The Apprentice's Masterpiece by Melanie Little Read Free Book Online

it backsliding.
    â€œThink of Ramon.
If they burned you for work
you’d chosen to do, wouldn’t they take
your apprentice too?”

Backsliding
    Were the choice mine, I’d do it.
I would copy that book.
I would take that bold chance.
But when is the choice ever mine?
    As for that ladder, that great, famous ladder
to Christian from Jew,
I don’t recall any such thing.
How can I slide down
what I never climbed up?
    You know what?
I don’t recall ever taking one step
that wasn’t mapped out for me first.

Knives
    I look, really look,
at my mother. It must be
the first time I’ve done so
in months.
    I feel a cold shock.
Could this be the pillowy Mama
who once scooped me up
like I weighed nothing more
than a glove?
    Now the bones at her collar
jut out like stashed knives.
Her skin looks too thin,
like parchment rubbed free
of a thousand mistakes.

Return
    Señor Doda is here.
He’s been coming to us
since before I could write.
    Now he’s here to return
the last book that he ordered.
    â€œIt’s paper!” he says, to explain.
“My wife believes only the Jews”—
here, he cringes—“use such things.”
He smiles, turns his hands
so the palms face the sky.
    â€œBut paper is better than parchment, señor,”
I tell him. “They’ve used it in China
for hundreds of years.”
    Señor Doda won’t be swayed.
“What if I wanted to sell it again?
My wife’s not alone in her thinking.
No one will touch it.
    â€œI’m sorry, Ramon.
But I won’t be allowed
back inside my own door
if I pay you for this.”

The Familiari’s Daughter
    Bea’s angry. At me.
    I’ve failed to notice
something about her.
(It seems hard to believe.)
    I wheedle. “Give me a clue.”
She scowls, but relents.
“Oh, you’ll never guess, you ignorant boy.
It’s my skirt. Can’t you tell? It’s fine
Persian silk. A thousand times finer
than that old sack I wore!
A blind man could see it.”
    I appease her. I tell her
her own perfect beauty
blocks everything else.
She warms up.
(Once again, those daft books
pay off for Ramon!)
    I know that it’s rude
to inquire about money.
But we Benvenistes have so little—
it’s made me obsessed.
“So…what is the source
of this new gush of wealth?”
    She claps her small hands, so glad I’ve asked.
Her father’s been named familiari .
A familiar, a spy, of the Inquisition.
There are riches, it seems,
in ratting on friends.
    I pretend to be thrilled.
But what I’m thinking instead:
Aren’t people like him
in the business of squashing
conversos? People like Papa, and Mama,
and me?

Green
    Bea invites me to lunch at her home.
She says, “Only my mother and sisters will come.”
Only?
    I feel, by the end,
as if I’ve been grilled
by Inquisitors—four of them.
    But the food!
Warm bread and plump olives. Long, thin
slices of serrano ham, marbled red and white.
More food than I’ve had for two solid weeks.
But the ham, slippery as it is,
seems to stick in my throat.
    Later, Bea asks, “Was lunch not to your liking?
Though you ate like three men, your face
was as green as the olives.”
    â€œIt’s just—”
I don’t want to insult her.
“My parents—we rarely eat pork.
It’s so costly, you know,” I hasten to add.
    The minute it’s out,
I want it back in.
    Bea stares. Those luscious lips gape.
Take care, I should tell her, or you’ll swallow bugs.
I cover my panic
with an awkward kiss.
She at first pulls away.
And then
she returns it.

Heirlooms
    After lunching at Bea’s,
I see our small rooms
with new eyes.
    Though Bea’s house is three times
the size of our place,
it is ten times more cluttered.
    Theirs is filled up with objects.
Paintings and vases. Carpets
and crests.
    All of it seems very old.
Much of it bears the Alvarez crest.
One thing is certain:
there’s no