by Roberta Rich
Isaac threw a leg over the railing of the crow’s nest, one arm around the mast, and climbed down the rigging. The pirogue bumped against the side of the ship, and Isaac heard the men scramble on board.
He kept going, afraid to look down for more than a moment at the deck crowded with dozens of sailors, some staggering from drink. Just as he arrived at the juncture of the yardarm and the mast, someone from below shouted, “Look aloft!” and he heard a chorus of voices shouting at him and cheering. It had been a long time since anyone cheered for him, or even noticed his presence. He felt strength flow into his arms and legs and he grinned. He could do this impossible feat. What happened to him afterward did not matter. What mattered was saving the boy.
Glancing down again, Isaac saw sailors racing to starboard. Soon men were leaning backward over the side to maximize the effect of their weight. The ship responded by broaching slightly to starboard. The boy swung toward him. Maddeningly, he still dangled out of Isaac’s reach. Isaac extended one arm, and then, gripping the mast between his legs, he stretched his body until the rope holding the boy was within his grasp. He managed to grab the rope with the tips of his fingers and then his hand. He hauled the rope toward him, the boy suspended from it. To his relief, Jorge was slight, hardly heavier than an eight-year-old. When the boy was near enough, Isaac hauled on the rope hand over hand until the top of Jorge’s head was level with his own and he could see the fear in the boy’s eyes.
“Stay calm and do not struggle. You must climb onto my back like a baby monkey scrambles onto its mother and cling to me as I crawl down.”
The boy groaned but he did as he was told, draping himself over Isaac’s back and gripping his neck. With trembling limbs, Isaac shinnied his way down a few paces until his foot made contact with the rigging.
Applause floated up from the deck, along with the sounds of whistling and shouts of encouragement. Fresh energy coursed through Isaac’s body. With Jorge still clinging to him, he managed to right himself and climb up the mast until he reached the crow’s nest. He clambered over the rail, the boy holding on so tightly that Isaac felt nearly strangled. He reached behind to grasp the boy’s ankle. He fumbled with one hand to untie the rope, but it was so deeply buried in the boy’s flesh that Isaac could not prise apart the knot. It would have to wait until they reached the deck. The boy hung motionless, still on Isaac’s back. Fainted or dead, he could not tell. Isaac whispered the words his own mother had said to him so many years ago, “When you grow the wings of an angel, figlio, all things are possible. Until then, remain on the ground.” Perhaps it was his imagination, but he thought he saw a smile pass over the boy’s face.
When the boy’s narrow chest rose and fell, relief filled Isaac. He was about to begin his descent when he saw a soldier, a coil of rope draped over his shoulder, advancing up the rigging toward him.
“You are a brave man,” said the soldier, glancing at Isaac’s leg iron. “But a foolish one. Give the boy to me.” The soldier, who looked barely older than the cabin boy, took Jorge in his arms. “I am sorry, my friend. My orders are to march you to the cells of the Grand Master.”
“Take care of the boy. He is bleeding badly.”
The soldier draped Jorge over his shoulders and began his descent. Isaac looked away, unable to bear the sight of the bloody head. On the foredeck the other men watched, waiting for him to come down, waiting to watch the soldiers arrest him and throw him in the cells below the Grand Master’s palace.
Isaac would disappoint them all. He would disappoint Hannah. He would disappoint God. Never again could he live as a slave. He gazed at the water. The sea was smooth, but even a calm sea could drown a man.
The sea air had dried the sweat on his body to a carapace of salt. The ancient Hebrews salted their dead before placing them in the ground. As he looked out toward the open water, he noticed another galleon pulling in to the harbour flying the familiar flag with the winged lion on a field of red. She rode high in the water, the lateen-rigged sail on the mizzenmast half-bellied out from the wind.
If he waited a few moments, the wake of that elegant galleon would cause Isaac’s ship to heel over so that he could hurl himself from the mast and land in the water without smashing himself on the deck. He climbed atop the railing of the crow’s nest to await her approach. The soldiers below bellowed at him, ordering him to descend, but he ignored them, watching the galleon slice through the waves, leaving a path of turbulent green foam in its wake.
When the Balbiana was a stone’s throw to the leeward side, Isaac released his grip on the mast, opened his arms, and jumped. For the first time since he had arrived in Malta, he felt free.
CHAPTER 24
SOME NIGHTS THE winds blew so fiercely on the Balbiana that even the sailors could not keep to their feet. On those nights, Matteo lay in Hannah’s arms, her body cushioning his, so the storms could not dash him against the sides of the heaving ship. After the squalls passed, she would lie exhausted on her straw pallet, too seasick to lift a hand to push her hair out of her eyes while she vomited into a basin.
Melancholy stalked her like a phantom and held her in its clammy embrace. That Jessica’s death was her fault consumed her. The conviction that Isaac, too, was dead grew and took root in her mind. Some mornings she could barely summon the energy to rise, so weary was she from her nightmares of Isaac’s death by starvation, drowning, or hanging. When the Balbiana pulled in to Valletta harbour, she was certain she would learn Isaac had been tossed into an unmarked grave and forgotten.
She would lie on her pallet clutching the baby while odd, unconnected thoughts made her think of Jessica. Only Matteo’s need for milk forced her from her dank quarters to Tarzi’s cabin. Often on these excursions, she glimpsed from the corner of her eye a flash of red silk or a well-shod foot or a small hand gloved in lace tatting. She would move toward it, thinking for the briefest of seconds that Jessica was on board. Then she would remember Jessica bleeding in her arms and, saddened, she would withdraw.
Would her memories always be so painful? she wondered. Or would her yearning for Jessica diminish with time? These thoughts assaulted her most strongly in the morning, when, still tired from a night of nightmares, she flung on one of Jessica’s gowns, now grown stiff with salt from the winds but still giving off her scent of jasmine.
Fortunately, life at sea agreed with Matteo. It was as though King Poseidon were his father and Amphrodite his mother. The heaving of the ship, the dull beating of the wind in the sails, the salt-laddened air, and the cry of the birds—all made him scream with laughter. He cooed from the makeshift hammock she had fashioned for him and hung from the ribs of the hull. When she raised her eyes from her pallet, she could see him waving his hand, trying to clutch with his chubby fists at dust motes floating in the air.
Yes, she thought, she had kept Matteo alive. But he had kept her alive, too. His need to be fed, to be cuddled, to be loved was all that prevented her from abandoning hope. And so she clung to him during the interminable voyage as she grew thinner and his cheeks grew fuller and his colour brightened from grey to pink.
After a few weeks at sea, she realized Matteo watched her more intently. He released his grip on her only long enough for Hatice to give him suck. The baby’s bright eyes would follow the girls around the cabin and a look of joy would play on his countenance when, one by one, Tarzi’s girls bent over to kiss him and tickle his toes. When he had drunk his fill, Hannah would scuttle back with him to her sleeping quarters under the stairs.
As the seas grew calmer and her stomach grew more steady, it amused Hannah to fashion simple toys for him. She found a hank of rope from a coil on the deck and knotted it into the shape of a doll. With charcoal she quickly sketched a face and ears and tied on a rag with strings for an apron. She hid her face behind it, dancing it around on his chest, pretending it was a puppet. The streamers from the apron tickled his cheeks. “Hello, young man,” she would sing in a high, silly voice. “Are you a good boy? Are you eating all of
your food? What did you have to break fast this morning?” When the puppet was tired it would flop on Matteo’s chest, and allow the baby to grab it and thrust it into his mouth.
At last, after nearly three months, just when Hannah had given up hope of seeing dry land ever again, she heard the cry of “Land ahoy” from the crow’s nest. She snatched Matteo out of his hammock and joined the other passengers on deck. With the baby in her arms, she leaned against the railing as the other passengers jostled her in their eagerness to glimpse the Valletta harbour. She thought of Isaac as the island grew larger. When the shores of Malta came into view, so bleak and desolate, so devoid of any grace or beauty, they looked like the scraped hide of an animal skin. The Balbiana would anchor here for a few days while the chandlers victualled the ship, and Hannah would go ashore to find Isaac.
Tarzi, veil whipping about her face in the afternoon breeze, approached Hannah at the rail and put an arm around her. Her friend had not missed a meal the entire voyage and had grown plump on lokum and dolmasi.
Tarzi whispered in Hannah’s ear, “I am a good she-camel after all, and you are a brilliant midwife. I am enjoying the pleasures of the marriage bed, yet my monthly courses continue.” She gave Hannah a squeeze. “Since the time of Beyazit II,” Tarzi said, “the Ottomans have been good to Jews. Ahmet is a trusted adviser of the Sultan. If you come with me to Constantinople, he will secure you a position as a midwife in the harem in the Sultan’s palace. But never mind your pebbles. The Sultan is a man who likes to reap where he has sown.”
“We will speak of my future plans tonight when I return to the ship.” I must know whether I still have a husband, Hannah thought, before I can think of the future.
Tarzi glanced down at Matteo. “Leave him with me while you go off to search for your Isaac.”
Hannah shook her head. If Isaac was alive, he must meet Matteo. She must know his reaction to the child that fate had thrust in her arms. And if she had to make a choice between Isaac and Matteo? She refused to think about it. If she returned without Isaac, Hannah would tell Tarzi that her husband was dead, no matter what the truth. God forgive me, Hannah thought, but I would prefer to be a widow than to know Isaac no longer loves me.
A light film of perspiration formed on Hannah’s upper lip. Tarzi mopped her face with a cloth.
“I wish you the best. This has been a terrible voyage for you. You have borne it bravely.”
“My son would not have survived without your help. I owe you a debt I can never repay,” said Hannah.
Two sailors turned the crank of the windlass and, with a groan and much straining of the hawsers, lowered the anchor. The Balbiana drifted leeward until the anchor hit the bottom of the sea. The hawsers tightened, the ship resisted and then shuddered to a halt. A couple of nimble young boys climbed up the rigging, took in the sails from the mainmast and mizzen, and reefed them tightly.
Hannah shaded her eyes, surveying the other ships in the crowded harbour. The masts of a ship from the Levant beat back and forth against the sky, blinding her one moment, leaving her in shadow the next. Most were not elegant galleons like the Balbiana, but beamy vessels, three-masted affairs with two decks and plenty of room for cargo and passengers.
A tender pulled alongside to take passengers to shore. Hannah pushed her way to the front of the crowd and handed Matteo and her linen bag to an oarsman who stood up to receive them. Then she climbed down the rope ladder, which slapped against the hull of the ship. She settled on a bench as the rest of the passengers crowded in. Next to her, a sailor so young he had only a fuzzy down on his cheeks was peering through a spyglass at the other ships.
Their tender skimmed through the water, the oarsmen as full of longing for solid ground as the passengers. A few minutes later, she gave a start and almost dropped Matteo when the tender bumped the Valletta dock. The others clambered off, delirious with joy to be standing on a surface that did not pitch and roll. Many fell to the ground and kissed it. A young local man caught the bowline and secured it on a cleat on the dock, and offered his hand to help Hannah disembark.
When she asked him where she should begin her search for a captive named Isaac Levi, he replied, “Ask for him in the main square, at the slave auction. Sooner or later all slaves end up there.”
Hannah took a horse cart to the square and elbowed her way through the crowd of men watching the buying and selling of slaves.
The ground refused to stay steady under her feet. It seemed to pitch and roll as vigorously as the deck of the Balbiana. The crowd pressed in too closely around her, and she felt herself fighting for breath. Lined up on the platform were several men in shackles—Turks, Nubians, and Moors, all of them thin and dull-eyed. Isaac could not be one of these men so wasted in body and spirit that they appeared indifferent to the voice of the auctioneer and the searing heat of the morning sun. She overheard two spectators standing next to her talking of a slave who had leaped into the sea to escape the auctioneer’s gavel. Understandable, she thought. I might have done the same.
The guards, whips in hand, led in more slaves, blinking in the sudden light, shackled together in a dispirited coffle. Would she even recognize Isaac if he was among them? She craned her neck, shifting Matteo to the other arm. Near the back was a bearded man wearing a tattered shirt. He was the only one in the group who seemed to have some spirit left in him. His shoulders were thrust back, his chin held high as though daring the guards to lay their whips on him. She rubbed her eyes with the tail of Matteo’s swaddling cloth and looked again. Tall and still handsome; thinner, yes, but with black eyes and a strong jaw. Relief flooded over her.
It was Isaac. He was alive.
She screamed, “Isaac! Isaac!”
The people in the crowd turned and stared at her. Isaac did not turn in her direction. She was too far away. He could not hear her.
Clasping Matteo tightly in one arm, Hannah mounted the stairs of the auction platform. She clutched the stair rail because her legs, accustomed to the heaving of the ship, threatened to give out from underneath her. One of the guards grabbed her arm and tried to restrain her. He said something to her, but the words did not register and she shook him off.
“Please stop the sale!” Turning to the auctioneer, she said, “I have that man’s ransom!” She pointed to Isaac.
Isaac looked around, trying to determine where the voice was coming from, and then, seeing her, his face dissolved in a look of amazed delight. She tried to climb the last few stairs toward him before the guards yanked her back.
“You may not interrupt the sale, signora. This man is not for purchase. We are simply guarding him until his owner comes to reclaim his property. Soldiers fished him out of the harbour this morning trying to escape.” The auctioneer spoke a coarse dialect that she could barely comprehend, but his meaning was clear from the scowl on his face.
“My husband is no one’s property!”
“You will have to take that matter up with Joseph. Here he comes now.”
She was so close to Isaac now, just a few paces away, and yet the distance between them seemed great. She would not pause to look at him, not until he was safely delivered from his captors.
The burly, squat man known as Joseph lumbered up to the auctioneer’s platform, pushing past Hannah. “Hand him over,” he said to the auctioneer. “I know how to treat runaways. There is a galley leaving tomorrow that needs oarsmen. Good riddance to him.”
He turned around to face the woman on the steps below him. Hannah reached forward and put a hand on Joseph’s arm. “He is my husband. I will buy him from you.”
“Not on your life. He has caused me too much trouble already. I will not reward him by selling him to you. I have other plans for him.”
“He has caused me a great deal of trouble, too,” Hannah said. “This is his nature. Would you not rather be rid of him for a good price?”
“I want him to die slowly and painfully on a galley.”
“So you would cheat yourself of ready cash for th
e pleasure of seeing him suffer? Surely you are wiser than that. Pause to consider, sir. Would you drink poison and expect your enemy to die?”
Isaac called down, “Hannah!”
A murmur rose from the crowd.
“Do you hear?” said Joseph. “Now that he has seen you, his torment will be all the more painful.”
How to deal with this lout? Hannah wanted to throw her purse with all her ducats in the man’s face, grab Isaac, and run—but she said, “What will the galley captain give you for him? I will match his price and then some.”
Joseph scowled and was about to reply when a couple of men from the crowd started heckling him. “The lady needs a father for that child in her arms, Joseph. Be a gentleman.” Others joined in with similar remarks, until they were united in a chorus of disapproval.
“Give me ten ducats,” said Joseph. “Even the worst husband is worth that much.”
She still had one hundred and fifty ducats remaining after paying her passage on the Balbiana, but she would be damned if she would give this creature a scudi more than necessary. “You have used him harshly, sir. Look how scrawny he has become. When he left Venice he was handsome and had all his teeth.”
“He can still fill your bed, madam, and provide you with a brother for that brat in your arms.”
“Offer him no more than two!” a voice called up to her.
Hannah looked down to see a corpulent nun in a brown habit, a white dog tucked under her arm.
Joseph responded, “Give me five ducats and he is yours.”
Hannah reached into her bag, found the purse of ducats, and fished out five. She tossed him the coins before he could change his mind. He caught them deftly and thrust them into his breeches.
The guards unlocked the manacles around Isaac’s neck and wrists, which fell away with a clank. Isaac shuffled unsteadily along the platform toward Hannah. Together they started slowly down the few steps to the ground.