The Last Jew (7 page)

'To where shall we sail then, Abba?'

'I don't know. We will go where there are many ships, probably to the port of Valencia. Then we will see what shipping is available, and where the vessels are bound. We must trust that the Almighty will guide our path and help us make a wise decision.'

He looked at Yonah. 'Are you fearful, my son?'

Yonah struggled to form a reply but was slow to answer.

'It is not a shame to be afraid. It is wise to recognize that travel is rife with danger. But we will be three large and strong men -- Aron, and you, and I. The three of us will be able to see to the safety of Eleazar and your aunt, Juana.'

Yonah was gratified to be counted as a man by his father.

It was as if Helkias read his mind. 'I am aware you have taken a man's responsibility, these last years,' he said quietly. 'I want you to know others have observed your character, also. There have been several overtures made to me by fathers of daughters who are ready to stand under the bridal canopy.'

'Have you spoken of a marriage?' Yonah said.

'Not yet. Not now. But once we arrive at our new home there will be time to meet the Jews who are there and arrange a fine match. Which I suspect you will welcome.'

'I shall,' Yonah admitted, and his father laughed.

'Do you not think I was once young? I remember how it is.'

'Eleazar will be very jealous. He will want a wife also,' Yonah said, and now they both laughed together.

'Abba, I am not fearful to go anywhere, so long as you are with me.'

'Nor am I afraid with you, Yonah. For the Lord will be with us.'

The thought of marriage was a new element in Yonah's life. Amidst all the tumult, his mind was confused and his body had changed. At night he dreamed of females, and even in the midst of crisis he daydreamed of his longtime friend Lucía Martín. When they were curious children, on several occasions they had explored each other's nudity at length. Now it was possible to see that beneath her clothing she had taken on the first ripeness of womanhood, and there was a new awkwardness between them.

Everything was changing, and despite his fears and misgivings, Yonah felt a thrill at the prospect of traveling to distant places at last. He imagined life in a new place, the kind of life Jews hadn't experienced in Spain for the past hundred years.

In a book he had found mixed among the religious tracts in the study house, by an Arab author named Khordabbek, he had read about Jewish merchant-traders:

'They take ship in the land of the Franks, on the Western Sea, and steer for Farama. There they load their goods on the backs of camels and go by land to Kolzum, which is five days' journey over a distance of twenty-five farsakhs. They embark in the Red Sea and sail from Kolzum to Eltar and Jeddah. Then they go to Sind, India, and China.'

He would like to be a merchant-trader. If he were a Christian he would prefer to be a knight -- of course, of the sort that did not kill Jews. Such lives would be full of wonder.

But in more realistic moments Yonah knew his father was right. It made no sense to sit and indulge in dreams. There was work to be done, because the very foundations of their world were giving way.

7

The Date of Departure

Yonah knew many people who were already leaving. On the road outside of Toledo first a few travelers were seen and then a trickle, and then there was a flood of Jews night and day, a multitude of strangers from afar, going west toward Portugal or east toward the ships. The noise of their passing was heard in the city. They rode on horses and burros, they sat on sacks of their belongings in wagons pulled by cows, they walked under the hot sun bearing heavy loads, some stumbling, some falling. Sometimes women and boys sang and beat drums and tambourines as they walked, to keep their spirits up.

Women gave birth by the side of the road, and people died. The Toledo Council of Thirty allowed travelers to bury their dead in the Jewish cemetery but often could offer no other help, not even a minyan to say the Kaddish. In other times travelers in distress would have been given aid and hospitality, but now the Jews of Toledo were themselves leaving or preparing to leave and were struggling with their own problems.

The Dominican and Franciscan orders, pleased to see the expulsion for which they had worked and preached, set about energetically to harvest as many Jewish souls as possible. Some in Toledo who had been friends of Yonah's family for a very long time entered the city's churches and declared themselves Christians -- children, their parents and their grandparents, with whom the Toledanos had broken bread, with whom they had prayed in the synagogue, with whom they had cursed the need to wear the yellow badge of a shunned people. Almost one-third of the Jews became conversos because they feared the terrible dangers of travel, or out of love for a Christian, or because they had achieved position and comfort they couldn't bring themselves to renounce, or because they had had enough of being despised.

Jews in high positions were pressured and coerced into conversion. One evening Yonah's uncle Aron came to Helkias with shocking news.

'Rabbi Abraham Seneor, his son-in-law Rabbi Meir Melamed, and their families have become Catholics.'

Queen Isabella had not been able to bear the prospect of being without the two men who had accomplished so much for her, and it was rumored that she had threatened them with reprisals against the Jews if they refused to convert. It was known that the sovereigns had personally arranged and attended the public conversion ceremonies and had served as godparents at the baptism.

Rabbi Seneor had changed his name to Fernando Nuñez Coronel, and Rabbi Melamed had changed his name to Fernando Pérez Coronel.

A few days later Seneor was appointed governor of Segovia, a member of the royal council, and chief financial administrator to the crown prince. Melamed was appointed chief royal accountant and he too became a permanent member of the royal council.

Isaac Abravanel refused to convert. He and his brothers Joseph and Jacob renounced the large debts owed to them by the king and the queen, and in exchange they were allowed to leave the country, taking with them one thousand gold ducats and some valuable belongings made of gold and silver.

Helkias and Aron were less fortunate, like the vast majority of the Jews struggling with calamity. The Jewish multitude was told that no one was allowed to take gold, silver, money, or precious stones from the realm. They were advised by the throne to sell everything they owned and use the proceeds for 'common goods' which they could sell when they reached their new homelands. But almost immediately King Ferdinand declared that in Aragon some of the Jewish land, homes, and chattels should be seized because of revenues 'owed' the Crown.

Jews in Toledo rushed to sell their property before a similar move by the monarchs would make it impossible to do so, but the process was a charade. Their Christian neighbors, knowing that the property must be abandoned or the Jews would die, ground prices down mercilessly, offering a few sueldos for real estate that should have sold for many maravedíes, or even many reales. A donkey or a vineyard changed hands for a piece of common cloth.

Aron Toledano, offered almost nothing for his goat farm, turned to his older brother for advice. 'I don't know what to do,' he said helplessly.

Helkias had been a prosperous and sought-after artisan all his life, but the bad times had come when he was in a financial trough. He had been paid only a deposit on the reliquary. When it had been stolen before delivery no more money was forthcoming, although to make the ciborium he had invested heavily in the purest silver and gold. A number of wealthy patrons now held back their payments for objects delivered, sensing that events might make it unnecessary for them to settle their debts.

'I don't know what to do, either,' he admitted. He was in desperate straits, but he was saved because of the efforts and tender heart of an old and devoted friend.

Benito Martín was an Old Christian, a goldsmith who lacked the creative genius that had earned Helkias his reputation as a worker of silver. Most of Martín's work was simple gilding and repair. Both of them were young men when Benito had discovered that in his own city of Toledo a Jew created things of wonder out of precious metals.

He sought out the Jewish artisan and spent as much time with him as he could without becoming a nuisance, learning new ways to design silver and gold and spurred to extend his vision of the work of his own hands.

In the process of relearning his craft, Benito Martín had discovered a man.

Helkias had welcomed him and invited a sharing of skills and human experiences. Benito's admiration gradually had ripened into a true and certain friendship, so deep that during better times Martín had brought his children to the synagogue to visit the Toledano family at Passover, and to the sukkah during the Feast of Tabernacles. His daughter Lucía had become Yonah's best friend, and his son Enrique was Eleazar's most frequent playmate.

Now Benito was ashamed of the injustice rampant in Toledo, and he came to walk with Helkias one evening, early enough so they were able to stroll along the cliff top and greet the coming of night.

'Your house is sited so wonderfully, and your workshop has been planned so sensibly it invites good results. I have long coveted them.'

Helkias was silent.

When Benito named his offer, the silversmith stopped walking.

'I know it is very low, but ...'

It would have been a very low offer in ordinary times, but the times were not ordinary. Helkias knew it was all Benito could afford, and it was far more than the rapacious offers made by speculators.

He went to the other man and kissed his shaven Christian cheek and embraced him for a long time.

Yonah noticed that the dullness was gone from his father's eyes. Helkias sat with Aron and contemplated how they could save their family. The emergency was immediate, and Helkias was responding by rising to meet it with all his energy and attention.

'Ordinarily, the trip to Valencia would take ten days. Now, with the roads thick with people seeking early arrival, the same trip will take them twenty days, requiring twice as much food and doubling the dangers of travel. So we must leave Toledo as late as possible, when once again there will be fewer travelers.'

On their farm Aron kept two pack burros and a pair of fine horses that he and his wife, Juana, would ride. Benito Martín had acted for Helkias, purchasing two additional horses and a pair of burros for far less than a Jew would have been charged, and Helkias was paying his neighbor Marcelo Troca exorbitantly to keep the four animals in his nearby field.

Helkias told his brother they must find a way to get more capital. 'When we reach the port, sea captains will not be charitable to us. It will take a great deal of money to pay for our passage. And when we reach a land of haven, we must have money to sustain us until we can again work for our daily bread.'

The only possible source of money was the unpaid debts of Helkias's clients, and Yonah sat with his father and made a careful list of those customers and the amounts each owed.

The largest debt was sixty-nine reales and sixteen maravedíes owed by Count Fernán Vasca of Tembleque. 'He is an arrogant noble, summoning me as though he were king, describing each thing he wished me to make, yet slow to pay me even a single sueldo of his debt. If I can collect this debt we shall have more than enough.'

Yonah rode with his father on a bright July day to Tembleque, a village outside Toledo. He was unaccustomed to riding a horse, but their mounts were tractable, and he sat in the battered saddle as proudly as any knight. The countryside was beautiful, and though Helkias was weighed down with heavy thoughts, still he was able to burst into song as they rode. He sang a song of peace.

'Oh, the wolf shall dwell with the lamb,

And the leopard shall lie with the kid,

And the cow and the bear shall feed,

While the lion eats straw like the ox ...'

Yonah loved to listen to the deep voice singing the sonorous lines. This is how it will be when we ride to Valencia, he thought with pleasure.

Presently as they rode Helkias told his son that when he had first been summoned to Tembleque by Count Vasca, he had confided in his friend, Rabbi Ortega. 'The rabbi said to me, "Let me tell you about this nobleman."'

Rabbi Ortega had a nephew, a young scholar named Asher ben Yair, learned in several languages as well as in Torah. 'It is hard for a scholar to earn a living,' Helkias said, 'and one day Asher heard that a nobleman in Tembleque was seeking to employ a clerk, and he rode out to Tembleque and offered his services.'

The count of Tembleque was proud of his martial skills, Yonah's father told him. He had fought against the Moors and had traveled far and wide to participate in jousting tourneys, many of which he had won. But he was always alert for novelty, and in the spring of 1486 he had heard of a different kind of contest, a literary tourney in which the contestants fought with poems instead of lances and swords.

The contest was the Jocs Florals -- the Flower Games. They had begun in France late in the fourteenth century, when some young nobles of Toulouse decided to invite poets to recite their works, the winner to receive, as the first prize, a violet fashioned of gold.