4

I hoped that the noise of the receding mob would cover the slap of my sandals. Bela’s amulet swung annoyingly from side to side with my steps.

Belo was fast! His shape diminished ahead, but, luckily, the street was straight and the night bright. I counted steps as I ran. My breath came in gasps, and my legs burned. Illness had weakened me. I sweated in the warm night air.

The houses looked taller in the dark, the slice of sky narrower. I wasn’t often in the street, except on holidays and celebrations. Jewish girls spent their days at home.

Someone passed Belo, coming my way. I moved closer to the houses and kept running, hoping he’d go by.

But the someone—a man—stopped. “What’s this?” His arm snaked out and pulled me in. He crouched, holding my shoulders. His breath smelled of wine and something else—pork, I supposed. I’d smelled the same scent on the breath of a few of our Christian guests.

“A little Jewess. What’s your name, girl?”

I couldn’t speak. My heart thudded against my ribs.

Belo was getting away from the amulet’s protection.

He softened his voice. “I won’t hurt you.”

I calmed a little. “Loma.”

He picked me up and tucked me under his arm. My terror rose again. I began a wail, which he muffled with his free hand. He started walking after Belo, much too slowly to catch up to him.

I wriggled and kicked, but his gait didn’t change, and he didn’t drop me. Out of habit, despite my fright, I counted his steps.

I recited the Shema in my mind: Hear, O Israel. The Lord is our God; the Lord is One.

My captor passed through the gate of the judería, which the mob had left open, and turned right. Which way had Belo gone?

The man turned again, and again. My mind ran on three tracks: counting steps, memorizing turns, and repeating the Shema.

No. Four tracks, the fourth a channel of terror.

After several minutes, he stopped at a door, just two wide boards, not carved or set with iron bands and studs like ours. He lifted the latch and pushed. “María! Light a lantern!” He carried me up a narrow flight of eighteen wooden steps.

As we rose, a glow grew above us. In a moment, we entered a low-ceilinged room, where an oil lamp flared on a low table. I tried not to gag at the smell of rancid fat. A woman stood in her shift in the middle of the room.

Her gaze flicked from her husband to me. “What’s this?”

He set me down.

Sobbing, I started to run, but he grabbed me—not trying to hurt me—and held me by my shoulders. “I found her running in the judería. We can save her and raise her. We’ll take her to the church at dawn.”

The church! Only Christians went inside the church.

Raise me? Keep me?

My sobs threatened to choke me.

“It would be a blessing for her.” The woman took my hand. “Come here, child.”

She drew me close to the lantern. “Look, Mateo!” She fingered my sleeve. “Silk.”

To me, she said, “Where’s your badge?”

Jews had to wear a red badge on their right shoulder, but I’d never had to, and no one in our family wore one. I didn’t know why we didn’t, so I was silent.

“She’s rich,” María said. “We can’t keep her. What’s this?” She raised Bela’s amulet to the light. “Silver, and the stone must be worth something, too.”

Though I fought her, she lifted the ribbon over my head, then moved on to my hands and pulled off my two silver rings and one gold.

“Leave her in the streets but not near us. It’s up to God what happens to her.”

Señor Mateo didn’t argue. Outside, I kept track of steps and turns again. After perhaps ten minutes, he set me down on a street that looked just like his—winding, punctuated by simple doors.

He patted my cheek. “I would have saved you from hell.” He hurried back down the street.

Weeping, I retraced his steps. I had to go all the way to his street to know how to get home.

How many of my steps would equal one of his? I made mine big but decided that even my longest steps were shorter than his, so I adjusted my counting.

Belo would be furious that I’d lost the rings and Bela’s amulet—especially the amulet.

I missed the pendant’s protection, which had kept me alive and saved me from being permanently stolen and having to enter a church. Now, I was at risk with every step. Would a different Christian door open? Would someone else snatch me, and would this person decide I could be kept?

When I reached the judería at last, the gate was locked. I sat on the cobblestones in front of it, knees to my chest, drawn up as small as I could be. The night was quiet. Whatever had happened with the mob seemed to have ended.

I fell asleep and woke when the gate groaned open, rolling me on my back. It was still night.

“Loma!” Papá scooped me up in his arms.

Belo was with him, so he was safe. Relief set off my tears as I was borne along, sobbing into Papá’s chest.

When we got home, candles and oil lamps were bright in every room, and the whole family was assembled in the living room.

Papá set me down. “She’s all right, Violanta.” Violanta was Mamá’s name.

She whirled on Yuda, who stood next to Ledicia. “God will punish you for doing this to me.”

His face reddened. “I’m sorry, Mamá, Papá, Belo. Please forgive me, Loma.”

“I forgive you.” If he’d gotten in trouble because of me, I was in danger.

“Good.” Papá picked me up again. “That’s settled.”

But it wasn’t, because Mamá added, “A bad child is a viper in the nest.”

Silence followed this until Vellida asked, “Where did you go, Loma?”

I didn’t want to say in front of everyone, and now it seemed silly to tell them I’d left to protect Belo. And I’d lost Bela’s pendant. My tears started again.

Papá said, “We’ll sort it out in the morning.” He carried me to bed. For once, I had the same bedtime as Vellida, who followed us down the corridor.

When he left, she sat up. “Yuda will take his revenge on you.”

I said, “What did he do?”

“They didn’t realize you were gone until I went to bed and you weren’t there. They looked all over the house.” She giggled. “Even in places that were too small for a cat!”

I laughed, too, imagining my head sticking out of a pitcher. This was nice, the two of us talking at night, as if I were Vellida’s age, as if I were important. I watched her black shape against the lighter window behind her.

“When Belo came back,” Vellida said, “Papá told him you were missing, and Yuda said he’d seen you follow him out. I could tell he expected them to thank him, but they were furious that he didn’t say anything right away. Even Papá was angry.”

Yuda always hugged his secrets close and waited for the most dramatic moment to reveal them. This time, he’d gotten it wrong.

“Where did you go?”

I wanted to tell her, but I would have had to reveal that I had Bela’s amulet, so I didn’t answer.

“Stupid baby! I knew you wouldn’t tell.” She dropped down with a thud.

I dreaded the interrogation that would come in the morning, but Yuda’s vengeance arrived first.