Next morning as I flew over the city, searching for Inquisitors or wine merchants, hidden Jews or Moishe, I spotted the rabbi and Samuel walking down a narrow alleyway. At the corner they ducked under a low archway and through a battered green door. No one else arrived. Ten minutes later the door opened: three unkempt men and a shlumperdikeh woman singing and staggering with what appeared to be a generous filling of good spirits. A tavern, I deduced, marked only by these doddering processions.
I waited. After half an hour, Samuel and the rabbi emerged from the green door. They sang too loudly, slurring their words. It paid to be seen not Judaizing, but instead, having a good Christian mug of unkosher wine. They walked through a complex plait of alleys, eventually entering a building beneath a sign carved with images of wine barrels. I slipped through the back door and flew along a narrow hallway piled high with casks. Voices spoke indistinctly. In the dim light, I followed stairs down to the cellar. I walked along the top of casks that filled most of the room, keeping close to the wall, remaining invisible. I would first understand what was going on.
And whom I could trust.
The centre of the cellar: the rabbi, Samuel, and others around a table. Jugs of wine, decks of cards. A mixture of kibitzing, davening, and, if you can use this word for Jews, pontificating. Where was Moishe? Ach. It was better he wasn’t here. They didn’t know it, but they were like animals gathered at a watering hole, not knowing that the red silk lions were ready to pounce.
At one end of the table, a young woman. The pretty girl, the sheyneh maideleh, from the auto-da-fé, listening gravely to the men. I tried to get a better view, and knocked over a few corks. They fell to the floor, a muted explosion. The men, absorbed in talk, didn’t notice but the girl looked up.
Me, I’m dangerous. And except for my tail, the colour of twilight and unknowing. A creature of darkness and mystery.
So I’m grey, and hard to see in dim light.
She squinted behind the barrels where I was attempting my shadowplay.
“I’ve seen you before,” she whispered.
“Hello,” I tried. “Howaya? Hello.” Best not to brandish the bright blade of my considerable eloquence.
“You were with the boy. Moishe,” she said almost inaudibly. “At the burning.”
“Hello,” I said again, idiotically. “Howaya?” Any moment now she’ll offer me a piece of matzoh.
“I know you understand,” she said. “I am named Sarah. He gave me a letter. I was to watch for you.” She glanced over at the men speaking at the table in the centre of the room, then took a scrap of parchment from the pocket of her apron.
“He’s safe. They’ve hidden him with Do?a Gracia de la Pe?a. My father used to say there’s safety in numbers if the numbers mean large sums of money. The Do?a has plenty of those kind of numbers.”
Was this a trick? Moishe knew I couldn’t read.
“My uncle—Abraham—works for her. As I do. Last night, though I wept, I did the washing. I saw Moishe brought to the Do?a. She agreed to hide him. I came here to say prayers for my father. My uncle doesn’t know. It’s no place for girls and women but the rabbi took pity.”
She unfolded the note. “Your Moishe asked me to read this for you. The letters are Spanish, but the words are in the Jewish of your village.”
She read haltingly and without understanding, only parroting the sounds the letters spoke:
Arie: I’m safe, keneynehoreh. For now.
The books are gone. No sign of the mamzer Diego. But still I must hide.
Don’t know what he’ll do. They pay well for exposing Marranos.
The girl is as beautiful as the seven worlds. Already I dream of her arms and other places. She’ll show you Do?a Gracia’s, where I am hidden. The Do?a is a powerful and wealthy Jew. A trader. She will take us to safety.
Don’t speak. They tell me not to trust anyone. Even them. M.
It was a bittersweet trick, having her read how pretty she was when only an Ashkenazi—or his parrot—would understand.
But every language is bittersweet to those who don’t know it.
There was a new voice, speaking at full volume from the foot of the stairs. The men around the table stood.
“I have something. You’ll be happy.” It was Abraham. He was cradling Moishe’s sack of books.
Sarah ducked behind the barrels to hide.
Her uncle walked into the centre of the room, opened the sack and spread out the books on the table.
The men held their breath. As if they were looking at a pile of rubies, their first-born sons or the shadow of the Messiah himself. The people of the book needed their books.
Rabbi Daniel began to pray. “Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu …”
“Omein,” the others sang as he finished. They all sat and the rabbi positioned a book before him, stroking its cover as if the idea that it could exist in the same physical world as him caused both tender sadness and great joy.
He opened it and began to read out loud.
His passionate, hypnotic voice. The murmuring of assent by the men. The flicker of the candlelight.
Then the sudden thud of boots on the steps as if we were inside a Golem’s vacant heart.
The men scrambled to gather and hide the books. They picked up cards and tried to look natural, a few friends, some wine, the Ace of Cups hidden up one of their sleeves.