Chapter One
Grazia

Edict of Expulsion: 31st of March, 1492
Accused of ritual murder in Granada and not under jurisdiction of the Inquisition, the Church orders expulsion of all Jews and Marranos from Spain within four months.

Granada, Spain
2 Ab 5252 (4 August 1492)

“Hermando, no. Please. Hanna’s still a girl. She made a mistake.” My mother appealed to my father even as she, too, made preparations for our long journey. The air in the front room of our home that served as our place of trade reeked with anger and frustration. Despair replaced hope. Three months had passed since the Edict of Expulsion on the thirty-first of Adar. Originally we were to leave on the first day of Ab but the monarchs in their cruel contempt gave us one more day.

“No!” my father shouted, gathering stacks of Byzantine silks and flax linen. Furious, he stuffed them into large hemp bags. A swath of crimson tapestry fell to the floor.

“But Hanna’s only fourteen.”

“Old enough not to be a fool. Pregnant by a common Marrano who believes in their Holy Ghost? What kind of a Jew is that?” My father made a disgusted noise as he reached toward his top shelves. “Her chances of marriage are finished. She can rot like old cheese in the convent. I will never see her again.” My father grimaced, a sure sign of his fury as he dismantled the showcase of his wares, and, until now, the finest in Granada. The shelves normally filled with a variety of textures of wool, rough for the working class and creamy soft for the wealthy, stood bare.

“Hermando, lower your voice. Grazia has big ears.” I faded back behind the door. I didn’t want them to know I’d been privy to their conversation. They had been arguing about Hanna for weeks, my beautiful sister, the one with sea-green eyes, fair skin and a face so uncommon people stared as she passed in the street.

My mother renewed her plea, “Melt your heart for your daughter, le sangre llama. Our blood is calling.”

I pressed myself flat against the wall peeking around the corner into the room loaded with our possessions. Lanterns cast monster moving shadows. My father shoved a carved wooden bench with his foot. The pillows my sister and I had embroidered with strawberry designs fell to the floor.

“We’ve survived threats and excessive taxes before, leaving with only what we can carry. We cannot abandon our daughter.” My mother lowered her voice, “Jews do not cast out their children. Or their grandchildren.”

“Yes, they do! Even New Christians. Coming with child before a proper wedding? I will not accept her. What kind of a daughter brings such shame to her parents? Let the nuns take care of her and the baby. Ach. A bastard.” He spit toward the floor, part of the spittle spraying his worn leather vest. My father’s hands moved in a jerking rhythm of folding, smoothing, matching hems, and stacking the luxurious cloths into piles. A colorful palette of blue, purple and green silk thread that embroiderers bought by the ounce sat jumbled in a corner, their vividness dimmed in the soft light. Once, he took me with him to see how fabrics dyed into rich colors, crimsons and azures of varying shades that picked up the light. Men, ancient and sharp-featured, almost beetle-like themselves, stood on stools stirring vats of boiling insects, their long poles occasionally splashing a rainbow across their clothes.

My father mumbled to himself, “What’s the difference if their church takes one more after all they have stolen?”

My mother expressed her frustration and despair by delaying the packing of her herbs and spices--mint, cumin, paprika, ginger, cloves, salt and pepper. As a cook she was extraordinary, preparing everyday fowl and vegetables into something delicious for our weekly feast. My mother enhanced her recipes with pine nuts, garbanzos and my favorite, pistachios. I nibbled a few of the small green delicacies that had fallen on the mosaic tile floor in the back room, one my father had labored over with a few friends when we first moved to Granada from Baeza. Now she sat nearby transferring her tasty treasures from stoneware jars into small cloth bags, her lips pursed. I was supposed to be doing the same with dried apricots and dates but instead I hid behind the door.

My mother turned away, got up and stumbled by me sobbing into a handkerchief, her soft velvet slippers hardly making a sound. She ran up the stairs to her room.

I could not comfort her. Nothing would replace Hanna. I went to my room upstairs, the one I no longer shared with my sister. Although I missed the warmth of Hanna’s body in our bed and the sweetness of her nature, a part of me reveled in the solitary comforts she left behind—-my own room with nothing to share and the sole attention of my mother. I undressed to my body linens and slipped beneath the sheets, wiggling my toes.

Foggy memories glided by me as I drifted toward sleep-—the last time Hanna, my mother and I went to the mikvah, the ritual bath of rain water collected in a cistern for our nidda, the monthly cleansing. We waited for three stars to be visible before we left. Hanna searched for them through the window, her face angelic in the moonlight. Of course my sister’s lie that her menses had passed when none had come for a few months did not occur to me until later. I sank into dreams, not unlike lowering myself down the tile steps of a full immersion into the natural water, over my head, holding my breath, erasing my soul of jealousies.

Sounds of packing, barrels rolling and sounds of the street awakened me. It was to be the last time in my feather bed, head propped into a pillow, cocooned under the canopy. I had mixed feelings about the journey to Portugal. It frightened and thrilled me. There, my parents said in hushed voices, merchants were welcomed, even Jewish ones. Although ostensibly converted, we still practiced our ancestral faith and identified ourselves as conversos. We despised the ugly word marranos meaning swine. We were New Christians with the thought that maybe someday we could practice the Laws of Moses without fear.

The plan to gather with other families in Seville had been made weeks ago. Many were associates of my father’s textile trade. Others forced to flee planned to exit from el Puerto de Santa Maria, not far away. My father had decided on a sea route to Portugal.

My mother came to me at dawn, the first crevice of light splitting through the shuttered window. She touched my shoulder, setting a small candle in a clay dish next to my bed. The flickering light danced shadows on the walls. I hesitate. My father’s told tales of his travels through villages and cities in Spain, Italy, Portugal and France to purchase exquisite cloth from cottage industries, fending off sleep for days. “Lurking wolves or robbers will get you if you close an eye,” he told us.

“Get up. We have to go.” My mother hurried out of the room, her skirts swishing. She left me a piece of bread and goat’s milk. Normally, we ate only once a day, but I knew she was worried about our journey. I felt my way around the room, touching the furniture, a small carpet under my feet, dressing by rote, the fog of sleep still in my head. I couldn’t eat anything.

I met my mother in the back room as she removed the large fire bell and stirred the smoldering embers. The square brick fireplace and oven above it was our family hearth. A piece of green velvet was draped across the top to contain the smoke. We stood next to each other lifting our skirts for warmth. She glanced at me, her eyes filled with tears and then turned to hold me. This time her sadness was not about my unfortunate looks or my narrow prospects.

“What about my sister?” I asked, searching her face.

“Hanna’s gone. Your father will not have her under his roof or any other. Maybe he will soften with time.” She cast her sea-green eyes downward, heartsick, a hand stroking her throat.

“How will she find us?” A parent never lets go of a child, but I felt a small satisfaction that I was here and Hanna was not. I tried not to think about the baby born a few months ago, a girl without a future. My mother, who had made secret visits to see her, had told me it had been an easy delivery.

“I will find a way.” Her voice cracked on the last word. She moved, her shawl wrapped tight around her shoulders.

Soon my mother and father’s voices faded into the clamor outside, hordes of people in sorrowful departure, their possessions rattling, pots clanking, mules braying, children crying, the wails of people being cast out of a place that had been their home for centuries. A fishmonger screamed, “Cod and pickled herring. Buy it now.” A parrot must have been rocked in a cage because its shrieks and squawks drowned out the fish woman. The steady squeak of wagon wheels churning through rocks and mud made me pause. Someone’s household goods crashed to the street followed by wild cursing, trampled, abandoned.

We were being sent away even though we were part of the Church. At least we pretended to be. My father taught us to murmur in Hebrew as we entered any Catholic Church, “I enter this religious house, but I do not adore sticks or stones, only the God of Israel.”

“I have to go to her,” I heard my mother say.

“No time. She has shamed our family. Forget her. We have one daughter now.” My father’s words cut with a hard edge.

“She needs me.”

“Where were you when she and this boy were together?”

The door slammed. My father groaned as he lifted something heavy. It fell and broke against terra cotta tiles and he cursed.

My mother called, “Grazia, hurry. The wagon’s almost loaded.”

In my hasty exit I glanced back at our lovely home with its second floor terrace and tiled roof. The home of most of my childhood. I felt a lump in my throat and ran to the wagon. Dressed in my finest tunic, a belt with its leather pouch slapping against my side--a few coins, a carnelian brooch from my grandmother, salve for my lips, I had polished my shoes with fat from the joints of a calf we slaughtered for the spring festival of Shavouth. Animal blood and fat were forbidden in our home, but my father saved it in a barrel outside. The cooler air snapped my face as I pulled my skirts up and tumbled into the back of the wagon with our belongings.

Huddled behind barrels and stools with three layers of skirts bunched beneath me, I settled into a spot. The sewage of the street: rotten food, people’s waste and a decaying animal, assaulted my nose. I sneezed. Bags of textiles were piled on, more pieces of furniture on top of that. I shivered in the cool morning air. My father grabbed the round iron ring, slamming our front door with the finality of no return. The bell that had been installed to warn us of strangers, tinkled. Stomping his feet he came to the back of the wagon, lifting more bolts of material tied with thin pieces of rawhide on top of the load, moaning with each heavy piece. Finally, he pushed in our washstand with the cabinets, trapping me in a column of possessions.

Suddenly, a soft bird whistle sounded next to me. It stopped. Wagons filled pots and pans rattled by, livestock, loud and complaining were tied to the back. I leaned my head to the side, closing my eyes, the thought that I would never see Hanna or meet my niece sliding by me. Did the baby have green eyes or plain brown ones like mine?

In a few minutes the bird sound repeated its tune. How could one of God’s creatures feel joy at a time like this?

I wiggled around in my small space and peered out the wagon’s rough slats. At first I saw nothing. The small song cut through the din. I moved again pushing a three-legged chair to the back, my fingers brushing a plush velvet cushion. The scraping sound alerted my father.

“What are you doing? You can break something,” He hit his hand on the side to scare me.

“I am sorry, Father.”

Through the bottom of the wagon I heard movement. Maybe a deserted dog. With all the confusion I would not be surprised. A rat? I was terrified of them and the diseases they carried. They gnawed everything and sometimes stole food, even though my father set traps.

“Grazia. Quiet. Your father cannot hear me.” My mother crouched next to the wagon on the side away from our house.

“What are you doing?”

“Tell your father I went ahead. I will meet you at the dock.”

“How will you find us in this chaos?” Wagon wheels creaked along the narrow street splashing mud. My mother was filthy. A horse neighed then stopped next to her to relieve itself. The plopping excrement would soon draw flies.

“Speak up,” I told my mother. “Are you there?”

“Grazia, when you get to the ship your father will be busy unloading. Distract him if you do not see me.”

“I want to go with you.” I made an attempt to stand and could not steady myself in the tight space.

“No. Keep him occupied with taking care of our possessions and loading the ship. He will be busy returning the donkey and wagon.”

“But where are you going?”

Then I understood.

“Your father can not know where I am.” She said the next words, with resentment brimming, “How does he expect me to abandon a daughter?”

“I want to see Hanna, too.” I made an effort to lift myself and could not move.

I admit that when my sister was first banished a certain delight swept over me. I was excited to have her space and extra clothes. But in recent weeks I missed her, the melody of her voice, lips puffed as though stung by a bee, dark lashes settling on high cheekbones. She had been my companion, my confidante, my solace against an angry father.

I watched through the slats as my mother pulled at her heavy cape, one that inspired envy among the neighborhood women, rivaling those worn by the royal court. A magnificent piece trimmed with gold brocade and ermine, a fist-sized mother-of-pearl button closing it at the neck. The hood covered her hair, her light eyes shifting to watch for my father. It sailed out behind her as she blended into the crowds, fading as she rushed off into the rising sun.

“Estrella, where are you? It is time to leave.” My father sounded agitated, his voice hoarse from layers of ballooning dust.

I hesitated.

He repeated his request. “For God’s sake, woman, I have enough to do without playing cat-and-mouse games.”

I called out from my cell in a small voice, secretly delighted at my mother’s boldness. “Padre, she said she will meet you at the dock.”

“What?” His voice roared like a stricken animal.

Thank Goodness he could not see my sly smile. “Father, let’s go. She says she will meet us.”

No response. I jumped when his fists hit the side of the wagon shaking it back and forth for a few moments. A stool balanced on top fell into the street and was broken apart by a wagon’s wheels.

“She went to see that bastard child. I know it.”

“No, Padre,” I lied, “I think she went to place a stone on her parent’s graves.”

“God damn her,” he said, climbing into the front of the wagon with a heave.

And so we left in the dank early morning air on the same day as the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and the beginning of our diaspora, an auspicious sign rumored to be an evil omen. Our gray shroud of misery made a hazy exodus down narrow winding streets, past the Church of San Juan de los Reyes with its minaret of two hundred years, up the hill to the El Albaicin, the Moorish quarter of the city, en route to the Plaza Nueva and its Arab baths known for their tiny glazed tiles inlaid with precision. Torches held high by our Christian neighbors in front of their homes accompanied by an occasional jeer cast an eerie red glow.

I stopped peeking out when we reached the Alhambra, a former palace and fortress, and closed my eyes. Now, a source of pain, it was used by the Catholic monarchs for a Christian court and the signing of the Edict of Expulsion. I saw only one processional of condemned Judaizers, New Christians like us who could not leave the old ways behind and were caught, perhaps by a vigilant priest who scanned the chimneys for the lack of a fire on the Sabbath or a suspicious servant asked to prepare a bath on a Friday night. My parents would not let me watch any others. Their pale, fearful faces as “the damned” as they were called, were marched to their deaths by fire, paper tunics and pointed hats, bright white in the glaring sun, predicted an excruciating end. The citizens gathered and cheered for the spectacle, priests following the doomed, offering repentance and death by hanging if they would recant. My body shuddered. A mournful violin played a familiar song in a minor key, the tune fading into the distance.

We had limited choices for our exit: north to Navarre where we were not wanted unless we converted again, east to the sea or west to Portugal where Don Vidal ben Benveniste of Sargossa, our elected spokesman, a scion of Jewish nobility and a man of culture, pleaded with Pope Benedict in Latin and negotiated with King John II. The man who minted gold coins for Aragon and currency for Castile, a favorite of the court, had us admitted for one ducat each and one-quarter of our goods if we only stayed six months.

I rocked back and forth, bouncing along, the clip-clop mirrored by the sounds and smells of a lively city casting out its loyal inhabitants. Dust created by horses’ hooves and wagon wheels sprayed my face and hair. The sounds of cows, drums, and tambourines filled the air. Surrounded by wails from the elderly, sighs from my father, and cries of displacement from the young, we made our way with thousands of other disconsolate souls, their packages and bundles of meager possessions balanced on weary shoulders. On the way some gave up and entered churches to convert.

I steadied myself by putting my fingers through a large crack, peeking through the slats. A rabbi herded miniature brides and grooms dressed in traditional white veils and black coats down the street. Orphans could not be left behind so children as young as ten were married to each other. Even little girls found husbands.