The Ghost of Hannah Mendes

by Naomi Ragen

  He shifted, as if trying to find a more comfortable position. “Hmm…I guess.”

  “Apparently, she wanted to create a colony here for other conversos, a safe haven where they’d be free to live and practice their religion openly. I wonder if she succeeded, if she ever got here.”

  “The history books don’t really say. But then, you know how it goes. Scholars poke around and poke around and suddenly all this new information suddenly turns up and answers all the unanswered questions. We may not know for a few hundred years.”

  “But if she did make it, wouldn’t it be logical to think that a copy of the whole manuscript would be around here somewhere? After all, there were those notes in the margins in Hebrew, remember? And she would have finished writing it here. Maybe some scribe translated it into Hebrew. Maybe he wrote out a few copies and stashed them somewhere nearby.”

  He grinned, shrugging. “Pure speculation! And coming from you!”

  “Say, isn’t that a building of some kind?”

  “Where?” He turned to look.

  She stood up, peering inland toward a grove of date palms. “Right down there, see! Over by the right. A church or synagogue, maybe? Wonder how old it is?”

  “I’m on vacation. I’m absolutely not interested!”

  She got up and pulled him after her. “Race you?” she challenged, not waiting for an answer. With a great show of reluctance, he got up and ran after her.

  But it wasn’t fair. She was carrying two, and he already knew the way, having marked it off on his map long ago.

  Epilogue

  Mhimme Deftri, vol. 6, no. 2354, Register of Public Affairs, Ottoman Treasury, Wakf, December 1565-May 1566, Istanbul, Turkey.

  Document One

  To the General Governor of Damascus and to Mustapha, the administrator, the following order:

  …A Jewish woman by the name of Gracia has agreed to pay a thousand golden ducats a year on condition that all the income of the area known as Tiberias belong to her. In addition, she has agreed to supply the cost, labor, and materials to rebuild the fallen walls around the city of Tiberias that it may once again become a safe place of habitation and trade for all its inhabitants. She proposes building a water pipe to bring the waters into the city, and will undertake this cost as well. It is my command that she be given all due cooperation.

  Document Two

  A Jewish woman by the name of Gracia, who has been granted by the Munificent One the land known as Tiberias—an area near a great lake and healing hot springs, full of palms, and good for silkworms and sugarcane—has written to complain that some of the gatekeepers who guard the walls of the city, by Your Honor’s orders, have been negligent and irresponsible in carrying out their duties.

  This Gracia, who has built a large and benevolent home on the shores of the great lake, has contributed much to the land and its inhabitants, whom she gathers from many places across the seas.

  She further complains that the janissaries and officers of the local governor are exploiting the farmers, causing them pain and misery by illegally exacting high penalties and collecting extra taxes. These farmers, according to this Gracia, are in her domain, and she will not tolerate their exploitation. She asks Your Excellency to intervene to warn these janissaries to desist or to face the consequences of their illegal actions.

  And so, I respectfully order that this matter be looked into immediately. I ask that you find upright men in Damascus to replace them.

  Consolaçam às Tribulaçoens de Israel. Composito

  por Samuel Usque. Emprello en Ferrara 5313.

  DEDICATION To The Very Illustrious Lady, Doña Gracia Nasi

  The Lord has sent to you in these trying days, a soul from the highest ranks of His armies, placing it in the most proper womanly body of the fortunate Jewess Nasi.

  It is she who greatly helps your needy sons at the beginning of their journey, helping those who cannot save themselves from the pyre and undertake so long a road because of their poverty, her hope giving them strength.

  As for those who have already left and arrived in Flanders and elsewhere, who are overcome by poverty, or stand forlorn by the sea in danger of being unable to venture farther, she reaches out to them with a most liberal hand, with money and many other aids and comforts. It is she who shows them favor in the bleakness of the stormy German Alps and many other lands, when the extreme misery and many horrors and misfortunes of the long voyage overtake them, succoring them willingly.

  It is she who…helps the multitude of necessitous and miserable poor, refusing no favor even to those who were her enemies and sending boatloads of bread and necessities to all, reviving them from the grave which threatened them in those waters. In this way, with her golden arm and heavenly grasp, she has raised [our] people from the depths of…infinite travail in which they were kept enthralled in Europe by poverty and sin, bringing them to safe lands and…guiding them [back] to the obedience and precepts of their G-d of old….

  Thus has she been…a bank where the weary rest; a fountain of clear water where the parched drink; a fruit-laden shady tree where the hungry eat and the desolate find rest….

  The End

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  1

  It happened, like all horrible things happen, at the most inconvenient time.

  Abigail Samuels awoke as the sun streamed through the leaded glass of her beautiful French patio doors. Her eyes opened slowly, taking in the delicate lace of her curtains and the polished wood of her antique canopy bed. Her husband’s gentle kiss lingered on her lips, a faint, sweet memory. It was Tuesday, her day off, and he had tried not to wake her before leaving for work.

  I’m so lucky, she thought, humming her most recent download from iTunes—a catchy paean of love and longing written and performed by a sixteen-year-old. She might be getting old, but her taste in music hadn’t changed; she still loved anything that made her want to dance. That, too, made her happy.

  The water was hot enough to burn you, she thought with pleasure, adjusting the temperature controls on the frighteningly expensive mixer faucet. She remembered their leaner years, the first apartment with the broken-down shower that only gave you lukewarm water until noon, and then only enough for one.

  She reached for a thick, fluffy bath sheet, catching a glimpse of her nude body in the mirror. Staring at her overlarge breasts, her rounded stomach and thighs, she wondered where her own body had gone. She looked like a Renoir painting, Baigneuse, or Bather Arranging Her Hair, unfashionably heavy, but not unattractive. To her surprise, instead of being depressed, she felt the word “sexuality” echo in her head. She wondered what that meant at her age, with a husband who had been her boyfriend, and who loved her—with this body and the original—and whom she had loved back now for forty-odd years?

  Wrapping the towel around her, she looked into the mirror, combing her wet hair. It had retained its thickness and its sheen, although the days when it flowed down her back like a dark river were long gone, along with her natural mahogany color. It was short and honey brown now, a color that came from bottles and tubes, and was applied with plastic gloves. And while her face had retained its lean shape and had surprisingly few wrinkles—testifying to a calm, pampered, and, for the most part, happy life—her eyelids had begun to droop and her forehead crease. Only in her eyes—large, dark brown ovals that still flashed with amusement and curiosity—did she sometimes glimpse the person she remembered as herself.

  Impulsively, she threw open the patio doors, stepping out onto the veranda. “What a lark! What a plunge…! Like the flap of a wave…the kiss of a wave,” she thought, remembering the words from Mrs. Dalloway she had just taught her eleventh-graders. The pungent scent of damp fall leaves rose up to meet her, the crisp Boston air like chille
d cider, intoxicating.

  She loved the fall, all the sun-faded colors of summer repainted by vivid reds and golds still clinging fragilely to branches that would soon be covered with snow.

  What a wonder! My lovely home. My marvelous garden as big as a park, tended by meticulous gardeners. My daughter’s engagement. Planning her party. The blue Boston sky. She pirouetted around the room. It would not rain today, no matter what the weather report predicted. Today would be perfect, she thought, slipping on clothes that were unseasonably light.

  Walking down the hallway, she could already hear the buzz of the vacuum cleaner as the household began its day without her. No matter how many years she had employed cleaning help, she still hadn’t gotten used to it. Perhaps the housekeepers could feel her discomfort. They never stayed very long.

  Esmeralda had been with them for six months now. She was in the dining room, working on the carpets. When she saw Abigail, she turned off the machine, her round face, creaseless as a fall apple, looking up warily.

  “No, don’t stop! I just wanted to say good morning and to tell you I’m going out for a while, to make some arrangements for the party.”

  “The engagement party. For your daughter. Miss Kayla.” The woman nodded and smiled politely, pretending to care. Abigail smiled back graciously, pretending to believe she cared.

  Lovely to be walking down the street in the early part of the day instead of stuck in a classroom! She exulted like Clarissa Dalloway, loving “…the wing, tramp, and trudge;…the bellow and uproar;…the motor cars, omnibuses, vans…the triumph and jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead;” life, Boston, this moment of September.

  She smiled at her shadow as though it were a companion, delighted at the kindly angle of the sun that had airbrushed all the sordid details of aging. But then she noticed the little tufts of hair that stood up waving in the wind—another expensive hairdresser’s experiment gone wrong. Ah, well; she smiled to herself, patting them down. What was such a whisper of annoyance next to the ode to joy resonating loudly throughout every fiber of her being?

  She raised her face to the sky, beaming at God.

  So perfect!

  The words had become almost a mantra over the last month, beginning the moment Kayla—her hand clasped tightly in Seth’s—announced: “We’re engaged!”

  She closed her eyes for a moment, savoring the memory: her youngest child’s shining face, her big, hazel eyes full of glint and sparkle, like well-cut jewels, revealing their many facets. She recalled clearly the pride and triumph, but somehow the happiness and love were more elusive, like water in sand, absorbed and swallowed. But those things were a given, were they not?

  For what was there not to be happy about? Even Kayla, used to golden fleeces falling into her lap without any long quests, must appreciate the answer to every Jewish mother’s prayer who would soon, God willing, be her husband. Congratulating them was like making the blessing over a perfect fruit that you hadn’t tasted for a long time, Abigail thought: two Harvard Law School students, both Jewish, both from well-to-do families, members of the same synagogue in an exclusive Boston suburb.

  But even as she exhaled gratitude like a prayer, she acknowledged it wasn’t all luck. I had something to do with it, she told herself, almost giddy with triumph. What hadn’t she done to nurture Kayla? The bedtime stories, the elaborate birthday parties, the shopping trips, the decorator bedroom, the private tutors, the long talks, the faithful attendance at every class assembly, play, and athletic event…And Kayla had repaid her beyond her wildest dreams. Straight A’s, valedictorian, youth ambassador to Norway…And now, soon to be a Harvard Law School graduate.

  Like an athlete standing on a podium about to hear the national anthem played before the world because they had jumped the highest, run the fastest, thrown the farthest, Abigail exulted in her motherly triumph. Her nerves rock steady, her hands and feet swift and unswerving, she had run all the hurdles of modern motherhood with this child, if not with her older brother and sister, perfecting her mothering skills. Too bad they didn’t give out medals. With Kayla, she had certainly earned the gold.

  She heard a car honking and turned around. It was Judith, the rabbi’s wife. She had a huge smile on her face as she mouthed the words Mazal tov! behind her windshield.

  There had been no official announcement yet. Still, everyone had heard through the grapevine.

  Thank you! Abigail mouthed back. At just that moment, she saw Mrs. Schwartz walking across the street in the opposite direction.

  “Abigail! Just heard about Kayla! How wonderful!” She cupped her mouth, shouting.

  Abigail waved, delighted. “Thank you! Thank you!” She shouted back. “Are you coming to the party?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it!”

  She felt almost like a celebrity, as if she owned the town.

  A motorcycle roared past, shearing the air and cutting off her thoughts. She looked up at the swaying old trees, suddenly feeling afraid. Her grandmother would have said “kenina hora” meaning, more or less, “may the Evil Eye keep shut.” In the Middle Ages, all good fortune would have routinely filled the recipients with dread, she comforted herself. One would have had to bang pots or compose and wear amulets to ward off the furies set loose by such joy as hers.

  She took a deep breath, exhaling all bad thoughts, focusing. The caterer, then the florist. Check the hotel reservations at the Marriott for the out-of-town uncles and Adam’s sister and brother-in-law. Check Printers Inc. for place cards and probably Grace After Meal booklets with a photo of the young couple, although Adam might be right in thinking that would be overkill, since they’d have to be reordered for the wedding. But she wasn’t feeling frugal.

  They’d moved up far in the world. From the salary of a lowly junior accountant to the earnings of their own accounting firm, whose clients headlined articles in Fortune magazine. It had taken a long time. Their eldest, Joshua, had just gotten into high school when they’d finally bought their dream house, a historic colonial on a block of sought-after homes a short commute from downtown and Harvard. The renovation had taken years.

  She turned the corner into Harvard Square. The students who rented out the smallest apartments had already taken up residence. They crowded the streets, their trim figures still in shorts and sleeveless tops, as if their defiance was enough to keep winter at bay.

  She had been teaching high-school English for close to thirty-five years now. She liked young people. She liked looking at them: their bright, smooth, open faces, their supple, shapely bodies, their smiles. She liked their intelligent rebellion against forced compromises with conventional wisdom, often thinking that she learned as much as she taught. That, perhaps, had been her greatest fear about her profession: the bloody-mindedness as D. H. Lawrence—that rebel against hypocrisy—had called it; the repetitiveness of it all. The need to “cover material,” dulling the senses of the fresh enthusiastic human beings who, for the first time, were about to encounter a world of infinite wonders.

  That had not happened, at least not too often. When she assigned Willa Cather’s My Antonia, or Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, or The Diary of Anne Frank, she felt like a bystander to a thrilling event about to unfold before her very eyes. Sometimes, she admitted to herself sheepishly, she even felt a little like she’d coauthored the book, deserving part of the credit for its wondrous qualities.

  The kids were always such fresh challenges—not unlike the books themselves. At the beginning of each new school year she felt as if she were peeling back the covers from their stiff bindings, each one a unique and fascinating story. She’d begin her relationship with each one hopefully, hanging in there, looking for the good things until forced to admit otherwise. That did not happen often. If you looked hard enough and refused to give up hope long enough, you could always find something.

  How lovely to be young and unwrinkled, with so many unspent days and months and years ahead! How lovely to have strong bones and white, g
listening teeth straightened to perfection by expensive orthodontia. Her tongue navigated her own less-than-perfect smile. Some women her age got them straightened—there were invisible braces nowadays, and porcelain veneers…But it seemed so vain and extravagant, not to mention bothersome. Besides, she had a man who had been telling her for the last forty years she was the most beautiful woman in the world.

  She smiled to herself, waiting on the corner for the light to change.

  The Body Shop window had cranberry-scented candles in little straw holders. But might it be too obvious to use a fall decorating scheme for the party? Pumpkins and squash, cranberries and apples? Adam would love it. Orange was his favorite color—any shade. The kids often poked gentle fun at him for wardrobe disasters that could be chalked up to this enthusiasm. Since he never shopped unless forced to by dire necessity—like running out of socks—his purchases were often spontaneous impulses that overtook him when passing outlet stores with signs that read everything reduced 70%. Inevitably, those drastic reductions included some article of men’s apparel dyed a shocking—and consequently unsalable—shade of unbelievable orange: jackets, shirts, vests, ties, raincoats, even boots.

  She shook her head. Goodwill always had a supply of excellent high-quality items in those shades courtesy of Adam Samuels. They hardly ever sold. Even poor people had some standards.

  She walked into the shop, fingering the waxy shapes, breathing in the spicy smells. There was still time to make these decisions. So far Kayla had been very breezy “whatever” about the engagement party, except for defining the absolute parameters: Evening. Black tie. Top-notch catering. And one-twenty to one-fifty guests, max.