The Apprentice's Masterpiece (7 page)

He mentions Granada.
Amir's eyes light up.

I, too, feel a pang.
Haven't I dreamed
of seeing the world?

But this is our home.
And travel takes strength.
Does Mama have it?
And Papa?

Señor Ortiz is changing his will.
This whole house—the house, might I add,
that used to be ours—will go to the Church!
You know what that means.
The Inquisitors.

If he dies, Papa says,
they'll be here to lay claim
before señor's body
is put in the ground.

They've arrested so many New Christians
of late. Even I, who love numbers,
would not want to count them.

The Queen's alcazar
can't hold them all.
Some people wait years
before their trials start.
Waiting takes space!

Once, when I wasn't permitted
to do what I pleased,
I said my own room
was a prison cell.
Had I glimpsed, without knowing,
the dark final fate of our home?

Question

Mama and Papa talk half the night.
Amir's awake too.

I have a new question
to ask Amir.
How does it feel
to throw your kind master
out of his home?

Front Door

Most people who call
on Señor Ortiz
know to use the back door.
The front one is ours.
(In my grandfather's day,
it belonged to the servants.)

This doctor is not from our quarter,
and he doesn't know.
Or maybe he's not all that keen
to be seen.

He wears no strange hat
like the ones in old books.
But his beard is as long
as his arms.
Nearly hidden beneath it,
just right of his heart:
a yellow patch.

He's a Jew.

If
they
learn he has been here,
Smallpox will be
the least of our woes.

Penitent

I still meet with Bea.
My world may be ending,
but that only leads me
to think of her more.

I even remember to compliment her.
I look for silk, for gold thread—
any small thing that I might have missed.
But the skirt is the old one!
This sack
, she had said.

Girls are confusing.

“Don't look at my clothes!”
She's noticed my gaze. “I'm ashamed!”

It takes much kissing and coaxing
(not that I mind)
before she'll explain.

“Mama confessed for the Edict of Grace.
She told them she once bought some meat
from a wandering Jew.
They fined her three hundred maravedis,
and Papa won't pay. He says
we must sell off our new clothes instead!
Oh, Ramon—I wish I were dead.”

But couldn't he stop it? He's a
familiari!

She looks at me like I am simple.
“My
father's
the one who said,
‘Turn yourself in.'”

She dabs at her eyes for a minute.
But when she looks up, they are slits.
“You know, Ramon,
maybe he was right.
If ever again there's an Edict of Grace—
Better to tell on yourself
than be told on.
I'm sure you've done
something
.
No, don't tell me.
Tell
them.
”

Waiting

We wait for señor to die
or to live.

Papa once claimed that waiting
is food for the soul.
Think of a pen, he told me.
When a new one is made,
we must stand it in sand
to strengthen the feather.
After one week of patience,
the quill is more pliant.
Less likely to break.

I'm sorry, Papa, but some waiting
just leads to despair.

What's more, it costs money!
It's hardly fair.
Why, when there's nothing to do,
do we still need to eat?

I go looking for work.
The doors in the quarter
are lids on sealed coffins.
In other words,
shut.

I'm not choosy.
Amir's washing clothes
for Señora Ducal.
I must find something too!
I can't let the pennies
earned by our slave be what feed us.

At last, near the end
of a dark crooked street,
a door is swung open.
There stands a grizzled old man
as spindly as a broom.

He looks me over
through a fearsome squint.
Then he spits.
The hands that killed Christ
will never be clean.
He sticks out his chin as he says it.
Spittle lands
in my wide-open eye.

Get out of here, Jew
.

Tail

It's as if
I'm walk-
ing around
with horns—
devil's horns—
in place of
my ears.
Or a tail
instead of
no tail.
It's invisible,
but might
spring out
hey-ho!
at any
bad moment.
Of which
there is
hardly a shortage,
these days.

I'm more angry
than scared. I've
done nothing
wrong.

But in this time
and this place
that particular
armor is thinner
than paper.

Stain

I must do something.

If we seem like Jews
to some half-blind old man,
how long will the Office
leave us alone? They say
they deal only with Christians.
But then they say Christians
are more prone to
err
if their blood is unclean.

We don't boast about
our Jewish ancestors.
We bury our pride
deep down in our hearts.

There must be something.
Some mark or some stain
that singles us out.

They will come looking.
Every last thing that they see will be judged.

Even if that book Papa hides
is no more than a clandestine copy
of
Plants of Castile
, they're bound
to find something else.

In Seville, a man burned for saying
that God and Allah are the same.
I've heard Papa say things more shocking
than that! Mama, as well.

And what about me? I don't study
the Edicts of Faith like I should,
so I don't know what not to do.
I could be arrested for anything—
for picking my nose
with the incorrect finger!

Guides

I have an idea.
A way to save, all at once,
Papa, our home,
and even Amir.

But it scares me.

I remember one thing
from the Edict of Faith.
No Christians may use Jewish doctors.
Even a potion that's sold by a Jew
might as well be a poison—so sure a ticket
is it to a
very
good seat at the
auto-da-fé
.

What if Señor Ortiz
were arrested?

I
scare me.
There are two angels appointed
to each man on Earth.
A good one,
to protect him.
And a not-so-good one,
to sometimes put him
to the test.

Which of my angels
is singing
right now?

The Alcazar

Come back in a fortnight?
They must be mad!

It's not just that I've wasted
all day in that line.

It took all the courage I had
to lift up my fist
to their door.

On Second Thought

Here comes that broom-man.
Shrink, Ramon, into this wall.

He doesn't see me,
or, if he does, looks
right through.
As if I am a window
in a fancy new home,
covered, but only with glass.

Instead, he starts shouting
at Señora Monzon. She's as pure
an Old Christian as there is
in Castile.

The man shows his fist.
“Get lost, you Jewess!”
The señora ignores him.
A man passing by on his horse only laughs.

“You crazy old bugger,” says this hidalgo.
“You see Jews in the very
blades of the grass!”

So…

So,
it seems I overreacted.

True,
Señor Ortiz will probably die—
few survive the Smallpox.
I would never have come up with that plan
if that weren't the case.

Still,
death doesn't stop
the Inquisition.
At every
auto-da-fé
I've seen people long dead
burned at the stake.
They dig up their bones
for the purpose.

I suppose it is better
than burning alive.
But death is sacred, I think.
No one deserves
that kind of last shame.

So,
I'm doubly glad that,
when I went there
to rat on señor,
they sent me away.

Yet,
something nags.
Before the clerk said
to return in two weeks
he asked me my name.

I did not see him write it.

Or,
I might have.
Did I?

My mind is a haze
of panic
and regret.

Pledge

Bea says that for making a pledge,
there's no better time than the worst.

I
think
that means
she might love me.

I must meet her this Friday.
The cathedral courtyard.
We'll bind our friendship
(as she calls it)
by exchanging gifts.

Might this be the time to come clean
that I'm poorer than mud?

She reads me. “I don't care what it is—
just make certain it's the best
thing you have.”

I'm relieved.
That lasts for a blink.

“Don't disappoint me, Ramon.
Lots of boys with blood purer than yours
would jump in the Guadalquivir
for the chance to be mine.

“You don't want to see
my side that's not sweet!”

Doctor

That doctor calls Señor Ortiz
our “patron.”
He is sure we'll be happy to hear
our
patron
will be fine.
Just a case, very common, of too much black bile.
Had we noticed he'd been melancholy
of late?

Señor Ortiz has never quite been
what I'd call jolly.
Papa shrugs. “But the Pox?” Mama asks.

Nothing more than a rash on his hands,
likely brought on by not washing.

“It seems your patron has the Old Christian
distrust of water,” he smiles.
Do his eyes dance
as he says it?

We merely thank him and nod.

“One more thing. I'm sure I don't need—”
His words are so calm,
but his face betrays fear.
I quite like this man.

Papa surprises me, then, with his passion.
He takes the man's hand in his own.
But the doctor looks grateful, not shocked.

“You've nothing to fear, good sir,” Papa says.
“As far as we four swear and know,
you were never here.”

Summons

There's pounding at the door
before the sun's up.
My heart slams its cage.

The Office can't even send
a messenger boy
without spreading fear.

Now I thank God
for my new sleeplessness.
I hear it before
anyone wakes.

The message itself
is brief enough.

My visit
was
noted.
The Inquisitors wonder
where I have been.

I stammer out something
about being ill.
I'm given a summons,
a paper as coarse as the face
of a witch.

I lay the fire.
This page will burn
before it is seen
by my parents.

But I can't ignore it.
It's for this Friday.
I've no choice but to go.

One Life

If I tell,
will I sentence
our landlord to death?
And that dancing-eyed
doctor—what would happen
to him?

I think of that line
Papa once taught me.

The man who saves one life
saves the whole world.

I wonder, then—
is the reverse
also true?

What if you
take
one—or cause it
to be taken—to save several others?

If you do this, are you
just a rung on a ladder?
A ladder that leads
to the death of the world?

Conflict

The Office and Bea
have ordered I come
on the very same day—
the very same hour!

Is that some kind of sign from above?
I can't think of that now.

I must fix this.

“I will
not
,” says Amir.
“I've washing to do. Food's much
more important than some
bossy girl.”

I can't tell him the truth
about where I must go—
or why this appointment with Bea
must
not
be shrugged off.

In the course of a week,
I've come to fear her.

The light in those eyes,
the warmth of that hand,
made me trust her.

But when she implied
that my blood wasn't pure,
I quailed.
Wouldn't you?

She might not go out of her way
to denounce us.

But what will she say if her papa,
that lapdog of the Office,
asks about me when she's angry, or slighted, or
just in her frequent foul mood?

My green face for pork
would be more than enough
to arrest us all.

Now do you see
why I'm scared of her wrath?

He must go.
He must!

Gift

Now—what should I give her?
The best thing you have
.
My mind goes first
to my masterpiece.
But what would a girl who can hardly read
want with a door-stopper about Hercules?

What would
she
think is the best thing I have?

I've got it. My knife
from Toledo.
It's something a knight
might give to his lady.

They say steel from Toledo
never misses its mark.
I wonder if that includes
girls with hard hearts.

Go!

He pretends to forget
what I'm talking about.
My heart sinks. I don't
have the time to fight with Amir.

“What does Papa say?” he asks, haughty.
“I don't think he'd approve
of me being seen
with that girl.”

My blood heats, not just
at this slagging of Bea.
What is this talk
of
Papa
?

I roar at him.
“My
papa wants you to listen
to me!”

He makes himself taller.
(How I hate this habit of his!)
“Perhaps Papa should know
you're a spoiled, lovesick ass!”

“You're the slave of that ass, so do
what you're told!”

That stops him cold—
for a moment. But he starts up
again.

“Papa—”

“He is
not
your papa!” and
I hit him, hard,
with the back of my hand.

“I order you! Now!
Obey me.
Get out.”

I throw the knife in its scabbard
down at his feet.

He hesitates, but he takes it.
Now I must hope
he won't use it on me.

The Holy Office

I'd been expecting monsters, men
like the fire-breathing dragons from
Merlin's tales.
Ready to burn me to ash
with one insincere
Buenas dias.