6

After the noon meal, I led Papá and Belo to Señor Mateo’s house. I worried that the señor would hurt us, but he just stared when he opened the door.

“Señor Mateo?” Belo’s voice sounded like velvet. He opened his hands, palms up.

My kidnapper nodded.

Belo waved us away, so we waited across the street while he spoke to Señor Mateo. After a minute or two, Belo opened the purse on his belt and took out some coins. Señor Mateo disappeared back into his house but returned quickly with Bela’s amulet and my rings.

Belo gave me the rings but not the amulet. “I’ll keep it until you’re older.”

I decided Papá was wrong. It did have power, or Belo would have let me have it.

On the day after we finished sitting shiva, Mamá let me help in the kitchen, an unexpected kindness.

I followed her, hurrying to keep up, because she was always in a rush. We flew down the fourteen wooden steps to the vestibule and then behind the stairs to the door to the courtyard. Thirty-one of my quicksteps took us to the kitchen, which was behind the house.

Inside, Vellida sat on a stool, slicing onions, with a tear hesitating on the tip of her chin. Two eggplants and a bunch of parsley lay on the worktable beyond her cutting board. Aljohar, on another stool perhaps four paces away, was mashing garlic and basil, according to my nose. Both of them smiled at me.

“Teach her!” Mamá told Vellida, and left.

My sister fetched another stool from the pair under one of the two windows that looked out on our back garden. She set it down between her stool and Aljohar’s, right up against her own. “Sit.”

We both did.

She took my right hand in hers and folded my fingers around the handle of her knife. “It’s sharp. The goal is to have ten fingers at the end.” Her voice was smiling, so I smiled and felt unafraid.

Vellida held the onion in her left hand. Our right hands rose and fell.

“Mamá likes the slices to be even.” Vellida whispered, “The casserole doesn’t care.”

I giggled, but for once I agreed with Mamá. They should be regular. I foresaw many opportunities for counting in cooking. Vellida and I finished the onion, and she let me transfer the slices into a bowl, which I did without losing any.

Our new servant, Hamdun, entered from the back door to the garden, bearing two wooden buckets of water. Thin as he was, I wondered if he could manage them, but from the steady way he set them down in front of the fireplace, I saw he was strong. When he straightened, he blazed a smile at Vellida and me. I couldn’t help smiling back. I was happy to be cooking, anyway.

Then I remembered our dead and felt guilty.

When it was noon and time for dinner, Aljohar told me I’d done well. She said there would be more to do after we ate.

But when we’d finished and Belo had intoned the prayer, he said I should come to his study.

I sent a look of appeal to Mamá, who didn’t see, because she was glaring at Yuda (the only expression she ever had for him). She couldn’t have helped me anyway, even if she wanted to. Belo was the patriarch.

I followed him out of the dining room. From the courtyard balcony, we passed the living room and turned the corner to the next door, which led to his study.

Inside, filtered light came from the windows above the desk and the door we’d just come through. Bright sunlight poured in from the two windows that faced the street and lit the book on his desk that was open to Hebrew letters bordered by gold-and-brown flowers.

Belo turned his chair away from his desk. Holding me by my shoulders, he positioned me and sat so that I faced him, which made me feel like a thief or a gambler brought before the aljama council.

“Your papá says you love numbers.”

I nodded cautiously.

“You’re seven now. How old will you be in two years?”

He knew. Why was he asking me? “Nine.”

“If you had twenty-five grapes to divide between Yuda, Samuel, and Vellida, how many would you give to each one?”

I didn’t have to think. “Twenty-three to Yuda, one apiece to Samuel and Vellida.”

His mouth hung slack for a moment, and then he erupted in shoulder-shaking laughter.

I smiled uneasily.

When he stopped, he said, “Twenty-five evenly among the three of them.”

Ugly Camel Head would be mad. “Eight to each, with one left over.”

“What would you do with that one?”

Eat it? “Belo, a grape is small and squishy.”

“True. Imagine they’re oranges.”

“I’d peel the last orange and count the parts.” Parts didn’t seem like the right word. “Most have ten. Three and a third parts to each, but the thirds would be squishy.”

“Excellent.” He leaned over and tipped up my chin. “Your bela used to say you were a cabinet with hidden drawers.”

I felt uneasy at his scrutiny, and the mention of Bela brought me close to tears.

“There’s the stubbornness drawer. You saved yourself twice—once from the plague, and once from baptism. And there’s the drawer full of numbers. What else?”

I couldn’t answer. Bela had known me best, so if she said I was full of drawers, then I was. I understood they weren’t real drawers, but, still, my urge to count made me wonder how many. Six drawers? A hundred?

Belo stroked his beard and asked me if I could read yet. “Yuda teaches you, like a good boy, yes?”

“Samuel.” He was the good boy. I didn’t mention that I helped him with his math problems.

Belo took a prayer book from the books on his desk and waved me close. He opened it and pointed at a passage in Hebrew. “Read this to me.”

I liked to read, though I felt more comfortable with numbers. I’d been reading for only two years, but I’d been counting for as long as I could remember.

“Good.”

Not excellent.

“Can you read Castilian, too?”

Castilian, the language we spoke. Samuel had started reading it just a month ago. “A little. I’m better at Hebrew.”

He gave me a letter written in Castilian. In the first sentence, I could make out only three words.

“Mmm. You’ll learn.” He went to the shelf on the wall across from his desk. “Ah. There it is.” He handed a book to me. “Poems in Hebrew. If you see a word you don’t know, memorize it to ask your brother later. Don’t ask me. You can sit there.” He indicated a red leather floor cushion. “Your bela used to sit here with me sometimes.” He returned to his chair and began to read.

Belo’s book weighed as much as a pitcher full of milk. I wondered what Vellida was doing in the kitchen. Still, I was excited—books held secrets. I opened it to the middle.

Traps in my mouth, on my tongue,

waiting; on my lips, spiders’ venom;

the important lords and honored dons,

my elders, refusing to repent, have clung

to deceit. They sing their wicked song.

I wasn’t sure what deceit meant. This poem wasn’t for children. I turned pages and saw that none were. Even more exciting. My sisters were educated, as Jewish girls in wealthy families were. All the girls in poor families could read Hebrew at least. But I doubted that any of them—rich or poor—had read these poems. I memorized words I didn’t know and continued to read about kings, gardens, God, men’s feelings, women’s beauty.

But after half an hour, I grew drowsy. I snuggled into the cushion and fell into a dream of stirring a stewpot and counting the times my spoon went around.

A pattern began. In the morning—and much of the day if Belo was away—I helped in the kitchen. Out of kindness, at other times when she could, Vellida took it on herself to teach me to spin, weave, and embroider. I loved the care that each task called for. What I didn’t like was choosing colors. I couldn’t tell which was pleasing and which ugly.

“What’s your favorite color?” Vellida asked.

People had a favorite? “What’s yours?”

“Green. Yours?”

I frowned. “Orange?”

Vellida told me not to worry. “The fate of the Jews does not depend on the hues in a cushion cover.”

The fate of my marriage might, if my creations disgusted all my suitors. The handiwork of girls was on display on pillows and wall hangings.

“I like spinning best,” I said. Whatever I spun would go next to the dyer, who, as far as I was concerned, could pick whatever color he liked best.

When Ledicia came with her children, my task—my beloved task—was to watch and play with them, while she helped in the kitchen in my place. Todros delighted in making things fall, so I had to take care that he dropped objects that wouldn’t shatter. I always kept a bowl of walnuts on hand for him to play with. I gave Beatriz my first doll. She named it Tusa and played with it and talked to it by the hour, though sometimes she interrupted herself to say, “Tía Loma, guess what happened to Tusa.”

“She grew fins and swam to Egypt.”

“No, Tía Loma!” she shouted with laughter. “She’d drown!”

After supper, I studied with Samuel. At bedtime, Mamá planted a hard kiss on my forehead, and Papá, if he was home, sat with me and kissed my cheek softly.

In the afternoons when he was home, Belo called me to his study, and I had to go, even if the little ones—the littles, as I thought of them—were visiting. Occasionally, I’d find Fatima there, kneeling and massaging a salve into Belo’s feet while he read a book or wrote in a folio on his lap. While he was reading or writing, he ignored me. I dipped into his books, which I could understand only in glimmers. I was often bored. But sometimes he read to me or had me read to him.

I liked best when he talked about his ideas, almost as if I were grown-up. He’d tell me he was trying out a thought, and when he finished, he’d tell me if he was pleased or if he had to think more. He didn’t ask my opinion, so I didn’t have to reveal my confusion, because I was often confused. But I’d think later about whatever he’d said and work out my own understanding.

I grew less afraid of him, and I came to love him much more than when he just loomed over our family like an eagle over a field, regal and remote. By wanting my company, he let me know that I was important to him. He was more interested in me than everyone else was combined. His attention became precious.

Two months passed. One afternoon, Belo put down his book, turned his chair, and asked me what Bela used to say when she came to me at night.

She said different things every night. And I was starting to forget. I didn’t know how to answer.

The air seemed to harden. I had to say something. “One night, she said Vellida’s husband would be kind and mine would be kind and gentle. She said I’d have many children. Do you think I will?”

Belo frowned. “You will if God wants you to.”

Was he remembering my star chart? Did he believe God wanted me to be childless? “Belo, do you believe in astrology?”

The air softened. He clasped his hands in front of his chest as he often did when expounding a theory. “The Almighty put the stars in the heavens. He directs His purpose toward us. Thus, yes, I believe the position of the stars influences the life of every man—Christian, Muslim, or Jew—and every nation.”

“Mamá had a chart done for each of us when we were born.” I wanted to ask him about my chart, but I didn’t feel brave enough.

“Daughters, too? I didn’t know.” He went on. “The stars’ effect on a man is less than their influence on a nation. That makes sense, doesn’t it, Loma?”

I nodded.

“If the stars predict famine in a kingdom, a particular man may die even if his chart augured a long life for him. Just so, the stars’ sway over a wife isn’t as strong as it is over her husband.”

I smiled so widely my cheeks hurt. “Really?”

He frowned in mock displeasure. “You doubt your abuelo?”

Then if I married a man who was destined to have many children, his fate would win over mine, and I would be a mother. Hooray!

Ha, Ugly Camel Head!

How could I make sure my future husband had a good chart?

“What else did your abuela say?”

“Um . . . She said that Jews are safe in Spain.”

“Were you thinking the Jews were safe when you ran after me?”

The night of the mob. I shook my head.

“We’re not safe if we do nothing, so we do something.”

“What do we do, Belo?” I hoped the question wasn’t bold.

He didn’t seem to mind. “Your papá and I make ourselves useful.”

“How?”

“With donations. We buy the church an altarpiece, and we pay for armor and swords for some of the king’s knights to help them win wars. The constables and the bishops and the king and queen don’t forget when the Jews need them. That’s how our family keeps us and all the Jews safe.”

When we went to synagogue, Bela had always stayed outside in the street with me for a quarter hour or so, until a priest, or more than one, left the building. Then we’d go in. I never asked why we waited, because priests frightened me, and my mind shied away from them.

But after she became Bela of blessed memory, the next time we went to the synagogue, which was for Rosh Hashanah—the Jewish New Year—no one kept me outside. Feeling grown-up, I followed Mamá in with everyone else and up the stairs to the front of the women’s gallery, where I could see the tevah downstairs by peering through gaps in the lattices of the low balcony wall. The tevah was where the Torah was read and where the rabbi and other men addressed the congregation.

When everyone had come in and the rustling of clothing had stopped, a priest mounted to the tevah. Sunlight from a leaded-glass window made an X on the bald center of his uncovered head.

He raised his hands, palms up, and screamed, “Woe to the Jews! Stinking in sin, sinking in sin. God curses you! Jesus Christ curses you!”

This was discord beyond anything Mamá produced. I could barely breathe.

Next, in a normal voice, he urged us to convert. If we did, he said, we’d no longer be devils.

We were devils? A chirp of alarm escaped me.

His voice rose again. “You are evil. You are sin! You are abominations!”

Tears blinded me.

“You will burn forever. Demons will torment you.”

I wailed and drowned out his voice—

—and the sound of his feet on the stairs.

Hands girdled my waist. The priest raised me over his head and carried me downstairs.

I became rigid. Terror, even greater than I’d felt a moment before, silenced me. I squeezed my eyes shut. My breath came in gasps.

In seven steps, he returned to the tevah and climbed the three stairs. “This blessed child”—I felt him rotate me so that everyone saw my frozen face—“doesn’t want to burn. You heard her. She longs for salvation, longs for eternal life among the angels of the Lord.”