The Last Song (6 page)

C
HAPTER 5
 

T
ia Juana’s house stood inside the stone walls of Toledo. Although she wasn’t my aunt by blood, I called Doña Juana
tia
because I had known and loved her all my life. She was my godmother and Mama’s oldest friend, just as her daughter Brianda was now my oldest friend.

Mama and I sat in the litter, with Papa between us. Yussuf followed the litter, jostling his way through the crowded street.

At Tia Juana’s house, the bearers lowered the litter to the ground. We got out just as a trumpet fanfare sounded sharp and clear. The crowd parted to make way for a horseman clad in the white vestments and black cloak of a Dominican monk. I recognized
him immediately. It was Fray Torquemada, the Inquisitor General, surrounded by his familiars. The Inquisition’s men wore black with the white cross of Saint Dominic stitched on their cloaks, their swords dangling at the sides of their black horses. As the Grand Inquisitor passed through the crowd, onlookers doffed their caps. The men bowed and the women curtsied as if to a king. Several people even crossed themselves.

As Torquemada approached our little party, an urchin darted out of the crowd and startled his horse. The Grand Inquisitor’s great steed reared and pawed the air, but Torquemada held on. I jumped backward. He calmed the horse easily, and one of the familiars grabbed the bridle. Another of Torquemada’s men picked up the unfortunate boy by the scruff of his neck and dragged him away kicking and screaming. The child could not have been more than eight years of age. Not a sound of protest came from the crowd.

Torquemada noticed us. “Don Enrique, I didn’t know that you were back in Toledo, that you had left the royal court.” His voice was thin and raspy.

Papa swept off his hat, bowing with a flourish. “Greetings, your excellency! Their majesties were in great spirits and even better health, so I was able to come home to see my wife and daughter.”

“This is your wife and daughter?” His voice was cold.

Mama and I curtsied, but he didn’t address us. A shiver ran down my spine as his eyes swept over me.

“I hope that your excellency is well,” Papa said.

“Except for dropsy,” Torquemada replied in a petulant tone. “I suffer from it mightily.” He pulled in his reins. “I must bid you good-bye now, Don Enrique. The holy Inquisition needs my humble efforts.”

Papa bowed again as Torquemada spurred his horse. The crowd buzzed with excitement.

Mama clutched Papa’s arm. “He must know,” she said, “or he wouldn’t have singled you out. He isn’t famous for his social graces.”

“Silence, Catarina!” Papa hissed.

“Know what? What must Fray Torquemada know?”

Mama hushed me.

“Let’s go inside,” Papa said, pulling the iron bell at the door of Tia Juana’s house.

Papa left for the tavern to attend a cockfight, but he had promised to return for us in an hour. Yussuf was in the kitchen with the servants. Mama and I were chatting with Doña Juana and Brianda as we rested on the embroidered pillows strewn over the fine carpet. I felt drowsy and content, and thoughts of Yonah’s dark eyes
filled my head. I was planning to meet him under our tree after the sun had set.

“What is troubling you, Catarina?” Doña Juana looked at Mama with her kind eyes.

“It was awful. We saw Torquemada outside your door. A boy darted out and startled his horse. His familiars dragged the boy away. I don’t know what will become of him, but one thing is certain. That poor child won’t be heard of again.” She fanned herself.

“But the boy deserved to be punished,” Tia Juana retorted. “He might have injured his holiness!”

“Holiness?” Mama asked, incredulous.

“Yes, holiness,” Tia Juana said brusquely. “That man is a saint. Did you know that he wears a hair shirt under his vestments? That he won’t eat any but the simplest of foods? He works so hard! If misfortune befell him, what would happen to the holy Inquisition? But I guess that with your background, neither you nor Enrique care.”

Mama closed her fan with a snap. She tapped it against her chin. “What exactly do you mean, Juana?” she finally asked.

Tia Juana shrugged her shoulders. “Never mind. I know that – ”

The drapes over the doorway parted and Mara glided into the room, which silenced Tia Juana. I hadn’t
seen Brianda’s slave since the day she told me my fortune. Her hair was covered by an embroidered scarf and her eyes were modestly lowered. She was carrying a large silver tray laden with almond cakes. She passed them around the room. I took two cakes. They were so sweet. I sighed contentedly as I washed them down with the juice of freshly squeezed oranges from Tia Juana’s orchards.

“I must get the recipe for this cake from your cook, Juana,” Mama said. “It’s absolutely delicious. Much better than the ones my servants bake.”

“That’s because you are too lax with them, Catarina,” Tia Juana said. “Be firm with them. Let them know that you won’t accept anything but the best from them.” She softened her words with a smile. “I am glad that you like the cakes. I’ll get the recipe for you before you leave.” She motioned to the slave girl hovering by the wall. “Mara, more cake for Doña Catarina.”

The girl approached Mama with downcast eyes and offered the tray for her inspection. Mama took a second cake. I took my third. Brianda reached for a cake, too, but Tia Juana tapped her hand with her fan.

“Put it down! You are too plump. Your father will never find you a husband.”

Brianda’s face turned crimson. She glared at Tia
Juana sulkily and threw the cake back at the tray. The cake missed its mark and fell to the carpet, where it crumbled into several pieces.

“Look what you’ve done, Mara. You’re so clumsy!” she screamed.

Mara cowered. Brianda leaned forward and pinched the slave’s arm. The girl’s eyes glistened with tears, but she remained silent. She crouched down to pick up the pieces from the carpet. Before she could finish, Brianda jumped up, trampling the crumbs under her velvet slippers.

Tia Juana did not utter a single word. Mama’s lips were pressed together tightly. I knew that she would have plenty to say if I ever spoke to Sofia the way Brianda treated her slave.

“Let’s go to my chamber,” Brianda suggested, pulling me up from the floor. “I want to show you the necklace Father gave me.”

I picked up the necklace from the table and walked over to the window to dangle it from my fingers in the sunlight streaming into the room. I had never seen anything like it. It was made of gold so fine that it seemed to have been spun from a glittering cobweb.

“Try it on,” Brianda said. She took it out of my hand
and draped it around my neck, fastening it in the back. “It looks beautiful on you.”

I examined myself in the pier glass. A grown-up stranger was staring back at me. I turned my head sideways. My neck was long and graceful, like that of a swan.
Yonah would think that I was pretty if he saw me now
, I said to myself.

“This necklace is so fine, more delicate than any I’ve seen before,” I told Brianda.

“I want you to have it.” Her wide smile slashed across her broad face. “Luis will tell you that you are beautiful when he sees you wearing it.”

“I couldn’t accept such a gift. You are too generous. Wear it yourself!”

Brianda sighed. “Such delicate jewelry wouldn’t suit me. What was Father thinking when he bought it for me?” She pinched her fleshy chin and made a face. “My mother is right. I am too plump.”

“You are not! Any girl would look lovely in such a beautiful necklace.”

“I wouldn’t. My neck is too fat.” She scowled at her reflection in the mirror. “I shouldn’t eat so many cakes. That stupid slave shouldn’t have offered them to me.”

“She had to. She was passing the tray around. How could she leave you out?” I couldn’t help myself. “Why
did you accuse her of dropping the cake? She did nothing wrong.”

Brianda shrugged. “I was angry. Who cares? She is just a slave.” She helped me undo the clasp at the back of the necklace. “You are lucky. Luis is so handsome. You must love him very much.” She straightened the collar of her dress and sighed again. “I wish that Father would find me a husband just like Luis, but Father is too cheap. Mother says that he refuses to give me a dowry as generous as yours. She’ll talk to him again when he comes home from the orchards, but it won’t do any good,” she said petulantly.

“Be careful what you wish for. Luis isn’t …”

Mara appeared in the doorway. Her features were calm and composed. “Don Enrique has returned. He requests your presence downstairs, Doña Isabel.”

I followed her out of the room. I knew better than to keep Papa waiting.

Mama sent Yussuf to the kitchen when we arrived home.

“The time has come to tell Isabel everything,” Papa said. “Let’s go to your chamber. We are less likely to be overheard there.”

Papa locked the door behind us. He and Mama
looked so solemn that my heart began to drum uncontrollably. Mama and I sat down on the edge of her bed as Papa paced the length of the room. Abruptly, he stopped in front of me.

“Let’s get it over with,” he said. “Did you wonder, my daughter, why Fray Torquemada condescended to stop to talk to us today?”

“If you were more familiar with the world outside of our home, you would have heard that the Grand Inquisitor is not known for his friendliness,” Mama added. “Did you wonder why he was curious about our family?”

I shook my head.

She clasped my hands in hers. “My darling, what we are about to tell you is difficult to believe – another secret that you must keep to yourself.”

“Too many secrets, Mama …”

“We just want to protect you.”

I cast down my eyes, for she always said that she could read my face like a book. I didn’t want her to guess that I had told Yonah about our family’s Jewish past. She wouldn’t understand. Nor would Papa. They would be furious – they didn’t know him like I did. They wouldn’t believe that he would never betray us.

“Show the package to Isabel,” Mama said. “That’s the easiest way to explain.”

Papa walked over to an ornately carved ebony bureau and pulled out the bottom drawer. He turned the drawer upside down, dumping a tangle of Mama’s linens onto her bed. Then he pressed on the bottom left corner of the drawer with his fingers. Suddenly, the bottom of the drawer slid open, revealing a hidden compartment. There was an object in it, wrapped in white rags.

“The drawer has a false bottom,” Papa explained. “You see that your mother keeps her linens in the top compartment. I’ll show you what we have below them.”

He took the package out and gently unwrapped it, uncovering a roll of parchment. He put it down on the bureau, unrolled the delicate page, and smoothed it down.

“Fortunately for us, your great-great-grandfather was an enlightened man,” he said. “He taught both of his daughters to read and write. This is a letter written by Fray Torquemada’s grandmother, her name was Sara, to your great-grandmother Miriam. It reveals that the two women were sisters. It proves, without doubt, that both of them were of the Jewish faith. Sara lived in Cordova after she married, while your great-grandmother dwelt here, in Toledo. Torquemada’s grandmother wrote down in this letter the recipes for the
dishes that their mother used to cook for the Jewish holiday of Passover. And here she wishes her sister a happy and healthy Passover.”

I hardly knew what to say.

“How did you come by this letter, Papa?” I finally asked.

“I found it,” Mama said. “About a year ago, I was looking for one of my linens when I accidentally pulled out the drawer too far. The drawer fell to the ground and the secret compartment popped open. The letter was in it. Your father’s family has lived in this villa for generations. Who knows who hid it or how long it has been in the secret compartment.”

“May I see it?”

“Come and look,” Papa said.

Although the ink was faded, the markings made by a fine quill on the parchment were still easy to see. My heart filled with wonder as I read Doña Sara’s words to her sister.

Papa rolled up the parchment and wrapped it in the white rags. He put it back into the secret compartment and gently pushed the false bottom of the drawer closed. Carefully, he slid the drawer back into the bureau and replaced Mama’s linens.

“The Inquisition is quick to accuse New Christians of heresy, of disregarding the doctrines of the mother
church,” he said. “The Inquisitors are fanatic about
limpieza de sangre
, the purity of our blood. They say that our blood is tainted by the blood of our Jewish forefathers, and that the blood of Old Christians is pure.”

“But Papa, if Fray Torquemada’s grandmother was Jewish, wouldn’t he be a New Christian, a Converso, just like us?”

“I told you that our daughter was clever,” Mama said.

“You are perfectly right,” my father said. “The Grand Inquisitor is a Converso but nobody knows. Or if they do, they are too frightened to speak of it. Nobody, except for us, knows about the existence of this letter, and that’s the way it must remain – unless the unthinkable happens and we are accused of heresy. Do you understand?”