“Well.” She can almost see the man think. “There was no such thing as a Jew in France. But there was a group of us together, and we had a place to pray and we had a butcher with yirat Shamayim, and no one took much notice if on Shabbat there were no Jewish vendors in the marketplace.”

She has heard this. That the French turned a blind eye to the Jews who fled there after the expulsion. Why not? Good taxes. Law-abiding citizens, who want nothing more than to keep their heads down, and quietly raise their families. Nothing speaks like money. Nothing.

“My brother, what did you do in Spain that was against the Torah’s laws? For what do you seek forgiveness?”

Another voice: “You went to church?”

“Yes.”

“You genuflected in front of the altar?”

“Yes.”

“You sang hymns with foreign words, foreign beliefs?”

A loud whisper: Avodah zarah! Y’hareig v’al ya’avor!

Shhhhh.

“You ate treif?”

“Yes.”

Another voice. “But when you returned home, you were a genuine servant of the One and Only Eternal G-d of Israel?”

“Yes.”

A cough, then a voice like a reed. “The place you settled and chose to live shows us that you believe and how you want to live.”

Silence. The cold of the stone step is soothing, for her face, her arms are suddenly warm.

The man speaks again, full of remorse. “But I could have chosen to do business elsewhere. I…I looked forward to those times when I pretended to be one of them.”

The reedy voice: “The yoke of the Torah was too heavy upon you?”

“The time I was in Spain… it was a reprieve.”

“From what?”

“From… from the voice inside that prods and pushes: do better. Watch the way you wash your hands and tie your shoelaces. Know that all this has happened because of your sins… the guilt, the confusion. With all that we endure, perhaps… He has turned against us.”

Silence.

“And in Spain, when you pretended to be one of them, you did not have these thoughts?”

A short, bitter laugh. “Between the drinking and the roistering, there was not much time for thinking.”

“Ah. Do you still believe that the Holy One, Blessed Be He, turned against us?”

“There was only chaos. Families who had lived for generations on one plot of land, suddenly adrift.  One day, you look around and notice your friend or neighbor is not present, he has found his way to the baptism font. So you will be forced to leave, but he will stay, just because he played along. You meet him in the market, and at first, he walks past, but then he walks after you and whispers in your ear: It is just water, just words. If not, my elderly father would die on the road, so was this not a fulfillment of the fifth of the Ten Commandments?”

A long silence.  Leonora watches a tiny drop of water travel down the stone wall.

The reedy voice: “But how can you honor your father and mother if you do not honor your Father in Heaven?”

A cry of desperation in return: “But, why did He not tell us openly what He wants from us?”

Enough. Enough. She cannot listen any more. She picks up her skirts and climbs the steps. She knows the stories. Or rather, she knows enough of them. But there are always more. She crosses the courtyard, past the lemon tree and out into the alleyway. When she reaches the large square, she unwraps the shawl, for she is hot and perspiring.

Elderly parents abandoned. Elderly parents who force their children to stay.

Wealthy Jews who sell sprawling vineyards and large stone houses for the price of a donkey.

The children. The babies.

Her chest. Something is crushing down on her chest. If she had a glass of wine, it would ease the pain. She can’t breathe. The children.

Peach cheeks, dark eyes, two early teeth on the bottom gum, a tiny fist that cannot be pried open.

She drops her head into her hands.

So Yishai goes every afternoon to a chevrat teshuvah. She has heard of them, of course.

Does he not realize that it is of no use? No use at all?

For these sins — betrayal, despair, loss of faith, and worse, worse, worse, deeds you think belong to the demon but then you discover that the demon is you… all that can help is malkot, lashes, administered by an anointed rabbi. But there are no anointed rabbis, there are no malkot. Where is the forgiveness?

Nor is there the penance of the Beit Hamikdash, the charred flesh of a korban, confession, an animal led to its death in your place.

A Beit Hamikdash.

Is it the only thing that will bring any of them peace?

***

Katerina clutches Bilhah’s arm. “Look!”

A hundred tiny rowboats bob on the sparkling water. Bilhah finds herself smile.

It is not far, this place, from the palace. After breakfast this morning, Aziza of the important announcements had done her characteristic handclap, and they had all wondered what was in store. After applying themselves to their learning — and yes, the imam would be examining them next week on the fundamentals of prayer — they deserved a little excursion.

“We have deemed that this will help you fully appreciate the city in which you serve, and the genius of the Ottomans, wresting this place from the Byzantines.”

They had all looked at each other, bewildered, excited, unsure of what to expect.

Bilhah found herself disappointed. Yasemin allows her to spend some of her time composing responses to the poetry that the Sultan Suleiman sends Hurrem. Her last attempt is quite decent. It takes the theme of conquest and combines it with the delicacy of flowers, so that it holds both strength and fragility in the same stanzas.

It is more interesting than her main work — translating and sorting through Hurrem’s correspondence. Recently there has been a spate of letters from a woman in Palestine. Yasemin tells her that she is both wealthy and influential, this woman, but her letters are odd.

It was strange to leave the Imperial palace. For almost two months, they had not stepped foot outside of the beautiful gardens. Aisha called it the most beautiful prison in all the world, but Bilhah disagreed. It was safe. And it was mesmerizing, too, to observe the politics and triumphs, the squabbles and the one-upmanship among the women. There was the excitement: Hurrem Sultan’s buyers — many of them Jewish — came each week from the marketplaces, laden with silks and emeralds and perfumes in tiny vials that glittered when they caught the sun.

But as they step outside, carefully veiled and walking in a line of two abreast, excitement rushes through Bilhah’s blood. Soon enough, they arrive at the natural harbor, where the water sparkles, and cool wind whips up off the waves, a welcome relief to the sunshine. They pass a fountain, and Bilhah pauses, cupping her hands together and scooping water onto her face and holding it to her lips. Her Arabic has got just good enough to understand the words chiseled into the stone: A gift from Hurrem Sultan to her people. 

They halt by one of the towers, and Aziza claps her hands to summon silence.

She points to the writing and reads out loud:

A Wall that cannot be broken. Lord of All, guard with Thy might, and display to the end of time this wall standing unshaken and unmoved.

“Who knows about the walls of this city?” she calls out.

They look at each other. How should they know? This is not what is taught in the classes on money and arithmetic, or language, or prayer, or the tenets of Islam. More, none of them were born here or brought up, they know other landmarks, statues or hills or houses of worship.

“The walls are what made Istanbul — then it was called Constantinople — impenetrable to the enemy for all the reign of the Byzantines,” she says. “Two walls, moats, impassable.”

She bangs her palm against the wall, and a group of girls copy, their bangles tinkling as they do. Katerina joins them, and Bilhah stares.

What are they trying to prove to Aziza? That they are indeed impressed by the thickness of the wall, the heft of the stones? One look and you can see that anyone who wants to enter the city would need to find an alternative route. Like through the river.

Upriver, past the tower, the banks of the Golden Horn are lined with warehouses. Bilhah watches as trade ships sail past and lower anchor outside the first warehouse. Men begin unloading wooden cartons.

“It is these walls that make Istanbul the city that it is. Protected from the outside, inside, its people planted flower gardens and pruned fruit trees. It became a seat of learning. A place of bureaucracy and law, of civilization. And all this, only because we are protected from our enemies. When all lies open, a city is only as safe as long as its enemies’ stomachs are full and its eyes are sated.

“If not for our city walls, we would not have become the great city that is Istanbul; from here our great Sultan rules half of the world.

“Surely you are asking yourselves: So how did Sultan Mehmed II ever conquer the city?”

The girls look at each other. Just in front, one girl whispered, “No. We are asking ourselves if we can dip our toes into the water.”

“It is a good question.”

Bilhah suppresses a smile. The sun is getting stronger, and the great river seems to beckon to them.

Aziza continues her explanation, raising her voice over the whispers that ripple through them, over the splash of the fishing vessels, oars pulled in and out of the water. “When Mehmed II decided that he would do what no other ruler had done before, and penetrate Constantinople, taking it as a city for Allah, what did he know?”

She pauses dramatically. “He knew that the city was surrounded not by one wall, but by two.” She points at the wall again. “So thick as to be almost impenetrable, with a moat and towers, where guards sat day and night, on the lookout for enemies.”

“Look down into the water,” she commands.

The girls all kneel down at the water’s edge. “What do you see?”

Aziza nods.

Bilhah whispers to Katerina. “Water?”

Katerina leans in closer. “A fish. See down there.”

Bilhah looks, but if there was a silver flash, it has gone.

Aziza crouches down and reaches into the water. Face red with the effort, she hauls up a length of chain — huge, thick iron, black with parts colored green by the water.

“This iron chain stops war ships from entering the strait. Mehmed II greased logs of wood and then set them over the chain. The ships slid onto the wood and over the chain, and entered the city. And that is how Mehmed II took this great city for the glory of Allah.”

They linger by the water, pulling their fingers through the water, wetting each other’s veils and watching a fisherman haul a great shining silver catch out from the water and into his shipping boat. While the girls laugh, Bilhah quietly walks over to Aziza.

“So, it is all dependent upon the walls. All of our security.”

Aziza bows her head. “It is. I see that you were paying attention.”

Bilhah thinks of the letters she translates, from this Donna Leonora de Dabela, one each week.

As you know, these places — Gaza, Jerusalem, Tiberias, and Safed — are important routes, as traders pass from Damascus or Beirut to Alexandria. And yet these cities are without walls, like undignified men who have been shorn of their great locks, the cities look as if they have been deprived of their glory.

Surely it would be beneficial for trade if the great Sultan Suleiman, who prides himself not only in conquering cities but in reshaping them in his image, would want to follow the grand precedent of the great wall around Istanbul, and build protective walls, for the sake of his glory and the adoration of his citizens, who will manifestly feel his protection. 

“And so does the great Sultan Suleiman not want to build walls around all the cities that he conquers?”

Aziza thinks. “Ideally, yes. But building a wall takes manpower and money. He will choose wisely.”

“What does that mean?”

“He will choose cities that are strategic, that should be walled for the sake of the security of the Empire. Or that are prestigious in other ways.”

Bilhah nods. “So, for example, a holy city. A holy city might be a good choice for him to build a wall?”

Aziza nods. “Yes, certainly, a holy city will show that he is viewed favorably by Allah.”

Should she? Should she throw out the thought and see the reaction that comes?

“So… Jerusalem. That would be a good choice. A holy city without a wall.”

Aziza looks at her sharply. She adjusts her veil. It is a while before she responds and Bilhah feels her nerves growing taut from the wait. Eventually, she speaks.

“Jerusalem. Yes. I do believe that Jerusalem is a likely choice for His Magnificence to show his honor and glory.”

to be continued…

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 802)