The Ghost of Hannah Mendes

by Naomi Ragen

It was full of torn paper.

  “My G-d! Someone’s destroyed it! How did they get in here? Why would anyone do that! I don’t believe this!” Francesca ran to the table and picked up the volume. Large tears had been made in the inner binding. “Just destroying it like that, for no reason! Criminal, insane.” Her face changed colors. “Elizabeta!”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “She was trying to tear it when I was at her house! I snatched it away.”

  “Let me see that.”

  “Maybe I could tape it up, or take it to a book bindery….”

  “No! Look at this.” Suzanne peeled off some more pieces of paper.

  “Are you crazy, Suzanne?!”

  “Francesca, look!”

  A small slit had been opened on the inside of the binding from which off-white parchment stuck out.

  “There’s something inside the binding.”

  “You’re right.” Slowly, she continued peeling away the paper until the folded pages slid out.

  It smelled of ambergris.

  “My G-d! What is it!?” Suzanne exclaimed.

  But before Francesca could examine it, the phone rang.

  “Mom?” Francesca said, staring at the floor and listening until finally she lifted her head and looked at Suzanne, wide-eyed in pain.

  Letter to Marius Serouya, left with the concierge at The Gritti Palace, Venice

  Dear Marius:

  A miracle has happened: We’ve found another piece of the manuscript. It was hidden inside the binding of the book from Cáceres.

  I tried to call. You weren’t in. I don’t have much time. As you can see, we are gone. I say “we,” because Suzanne has joined me, quite by accident, or the hand of fate (which I’m beginning to really wonder about…).

  My grandmother is very ill.

  I contacted Elizabeta Bomberg. Or someone who lived at the address written in the book. I still can’t decide what part of her was real, and what part I imagined. In any case, the whole experience was very strange. Please follow up. Ask her why she disappeared. Tell her we found the manuscript pages and thank her for opening the binding and revealing them to us. We are bringing them back to New York and will have them translated.

  As I said, I’m out the door. But even if I had more time, I don’t know what I’d say to you. Suzanne tells me that your friend Gabriel met her by design, not chance. And I can’t help wondering if your romantic interest in me is based on the same old-fashioned horse-trading that has been going on in our families for centuries when it comes to arranged marriages.

  I have to know. Whatever else I believe or don’t believe, I somehow trust that you will tell me the truth about this.

  I’ll be waiting,

  Francesca

  39

  “Are you dreading this as much as I am?” Suzanne murmured to Francesca as they walked through the hospital corridors.

  “How are you feeling? Stomach any better?”

  Suzanne shook her head. She had spent the plane ride throwing up into barf bags and the entire morning in the bathroom. She walked with gingerly care, as if every footstep loosened the plug keeping her insides down. “I can’t stand hospitals!”

  “Do you have the manuscript pages?”

  “Yes.”

  “I wish I knew what they said.”

  “The translator’s coming by this afternoon. But I thought Gran would want to see the original, anyway.”

  Francesca nodded. “Any long-distance calls?”

  Suzanne pursed her lips and shook her head. “What about you?”

  “Nothing,” Francesca said dejectedly. “Well, here goes.”

  They pushed open the green hospital door.

  NO! they thought.

  Catherine lay against the white pillows, eyes closed, with a stillness that could not be mistaken for rest. Her skin was the pale, dull color of parchment, wrinkled and dry. A few thin strands sprouting at odd intervals were the only remnant of her pride—the beautifully coiffed hair. Her lips were cracked, and black-and-blue marks from needles and infusions covered her arms.

  The girls stood motionless.

  Janice rose and hugged them, trying not to cry. “I’m so glad you’re here! You have no idea how awful it’s been. Madre, the girls are here!” she whispered.

  Catherine opened her eyes, taking a few moments to focus. So young! she thought, feeling as if roses had bloomed and filled the room with spring. Granddaughters. Two of them. Her heart leaped up in pleasure. Why had she felt so alone, so forlorn? She held out her dry, veined hands.

  Francesca moved forward hesitantly, reaching out to take the offered hand. Suzanne stood motionless at the foot of the bed, her eyes brimming, her mouth defiant.

  “Don’t cry!” Catherine murmured hoarsely, struggling painfully to sit up. “Roll this thing up!” she demanded with something like her old imperiousness. Janice hurried to crank the bed to a sitting position.

  “That’s what your mother does. Comes here and sits and weeps! I know she can’t help it, but I hate it! I’m not as bad as I look.” She tried to smile, smoothing the pitiful thin strands with her pale, almost ghostly fingers. “But the treatments are a horror. They promised…the doctors. A little extra time, they said.” She looked at them. “But maybe now I’m glad I did it anyhow.”

  “Abuela, look!” Suzanne held out the manuscript pages.

  “What! Really?” Catherine reached out, touching them, a new light brightening her weary eyes. “I can’t believe it! Where?”

  “Inside the binding of an old book that we found in Caceres,” Francesca explained, handing them to her.

  Catherine held them for a moment. “You found them in Venice, didn’t you?”

  The girls nodded, startled.

  “Ah, yes, of course. Never mind. I can’t explain. You must tell me all about everything you did! But not now. Now I want to ask you something else. How are you? How was it, the journey?”

  “Magic,” Francesca said, closing her eyes for a moment, a lump in her throat. “The places I saw in Spain and Venice made the past seem like the next town instead of some distant planet covered with clouds and barely visible through a telescope. Yet, in a strange way, everywhere I went, I felt like I’d been there before.”

  “And Marius? Was he helpful to have along?”

  She shrugged warily, studying her grandmother for clues. “I suppose.”

  “Suzanne?”

  She stared at her grandmother, a terrible struggle taking place in her soul that was reflected in her eyes and the corners of her mouth. Pity, gratitude, hostility, and love dashed against one another like waves in a punishing sea.

  How am I? she pondered. Did I discover the truth and find my eternal love? Or did I learn just enough about myself to destroy the value of everything I have, without finding any replacements? “Excuse me, I feel a bit…” She rushed off to the bathroom.

  “Stomach flu.” Francesca shrugged. “I think she caught it in Venice.”

  Suzanne walked back in, paler still. She groped through the room, sliding into a chair next to her mother’s.

  “Have you seen a doctor? You really should find out what it is. All those strange foods, and the unsanitary water in Europe. It might be something serious,” Janice lectured.

  “I don’t need a doctor. I know what it is. And it has nothing to do with unsanitary food and drink in foreign lands…” Suzanne winced.

  “Well, then, what is it, dear?” Catherine asked with a hesitant smile.

  “Morning sickness.”

  “No!” Francesca exclaimed.

  “A bastard!” Janice wailed.

  “The child has a father and a mother!”

  “But not married. You are not married!”

  “What difference does that make?” Suzanne was shaking.

  “Suzanne, are you sure?” Francesca flung her arms protectively around her sister’s shoulders. “Are you sure, Suzanne?”

  She nodded, surprised by the sympathy. “Yes.” />
  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’ll tell you what’s she’s going to do! She’s going to get married! Now! What’s his phone number?” Janice demanded.

  “Silence!” Catherine da Costa said suddenly, her voice hoarse with insistence.

  Everyone froze. Then slowly, in petrified silence, they turned to look at her. Her expression was unreadable.

  “Suzanne, come here.”

  Suzanne walked toward her with heavy, reluctant steps. When she reached the head of the bed, Catherine laid her hand above the warm, taut skin of her rounding abdomen. “Can it be true?” she whispered, her face suddenly breaking out into a joyful radiance that caught them all unaware. “A baby?”

  The work of creation, of new lifeblood, flowing forward. The bough breaking out in fine, fresh leaf. Not dead! Not dead at all!

  Suzanne suddenly knelt, her head burrowing into the white, starched sheets smelling of the potions and elixirs that were holding death so lightly at bay. “Abuela,” she wept, the words echoing in her mind: And this is the secret of the everlasting, blossoming stem….

  Catherine ran her fingers through the bright, warm, clean hair. Lovely color, she thought. Sunsets. Ripe peaches. Early mornings. A lovely color to pass down.

  English translation of manuscript pages, circa 1568, collection of David Montezinos, Etz Hayyim Academy Library, Amsterdam. Stained and water-damaged. Several pages illegible.

  …And so Reyna and I were reunited at last. Whether it was the magnificence of our bribes, or the threats of the Turkish Sultan—who so kindly took up our cause after Joseph explained the matter to the court physician, a pious Jew of Spanish ancestry called Joseph Hamos—I do not know. But the Venetians surely could not have ignored Sultan Suleiman’s threat that should any harm befall us, he would retain Venetian trading vessels in Constantinople until our safe release.

  As much as I admired the Sultan’s kindness, I had no wish to so publicly put myself (and all my worldly goods!) in his debt. And so it was that I journeyed to Ferrara, there to join the large converso community under the protection of the benevolent Duke Ercole II of the House of Este.

  And what, you ask, of my sister, Brianda, and Little Gracia?

  I do not know what turnings of the heart befell my sister in her dark, cold confinement. But I would like to think that no one is immune to salvation, and that each heart, however twisted with evil desires, may be straightened and bleached by suffering, and purified and softened by repentance.

  Brianda was released soon after myself. I expected her to take up the glittering life she had spared no ignominy and treachery to gain: to seek a husband for herself, and for her lovely child, from among the vain, strutting patricians whose company she had found so much to her liking upon our arrival. True, her claim to fortune had vanished, but her allowance was still ample enough to assure her continued attractiveness to a certain type of opportunist. I expected her to seize the first opportunity that came her way.

  Instead, I found her on my doorstep, bags packed, holding Little Gracia’s hand. Her heart, she declared, was truly shattered. She begged to be allowed to join me on my journey back to the religion of our forefathers, and to put Venice as far behind us as possible.

  What did I do?

  The only thing I could, of course.

  Was not Little Gracia my own dear niece, the child of Diogo? Could I refuse to keep her near me and oversee her welfare? And Brianda, was she not, after all, my sister? Did not the blood of our blessed parents flow in her veins?

  The whole family left for Ferrara, together.

  Much may be learned from this, my children.

  In Ferrara I began to breathe the air of freedom. I also met a woman who taught me much, and whom I loved: Señora Benvenida Abrabanel. She dowered orphans, ransomed a thousand prisoners, and endowed houses of learning. She encouraged me to support our Hebrew scholars by providing livelihoods for those involved in the translation of our prayer books, our Bible, and other works into Spanish and Portuguese, so that those who had forgotten their faith might rediscover it.

  Many beautiful works resulted from this. But one was, and remains, my most beloved: The Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel. The author, Samuel Usque, expounds that which my heart already knew: that the countless sufferings of our people point to the great truth of our faith, rather than deny it. For all that has happened G-d’s prophets foretold, even to the starving mothers who ate their own tender babes. And if that is so, may not we trust that His prophecies of redemption may also be fulfilled?

  And so it was that my heart turned toward the Holy Land, which sat in desolate waste, awaiting our efforts to prepare it for the final coming of the Messiah. It was then that I understood, at long last, just where my journey would finally end.

  (Illegible. Water damage.)

  40

  The apartment was a wreck, Suzanne noticed vaguely. The smell of marijuana lingered in the air, along with sour laundry and a million cigarette butts in plastic cups. There was a note from Jean apologizing like mad and promising a thorough cleanup as soon as she got off work. There was a CD of Haitian music in the stereo, a man’s pants hanging in the bathroom, and a toilet seat that showed signs that no effort had been made to lift it when it should have been lifted.

  There was also no food in the house. Did she have any money? she wondered. Something left over from Gran’s largesse? A little bit would do. Tomorrow, she’d sign up for unemployment again. And maybe the center had gotten some grants, enough for back salary.

  She sat down on the threadbare couch, her sudden weight sending minions of dust mites floating into the pale city light. Joke’s on me, she thought. Not a molecule of her carefully constructed life had been swept away in her absence. In fact, not a damn thing had been swept, washed, or cleaned at all!

  She grinned, enjoying the miserable irony of it all. What was I so worried about losing? she thought in astonishment. What was I so afraid of leaving behind?

  With her last strength, she stripped the sheets off the bed, found the two cleanest pieces of linen, made it up, then crawled gratefully inside.

  She’d called him, but only a machine had picked up. She’d left him a message. From the corner of her eye she studied the little red light on her answering machine, willing it to flicker with the joyful notice of new messages.

  It did not.

  That was the thing about slamming doors in people’s faces. Sometimes they took it seriously, especially if they themselves were serious people.

  She lay down and wept, her whole soul pouring out in an agony of longing and regret and most of all fright. She was more frightened than she had ever been in all her life; terrified of the idea that certain acts were irrevocable.

  When she got up, the house was dark and someone was pressing the buzzer.

  “A minute!” she said hoarsely, groping her way out of bed.

  The moment she sat up, the nausea began again. Worse this time, she thought, feeling the underpinnings of a ravenous hunger she couldn’t have imagined, let alone remember experiencing. It was as if she had been brutally and deliberately starved for a week.

  Food, she thought. Anything.

  The buzz gave way to a bang, somehow less angry, but more insistent than ever.

  “One second! Jeez!” she called out, desperate for something to eat. Who could it be, anyhow? The landlord? Jean? Watchtower people…? She suddenly couldn’t think of a single person she really wanted to talk to, or would be particularly happy to see.

  “I’m going to look through the peephole, and if I don’t open the door it means I don’t want you, so get lost!” she shouted, remembering the old line that worked so well.

  There was a carton of half-eaten cottage cheese, and an elderly orange. She peeled it greedily, pressing the soft, dry sections between her teeth, savoring the imperfect flavor. Then she opened the cottage cheese. Green mold stared back at her. Was it harmful? she wondered, pushing it aside with a spoon and searching for
the white underneath. Antibiotics were all molds, weren’t they? She stopped, shaking her head in disbelief and tossing it into the trash.

  Chinese, she thought. Succulent, spicy, with lots of stir-fried vegetables and those long, delicious noodles, piping hot. Three or four bowls, at least. Only after she’d finished imagining it down to the last detail did she realize that the knocking had finally stopped.

  Good. She grabbed her purse and checked out her cash. Enough for one meal at least, she thought gratefully, opening up the front door. But at the threshold, something stopped her. She stepped out, searching in all directions, feeling a sense of palpable loss together with a strange, nameless kind of hope.

  She leaned back against her door, closing her eyes and breathing deeply. The scent of musk and rosemary seemed to drift down over her.

  Imagination, she told herself. Wishful thinking.

  She locked the door and walked thoughtfully down the steps toward Mulberry Street, her head spinning and her heart pounding as if inside her some red arrow were moving up toward the exploding point.

  She searched the crowds. Sometimes she thought she saw someone who looked like him, but as she neared, the hair turned the wrong shade of blond, or the height was not right.

  Lost.

  Get lost.

  Groping her way to the stoop of an old brownstone, she sat and watched the crowds swirl around her, thickening. The Festival of San Gennaro, she realized, looking at the sidewalk vendors, the colorful floats full of sacred icons, and the people following behind, chanting prayers. All at once, she saw the years of her life swirl past, full of sound and color and movement, lacking in all meaning. Depthless. The chance, one in a million, to find her true soul mate, gone forever.

  Lost…

  “G-d of my fathers and mothers before me, who has sweetened my life and given me blessings beyond measure, hear my prayer,” she heard herself say. “Help me.”