Yiddish for Pirates by Gary Barwin Page A

their first-born sons or the shadow of the Messiah himself. The people of the book needed their books.
    Rabbi Daniel began to pray. “Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu …”
    “Omein,” the others sang as he finished. They all sat and the rabbi positioned a book before him, stroking its cover as if the idea that it could exist in the same physical world as him caused both tender sadness and great joy.
    He opened it and began to read out loud.
    His passionate, hypnotic voice. The murmuring of assent by the men. The flicker of the candlelight.
    Then the sudden thud of boots on the steps as if we were inside a Golem’s vacant heart.
    The men scrambled to gather and hide the books. They picked up cards and tried to look natural, a few friends, some wine, the Ace of Cups hidden up one of their sleeves.
    Two Inquisition priests and half a dozen soldiers stood in the sand at the bottom of the stairs.
    “ Dominus vobiscum , the Lord be with you,” the rabbi said and crossed himself, hoping to mimic the Christian piety of discovered gamblers.
    The priest did not reply, “ Et cum spiritu tuo , and with thy spirit,” as would be customary, but rather, “ Ecce Homo , Behold the Man.” The words of Pontius Pilate presenting the thorn-crowned Jesus to the crowd. In this case it meant: “I’m going to crucify your Jewish tuches.”
    Abraham stood up and motioned to the books concealed beneath the table. Two soldiers held the rabbi, another two held Samuel. Then a lanky soldier with a greasy moustache pushed past a small man still clutching a hand of cards, and crawled under the table. He emerged embracing a stack of books. The second priest lifted one off the pile and opened it.
    “Hebrew,” he spat.
    “Heresy!” the priest hissed, playing his part with high drama, as if this hadn’t all been arranged. “Converso Judaizers! You shall burn.”
    From behind the barrels, an involuntary gasp from Sarah. Her uncle’s duplicity had condemned these men to die. Immediately, two soldiers rushed to look between the rows. They grabbed her arms and roughly dragged her into the centre of the room. Weeping, she shuddered between them, unable to stand. I squeezed out of sight between a barrel and the stone wall.
    Abraham seemed entirely taken aback. “Sarah?”
    “You know this girl?” a priest said.
    “My niece.”
    “The girl will come with us,” the priest said. “But, because you have been helpful to us, we will give you a choice.”
    “Yes,” the second priest said. “We will take her. Unless you want to go in her place?”
    Abraham looking steadily at Sarah.
    Sarah sobbing.
    “Take her,” he said.
    The others looked at Abraham but said nothing. The soldiers then hauled them up the stairs and to a jail cell that would give them a taste of where they would spend the rest of their eternally damned lives. As if what they had just experienced wasn’t enough of an amuse-bouche.
    The sound of great tumult after they left. The few short candles burned down. Leaving dark cellars was becoming my speciality.
    If I didn’t know better, I would have thought that upstairs looked like the result of a Bacchanalia. It was a cooper’s nightmare of smashed and splintered casks, hogsheads, firkins, puncheons, pipes, butts and breakers intermingled with wine spilled everywhere like blood. A man lay dead near the back door, real blood running from the corner of his mouth and spreading from a dark wound in his side. I flew through the open door and over the city. Moishe was a hidden Jew, hidden even from me. But Doña Gracia, whoever she was, I would find.
    And before Abraham and his red-caped fathers.

    In Seville one was allowed to be a Jew the way one was allowed to be a leper: somewhere else. The Inquisition was for New Christians, heretics, Moriscos, and all those once baptized who, like addicts, had returned to illicit Judaizing. And the Inquisition was for money. For nu, what’s the intoxicating draft of organized hatred without a