Incantation

by Alice Hoffman

  The guards opened his mouth and forced the sausage in. When my grandfather spat it out, they forced it back in, only this time they clamped his mouth shut with a metal mask. They tightened the mask until we could hear the bones in his face break, even in the back row. They told my grandfather he would be released when he’d finished eating the pig. After a while he nodded, but when they unlatched the mask, he spit it at them again. I saw the end of his life right there in that single moment. His pride, his decency, his secrets, his death.

  The court officials had brought in a rabbi from the juderia in order to question him. I recognized him; he was the old man with the beard whose books had been burned. He still wore the red circle on his vest. In the back of the court were two women dressed in black with that same circle sewn to their clothes. I looked at them, then looked away. I recognized the language they spoke. Ladino. A mixture of Hebrew and Spanish; the language my grandparents spoke to each other when they believed no one was listening.

  I felt the world that I knew tumbling away from me. The judge asked the rabbi if my grandfather was a Judaizer, practicing the rites of Jewry. Question after question came. Was he known to be a surgeon? Did he own books? Did he run a magic school? The rabbi said no to each question in a sharp voice. His voice was hard and seemed to be coming from a far distance away. He had raven eyes, dark and deep. He spoke with a raven’s voice, old and wise and far above the cruelty of the human race.

  The rabbi did not want to answer the court; still, they questioned him. Was my grandfather a sorcerer, known to practice from books of magic and illumination? Could he take people apart and put them back together with a needle and thread? Did he chant during the new moon and during fasting times?

  The rabbi looked at my grandfather. Over a hundred years earlier some had stayed and some had fled. Some had been forced into the juderia, where they’d been brutalized; others went to Portugal or Amsterdam; still others went underground and practiced their beliefs in secret. What difference did it make? There was no red circle on my grandfather’s clothes, true enough, but now the worst crime was pretending to be something you were not.

  If this was true, what did it mean about Catalina—she who pretended to be my friend and was the opposite instead? When I looked at her, she appeared to be a different person from the one I’d known. My friend had disappeared into green smoke. And now I saw that the court had given her a gift for her betrayal.

  Catalina was wearing my pearls.

  She had rewritten everything, our history together, our friendship. Now I was the girl who’d stolen Andres; the girl who’d lied to her about who I was. Therefore, she owed me nothing.

  TO GET MY GRANDFATHER to speak, they arrested my mother. Catalina’s mother had joined her daughter to offer the evidence against her; she’d told the judges that my mother laid eggs, like a hen. Blue eggs that were filled with human blood.

  There had been a drought, and we had no rainwater in our barrel; because my mother would not allow me to go for water, the guards arrested her while she was at the well in the center of the Plaza. Where the water had come directly from heaven. Where my family had come to drink for over five hundred years.

  They dragged her away by her hair. That is what our neighbor Señora dePaz had run to our house to tell us. When I went to search for my mother there were strands of her hair everywhere. Birds were gathering in the Plaza, a thousand fluttering doves, each with a strand of black hair in its beak.

  The soldiers had dragged my mother over the cobblestones. My grandmother and I were both there, in the back row, when Abra was brought into court that same afternoon; there were still red bloody bands running down her face, her arms, her legs.

  And there was Catalina—only one row away.

  The judge first asked my mother if she could cure a cold. Like the rabbi with the red circle, she should have said no to everything. She should have become a raven. She didn’t understand that every word the judge said was a trap, and that every word she said could easily be a stone used to shut her into that trap.

  My mother said it was a simple enough thing to cure a cold with a mixture of garlic and root teas. We could all tell from the judge’s face that this was the wrong answer. The next question came: Could she make a baby come before its time? She could do so if necessary, if the mother was ill or the baby so big it needed to enter into our world early—she made an elixir of roots and leaves and had the mother-to-be walk all around until dawn, preferably on the first night of a full moon.

  My mother sat there calmly; she didn’t understand how she had stumbled into the judge’s snare until he began the next series of accusations. The judge’s face was still expressionless, as if he were a reasonable man and this were a reasonable proceeding.

  Could she call fallen angels to do her bidding? Could she murder with a curse and a bit of blood smeared on the door? Could she seduce men by saying their names backwards a dozen times; could the mark of the devil be found in her left eye; could she lay eggs like a hen, and were those eggs indeed filled with blood? Did she, as witches and Jews were said to do, sleep with pigs in her bed?

  My mother had stopped speaking. The trap had closed over her, and there was nothing she could do. You cannot disprove the ridiculous. You cannot argue reasonably with evil.

  Abra deMadrigal did not look young enough to be my sister anymore. Her sorrow weighed her down and aged her. She was still beautiful, but she looked very far away. No wonder our people had raven eyes, so distant, so sad. No matter how wise she was, my mother looked like a woman who hadn’t truly believed how much evil there was in our world. Not until this moment.

  What I heard in that courtroom seemed like a dream; what I saw, a nightmare. Would I wake up and find the scene before me dissolved into ordinary life? I bit hard into the heel of my hand, until I tasted blood, real blood, human blood. From the way I hurt I knew the truth: There was no waking up from this now.

  Andres had heard what had happened when he came home from working in the fields. He had run to the courthouse to be with me.

  You can’t be here, Andres told me. It’s too dangerous.

  At first I refused to leave. My grandmother looked over at Andres, surprised to see him.

  What is he doing here? she asked me.

  Nothing, I assured her. I turned to Andres. Go.

  Do you think it’s over? Andres told me. My aunt has gone again to speak to the judges. Who knows what lies she’ll tell. They’ll come for the rest of your family. Raven, they’ll come for you.

  When I whispered to my grandmother that we should leave, she waved me away.

  You go, she said. You shouldn’t be here. You’re a child.

  I went out to the courtyard with Andres, but I wouldn’t go any farther. I had to wait for my grandmother and bring her with me.

  Andres and I crouched in the shadows, not speaking. We were close enough to feel each other’s hearts beating. When the crowd came pouring out of the court, I saw my grandmother limping along, pushed forward in the great swell of people. Andres reached her and helped her toward the shadows.

  I told my grandmother that we were going into the woods, where we could be safe for the night. My grandmother pulled away. She insisted she had to go back to her house; she had to clean for when my grandfather came home.

  Andres and I looked at each other. My grandmother was overwhelmed by what was happening to us. She had moved back into the past because the here and now was too terrible. I was gentle with my grandmother, as if she were the child, not I. I told my grandmother she could clean the next day and that I would help her. But by now I understood: We were never going to live in our house again. For all I knew the soldiers were waiting for us already.

  We got out of town as quickly as we could. Halfway up the hillside that led to the woods, my grandmother collapsed. She said she couldn’t go any farther. She had to go back to see my mother and grandfather; she had to have the house clean and ready; she had to stay in her bed chamber and lock all the do
ors.

  You have to go on, Andres said. Otherwise Estrella will follow you back to town, and if she does she’ll be taken, too. Is that what you want?

  My grandmother looked at Andres as though she had never seen him before.

  I’ll protect you both, he said. We’ll protect each other.

  THEY KILLED MY GRANDFATHER that night. While my grandmother and I were sleeping in a meadow, they beat him to death with stones. They broke his bones one by one. They tried to make him confess his sins, and he refused. Andres found this out from a farmer when he went to an orchard to buy fruit and cheese for our breakfast. People all over town had listened for my grandfather’s cries, but there were none. Only silence.

  When I told my grandmother what had happened, she held up her hand to stop me. She didn’t want to hear.

  Do not speak of your grandfather again until we are in his presence, she told me.

  My grandmother seemed half the size she used to be. Saying a single sentence took most of her strength. All around her was a puddle of blue liquid. Just as my mother had told me. The color of tears.

  Andres thought it was his duty to protect us, but I wanted to protect him also. No matter how much it might hurt.

  It’s not safe for you to stay with us, I told him on the day my grandfather died.

  I don’t care, Andres said.

  Well, then, I don’t want you here.

  He looked at me, hurt. Still, I went on. Sometime a lie was told in the best interest of someone you loved.

  Go now, I said.

  Promise me one thing: You won’t go back to town, he said to me.

  There were no longer any promises worth keeping.

  Don’t come into the woods anymore, I told him. Forget the way. Forget me.

  I turned so I didn’t have to see him leave, but I knew when he was gone. I kept my eyes shut until there was silence, until I could no longer hear him walking away.

  THE NEXT DAY, I told my grandmother I was going to search for food, but that was another lie. I made sure she had water and that she was comfortable, then I went into town. I wore my shawl over my head. I needed to go see my mother. I didn’t care if it wasn’t safe; nothing was anymore.

  I wasn’t the only one outside the wall of the prison. There were dozens of people there, all calling out the name of their son or daughter or husband. All losing someone they loved.

  In the Plaza, a bonfire was being built. I could smell green wood; it burned my nose when I breathed in.

  Why are they doing that? I asked a man next to me.

  I had never seen a bonfire that tall.

  Everyone in this prison will be burned for heresy, my neighbor at the wall told me. They’ll burn in agony.

  I saw my mother at a window, her face peering through the metal bars. I felt that I was staring into a pool, seeing my own reflection. I thought of the bowl of water my mother taught me to look into. It was true, everything a person ever needed to know was right there in a single bowl small enough to fit in the palm of one hand.

  My mother saw me. She threw something out the window, and I ran to get it. An old lady got to it before I could. It was a piece of wool with something wrapped inside.

  It belongs to my mother! I told the old lady.

  Well, now it’s mine!

  The old lady was there to see what she could buy cheaply from those people desperately trying to sell family treasures in order to buy food and clean water for those they loved who were trapped in prison.

  The old lady unwrapped the fabric, greedy, then made a hissing sound. There was only a rotten onion inside.

  This is what you want—take it. The old lady threw it to me.

  I held the onion in my hands. I did not have to peel it to find I had tears in my eyes. I looked at the window, but my mother was gone. I went down the street and found a place in the shadows. I sat down and peeled the onion. My mother had made a hole she had patched up with onion skin. Inside was her emerald ring. The one my father gave her when he pledged his love, a lifetime and a world away; it was now her final gift to me.

  ONE GIFT deserves another in return. So my mother had taught me, and so I believed.

  I went to the Muslim doctor’s house in search of a gift for my mother. I had no one else to go to in a time such as this. No one with any power. I had to bang on the door before the yard boy answered, the one who’d brought us the chickens. When I said I needed to see the doctor, the boy shouted at me. We didn’t speak the same language; all we could do was shout at each other.

  The doctor must have heard us. He came out and waved the boy away. I was afraid the doctor would shout at me, too. But he spoke to me kindly, asking me what I wanted.

  Help for my mother, I said.

  You think I can do anything in this world?

  The doctor looked different than he had when his wife was alive. Ashy. He was wearing the blue garment his wife had made for him out of my mother’s yarn. I could tell that he’d put it on when his wife died, and hadn’t taken it off.

  My mother helped your wife make something for you. Now you help me!

  I think I was crying. I sounded angry, but that’s not what I was.

  They’ve built a bonfire on the Plaza. My mother is one of the prisoners they intend to burn.

  I can make her something to help her into the next world, whatever that is for your people. The Muslims called us the People of the Book. He knew who I was. And still he wanted to help me.

  I looked at the doctor. I was standing next to the red lily, the one that grew from true love.

  You understand me? the doctor said. It’s to let her choose her time so that she flies away before the pain.

  I nodded. I wanted that for my mother. It was all I could give her now.

  Wait here, the doctor said to me.

  When the doctor went inside his house, I sat down beneath an olive tree. The air was so heavy I felt I might fall asleep. Soon enough, the doctor’s boy came out to me. He handed me a packet. Inside, there were two tablets made of white powder. We looked at each other, and then the boy ran away.

  I walked through the market, circling the fruit and vegetable bins until I saw a brown onion on the ground. I kicked it in front of me until I could reach down and steal it. I poked a hole into the onion and placed the tablets inside. My mother knew medicine; she was a healer. She would know the tablets were to take her far from this world. To help her fly.

  I tried to get back to the prison, but there were soldiers everywhere. A woman who went to our church and who sometimes made almond cakes with my grandmother, Señora Rocamora, grabbed me.

  Run away, she told me. They’re looking for you and your brother.

  Thankfully, my brother was safe in the seminary. I asked my grandmother’s old friend to bring the onion to my mother, and to throw it over the gate when she saw Abra. The Señora thought she might be too old and weak to throw anything over the prison wall, but before she could make up her mind, I lost her. The crowd started pushing, and in an instant Señora Rocamora was gone, taken by soldiers. The soldiers had come so close to me, I had felt the heat from their bodies. I was wearing my shawl, so that no one would recognize me, but just to make certain, I ran.

  When I got back to the woods, Andres was waiting for me. He was watching over my grandmother. He hadn’t stayed away as I’d asked.

  The truth was, I had never been more grateful to see someone.

  As soon as my grandmother fell asleep, Andres and I went far into the woods. It was dark, but we could see by starlight.

  So now you know why we can never be together, I told him.

  We can’t be together here, Andres said. But this isn’t the only place in the world. I’ll do anything for you.

  My grandfather had told me I should go to Amsterdam; maybe we could go together. But I couldn’t go anywhere yet. I wasn’t finished with Encaleflora.

  I handed Andres the onion.

  If you want to do something for me, take this to the prison and call out m
y mother’s name. When you see her, throw this inside to her. Tell her it’s my gift to her.

  What else can I do? Andres asked.

  He meant it, so I asked for more. I had no pride anymore.

  You can try to get word to my brother. Tell him to leave the seminary and go as far away as he can. Tell him to go to Amsterdam.

  I’ll get word to him to go there, Andres assured me.

  Andres didn’t come back until very late. He brought us some bread and cheese. My grandmother and I had been starving. He did protect us, as he said he would, this time from hunger. But I knew he’d done much more.

  When my grandmother went to sleep, Andres and I went deeper into the woods. I asked if my mother had gotten the onion. She had. Andres had called out for her, and when she came to the window to see who was shouting her name, Andres had thrown her the onion through the bars. Abra quickly hid it inside her clothes. Her hands were still blue from the yarn she’d dyed for so very long. She had cried so many tears, she had no more inside of her.

  Thank my daughter, my mother had called. It is the greatest gift she could have given me.

  ANDRES HAD ALSO gone to see Friar deLeon. At first the Friar refused to speak to him, but when Andres explained that I had sent him, the Friar vowed to get word to my brother if he could. After that, Andres had done one more thing. He had also spoken with a friend who could help to get my grandmother and me to Amsterdam, where we could find the man my grandfather had told me about. From there, we would take a boat to an island so far away, nothing could hurt us.

  But it would cost dearly.

  I looked at Andres. Just the thought of leaving him stopped me.

  I’m going with you, he said.

  I took my mother’s emerald from the chain on my neck and gave it to him to pay for our passage.

  My mother had been right, it was the one thing that lasted, the one thing we could depend on. Other than our love for each other, it was all we had right now.

  Earth