The Jewel Trader of Pegu Read online

  Don’t think me an apostate when I say that Win and Mya and all the believers in the Buddha are right: I see now that pain is universal. God visits upon all of us, for reasons too mysterious for my mind to fathom, pain and suffering that can’t be weighed and compared by the souls who do not bear it.

  I have struggled to find words to describe who I was before I arrived in Pegu. I was like the room of Asher Levi’s pawnshop where the pledges are kept. Built of stone and mortared so tight, not the thinnest beam of light can penetrate, not even one mote of dust can filter in. Thick and solid, no thief can peer inside. Without design or trowel, I became my own master mason. I built a room around my soul, stone by stone, trying to keep the pain outside. The light stayed outside, and all that was within the stone walls was my dark and dusty soul. But there was no treasure to safeguard from thieves.

  All that I encased in stone was bitterness. The world couldn’t enter, and the bile bubbled up into that empty space and seeped into the crevices of my soul. I gave nothing of myself, so how could I receive any pledges of affection? I had become a walking Ghetto, my windows bricked and barred.

  Ruth’s death was an excuse. Long before her death and the death of my son, I had cut myself off from life. I used their deaths to justify the person I had already become. I heard the talk: “That’s Abraham’s nature—he is a dark fellow.” Nature is the sum of the choices we make: thread after thread is woven together into a coat we find more and more difficult to remove.

  I can see the contours of my old soul in the pond’s clear water and in the silent darkness of my room late at night, but I can’t foretell what soul is being reborn in this foreign soil. Like all of us human strazzaria, it will be an imperfect work, with tears and missed stitches. I do know that when Mya gave herself to me and I reached out to draw her close, the bricks of the pledge room began to crumble, the light began to stream in, and now even the dust floats and dances in the light. But Win is right, no matter how much light and breeze this love carries with it, my soul will never be free of pain. We suffer because we love. Win would suffer less if he loved his son less, but he can no more choose to love his son less than I can parcel out my love for Mya like a cook ladles out soup. Better my heart be set ablaze than crumble like dried leaves. If pain is the cost of loving, then it is a cost I will bear. How can I be human, how can I wake from the sleep that I have called my life, if I don’t love?

  As we walked back from the temple, I tried as best I could to tell Mya what I had seen in the pond, what I had learned from the images in the rippling water. She did not say anything for a few moments. Then, smiling, she said—Those fish must have been wise teachers in their previous lives to have taught you so much. She covered her mouth with her hand, as Peguan women do when they laugh, and her eyes sparkled. Pity the poor man reborn a thousand times who never sees that smile.

  Your cousin,

  Abraham

  22 August 1599

  Dear Joseph,

  We are in the bloody maw of history. Syriam has fallen. Antonio came to the house at first light with the dark news. As soon as word spread through the royal barracks, deserters headed for the gates and the jungle.

  If the Toungoo set siege to the city, we can hope to last only a few weeks: cut off from the countryside, we will become a city of walking cadavers, fighting the monkeys for rotting coconuts and scraps of rice.—The king’s soldiers can beat their magical gongs till their arms turn to stone, but the enemy won’t wither away, Antonio said.

  Our only hope is some accommodation with the king of Toungoo, but Antonio casts a soldier’s skeptical eye on any promises. What are promises to the victor?

  —When the armies of Toungoo enter the city, words will blow away like chaff in the wind. There will be no barriers to the appetites of men hungry for gold and women. He looked at Mya.—Forgive my bluntness. I speak out of friendship. Abraham, if you live in a world of dreams, Mya will be violated and you will die.

  —Aren’t you too quick to see the worst? I asked. There is no siege, and there is talk that the king has sent cartloads of gold and jewels to Toungoo.

  —All for the king and the royal treasure-house. Do you think a tattooed Malabari or Achinese heathen from some thatched hut will eat from the king’s gold plates or be handed a jeweled bracelet from the king’s hoard? When they hear what treasures Nandabayin has sent, it will only drive them to claim the city’s spoils for themselves. They’ll strip the temples and pagodas clean of gold; and what they can’t take, they’ll burn down in spite. Believe me, when blood runs, men are deaf to their gods and turn into beasts.

  —But I’m not a Peguan. I’m just a trader. The moment I spoke I was ashamed for separating myself from those who I have come to respect and love.

  —In the smoke and flames, you’ll just be a body standing in the way of what they want. I have seen men blinded by lust who thought nothing of killing a hundred men for a single cruzado. He looked again at Mya. She saw in his eyes something that he did not want her to hear, and she left the room without a word.

  —You can’t protect her and she can’t protect you. I’ve seen this with my own eyes. Soon after I came to Pegu, the king ordered the death of a general whose incompetence he took for disloyalty. At the execution the condemned man’s wife embraced her husband one last time. Before the guards could pull her away, she wound her unpinned hair around her husband’s neck and dared the executioner to lift his sword. With one swing of the blade, he cut both their heads off. I won’t forget her head lying on the bloody ground, the look of open-mouthed surprise on her face. And she was a general’s wife. He paused.—If you stay, Mya won’t be able to save you. Abraham, my brother, take her back to Venice, you don’t want to die in this heathen town. Come with me, what choice do you have? He plans to go to Melaka, Aceh, or wherever a ship at Martaban will take him.

  Antonio thinks I have no more than two weeks to decide. If the Toungoo forces march down along the Sittang River, it will be too dangerous to make our way to Martaban. I have to decide. I have to choose. Whether I go or not, Antonio needs my help. He doesn’t want to travel loaded with the reals he demanded in pay and is now burdened with.—It’s best to travel light—this I learned from my grandfather. I know you understand. He wants to buy stones from me—he can hide them more easily. A small pouch around his neck, under his shirt, or sewn in the lining of a coat will draw no attention. He knows the danger in this business. The king holds a monopoly on all the stones sold and taken from here. Though these are chaotic times, the customs people remain at their post, and all the goods I have bought must be accounted for. There is little need for him to ask me to be silent about our business.

  —If I’m caught, the king’s men will kill me. For the jewels or for my disloyalty—it won’t matter to the crows picking clean my bones. The king’s commanders fear that the spirit of the troops will be broken if we Portuguese leave. They live in denial: the spirit of the men is weak as the rice gruel they are fed.

  I will talk to Win. We will find a way to get him the jewels. I owe Antonio my life.

  The sky is dark, dear Joseph, and the storm approaches. Yet I feel strangely alive and calm. I think not so much of myself to believe that God sends these trials to test me alone. Yet it is a test I embrace, a test whose answer lies in its taking. I am called to choose, and in the choosing I live, even if death lies down the “deep and savage road” before me. I could have stayed comfortably in the Ghetto and died an old man, but my death in spirit would have come long before my body’s demise. There is much to do, many choices to be made.

  Sleep tonight in your soft bed with me in your prayers. Have no fear in your heart, knowing I listen to Dante’s counsel: “So long as conscience is not betrayed, I am prepared for Fortune to do her will.”

  Your cousin,

  Abraham

  Last night Abraham’s heart beat in the palm of my hand. He had fallen asleep with his arms about me. Afraid I might wake him, I didn’t move my hand that lay under his
chest. I never imagined that a man so tall, a man strong enough to travel across many lands and over seas bounded by unseen shores, would have a heart so small. It seemed no bigger than a hummingbird. The Buddha says all things are impermanent, but I never thought until last night of a world without Abraham in it. If he dies before me, I will die twice.

  27 August 1599

  Dear Joseph,

  I have stopped going to the godown and to the trading table. The trickle of stones has dried up. The days stagger slowly from dawn to dusk. Even Mya awakes fatigued and upset, her stomach churning with worry. Win’s mood floats up and down, like a leaf riding the waves. In the morning he is filled with hope and faith. By the afternoon he curses anyone a fool who would believe the king of Toungoo’s promise to treat Nandabayin like a Buddha; for Win they are hollow words, empty as the market stalls. He goes to sleep planning the exodus of his family and servants to the distant village of his cousin, and the next morning awakes trembling with fear that such a journey is no better than suicide.—Better to throw ourselves in the moat, to be eaten by alligators and be done with it. It is sad to see his once smiling face now shadowed with worry and suffering.

  Today, we sat on the verandah, looking out at the quiet street—even the old women with nothing to trade but gossip have stopped sitting on their haunches under the palm trees. Win looked up after a long silence.—Ab…ra…ham, it is hard to live as the Buddha instructs. My mind knows that life is suffering, but I am too weak to let go of those I love. My heart shudders with pain at what may happen to them. I can’t stop desiring their happiness. What comfort can I give him? If he were a beast without a heart, he would feel no pain. To love is to be human.

  Shaking off for a moment the mantle of foreboding that weighs heavy on his shoulders, Win has devised a simple plan to help Antonio and not endanger too greatly our affairs. Through the years he has collected stones of poor quality with cracks and inclusions and other imperfections that make them of no value on the market—even some colored glass that Chinese traders have tried to pass off as precious. We will substitute these for the rubies and spinels I will sell to Antonio. If the customs officials haven’t fled into the jungle, Win says, they will only count the stones and not pay attention to their quality. We will hover over them, distracting them with idle talk and moving the suspect stones quickly across the cloth.

  We ration rice and the few fresh vegetables and fish that come into the city. Mya is afraid to walk alone in the street—hungry children with angry eyes poke thin fingers at her arms, demanding a small coin or a scrap of food from her basket. She has seen them and their thin, spectral mothers sneaking into unguarded gardens to steal fruit and scavenge fallen coconuts. Win’s servants sit with thick wooden sticks, guarding day and night his durian trees and coconut palms. Yesterday Mya came back from the temple we had visited, her eyes red from crying—this is unusual, as she keeps her emotions well reined in. A few orphaned fish swim in the pond once crowded with carp: empty bellies have driven people to desecrate this sacred place. No prayers will be answered there.

  I am afraid we will die if we stay here. “We.” It must be “we.” If I leave without her, I will die. So it is no longer should we leave, but when and where we will go.

  Joseph, we are a family of flight, a people of flight, and I for too long fled myself. I had to travel to the far ends of the earth to find myself. So once more I will flee, but now with the one who has redeemed me from captivity. Her mouth says she will go wherever I want, but I can see in her eyes the fear of traveling far across waters and lands whose immensity she struggles to imagine. To travel to Pegu was for her a perilous adventure. Will she endure the hardships of sea and desert, and if she does, will she survive our damp stones and gray skies? Can we travel safely to her village or even farther, to the village of Win’s relatives? The road is likely to become even more treacherous with deserters prowling the jungles, and if we do survive its perils, what will our lives be in villages that may not welcome more mouths to feed, especially one on such a strange face as mine? Can you see me knee-deep in a paddy field or flicking the rump of a bullock with a bamboo rod? Mya laughed at that picture, and even I had to smile. So, I am a fountain of questions and doubts, but there is no time for the Talmudic dissection our uncle so revels in. Starving children lurk in the shadows. Outside the gates the enemies of Pegu are on the march.

  Your cousin,

  Abraham

  29 August 1599

  Dear Joseph,

  As the pharaoh needed your namesake, I need you now. My nights are full of dark dreams. Portents hover like noxious airs over even the gayest scenes.

  Last night I dreamt word had come to Uncle that I was returning. The house was in turmoil. Aunts and cousins bustled about, their cheeks glowing pink from the heat of the kitchen, their foreheads glistening with sweat. They had stayed well past the sixth hour, chopping and stirring and sautéing. The windows were clouded with steam. Every room was filled with the smell of cinnamon, cloves, fried garlic, and onions. Aunt Esther was marinating red mullet with pine nuts, raisins, and onions as if she were preparing to break the Yom Kippur fast. She had roasted a chicken with orange, lemon, and ginger, and kept repeating, though no one seemed to be listening, “His favorite, his favorite.” I don’t remember any dish being special to me: I was just a dutiful diner who never took great delight in what I ate but cleaned my plate and thanked the cook out of politeness, not pleasure. She and the other women rushed about in silent determination—you would have thought King David would soon arrive. The table sagged with salt cod with polenta, fish balls with cinnamon and cloves, peppers stuffed with eggplant, braised fennel, and in the center, at great expense, lamb shoulder smothered in olives. The excess was oppressive. The room was stifling. My body in sleep felt hot and damp.

  You were preparing to greet me at the dock. You strutted through the house, holding open a coat made especially for my arrival, showing off its brightly colored silk lining of purple and aquamarine. Uncle wouldn’t let you out the door for fear you would unbutton your coat and arouse the ire of the Gentiles with your peacock display. You “baaed” in his face like a sheep, and with red face and loud voice said that just because the Gentiles cursed us as God’s black sheep, you didn’t have to dress like one.

  Uncle looked paler and feebler than I remember. I thought as the dream passed before my eyes that my absence had turned him into an old man: all those hours in the synagogue praying for my safe return had turned him into a sallow, shrunken specter. He hurried as best he could through the streets toward the Riva degli Schiavoni to find my ship among those crowding the quay. He struggled to make his way through the black mass of merchants returning and leaving, pressing their money pouches close to their chests. Red-eyed relatives of the dead shepherded coffins up the gangplank for their burial journey to the Holy Land. My face stared blankly from an open coffin. Uncle didn’t see the coffin.

  Tears of joy streaming down his cheeks, he pushed his way through the crowded dock, trying to find me. He rushed toward an Israelite in yellow hat and black coat. When he turned around, he was a stranger. A small boy stood off to the side: he had my nose and Mya’s dark skin. He called out “Uncle,” but he was too small to be seen, his voice too soft to be heard above the noise of the quayside throng. Everyone had left the ship. Dusk was approaching.

  Uncle shuffled across the empty dock toward the Ghetto, before the gates closed.

  I woke heavyhearted and drenched in sweat. What direction were these dark images pointing? Don’t tell Uncle of this letter.

  Your cousin,

  Abraham

  30 August 1599

  Dear Joseph,

  How blind I have been.

  Mya rushed from the bed this morning, and I heard her throwing up outside the back of the house. I thought at first the fish we had eaten last night had upset her stomach and I went to comfort her. Khaing was wiping Mya’s face with a damp cloth.

  —Are you well?

  �
�Abraham, my husband, it is to be expected.

  Khaing grinned her toothless smile, and I knew. The Holy One, blessed be the All Merciful, has given me a second life. When Ruth of blessed memory carried my son, I was too young, too unworldly to understand the miracle bestowed on me. I thought it the natural course of things, my due as a husband. I have awakened. I stood before my wife and Khaing and cried without shame.

  I must stay here. I can’t allow Mya, with child, to bear the travails of the long journey home in the damp stench of a ship’s belly, heaved to and fro by wind and waves. I can’t imagine her bearing the pains of childbirth among strangers, stranded in a village on the way to Aleppo, crying out while sand beats against a hut’s dried-mud walls. What hope will there be for my child in those dangerous early days, if he takes his first breath on some rolling ship far from shore or in the smoky shadows of a desert campfire? The unknown dangers are too great—I can’t gamble the lives of Mya and my child.