The Day of Atonement Read Free

choked the life out of him. Instead, my father was gone, arrested. He would be put to the question. He would be made to confess a thousand things he had never done. They would make him say he had lit the candles on Friday night, that he shunned pork, that he fasted on Jewish holy days, that he studied forbidden books and spoke in evil languages. Then, when he at last admitted to all these things, he would be made to say which of his neighbors and business associates had done it with him. He would resist all of this at first, but in theend, everyone said what the Inquisitors wanted them to say. Everyone broke. We all knew it. My father would break too.
    There had been no public burnings for many years, but when my father finally emerged, a year or more from now, he would be emaciated and old. He would be impoverished and humiliated. And they had asked about my mother too. They would come for her soon enough. They were coming for all of us.
    This was what we had feared, every day, almost every hour. It had happened. Part of me felt like perhaps this should be a relief—we no longer must wait for it. That much was true, but it was no comfort. This was the end of everything I knew.
    We would never leave now. We would never escape to another country. All of that was gone. My family, my hopes, my life with Gabriela. It had vanished.
    “What are we going to do?” I asked. I was trying not to cry. I wanted to be like my mother. I wanted to be about goals and tasks.
    “We are doing what your father wanted,” she said. “What we both wanted. It is what we planned for.”
    “Will they arrest us too?” I asked.
    “I won’t let them have you,” my mother said. “Your father and I agreed on that.”
    “But what about you?” I demanded. I sounded like a whiny child, and I hated it.
    Her hazel eyes vanished into slits, and she turned her hard-set, oval face away from me.
    She pulled me onto the quays belonging to the Factory. Beyond the swarming chaos of the piers were the great ships moored out on the massive expanse of the Tagus, like floating palaces. Smaller barges moved back and forth, perpetually bringing goods to and from the shore. We stood in the thick of English laborers, English sailors, English factors. They moved around us like ants around a stone. We remained still until one of them approached.
    I knew him. He was a handsome and bewigged man, perhaps fortyyears of age. Charles Settwell, one of my father’s most important business contacts and his closest friend among the English.
    He took off his hat and bowed at my mother. “Senhora Raposa,” he said in reasonable Portuguese, “I cannot express the depths of my sorrow at this terrible news.”
    “Thank you, senhor,” she answered, her voice stiff and formal. “There is little time for sentiment, however. When does the packet leave?”
    “With the tide. Soon.”
    She nodded and swallowed hard. “Then there is some good fortune here, at least.”
    “Of a dark kind, yes,” Mr. Settwell agreed.
    “What is happening?” I demanded.
    My mother lowered herself to look directly in my eyes. She was a tall woman, and I had not yet come into my full height. When she put her hands on my shoulders and crouched down like this, it made me feel like a child. Sometimes I hated it. Now, I craved it.
    “They will come for me,” she told me. “They will come for you too. That you are so young will not stop them. You know that. Senhor Settwell has always been willing to help us. He will put you on the English packet, and you will go to England, where they can never harm you.”
    “No,” I said. “You must come with me. We must get Papa, and we’ll all go.”
    “It is too late for that,” my mother said. “It can only be you. They can smuggle a boy, not a woman. They cannot take the risk of me being caught. They risk enough with you.”
    “I can’t go,” I said. “I won’t go without you.”
    She began to cry then. I could see she was struggling not to, but