She trots over to them and lifts her grandson, Avraham, from his perch in front of his father and drops him in his mother’s outstretched arms.

“Ride ahead,” she tells Yishai. “Announce to the city that a woman of distinction is to enter the city. A woman of fortune and fine breeding, both. Let them turn out to welcome me.”

She watches Yishai exchange a look with his wife. How did she ever allow her sons to marry such weak women? Still, she speaks softly.

“There were times I rode into towns under the cover of nightfall, or in a covered carriage. But if I am to have an influence on this place, I need to ride in on a blaze of lanterns. The townspeople must line the streets and cheer. They must expect change. They must wait for it.”

Yishai bows his face. But she does not want him simply to obey, but to understand.

“How am I supposed to influence the town if they do not know who I am or that I have come—”

“Of course, of course, it is all entirely for the sake of heaven.” Her daughter-in-law’s sharp tongue.

Leonora holds her gaze. “Do you expect me to crawl silently into Tzfat?”

Her daughter-in-law will not be cowed. Leonora must give her some credit. She protests once more, doing her husband’s job for him.

“And what of your grandchildren? Who deserve to arrive in a new place with their fathers with them for comfort and security?”

Leonora drops her voice to an undertone. “You speak to me of comfort and security, but these are things I never had and therefore do not understand.”

She pulls on the reins and returns to the front of the party. A few minutes later, her two sons Yishai and Amram ride past, stop to confer with the guide, then disappear across the hills of the Galilee.

Ines touches her shoulder. “Was that truly a wise course of action? The little boy is crying. His mother is angry. Your son will resent you.”

Leonora waves away Ines’s words. She grips the reins and the horse raises its head in protest. “It is another travail, Ines. A small one, but another loss of exile.”

Ines shakes her head. “One that could be prevented.”

Leonora trots forward. There is nothing more precious than a servant who has accompanied you for almost 50 years. There is nothing more infuriating that a woman who knows the wholeness of you and tries to advocate for one side of you over the other.

Although, how, really, can such a thing be possible when she eludes herself all the time?

She lifts her voice. “Ride on!” she calls to the guide. “Ride on,” she calls to the party, as the horses move from a walk to a trot.

Ride on, she tells herself. Onward. Always onward.

Salonika, 1535

Bilhah waits. The moon rises. Its glow trails the wooden floor of her room, slowly spreading until it falls on the blue silk of her wedding dress. The tiny seed pearls sewn around the neckline grow warm with light.

She sits up and squints at it. She did not realize, until now, quite how beautiful it is.

From the top of the larch tree outside, an owl calls. From inside, she hears Papa snore. He is still not settled in his slumber. She lies in bed, willing her limbs to transform into spirit, something more substantial than light but less than flesh and blood.

She needs to be absolutely silent so she can gather a thick woolen blanket from the wooden chest, so she can slip on her good leather boots. After much thought, she has decided to remove the silver Havdalah plate from its shelf and take that with her, too. Security. She will need to do this silently, too, and then ease through the front door, without the faintest creak of wood or swish of fabric.

Soon. Another snore. Please, soon.

Gently, she eases herself up to a sitting position. Her fingers tremble and it is a miracle that the pounding of her heart has not summoned someone to the house, for it is a drumbeat in her ears. Low but loud, and persistent as if it would wake up all of Salonika.

Fully dressed, she lifts her woolen cover and folds it, placing it into the leather satchel next to her traveling cloak and the leather flask of water that she filled from the well yesterday. She pulls on her boots, hesitates for a second over her wedding slippers: nothing more than a slip of turquoise silk embroidered with gold. She could take them with, perhaps to sell them, perhaps to remind herself that she once owned such a thing of beauty. She hesitates, then leaves them. The less she carries, the better.

Another juddering snore. If she had the courage, she would give him a flick with her fingers so that he would turn onto his side and settle into sleep. There’s no time. Tonight, she must walk three fersah at least, and find a hiding place in case they come looking for her when the sun is up.

For now, what she needs is stealth.

Stealth and courage, both.

From the other room, quiet. She slips out of bed, the wooden floor cold under her feet. She looks around her room. She wants to leave all of it, all of it behind, but just before she moves away, she picks up her hair comb and slips it into her bag, as well.

Leaving her room, Bilhah treads lightly into the main part of the house. There he is, on the cot at the corner of her room. Papa.

She rests her bag on the floor and walks over to the cot. It is strange to stand above him, for he is tall and she was always looking upward to read his face.

He is fast asleep, his breathing slow and deep. Tomorrow, he will not be so peaceful. His face will grow red, the vein in his forehead will pulse, he will open his great mouth and… something in her grows and fills her with air and a laugh appears on her lips, swiftly swallowed. He can shout and bellow and threaten — but nothing will hear him but for the great, monstrous printing press.

And as for Juan… He will probably kick at the goat pen until the wood splinters and the goats will escape, and then realize that he will not even have the money from the nedunya to pay for repairs.

She looks at Papa’s face. Even in sleep, his forehead is rivulets of worry: bunched skin and crossed with lines. For a fleeting moment, she wants to place her palm on his forehead and smooth it all away, the anger, the sorrow, the history that haunts him so. She blinks and steps backward. Possibly, the spirit of her mother entered her for a moment, replacing repugnance with compassion, but the night is growing darker and colder and she must move forward.

She picks up her bag and leaves the room, entering the kitchen. Food. She did not eat all the previous day, so nervous has she been, and the sight of food makes her innards twist. She will take three loaves of bread and a round of cheese wrapped in muslin. That will last most of a week.

On the cool shelf in the kitchen pantry are twenty roasted hens, stuffed with raisins and herbs, in honor of the wedding feast. Her hand hovers over them. Why not? With bread, she leaves as a pauper. With a stuffed hen in her bag, she will leave this accursed place like a princess.

Slowly, without breathing, she pulls back the iron bolt on the front door. She beseeches the bolt: do not grind or shudder. She beseeches the door: do not creak. She steps out into the night and beseeches Papa: do not find me, do not search for me, let me go. And then she looks up at the sky and beseeches the Almighty: Speed my steps.

Her heart, if only it would still. A donkey brays in the distance and she startles, listening, listening. The wind rustles the pine trees, and is that a thud? A horse pawing the ground? A lemon falling from a tree? Papa’s feet landing on the floor? She hesitates. She can still, now, turn back. She can fly like the wind back inside, into her bed, pretend that she was doing nothing, nothing at all, nothing, nothing, nothing.

She closes her eyes. The wind picks up, blows into her face and muffles the noises that erupt from the night. It was not Papa. Any moment now, he will let out another great, juddering breath and swim into another dream. She lifts her skirt from around her ankles and runs. As she follows the road, she opens her mouth, feels the fresh, cold air in her throat, swallowing again and again. It is like spring water.

Quickly, through the town. Past the beit knesset. Past the marketplace. Past the new cluster of houses. Soon enough, she is at the bridge. The roads here are muddy and rough and her pace will slow. On the bridge, she stops and catches her breath.

She puts down her pack and rummages inside for her traveling cloak. She did not feel it until now, but the cold air bites her skin. Her breath makes small puffs of white in front of her, so it is like running toward a cloud. She fastens her cloak around her neck, pulls it over her shoulders, and lifts the large hood over her head.

Her old nurse, who sewed this very cloak for her, would often say that when you sew together two pieces of fabric, and you reach the seam, then your needle or your finger or even your very own self can fall through the middle, and end up in another land.

She takes one last look at Salonika and then spins and faces the road ahead.

Another land. Another future.

to be continued…

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 789)