state. But somehow, now that the moment had actually arrived, she felt cheated, angry, and a bit guilty—the irrational emotion of having done something wrong, of having erred, somehow. The wild goose chase to Europe had probably not helped her health. But she felt no regret. It had been so lovely to share those beautiful moments with the girls.

  If only Suzanne hadn’t…

  That child!<
br />
  She’d always been her secret favorite. How could one help it? Beautiful, daring, bright. She was everything I always wanted to be, Catherine thought. And now she’s gone off with a man. And if that didn’t work out, she’d go find Renaldo.

  Oh, G-d. Renaldo. What she had held most against him, she realized, was neither his age, nor his bohemian appearance, nor even his unresolved marital status. It was simply the sense of his otherness: He belonged to another people, another faith, with its own rituals, its own G-d. If Suzanne joined him, she would join that world. She, and all her descendants, would be lost to her own family, her own history.

  Oh, she knew that people viewed mixed marriages easily these days. Each would keep their own religion. Mutual respect. And the children? Christmas trees and Hanukkah menorahs, Easter eggs and Passover seders, all mixed up together. As wholesome, some claimed, as scrambled eggs for breakfast.

  How little people understood how life really worked! As if the soul were some iron-sided garbage can instead of a delicate living digestive system! As if you could throw into it whatever you pleased, making no distinctions, requiring no explanations! They wouldn’t expect their stomachs to survive a meal of Japanese, Hungarian, and French cuisine, and yet that was exactly what they expected from their souls.

  You had to make a choice. Your lives were either a validation of your ancestors, or a rejection. “Or both,” she could hear Suzanne protest. Sometimes. But it wasn’t that easy. The modern idea that a consensus is always best didn’t always work. Sometimes you can’t compromise. You either use the past as a jumping-off point for the future, or you erase it and start from scratch. Worse, you erase it and start from someone else’s past, destroying all that had nourished those genes, those bones, and that flesh that had given you life.

  That rejection, awful and absolute, was what Catherine feared most. The image of Suzanne holding a child in her arms to be baptized, instead of circumcised…