Yiddish for Pirates by Gary Barwin Page B

chaser of profit?
    But where to find former Jews?
    I flew toward what had once been the Jewish market. It wasn’t hard to find. I looked for a tall building that had a cross on it, but where youcould see, like a healed-over wound, the scar of what had once been a Magen David. The Jewish star.
    The old synagogue.
    And in front of it: the market.
    Flying between stalls, I beheld untold riches of nuts and fruit. Overripe pears and oranges fallen onto the cobbles and singing a hungry parrot’s song. Delicious almonds held in the open hands of children so I could nosh and delight and amaze. For this, I was happy to play my part. But I was watchful of the slices of melons and other morsels their parents offered me, for just as a cap and a ball on a stick can be sold for amusement, so too can a captured parrot. Even more than losing Moishe, I had little fancy for the clipped wings, the jess and leg-band of the kept parrot.
    It wasn’t long before I heard the name of Doña Gracia amidst the confusion of vendors’ songs, gossip, and the convoluted stories with their ay-yi-yi’s and laughter. She was the richest converso in the city, and so in the market many repeated her name. I flew about until I found someone in her employ: a man carrying an armful of bread to her kitchen. And so I followed him.

Chapter Ten
    Doña Gracia’s house was a grand affair, an appropriate dwelling for such an important balebosteh, with decorated terracotta archways onto the street, and leadlight windows high above the street. The man pushed open a bright blue door with his shoulder and then backed in with his armload of bread. He couldn’t touch the mezzuzah on the door, but he did say a quiet blessing.
    “Hello, pretty bird,” a woman said as I flew in behind him. “You’ve brought a friend,” she said taking some of the loaves from the man’s arms.
    “She’s been following me,” he said.
    “She must want some of this lovely bread,” the woman said.
    Why is it that people think some animals are male and some are female, as if we don’t come in both flavours? So was I going to explain my noble ambitions regarding procreation and the love of a good parrot maiden?
    Not yet. I had found it best to wait until you really know someone.
    The woman broke off some crust and offered me a nosh. Really, I’d had plenty at the market, but I received her kindness with what I considered a manly grace and delicacy.
    “Thank you,” I said.
    “Miguel,” I said. “Miguel.”
    “Miguel! How pretty!” the woman said.
    The man broke off some more bread. “Funny name for a girl parrot.”
    “Why don’t you bring Miguel to the painter? Maybe he’ll put her in the new portrait of Doña Gracia?”
    Likely the painter was closer to the action than these two crusty bread breakers, so I was quick to jump at the opportunity. I hopped onto the offered forearm of the man and we walked further into the house.
    House. It was more like a galleon planted in the ground. A palace.
    We walked down many halls, up countless steps, past innumerable rooms.
    It was a small world but who would want to paint it?
    We entered a hall lined with colourful tapestries depicting seas of curling waves, great ships balanced on the foaming cowlick peaks. A man in a spattered red smock, his white beard itself like ocean foam, had rolled out many painted canvasses on the floor and on the dock-sized oak table in the centre. He was speaking solicitously to an impressive lady dressed in furs and a fine brocade robe.
    Doña Gracia.
    Tall, dark, full, her hair plaited elaborately above her, like the dark red leaves of an autumn tree.
    The painter pointed at the canvases. “My Doña, the hills of Tuscany behind this prince, the Grand Canal behind this Pope’s nephew. Each painting tells its story not only in the faces of these noble people—a small curve of the lips, the stage play of the eyes, the angle of the nose and forehead—and not only in finery of their dress and jewels, but