Incantation (5 page)

A Marrano is a secret Jew,
my grandmother told me.

But they go to our church,
I said.

That’s right,
my grandmother said.
For all the good it did them.

What will the soldiers do?
I wanted to know.

You know what Marrano means?
My grandmother was really looking at me, really talking to me; I was even more afraid of her than usual.
It means pig. What do you think they’ll do to people they consider to be pigs? They’ll cook them, God help us. They’ll burn them alive.

Stop talking!
My grandfather said in a terrifying voice. Now I knew why his students appeared so humble before him. He scared me so much I was shaking.
Don’t tell this girl any more!

T
HERE WAS BLOOD
on the path between the Arriases’ house and ours; but when my grandmother wanted to wash it away, my grandfather stopped her.

Let everyone see the blood,
he said.
Don’t clean it up. That’s the only way people remember.

I went out to the garden and was sick to my stomach. I got some water from the rain barrel and washed away not only my sickness but also the blood on the path. I did what I could, but my grandfather had been right; it was useless. The blood had stained the bricks and wouldn’t wash away.

I went back to our yard and sat on the steps. I didn’t care that the chickens were clucking and pecking at my shoes. My dear Dini came running to me. He made sad noises and lay down beside me. He was a comfort, even in this time. I would never let anyone cook him. It was such a horrible thought, I erased it from my mind.

I walked over to the Arrias house and I saw that my mother had told me the truth; tears did have a color. Where Marianna and Antonia Arrias had stood crying for their mother, there was a blue stain on the stones. I picked up one of the stones, and it was cool in the palm of my hand. When I held it to my ear, I could hear the sound of the little girls. The stone was weeping.

I threw it away, into the thornbushes, where the tall grass grew. I didn’t need to listen to a stone to hear what had happened. I didn’t need to see blood on the bricks. I could hear the crying inside my head; I could see the blood inside my head. It was with me forever, whether or not I wanted to forget.

E
VERYONE
was talking about the Arriases’ trial. The rumors were terrible. There were whispers on the street and in the Plaza, slander spoken as though it were pure and true. Some said that Señora Arrias killed small children, and that was the reason her sunflowers grew so well, because she sprinkled the children’s blood on the ground. Others swore the Señor practiced magic that ruined his neighbors’ crops. Together, they had taught their daughters the devil’s language. They had made the rainy season last so long that there were many bad olives on the trees.

On one thing everyone seemed to agree: The Arriases were Jews who were only pretending to be Christian. Someone had turned them in, and although the witness was never named in court, his testimony was believed by the judge. Once a person was officially accused, there was no argument and no defense. The accusation itself sealed a person’s guilt.

The judge had come from a hundred miles away; he was living in the old Duke’s palace. The armory behind the palace was also populated now; it had been turned into a prison. If anyone was arrested, they were sent to the armory; their children were given away to an old, respected Christian family who would raise them properly. As for the accused, a conviction of heresy meant one thing: death.

Our family prayed for the Arriases; our whole congregation did. Friar deLeon said a special prayer for them, one I had never heard before, a plea to St. Esther, a saint he said was invoked only at the most terrible of times. She was a queen who had to pretend she was someone other than her truest self in order to save her people. She was so beautiful, my grandmother whispered as we sat in the cool, dark church, that the persecutors who wanted to hurt her people believed whatever she told them.

Some lies were to hurt and some were to heal, my grandmother told me. I wasn’t so sure. I hadn’t wanted to hurt Catalina, so I didn’t tell her about the way I felt about Andres. But now there was a distance between us.

Just because something is unspoken doesn’t mean that it disappears.

That evening, before dinner, while I was still wearing my Sunday clothes and the strand of pearls my grandparents had bought for me on the day I was born, I saw something through the window. There was a shadow inside the Arriases’ house. I knew I shouldn’t go next door, but I did. Maybe it was a bad spirit or a curse brought to life. But it could be something else. Perhaps Marianna had run away from the new family she’d been given to and was hiding in her old house. Perhaps the arrest had been recognized as a terrible mistake and the officials had let the family go. Could it be that they were back living their lives in their own house, free from terror?

But it was nothing like that. Nothing at all. I crouched by the window so I wouldn’t be seen. When I peered over the ledge I could see Catalina and her mother going through the drawers on the tall wooden bureau, taking out the linens Señora Arrias had stitched. Señora Arrias made beautiful lace, intricate as a map of the stars.

Catalina and her mother forced open another drawer and then rejoiced; there was the silverware, the candlesticks the family used on Friday nights.

I ran back to my house, breathless, my legs shaking.

That very evening Catalina and I were supposed to have a needlepoint lesson from her mother. The thought of it made me sick. Just as I’d heard that blue stone weeping, I saw Catalina grabbing the silver when I closed my eyes. Some things you cannot wish away or think away. They become a part of you when you remember them.

I thought over what I would do, as though Catalina were no longer my friend, but someone I had to trick. When the heat of the day was over, I went to Catalina’s house at the time of our lesson and knocked on the door. I knew Andres was there and that he’d be waiting for a good excuse to join us—he’d bring us some fruit perhaps, or cold water; all the while he’d be trying to send me a message in the way he looked at me, and I would try not to let anyone see when I sent him a message back.

Usually I would be happy about such plans, but when Catalina opened the door I told her I had to miss our needlepoint lesson.

I was sick today,
I told her. It didn’t even feel like a lie.
I keep having pains in my stomach.

But we planned this! My mother has been expecting you!

I couldn’t help but wonder if Catalina’s mother had something to do with the Arriases’ arrest. Certainly, she had been quick to denounce them in public after the trial. She’d been quick to take what belonged to them.

I wouldn’t want to bring up my dinner in your house,
I said. I knew Catalina was squeamish—and indeed, she backed away.

Promise me we’ll do it tomorrow,
Catalina said.

She made me curl my little finger with hers to seal the bargain, and then she had us both make the sign of the cross. I hoped God wasn’t judging me too harshly for not confronting Catalina about being in the Arriases’ house. I made the sign of the cross the way my family always did: forehead, lips, shoulders.

Everyone in your family does that all wrong,
Catalina said.

No, we don’t,
I said.

I was thinking about how we went to the same church as the Arrias family. I was thinking about the look on my grandmother’s face when they were arrested.

When I went to leave, Catalina stopped me.

Let me wear your pearls to seal the promise.

I reached up and touched the necklace at my throat. It was the only thing of value that I owned. The only gift my grandparents had ever given me. Catalina saw me hesitate.

Maybe you’re not as good a friend as I thought you were,
she said.

Why would you think that?

Catalina shrugged.
It seems I can’t depend on you for anything.

Then she backed off; her pride had been hurt. She wasn’t certain she wanted anything from me now. And what did I want?

For everything to be the same as it had been.

For Catalina to be my friend once again.

You can depend on me,
I said. I wanted it to be true, as it had been in the past.
Take them,
I said.
I want you to have them.

I took off the pearls and watched as my friend fastened them around her neck. Wearing them, she looked exactly the same, my oldest, dearest friend, Catalina.

How do I look?
she asked.

I had never noticed how much the outside of things mattered to Catalina.

Beautiful,
I said.

That was enough for her. That was what she wanted.

But what I really meant was:
They are still mine.

That was my third lie to Catalina.

After three there was no point in counting.

S
OON ENOUGH
, another decree went up in the Plaza, posted directly across from the well of heaven. Citizens were to report anyone they suspected of being false Christians to the court. If they did not, they themselves might be found guilty of heresy, jailed, and then judged.

The Plaza was crowded and noisy. There were many strangers in town, from cities that were far away. Vendors with carts were selling filled grape leaves and almond cakes the way they did at festivals. There was a juggler who threw silk scarves into the air and caught them as they fell back to earth. There was a man selling rabbits, skinned and bloody, their bodies hanging from a pole he wore across his back.

The area around the decree was so mobbed, I had to read it from a distance, squinting my eyes, concentrating hard in order to make out the letters. At last I could see.

There was a list of the ways to tell who was a hidden Jew:

They wear clean clothes on Saturday.

We did that, but only to air out our best clothes to wear to Sunday Mass.

They light candles on Friday night.

We did that, but only to see by candlelight, for soon enough it would be dark.

They fast twice a year.

We did that, but only to remember my father.

They tell stories of Queen Esther.

We did that, but only because she was a saint spoken about in church.

They do not eat pork.

We did that, but simply because we preferred vegetables and fresh green things.

They name their children after those in the Old Testament.

We did that, but they were only our pet names that meant nothing to anyone but each other. The name of love my grandfather called my grandmother that sounded like knives—Sarah. The name my mother used to call me when I was small as she rocked me to sleep that was also the name my grandmother called me when she gave me the strand of pearls.

Esther.

Turn one in, and you share all he owns, halved with the court.

People were looking at each other with their eyes cast down, only daring to sneak looks at one another; with a single decree the world was viewed differently, filled with dangerous possibilities. I felt as I had on that first burning day when there were cinders in my hair. Standing there, surrounded by my neighbors, in a village where my family had lived for five hundred years, I could think of only one thing:

We did that.

I
NSTEAD OF
going home, I went into the hills where my mother and I so often went to search for herbs. I walked fast so I couldn’t think. I wanted it that way. Otherwise I would think about Catalina and her mother rummaging through the Arriases’ house. I would wonder if my name were really Esther.

I went deep into the woods, where there were pine trees and a carpet of soft needles that made everything quiet. But I didn’t want quiet. I didn’t want to know any secrets. Why we went to the same church as the Arrias family. Why we had special names. I wanted to be who I’d always been. Was that too much to ask?

I started to run. I ran until my ears were pounding. Until I couldn’t take another breath. I thought I’d been running aimlessly, without a thought in my head. But I had been following a map I didn’t know I kept inside my heart. Soon enough, I found myself in the grove where my father was buried. I had remembered.

I hadn’t been here in a very long time. Not since I was a little girl. But I must have recalled there were pine trees. I must have remembered the way deep inside.

There was a flat blue stone to mark his grave, and on that stone, engraved too deeply ever to disappear, was a star. I thought of my name. Estrella. My father’s dark star. I thought about all the secrets in my house. I thought about the way we loved each other. When I was a little girl and came here with my mother, we had left two small stones on my father’s gravestone to mark our remembrance. I did that now.

It took me a long time to return to the hill overlooking our town. When I got there and looked down, there was nothing I felt I wanted from that place. Usually I felt I was gazing at my home; now it was only a cluster of houses, tile roofs, fields and meadows, and trees. It might have been anyplace, somewhere I’d never been before.