He was strangled before he was burned—
out of mercy. In the end, he’d repented.
But his eyes remained open.
We stood and watched.
When the flames reached his head,
you couldn’t see much.
His hair, catching fire, haloed smoke.
Yet after a while I did notice something
dropping to the ground.
We were far back in that crowd.
By decree, the whole of Cordoba was there
to witness the spectacle.
In the dreams, though, the eyeball returns in
horrid detail.
It’s as close as a pea might be,
on my plate.
Little Lies
When I wake from these dreams
I am sweating and shouting.
Mama hears and comes in.
She is angry, I know.
Not with me. At the fact
we’re all made to watch
these foul shows.
Yet she consoles me.
We even try
to make it a joke.
“Did you see the eyeball?” she’ll ask me.
“Was it red and bloodshot from his drinking
too much for his last hurrah?”
Once or twice I have woken in tears, like a child.
Mama tells me, those times, that I’m safe.
We’re all safe.
Everything will be fine.
She knows I don’t really believe it.
Neither does she.
But there’s something amazing
about those bland words.
Those little lies that claim
our lives are normal.
To say them, to hear them,
feels gutsy. It’s as close
to rebellion, maybe,
we will ever come.
Parchment
Now Yuce Tinto is gone!
No one has seen him
for one month at least.
Not even in church.
He is the man
who sells us our parchment.
He has a kind heart.
His prices are always
too cheap by half.
Papa sends me. Yuce
has no wife. Maybe he’s ill,
helpless in his bed.
No one’s there.
His home’s been ransacked.
Shreds of parchment and paper
lie strewn like plucked feathers
all over the floor.
Everything points to the Inquisition.
Yuce, too, is a converso.
And I once heard him say
that Jews and Muslims can
go to heaven, if they are good people.
Who knows to whom else
he’s said such rash things?
Poor Yuce.
He had a big mouth—
and many friends.
Both spell danger.
But together…
Mama cries when she hears it.
“What will become of that poor,
gentle man?”
I’m selfish. Our one source for parchment
has just disappeared.
Without it, we can’t do our work.
So it’s like we’ve no food.
What will become, my poor, gentle Mama,
of us?
Collecting
First, it was dead butterflies.
For a while, Roman coins
I’d find in the earth.
But this type of collection?
It doesn’t suit me.
At long last, I can roam
through these streets. Yet I’d rather
be home in my room.
No one likes to pay debts.
Not even clients who once mussed my hair
and brought me sweet treats.
They make promises.
(Those come cheap.)
One gives me a barren old hen
in exchange for a prayer book
that took eight days to copy.
I pass by the mansion
of Don Barico.
He owes nothing.
In fact, he always pays in advance.
Often he’ll even add wonderful gifts.
Plump partridge pies.
Candied almonds. Soft leather covers
for books.
I sigh. The word candied haunts me
all the way to our door.
Gift
I’m scarcely inside
when I hear a knock.
There stands Don Barico himself,
as if he’s been conjured
by my wishful thoughts.
But what twisted magic is this?
There’s no partridge pie in his arms.
Instead, at his side, stands a boy.
Well, I think he’s a boy.
There’s a thin line of hair
just above his top lip.
(There’s more above mine.)
But the rest of him—lost
in a mountain of cloth.
His robes touch the ground,
hiding even his shoes.
His hair in his turban could be
long or short or painted magenta,
for all I can see it.
There are two things, though,
you can’t miss.
On his robe, just below his right shoulder,
the red patch of the Moors.
Above it, on his cheek, a black S.
Inked or burned, I can’t tell,
right into his nut-colored skin.
Don Barico hasn’t brought us a present.
He’s brought us a slave.
Monkeys
I love Mama’s laugh.
And God knows, it’s a rare enough creature
these days.
But this time, it’s wrong.
“Look at them stare at each other,” she says.
“Like two nervous monkeys
peering over their barrels!”
No, I was just looking, not staring.
He’s the one who won’t quit.
Like I’m the strange one.
The stranger.
We Are Four
Never mind what we’ll do with a fourth mouth to feed
when there’s barely enough for ourselves.
What will we do with two more working hands?
No commissions, no parchment,
not even much ink.
Plus, he’s another
person to fear.
I’ve heard of some slaves, malcontents,
behaving like spies.
One insult from their masters:
they run to the Office.
They tell the first tale, no matter how false,
to enter their minds.
Papa, it’s true, is a master scribe.
As am I, for that matter.
Most masters have servants.
Who cares?
We’ve always done fine
on our own, thank you kindly.
Papa’s no fool. It won’t be a day
before he sends this Moor back.
Arabic
“Amir is still learning
his Spanish, Ramon. You
must help him.”
“Yes, Papa.”
Ha.
My friends and I talk
about him
even though
he’s right here.
Like speaking aloud
with a donkey around.
He looks at us, straight.
Sometimes he blinks
like a fly’s flown too close.
But even could he decode
what we say, well,
aren’t his ears
tucked too tight
in that turban of his?
Shoo
Mama and Amir
now rule the kitchen.
I brood by the hearth—
it’s just me sitt
ing here, so it hasn’t
been lit—and try not to listen.
Even with Mama,
he doesn’t say much.
But she doesn’t give up.
She babbles on, drowning
his silence with streams
of her talk.
When Papa or I try to help
with the meals, she just shoos us.
We are clueless and clumsy.
But Amir can do things.
Well, wait till I tell
the boys in the quarter
he can cook like a girl!
Strut
Amir drops
the docility act
when we’re out of doors.
Everyone knows he’s our slave:
I’ve told them.
But he struts like an equal.
He holds his head high.
They all can see it.
This kid, Paco, said,
“He makes like he
is the master of you!”
Companion
One thing I’ll say:
with Amir here, Mama and Papa
don’t nag me as much about going out.
I know why. They think I can’t
get into trouble
with him as their spy.
What do they fear? That I’ll scale
the high wall of a convent
if I’m left alone?
We’re sent to the market;
I choose a route so roundabout
I feel dizzy. (If I’m stuck
with this guy, I vow to have fun.)
Amir narrows his eyes
but says nothing.
What can he say?
The streets wind like serpents.
For some reason I think of
a story I know, of Hercules.
As an infant, he cast
a swarm of snakes from his cradle.
He must have owned slaves.
Did he permit them to walk
by his side, as I do?
Retort
We turn from some alley
(I admit it: we’re lost)
right into their midst.
A long line of men in fine robes.
On their shoulders, a dais.
There, clad in silk, sits a tall Virgin Mary
just as if she were real, and a queen.
The men seem to glow in their pride.
Women stand alongside,
throwing petals of roses at the men’s feet.
From a high window nearby
someone wails, “Nuestra Señora!”
Our beloved lady!
The voice is so full
of both sorrow and joy
it prickles my neck.
Then, out the side of one eye,
I see a swoop of cloth.
It’s Amir, down on his belly,
lips to the ground.
This has been law since the Christians
won Cordoba back from the Moors.
All Muslims must prostrate themselves
when an image of Mary or Christ
proceeds past.
Amir stands.
He catches me staring.
“You kneel in your church,
do you not?” he asks.
His Spanish—I gawk—
is smooth as glass.
Questions
So it seems that Amir’s understood
every word that I’ve said.
He tries not to smile
as I come to grips with his trick.
But there’s the smallest of smirks,
like the spout of his mouth
has a minuscule crack.
Now, at the market,
he speaks to the merchants,
asking for this many olives (only a few)
or that much salt. (I can’t say
I mind this: I hate to shop.)
But on the walk home
we say not a peep.
Of what could we speak?
What I most want to ask
I know I should not.
Why’s he a slave? Did he steal something?
Kill?
Has he ever been sold
in a market himself?
How many times
has his back felt a whip?
Does a person—kind of like cramps
in your hands when you write—
get used to it?
Do slaves dread tomorrows?
Plan escape? Dream of death?
I make it a game. Imagine I’ll ask him
whatever I want (though I won’t).
By the time we are home
I’ve chosen two.
What do you hope for?
That’s one. And the second:
what do you fear?
If I were a slave,
I think I’d fear nothing.
Sure, I would dread
every lash of the whip.
But dread and fear
are not the same thing.
What’s there to fear
when you have nothing left?
Pupil
After supper, the roles
are reversed.
I help Mama clean up,
like a servant.
I guess washing dishes is easy enough—
even for blockheads like me.
Papa and Amir sit out
by the fire.
(Yes, for him, it is lit!)
They scribble away
on two separate slates.
(Amir’s got an old one
of mine. No, no one’s asked
if I’d mind.)
What do they write?
What else but Arabic?
You see, our Moorish slave
is teaching Papa—master scribe—
how to write!
Mama must see me scowling.
“Try to be gracious,” she scolds.
“He may be a slave,
but Señor Barico brought him here
for a reason. He was meant
as a gift to Papa.
A great one.”
I nod, say good night.
(Is that gracious enough?)
But I think: Mama has lost
all her fine talent
for comforting me!
Pity
Can it get any worse?
Now I’m pitied
by our slave!
He wears a kind smile.
“Many great men do not know it.”
I see. He thinks I think less
of Papa for this.
But that’s not the problem.
No one’s thought to teach me Arabic.
So I think less of myself.
Can you blame me?
The Kingdom barely knows I exist.
And now I’m old rags
here in my own house.
Ache
And why Arabic?
What makes it
such a great gift?
Hebrew—though it might
get us arrested—
that I could see
Papa wanting to learn.
Hebrew is tied to us,
to who we are.
Is Papa so quick
to forget this?
Listen to them!
They’re at it again.
Studying, reading.
Talking language stew.
Mama waits up, dozing
by the fire.
I retire, but I hear them.
Their sound makes a lump
down deep in my belly.
It feels like I’ve wolfed a whole bushel
of berries, rotten and soft.
Mark of the Slave
When Amir and Papa finish at last
with their work for the night,
Amir comes to sleep in my room.
Aren’t slaves meant to sleep
on the staircase or something?
It’s not that
he snores.
In fact, he’s too quiet.
And that thing on his face
gives me nightmares.
Night after night,
he lies the same way.
On his left side.
Cheek against sky.
So unless the night’s shade
is blacker than pitch,
I can see that S.
It shines up from his face
like some dark star.
What manner of man
burned that mark?
A Christian? A Jew?
A slave-trading Moor?
Does it matter?
Most nights, the S is the last
thing I see before my eyes close.
And the first thing I see upon waking—
whether or not
I’ve opened my eyes.
Al-Burak
Amir and I walk to the well
at the end of our street.
A voice from the grate
of a high dark window.
“Hey!”
I look up. The sun blinds my eyes.
“Fly away, al-Burak!”
Should I defend him?
Is a master dishonored
by taunts to a slave?
A rock falls near my foot.
And a second.
Amir’s far ahead.
The rocks, and the name, are for me.
It rankles.
We conversos are as used to rude names
as an ass is to slaps.
Marrano. Turncoat.
Jewish wolf in sheep’s skin.
Al-Burak—that’s—a new one.
I can’t help it.
I like to know what I’m called.
It sounds Arabic. I’ll ask Amir.
No, I won’t.
A man in the market
called him damned shit-skinned cur.
He’d laugh to know I was irked
by this one little slur.
Proud
We don’t speak a word
on the way home.
I try to act calm, but I’m not.
Water sloshes and jumps
from my pail like the drops are at sea
and abandoning ship.
The black cloud’s above me
all through dinner.
Everyone’s quiet.
It’s clear they can see it.
“You’re a fool,” Amir says
as he helps clear the plates.
“Don’t you know al-Burak
was a magical steed?
“It carried my prophet, Muhammad,
on its back up to heaven.
I myself would be proud
to be called such a thing.”
That figures.
Amir is just proud to be—
well, Amir.
That’s the difference, I guess,
between him and me.
But how can I be proud?