By Fire, By Water by Mitchell James Kaplan Read Free Book Online

the opportunity to spend more time with the fruit merchant’s daughter. “It will be an honor to get to know you.”
    Judith laughed. “An honor?”
    “You’re raising a child, taking care of an old man, learning a difficult craft. And all without a husband to provide for you.”
    Stout and ungainly, wearing an elegant robe the color of robins’ eggs, she led Judith into her scriptorium to show her the work of well-known Arabic and Jewish calligraphers. “Since you’ll have both Arab and Jewish clients, you’ll have to learn both alphabets. But we’ll start with Hebrew.”
    In some of her precious texts, the letters bent into each other, over each other, and through each other, forming complex geometries. In others, the words rippled, ebbed, shivered, and flowed across the page like water. For Dina, these writings were a pure, rarefied art not of the body but of the mind.
    “Calligraphy is the highest art form,” Dina told Judith. “There are so many styles of writing, you can’t hope to master even a small fraction. Look at the proportions, the balance, the firm grace of the writer’s hand. The shape of the letters says almost as much as the words. They are blades of grass, bending under a spiritual breeze.”
    Dina showed Judith the tools they would use: a reed pen, a knife for shaping the pen, an ink bowl. “Is this an acceptable daleth?” Judith asked, trying her best to copy Dina’s model.
    “That’s good, but write from top to bottom, like this, or you’ll get in trouble later.”
    At the end of every lesson, the two shared a cup of lemon water, almond milk, or pomegranate juice and spoke of matters neither broached to others. Dina’s husband, Yonatan, a spice merchant like her father, traveled almost all the time. He communicated with her as much in writing as face-to-face. Dina spoke of the frustration of raising her daughter alone. Judith talked about the unanticipated duties that had fallen upon her, her responsibility for a heartbroken child and a defeated, helpless old man, and how unprepared she felt.

     
    After eight months of training, Judith sat beside Baba Shlomo, proudly holding a decorated silver alms box. “I’m ready.”
    “You’re not ready,” the old man told her. “Ready for what?”
    “To fill the order from the Great Synagogue in Cairo.”
    “Too much time has passed.”
    “But they deserve an explanation, and a gift.”
    “How would we pay for the materials? The transportation? You’d be better off selling trays and cups in the marketplace.”
    “I’ll borrow the money.”
    Baba Shlomo shook his head. “Getting further into debt, just when you’re starting a new enterprise, is not good business. That’s why I said: This is not a job for a woman. Business sense, women are not known for.”
    “Nevertheless,” insisted Judith, “we do owe them an explanation. And a gift.”

     
    She borrowed three thousand dirhams from Isaac Azoulay. “My money is as safe in your hands,” the physician assured her, “as in my cabinet. Perhaps safer, since no one knows it’s there.”
    “I owe you nothing, then, but the principal?” Judith wanted to establish that this loan did not imply anything beyond mere friendship.
    “That is perfectly correct.”
    She set about procuring the silver ore and fashioning each of the nine pieces, one at a time, comparing her models with the best she could find and adding touches to improve on them. She refashioned many of the pieces several times. Three weeks into the ordeal, exhausted, coughing, her hands chafed, she considered taking a few days off to recover her strength, then dismissed the thought.
    All the while, she shopped, prepared meals, and accompanied Levi and Baba Shlomo to synagogue. More than once she asked Levi for help, but he ignored her. One battle at a time, she reflected.
    With Dina she spent a week composing the letter that would accompany her gift to the Great Synagogue of Cairo. She began by describing what had