The Last Song

door, requesting entry, the rabbi addressed him.
    “From where do you come?”
    “I come from Egypt,” Shmuel said.
    “Where are you going?” the rabbi asked.
    “To Jerusalem.”
    “What are you taking with you?” asked his father.
    Smuel pointed to the matzo in his napkin.
    Then all of us began to chant. “Why is this night different from all other nights?”
    I looked around the table. The flickering candlelight lit the smiles on the faces of my new friends. Yonah’s hand slipped into mine. I closed my eyes. For a moment, the smell of incense filled my nostrils and a memory of the crown of thorns on the head of Christ made my heart ache.
    “Welcome home,” Yonah whispered.
    My eyes flew open. I shook my head to chase away the ghosts, and I squeezed his fingers.
    It took me a moment to realize that Yehudit was speaking to me from my other side. “Let’s help Rebbetzin Abenbilla.”
    Yehudit and I carried trays piled high with different kinds of delicacies to the table until there was no more room for anything else. I tasted, for the first time, a dish of
huevos haminados
, brown eggs cooked in the oven for a whole day over low heat. They were delicious. The Rebbetzin told me that they were eaten every Passover. Next came roasted lamb, baked fish with vegetables and rice, and, finally, almond cakes. Oranges, bananas, and pomegranates filled a bowl.
    Yonah and I did not dare to stay until the end of the seder. I didn’t want to be home late and have my mother start asking questions.
    Sofia was waiting for us at the city gate.
    “You were gone so long!” she cried. “Doña Catarina wanted to know where you were.”
    “What did you tell her?”
    “That I went with you to Doña Brianda’s house. I said that they invited you for supper.”
    “Did Mama believe you?”
    She nodded. “She sent me to bring you home. We must hurry!”
    I bid Yonah good-bye and he set out for his home in the
Aljama
, the Juderia. I followed Sofia through thecity gates to the countryside, toward our estate.
    Luck was on my side. Mama was in the kitchen berating one of the maids when I arrived home. Sofia and I snuck up to my room, climbing the back staircase the servants used. She helped me change into a gown and dressed my hair before I went downstairs.
    My mother scolded me for being late.
    “No guest should outstay her welcome,” she said. “Juana is much too polite to ask you to go home. She’ll think that I didn’t teach you good manners.”
    “I am sorry, Mama. It won’t happen again,” I said meekly.

C HAPTER 9
 
S ATURDAY , A PRIL 28, 1492
    T he sun shining through the wooden shutters woke me up. Half asleep, I pulled the covers over my head until I suddenly remembered what day it was. I bolted up. It was my birthday! I was turning fifteen today, no longer a child. Old enough to marry. I pushed the thought out of my mind determinedly. I didn’t want to think about Luis. Not today. I wanted to enjoy my birthday.
    Papa had finally come home. He had been gone for over four months to help the queen and the king in the Reconquista of the Kingdom of Granada, the last stronghold of the Moors in Christian Spain. Mama and I had counted the days until his return. How we had worried about him! To our great delight, he had returned last night from their majesties’ court. He had been muddy and exhausted but not too tired to engulfMama in a hug and to spin me around the room.
    After he had washed, he called for wine to be brought to us in the courtyard. He was bursting with wonderful news. On the second day of January of our Lord in 1492, he had ridden with the armies of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand into the Alhambra Palace in the Kingdom of Granada. The fortress palace was now occupied by their Catholic majesties and their royal court. The Spanish army had been victorious over the Moors.
    Though it was very late, Papa had described the palace to us. “I give you my oath that I will take you both to the Alhambra some day. It is paradise on earth. It is different from anything that you could possibly imagine.”
    He described halls with walls of tiles painted vivid blue, red, and golden yellow, and he spoke of high, high arches and ceilings that looked like the honeycombs of bees. He talked of cool courtyards and fountains with stone lions that spouted water.
    “The most amazing of all,” he said, “are the gardens – so lush, so beautiful, so full of birdsong. The gardens are so vast that you can lose