CHAPTER TEN

THE LAIR

The narrowness and shape of the tunnel to the cave cut out most sound but now and again something came to his ears, a muffled roar, a howl like the wind in a far-off storm.

He wept quietly, lying on the floor of rock and earth as if fallen there from a great height, heedless of the pebbles and stones under his body.

After a long while he sank into sleep, deeply and gratefully, escaping from his small stone prison.

When he awakened he had no idea how long he had slept, or how much time had passed since he had entered the cave.

He was aware that what had dragged him from sleep was the sensation of something small moving over his leg. He stiffened, thinking of vipers, but finally he heard a familiar faint scurrying and he relaxed, unafraid of mice.

His eyes long since had become accustomed to the velvet blackness but couldn’t pierce it. He had no idea whether it was day or night. When he was hungry, he gnawed at the bread his father had given him.

Next time he slept he dreamed of his father, in the dream studying the well-known face, the very blue eyes set deep above the strong nose, the wide, full-lipped mouth above the bush of beard, gray as the springy halo of hair. His father was speaking to him. But Yonah couldn’t hear the words or didn’t remember them when the dream was over and he awakened to find himself lying in his animal lair.

He remembered the last thing his father had said to him, his stern instruction that Yonah was to wait in the cave until Helkias came to tell him all was well, so he finished the rest of the bread and lay there in the dark. He was powerfully thirsty, and he recalled that Meir had taught him to take a small pebble when there was no water, and suck on it to start the saliva flowing in his mouth. He searched with his hands, finding a pebble just the right size, brushing it off with his fingers. When he placed it in his mouth the saliva came and he sucked like a babe at a teat. Soon he remembered to spit out the pebble when he started to sink back into the deep well of sleep.

Thus time passed amid dry hunger and consuming thirst and escape into slumber, and a terrible, growing weakness.

*   *   *

The moment came when Yonah knew that if he stayed longer in the cave he would die there, and he began slowly and painfully to crawl out of his hole.

When he turned the corner of the L-shaped tunnel the radiance struck him a blow and he stopped crawling until he could see in the terrible light.

Outside, he noted by the sun that it was afternoon. The day was silent save for loud birdsong. He climbed up the narrow trail carefully, realizing the Lord had protected him during his desperate descent in evening darkness.

As he walked homeward he met no one. When he came to the cluster of houses he saw with a burst of joy that all appeared untouched and as usual.

Until …

His own house was the only one ravished. The door was gone, ripped from its hinges. Furnishings were taken or ruined. Everything of value—Meir’s Moorish guitar!—was gone. Above each window a fan of black on the stone showed where fire had consume the sills.

Inside there was waste and desolation and the smell of the torch.

“Abba!”

“Abba!”

“Abba!”

But there was no answer and Yonah was frightened by the sound of his own shouting. He went outside and began to run toward Benito Martín’s house.

*   *   *

The Martín family greeted him with a stunned joy.

Benito was pale. “We thought you were dead, Yonah. We believed they threw you over the cliff. Into the Tagus.”

“Where is my father?”

Martín went to the boy, and as they swayed to and fro in a terrible embrace he told Yonah everything without saying a word.

*   *   *

When the words came, Martín related a horrifying story.

A friar had gathered a crowd in the Plaza Mayor of Toledo. “It was a Dominican, a tall man, name of Bonestruca. He had revealed great curiosity about your father when I showed drawings of his reliquary at the cathedral.

“They say this friar has the face of a saint. But he is no saint,” Benito Martín said bitterly. “He drew a crowd of angry men about him in the plaza when he preached against the Jews who had left. Jews had slipped away from Spain without being properly punished, he told them. He spoke of your father by name, accusing him of being a Jew who had designed a ciborium that would work terrible magic against Christians, referring to him as the antichrist who had spurned the opportunity to come to the Savior, who laughed at Him with impunity and now was about to escape unscathed.

“He whipped them into madness and then stayed behind while they went to your house as a mob and slew your father.”

“Where is Abba’s body?”

“We buried him behind your house. Each morning and each evening I pray for his immortal soul.”

Martín allowed the weeping boy to mourn. “Why didn’t he come with me when he sent me away?” Yonah whispered. “Why didn’t he flee as well?”

“I believe it was to protect you that he stayed,” Martín said slowly. “If no one was in the house, they would have searched until your father was found. And then … you would have been found, too.”

Soon Benito’s wife, Teresa, and his daughter, Lucía, brought bread and milk, but in Yonah’s grief he ignored them.

Benito urged the food upon Yonah, who to his shame couldn’t keep from wolfing it down once he had taken the first bite, while the man and the two females watched him anxiously. Eleazar was not there, nor was Enrique Martín, and Yonah assumed the two small boys were playing somewhere nearby.

But then Enrique came into the house alone.

“Where is my brother?”

“The little boy is with his uncle, Aron the cheese maker, and his aunt, Juana,” Martín said. “They think you are dead, as we did. They claimed Eleazar from us the morning after the trouble, and they left Toledo at once.”

Yonah stood in his agitation. “I must go at once to Valencia, to join them,” he said, but Benito shook his head.

“They don’t go to Valencia. Aron didn’t have a great deal of money. I … paid him a sum I owed your father for the silver, but … he thought they would have better opportunity to secure passage if they went to one of the small fishing villages. They took the two horses from Marcelo Troca’s field, so they could always rest two mounts while riding.” He hesitated. “Your uncle is a good man, and strong. I believe they will be all right.”

“I must go!”

“Too late, Yonah. It is too late. To which fishing village would you go? And you have been three days in your cave, my boy. The last of the Jew ships will sail in four days. If you galloped day and night and your horse didn’t die, you would never reach the coast in four days.”

“Where will Uncle Aron take Eleazar?”

Benito shook his head, disturbed. “Aron didn’t know where they would go. It depended on what ships were available, with what destinations. You must stay within this house, Yonah. Throughout Spain soldiers will be searching for Jews who may have scorned the order of expulsion. Any Jew who has demonstrated unwillingness to be saved in Christ will be put to death.”

“Then … what shall I do?”

Benito came to him and took his hands.

“Listen carefully, my boy. Your father’s murder is linked to your brother’s. It is not coincidence that your father was the only Jew slain here, or that his was the only house destroyed by the menudos, when not even a synagogue was harmed. You must remove yourself from danger. Out of love for my friend your father, and for yourself, I give you the protection of my name.”

“Your name?”

“Yes. You must convert. You will live with us, as one of our own. You will have the name that was my own father’s, you will be Tomás Martín. Is it agreed?”

Yonah looked at him dazedly. In one swift turn of events he had been deprived of all relatives, forlorn of every loved one. He nodded his head.

“Then I am off to find a priest and bring him here,” Benito said, and in a few moments he departed on his errand.