Consolaçam 4

By Ron Singer

Chapter Four.

Those tranquil days turned out to be but a short interlude between two very eventful periods. For I had not been “home” in Selânik for even a single week when word reached me that I should soon expect an unexpected visitor. My sister, Chana Yael, had just embarked from Lisbon on the αρχάγγελο, the ship on which I had sailed to freedom, and had so recently re-masted. The good news came by means of a note from my best friend, Demopolous, who assured me that he would watch over “your lovely sister” (adding that her fare, only a single akce, reflected the standard discount given to company employees and their family members). It occurred to me to wonder whether the warmhearted Greek had not already fallen in love with Chana Jael?

I was very excited at the prospect of being reunited with “Chani,” as we had always called her. Part of my excitement stemmed from the prospect of finally getting to know someone I had never really known. For back in Cordoba, when I was a baby, and then a toddler, my mother and a nursemaid had left Chani free to pursue her own interests. Later on, as children, the difference in our ages (nine years) meant that my sister had as little to do with me as possible.

By the time I started at חדר [primary school], Chani was doing whatever it was that middle-class adolescent Jewish girls did in Cordoba during the 1480’s. By the time of the expulsion, in 1492, she had disappeared from my life —and, apparently, from my parents’ lives, as well. For, when I asked where my sister was, their answers were always vague. “Oh, Chani is probably still somewhere up north,” they might say, which I found disconcerting. But, never having connected much with my big sister, I did not care enough to press them for further details.

When catastrophe struck, in the form of the victory of Isabel and Ferdinand over Sultan Boabdil of Granada, and the subsequent “Christianization” of the Spanish monarchs’ domains, our family, like many others, splintered. Loath to desert his business, my father remained in Cordoba, where I assumed that he and my mother were either killed, or became conversos or, possibly, marranos. I say “assumed” because, once I had fled to Portugal, I never heard anything from, or about, them.

So one reason I so anticipated my reunion with Chani was that I hoped she would provide me with information about the fate of our parents. I also hoped to learn more about her own history. I had so many questions to press upon her. My memory of Chani, from the last time I had seen her, twelve or thirteen years before, was of an attractively svelte young woman wearing a rich, brocaded red entari [long, two-layered dress] and a matching, pointed red cap, from which her wavy black hair peeped out.

But I had not fully reckoned on my sister’s wanderlust. For, as Demo breathlessly reported to me at dockside, on the day I went there to meet the Archangel, she was no longer with him. He spoke breathlessly, and his face was perspiring profusely.

“I’m so sorry, Uziel, but I have lost your sister, she is not here.” He must have seen my disappointment, for he hurried on. “In the throng debarking from the boat, she somehow gave me the slip. When I noticed her absence, I ran to the ship’s office, where I learned that she had joined a caravan of traders, heading for Edirne.”

This news stunned me. What could possibly have prompted my sister to expose herself to the hazards of such a long overland journey? And hadn’t she wanted to see me, as I had, her? It occurred to me, once again, that I hardly knew Chana Jael. And, hardly knowing how to reply to what Demo had revealed to me, I finally stammered out a few words to the effect that I did not blame him for my sister’s disappearance.

It was not until a few weeks later that I learned more about what had happened. This information came in two installments. The first was a note from Chani, which she had entrusted to the merchant in charge of the caravan, who had returned from Edirne to Selânik with another cargo. Since he was in a great hurry, the man had, in turn, entrusted Chani’s message to a porter employed by our company, who brought it to me at the hostel.

Although it was not very enlightening, the message was, at least, succinct:

I am sorry, dear Uzi, for my failure to keep our planned rendezvous on 21 Tishrei. The reason was that pressing business had just arisen in Edirne. As soon as that business has been resolved, I will contact you again.
(signed), Your errant, loving sister, Chani.

What could be the nature of this ”business? Was it business-business, or personal? And what could I do, except wait, as the note had directed me to do? Which is what I seemed to have been doing, with regards to my big sister, for most of my life.

In the event, however, I did not have to wait for long. A few days later, on the 3rd of Cheshvan, I was just finishing my morning ablutions when there was a knock at the door of my room. When I opened it, I must say, I was not totally surprised to see that the visitor was Chani. Instead of the promised second message, here she was, in the flesh!

Somehow, during the decade since I had last seen her, my sister was little changed. If anything, she was more beautiful than ever. Her wavy, dark hair (now long,), mostly hidden beneath a large black velvet turban, framed her lovely, olive-complected face, which seemed to have hardly aged, at all, since she was seventeen or eighteen.

What did surprise me was her attire and its accessories. My sister’s costume boldly challenged the limits our Turkish rulers had set for Jewish women. This was true both with regard to the opulence of what she wore, and the colors. For example, her leather shoes were bright yellow, as opposed to the prescribed black (making her small feet look like a pair of canaries). Above the shoes was a long, richly jeweled entari made of silk, decorated in a floral pattern, and trimmed with ermine at the neck and wrists. Chani’s jewelry was equally opulent: a thick gold chain with a large inset ruby, and on both arms, several bracelets of gold and of silver, each dotted with precious stones.

In short, my sister’s costume looked as if it must have cost a fortune or, at any rate, a figure well beyond my own annual salary. Another way to put this is that she was as richly dressed as the most daringly ostentatious wives of the prosperous Jewish merchants of Selânik. Had Chana Jael Abreu somehow become a favored concubine of Sultan Bayezid II? If not, was my bold sister unaware that Jews must be cautious not to dress more opulently than Muslim women, who were forbidden by their own laws to wear such clothing?

Chani’s voice, when she spoke, was still a pleasant contralto, although it was now deeper than I remembered. She began by saying how glad she was to see me again. “Frankly, dear brother, I was amazed to learn that you were still alive.” She accompanied these words with a lengthy, tight hug.

“And I, sister,” I replied, when I had regained my breath, “am also surprised —in fact, amazed— not only that you have somehow survived, but that you seem to have prospered, to such a degree.” I gestured to her resplendent person. “I mean, look at you, sister! Tell me the story of how a poor Sephardic girl managed to flee the chaos of Cordoba and, ten years later, to have turned into … this.” Again, I gestured.

With that, Chani launched into a tale so exciting, and so full of incident, that I could hardly believe its veracity. Rather than trying to remember it, verbatim, I think I had better just summarize the tale, which took my sister at least an hour to tell. When I have completed the summary, readers can judge, for themselves, the truth of the tale.