A terrible sound.
I hoped—keneynehoreh—it was the only time that I heard it from this side. But, takeh, what’s worse than hearing your own casket being nailed shut?
Not hearing it.
Moishe donned one of the robes and pulled the cowl low over his face. Then, disguised as Padre Moishe, he went to speak to the two trembling sextons.
Moishe, newly consecrated canon of the Chutzpenik Church.
“This very night, I have received orders from Torquemada himself,” he told them in a deep, Inquisitorial voice. “The heretical body in the casket is a cancer on the Church. It must be removed and buried in unconsecrated ground immediately.
“And how could you have been so derelict in your duty to Their Highnesses, His Holiness the Pope, and indeed the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost Itself not to have noticed the secret chamber of the Judaizers right beneath your incense-breathing noses and behind the back of the Holy Virgin Mary, as if she didn’t have enough to do being the mother of God?”
They would question less if accused.
Soon I heard voices. Then the coffin was lifted from the floor.
“By Santiago, if this sinner doesn’t weigh as much as two Jews.”
“You’re certain there’s just one in here?”
“He must be have been filled up right to bursting with heresy.”
My pallbearers hauled the coffin up the stairs. Several sharp turns as we manoeuvred out the door and around the back of what I assumed was the Virgin.
“This sinner,” Moishe said, giving two smart knocks on the lid, “died without confession and shall soon take transit to hell.”
As planned, I began to voice the sounds of the dead, an ominous below-deck creaking and shuddering.
“Ghosts and demons fill this box,” a sexton said.
“I expect it is its damned and undead body stirring, for it wishes to confess and repent,” Moishe said. “We must open it.”
I redoubled my groaning. A dybbuk was gnawing my kishkas with its stumpy teeth.
“Dimitte mihi, forgive me,” the other sexton said. “I am afraid.” I heard the quick steps of his retreat. His mother would be surprised to see him at this hour and at this age, and with his nappy needing changing. But we had expected that both sextons would run. We would have to improvise.
“Open it,” Moishe commanded. The remaining sexton knelt down and began prying open the lid. I burst out, shrieking.
The sexton fainted.
Moishe quickly removed the books. He replaced them with the insensate sexton and nailed the lid back on. In the morning, there would be more shreking and shraying—from the sexton waking inside the coffin; from everyone else when they heard him.
Later, Moishe confessed that he had given the poor boychik some assistance in leaving his fears behind: he’d been kind enough to administer a mighty zets to the back of his head with a silver crucifix.
A list of properties and dramatis personae present in the current drama: A Sexton, comatose and in a coffin.
A Second Sexton, fear-footed, courage-lost, whereabouts unknown.
Heretical books piled higgledy-piggledly inside a cathedral.
Brilliantly insightful African Grey. Strikingly plumed in shades of dawn light. Much admired.
Fourteen-year-old Litvak. Male. Proto-pirate. Unarmed.
The sun. Life-giving. Carminizing. Currently rising.
The scene begins: the books must disappear even as night is disappearing.
Moishe hid the books in flour sacks behind the sty-fence outside the Catedral. Do?a Gracia would soon send men to take them to her ships. In the meantime, the powerful nose-patshing dreck of the pigs would protect the books from discovery. Moishe removed the red silken robes, stuffed them into the flour sacks, and hid them behind the fence.
And then we walked off into the early morning world of fishermen, bakers, homebound carousers, and privateers of the book.
Curtain.
Chapter Fourteen
In the kitchen, breakfast was waiting. A sweet hormiguilla of honey and hazelnuts. Blood oranges. A mug of cider.
Do?a Gracia waited for us also. It was clear from the deferential scurrying of the servants that she was not often in the kitchen. They brushed their food-stained clothing apologetically, bowing as they hurried to bring succulent shtiklach before her, early morning delights for their Maris Stella Esther.
“The pearls have been hidden from the swine?” Do?a Gracia asked.
“Four sacks directly under their priestly noses,” Moishe said.
“Soon there will be the morning delivery to the Catedral,” the Do?a said. “The books will be recovered and taken to the wharf to begin their exodus to Morocco. They will again find freedom on Jewish shelves.”
Then the Do?a asked for a reckoning of our safety record. She knew about the previous night’s Jack in the pulpit.
We told her about this morning’s Jack-in-the-box.