The Last Jew (15 page)

The overseer belched and considered the stranger. 'I am Fernando Ruiz.'

'Ramón Callicó.'

'You appear to know how to care for sheep, Ramón Callicó.' Fernando Ruiz was aware that many men would have abandoned the body of Geronimo the shepherd and driven the valuable flock far away, as fast as the beasts could move. This one who sat before him hadn't done that, signifying that he was either crazy or honest, and he saw no madness in the young man's eyes.

'We need a shepherd. My boy Adolfo would do well, but he is still a year too young for such responsibility. You wish to continue to care for these sheep?'

The grazing animals were quiet save for an occasional soft bleat, a sound Yonah found comforting.

'Yes, why not?'

'But you must take them away from here.'

'Don Emilio doesn't like his sheep?'

Fernando smiled. They were alone in the field, but he leaned forward and whispered.

'Don Emilio doesn't like anything,' he said.

He was to spend thirty-four months virtually alone with the flock, becoming so familiar with it that he knew the ewes and the rams as individuals, which of them were calm and tractable and which were stubborn or mean, which were healthy and which were ailing. They were large, stupid sheep with a long, fine white wool that covered everything save their black noses and placid eyes. He thought them beautiful. Whenever the weather was kind he moved them through a mountain stream to wash away some of the dirt that clung to the greasy white wool, yellowing it.

Fernando gave him some rough provisions and a dagger that was not very good, the blade being made of poor steel. Yonah was allowed to bring the sheep anywhere grass could be found, so long as he returned them to Don Emilio's farm in the spring for shearing and in the fall for castration and the slaughter of some of the young rams. He took them into the foothills of the Sierra de Gredos, riding sedately at the flock's slow pace. Uncle Aron had had a brindle dog to help with the herding, but Yonah had Moise. With each passing day the little burro became more adept at keeping the sheep in sight. At first Yonah spent hours on the burro's back, but soon Moise was acting on his own, clattering after strays like a sheep dog and braying them back to the flock.

Each time he brought the sheep back to the farm young Adolfo, Fernando's son, took him into his charge and taught him about sheep. Yonah learned to shear, although he never became fast or adept, like Fernando and his boys. He could castrate and slaughter, but when it came to skinning he was not much better with the knife than he was with the shears.

'Don't be concerned. It all comes with practice,' Adolfo said. Whenever Yonah brought the sheep back to the farm, Adolfo carried a jar of wine out to the far field where the flock was kept, and he and Yonah sat and talked of the problems encountered in sheep herding, the lack of women, the loneliness, and the threat of wolves -- Adolfo recommended singing at night to keep them away.

Herding was an ideal occupation for a fugitive. Villages in the sierra were sparse and Yonah avoided them, also giving wide berth to the occasional small farm. He grazed the sheep in the grassy clearings that dotted the lower slopes of deserted mountains, and the occasional human who met him saw only an unsavory young hermit shepherd.

Even bad men avoided him, for he was large and rugged, with a wild strength in his eyes. His chestnut hair hung long and his beard had come in full and wide. During the heat of summer he went almost naked, because his clothing, bought used to replace garments he had outgrown, was worn thin. When a sheep met with a fatal accident he skinned it badly and dined with great enjoyment on lamb or mutton until the meat went high, which happened almost at once in the summer. When raw winds blew in wintertime, he tied sheepskins around his arms and legs to ward off the chill. He was comfortable in the hills. At night when he was on a crest he moved intimately under the large, bright stars.

The crook he had inherited from Geronimo Pico was a poor thing, and one morning he cut a long piece from a nut tree, a branch with a natural crook at the end. He carefully peeled it of bark and carved on it a pattern imitating a geometric design Moorish craftsmen had used in the Toledo synagogue. Then he ran his hand through the wool of the sheep until his fingers were rich with their grease and rubbed it into the wood long hours at a time, until the supple staff took on a dark patina.

At times he felt like an animal of the wild, but deep within himself he clung to his more gentle origins, saying morning and evening prayers and trying to keep track of the calendar in order to honor the holy days. Sometimes he managed to bathe before welcoming the Sabbath. It was easy during the summer heat, because anyone coming upon him immersed in a stream or a river would believe he splashed for coolness instead of religion. When the weather wasn't warm he bathed with a wet rag, shivering, but during the coldest part of winter he allowed himself to stink; after all, it was not as if he were a woman, forbidden to take her husband unto herself until she had visited the mikvah.

He wished he could immerse himself and wash clean his soul, for he was in thrall to the pleasures of the flesh. It was difficult to find a woman he trusted sufficiently. There was a tavern trull from whom he bought wine, and twice he gave her a coin to open her legs for him in her dark, odorous chamber. On occasion while the animals cropped without interest he surrendered himself to lewd pleasure and spilled his own seed, committing the sin for which the Lord took the life of Onan.

Sometimes he imagined how different his existence would have been without the catastrophes that had driven him from his father's house. By now he would have been a journeyman silversmith, married to a woman of good family, perhaps already a father himself.

Instead, although he had tried valiantly to remain a person, occasionally he felt he was becoming something low and bestial, not only the last Jew in Spain but the last human creature in the world, a concept that several times led him to take foolish chances. Sitting before a fire at night, with the animals gathered near him, he warned wolves away, bawling snatches of remembered words, sending old prayers into the black sky along with the sparks that rose from the snapping wood. Any inquisitor or denouncer drawn toward the light of his fire would have heard his reckless voice flinging forth words of Hebrew or Ladino. But no one ever came.

He tried to be reasonable about the things he prayed for. He never asked God to send the archangel Michael, the guardian of Israel, to sweep down from Paradise and slay those who murdered and did evil. But he asked God to allow him, Yonah ben Helkias Toledano, to serve the archangel. He told himself, and God, and the beasts on the silent hills, that he wanted another opportunity to become the archangel's strong right arm, killer of the killers, murderer of the murderers, slayer of those who destroyed.

The third time Yonah drove the sheep back to the farm in the autumn season, he found the family of Fernando Ruiz in mourning. The overseer, although he wasn't old, had dropped dead without warning one afternoon as he walked to inspect a picked field. The farm was in turmoil. Don Emilio de Valladolid had no idea how to run the place himself and had not been able to choose a new overseer. He was in bad humor and shouted a lot.

Yonah thought the death of Fernando Ruiz was a sign that it was time for him to move on. He drank wine in the sheep pasture with Adolfo for the last time.

'I'm sorry,' he said. He knew what it was to lose a father, and Fernando had been a very good man.

He told Adolfo he was leaving. 'Who will take over the care of the sheep?'

'I will be the shepherd,' Adolfo said.

'Shall I talk to Don Emilio?'

'I'll tell him. He won't care, so long as I keep the sheep away from his delicate nose.'

Yonah embraced Adolfo, and handed over the handsome shepherd's crook he had made, as well as the flock. Then he mounted Moise and directed the burro away from the farm and Plasencia.

That night he awoke in the dark and listened because he thought he heard something. Then he realized it was the absence of sound that had alarmed him, the fact that there were no quiet noises of sheep, and he rolled over and went back to sleep.

18

The Jester

Winter was on the way and he rode Moise toward warmth. He had a desire to glimpse the southern sea on the other side of the Sierra Nevada, but when he approached Granada the clear nights already were chill. He had no wish to challenge the snow-covered peaks of the high sierra in winter, and instead he entered the city to spend some of his earnings on comfort for himself and the burro.

He was disquieted when he arrived at Granada's walls, for over the grisly gate were suspended the rotting heads of executed criminals. Yet the display failed to discourage footpads, because as Yonah rode toward an inn where he hoped to find wine and food, he came upon two burly men intent on robbing a dwarf.

The small man was half their size, with a very large head, a strong upper torso, long arms, and tiny legs. He was watching his assailants warily as they approached him from two directions, one brandishing a wooden cudgel, the other holding a knife.

'Give over your pouch and save your little ballocks,' the man with the knife said, feinting toward his victim.

Without thinking, Yonah seized his sharpened hoe and slid from the burro's back. Unfortunately, before he could intervene, the robber with the staff swung it and struck him on the head. In a moment he was lying on the ground, injured and dazed, while the man stood over him with the cudgel, ready to finish him off.

Semiconscious, Yonah saw the dwarf produce a wicked-looking knife from his tunic. His little legs skipped and scampered. His long arms became limber and writhing, the knife point flicking like a serpent's tongue. In a moment he had penetrated beneath the flailing defenses of the armed robber, who howled and dropped his knife when the small fighter's blade slashed his arm.

The two footpads turned and ran, and the small man picked up a stone and sent it winging hard and long to thump into one of the departing backs. Then he wiped his knife on his trousers and came to peer down into Yonah's face.

'Are you all right, then?'

'I think I shall be,' Yonah heard himself declaring hollowly. He struggled to sit up. 'Once I'm inside and have had wine.'

'Oh, you shan't get decent wine there. You must get off one of your asses and onto the other, and come with me,' the small man said, and Yonah took a proffered hand and was raised by a surprisingly strong arm.

'I am Mingo Babar.'

'I am Ramón Callicó.'

It occurred to him, as Moise was led out of the city and up an ascending trail, that this strange, small man, so recently an intended victim, might himself be a robber and murderer. But though he steeled himself for signs of an attack, nothing happened. The man scuttled before the burro with a shambling, spiderlike gait, his hands at the end of the long arms brushing the trail like two extra feet.

Presently a sentry perched above them on a rock called softly, 'Mingo, is it you, then?'

'Aye, Mingo. With a friend.'

A few feet beyond, they passed a hole in the hill from which soft lamplight glowed. And then another opening, and several more. From the caves came cries.

'Ah, Mingo!'

'Mingo, a good eve to you!'

'Well come, Mingo!'

The small man returned all the greetings. He halted the burro before a similar entrance into the hill. When Yonah dismounted he followed Mingo into murkiness and was led to a sleeping mat in the strangest sort of a place.

In the morning he awakened to wonderment. He was in a cave unlike any he had ever seen. It was as though a bandit lord had set up a retreat in the den of a bear. The dim light of oil lamps merged with the gray light from the entrance, and Yonah could see richly colored carpets covering bare rock and earth. There were pieces of heavy wooden furniture, ornately carved, and a profusion of musical instruments and gleaming copper utensils.

Yonah had had a long night's sleep. Memory of the previous evening quickly returned, and he was relieved to note that his head was clear again.

A plump full-sized woman sat nearby and placidly polished a copper urn. He greeted her and received a smile, a flashing of teeth.

When he ventured outside the cave Mingo was there, working a leather halter and watched by two children, a boy and a girl almost his own size. 'A good morn to you.'

'A good morn, Mingo.'

Yonah saw they were high on the hill. Below stretched the town of Granada, a mass of houses like pink and white cubes, the town surrounded by a bouquet of trees. 'It is a lovely town,' Yonah said, and Mingo nodded.

'Yes, built by Moors, so the insides of the dwellings are beautifully decorated, while the exteriors are simple.'

Overlooking the town, on the crest of a hill much smaller than the hill of the caves, was a place of rose-colored towers and battlements that made Yonah catch his breath at its sheer grace and majesty.

'What is it?' he asked, pointing.

The other man smiled. 'Why, it is the citadel and palace known as the Alhambra,' Mingo said.