Yiddish for Pirates(64)

Ach. There are some books, even with the patience of Job’s boil-wrangling dermatologist and an immortal life, few could spare the time to read. All words and no meaning. All lid and no Yid. All Columbus and no gold.

What were these five books?

He knew of one.

The almost translucent leather binding of Torquemada’s book made one afraid to hold it, or careful to hold it tenderly. “There, there, little bubeleh book, everything will turn out for the best.”

In the jungle, Moishe puzzled over its sigils. Its strange almost-words. Its farmishteh calligraphy that appeared more navigation map of a twisted Meccano alphabet than real writing.

“Why would Torquemada need to hide this? Its meaning is hidden by its words.” Moishe pointed to the opened book. “So, nu, maybe like a women’s knish, it looks strange until you know what to do with it.”

Feh. This feygeleh should talk about knowing what to do.

I had mistaken up from down. Or myself for myself.

“This is different than my father’s book,” Moishe said, pointing to a page. “Yet these books are cousins. Or shvester. Sisters. The same bend in the nose. The slope of the shoulders.” He turned to another page. “Look at this …”

It was filled with Magen Davids. Stars.

“Some kind of constellation,” Moishe said, connecting the stars with his finger.

“Above which land is the sky filled with Jewish stars?” I said.

“Emes,” Moishe said. “Next year in Jerusalem.”

We examined other pages under the slats of light flickering between leaf shadows.

“Somewhere there’s a key, a legend that explains,” Moishe said. “Maybe the other books,” he said, turning to other pages. “Maybe they explain.”

“Ach, who needs immortal life?” I answered. “It’s but a larger sack to fill with misery.”

“But it works the other way, too,” Moishe said. “Trouble would scatter like ashes in the wind over a life-without-end. And anyway, it’s the Fountain of Youth, so you’re made young again. Younger than your memories, younger than your pain.”

“Eternal relief.”

“An everlasting finger to those who tried to erase us: here we are, a permanent stain on the pages of history. What’s that? Wine? Jizz? Jews? Once shpritzed with Fountain water, we’ll never forget because we’ll never grow old.”

Just then a commotion. Men calling. The trumpeting of a conch.

After four days, Luis de Torres, Rodrigo de Xerez, Diego Columbus and the other natives had returned from their colonial probe inside the island. They brought with them a procession of inland Tainos carrying several baskets and hog-tied animal carcasses. One older, highly decorated Indio appeared to be the lovechild of a warrior and several ostentatious birds: his head was plumed with tailfeathers rising like Technicolor thoughts from out of his dark scalp. The natives and their chief stood motionless in the shade of the forest while the crew approached Columbus, the viceroy of beaches and the governor of sand.

Columbus had some islanders shlepp a large carved chair onto the shore. He sat enthroned, benevolent and regal in the shade of the munificent palms. The infinite regress of power: he was an island Ferdinand and Isabella holding court before his own exploring Columbuses.

“Se?or,” Torres said, approaching him. He inclined his head as if to bow, but then straightened and began his report.

“Two days’ walk, Admiral. Through the thickness of jungle. Along a path that was often defined only by its vagueness. Several times it appeared to disappear. But Los Indios could read it and they led us forward.”

“What did you find? What of cultivated fields and of agriculture?”

“There were rivers, ponds with frogs and fish but no indication of crops. We found no large animals, but strange lizards, snakes and rodents. In the glades, gaudy parrots and bats large as foxes. Small birds drink from flowers, the murmur of their wings like bees. In a clearing, a thousand butterflies, their wings iridescent blue. We filled our baskets with specimens both live and extinguished, which we have here conveyed.”

“Good, good,” Columbus replied. “But tell me of villages, of mining and of gold?”

The King and Queen would not finance another voyage for glimmering wings and large bats.

Luis de Torres continued. “Far into the island’s dark heart, we came upon a village: fifty large wooden huts, palm-thatched. The people came to greet us.” He motioned to the older man with the avian haberdashery. “This is their chief—what they term a ‘cacique.’ Diego spoke with him of gold.”

“Bring the man here. Let us speak with him.”

The cacique, grey-haired, muscular, stepped forward. His aquiline nose and walnut-coloured ears were studded with small pieces of gold.

There was more gold, he said. In the south. Where the Caribs live.

Of course. Gold was where they weren’t.

A first, pre-cinematic “they went that-a-way.”

Gold?

That-a-way.

Oh, and by the way, the Caribs are the people who eat people.

You can pick your friends.

And you can pick your teeth.

And you can pick your friends from your teeth. Sometimes little bits of them get stuck there after a nosh.

Martín Pinzón stood near Columbus’s carved throne, listening. Something was glistering in his rodent brain: gold.