The Poetry of Secrets

by Cambria Gordon

  —Art critic Sir Malcolm Fitzgerald, Times of London

  On a chilly day in February, a small group of men gather in an auditorium on Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles to worship. They call themselves Comunidad Sefardi. Among them are immigrants from Turkey, Algeria, Greece, and Egypt. So that everyone understands one another, they speak in Ladino, or judizmo, a mixture of Hebrew and Spanish.

  The president of the group asks everyone to take their seat.

  The rabbi, Abraham Caraco, clears his throat. “Te rogo,” he says. “If you please. Let us begin.”

  An auburn-haired teacher in her midthirties wears stylish glasses over bright, wide-set eyes. She stands in front of twenty-eight students of AP History at Stuyvesant High School. She is mostly fun-loving, except when it comes to history. Then she likes to say she’s as serious as a cavalry attack.

  “Will everyone please turn to chapter twelve in your books?”

  An opening of backpacks, scuffing of chair legs, and rustling of paper as the students get on the same page.

  The book is an epic poem. Like Homer’s Odyssey, told in verse, but in the author’s own words. Consisting of 130 pages, it tells the story of a young woman of sixteen on the eve of the Spanish Inquisition. Though official records of prisoner confessions transcribed by the Inquisitors themselves do exist in the town halls of many pueblos of Spain, this book is one of only a few firsthand accounts and is considered to be the definitive primary source of what happened to the Jews of Spain.

  The author is Eva Perez Benveniste. The epic poem is the history teacher’s favorite part of the curriculum because the book happens to have been written by her great-great-great-great—she has lost count of how many greats—grandmother.

  One of the more talkative students, a girl in the back, blurts out a question. “Why did she title her book Call Me Eva?”

  By way of an answer, the teacher adjusts her glasses and reads aloud from her favorite passage.

  Born Isabel, daughter of Benita,

  Now, a daughter of Qasmūna.

  My Hebrew name means mother of life.

  I have borne four children, which is strife enough

  for those who know the pain of childbirth.

  But perhaps, I have given breath

  to something more lasting.

  May the words inked on these pages

  make you never forget, dear Reader.

  For history is bound to repeat itself

  unless we learn from our mistakes.

  You can begin by calling me Eva.

  In 2016, my husband and I, along with our youngest son, moved to Madrid for a year. Ever since I was a little girl, Madrid has held a special place in my heart. When I was five years old, my grandfather, Sam White, produced a “Paella Western” movie in Madrid, entitled White Comanche. It starred William Shatner, who played twin brothers, one a peyote-loving warring outlaw, and the other, the good guy Comanche, who must fight his own brother to save the town. I can’t say this movie was a hit—in fact it’s listed in The Official Razzie Movie Guide as one of the one hundred most enjoyably bad movies ever made—but it did spark my family’s lifelong passion for Spain. After nine months of shooting, my grandfather disembarked from the plane in Los Angeles and I didn’t recognize him. He’d grown a mustache, wore a debonair hat, and carried gifts for my sister and me—namely polka-dotted flamenco dresses with matching shoes, peinetas, and castanets. The other fascination with Spain came from my mother’s first cousin, Anthony Brand, who was a bullfighter. I listened to enchanting stories from my grandparents about their time in Madrid, along with tales of cousin Tony in the ring. So it was only natural that when my husband and I were looking for an adventure, coupled with a desire to immerse our son in a foreign language, we chose Madrid. In the first few months of living there, we traveled to Toledo and Segovia. Upon seeing the Sepharad plaques marking certain streets as parts of the Jewish quarters, I became curious. What happened to all the Jews of Spain? Where were their descendants now? I didn’t know much about the Inquisition and devoured as many books as I could. I dragged my family to every Jewish quarter we could find. I listened eagerly to the stories of our friend Daniel Mazin, whose father founded the Orthodox Synagogue in Madrid in 1968. I began looking at the history of the Spanish Jews in the context of my own family. Though I was born Ashkenazi (my ancestors came from Romania, Hungary, and Russia), I was raised for most of my life by a Sephardic man who married my mother and adopted my sister and me after our biological father passed away. His grandmother, Fortuna Gormezano, was from Istanbul. I remember her singing Ladino songs with gusto and peppering her conversation with sayings like “vaya con miel,” go with honey, and “horas buenas,” literally good hours, but more like a wish for good health, like “God bless you” when someone sneezes. Her daughter, my Grandma Corene, née Columbia, cooked the most delectable biscochos, Spanish rice, spinach frittata, and bourekas.

  Living in Spain helped me come full circle—to the stories from my Ashkenazi side and the culture of my Sephardic side. When I returned home to Los Angeles after our sabbatical, I asked myself this question: What if I had been a sixteen-year-old girl living in Spain on the eve of the Inquisition and fell in love with the wrong man? I decided to set my story in Trujillo because it is a microcosm of what was going on in Spain at the time—a midsize town in a vital region of Castile, populated by Jews, Christians, and Moors who became involved in the schemes and politics of the Crown.

  The Spanish Inquisition began in 1481 and lasted until 1834. Autos de fe occurred in Spain, Portugal, and Spain’s colonies, Peru and Mexico, into the mid-eighteenth century.

  Two hundred years later, Spain has made amends for this dark part of her history. In 1992, King Juan Carlos prayed with the Jewish community of Madrid on the five hundredth anniversary of the Alhambra Decree, when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella forced the Jews of Spain to leave. “May hatred and intolerance never again provoke expulsion or exile,” he said. “On the contrary, let us be capable of building a prosperous Spain in peace among ourselves on the basis of concord and mutual respect … That is my most fervent wish. Peace for all. Shalom.” And recently, Spain passed a law giving Spanish nationality to any Jew of Sephardic descent who can prove a family connection to medieval Spain. My adoptive father’s brother actually went through the process and now has dual citizenship.

  Tragically, there are still places in the world where religious tolerance is not practiced. According to the Pew Research Center, today, citizens of fifty-two countries experience very high levels of government restrictions on religion. As I write this, over one million Chinese Uighurs are being held in internment camps because they believe in Islam. Religious minorities in fifty-six other countries suffer from hostilities originating from social groups or individuals calling for their elimination.

  Until we accept the “other” in our midst, we will never truly be free.

  A copy (in the original handwriting) of the list of Jews who were expelled from Trujillo, dated 1493. The translation of old Spanish at the top reads: The following list of Jews who were still in Hervas, at the time of the coming of the mercy of the Kings our Lords, were banished. (photo courtesy of Cambria Gordon)

  Hebrew letters over the original doorway of a former synagogue in Trujillo, which is now a pharmacy. The inscription reads: This is the gate of the Lord. The just will enter through it. (photo courtesy of Cambria Gordon)

  The author’s feet next to one of many plaques marking the spots where Jewish-owned homes were located in Hervas. (photo courtesy of Cambria Gordon)

  The author’s great-grandmother Fortuna Gormezano (center), with her parents, David and Esther, in Çanakkale, Turkey, around 1905. (photo courtesy of the collection of Neil Cohen)

  New York census form from 1920, indicating Sam Gormezano, Fortuna’s brother, as head of the household. It lists place of birth as Turkey and Spanish as the language spoken in the home. (photo courtesy of the collection of Neil Cohen)

  Mo
vie poster from the author’s grandfather’s 1968 movie, filmed outside of Madrid. (Producciones Cinematográficas A.B.)

  The author, age five, at home in Encino in her flamenco dress, shoes, and peineta from Madrid. (photo courtesy of Sharleen Cooper Cohen)

  I relied heavily on a wonderful book, Trujillo: A Jewish Community in Extremadura on the Eve of the Expulsion from Spain, by Haim Beinart. I owe a debt of gratitude to Beinart’s painstaking document research from the Trujillo archives. In addition, Erna Paris’s book The End of Days: A Story of Tolerance, Tyranny and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain proved invaluable to me.

  I first came across the poetess Qasmūna from the Jewish Women’s Archive (JWA), a national organization dedicated to collecting and promoting the extraordinary stories of Jewish women. I knew immediately that I wanted to incorporate her into Isabel’s family somehow. Further research on Qasmūna’s life and poetry came from the International Journal of Middle East Studies, published by Cambridge University Press. I discovered other female poets in an academic paper by Asma Afsaruddin entitled Poetry and Love: The Feminine Contribution in Muslim Spain.

  The JWA website was also where I learned about the Cairo Genizah. Because it is forbidden to throw away anything with God’s name written on it, ancient Jews had a custom of burying their books and manuscripts. The Cairo Genizah was discovered in a synagogue storeroom in Egypt in 1792. Inside were fragments of documents and texts describing all aspects of religious, cultural, and economic Jewish life in North Africa and Europe from the year 950 to 1250. Some of the evidence found in the Genizah is letters from Spanish women who wrote home after they left Spain. This helped build a case for Isabel being lettered.

  Though the artist Pedro Berruguete lived in Spain during this time period and indeed painted an auto de fe, all his dialogue is imagined.

  All New Testament passages are from the Latin Vulgate Bible, which was what the Spanish Church used at the time.

  The actual date of the Easter Massacre of Rossio Square in Lisbon was 1506. I moved it up to 1482 for purposes of the story. Though King John II ruled Portugal in 1482 and did allow hundreds of Spanish Jews to take refuge there, I placed King Manuel on the throne in the book, as he was the one who returned from his summer residence after the massacre.

  Juan Carlos, Beatriz’s love interest, chooses another girl, Magdalena de Espina. I named her after Alphonso de Espina, Franciscan author of Fortalitium Fidei. The popular Latin tractate is considered one of the most significant works of anti-Semitism and a key factor in the development of the converso controversy. Author Rosa Doval says it was a true medieval best seller.

  Carpaccio’s painting Two Venetian Ladies sits in the Correr Museum in St. Mark’s Square. It was completed in 1495, slightly later than I have it in the book. Though art experts have confirmed it was part of a domestic diptych panel depicting a hunting scene above it, no one has been able to determine definitively who the women were.

  The Correr family arrived in Venice in the ninth century. Besides being members of the Great Council who helped elect the Doges, Corrers served as cardinals, popes, diplomats, and art collectors.

  In the epilogue, the article in the Times of London is fictional, but the painting is not. Feast of the Gods by Giovanni Bellini came out of the Venetian School, a style of painting widely credited with contributing to the Renaissance movement’s groundbreaking use of color. It is believed that either Dosso Dossi or Titian painted over some of Bellini’s figures because the Duke of Ferrara, who commissioned the work, asked for the change. Because the duke and his wife wore jewelry forged by a well-known Jewish goldsmith, Salomone, I posited that he, the duke, would welcome having someone Jewish work on his painting.

  The Sephardic Community of Los Angeles, led by Rabbi Caraco, did gather downtown in February of 1920, and years later formed Synagogue Tifereth Israel. Though I imagine many words were said that day, te rogo may or may not have been two of them.

  P. 2: A lifetime without love … excerpted from Shams of Tabriz, Persian Muslim poet who lived from 1185 to 1248.

  P. 91: O gazelle, you who graze … Qasmūna Bint Ismail ibn Bagdalah, twelfth-century Jewish poetess.

  Pp. 95–96: By God, I am suited to great things … excerpted from Wallādah bint al-Mustakfi billāh, poetess of Córdoba who died in 1087.

  P. 107: The wind has made a coat … Al-l’timad, wife of the ruler of Seville in the eleventh century.

  P. 185: O brother of the full moon … Wallādah bint al-Mustakfi billāh, poetess of Córdoba who died in 1087.

  P. 261: If the cedars have caught fire … The Babylonian Talmud, third to fifth centuries.

  Pp. 270–71: until the day wanes and the sun coats its silver … line excerpted from Moses ibn Ezra, “Wine Song for Spring.”

  P. 323: Yes, Time—ate up my heart … excerpted and edited from Judah Abravanel, Jewish physician, poet, and philosopher, 1503.

  Nonfiction

  Daily Life During the Spanish Inquisition, James M. Anderson, Greenwood Press, 2002

  The End of Days: A Story of Tolerance, Tyranny and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain, Erna Paris, Prometheus Books, 1995

  History of the Jews in Venice, Cecil Roth, The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1930

  A Medieval Home Companion: Housekeeping in the Fourteenth Century, translated and edited by Tania Bayard, Harper Perennial, 1992

  Misera Hispania: Jews and Conversos in Alonso de Espina’s Fortalitium Fidei, Rosa Vidal Doval, Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature, Oxford, 2013

  Trujillo: A Jewish Community in Extremadura on the Eve of the Expulsion from Spain, Haim Beinart, Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1980

  Fiction

  The Ghost of Hannah Mendes, Naomi Ragen, St. Martin’s Press, 1998

  Incantation, Alice Hoffman, Little, Brown, 2006

  The Last Jew, Noah Gordon, St. Martin’s Press, 2000

  The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon, Richard Zimler, Overlook Press, 1998

  The Mapmaker’s Daughter, Laurel Corona, Sourcebooks, 2014

  The People of the Book, Geraldine Brooks, Viking, 2008

  This book would never have been conceived were it not for our friends Daniel Mazin and Gitty Daneshvari. They took us to the Extremadura region of Spain and arranged a converso guide to show us the Jewish quarters of Hervas, Trujillo, and Cáceres.

  Thank you to the talented writers and illustrators of Barbara Bottner’s table: Antoinette, Barbara, Beth, Denise, Gail, Hillary, Jim, and Michael. You added depth to my words and kicked my butt.

  Julie Krone explained the intricacies of horse riding in the fifteenth century.

  Dr. Peter Weller, a true Renaissance man, guided me to the Correr family and all things Venice.

  Rabbi Morley Feinstein pored through the entire manuscript and imparted his Talmudic expertise.

  Karen Friedman read early pages and kept me honest with my Spanish.

  Ken Blady gave a wonderful class on the Crypto-Jews of Spain and answered my pestering emails.

  The ucLADINO organization at UCLA taught me how to translate Aljamiado.

  Neil Cohen generously shared his photos and years of research on the Gormezano family.

  Noa Bannick related the story of her Sephardic grandmother, who never let her point to the stars, a remnant from when the Inquisition was spying on conversos.

  Fonda Snyder, gentle yet tough agent extraordinaire, sold this book with aplomb.

  Lisa Sandell, ridiculously talented editor and beautiful human, saw the importance in this story.

  My parents, Marty and Sharleen, have never stopped encouraging me.

  And finally, thank you to the fabulous foursome—Howard, Micah, Arlo, and Capp. You give me reason to wake up each morning. Os amo.

  Cambria Gordon is the coauthor of The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming, winner of the national Green Earth Book Award. She has written for Los Angeles Times Magazine, Boys’ Life, Parent Guide News, and the Jewish Journal of Los Ange
les. She lived in Spain for a year but spends most of her time in LA with her husband and youngest son while being as near as possible to her two adult children without annoying them.

  Copyright © 2021 by Cambria Gordon

  Peacock photo ©: Morphart Creation/Shutterstock.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

  First edition, February 2021

  Cover photos ©: girl: Alberto Bogo/Stocksy United;

  peacock: Morphart Creation/Shutterstock.

  Cover design by Baily Crawford

  e-ISBN 978-1-338-63419-8

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