The Last Song

morning. I’ll catch some rest by the city gate. I won’t be the only one.”
    I grabbed his arm. “When will I see you again?”
    “I’ll send you a message.”
    Then he was gone.
    The house was silent as I crept up to my room, clutching the kiddush cup in my hand.
The noise in the bushes must have been an animal, most likely a badger
, I told myself. There was no one about, but candlelight was streaming out from beneath Mama’s chamber. I heard the soft murmur of voices. I slowed to listen but thought better of stopping. If there was something important to know, Mama and Papa would tell me.
    I closed the door of my room quietly. I held up the kiddush cup in the near-darkness. I turned it around and around to admire the beautiful engravings on it. Where to hide it? I decided to put it into the drawer in my armoire where I kept my petticoats. I was sure that it would be safe because nobody except for Sofia ever looked there. I slipped it among my petticoats in thehalf-open drawer, careful to smooth down the fine material on top of it.
    I peeked at the bird asleep in its cage and climbed into bed. I tossed and turned, all kinds of thoughts crowding my head. What could my parents have been talking about? Did they have more secrets that I didn’t know about? I tried to lie still to allow the cricket song outside my window to lull me to sleep, but sleep didn’t come. I gave up and made my way down the quiet corridor to Mama’s chamber.
    I could still see the sliver of candlelight below the door. And their voices continued to whisper their secrets. I knocked softly.
    I heard Mama gasp. “Did you hear a noise outside?”
    Papa laughed. “Catarina, you are allowing your imagination to rule your common sense. It’s probably Isabel.” He opened the door for me. Mama was sitting on the side of her bed and there was a chair facing her, where Papa must have been sitting.
    “I can’t sleep, Papa.”
    Mama called me to her. “Lie down here, dear.” She stood up and pulled the silk covers back. I slid into her bed and pulled the covers to my chin. She sat down at the foot of the bed, like she used to do when I was a little girl before telling me bedtime stories. I closed myeyes, feeling suddenly childlike and safe. I must have dozed off for a moment, but soon I woke up and listened to my parents’ familiar voices again. I kept my eyes closed so they wouldn’t send me back to my room.
    “You’re right, Enrique, but this news is so incredible that I am full of fear. Who would have ever imagined that their majesties are planning to expel the Jews from Sefarad?”
    Expel the Jews? Yonah gone? I wanted to cry out, but I knew that my parents would send me back to my bed if they knew I was listening, so I squeezed my eyes shut.
    “Why would the queen and the king treat the Jews so cruelly?” Mama asked. “The Jews of Sefarad have served the royal couple loyally – as did their parents and their parents before them. Don’t Isabel and Ferdinand realize what the Jews have done for them?”
    “They must realize it. The Jews loaned them the money that helped them reconquer Spain. Now Isabel and Ferdinand have succeeded, and they don’t need the Jews’ money.”
    “How did you hear this incredible news? Expelling all the Jews from the kingdom – it’s unbelievable!”
    “Let me tell you what happened,” Papa answered. “I went to the throne room to bid their majesties goodbye the day before I was to come home. Of course Ihad heard rumors, but I didn’t believe them for a moment.”
    “What rumors?”
    “That the queen and the king signed an Edict of Expulsion that orders the Jews to leave Spain by the last day of July. And anybody who made this news public, who revealed it before it was announced, especially to the Jews themselves, would be put to death. As I said, I didn’t believe a word of it at the time. The court is always full of false rumors.”
    “What made you change your mind?” I could hear the sound of wine being poured into a goblet.
    “I’ll never forget what I saw, what I heard.” Papa sighed. “I went to the throne room of the Alhambra. Their majesties were seated on their jeweled thrones under an alabaster latticed window. I was about to approach them when the entrance to the hall opened and the Jewish courtiers Isaac Abravanel, their majesties’ chief financial advisor, and old Rabbi Abraham Seneor, the judge of the Jews of Spain and the chief treasurer of the crown, were