Amir may be a slave,
but he knows who he is.
Mean
You’re a fool.
I should slap him.
And he’s wrong, besides.
Those boys didn’t mean
I was some noble thing.
A thing, yes, but not noble.
What they meant was:
I’m half like one creature, half like another.
A monster, therefore.
Such as: half-dragon, half-horse.
Half-woman, half-wolf
(I think Hercules
slew at least one of those).
Half-Christian, half-Jew.
Half-human.
At best.
Two Gifts
Papa journeys to Toledo.
I try to persuade him
he should take me. Everyone knows
bandits haunt the roads.
He refuses. I sulk.
But all is forgiven
upon his return.
He’s brought gifts!
Mine is a knife: not just any.
Its blade is fashioned from Toledo steel—
the finest in Spain.
He’s also brought back a gift for Amir.
But it’s only a book.
How can that match a dagger,
especially for us? The air in this shop
is choked up with ink.
Papa sees my thoughts.
“It’s not any book, boys. Some
say it’s magic.
It can help you see truth, or
the future.
If you ask Hafiz something,
his poems will answer.”
Hafiz is the author.
“Let’s try it,” I say.
“I’ve got one for him.”
“O, Great and Potent Hafiz,”
(I’m hamming it up)
“which—the book or the dagger—
is the more precious gift?”
Amir shuts his eyes
and turns to a page,
pointing a place with his finger.
He plays with my patience.
What else is new?
At last he reads it.
He’s smirking again.
How can two different eyes behold you as you are?
Each will see according to what it knows.
Just what I needed.
More answers that aren’t.
Silver
Here’s a question that,
when I heard the word gift,
flew out of my mind.
For a time.
How, when we’re too poor
to add spice to our meat,
did Papa get presents?
Mama tells me.
A man in Toledo
buys all kinds of things.
Papa had something to sell him—
a set of silver Passover plates.
They had been in his family
for generations.
His mother, my nana,
willed them to him.
“Don’t worry, Ramon,” Mama says.
“It’s okay. Better they go to his friend,
don’t you think? All such things
will be taken from us,
in the end.”
But Papa—carting that silver
on long, lonely roads,
alone on a mule
as slow as wet sand!
He could have been captured, or killed.
“I was just wondering—”
She cuts me off, smiling.
“You’d best limber up. Your hands
have grown flabby, and now work begins.”
I soon learn what she means.
The book and the knife
aren’t the end of the bounty.
He’s also brought paper—
half my weight in it.
Silver (2)
To tell you the truth,
I feel like an anvil
that sat on my chest
has been lifted off
and thrown far away.
Those silver plates must have been
what was stashed
in that hole of Papa’s.
And they’re gone!
But why all that scraping?
It’s clear why he hid them.
People are burned at the stake
just for having such things.
What I don’t understand is,
why fetch them out from their cache
quite so often?
Was it for some ritual,
some heretic prayer?
Well, whatever it was,
it is over.
Unknown Nana, forgive me.
The plates may have been precious
to you,
and your memory.
But I’m glad they’re gone.
Order
This job was worth
Papa’s perilous trip?
The lovely, smooth paper
has come with a task that must fill it.
I should be rejoicing.
It’s our biggest commission
in more than a year.
One hundred copies
of what’s surely the dullest
book in the Kingdom.
It’s called—are you ready?—
Native Plants of Castile.
I was angry, before,
when Amir shared
our scant work as scribes.
I’ve changed my mind.
For this job,
I will graciously take
any help I can get.
Auto-da-fé (2)
This one is different.
This time, no scaffolds
haunt the packed plaza.
No gigantic dolls—stand-ins
for men they can’t find—
will hang from a tree.
The burning, this time,
isn’t of flesh.
This is an auto
for criminal books.
A cache was found
in the walls of a mikveh—
an old Jewish bath.
Builders were razing the place,
making the way for yet
one more church.
Hundreds of books are wheeled to the square.
Monks yell at the carts like they’re bad
little boys.
People jeer and guffaw
like they always do.
They warm their cold hands
in the flames of the fire.
But nothing is funny.
From the heaps glint the gold
of old Torah scrolls—the holiest
book of the Jews.
Papa’s face is like stone.
Yet—there’s a flutter
just under his shoulder.
His tunic moves
with the pounds of his heart,
like a curtain blowing
in a soft, killing wind.
Partners
When it’s time for siesta
my hand is so cramped
from Plants of Castile I’d prefer
to poke out my eyes
than touch pen and ink.
Papa and Amir
see things differently.
Each siesta, they hole up
in Papa’s room.
To “practice,” they say.
One day there’s a man
for Papa.
Just as I go to knock on his door,
the sound of my nightmares.
The scrape.
So it wasn’t the plates!
The secret remains.
And Amir is deemed worthy
of having it shared.
I am not.
Again
Damn that closed door.
I try once more.
“What are they up to,
really, Mama?”
“They’ve told you, Ramon.
They’re practicing.”
Then I notice their sl
ates.
There they are, stacked neatly
by the fire.
How can they practice
without slates to write on?
It’s not like we have
any paper to waste!
Penitents
They pass day and night
clad in long, yellow robes called sanbenitos.
The penitents weep as they drag through the streets.
They call upon God for forgiveness.
Some flay their own backs
with cruelly barbed whips.
Blood spurts on bystanders
who don’t seem to mind. It’s said
blood shed in penance is holy.
Some even try to stand in its path.
But this, to me, is the creepiest part:
in his hand, or hers, each penitent
carries a candle,
unlit.
It’s like a bad dream to have them around.
No one must greet them.
That’s part of their sentence.
You might think they’re lucky.
They have erred, yet they haven’t been burned.
But their honor is gone. They’ll never
again work at good jobs. And what money they had
has been seized by the Office.
Worst of all, when their sentence of weeping
and flogging is through, their sanbenitos
will hang on the walls of their churches.
Shaming their families forever.
Black
If you still won’t confess
under torture,
your garment is black.
That means you will burn.
What color would
Papa’s sanbenito be?
Request
Okay, he’s surprised me.
I suspected Amir wanted nothing in life
but to kneel by Papa. To serve every whim
as a page serves a king.
But he’s asking permission
to leave. Not for good. (No such luck!)
But for one afternoon
every week.
He wants to say Friday prayers
at the mosque across town.
Papa agrees, but pats the air
with his hands. That means he’s upset.
Or, rather:
he’s scared.
What if Amir makes new friends and talks
about what Papa has in that wall?
(He speaks in two tongues, after all!)
Or maybe Papa is scared for Amir—
for his safety.
The way he once worried
over only me.
You’ll say that I’m feeling self-pity.
Am I not justified?
Sure enough, Papa says,
“Amir, you may go, but Ramon
must go with you.”
So the master’s been made
servant to the slave!
Shades of Blue
I take it all back.
Forget I complained.
May Allah be praised!
I like these Fridays.
Today a bona fide miracle
came down for this boy.
An angel made flesh.
The Mudejar quarter is tucked
in a corner of Cordoba
as if it is hiding.
Maybe it is.
No matter.
Today was the first truly warm
day this year. While Amir went to pray,
I lay on a rock by the Guadalquivir,
admiring the sky. What kind of blue?
Indigo? No. Cerulean?
Azure, I decided.
Don’t be too impressed.
These are colors of inks!
Scribes can recite them
as effortlessly
as priests can count sins.
Shades of Blue (2)
I thought I knew blue.
I hadn’t met her.
She was washing some clothes at the shore,
laughing and singing with three silly friends.
I made my way over.
In my best imitation
of a rich, courtly knight,
I bowed very low.
(For once, I am glad
of those how-to books!)
The girls laughed. But my angel
fixed me with her eyes.
Those don’t need fancy nicknames.
They’re simply, exquisitely,
blue.
She plucked a white flower from
behind her ear.
I have it here now.
Its softness is brittle,
like Egyptian papyrus, the plant
the ancients once used for paper.
The petals so light, they practically float
in my palm.
But the flower is here.
It’s as real as a promise.
Divining
The S rises and falls
so evenly.
His sleep must be deep.
The book is Amir’s.
I know that I’m risking
our thin, eggshell peace.
I feel like I stand
by the Guadalquivir,
knowing that I,
in a heartbeat,
could jump.
But I’m haunted.
Beatriz Alvarez.
That’s her name.
The sounds of those vowels
can bubble my blood.
I must know this:
should I pledge her my love?
I know that I want to.
But how will she act?
Will she laugh in my face?
Amir keeps Hafiz tucked under
his thin square of pillow, just as a girl
might do with her doll.
There!
I have it.
He doesn’t stir.
I sneak to a corner.
Squeeze my eyes shut.
A page near the middle.
My finger nests in.
Then his voice, from the bed:
“Next time, at least,
leave your feather pillow
behind as a trade!”
Code
I don’t turn around.
he’ll soon snatch it up.
It’s nothing but squiggles!
I roar at Amir.
“You slippery thing!
You never said
it was written in code!”
He’s still wiping sleep from his eyes—
but his smirk is awake, you can bet.
“It is Arabic. The tongue
of my father—”
“I know what it is.
No one can think of anything else
since you came to this house!”
I make to storm out, then—
here’s a new thought.
I grab his high collar.
“Teach me!” I shout.
For a heart-thumping minute
I think he might strike me.
I half wish he would.
For a slave to do that to a free man
means death.
Papa is there.
“Ramon! What is wrong?
It’s not even dawn!
Why are you shouting
to wake up the dead?”
A Caution
The Arabic lessons
don’t go very well.
The letters entwine, run together
like droplets of water.
They skitter and swim
from under my eyes.
These aren’t the curves
I care for right now.
Amir won’t give up.
I can tell that he’s back feeling
sorry for me.
On none of our walks
have we seen Beatriz.
The Queen’s royal joust
is two days away.
All of Cordoba, it’s certain,
will come.
“What will I say if I see her?”
(I mean Bea, not the Queen.)
He fetches Hafiz. Offers it first,
as if after two weeks of study
I’ll be able to read it.
I don’t know whether to thank him or scream.
“You translate,” I tell him, as grand as I can.
“The book’s yours, after all.”
Amir opens Hafiz
to a random page.
It takes him no more than a minute
to magic his language to mine.
Look not upon the dimple of her chin—
Danger lurks there!
“It doesn’t say that! You’re having me on.”
Amir says nothing. Doesn’t smile, doesn’t frown.
He’s harder to read than the words on that page.
Joust of Champions
Clang of armor,
clash of swords,
the rock-hard crush
of lance against
chest.
The old Ramon
lived for this stuff.
But the contest is not
what I’m here for.
I don’t dare tear my eyes from the crowd.
The day is waning.
The prizes (one is a horse
clothed, head to tail, in gold-threaded
silk) have been given out.
Oh, how will I sleep?
I was so sure I’d see her.
Then, just as we’re leaving,
a faint laugh behind me, cool water
on pebbles. I turn—
too late. No one is there.
Amir rolls his eyes
and points to my satchel.
Unfastened, as always.
A small sheet of paper,
as fine as I’ve seen,
lies planted in there like a seed.
There is no code.
This girl is direct.
She names the day, and the place.
Isn’t the man
supposed to do that?
I don’t care.
I could joust with the
champions now.
By this time next week,
we’ll have met!
Señor Ortiz
Our landlord is back once again.
We hear his footstomps,
and the slide of his servant’s
long cloak on the floor.
The two of them stay
locked up in those rooms
at the top of our house.
The best, brightest ones.
But they might as well be
down here beside us.
The air when they’re home
becomes something else.
Something not ours.
Dinner Guest (2)
Amir comes in from the well
after washing his hands
and joins us at the table.
Señor Ortiz looks up and sees him.