the world as I know it
comes to an end.
Rain
I brace for that shrill voice of Bea’s,
expect her to shout out
at least one help.
What a fool.
All I hear is the thuds of their kicks
and the hard metal rain
of their blows.
Still
I’m as still as a corpse.
No good fighting back now.
Are they gone? Better wait.
But how long can I lie here?
The day’s on the wane.
If I’m caught after curfew
by the wrong men,
no excuse in the world—even being
near death—will save me from jail.
All is still. I must risk it. I open one eye.
The toe of a boot hits
like cannon-shot.
One of my attackers
has returned for more.
He starts to come at me again.
What happens next I can barely remember.
Even harder is it to explain.
With the one drop of strength
that remains in my arm,
I strain for my sack, lying by me on the ground.
I thrust my hand in and grab for the knife.
Pull it out. As it comes, its sheath falls,
like magic, to the ground.
I’ve no strength to fight, but perhaps I can keep
the knife fast in my grip.
A loud yelp of pain, as if from a dog
that’s been caught by the wheels of a cart.
My attacker, in moving to grab me,
grazed his meaty paw
on the point of my knife.
He looks at me, stunned—for a moment.
Sucks a bloodied knuckle and swears.
But he comes no closer.
His fun is done for the day.
Yet, just as he turns to run off,
he sends me a message.
He looks in my eyes.
And he smiles.
Alarm
I am fading.
My legs lack the strength
to hold me upright.
But what can I do?
Raise the hue and cry?
When a citizen sounds the alarm,
all must drop what they’re doing and help.
That awful smile stops me.
It seemed to say,
Rat on me if you dare.
You are a Moor, and we
are at war with your kind.
Even if people believed
I attacked you,
would they really care?
Guardian
Papa told me
of a wonderful book he’d once copied.
It had tales of the heavens
and maps of the sky.
When he had finished
inking the names,
a gilder drew lines between stars
in pure gold.
The book quoted something
a rabbi once said (“Though
it called him a monk!” Papa scoffed):
Each blade of grass
has a guardian star
which strikes it and says to it,
Grow!
My eyes scour the heavens.
Does one of those stars
look out for me now?
Tricks
Night is turning to day when I wake.
I drag myself up,
though I’ve nowhere to go.
No one I pass stops to offer
me help. They seem angry, in fact.
They scowl at my wounds
and they show me their backs.
Are this limp and this blood
only tricks I’ve invented?
Props I’ve designed to rob peace
from their sleep?
Manumission
I saved up my money.
Washed clothes to help them
put food on their table.
But then, without telling Mama or Papa,
I doubled my clients.
There I was in the dark hours of morning,
scrubbing cloth in the Guadalquivir.
Ramon complains he can’t sleep
with me there, but the truth is,
he can, and he does—like a log.
Not once did he hear me
creep out.
Papa was shocked
when I showed him my handful of coins.
Then he retrieved a piece of parchment.
than a whole chest of maravedis:
it lit up his face.
“I’d already prepared this, Amir.
I hope the Arabic is halfway correct.”
I, Isidore Benveniste, hereby manumit Amir,
son of Aman Ibn Nazir of Granada.
Manumit. Every slave knows that word.
The thought of its sound often sings us to sleep.
There were more fancy lines in his beautiful script.
I was free! “I won’t take your money, Amir.
In fact, had I some of my own, it is I who’d pay you.
You have taught me so much.”
Mama came in.
“Amir,” she said kindly,
“will you stay on as what you’ve become?
As our son?”
The Muslim Quarter
I’m ashamed to admit it,
but apart from my Friday
prayers at the mosque,
I’ve steered clear of this place.
It reminds me too much of all I have lost.
My birthplace. My home.
(And now I’ve lost two.)
I go deeper in than I’ve ventured before.
The mosque sits on the fringe of the quarter,
where the Christians can keep it under
their eye.
In the few streets behind, though, Mudejares
live by the handfuls of hundreds.
Will anyone notice one more?
Call to Prayer
No muezzin calls
from a tall minaret.
No matter.
All the men know it.
It is time for prayer.
They stream from all over.
Carpenters, masons,
even men without work.
They make for the mosque
with sure, silent steps.
Many come from outside the quarter.
It is like watching birds
converge for a flight.
I don’t join them yet. Instead,
I crouch in an alley
between two slender homes.
I don’t want to be seen.
I’m afraid of more blows or, worse, jail.
I fear kindness too.
I must be alone. I must think.
But it gives me a glimmer of comfort
to witness these men and their small,
frequent journey to talk
to our God.
Stir
Black night.
Nothing stirs here.
Wait—that was something.
Was it? Was that deepened shadow,
so fleeting, a person?
Does someone look down
from that window up there?
If I’m seen, I must go.
That Christian—the villain who beat me,
and grinned—will say I menaced him.
With a weapon, no less.
I know how it goes.
That is more than enough
to earn death, for a Moor.
No, there is no one.
It was only a bird.
Bird
The bird
is an angel.
When I wake, I am under
a soft woolen blanket.
A bowl of clear water
is here by my head.
My brow is still damp
from the kiss of a cloth.
There is also a loaf of warm bread
and—praise Allah—a single boiled egg.
I look at the window.
I notice, in this light, that it’s covered up
by a cunning black screen.
The person inside can see out—
but no one outside can see in.
Such screens are used
by young girls in books—
girls too pretty to be gazed upon.
Well, this is no time
for romantic tales.
I’m no ass like Ramon!
I must bathe my wounds
and move on.
Sanctuary
If ever I’ve needed to pray,
it is now.
I want to be pure for my God,
but the ablution baths
are up three large steps.
I’m too weak to climb.
Allah, I decide, will understand.
That bowl of clear water
I bathed my wounds with
will serve Him this time.
I pray, then I lie in a dark, quiet spot.
No one looks twice.
This mosque is our place, as Muslims,
to meet, and to pray, and to act
like the free men the Crown
says we are.
But it’s locked at night.
There have been problems.
I’ve heard this before.
Some Christians can’t manage
to hold their strong wine.
They come here to take out their anger
on what we hold dear.
Last year, a part of the mihrab—the holiest
spot in the mosque, facing Mecca—
was smashed into bits.
So at night I return
to the alley.
I know I am seen.
But I’m weak.
Each morning,
the loaf, and the egg,
and the cool, refilled bowl.
Each midday, I say
to myself: Move on.
But each evening,
I answer:
Just one night more.
Christians and Moors
This morning my bowl is knocked over,
stopping a dream of a boot
to my head.
An army has come to the quarter.
But this army is not one to fear—
except as a sign of times soon to be here.
It’s merely a pageant of war—
an annual game of the Christians.
Young boys fierce as puppies skitter about.
The ones dressed as Muslims have tin scimitars
and beards scrawled on chins with burnt cork.
Of course it’s the cross that carries the day.
The boys playing Christians thrust swords
at the sky, one foot on the backs of the
quick-vanquished Moors.
It’s not always like that in life.
Remember the rout in the Axarquia?
We’re harder to conquer
than children at play.
(Children instructed to lose!)
Last month, Ramon and I watched
as the army filed out of Cordoba,
off to fight the Muslims in the South.
There were twelve thousand men
riding on horses; behind them, on foot,
five times that.
They clearly know that their task will be hard!
Friend
This morning, the door closes just
as I turn round to look.
Missed him again.
Or, missed her.
Each night, I’ve tried to sit up
so I’ll see who it is.
But my head and my heart
are too heavy.
I sleep.
I dream
of our Cordoban courtyard.
The soul-soothing shade
of its one lemon tree.
Mama is there.
We trade stories about
our darkest hours.
Our finest ones too.
When I wake here
on this patch of ground,
I can’t recall one single thing
that we said in my dream.
But I feel refreshed.
And the cool morning air
seems to carry the scent
of a lemon tree.
Slaves
There is a feast in the mosque’s small courtyard.
A cluster of African Muslims are honored guests.
They were captured by pirates and brought to Castile
for quick sale—in the very slave markets
I know too well.
But the good Mudejares of Cordoba
have saved them. They have pooled
their resources to buy the men free.
The African Muslims make speeches. Their words,
to me, sound more like Chinese
than Arabic. Are their accents strange?
Or has it just been so long
since I’ve heard my own tongue?
I do catch some. They speak of the tactics
of Fernando’s army.
The Crown’s soldiers pillage and kill without mercy.
Not only that—they raze and destroy
the very land they would have for their own!
They burn fields, smash down dams.
Leave nothing alive.
I lurk. My belly, amid these fine smells, does whirligigs.
When I think I can no longer stand it
I look at the ground.
A dish of meat stew steams by my knee.
Smells of cinnamon, garlic, and lamb.
And another scent too.
Just what a beautiful dove
of a woman would wear.
Friend (2)
This quarter has its own sheriff, a fat Mudejar
employed by the Queen.
Still, later that night, it’s a Christian official
who comes to disperse us.
Muslims are breaking the law of the land
if they meet for longer than pleases the Queen.
So we go our own ways.
But when I get back
to my square of earth,
a man is there. I can see
that he’s waiting for me. I stop.
He holds out his hand.
“Don’t be afraid, son,” he says.
“I’m a friend.”
A round, perfect egg
lies there in his palm.
Free
I’m having a good laugh at myself.
Beautiful dove of a woman, indeed! It seems
I’m not so above Ramon after all—
concocting a lithe young protectress
instead of this solemn old bear of a man.
Then I see her.
Only her eyes are uncovered.
But their light shines brighter
than seven boatloads of yellow
Bea hair.
“My daughter says she has fed you,
my friend,” the man says. “For a week!
You are lucky my daughter is fond
of defying the rules of her parents.”
Her eyes smile.
It’s too sweet to endure.
But that is not why
I must look away.
It is as if I’m a small boy again, no more
than three. And I sit at a table with my
dear mother.
Time stands still, for a breath, in its glass.
We are, both of us, in this instant, here.
And both of us free.
Free (2)
It doesn’t take long—talk turns to war
and shatters the spell.
“We want only peace,” this man says.
“To be left to ourselves.”
“But you are not free.” I shouldn’t insult them.
Not when I owe them my life.
&
nbsp; Yet, after so many days of unbroken silence,
my tongue yearns to talk.
“With all respect, sir, you belong to the Queen.
You pay extra taxes so you may exist.
This, in the place where we once
ruled as caliphs and emirs!”
The man is not angered.
He, too, wants to talk.
“You are young,” he tells me,
shaking his head.
“Maybe so. But sages deem
slave years are ten times as long
as ones spent in freedom,” I say.
“In those, I’m afraid, I’m old enough.
And I’m tired.”
My next words are more
for myself than for him.
“I want the rest of my years
to be free.”
Normal
As I walk to the mosque the next morning,
a crier stops me—stops us all—
in our tracks. What does he care
that it’s time for our prayers?
A Moor, shouts the crier,
is wanted by the alcalde—the sheriff of the Queen.
He is sought for intent to murder a Christian,
and for consorting with a Christian girl.
All that is known are his age—
around seventeen—and initials, R.B.
Anyone knowing a Moor who fits
this description should report him at once
to the sheriff.
Ramon Benveniste. The sheath from his knife…
it fell, I remember. I didn’t retrieve it.
It must have worn his initials.
How much of what happened did Bea see?
No matter, I think.
She failed to stop it, or even
to try—I surely can’t trust
that she’d vouch for me now!
For a moment, last night,
I dreamed of a life that was normal.
A father (well, father-in-law). A tall house.
A wife.
Leave off dreaming, Amir.
It is time to go home.
Leave-taking
I look round in vain
for a pen and some ink.
But what words are there
to explain everything?
It’s too soon. We’ve only
just met. It would be saying hello
and good-bye in one breath.
I search in my satchel
for something to give.
I can’t leave the knife. It might
bring them trouble.
Then—what’s this?
A white linen square—Bea’s gift.
I’ve not yet looked inside.
I look now.
Nestled in there
is a tiny white tooth.