Father Miquel followed the gaolers who were bringing Mme. Balterra back to her prison cell, and he asked to be admitted to consult with her. The head goaler reluctantly gave him leave and, seeing that the chained woman was in no position or state of health to inflict any harm, left them to their consultation.
The red-haired priest, still trying to ascertain where he had seen her last, inquired as to her state of health and nourishment, producing an apple and a hard crust of bread from the sleeves of his black robe without even waiting for an answer. He sat next to her on the hard wooden bench that was the only furniture in the tiny cell besides the bedroll and the chamber pot. He pulled a waterskin from the folds of his gown and offered her a drink of the, by now, warm but clean liquid inside. Gradually she began to breathe normally.
Father Miquel waited patiently until the thirty-some-year-old lady stopped shaking and fixed her frightened gaze on his concerned face. He smiled at her (probably the first to do so today) and asked her where her parents were from.
“They were both from Toledo, when it was still part of what we used to call Al-Andalus, of the Taifa of Seville, but I am NOT a Saracen or Berber. I was raised a Christian, a traditional Hispania Christian. There were many of us in Toledo.
“When the Christian kings of the north took the city back, they preserved the old ties between Christians, Jews and Muslims, even encouraged our wise men to work together to translate the old books from Greek and Arabic into Latin. But the more God seemed to favor the Christians, the more Christian kings learned to use religious ties as a measure of future loyalty. They even began to suspect their fellow Christians of disloyalty if they clung to the old rites and kept the old texts in Arabic characters. As you well know, I have one such book, beautifully hand-painted by one of the artisan scribes whom both the Jews and Arabs also employed to make copies of their holy books. It is a treasure that I shall always keep safe from ignorant hands!”
Father Miquel looked interested in the subject of the book, but he made a note to himself and put that question aside for the time being. “And how did you end up in Bastanès? It’s really something of a backwater compared to a place like Toledo.”
“Well, things just began to change too rapidly for my family. My father was a very learned man who used to teach mathematics and astronomy at the Islamic University of Cordoba. He worked with famous scientists and astrologers from Bagdad, Milan, Cologne, and all over the world, but then he made a fateful choice, one which would change our lives forever.
“One of his distinguished colleagues was a Jewish scholar named Moishe Ben Elizer, at whose home my father used to spend countless hours discussing philosophy and the fascinating study of numerology, of which Ben Elizer was the world’s expert.”
“I knew Ben Elizer,” said Father Miquel. “He and I worked on a numerical sequencing problem that both of us had first encountered in Tuscany, from the mathematician Leonardo da Pisa.”
“Now, in addition to a brilliant mind, Ben Elizer also had a beautiful daughter, upon whom he doted and determined to bestow the finest education of which ANYONE in Toledo would have been envious.”
A startled expression broke out on Father Miquel’s face. “That’s where I've seen those eyes before. She has her mother’s eyes,” Father Miquel thought to himself.
The woman ignored his change of expression. “As she was clearly capable of leaving the wisest of men speechless when it came to the subtleties of Greek and Arabic philosophy, Ben Elizer included her in the lively discussions with my father. Little by little, my father realized that he had fallen hopelessly for the beautiful, intelligent, and educated girl who was to become my mother.
“It was their decision to marry that was to drive a wedge between my father and the newly victorious northerners who held the upper hand in the delicate racial and religious balance that was Toledo after the Reconquista. Not that Ben Elizer had anything against my father. On the contrary, he loved him like a son, but the new Christian conquers of the north were suspicious of the good relations that had been cultivated over the centuries between our communities.
“The old Christians had taken to wearing Arab dress and speaking Arabic in the marketplaces, even though they spoke their own patois among themselves. Their scholars had even produced sacred Christian texts in their own simple Latin, represented in Arabic characters, all part of their outward conformity to the old Islamic regimes. When the conquerors arrived, they found three powerful communities, each with its own cherished beliefs and traditions but with a long history of interaction and cooperation, especially in the academic pursuits.”
“And what precipitated this conflict?” inquired the priest, masking his knowledge of the friction which had already begun to alter Toledo, while he was still working there.
“The authorities waited until my father had gone to the priest and secured their marriage and a promise from my mother that she would raise any children in the Christian faith. Then the priests summoned Toledo’s head rabbi and told him of the union, hoping to incite the Hispanic Christians against the Jewish community.”
“I take it they succeeded,” said Paire Miquel, his head moving closer to that of the prisoner.
“Indeed, they did,” replied Mme. Balterra, her eyes darting up to his in her anxiety to convey the urgency of the situation. “The northern Christians took advantage of the controversy to launch a major persecution of Jews and Muslims. They burned down homes, mosques, and synagogues. They burned down libraries and private collections to purify their city of all godless knowledge. They even rounded up Christians who wore Arabic clothing and conducted their liturgies in the traditional Hispanic manner.
“My parents were forced to flee Toledo, along with my grandfather, but his separation from his treasured book collection and the faith of his fathers was too much for him. He died along the way, on the outskirts of some dusty shepherd’s village hidden away in the base of the Spanish Pyrenees.
“My parents wandered from one village to the next, carefully guarding their identities. It was during these travels and brief, transient sojourns that my mother gave birth to me and had me baptized in some little village church.”
Without interrupting Mme. Balterra’s story, Father Miquel scribbled a note to himself.
“They didn’t even know when they had left Spain, one Basque-speaking village being much like another, until they began meeting northern merchants who could still communicate with the locals, mixing in more frequently with local market days.”
“And that’s how you ended up here,” concluded the priest, his mind retracing the waywardness of his own journey, back from the multicultural center of Toledo, as it had been when he had last seen it.
Mme. Balterra looked tired after her ordeal, which had started so early that day and seemed destined to never end. Father Miquel pulled out the last crust of bread that he had been saving for his own repast this evening. Offering the bread to Mme. Balterra, he smiled and backed out of the narrow cell.
If you enjoy this passage, my book is available on Amazon.com and wherever books are sold.
Comments