The Eternal Jew’s Tale, #178, Abarbanel 7

In this episode, for most Jews, escape is just another word for death.

The Eternal Jew’s Tale
Twenty First Era, Part 1, 1492 C.E., Iberia
The Abarbanel Cycle, 7

These and dozens of other reports come to Don Isaac pleadin’ for help.
‘What to do’ and ‘where to go?’ ‘Why can’t he turn the king’s will?’
Of course, he has turned his whole mind to bendin’ the will of Amelek, but the soul of Amelek been cast in brittle iron. It don’t bend.

Truth be told, he spends more time advisin’, pleadin’, arguin’, and cajolin’ Jews to help them keep their faith. More than once I overheard him raise his voice and pound his desk, meetin’ Aberham Senior, him, crowned rabbi of Castile and close advisor to the king, not to mention Isaac’s friend and close ally in the government. When Senior chose to be baptized, never more did those two talk.

In late June Isaac declares we must go to Valencia, thence to Naples where Duke Alphonse has invited him to be his guest, and chief advisor in his court.

Back in our quarters Batkol confesses she had rather hoped we’d sail for Amsterdam. Rebellion there against Iberia’s Catholic grip has brought on new, enlightened laws, and even tolerance for Jews.

“Might this be the time to leave the service of Abarbanel? Mighty tho the man be, disasters seem to follow him. I’d rather find a safer course than sailing in his storm-chased ship.”
“Sail to Amsterdam, you say? You think those rebels might prevail against Iberia’s ruthless might? I prefer to place my trust in Bayezid’s* Sublime Porte.”
* Ottoman sultan

Round and round our troubles roll, but when Don Isaac packs his coach, our bags are thrown onto the pile. Call us *riders on the storm.*
*-* Doors, song with that name

Valencia. We find our ship; it’s sailin’ for Naples in twelve days. The wharfs are mobbed, chaos and crush. I see a child tumble off a dock. Near to drownded before some swab jumps in the waters to rescue him. (That probably happens ten times a day.) Such confusions and such connivery; such hysterical beggary. Folk who never left their hometown, who don’t know Tripoli from Brittany, and don’t know Algiers from algebra. Who never seen the ragin’ sea, nor felt the billows heave a ship. I wonder, even, which of them has rowed a raft across a pond. Now here they be on crowded docks bargainin’ with their last reals with scoundrels, shysters, buccaneers who pose as captains of worthy ships to take them to places that don’t exist. Or tradin’ their precious artifacts so they can board a worm-eaten tub with captains as worm-eaten as their ships, and like as not, once at sea they’ll throw these poor sots overboard.

That’s what I see on that first long day down on the docks where our ship is berthed. Owned by a Jew that Isaac knows, whose own family is boardin’ that same ship, with all his goods and all he’s worth, sailin’ his last from Valencia. Once we found him, me and Batkol set ourselves up on the Pont de Fusta, which fronts the docks, so we can talk with everyone needin’ sound advice on where’s the safest places to go, and the kinds of questions they need to ask so they don’t sound like hayseeds ripe to be plucked, and they don’t find themselves boardin’ a ship owned by corsairs and such-like scum.

Meanwhile, Isaac takes another tack. He goes round to every rabbi in town and every meeting house of Jews, bringin’ a message of strength and hope to this falterin’ people; bringin’ a word of faith to them who have lost all their faith, a future to them starin’ at death. From door to door he makes his rounds, from early morning til late at night, and we hardly see him these twelve days, him on his mission, us on ours.

Turns out, Isaac’s merchant friend, David Benviendo owns three ships, which we fill overfull with fleein’ Jews.

~~~~~~~~~~

In the next episode, a delightful cruise around the Mediterranean.