VOYAGE OF STRANGERS (12 page)

I held her, striving to muffle her words against my chest, as she twisted in my arms. To my horror at the burning was added terror for myself and Rachel. Her distress was beginning to attract attention.

Luckily, a commotion arose behind us. I turned, seeking the source of the disturbance, without letting go my hold on Rachel. The Espinosas were no longer watching my people burn. Doña Beatriz sat on the ground, holding Aldonza in her arms. Doña Marina knelt beside her. Ever provident, she had produced a small flask of water and a kerchief. She dampened the cloth and mopped Aldonza’s brow, which was beaded with sweat. The girl’s breath was no more than a fitful, ragged wheeze that labored to emerge between her white lips. The rest of the Espinosas hovered over them, the girls fl
uttering like pigeons as they uttered cries and exclamations of distress.

“We must get her home,” Paquito said. “Let me, Mama, I will carry her.”

“Give her to me,” Don Francisco said. He suited the action to the word, scooping Aldonza up in his arms.

Paquito assisted Doña Beatriz to rise, and I leaped to help Doña Marina, still keeping one arm around Rachel. I gave the other to my aunt. Along with my concern for Aldonza, I felt great relief. This catastrophe would get us out of here.

Don Francisco led the way, forcing a path through the mob with elbows and courteous but determined words. All the Espinosas followed. The crowd was howling now, caught up in a blood lust that they no doubt believed was religious ecstasy, as the flames leaped higher than the Cathedral door.  Rachel still trembled, her own breath shaky and her face white with shock. Doña Marina, on my other side, reached out and patted Rachel’s forehead with her still damp kerchief. My aunt and I exchanged a glance. Her lips tightened. True Christian she might be, but the
auto da fe
was no pleasure to her. She had been Jewish as a child. The Espinosas had been taught that this cruelty was a form of grace. We had not.

It took twice as long as usual to reach the Espinosas’ house, pushing our way against the frenzied crowd and making sure that none of our small procession got separated from the others in the c
onfusion. Don Francisco didn’t wait for a servant to open the door. Indeed, all were most likely in the Plaza, as bound to this civic and religious duty as the family. Don Francisco put his back against the heavy oak and swung Aldonza inside as it opened. Murmuring endearments, he carried her not to her own chamber but to the one he shared with Doña Beatriz. He laid her gently on the great bed and stood up, pressing a hand to his back as he did so. Doña Beatriz flew to his side as the others crowded around. Rachel, Doña Marina, and I remained close to the door, not wanting to intrude unless our help was needed.

“There, my darling,” Doña Beatriz crooned, “you are home now. Rest, and presently you shall feel better.”

“She is no longer wheezing, Mama,” Adelina said. “Her breathing must be easier.”

I could hear Doña Marina’s quick intake of breath. Doña Beatriz looked up at Don Francisco, her eyes wild with alarm. Don Francisco once more bent over the bed. The others crowded close, so we could no longer see Aldonza lying small and still among the bedclothes stuffed with goose down. After a minute, he stood up, his face raw with grief.

“She is dead.”

Chapter Fifteen

Seville, July 17 - August 1, 1493

When we returned to the Cathedral for Aldonza’s funeral rites, all signs of the
auto da fe
had been swept away. The great vault was filled with the light of thousands of candles. The scent of flowers and the sound of sobbing filled the air, for everyone who knew her had loved Aldonza. Doña Beatriz could not have followed her daughter’s coffin had Don Francisco not supported her on one side and Doña Marina on the other.

The Espinosas’ happy house was now an unhappy house. The distraught mother  begged my aunt to postpone her planned visit to friends in Malaga. Her daughters could not console her, for sight of them invariably reminded her of Aldonza and set her weeping once again. She exclaimed over and over that they should not have allowed her to attend the burning, that they should have remembered that smoke upon the air, even from a homely hearth, had always made Aldonza’s breathing worse. 

Don Francisco’s sorrow took the form of silence, an increased attentiveness to his work, and a tendency to avoid the company of his wife and children. I too could escape to work. As many hours as I chose to spend within sight of the Admiral or Archdeacon Fonseca, so many could they fill with tasks for me. The fleet in the harbor at Cadiz was growing, while the nearby shipyards were busy day and night, building, at a feverish pace, the smaller vessels that were required to accommodate our explorations among the islands.

Rachel had a harder time than Doña Marina or I. Still shocked by the horror of the
auto da fe
as much as by Aldonza’s sudden death, she did all she could to serve and cheer the sisters. But she had no real occupation.

“Oh, Diego,” she exclaimed, “can I not offer my services to Admiral Columbus as a scribe? For you have said yourself that he could give you twice the writing if you had twice the time. You may present me as a lady, albeit an industrious one. I will even wear my farthingale. Surely I could come to no harm simply sitting at a desk putting quill to paper.”

“The Admiral is so pressed as to daunt a lesser man,” I said. “He must be conversant with every detail, especially of the ships they are building in Cadiz. And his humor is choleric, for he quarrels constantly with Don Juan. The Queen—” Here I lowered my voice and looked around to make sure none overheard us. “The Queen must have been mad to give the task of fitting out the expedition to two such incompatible men. At any rate, I don’t want to trouble him with such an odd request.”

Rachel sighed.

“To me, it doesn’t seem so odd,” she said.

Over the following weeks, the pall of mourning over the formerly merry household did not lighten. Doña Beatriz sought consolation in her prayers and resisted every effort to distract her mind from the loss of her dearest child. Paquito and his brothers spent a week in lugubrious idleness. Then they could bear no more and turned to galloping their horses into a lather outside the city, along with Eulalia’s
novio
and other friends. They always declared both before and after these excursions that the soap manufactory must not be neglected, or that those who tended the olive groves must be kept up to the mark. But they came home smelling of strong drink, and none reproached them.  

Rachel confided that she found the sisters’ company increasingly difficult.

“I don’t fault them,” she said, “for becoming somewhat heedless in their grief. Surely we would feel the same if one of our sisters died.” She added with asperity, “Though I don’t think that you would go about getting drunk!”

I laughed at this but sensed that she had something further on her mind.

“What is it?” I asked. “You know you can tell me anything.”

“Except that I wish to sail with you to the Indies,” she grumbled.

“You may tell me that or any other fond wish,” I said. “That doesn’t mean that I will consent. But don’t try to distract me, Rachel. What troubles you?”

“Each day they must recount several times the story of that horrible day—at least, the part that they find noteworthy: Aldonza’s insistence on going to the Plaza with the others, how she was taken short of breath just as the flames started to rise, and what happened after. They spoke as if the unfortunates who also lost their lives that day offended chiefly in allowing the smoke of their burning to interfere with Aldonza’s breathing.”

“That is hard to bear in silence.”

“This morning, Eulalia said, ‘It is all the fault of the Jews! They must envy Christian families, especially happy ones, like ours before we lost Aldonza. We had no misfortune until they were punished.’ Punished!” Rachel repeated, outraged. “She said, ‘Perhaps they ill-wished us as they burned.’”

I drew her close, and she leaned her head upon my shoulder.

“What did the others say?”

“They laughed,” Rachel said. “It was hard for me not to speak, and I cannot feel fond of Eulalia as I did before.”

“Nor should you have to,” I said, kissing her cheek.

“Besides,” she said, “She becomes tiresome on the subject of her betrothed and his many virtues: how strong he is, how kind, and how well he sits a horse.”

I laughed.

“You will say the same of some young man one day.”

“I will not! You are strong and kind enough for me. And I can sit a horse myself, when anyone will let me have one.”

“One day,” I said, “you will not be content with only a brother.”

“I don’t believe it,” she said.

“Take courage, love. We will not stay here forever. In fact, we must be wearing out our welcome rapidly, now that they have no good fortune to share with guests.”

“Has the Admiral named a date for your departure?” Rachel asked.

“He talks as if all may be ready the first week in September,” I said, “and the Archdeacon sneers like a camel each time he mentions it. You must prepare yourself for our parting, Rachel, for both are determined to be off before October. The season’s favorable winds will not last forever.”

Doña Marina departed for Malaga, after commending me as a good boy growing into a fine man. This gratified me but disgusted Rachel, for our aunt admonished her to obey me and fall in cheerfully with whatever plan I settled on to dispatch her to Firenze.

After her departure, we hoped the family’s passionate desire to blame the Jews for Aldonza’s death, if not their grief, would subside. But their conviction, especially the girls’, that the
penitentes
had all but murdered Aldonza instead grew with time. Rachel and I had to endure many conversations embellishing this theme. We had to dissemble so that the family did not suspect that we were Jewish ourselves, or even overly sympathetic to Jews.

“Why would anybody wish to be a Jew?” Graciela asked one morning as we lingered over coffee in the courtyard.

“It is a mystery,” Adelina said. “They must be taught from birth to believe that evil is good.”

“They smell,” Eulalia said.

“True,” Adelina said, “and they care for nothing but gold.”

If that were true, I thought, then surely not only the Admiral and the thousand-odd Spaniards who clamored to join his expedition but also the King and Queen themselves must be Jewish.

“It is said they kill babies in their rituals,” Graciela said.

I had heard enough.

“Ladies, you must excuse us,” I said. “I must be about my duties. Raquel, will you walk with me? If you don’t think it tedious to watch me count and write up lists of barrels of seed for planting, dried peas, molasses, vinegar, oil, and wine, you may spend the day as my companion.”

Rachel leaped up and threw down her needlework in such haste that she pricked her finger.

“Oh, yes! If you will spare me a quill, I can help.” She turned to Adelina. “If you don’t need me here?”

“No, dear, you must go,” Adelina said kindly. “We are poor company lately, I fear. Please don’t feel that you must share every moment of our gloom.”

We made our escape, heaving simultaneous sighs of relief when the great door of the house swung closed behind us.

“It is unbearable,” Rachel declared. “How much longer must we stay?”

“We cannot leave abruptly,” I said. “They must not be allowed to think we are offended by their accusations of the Jews.”

“I cannot tell which is worse,” she said, “their mad notions about us or never being able to correct them or show what I feel. It is exhausting.”

“I know, little sister. I will take you away the moment I find a ship or caravan for Italy.”

“Must I wait so long?”

“Have patience. I will do my best to keep you diverted.”

“Then take me to visit Cristobal! I long to meet him.”

Thinking it over, I could see no harm in it. I had told her much of him and of Hutia. It would divert Cristobal too, as he had not yet been offered the opportunity to have a rational conversation with a European lady.

“Very well,” I said. “You will like Cristobal, and he you. Don’t tire him, however, for he has been ill.”

We found Cristobal sitting cross-legged in the sunny courtyard of the inn where they were lodged, the clout between his legs his only garment. Rachel’s mouth dropped open, for although she had seen the Taino in their scant garb at Court, this close view startled her.   

“He is more clothed than his people were when first I met them,” I murmured. “If  you are to become acquainted with the Taino,” I murmured, “you must respect their customs.”

Among the most bitter of the laws against the Jews had been the forbidding of our
tallit
and
t’fillin
, the symbols of our worship. Perhaps the Taino felt similarly about covering their bodies, I told her.

“Cristobal, good morning! I have brought you a visitor.”

In the sunlight, I could see how pale and yellow his golden skin had become. He was thin as a skeleton, for our food sat uneasily in his stomach. His eyes were sunken and his flesh wasted. Nonetheless, I told him he looked well and introduced my sister.