The Ghost of Hannah Mendes
Read The Ghost of Hannah Mendes Online
Authors: Naomi Ragen
Tags: #Contemporary, #Historical, #Fantasy
I would like to emphasize that while I have made every effort to be true to historical facts in a broad sense, this book is a work of fiction, and all characters and events described are works of the imagination, including those based on true historical material. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.
The true descendants of the house of Nasi-Mendes are numerous, and include many distinguished members all over the world, who continue to do credit to their remarkable legacy.
N
AOMI
R
AGEN
J
ERUSALEM
, 1998
For my dear mother and father,
Ada Fogel Terlinsky and Louis Terlinsky.
May their memory be forever blessed
.
Man comes forth like a flower and withers,
He flees like a shadow which fades….
But there is hope in a tree,
That if it be cut down, it will sprout again.
Its tender boughs will not cease
though the root grow old in the earth,
and its trunk dies in the ground.
Through the scent of water it will bud again,
Putting forth leaves like a sapling.
J
OB
, 14:2-9
Contents
From: Carl Mershwam’s
Tagebuch einer Reise nach Konstantinopel und Kleinasien
, 1553-1556. (Munich, 1923.)
In 1553 a Portuguese woman came from Venice to Constantinople with her daughter and attendants. The Jews seemed to feel she was a very important person, and she has that difficult race practically bowing to her. The Hebrews are not in agreement as to who her husband was and what his name was; some say that he was called Diego Mendes and his brother was Francisco de Anversa, some claim the opposite. She is reported to have escaped with great wealth from Portugal to Venice after her husband’s death, which she flaunts shamelessly; she is said to have a sister who was supposed to come here, but has somehow been jailed or detained in some way. The Jews are very proud of this woman and call her Señora. She lives in luxury and extravagance; she has many servants, serving wenches also, among them two from the Netherlands. Like all her kind, she is reported to be gluttonous, lawless and godless. She is said to have been formerly a Christian who defiled herself with Mosaic depravities, profaning the sacraments of the Holy Mother Church, and performing witchcraft, until finally openly declaring herself a Jewess. The Venetians are reported to have arrested her and to have refused to let her go. She is then said to have intrigued with the Sultan’s physician, who had a son and hoped she would give him her daughter. The Sultan is then supposed to have taken the part of the señora and they had to let her go from Venice. They allege they have left much wealth behind them, and also that some is following them by sea. They gave the pashas a lot and distributed several thousand ducats to the poor Jews and their hospital…
.
Manuscript pages, memoirs of Doña Gracia Mendes, circa 1568. Handwritten, India ink on parchment. Private Collection. 1-10, 23 × 33 cm. Isle of Naxos (?).
Caminando de vía en vía
Penando esta alma mía
esperando alguna alegría
que el Dio me la de a mi
My days of wandering are over. I can allow my feet to rest on silk footstools, exquisitely shod in gold embroidered slippers that hardly touch the ground these days. And many times, as I look at the calm waters of the Bosphorus dappled in brilliant sunlight outside my palace window in Galata, it seems to me that I have won
.
Then why do I force my old and weakening hand to take up quill and parchment, to write this full and passionate accounting of my days? The reason is this: I do not wish my enemies to own my history. I know what they will write: that I betrayed my religion with the worst blasphemy. That I bartered my people and my king for wealth. That all that was ever dear to me were riches. I can see their portrait now: the rich Jewess weighted down in gaudy gold trinkets, riding in her golden carriages toward her ill-gotten palaces of wealth…
.
Like the worst lies, that description too contains its truths. Although the priests who baptized me in my mother’s arms in the great Portuguese cathedral of São Vincente de For a would be outraged to hear me described as a Jewess, for me, it has always been a fact as well as an honor. Nor can I deny that I am rich. I was—indeed, I am—the richest and (many would accuse me) the most powerful woman in the world. Kings borrowed from me and were loath to repay. Thus the royal penchant for playing matchmaker, inundating me—the helpless, beautiful young widow in need (they assured me) of male protection—with their asthenic cousins, their effete courtiers, and greedy Old Christian aristocrats; anyone, I am sure, who pledged their monarchs a generous portion of their future dowry…
.
They did not know with whom they dealt. There has been only one, passionate love in my life. Even death could not separate us. The only other who came close to finding a place in my heart was a man very different from those chosen by kings and princesses. But enough. This is for later on. I shall write of this later on
.
Although I was bothered frequently by suitors, each one in his turn was thankfully brief. Sooner rather than later, they tired of their impossible task, as did their royal go-betweens. Instead, they began to pursue my daughter, my Reyna
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