Yiddish for Pirates(72)

Rodriguez would guide us to a line of ships: a wind-driven pantry, a floating larder sailing from Spain.

And what would be aboard? Clothes and food, horses and cows.

Slaves, settlers, Indians, women, guns and priests.

Accountants. It was wished that the countless desires of the Spanish should be counted. All exported loot would be recorded and taxed.

And what if the Indians returned to this new world like burning coals to Newcastle?

“They bring them back because they kill them here,” Moishe said. And indeed, Indians were quickly disappearing from their own lands.

Disease. Overwork. Abuse. Starvation. The Four Grim Nag-riders of Empire.

Some Indians had been shipped across the Ocean Sea to Spain for curiosity and slavery. Many who survived were returned. Ferdinand and Isabella had changed their crowned minds: It was official, Indians were now subjects of Spain and had souls. They could not be captured or enslaved. Unless in war or by virtue of their interest in fressing upon the flesh of other subjects.

As Moishe put it, “Subject suppers are not allowed.”

“Exactly,” I said. “No soul food.”

Indians must now be subjugated like any peasant. Africans, on the other hand, still had no soul, were strong and well adapted to working and were already used to slavery, having a rich résumé of capture by other Africans and by Arabs and Europeans. It would take thirty years for Africans to have souls. Or, takeh, souls that could be saved by the church.

It might be that Jesus saves. But Moses shops.

As we would soon shop aboard the Spanish fleet for food and clothes, animals and comforts. We would free the slaves and likely fillet the wispy souls from the mortal flesh of the priests.

“By the time this day sinks below the horizon, we will be in sight of the convoy,” Rodriguez told Moishe.

“Good,” Moishe said. “We’ll be able to see their sails by the faint light of the stars but our ship will be invisible. I’ve just asked the crew to paint our own sails black.”

And so we steered a shadow, the only sounds the hidden windharp of sheets and sails, the whistling nostrils and wheezing lungs of Jacome, and the heavy breathing and intermittent pickle-grepsing of the rest of the crew anticipating battle.

Between each ship of the convoy and the next, there would be space as between teeth in an alter kaker’s maw. We would sail close to a single caravel, board it, bully it of plunder, and be gone before the other ships knew what hadn’t yet hit them. Then we would sail into the dawn, our hold bulging, ready to plotz with spoil.


Night came fast. A sea empty of all but dark and distance.

Moishe summoned Rodriguez.

“Nu?”

“Patience, Captain.”

“If there is no ship, Rodriguez, Death will need rummage through your wounds to find you.”

“The ships will soon be before us,” Rodriguez said steadily, though his face was pale.

Two bells. Middle watch. I flew into the dark sky. Ahead of us, a sheyneh beautiful sight.

I made a slip knot of the air and landed on Moishe’s shoulder.

“Off the starboard bow.”

The undulating sails of a Spanish ship, luminous in the dim light.

“Oy!” Moishe shouted to the sleeping crew. “You mangy yam gazlonim. You farkakteh Yiddishe pirates, time for a bisl Jewish flamenco.”

We went to work immediately, mustering all the canvas we were able. We rigged out oars for extra yards. And, for still more speed, we wet down the sails by buckets of water whipped up to the masthead. We would run quickly toward our prey.

Surprise is best attained by those who outrun expectation.

Moishe peered into the night. We had no telescope. For such a glass we would need to squint a hundred years into the future.

Moishe could make out only that there was a ship.

At three bells, I flew again above the mainmast to observe our prey.

There was but a gloaming light, but I saw. She was armed, full of men, her sides porcupined by cannon and bristling with menace. We were a fox that had broken into a henhouse crammed with vicious hounds. Our small caravel and four-pounders were no match. We would best attain victory through escape.

Though all light on board had been extinguished, and even the lamp in the binnacle removed, it was clear from the movements on the Spanish deck that we had been seen.

I returned to inform the crew of Rodriguez’s treachery. Jacome was quick to press his pockmarked cutlass against the Spaniard.

“This man o’ war is my brother’s ship.” Rodriguez smiled smugly. “He is the Capitan General of the Spanish navy.”

Jacome was not pleased by this information. He thrust his mangy face into Rodriguez’s and snarled, “I shall slice open your two-faced belly like a vermin-infested grainsack, then unfurl your duplicitous kishkas over the gunwales to be the living traitorwurst of sharks.”

“However death finds me, my end shall be honourable,” Rodriguez said.

“Your end shall be bloody as my blade shtups your dark star.”

“Halt on dem zokn,” Moishe said. “Hold your geezer beard, old man. His tuches will go nowhere without us.”

Rodriguez was bound to the mizzen and we convened a painted-into-a-corner council.

“We have no choice but retreat,” I said.

“It is too late,” Fernández said.