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

happened to the previous order, what had befallen her brother and his wife, and went on to explain her decision to honor the contract again. She conveyed the respects of her rabbi to the rabbi of the Great Synagogue. Finally, she provided a brief summary of the situation in Granada. “The rattling of sabers near our borders,” she concluded, “as well as the brutal rivalry between our emir, here in Granada, and his nephew in Malaga, has all of us, Jew and Muslim alike, lying awake at night in fear.”
    Dina suggested they celebrate the completion of this missive. “For once, we’re all together,” she said, glancing at the doorway. “Stay for dinner. We’ll have carrot salad, lamb, and dates stuffed with almond paste.”
    “A most delicious suggestion,” came the sonorous, booming voice of Dina’s husband, Yonatan, from behind Judith. She turned to see him filling the doorway. He waved her over and hugged her, practically lifting her off the ground.
    “Tell Levi and Baba Shlomo to join us,” insisted Dina. “There’s plenty for everyone.”
    “All right, then. I’ll fetch them.” Judith turned to go.
    “Can I walk with you?” asked Sara, Dina’s daughter, appearing from behind her father.
    Exquisite, with sparkling green eyes, Sara was every bit as vivacious as Judith had been at twelve. As they walked the two blocks to Judith’s house, the girl noticed the slipper-shaped filigree pin on Judith’s dress. “Oh, I love that.”
    Judith touched the slipper-pin. It had belonged to Yossi’s wife, Naomi. “Thank you. You know what’s inside?”
    “There’s something inside?”
    “A tiny Hebrew scroll. It has the Shema written on it.”
    “How could anyone write that small?”
    “Not many people can. They’re specially trained scribes. All they do is make tiny scrolls like this.”
    “Does it bring luck?”
    “I don’t know,” said Judith. “When I’m wearing it, there’s no way to know how lucky or unlucky I’d be if I weren’t wearing it. I’d have to live the same day twice, once without it and once with it, to really know for sure.”
    Sara giggled.

     
    Fourteen months after her brother was murdered, almost two years after the Great Synagogue of Cairo placed the order, Judith sent off her work and letter in the care of Yonatan Benatar. Unlike Judith’s late brother, Yonatan possessed not an iota of naïveté. When he traveled, he hired armed Islamic guards for protection. “Jews are good at many things,” Yonatan explained, “but wielding sabers is not one of them.”
    Following so many months of study and feverish production, Judith bade good-bye to the nine pieces of silver into which she had poured her heart and her labor. She went up to her bedroom and lay down, although it was not yet evening.
    The silver objects she had fashioned for the Great Synagogue of Cairo refused to leave Judith’s mind. In her imagination, she continued turning them over and upside down, running her fingertips across their surfaces. She told herself the whole project had been a wager on the direction of the wind. Yet she could not prevent herself from feeling, by turns, worried, hopeful, disappointed, and proud.

     
    She awoke before dawn to the sound of a child softly whimpering, or a cat mewling under the floorboards. She knew that spirits roamed the world at night. Perhaps they wanted to frighten her. She would show them she was not daunted.
    Her warped door neither closed nor opened all the way. It creaked loudly as she pushed it. She followed the noise to Baba Shlomo’s room. The old man lay on his mattress, his lips slightly parted, uttering muffled, at times almost inaudible howls. Judith shook him. He opened his eyes and stared.
    “Were you having a nightmare?”
    He answered in the Aragonese dialect of his childhood. “A nightmare, no.”
    Judith responded in the same tongue. “I could hear you from my room.”
    “It was nothing. Go back to bed.”
    “I won’t go back to bed,” she