Yiddish for Pirates(33)

I rode the thin wave of Moishe’s shoulder up stairs and along hallways. We looked into the doors left ajar. Those in their beds, those sitting at chairs and before small tables. Listless, playing cards with the compulsion of a song that won’t go away. Some were startled, nervous, our gaze the sudden pain of a dart, the surprise annoyance of an insect bite. Some looked with a quick smile or a vacant daze. The Do?a’s home was a hostel for the hurt and the hidden. And their children, charming, snot-nosed, crying, spring-like or rubbery, driftwood in the wash of parents and history.

Two men sat in a courtyard filled with ferns. I recognized one as Alonso, the man who worked in the kitchen.

“Miguel,” he called to me. “Who’s a pretty girl?”

“Aaron,” Moishe said. “His name is Aaron.”

“My father’s name …” he said. “This old jowly rooster”—Alonso motioned—“my friend Isaac.” He was stooped and chicken-thin with an abundant growth of dark moustache on his sallow face. It seemed as if this swart lip-bound earwig had sapped vital strength from the man.

The friend, almost imperceptibly, nodded in greeting.

“He has arrived at the Do?a’s for the seder. We eat, we tell the Passover story, we plan a Spanish exodus.”

The friend again moved a few molecules in assent.

“So you will be joining us?” Alonso asked.

“Unless there’s another secret meeting with good food I should know about?” Moishe said.

“My wife and I cook the food,” Alonso said with pride. “It will be delicious. And secret. As the Torah says, ‘Thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand.’ ”

“I don’t know about the staff, but I consider shoes and, especially, girded loins to be essential for any meal,” Moishe said. “Think of the crumbs.”

“Years ago, I learned from my parents. I was born a Jew,” Alonso said. “When they expelled us from Seville, I did not move. It was only my Jewish name that left me. They say that God Himself drew back to make room for life. This was how it was with us, too. We had no choice. My family: children, parents, wife. I shed my skin, but even with new colours I remained a snake to them. There were riots. We are in Job’s land, tested by God. Alav ha’shalom. Only my wife and I remain.”

He paused and then: “So, tonight, we are Jews. What more could they take from us? ‘I am that I am.’ And soon we will leave Spain to where we will be safe.”

“And where we can always have meals together—at Passover, Shabbos, whenever we are hungry,” Moishe said.

“Next year in Jerusalem,” Alonso said. “Or at least, Africa.”


We continued our exploration. To an attic. Locked storerooms. Down some steps, a passageway into a cellar. It would soon be evening, but here, like Thule in the distant north, it was always dark.

Moishe lit a candle.

A room filled with spider webs, broken furniture, worn carpets, barrels, clay jugs. Spider webs. Some old swords.

A door at the back that Moishe had difficulty opening. As he struggled, we heard the bells of Maundy Thursday begin to sound.

Tonight it was both Passover and Maundy Thursday’s Last Supper. It was either the devil never shites but he shites in buckets—or a good sign.

They would be holding mass in the churches, washing feet, and singing “Gloria.” We went to find the dining table to begin our own last supper, our secret seder.

We’d leave the door for another time.

So.

It was a few days after Passover, and Moses and Jesus were walking together, kibitzing about this and that, remembering their glory days in Biblical times.

They came to a sea.

“Hey, Yeshua, watch this,” Moses said. He raised his walking stick and parted the sea. “I still got it,” he said. “Just like parting my hair. If I still had hair.”

“Ok, then, Moe,” Jesus said. “I can top that.” And he strode out over the surface of the water, defying gravity and the physics of surface tension. Then suddenly, he began to sink. He swam to shore, spluttering.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “It used to be so easy.”

“That was before you had holes in your feet,” Moses replied.

We’d never seen such a meal. A Constantinople of food. A thousand succulent succubi threatening to make merry with our insides. A Red Sea of sauce. And soon, we’d arrive at the promised lamb.

In the centre of the table, long as a whale, bright flames surmounted two pairs of silver candlesticks that would be the prize of any pirate’s booty.

The chairs were arranged for us, pillows in place, so that we could lie back as was the custom. We were once slaves, now we can recline. At each place, there was set a splendid Haggadah, the prayer book outlining the service.

Even if I had been offered a chair and a pillow, takeh, would I have been able to lean back in comfort? The seder, the Haggadah, the practice of being a Jew. These things were forbidden. In Egypt, the Jews were slaves, but they were allowed to be Jews.

Around the table, Alonso and his wife. Alonso’s friend, jowly Isaac. An older man with a clipped white beard, introduced as Joshua. Two men in red cloaks both named Samuel. Let’s say First Samuel and Second Samuel. One dark man known as Jacob. Near him, a portly woman—though she more resembled ship than port—named Rebecca. A Leah. A Moses. A Daniel. More names than I could remember. All told, we were likely a Jesus-and-apostles’ worth of guests gathered for supper and scheming.