The Last Jew (6 page)

It had been necessary for Yonah to assume Meir's responsibility for Eleazar, who was tender and apple-cheeked, seven years old. He told the younger boy stories about their older brother so Eleazar would never forget, and sometimes he picked out tunes on the small Moorish guitar that had been Meir's, and they sang songs. He had promised to teach Eleazar to play the guitar, as Meir had taught him. That's what Eleazar wanted to do when Yonah found him playing at war with stones and twigs in the shade of the house, but Yonah shook his head.

'Are you going to the river?' Eleazar said. 'Am I to go with you?'

'There is work to be done,' Yonah said, unconsciously mimicking his father's tone, and brought the smaller boy back into the atelier with him. The two of them were sitting in a corner polishing silver when David Mendoza and Rabbi José Ortega came into the workshop.

'What news?' Helkias asked, and Señor Mendoza shook his head. He was a strong, middle-aged man with a number of missing teeth and a bad complexion, a house builder.

'Not good, Helkias. It is no longer safe to walk in the town.'

Three months before, the Inquisition had executed five Jews and six conversos. They had been charged with conjuring a magic spell eleven years before, in which allegedly they had used a stolen communion wafer and the heart of a crucified Christian boy in an attempt to turn all good Christians raving mad. Although the boy was never identified -- no Christian child had been reported missing -- details of the alleged charge had been confessed by several of the accused after severe torture, and all had been burned at the stake, including the effegies of three of the condemned who died before the auto de fé.

'Some already are praying to the "martyred" child. Their hatred poisons the very atmosphere,' Mendoza said heavily.

'We must appeal to Their Majesties for their continued protection,' Rabbi Ortega said. The rabbi was small and skinny, with a froth of white hair. It made people smile to see him stagger about the synagogue bringing the large and heavy Torah scroll to be touched or kissed by the congregation. He was respected by most, but now Mendoza disagreed with him.

'The king is a man as well as a king, capable of friendship and sympathy, but of late Queen Isabella is turned against us. She was raised in isolation, molded by clerics who fashioned her mind. Tomás de Torquemada, the inquisitor general, may he expire, was Isabella's confessor during her girlhood, and he greatly influences her.' Mendoza shook his head. 'I fear the days ahead.'

'We must have faith, David, my friend,' Rabbi Ortega said. 'We must go to the synagogue and pray together. The Lord will hear our cries.'

The two boys had stopped polishing the silver cups. Eleazar was disturbed by the tension in the faces of the adults, and the obvious fright in their voices. 'What does it mean?' he whispered to Yonah.

'Later. I shall explain all to you later,' Yonah whispered back, though he wasn't certain he really understood what was happening.

The next morning, an armed military officer appeared in Toledo's municipal square. He was accompanied by three trumpeters, two local magistrates and two bailiff's men who also bore arms, and he read a proclamation that informed the Jews that despite their long history in Spain, they were ordered to leave the country within three months. The queen already had expelled Jews from Andalusia in 1483. Now they were ordered to leave every part of the Spanish kingdom -- Castilla, León, Aragón, Galicia, Valencia, the principality of Cataluña, the feudal estate of Vizcaya, and the islands of Cerdeña, Sicilia, Mallorca, and Menorca.

The order was nailed to a wall. Rabbi Ortega copied it in a hand that trembled so badly he had trouble making out some of the words when he read them to a hurried meeting of the Council of Thirty.

'"All Jews and Jewesses, of whatever age they may be, that live, reside, and dwell in our said kingdoms and dominions ... shall not presume to return to, or reside therein or in any part of them, either as residents, travellers, or in any manner whatever, under pain of death ... And we command and forbid any person or persons in our said kingdom [to] presume publicly or secretly to receive, shelter, protect, or defend any Jew or Jewess ... under pain of losing their property, vassals, castles, and other possessions."'

All Christians were solemnly warned against experiencing false compassion. They were forbidden 'to converse and communicate ... with Jews, or receive them into your homes, or befriend them, or give them nourishment of any sort for their sustenance.'

The proclamation was issued 'by order of the king and queen, our sovereigns, and of the reverend prior of Santa Cruz, inquisitor general in all the kingdoms and dominions of Their Majesties.'

The Council of Thirty that governed the Jews of Toledo was made up of ten representatives from each of the three Estates -- prominent urban leaders, merchants, and artisans. Helkias served because he was a maestro silversmith, and the meeting was held in his home.

The councillors were staggered.

'How can we be so coldly evicted from a land which means so much to us, and of which we are so much a part?' Rabbi Ortega said haltingly.

'The edict is yet one more royal scheme to gain fresh tax money and bribes from us,' Judah ben Solomon Avista said. 'Spanish kings have always described us as their profitable milch cow.'

There was a grumble of assent. 'Between the years 1482 and 1491,' said Joseph Lazara, an elderly flour merchant of Tembleque, 'we contributed no less than fifty-eight million maravedíes to the war effort, and another twenty million in "forced loans." Time after time, the Jewish community has gone steeply into debt in order to pay an exorbitant "tax" or to make the throne a "gift" in return for our survival. Surely this is but another such time.'

'The king must be approached and asked for his intervention,' Helkias said.

They discussed who should make the appeal, and there was a consensus that if should be Don Abraham Seneor.

'He is the Jewish courtier His Majesty most loves and admires,' Rabbi Ortega said, and many heads nodded in agreement.

6

Changes

Abraham Seneor had lived for eighty years, and though his mind was fresh and sharp, his body was very tired. His history of hard and dangerous service to the monarch had begun when he had arranged secret nuptials that on October 19, 1469, had joined in marriage two cousins, Isabella of Castille, eighteen years old, and Ferdinand of Aragon, seventeen.

That ceremony had been clandestine because it had defied King Henry IV of Castille. Henry had wanted his half-sister Isabella to become the wife of King Alfonso of Portugal. The Infanta had refused, asking Henry to name her as heir to the thrones of Castille and León, and promising him she would marry only with his approval.

Henry IV of Castille had no sons (he was mocked by subjects who called him Henry the Impotent) but he had a daughter, Juana, believed to have been the illegitimate child of Henry's mistress, Beltrán de la Cueva. When he tried to name Juana his heir, a civil war erupted. The nobles withdrew their support of Henry as their king and recognized as their sovereign Isabella's twelve-year-old brother, also named Alfonso. Within two years the young Alfonso was found dead in his bed, reputedly poisoned.

Isabella had not been raised or educated as a future monarch, but soon after her brother's death she had asked Abraham Seneor to set into motion the secret negotiations with influential Aragonese courtiers that led to her marriage to Ferdinand, Prince of Aragon. On December 11, 1474, when Henry IV died suddenly in Madrid, Isabella was in Segovia. Upon hearing the news, she declared herself queen of Castille. Two days later, surrounded by a cheering throng, she drew her sword, held it above her with the hilt upward, and led a procession to the Segovia Cathedral. The parliamentary Cortes immediately swore its allegiance to her.

In 1479 King John II of Aragon died and Ferdinand succeeded his father. In the ten years that had followed their secret wedding the royal couple had waged continual war, fighting back invasions from Portugal and France and dealing with insurgents. When those military campaigns had been won, they concentrated on war against the Moors.

Through all the years of combat Abraham Seneor had labored for them faithfully, raising money for the expensive business of war, developing a system of taxation, and guiding them through the political and financial pitfalls of uniting Castille and Aragon.

The monarchs had rewarded him well, declaring him rabbi and supreme judge of the Jews of Castille and assessor of Jewish taxes throughout the kingdom. Since 1488 he had been treasurer of the Hermandad, a militia that Ferdinand had established to maintain order and security in Spain. His fellow Jews didn't love Seneor -- he had been the King's choice to be their rabbi, not their own. But Seneor was loyal to them. Even before Jews from many parts of the kingdom could beg Seneor to plead with Ferdinand, he had acted. His first meeting with the monarchs was based upon their mutual affection and friendship, but his pleas for a reversal of the expulsion edict met with a cool rejection that dismayed him.

Several weeks later he requested another meeting, this time bringing with him his son-in-law, Rabbi Meir Melamed, who had served as Ferdinand's secretary and was the kingdom's chief administrator of tax collections. Both men had been declared rabbis by the king and not by their fellow religionists, but they had served effectively as advocates for the Jews at court. With them was Isaac ben Judah Abravanel, who was in charge of tax collections in the central and southern parts of the country and who had loaned enormous sums of money to the royal treasury, including 1.5 million gold ducats to achieve victory in the war against Granada.

The three Jews again pressed their plea, this time offering to raise fresh funds for the treasury, with Abravanel making it clear that he and his brothers would relinquish certain heavy debts owed them by the Crown if the expulsion edict were revoked.

Ferdinand showed undisguised interest when discussing the sums offered. The three petitioners hoped for an immediate ruling, so Torquemada and other religionists who had worked for years to have the Jews expelled would have no opportunity to influence the decision. However, Ferdinand took their request under advisement, and a week later, when the three appeared before the monarchs again, the king told them their request was denied. He had decided that the expulsion edict would be carried out.

Isabella stood beside her husband, a stern, pudgy woman of average height, but very regal in her bearing. She had large, imperious blue-green eyes and a tiny pursed mouth. Her reddish blond hair, her best feature, was beginning to be flecked with gray. She made the moment even more bitter for them by quoting King Solomon, Proverbs 21:1.

'"The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord as the water courses. He turneth it whithersoever he will."

'Do you believe this thing is come upon you from us? The Lord has put this thing into the heart of the king,' she told the three Jews disdainfully, and the audience was over.

Throughout the kingdom, Jewish councils met in new desperation.

In Toledo, the Council of Thirty struggled to achieve some sort of plan.

'I cherish this land. If I must leave this beloved place where my ancestors rest,' David Mendoza said finally, 'I wish to go where I will never be accused of murdering an infant in order to make matzos from his tender body, or stabbing the Eucharist, or insulting the Virgin, or mocking the Mass!'

'We must go where innocent folk are not ignited like tinder,' Rabbi Ortega said, and there was a murmur of agreement.

'Where might such a place be?' Yonah's father asked.

There was a long silence. They stared at one another.

Yet all had to go somewhere, and people began trying to make plans.

Aron Toledano, a stocky, slow-speaking man, came to his brother's house and he and Helkias talked for hours, proposing destinations and rejecting them while Yonah listened, trying to understand.

There were really only three possible destinations, when all was said. To the north, the kingdom of Navarre. To the west, Portugal. To the east, the seacoast, offering ships to transport them to more distant lands.

But within days they learned new facts that helped narrow the choices.

Aron came again, his farmer's face dark with worry. 'Navarre cannot be considered. Navarre will accept only former Jews who have converted to the worship of Jesus.'

Less than a week later they learned that Don Vidal ben Benveniste de la Cavalleria, who had minted Aragon's gold coins and Castille's currency, had ridden to Portugal and received permission for Spanish Jews to go there. King John II of Portugal saw an opportunity and decreed that his treasury would tax one ducat from every immigrating Jew, plus one-fourth of any merchandise carried into his kingdom. In return, the Jews would be allowed to stay six months.

Aron shook his head in disgust. 'I hold no trust in that one. In the end, I think we would receive less justice from him than we have received from the Spanish throne.'

Helkias agreed. And that left only the seacoast, whence they would take ship.

Helkias was deliberate and gentle, a tall man. Meir had been shorter and blockier, like Aron, and Eleazar already showed the signs of a similar build. Yonah was built larger, like his father, whom he regarded with awe as well as love.