The Calculations of Clerks
There’s a problem.
The clerks who make the accounts
are all Christian men, in the employ
of the Crown.
They examine our lists
with furrowed brows, like parents
assessing poor work done by children.
Some even wrinkle their noses
inspecting the treasures we have on us now.
I offer my quill.
Pretending to think, the clerk names a sum
far below its value.
It’s not only quills they don’t prize.
Fine lace and rich silk, even houses and orchards:
all are matched with figures so laughably low
the Malagans must struggle to hold in their anger
and not slap their smug faces.
I look at this sneering young man
who holds his own quill.
He calmly writes down the worth of our lives.
Think of my life a short season ago:
transcribing letters and books
for much better men.
My fingers were stained with ink spots
instead of the filth of not having washed
properly in a month.
How can that Amir and this one
be the same soul?
The Nasrid Emir
Not even close, says the head treasurer.
We have not made the sum.
People wail, wring their hands.
So much loss. And now this.
There is one hope.
Granada itself
is still Muslim.
It is said that Boabdil, the emir,
is so rich he wears ten
rings of gold on his toes.
We’ve just heard of some Malagan Jews
whose freedom was bought by a man from Castile.
When Boabdil hears that,
his pride will be stirred.
He’ll saddle his Arabian horse
and bring us the money himself!
Appeals
Three messengers have gone
to Granada.
The first two came back with a promise.
We would be helped.
We must only hold on.
The third, once a long week had passed,
came back with a no.
The fourth
did not come back
at all.
Manumission (2)
I have an idea.
Could Papa’s paper—the one that declares
I am free—
be my salvation?
If I’m enslaved again now,
I could wait for a fortnight,
then escape to the mountains.
If I’m questioned,
I’ll simply produce the paper.
Malaga? Never been there.
Then I remember.
The blood from my lips
to my toes runs ice cold.
Papa’s paper!
Early on in my flight, I had
fastened it into my book of Hafiz
with some beeswax—
so worried was I that it might fall out.
And I have sold it.
I’ve sold it!
For less than a song.
You’ll laugh at my sorrow.
The idea was desperate
anyway.
But that paper was like
a part of my skin,
once stripped from me
but, at long last, grown back.
What Price?
Some now talk of converting.
If you’re baptized, they free you.
But the thought holds no temptation for me.
I’ve been given this option before.
In Cordoba, a friar, a young man of twenty,
lurked around near the oven
shared by our street.
He waited for slaves fetching bread for their masters.
Told us baptism was how to be free.
The Benvenistes, conversos,
weren’t allowed to own Christians.
One dunk in the font—or the well, if I liked.
That’s all it would take.
I’d be my own man.
Or would I?
I wanted freedom.
But not at the price of the thoughts
of my soul.
I feel the same now.
Perhaps there’s still time
to go to the Queen.
Offer myself as translator.
Swear up and down I had nothing
to do with the invader’s trick.
But something inside me
shrinks from this thought.
Whether I find my uncles or not:
these Malagans are my people now.
The Coming of the Inquisition (2)
There are conversos among the Malagans.
Christians who once were Jews.
They all must report, it’s announced,
to the Gibralfaro.
Many conversos once fled
Castile for Malaga. They felt themselves safer
under Muslim rule.
Now monks and officials move through the crowd.
One stops, looks at me
in my Christian garb. I shake my head,
wish him Salaam Aleikum—
“Peace be with you” in Arabic.
He moves on.
That night, the rest of us hear how it’s gone.
The conversos were put into shackles
as soon as they walked through the doors
of the fortress. Now they wait in its dungeons
for their trials to start.
Trials for what?
Charges have not yet been laid.
But the Inquisitors “know”
there is heresy here.
These conversos, they say, have lived
many years outside the reach of the Office.
Who can doubt, poor souls,
that they’ve erred?
The proof, so they say,
will come out in the trials.
Isn’t that having the cart
pull the horse?
A date has been set
for an auto-da-fé—Malaga’s first.
Who’s to say Muslims who choose to convert
won’t be on the way to the fires themselves?
All who agree to baptism
are donning the shoes of conversos.
As Christians, they’re subject
to trial by the Office.
Most priests don’t
or won’t
speak our language.
I’ve had good fortune.
I speak Spanish.
But how will these others
learn all the rules
for being “good Christians”?
Good Christians enough
to stay off the stake?
Degrees of Ugliness
I thought I’d seen every
ugliness known to this land.
But some lay in wait.
There are men here who sell their wives to the soldiers
to raise enough money to ransom themselves.
That’s not the worst.
A few sell their daughters.
The soldiers bargain, and do what they want,
and then throw the girls, and their clothes, back into the yard.
Sometimes they cast a coin or two down:
much less than the price that was named.
Those who protest eat a sword in the throat
as their last meal on Earth.
The Sea?
There is talk that the Crown puts its slaves on the sea.
The armada needs strength to power its galleys.
Spain’s coastline is growing with all this conquest.
It must be defended.
Some say it’s a fate far worse than death.
Others are hopeful.
At least a
ship is not always chained to a shore.
But these galleys do nothing but sail back and forth.
They look out for pirate ships manned by us “Moors.”
I’ve heard that the oars of the slaves carry long, woeful tales.
One slave scratches words into wood—just a few.
The man after him keeps on where those stopped.
Here’s what I take from this bit of news:
galley slaves die in less time
than wet wood takes to rot.
A New Music
What more can we do?
We talk and we sing and we pray
and we dance—those few of us
with the strength left to stand.
Some men play a music like none I’ve yet heard.
Or, like all musics rolled into one.
The same language-soup I’d speak with Papa,
those long, late nights of shared study.
A dash of Arabic. A dollop of Spanish.
And a pinch of Ladino—the everyday tongue
of the Spanish Jews.
One hot afternoon, a woman with skin
the ripe brown of a raisin
sings in a voice so like the call of the muezzin
I’m shocked.
I said to Solitude:
Come live with me!
At least, that way, we’ll be two.
She sits on the ground.
But her sound scrapes the floor of the heavens.
Night Voices
With the last torch extinguished
the guitar strums to life
once again.
People call out their verses
from all parts of the yard.
Since we can’t see the author,
it seems we all sing.
I cried for Death
but God said
I didn’t deserve her.
The sadder the words,
the more comfort they carry
on the bend of their backs.
Detained
Before I know I am singing,
I am. The words just fly out.
I called out for Death
but Death was detained.
His Highness Fernando
had made death his slave!
A sad laugh greets my words.
It warms me, somehow.
Another voice sings:
I offered to free him—
the price was too high.
There’s an answer to that,
farther off. I’m asleep before
I can hear how it goes.
I Sing
Our lives in Granada were once filled with song.
Music as common as dust in the sky.
It filled up the streets and the courtyards
and even the caves carved into the hills.
Mother’s voice was an arrow that pierced to the heart.
When my abba went missing, we sang songs together.
We had each other. Our songs were our hope: he’d be back.
But when those men took my mother,
song died in my throat.
That was that, so I thought.
How could I sing one single note?
After they’d struck her? Pulled our heads by the hair?
Branded our cheeks, her smooth skin, with rods
dipped in fire?
My Cordoban family did not hear me sing.
If a song knocked at my heart, I would chase it.
There’s no place for you here.
But the raisin-skinned woman has taught me.
Song needn’t be joyful.
I think of my parents each minute I live.
I’ll sing now for them.
Time
Eight months!
The Queen, it is said, has bought us some time.
If we find the King’s price in those months,
we go free.
If not,
we are theirs—
for all time.
Trick
Our eight-month reprieve, we are told,
is not to be spent lounging round
with guitars.
But how we’re meant to raise money
when we’re chained to these benches
is anyone’s guess.
For they’ve done it.
They’ve put us to work on the sea.
The war is still on:
the armada needs every ship
on the water.
I start to wonder.
Was the ransom no more
than a masterful ruse?
What a way to make sure
that none of the conquered would hide their wealth!
No coins or rich silks buried
in caves, like in tales of Aladdin.
The Malagans owned up to every last shred
so they might meet the sum.
The spoils of a lifetime of good fortune, fine
climate, hard work.
The Crown said it wasn’t enough.
And then took it.
Wormholes
A man, the tribune, beats out time
with a gavel. We follow his raps
with our strokes.
My oar is not covered with tales.
But the first weary morning,
weak light shines through wormholes in the hull.
There, on my oar’s blade—a message.
It’s written in Latin,
but I can translate.
Oft was I weary when I toiled at thee.
I wonder if these nine small words
hold the sum of my fate.
Freedom Dream
What sleep we’re allowed is done sitting up,
still chained to our oars.
We’re not picky. We gulp down these hours
as if they were food.
At first, I don’t dream.
I’m too tired for that.
But one night, I do.
It’s not fair. With such
little sleep I should dream of
hot baths, or beautiful maidens
swathed in soft silk.
Instead comes Ramon.
He is gouging the earth with his fingers.
“It’s down here somewhere,” he says.
“It will buy you your freedom.”
He scratches and claws.
I am angry. I walk off.
But his shout calls me back.
“Here it is!” He is grinning.
In his hand is the rough stone of pumice
we used, as scribes, to rub out our mistakes.
The Stone
In the morning, I’m startled.
The tribune hands me—
a large pumice stone!
Am I some kind of prophet?
My eardrum explodes.
The man has just struck me.
“Don’t sit there gaping!”
He grabs back the stone.
This time he accosts
my sore ear with a shout.
“Don’t understand me?
Okay. Do this, see?”
He scours the stone back and forth
on the blade of the oar.
Then gives it back, plus one last slap
for good measure.
I wish I could sharpen his head!
Better yet, pierce him with sharp words
instead.
Rhythm
Reach and then pull.
Feather the blade of the oar
and then dip.
My heart must now beat to the drum
of this rhythm.
I can’t think.
I just row.
Once in a while
a song crosses my mind,
but it makes too deep a skip
in the pulse of my rowing.
I must concentrate
if I’m not to lose stride
and be wrenched with such force
that my arms may just break.
Reach and then pull
.
Feather the blade of the oar
and then dip.
If the others would sing,
and keep time,
it might work.
But we’re flogged if we’re even
caught talking.
I’ve had enough lashes
for seven lifetimes.
Reach and then pull.
Feather the blade of the oar
and then dip.
When ships first plied these shores,
far back as the pharaohs,
the oarsmen were prized
above everyone else.
Well, times have changed.
Still, I must marvel
at what we men do.
Four hundred oars.
Two hundred men.
All with hearts and—
though this may be forgotten—
minds. All moving
as one.
Reach and then pull.
Feather the blade of the oar
and then dip.
Distance
I improve.
The pain arrowing
up my arms doesn’t stop.
But at least now, while I row,
I can pick my own thoughts.
Or can I?
My mind seems stuck in Cordoba.
Our patio, and its small
lemon tree.
One branch of that tree
I thought of as mine.
A dove, of a brown
even lighter than dough,
came each evening.
It perched on my branch.
His cry filled my heart
with a sorrowful joy.
How are you? he would sing.
How are you?
If I were that dove
I could travel back there
in three hundred raps of the gavel.
Well, more like three thousand.
But I could.
It is not all that far.
But for me, in these chains,
that lemon tree
is as far as Shiraz,
birthplace of Hafiz.
Or farther. As far as hell is
from heaven.
All the distance,
maybe, that one life can hold.
THREE
Ramon
Jerez and Malaga, Castile
1492
Dust
Jerez now.
How many cities is that?
In four years of toiling for the Holy Office
I’ve been moved round so much,
it feels more like forty.
The shrewd minds who maneuver
this massive machine
don’t like to see us, the cogs,
The Apprentice's Masterpiece Page 12