Hunting Midnight (18 page)

“Yes,” I said, but I didn’t think I did.

“They wanted to live as they preferred and not worry that they might end up as ash. The Sultan of Turkey welcomed them. He welcomed thousands of Portuguese Jews. Then, later – ”

“But this is madness, Senhora Graça. How did they become Jews in the first place? Tell me that if you’re so clever!”

“They … they always were Jews, I suppose,” she stammered.

“That’s impossible,” I declared. I believed I had found the fatal flaw in her logic. “They must have started out as Christians, so why did they first convert to Judaism and then need to be converted back? It makes no sense. It’s … it’s not true.”

I had no clear understanding of what being Jewish meant, but I feared that it would change everything in my life – that it would distance my parents and Midnight from me, and that they would no longer be fond of me in any way.

Luna sighed. “This has been a wretched day.”

I stood up. “I must go now.”

“You sit back down, John Stewart,” Graça said determinedly, “or I shall never give you instructions in art again!” She grabbed both my hands to hold me down. Hers were freezing cold. “However it came to pass, the truth is that your maternal grandparents were Jewish, and their ancestors were exiled from Portugal hundreds of years ago. They kept their language and they kept their customs, even though they lived in a Moslem land. Then, after the Inquisition ended its worst abuses – you know what the Inquisition was?”

“Yes,” I replied, but I had only a vague notion.

“Then you probably also know that it lost its power
twenty-five
years ago, though it is not yet completely dismantled. Since then we have been able to practice our religion more … more fully.”

“Though we would not wish to call attention to ourselves,” Luna added.

“No, that would be foolish,” Graça agreed. “It’s much better for everyone that we remain hidden. Now, the important thing for you is this, John: Under sacred law, the child of a Jewish woman remains Jewish. That’s why you are what you are. You see now?”

“So is my father a Jew?” I asked. They both shook their heads. “There, you see! It makes no sense. If I were Jewish, he would be too. I cannot be what my father is not.”

“For better or for worse,” Luna said, “that is not how these things are decided. That’s precisely what we are trying to tell you.”

“Then why wouldn’t I know it? Why wouldn’t my papa have told me?”

“Your parents were waiting until you were a little older. It is part of our tradition. The children are only told when we are absolutely certain they are old enough to keep such an important secret. Unless there are circumstances that … that complicate matters and make such knowledge essential, like what took place today.”

“Why do we have to keep it a secret?”

“Look, John,” Graça replied, “the Inquisition may return, which is why that preacher, Lourenço Reis, came here today. We have known of him for many years. He was formerly employed by the Holy Office, by the Church, as a prosecutor, you might say. He has jailed Jews and made them burn. You can be sure he greatly regrets that such power was taken from him and that we are no longer completely at his mercy. He would like to see a return to the old days.”

“So you’re Jewish too.”

“Yes, John, many of us are Jewish. At least, in secret.”

“Who?”

“I think it best for you to talk to your mother about that. She may be very unhappy with us for telling you this much.”

“But what shall I do now?”

“What do you mean?”

“I am Jewish and my father is not. If you are so clever, then tell me what shall I do?”

I traipsed down the street toward home. Midnight tried to talk to me, but I was too angry to answer him. I was wondering who I was.

Then we saw Senhor Policarpo sprawled on the cobbles
outside
his home. His wife, Josefina, was leaning over him, sobbing and covered in his blood. The bones in his face had been smashed in. Flies were already feeding at his eyes and lips.

Senhora Josefina gazed up at us in horror and started to wail.

“John, go home,” Midnight said. “Get in the house.”

“What about you?”

“I shall be there presently. Go home and make certain you lock the door.”

I rushed away. Before I closed the door behind me, I saw him reaching for Policarpo’s pulse. He shook his head and reached for Josefina’s hand.

To my relief, I found Fanny alive and well, nosing through the leaves of a verbena bush in our garden.

“Senhor Policarpo is dead and I am a Jew,” I told her, which only made her run to get her leather ball and drop it in my hand. I threw it into the rosebushes, which was a cruel thing to do. While she tried to contort herself to get through their thorns unscathed, I went to my room and cried. Then I peered in my mirror for a mark on my scalp where my horns might have been, but again I could detect no such sign. I found nothing unusual on the tip of my penis either.

Mama arrived home an hour or so later. “John?” she called in a worried voice. “John, are you in your room?”

I dashed down the stairs and ran into her arms.

“Thank God, you’re safe,” she said. She embraced me for a long time, and I could feel her trembling.

I wished to ask her if she and I were Jewish but reasoned that this was sure to insult her either way. For if it were true, then I would be drawing attention to a family fault, and if it were not, as I still hoped, then she might be offended that I thought so badly of her.

“I believe that something worrisome happened to you today,” she said as calmly as she could. “You weren’t hurt at all?”

“No, Mama.”

“No one touched you?”

“No.”

“You’re certain?”

“Yes.”

“You must have been frightened.” When I shook my head, she asked, “Is Midnight here?”

“He must be in the Lookout Tower or in the garden.”

“Thank goodness.” She glanced down, weighing her options, then added, “Would you pump some water into a pot for me, John? I’ll prepare supper. Yes, that’s just what I’ll do. Hot food is what we need.”

I took a deep breath and said, “Senhor Policarpo is dead.”

“I know, John, I’ve seen Josefina. We shall speak of what it means for us later.”

“Mama, if I … if I were Jewish, would I … would I …”

I did not know how to continue and so said no more.

Mother held up her hand to have me wait a moment, then removed her black shawl. She laid it on one of the armchairs and returned to me. She held my head in her hands and pressed her lips to my brow. “Yes, John, if you were Jewish … What is it you wish to know?”

She seemed strangely confident, and I realized that I had expected her to become hysterical. Instead, she smiled
encouragingly
.

“If I were Jewish, would I know it?”

“That is a very good question, John, and I will indeed answer it. But first, will you tell me precisely what happened to you today? I need to know.”

“No, you answer my question first.”

She sighed, resigned to my inquisitive nature. I had no inkling whatsoever of what an overwhelming relief it would be to her to finally tell me the truth.

I now believe that many of her idiosyncrasies – particularly her constant fretting over the opinions of others and stern insistence on decorum – were the direct result of the need for secrecy both inside and outside her home. That she saw herself obliged by circumstance to lie to her only child must have seemed a cruel fate at times, given her devotion to me.

“Come sit with me, John, and I shall answer all your
questions
,” Mama said warmly. On her insistence I sat in Papa’s chair. “You’re so big now that if I tried to sit you on my lap I’d be crushed,” she said, laughing.

She looked at me as though greatly relieved simply to see me alive. “John, we were … we were waiting to tell you. Until you were a bit older.”

“Then I
am
Jewish?” I prayed there was still a more sensible explanation.

“It isn’t that simple. There are – how shall I put it? There are people, who are neither one thing nor another.”

“Neither Christian nor Jewish?”

“That’s right. Perhaps … perhaps I’d better start with some history. A long time ago, before you were born – ”

“Grandfather João came from Constantinople,” I interrupted. “His ancestors were Jewish. They fled the Inquisition. People were being burnt. I know all that.”

“Who told you?”

“Luna and Graça. I was with them when the necromancer came.”

“Yes, I know. They came to find me at the market.”

“If you knew what they said, why did you ask?”

“On the contrary, John, they only told me a little of what happened. They said that you had been very brave and that certain secrets had been revealed to you.”

“Did they take something from me?” I asked impetuously.

“Who?”

“The Jews?”

“Which Jews?”

I shrugged. “I’ve no idea. But you know what I’m trying to say.”

“I most certainly do not.”

I wished to broach, in the most delicate manner possible, the possibility of my penis having been disfigured. I said, “I don’t know what they took. A horn perhaps.”

“A horn?”

“From somewhere … from my head. They removed it.”

“Please, John, this is no time for one of Midnight’s stories. You are not a goat. Though there have certainly been times when you have smelled like one.” She smiled at her own joke, which irritated me enormously. “Forgive me, John,” she said. “I know I’m being silly, but I wanted to put you at ease.”

“Maybe they took something else?” I said.

“Such as?”

“Well, from my tip.” I squirmed in embarrassment.

“Ah, I see now where this conversation is heading. Yes, when you were eight days old, a surgeon came and took a small and unimportant piece of skin from your … your tip, as you so nicely put it.”

She said this as though it were a trifle, but I must have looked
sick, since she added reassuringly, “A very small piece. Nothing essential, I assure you. You are perfectly intact in that area.”

“Why was a piece of skin taken?”

“It is our tradition. A surgeon comes and the baby sits on his grandfather’s lap while the surgeon cuts away a small piece of skin that serves to hide things. It’s called the
prepúcio.”

“Does it hurt?”

She shrugged. “It must have. You cried. We put some brandy on your gums to soothe the pain.”

“Brandy in my mouth to slice off the tip of my penis?”

She slapped her hand in her lap. “It was just a very tiny and useless piece of skin.”

“Does Father still have it?”

“Yes.”

“But why didn’t he have it cut off?”

“John, your father is a separate subject. Perhaps we ought to discuss one thing at a time.”

“You said I could ask anything.”

She sighed. “John, listen, I’m afraid the truth is that your father is not Jewish.” She looked away, as though it saddened her to admit it.

Far from upsetting me, I felt relieved. “Then I must only be partially Jewish.”

“In a sense.”

“Half-Scottish and half-Jewish.”

“I think it would be more correct to say half-Scottish and half-Portuguese. As well as half-Christian and half-Jewish, of course.”

“Mama, I cannot be four halves. Then I would be two persons.”

“Indeed, John, I have often believed you to be several
children
, and each one more difficult than the one before. Honestly, it is like trying to converse with a bumblebee.” She shook her head. “Look, you are Portuguese and Jewish at the same time. Like me. Just as you are Christian and Scottish at the same time. Like your father.” She leaned toward me. “But here’s where things get tricky – the Jews are of the belief that religion is inherited through the mother. So, by our laws, you are
completely 
Jewish, and the Christians agree. One drop of Hebrew blood makes you utterly Jewish, they say.”

“Hebrew?”

“That is what the Jews are called in the Bible.”

“So what things did I inherit?”

“Jewishness, you might say.”

Now I felt we were headed where I had been trying to go for some time. “But what is Jewishness?”

My mother sighed deeply. “My goodness, I wish my father were still with us. I am quite certain he could explain all this much better than I can. John, dear, the Jews believe certain things that Christians don’t. That’s what it means to be Jewish.”

“For instance?”

“For instance, that Jesus was not the Messiah. You know who the Messiah is?” I shook my head. “Well, he is a kind of savior. Now, the Christians believe he was Jesus. But we say that the Messiah has not yet come.”

“Papa does not believe that Jesus is the Messiah, yet you just said that he was a Christian.”

“He was born a Christian, but he is an atheist by conviction. Jews and atheists do not believe that Jesus was the Messiah.”

This last point seemed to improve my situation even further. “So people can change? I could decide I am not half-Jewish and become one-quarter Jewish … or … or even less?”

“I fear that is not the way it works. Father remains a Christian by tradition, if not by belief. Just as you will remain a Jew by tradition, but not by belief, if that’s what you decide.”

“What tradition?”

“Well, now, this is where things become difficult, John. I am ignorant of many things – too many. I only know what my father told me. You see, I was raised here in Portugal, where such things as Jewishness remain largely a secret. There is much I have not learned, but I shall tell you what I know….”

My mother then went on to discuss at great length such mysterious subjects as God, the soul, afterlife, possession,
demonic
spheres, angels, and hell. She used such complicated clauses and was forced into so many tangled rephrasings that after
forty-five
minutes of labor, when she finally gave herself a welcome rest
and inquired “Do you understand now?”, it was my turn to confess to being totally lost.

As far as I could determine, the Jews believed that a single God would revive them in body and soul when the Messiah came and that they would rise up from the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem and live in paradise.