The Ghost of Hannah Mendes (5 page)

She moved unsteadily across the room, settling herself once more before the fire and refilling her glass. The reflected firelight, blood red yet full of gold, lapped with an angry tongue against the cold glass.

Suzanne had asked about the silver things once or twice when she was little. And Francesca had asked even more often, pointing curiously at the china closet and the bookcases, patiently sitting on Carl’s knees while he smoked his pipe. She distinctly remembered Carl telling them they must learn all about it when they were older. All about the family’s history…

And do you remember what
you
told them?

She fingered the cold, sharp grooves of the cut crystal. Yes, I remember.

I told them not to touch.

It doesn’t matter now, it’s the past! There was always the future. Each one of her granddaughters might eventually have a child. She tried to envision her great-grandchildren: pale, chubby replicas of Janice who would whine their way through F.A.O. Schwarz as toddlers, watch television through to adolescence, and then proceed to think about sex and money the rest of their lives.

It was terrible, terrible, she thought, not sure if she meant the vision itself or the meanness of spirit that had conjured it. Maybe they will be perfectly darling! she cried out silently. Intelligent, polite, serious. The kind of people who cherish family heirlooms and family histories; who read family Bibles with pride, and found societies….

She walked into the living room and peered through the glass at the lovely, priceless keepsakes. The problem was, it would be too late. The shelves behind the glass doors would be emptied long before her great-grandchildren had a chance to be curious, no matter what she wrote in her will. They would never see the magical, shimmering gold tree thick with leaves, or their place on it.

IT ISN’T MY FAULT THAT THERE IS NO ONE TO LEAVE THEM TO!! I MARRIED, I HAD A CHILD. I DID MY BEST!!

She threw back her head and drained the glass, completing her thorough disregard of Dr. Emil Weinsweig, Jr.’s careful orders.

A drowsiness born of exhaustion and a certain deep melancholy washed over her. She felt her eyelids droop and the crystal glass grow suddenly unbearably heavy in her hand.

A wind, like a gust from a door left rudely open in winter, chilled her hands and shoulders like falling ice.

“Freezing,” she muttered, pulling her shawl more tightly around her. “Carlotta, there’s a window or a door open,” she protested to her unseen housekeeper.

When she looked up, a woman stood in the doorway. She was dressed in a magnificent gown of russet, black, and cream brocade with an elaborate design that resembled paisley, but was far more imaginative and bold. A thick gold braid covered her shoulders on either side of her long white neck, and a matching gold hairnet restrained her thick, curly, reddish-brown hair. She wore enormous drop-pearl earrings and two strands of the largest pearls Catherine had ever seen.

She stared at the woman, speechless. The woman stared back. She had a broad, clear forehead; a graceful, almost Roman, nose; and a sweet, small chin. Her eyes, large and dark, looked out from half-closed lids with curiosity and a profound sadness.

“How did you get in? Are you one of Carlotta’s relatives?” Catherine finally asked her.

“My feet are very cold,” the woman replied, lifting her skirts and sitting down in the second easy chair before the fire. She wore delicate slippers embroidered in gold thread.

“Well, if you insist on wearing those kinds of flimsy, useless shoes in this weather, I’m not surprised….”

“Where I came from, it was lovely and warm.”

“Have you come straight from Tijuana, then? Legally, I hope. Is the dress Mexican, too?”

“I wear nothing. Your eyes deceive you.”

“Who let you in? How did you get in?” Catherine repeated, with a faint stirring of fear.

There was silence. The deep, dark eyes looked out at her, pityingly.

“You did. You let me in.”

“I don’t recall doing any such thing,” she said hotly, thoroughly frightened and defensive. “What is it you want?” she almost shouted.

The head tilted, the eyes turned quizzical. “The question is: What is it
you
want?”

“What I want? From you?”

“You asked for something. I heard you clearly. I saw your tears…”

She wiped her eyes, embarrassed. “I never cry.”

“Yes, you do.”

“This is a dream, isn’t it? I’m dreaming. All that wine, and the painkillers…”

“You have no reason to cry, you know. There is fate, and then there is destiny. It is foolish to cry over fate when you can plan and work toward changing destiny.”

“Are you a dream, or are you real?”

“Your tears are not for the unborn,” the woman continued, ignoring her. “They are for yourself. You thought your mother was a fool with her rituals, prayers, and incantations. And now you’re going to die, and you’re afraid. Your daughter, whom you think you don’t like, is just like you.”

“Janice is nothing like me! Is that it? Did she send you? To check up on me?”

“You could not have kept me away. Everything’s been squandered. Everything our lives were for…”

“A bad, bad dream…” Catherine wept, covering her eyes. “I’m sorry, so sorry…It’s all too late. There is nothing I can do now. My life is almost over.”

“No, Rivka. It isn’t.”

Her mouth fell open. “Why did you call me that? Who told you that was my name?”

Rivka. The name she’d been given in the synagogue the first Sabbath after she was born.

“Tears are like little self-indulgent diamonds. We decorate ourselves with them to charm our way out of scandals and accidents. My sister was a great crier. I, on the other hand, cried only in secret, after I’d made my plans. There is always a secret way, a secret power, a plan that twists its way around enemies and obstacles.”

Catherine wiped her face. “Do you have a plan? For me?” she suddenly asked.

The woman nodded, as if that were exactly the point. “Here it is.”

It was an old map, as dark as calfskin, with elaborate cursive lettering. London. Toledo. Córdoba. The Bay of Biscay. Balearic Islands. Aix-la-Chapelle. Ragusa. Ferrara. Ancona. The Duchy of Naxos.

“Where are these places?”

“This is where we start. In London.”

“Start?”

“The journey.”

“I am too old to travel. Too sick. Too tired.”

“I thought that once. But my last journey was the best one of all.”

“Was it?” Catherine looked up hopefully.

“It was for me.” She nodded, the dark eyes shining, all sadness gone.

“I can’t go,” she repeated.

“You must. And you must take the others with you.”

“The others?”

“The young. Suzanne, Francesca.”

“How do you know their names?”

“They belong to me, too.”

“They are too busy to take trips.”

“All my life I traveled. I am still traveling…. You must make them, then. They have to get married. You have to help them find husbands.”

Catherine snorted with startled laughter. “Match them up! Like Yentl in
Fiddler?
” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “Dream or ghost, go away now! I’m a sick woman. I can’t have this! Carlotta!”

“You’re afraid they won’t listen to you. That you have no power over them.”

Catherine felt her heart freeze. She wrung her hands.

“They will go. And at least one of them will find a husband, a good one. You will persuade them. You will hold your gold above their heads. Gold is a great persuader, I’ve always found.”

“You don’t understand. It’s not like that. No one listens to parents or grandparents anymore. It’s too late.” She shrugged. “Their characters are set. A trip won’t solve anything. At best they’ll sightsee, buy some trinkets, and sip champagne with my money.”

“A shroud has no pockets, Rivka.”

A chill went up her spine, the chill of the nightmare-spinner alone and helpless, smothered by night.

“It’s too late to visit me. Visit
them
. Convince
them
.”

“Send them to me.”

“Where is that? Where shall they look for you?”

“In the book, of course. My book. I wrote it for them.”

“We looked for it. Rare-book dealers, collectors. It’s never turned up. I’ve got only a few pages.”

“They’ll find it.”

“You don’t understand! They have jobs, apartments. Money won’t be enough. They won’t go off just because I tell them. They don’t care about me.”

“Then you must hold your death above their heads. Use their pity, their greed. Tell them you are dying, tell them about your will.”

Catherine was shocked. “That isn’t fair! It’s emotional blackmail! It would be appealing to their worst instincts…!”

“It is all of that, and more.” She nodded. “Do it.”

She hesitated. “And if I don’t?”

The woman shrugged. “Have you ever heard the thud of a large tree in the forest when it dies? It’s a terrible, blasphemous noise, like the crack of a small child’s skull hitting the hard pavement, or the slam of a body thrown against a wall. Everyone who hears such a sound, be they living or dead, can never forget it, or forgive.”

“
No!
It isn’t fair! You haven’t told me enough! What should I convince them to do? Where should I send them? What should I tell them?!” She felt a rising hysteria.

“Missus, missus. Are you all right, all right, missus?” Carlotta shook her. “You sleep so long. You moan. I think you not feel good.”

Catherine blinked, looking around the empty room. “I slept?” She let out a deep sigh. Her back was sticky with sweat, almost clinging to the chair. She wiped her forehead, trying to calm down. “You probably thought I was drunk.”

Carlotta—who, seeing the open bottle, had wondered exactly that—blushed furiously. “
No!
Señora. S’not true!”

“It’s all right. I’m sorry. I’m just a bit cranky. I’ll go to bed now.”

“I help you.”

“Oh, don’t fuss! I don’t need any help to get up.” She waved her away in exasperation. Not yet, anyway, she thought grimly, pushing herself out of the chair.

There was a wineglass on its side under the coffee table. It must have rolled out of her hand as she slept, she thought, bending to retrieve it. A tiny thread was stuck to its side. When she removed it, it glinted in the firelight like gold.

3

Handwritten manuscript, author unknown. Constantinople, circa 1574 (?). Microfiche. Guenzburg Library, Moscow.

I will begin with the dream that has always been for me the true beginning of my adult life. It is not even my own dream, but my mother Esther’s, whispered to me in the cellar of our beautiful family mansion in Lisbon, on the eve of my twelfth birthday; whispered with the strangest and most glorious pride and the deepest of sorrow
.

This is what she told me:

She was walking through the forest with her mother, my grandmother Rachel, a tall and queenly woman. Her mother’s head was lifted proudly, her reddish hair coiled thick beneath her cap. But as she walked, her cap was stolen by the branches, the hair tangling in the sharp, leafless limbs. She stumbled, falling to her knees and my mother saw her velvet dress and overmantle covered with brambles. And as my grandmother lay there in the forest, the branches gave birth to dark birds that swooped down and filled her mouth with coals that sank through her body, swelling her feet. She fell prostrate on the rocks, her swollen stomach splitting, the red blood pouring to the ground like wine from an unfit gourd. My mother screamed for my grandfather Isaac, for all his physician’s tools, his medicines and books. But he was far away, tending to the long line of marchers who snaked through the hills out of Spain; thousands and thousands of them, my mother said, like some weary caterpillar with a million weak and broken feet
.

When my grandfather finally did appear, to my mother’s great shock, he did not rush to heal grandmother’s wounds. Instead, he put his arms around my mother’s waist, lifting her. I imagine his thick mustache must have tickled her young skin, his strong arms banished her childish fears. For she told me that at that moment, she forgot about her mother and leaned into his warm arms, complaining; “Where are the wagon, the horses? My feet are so tired.” And he comforted her, singing a song about the Hebrews leaving Egypt, arriving in the Promised Land
.

And they were Hebrews and Lisbon was that land. There would be no cruel
corregidores
in Lisbon to take their coach and horses, he whispered to her. When they left the cursed Spanish border, the land of the demons Ferdinand and Isabella, they would ride in golden coaches drawn by white horses in bejeweled caparisons. He promised my mother her hair would shine like copper, washed clean with hot water and perfumed soap, and she would have little diamonds for her ears and thick gold chains to hang about her throat. There would be lamb, first stuffed with herbs, vegetables, and wine, then roasted slowly over a wood-fired oven lined with clay; tender onions and potatoes marinated in tarragon leaves and olive oil; grapes and almonds and apples dipped in honey for a sweet year; candles in their silver holders would light the Sabbath day and silver spice boxes filled with frankincense and myrrh would lend a sweet fragrance to each new week’s beginning. They would drink almond water chilled by snow, and wine as thick and sweet as honey
.

Often, I imagine him standing there, hugging my mother, his face wetting hers with a mourner’s tears, and my mother suddenly waking up and remembering her mother and all the blood…. He didn’t try to comfort her, my mother told me, but wept aloud until his eyes turned milky and his dark pupils swam. When he had finished, he took out a Bible with a beautiful cover of tooled, dark leather and opened it to a page at the very beginning. There was a tree with golden branches, each one with a name and a date. And then he took a quill and dipped it into blue dye and wrote: Malca el Nasi, born July 31, 1492, sister to Esther; and then, next her mother’s name: Rachel el Nasi, died, July 31, 1492
.