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“What time do you come to the piazza, when you come?”
“Around ten.”
“I’ll be the first in line! Thank you!”
Alfredo nodded.
“Goodbye!” Signora Tozzi turned away, and Alfredo headed back into the shed, followed by Ginevra. He sat down next to Bella, resumed milking, and tried to remember the story.
“Oh yes, anyway, as I was saying, the Queen saw the Monk of Saint Nicholas without his robes and demanded to know why, or she would cut off his head. The Monk told the Queen the story about the cat and the mouse, and the Queen burst into tears, ran to the kitchen, and sifted flour all day.”
Alfredo tried to find his milking rhythm, thrown off by Signora Tozzi’s visit.
“The King had never seen his wife in the kitchen before, so he thought she’d gone mad. He asked her if she was crazy, and she told him all about the cat and the mouse, the door and the fountain, and the rest.Now, what did the King do? The King drank a cup of coffee. That’s it, that’s all. Now, girls, you can take from the story what you will. I think the moral is, Be a King. Don’t let things bother you.”
But Alfredo couldn’t heed the moral. His fingers trembled, and he stopped milking. He felt suddenly afraid. He lived his life bearing a secret. It was the most dangerous of secrets, he had been told from his earliest years.
His parents had made him and his older sister, Annalisa, swear never to breathe a word. Annalisa had taken the secret to her grave, and Alfredo would take it to his, sealed behind a plaque readingAlfredo D’Antonio, which wasn’t his real name. His sister’s real name wasn’t Annalisa, nor were his mother’s and father’s Pieri and Gianluca. They had chosen their names as arbitrarily as Alfredo had chosen the names for his daughters who happened to be goats.
They’d changed their names to live in peace, and that was all his grandparents had wanted, and his great-grandparents before them, and so on. Alfredo’s line went back for generations in Sicily, and so did his family secret.
Alfredo’s secret was that he was a Jew.
His parents had told him the history so many times he knew it by heart. Jews had lived in Sicily before Christians, settling on the east coast, then spreading outward, flourishing under Muslim rule. Palermo became a Jewish center, but everything changed under Aragonese rule. In 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain issued the Alhambra Decree, or the Edict of Expulsion, which expelled Jews from any Spanish territories, including Sicily. Sicily’s Jews, numbering thirty thousand, fled the island. Their temples were converted to churches, and Jews who didn’t leave were converted to Christianity or executed at Palazzo Chiaramonte Steri in Palermo.
Alfredo’s ancestors wanted to stay in Sicily, but they didn’t want to convert. They wanted to live in the country they loved and worship the G-d they loved.
So they did, keeping to themselves for generations, guarding their secret.
Sicily had never before hadconversosormarranos, the Spanish derogatory terms for those who practiced Judaism in secret, but it became a matter of life and death. Alfredo’s family adhered to the Law as best they could without a rabbi, a synagogue, a Torah, or a kosher butcher. His parents warned him to keep to himself, lest anyone discover his secret. They always lived outside of town, and to avoid suspicion, they attended Mass at the Madonna dei Miracoli church in Mussomeli. They mouthed the Latin prayers and took the Eucharist. They knew G-d would understand.
Now they were all dead, leaving only Alfredo, who had no children except Ginevra, Bella, Valentina, and Flora. He kept his family’s Hebrew Bible hidden in a box, with a frayedtallisin a satin sack. He used to have a skullcap, but Ginevra ate it. He had his family’s silver menorah, but no candles narrow enough to fit. He didn’t dare buy any, lest he give himself away. He hadn’t heard of a single other Jew in the entire province, much less met one.
So he kept to himself and made his cheese, leaving only to sell it or to buy necessities in Mussomeli. He prayed on the Sabbath, by himself.
He kept his faith.
He felt happy and blessed in his life.
His real name was Abraham.
He was the last Jew in Sicily.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Dottor Vergenti smoothed down his white coat, scanning the examining room with annoyance. The madhouse was formerly a convent, so its physical layout was poorly suited to its current use. The examining room used to be a pantry, so it fit only a small table, a chair, and a scale. Shelves that used to hold groceries were empty except for a single textbook. The room was located next to the kitchen, so it smelled like bean soup and mouse droppings, making Vergenti’s nose twitch. Today he had to diagnose the boy, Dante No-Surname.
He slid the textbook off the shelf and thumbed to the chapter entitledCauses of Madness. He found the list,Physical Causes of Madness, and read it:Heredity, Masturbation, Sunstroke, Syphilis, Alcohol Abuse, Abuse of Mercury. He frowned. None applied to the boy. He read the list,Emotional Causes of Madness:Family Problems, Poverty, Unreciprocated Love, Jealousy, Religious Fanaticism, Superstition, Ambition, Hurt Pride, Bereavement, Persecution. Maybe the boy’s diagnosis was jealousy, of the younger brother. He put the textbook back on the shelf.
Vergenti turned when the nurse entered the room. Her name was Teresa and she was married to Renzo.
“Good morning, Dottore.” Teresa had dark eyes, a wide nose, and aready smile. A topknot tamed her black hair, and her ample body filled out a white blouse and a voluminous brown skirt under her muslin pinafore. “Renzo stayed this morning to help us, then he’ll go home. He’s bringing the boy down.”
“How thoughtful.”
“Dante’s a difficult case, sir. I believe he’s dangerous, though he’s quite young. Not only did he stab Renzo, he threw food at me, and feces.”
Vergenti loathed the shit-throwers. “I’ll make quick work of the examination.”
