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.
But the guard who has led me
into this room is just a young man,
barely older than me.
We don’t speak.
I regard him.
He’s normal as stone.
No skulls are laced
into his belt.
His fingers are grimy, but don’t
end in claws.
Our eyes meet,
only once.
What had I hoped for?
A smile? An offer of friendship?
Some small sympathy?
All that is there
is a flicker of joy—
that I am I,
and he has fortune enough
to be he.
Communion
It sits on the table directly between us
like bread to be shared.
My masterpiece.
But my Inquisitor
is not hungry to see
what talent I have.
He reads me instead.
I’ve told him I write Spanish well,
and also a few basic Arabic words.
That sparked his regard for a moment.
But he doesn’t trust me.
He points at my book.
Did you know, young master,
that this Hercules is unlawful?
That it is now on our List
of Heretical Books?
I look astonished.
It’s not pretend.
“Well,” he asks,
“what should be done
with your masterpiece?”
I rise to the challenge. I’ve come this far.
“Why, burn it of course, Holy Father,” I say.
“The Church knows best in all things, I believe.”
“But all that hard work—”
He is testing. “Each page
testifies to your art.”
Two can play at knowing
the right words to say.
“I hope, Reverend Father, to fill
many more pages than that
in the course of my service
to you.”
Looking for Work (2)
“Is this really what you came for?”
The friar leans close.
I can smell the remnants
of lunch on his breath.
What choice do I have?
I say yes.
I have no love for Señor Ortiz.
But the eyes of that doctor
dance through my conscience.
And the warm way he and Papa
shook hands.
So I’ve said what I say
at every strange house.
A talented scribe,
sadly out of work.
I came to them, after all.
If I don’t pretend
that a job was the reason,
the Office will never
leave us alone.
Questions (2)
I was so calm when I woke up
this morning, so determined
to ferry this plan.
Now that it’s done,
my mind roils with questions.
How will I tell Mama and Papa,
and even Amir?
(Will I tell them?)
Then, in two, too-short days,
when I start, how will I bear it?
(Will I bear it?)
Priests tell of men, desperate men,
selling their souls to the devil.
Is that what I’ve done?
Whose words will I put
into parchment and ink—
the denouncers? Or, perhaps,
the denounced?
And which would I rather?
I’d rather be
underground.
TWO
Amir
Cordoba, Castile and Malaga, Granada
1486–87
Falcon
Like a fool, I go.
Or, like a falcon.
Let me explain.
Young boys
believe falcons are noble.
They are, after all,
kept by kings.
But here’s how they train such a bird.
Tie its feet to a stick.
Strap leather blinders upon its poor eyes.
When these come off,
it has forgotten the whole notion
of freedom.
Ramon has commanded I go
to his “lady” as if I were still
his little slave boy.
What he doesn’t know:
Papa (I call him that at his bidding)
gave me my freedom
three months ago.
Yet I am sent off
like a clever pet. To make
Master’s excuse to a spoiled,
shallow girl.
Break
You’re not supposed to speak up.
For centuries the emirs of Granada
—Muslim kings—kept their bitter mouths shut.
They paid for the privilege of staying
in al-Andalus, the land they once proudly
called theirs.
When the collectors came calling from up in Castile,
the proud Southern Muslims paid up.
But every such story must end
with a change.
Our break in the chain was Abu al-Hassan.
al-Hassan sent him away.
“We do have a mint here,” smiled the emir.
“But the weaklings who used it
to make coins for Christians are all dead and gone.
Today our mint makes only
scimitars’ blades.”
Since then, war’s been brewing.
The Christian army—
led by Fernando, the King—
has many new toys and is eager to play.
I bet, were I the emir,
I’d have paid peace’s price.
Watch how I’ll be with Ramon, in a day:
all too glad to forgive and make nice.
How?
Still,
how can I go back?
It’s not just Ramon.
It’s also this fact:
it’s better I’ve gone.
If I stick around,
that Señor Ortiz will never relent.
He will chase them from there
as sure as the lion
chases the stag.
The Cathedral of Santa María
I wait.
This jewel of Cordoba
wasn’t always a church.
Muslims came here
from all over al-Andalus
to say Friday prayers.
As a child in Granada
I heard of it often.
They’ve kept its lacework of pillars and arches.
Its splendid mosaics iced in pure gold.
But they’ve ruined its balance,
its simple form.
The Christians have plopped a vast choir pit—
pompous wood benches, cold, tomb-gray stone—
right in the middle. To the Christians,
it’s progress. But to us few Muslim faithful
who still haunt these streets, it’s
a blight. Like rouge on the face
of a ten-year-old girl, glowing without it,
just as she was.
Even the Christians don’t seem to respect it.
Its courtyard, where Muslims once washed
before prayers, is famous these days
for trysts between lovers.
It is said that the mosque once contained magic.
Even filled up with thousands of the faithful,
there still felt like room for ten thousand more.
It seemed to be made,
so the chroniclers say, out of shadow and light.
Now it’s no more than dead marble and stone.
Lady
I’ve been lost in these thoughts.
So I jump when I hear boots on the tile.
A clipped, low laugh.
Not the voice of a girl.
Then, she arrives.
Swoops onto the scene like a lady at court.
Willing all eyes upon her.
Can’t this girl be discreet?
Once more I think, What does he see?
Then I recall how angry I am.
She and Ramon are made for each other, that’s all.
Will she not use her head? Stand in a less glaring spot?
If a Muslim is seen
with a Christian girl of her class—and alone…
Perhaps her honor is not dear to her.
But I like my head attached to its neck.
Now she’s humming, if it
could be called that. Have I really found things
too quiet these days?
The voice of this girl could scare dragons
from out of their caves.
A Little White Square
That low laugh again. I look: there.
A clutch of young men in one corner. They ooze
trouble.
I don’t know what they’re up to.
But I don’t need Hafiz to guess
they aren’t here to pray.
If they see me with Bea—
But I can’t wait all day!
I stride right toward her.
Why should I fear those common thugs?
She looks up at me like I’m a boil
filled with pus.
“Ramon’s very sorry,” I say.
“He had an engagement, and so
could not come.”
She stands there, confused.
You’d think I’d just said,
“Ramon’s grown three heads.”
The men in the corner are quiet.
Eavesdropping, of course.
I must be polite.
“Señorita Alvarez,” I begin,
“I’ve been asked by Ramon
to give you a gift.”
“Oh, let’s get it over with,”
snorts our heroine: it’s hardly becoming.
And she thrusts something at me.
It’s either a token wrapped
in a white handkerchief
or else the hankie itself is the gift.
These chivalrous rites are ludicrous.
With this worthless square,
a woman pledges her heart!
I am just reaching into my sack
to pull out her gift
when it happens.
For not the first time