7

The priest lowered me in his arms, descended, and passed me to someone else, who passed me to a third person, while my stomach lurched. This third person carried me out of the synagogue, set me down in the street, and turned out to be Ledicia.

The priest could decide he still wanted me. Sobbing, I ran to the end of the street, turned, turned again, and sank to the ground in front of our door.

Though she was no longer a girl, Ledicia lowered herself to the cobblestones, too, and hugged me. “The priest won’t get you.” She held me at arm’s length. “Did you see Belo glare at him?”

I hadn’t.

“That’s what made him stop.” She chuckled and let me go. “That and the weight of you. His arms shook when he put you down.”

I was plump.

“He was just saying those words. He does it whenever there are services, him or some other priest. Don’t worry.”

I’d have to hear it again?

But my need to not cause discord had returned, so I pretended to be comforted. A servant let us in, and Ledicia stayed with me until, exhausted by emotion, I fell asleep on the bed I shared with Vellida.

In the dining room, first thing in the morning, Papá waved to me to join him at the window. “Loma, the Christians believe we’ll be punished after we die for being Jews. The priests want to save us from that.”

Were they right? I nodded and didn’t ask.

Papá added, “The priest shouldn’t have touched you. I’m still angry about that.”

In the afternoon in his study, Belo said, “We don’t believe what the Christians do. It’s all death with them.”

I ventured, “But everybody dies.”

“We don’t believe in their hell.” Belo moved a book on his desk toward him.

Did we have a different hell? I didn’t ask that, in case ours was worse.

“That priest won’t touch you again. No priest will. I’m going to speak with the bishop tomorrow.”

I nodded.

But by now, Belo knew me. He sighed. “Your abuela would have known the right words to say to you. I don’t. Forgive me.”

I forgave him.

At night, I asked Mamá, who, I was sure, would tell me the truth, even if the truth was awful. “Will demons torment us when we die?”

“Jews don’t believe that, but I haven’t died yet.”

That brought comfort, actually. The priest hadn’t died, so he didn’t know yet, either. “Why did he shout like that when nobody knows for certain?”

She drew the sheet up to my chin. “Be glad when they just shout.” She pecked my forehead and left.

Ai! What else would they do?

I developed a terrible habit. In bed, after the last person had kissed me good night, usually Papá when he was home, I counted my worries:

A priest picking me up again.

Dying and burning and being tormented by demons with pointy teeth and bright red skin.

Marrying a man whose horoscope also predicted childlessness.

Falling out of Belo’s favor.

Plague returning and sickening Ledicia and her family.

Sometimes I fell asleep after only one or two, but sometimes I stayed awake for hours, adding items to my list.

A week later, Yuda disgraced himself. He was discovered to have been dicing. Vellida and I learned the details from Aljohar, who wasn’t fond of Ugly Camel Head, either.

Gambling was considered by both Christians and Jews as a terrible vice, even a crime. Yuda had won twenty-five reales from fifteen-year-old Astruc, the son of Yuda and Samuel’s teacher. After he lost, Astruc had complained to the rabbi, who had gone to Belo, and Belo had made Yuda return his winnings. My brother spent an hour in Belo’s study with Belo, Papá, and Mamá, whose cries rang through the house, blaming both Papá and Yuda: “You failed to instruct your son! Better if I’d given birth to a fox!”

At dinner, Yuda apologized for shaming the family. His eyes traveled to each of us, even Samuel, Vellida, and me. “I won’t disappoint you again.”

“After next month,” Papá said, “we won’t be able to protect you.”

On November 19, he became our family’s first bar mitzvah. At dinner, Belo and Papá, but not Mamá, kept smiling at him. Aljohar cooked his favorite: beef stew with garlic and onions.

He was next to me. For a change, when he filled our bowl—because two people always shared a bowl at meals—he said, “I’m a man now, and Papá is my example. The meat is more for you than for me.” He beamed at me the smile he once reserved for Bela.

I smiled back, as I felt I had to. I expected a trap, but he actually ate little.

The transformation lasted only a few days, and then he was his gluttonous self again. I saw no benefit in his rise to adulthood until, two weeks later, he was apprenticed to Don Ziza, the goldsmith. He left home to live with his master, returning only for Sabbath dinners and holidays. Soon after, Papá negotiated for him to marry Dueyna, a merchant’s daughter, the prettiest girl in the aljama.

The engagement was to be celebrated in December, on the day after Hanukkah ended. I was thrilled, because it was the first engagement in our close family that I would remember. I had been only two when Ledicia had her party.

The day came. I woke up wishing I were the betrothed—but not to an ugly camel head!

Vellida still slept. The winter sun hadn’t risen yet, so I dressed by feel, putting on my tan silk gown with the green velvet border around the neckline and pulling over my head the heavy silver chain that had been a gift from Papá. I wished for Bela’s pendant, but Belo still had it.

The stars were out when I stepped onto the courtyard balcony. The air was crisp. I lowered my right knee and extended my left leg in front of my right, up on my left foot, hop!, down, up, hop!—dancing toward the kitchen. The dancing was sure to be my favorite part.

Aljohar was bustling about the kitchen by candlelight. She set me to work peeling the eggs—seventy-three of them!—that had spent the night simmering in a cauldron of water with red onion skins and vinegar, the fire kept alive by Fatima, who had finally been allowed to go to sleep. Aljohar and I had cracked the shells in the evening, after they’d first been hard-boiled. Now as I worked, I admired the patterns of lines that had been created: ivory where the shell had remained, violet where the cracks had been. Yawning, Vellida came in and stood next to me at the worktable, transferring dried mackerel to a platter.

The party would be in the street outside our house, and most of the aljama would come. While everyone was singing, dancing, and eating, servants, hired for the occasion, would prepare more food to bring out later. The day would close with a meal after the ceremony.

I smiled at Vellida. “You’re next.”

“God willing. And then you.”

“First Samuel.”

“I meant girls.”

God willing.

When I finished placing the 292 egg quarters on platters, Aljohar had me begin to bring them out to the street, where Dueyna, beautiful in a blue woolen cloak embroidered with silver artichokes, stood with her family.

She ran to me, saying, “How pretty you look . . .”

I realized she didn’t remember my name. “Paloma—Loma.”

“Loma, I’m happy to have a sister at last.” Her voice was so breathy it seemed to have bubbles in it. “The first question I asked Papá was, ‘Does he have sisters?’”

I smiled though I didn’t believe her—it wasn’t what I would want to know.

Her papá called her. She went to him, and I returned to the kitchen, where Aljohar told me Belo wanted me in his study.

When I got there, he was wearing his finery, a green silk overgown that was pleated down the front, but he was where he usually was: at his table, writing. He looked up. “Ah, Loma. Do you approve of this poem for the occasion of the engagement of my least-worthy grandchild?”

Because of the gambling, or did he know more?

He read the poem from a book at his elbow. This was the last stanza:

The gate is shut! Arise, oh, please,

and open it! Oh, send to me

the gazelle that ran away! Godspeed

her to my side. Ah! Ah! You’re here!

Your scent and honeyed voice hold me

and will forever please me.

I said, honestly, that it sounded beautiful. I didn’t add that I’d break out in giggles if anyone ever recited it to me.

“Then I’ll read it when the time comes.”

Because of my opinion? If Bela could be here, she’d be smiling.

I hoped he’d say I looked pretty, but he returned to writing. I opened the door to leave.

“Where are you going?”

“To the party?”

“Stay for a little while. A party is noisy. I prefer studying and talking with you.”

I closed the door.

“I’m considering how God chooses the children for each family. Why give Joseph to Jacob? Why you to us? Why Yuda? Why the others?”

Why did He give us to Mamá out of all the other mothers?

Belo was waiting, as if I could tell him.

“Samuel, Ledicia, and Vellida are good children.” That didn’t feel like enough. “Dutiful. Kind. We’re nice to each other.”

“But why did the Almighty, out of His goodness, give you to us? Sit.” He pointed at my cushion.

I sat.

Voices drifted in through the windows. People were arriving. Someone began tuning a lute. I wanted to hear what Belo would say next, and I wanted to be outside. I wondered if the littles had come. It was their first party, and I wanted to help them enjoy it. And if Dueyna really hoped for a sister, she’d be missing me.

“The Almighty, when Bela died, made me notice you and realize that you may help me while I help the Jews.” He said that before there were juderías, Jews and Christians and Muslims could live wherever they liked. “They’d celebrate together, grieve together, even write poems together. I and a few others keep that tradition of friendship. It’s one way of helping.”

Outside, the lute was joined by drums and tambourines, and the music began in earnest. I bounced my knees. In a little while, Yuda, with three other unmarried young men, would ride down the street on mules fitted with bells and would stop when he reached Dueyna, which seemed the height of romance, a moment—when it happened to me—that I would treasure.

My heart-hatred side wanted to see it, too, because Yuda would look ridiculous—an ugly camel head on a jingling mule.

But I also wanted Belo to keep talking about Spain and my part in helping him. If I stopped him and joined the party, he might never return to the subject.

I stayed. Soon, hooves clattered and bells chimed. I missed Yuda’s arrival, but Belo started to talk about his childhood and his parents, who had died long before I was born. His papá spoke even more languages than Belo did, including Russian, and his mamá played the lute.

“Angels danced above her head when she played.”

I knew he didn’t mean real angels, but I wished I could have heard her. I wished she was playing for Yuda now, and we were both out there.

My brothers and sisters probably hadn’t heard these stories. Would they be angry if they found out?

Another worry to keep me awake at night.

Belo talked until Papá rapped on the door and came in. “Oh, there you are, Loma.”

I jumped up from the cushion, feeling guilty, though I wasn’t sure why.

Papá turned to Belo. “It’s time.”

He rose smoothly. “We’re needed, Loma.”

In the street, my niece, Beatriz, ran to me. “Where were you?”

The dancing and singing were over. It was time for the ceremony.

“With your bisabuelo.” Your great-grandfather. “Let’s watch together.” I took her hand, and we went to where our family stood, in the middle of the cobblestones. Yuda had positioned himself on the edge of the group of us. Next to him was the new servant, Hamdun, who held an embroidered pillow. Atop the pillow were gifts for Dueyna: four gold rings and a silver pendant set with pale blue stones on a pearl necklace.

If they had been dressed alike, I would have guessed wrong about which man was servant and which bridegroom. Yuda stared off above the head of his wife-to-be and looked bored. Hamdun, by contrast, smiled a smile that almost embraced her, a few yards away, sitting on a bench beside her parents, with her five brothers standing behind her.

Belo took the space between the families and recited the poem he’d read to me. Dueyna’s smile became fixed. At least she didn’t giggle. The guests applauded.

Then the hazan took Belo’s place. (The hazan sang for synagogue services and proclaimed at weddings and engagements.) Our hazan was a barrel of a man with a booming voice. “On this day, Guedaliah has engaged his daughter Dueyna to marry apprentice goldsmith Yuda.” Guedaliah was Dueyna’s papá. “They will appear for the wedding as arranged. If one or the other does not appear, their oaths to each other will not bind them; gifts will be returned; and a fine of one thousand maravedis will be paid to the aljama. They are now engaged.”

I was disappointed. Nothing had been said about their lives together or their children.

Yuda took the pillow from Hamdun and brought it to Dueyna. He smiled down at her, and she smiled up at him, her eyes glassy with tears. The hazan began to sing, “‘Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe . . .’”

Beatriz and I swayed with the lilting tune.

“‘. . . Who hath created joy and gladness, bridegroom and bride, mirth and exultation . . .’”

When he finished, Beatriz and I and everyone else went to the tables and began to eat. I wished again that Belo hadn’t made me miss the dancing.