No Escape From the Alhambra E-Book

Kirsten Boie

• Herausgeber: Arctis US
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 564

Beschreibung

While on a school trip to Spain, Boston and his classmates visit an outdoor market. Boston reaches for an item that catches his eye when suddenly, everything is different. Through a door in time, he lands in 1492, in the shadow of the Spanish Inquisition. There, danger is around every corner. He arouses the suspicions of the Spanish royal court and at the palace of Alhambra, where he falls into the cruel clutches of the Inquisition. But two new friends, Tariq and Salomon, threatened as a Muslim and a Jew, support him in this desperate situation. Boston must find a way back to the present time while making sure the course of history stays intact.

Leseprobe

Kirsten Boie

NO ESCAPE FROM THE ALHAMBRA

Translated from the German by David Henry Wilson

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

The translation of this book was supported by a grant from the Goethe-Institut.

W1-Media, Inc.

Arctis Books USA

Stamford, CT, USA

Copyright © 2022 by W1-Media Inc. for this edition

Text copyright © Kirsten Boie

Alhambra first published by Verlag Friedrich Oetinger GmbH, Hamburg, 2007

First hardcover English edition published by W1-Media Inc./Arctis USA 2022

The Library of Congress Control Number: 2021951733

English translation copyright © David Henry Wilson, 2022

Cover image credits

Background: VLADJ55/Shutterstock.com

Arch: Marina TP/Shutterstock.com

Silhouette: grynold/Shutterstock.com

Cover design by Kate Gartner

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

ISBN978-1-64690-619-2

www.arctis-books.com

ALHAMBRA

My counsel, though, is this: that you accept

The state of things exactly as it stands.

Each of you has the ring your father gave you:

So let each one of you believe that his

Is the true ring. [. . .]

Let each of you compete with one another

To bring to light the power of the stone

In his own ring! And let this power show gently,

With warmth of nature and with acts of kindness,

With deep humility and trust in God.

And when the stones have shown their mighty powers

Among the children of your children’s children,

Across the many thousand years I’ll ask

That they should stand once more before this chair.

But there will be a wiser man than me

Seated upon the chair, ready to speak.

Go now! Thus saith the humble judge.

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

Nathan the Wise

Prologue

Granada, Spain the present

It seldom rains in Granada during the spring. But when the heavens’ floodgates open (and there is no better word to describe what happened there that morning), the city at the foot of the mountains is completely transformed.

There are puddles on the uneven granite slabs outside the cathedral and between the black and white cobblestones in the Realejo, channels grooved by the centuries suddenly turn into raging torrents, pouring through the narrow lanes of the Moorish quarter of the Albaicín and along the alleyways of the Alcaicería, the bazaar between Plaza Bib-Rambla and the old Caravanserai. The dealers hurriedly spread endless sheets of plastic over pointed shoes, leather cushions, brass lamps, and hookahs. The African trader on the Calle de los Reyes Católicos makes more in a few hours with his cheap umbrellas than he’s earned in the rest of the year, as the tourists—who have come from the cold, rainy North, expecting nothing but sunshine at the end of their journey—practically snatch his wares out of his hands.

Little old ladies dressed in black, their slippers soaking wet, bravely make their way up or down the hill, as if oblivious to the weather, to buy fish or bread. The streets gradually become deserted. The old ladies open the doors to their houses and have a last look at the grayness behind them.

They know that by tomorrow the sun will have restored its colors to the city, will have dried up the puddles, and will present the tourists with the beautiful scenes at the foot of the Sierra that they have been promised by their guidebooks. Maybe even by this afternoon. Only in winter is it the rain that tells the truth and the sun that lies.

In their kitchens, the old ladies put the fish in the fridge, or the bread on the table. Soon, they will wake up one morning, and the last traces of snow on the mountaintops beyond the Alhambra will have disappeared. And glowing brightly, the Sierra’s summer will make its way into the city. It has always been so. And this year it will be the same.

1

Granada, Spain April, the present

On the approach, they’d dipped through the clouds, and when the plane started to shake, Boston had once again pulled at the buckle of his safety belt to make sure it was properly fastened. He’d been relieved to see that in the seat next to him, Kadir had surreptitiously done the same, as had Tukan on the other side of the aisle. At check-in both of them had been furious that they hadn’t been seated together.

“Why do I have to sit next to Boston?” Kadir had shouted. “Why can’t I sit next to Tukan?”

“There’s only an aisle between you,” Mrs. Hilbert had said. “You will be sitting next to Tukan, so stop moaning, Kadir.”

“Sit down, everyone, please sit down!” the Spanish student teacher had shouted, rushing nervously up the aisle. As if anyone had thought of doing anything else.

“Crap, crap, and crap,” Kadir had said, making a face behind Mrs. Hilbert’s back. After that, Boston had made himself as small and unobtrusive as possible. During the flight he hadn’t even taken the book out of the bag at his feet, although he was eager to learn how Frodo would escape from his seemingly hopeless situation. If he’d so much as moved, Kadir might have started moaning again. Instead, he’d stared out of the window at the clouds, which from above looked like giant-sized balls of cotton wool. Overhead was sun, sun, nothing but sun.

When they landed, Málaga Airport lay swathed in deep gray, and the rain was pouring down on the glistening asphalt of the runway.

“Oh, great!” said Sergei, as the passengers squirmed and jostled left and right between the seats, waiting for the exit door to open. “We might just as well have stayed at home with all that crap coming down.”

“I suppose that’s just about the limit of your vocabulary, huh?” said an older man. His red face added to the angry tone of his voice. During the flight, most of the passengers had pretended not to mind all these teens—as if they hadn’t really noticed the thirty-two boys and girls. But in any case, Boston thought they’d actually behaved pretty well throughout. They hadn’t made too much noise or anything like that. And only the adults had been drinking—and getting jollier by the minute. The kids weren’t allowed to drink. First of all, the stewardesses wouldn’t have served them, and secondly, all the parents had had to sign a form to say they agreed that if their children were caught drinking alcohol, they would be sent home to Germany unaccompanied and at their own expense. We’ll see, thought Boston. We’ll see if the teachers really dare to do that.

“Phew, about time!” said Kadir. The line in the aisle slowly began to inch forward. Boston stayed in his seat. There was no need to get up until the pushing and shoving was over.

* * *

Manuel Corazón groaned as he sat down in his dingy shop on the little stool right next to the door. Twice he’d had to use a broomstick to lift the sheets off his goods out in the alleyway so that the rain, which had collected in the hollows of the transparent plastic, wouldn’t weigh too heavily. If it kept pouring like this, it wouldn’t be long before he’d have to go out again with his broomstick.

“¡Mierda!” he mumbled. The Alcaicería market depended on its sunshine. Only when it was sunny would the tourists come from the coast in their buses to visit the Alhambra. Then they would make a little detour down to the winding alleys of the city and to the Cathedral, led by their helpful guides to the bazaar, where they would breathe in the exotic aromas that still wafted their way through the narrow lanes, even five hundred years after the departure of the Moors. Since the tourists from the North had been coming in ever greater numbers, thought Manuel cynically, the aromas had actually been getting stronger every year. The visitors would let out little cries of excitement as they twiddled the glassblowers’ handiwork around, or let their fingers slide over the brass lamps, or cast expert eyes on ashtrays decorated with Arabic lettering that made them look like enamel. They examined silver jewelry, soapstone figures, camel-skin stools, all made in Taiwan. The dealers would smile and nod and patiently wait. In the end, the tourists always bought something, because hardly anyone wanted to leave the Alcaicería without some kind of souvenir. The guides, who would sit in the Plaza drinking a cup of coffee as they waited for their flocks, would get a little thank-you from the dealers in the shape of a few euros and cents.

But when it rained, the visitors stayed in their hotels on the coast, playing bingo or watching TV to see what was going on back home. When it rained, the only people who made money were those working in the hotel bars between Gibraltar and Almería, where the customers would order coffee or hot chocolate and rum—which they called Lumumba. Even the pubs on the Plaza Bib-Rambla would be empty, though they’d put up invitingly large umbrellas and awnings over their tables to keep off the heavy rains. With some relief, Manuel thought the time was now past when every morning he would have to ask himself yet again whether it was worth opening the shop or not. But what else would he do? So long as his neighbors opened their shops and piled up their pointed shoes, lace tablemats, and pendant keyrings outside their shops, he would do the same. Much of the time when things had gone quiet, the traders in the alley would stand around talking among themselves, with a cortado or a cigarette or a puff of a hookah.

Once again, he’d failed to use the winter break to make a decision about what he should do.

Manuel twitched and then nervously looked all around. Good—no one was watching.

He carefully pulled it out. He’d found it again weeks ago, when he’d been looking through the shelves in the dark rear section of his shop. It was only in the winter that he had time to himself, when there were no customers calling him out again into the alley, trying with their lopsided grins to beat him down to an absurdly low price for a silken shawl or a coffee mug—only to end up buying it at an absurdly high price anyway.

Manuel sighed. Every autumn he would set himself the task of having a good look through all the items in his store, to sort all the stuff that was simply taking up space, and to put out front anything that might perhaps be worth selling. Every autumn, as soon as it started to rain, he would begin to tidy his shelves until yet again he would be overcome by boredom and would go out into the alley to have a chat with his colleagues. Boredom and unease.

He turned and stared into the darkness at the back of the shop. There had been no mistake when last autumn he’d suddenly found it again after all these years. It was the first thing he’d seen when he’d lifted the lid of the dusty old cardboard box to see what might be hiding in there. It had Arabic lettering on the surface, and the edge was chipped where the tile had been knocked out of the wall: wa-la ghaliba illa’llah—but hardly anybody spoke Arabic in Granada now.

He’d wondered why it had suddenly turned up again, why now, this winter, after he hadn’t seen it for years and had almost forgotten about it. After he’d almost begun to believe it had never existed. Many memories, thought Manuel, are like the tales that accompany them—nothing but lies.

He would have liked to forget about it. He would have liked to pretend that it wasn’t there. Although he was also curious.

Manuel stood up. He didn’t need to shake the water off the plastic sheets yet. It was April now, and he still hadn’t made any decision.

* * *

“Of course you’re going, Boston!” his mother had said, when she’d come into his room to say goodnight after the parents’ evening and found him lying in bed with a book in his hand. “It’s much too good a chance for you to miss.”

“It’s too expensive!” Boston had murmured, and then immediately felt a pang of regret. His mother always said it was rude to talk about money, and in any case, money wasn’t the most important thing in life.

But Boston was pretty sure she only said that because she didn’t have any. When she’d started college, she’d gone to the United States for a year, and there she’d met a handsome young American. When she’d returned to Germany, she was pregnant and had given birth to Boston, whom she’d named after the town where his dad lived. That was why she’d never got her degree.

“If my dad was so rich,” Boston had always asked, “why didn’t you tell him about me?”

She’d squirmed a little and then said that at the time she simply didn’t know if she wanted all the complications that would certainly have arisen.

But Boston felt fairly certain that he would have preferred to have the complications, as well as his dad. Anyone who could say that his forefathers had sailed with the Mayflower nearly four hundred years ago was about the equivalent of a baron.

Boston had studied up on the Mayflower, and then he’d made up his mind that he wouldn’t be put off by any “complications” and would go to America and find his dad just as soon as he’d got the money.

For the moment, though, he didn’t have the money—not even for the trip to Spain. But of course the Granada trip had been a good reason for him to choose Spanish in school, rather than economics or an extra sport. And also—he really liked the language. He was easily at the top of his class. The Spanish department went to Spain once a year for two weeks, and as soon as you started the course, you could pay in a certain amount a month at school in order to save up the whole amount. The Spanish trip was famous at school, and some people in the upper classes who had plenty of money had actually been two or three times. So it had to be good.

“We’ll manage it somehow!” his mother had said. “What are you delivering newspapers for? Think of it, Boston—Spain! I’ve never been there myself!”

Not that that means anything, thought Boston. You’ve never been anywhere except the U.S., and that was a thousand years ago.

“And not just Mallorca, or the Costa del Sol, or all those other cheap places! Granada! It’s a really wonderful city according to Mrs. Hilbert, with a castle and a cathedral and . . .”

“Do they have clothes stores there, and dance clubs?” he’d asked.

His mother had looked at him in surprise, but then she’d laughed. “They’re bound to,” she’d said. “Anyway, I’ve already told your school you’re going.” And that was that.

As Boston watched the rain trickling down the window of the bus taking them from Málaga to Granada (which was cheaper than a direct flight), he wondered whether perhaps he should have backed out of the trip. Only three of his classmates had come—Kadir, Tukan, and Sergei—and from the year ahead, there were three girls—Sylvia, Yesim, and he didn’t know the other. There were also six boys. The rest of the group were much older than him. Maybe he could hang out with the girls. Kadir and Tukan wanted nothing to do with him, and it had already been obvious at the airport that Sergei had his eye on the girls.

The rain was now whipping its way over the glass in uneven rivulets. Heavy drops formed jagged, horizontal tracks. From front to back, curving almost reluctantly downward, they eventually made their way to the rubber seal at the bottom of the window before finally disappearing down the metal side of the bus. Occasionally it seemed as if one particular drop stayed still for a while before suddenly hurrying along the same track as its fellows.

And outside, beyond the window, was Spain—the Costa del Sol. Uniform estates, apartment blocks, and endless suburbs. There was a golfing hotel right next to the motorway, with giant-sized billboards in Spanish, German, and English extolling its “unique” location. They can say that again! thought Boston, and he almost had the feeling that he was beginning to cheer up. Sometimes, behind the jungle of houses and between the hills, he caught a glimpse of a dull gray strip, though it immediately disappeared again. The Mediterranean.

“What a crapload, huh,” said Sergei next to him. “Want some chewing gum?”

Boston was startled, but nodded. Of course, Tukan and Kadir had gone to sleep in the seat in front of them. Kadir’s head lay on Tukan’s shoulder, and one of the senior girls had taken a photo of them. Quite a lot of the kids were asleep now. They’d taken the first flight out that morning, because it had been the cheapest. All the same, Sergei didn’t have to speak to him, let alone offer him some chewing gum.

“If my old folks could see this!” Sergei mumbled and held the roughly torn packet out to Boston. “My dad worked his socks off doing overtime ’cause this trip is so expensive, and now look at the weather!”

Boston nodded again. “The weather’s always a bit dicey at this time of year,” he said. “I read that—”

“The professor’s off again!” said Sergei, shaking his head. But to Boston’s relief, it didn’t sound too aggressive. “Crap, man, it’ll either get better or stay the same, so who cares what you read. It won’t make any difference.”

“No,” said Boston, meekly.

“Think I’ll have a nap too,” said Sergei. “Nothing much to look at out there anyway. But make sure you wake me up if I start leaning on you, eh? Just give me a shove.”

“Okay,” said Boston. He slid away from Sergei, getting as close to the window as he could.

The rain stripes on the windows began to get less frequent and more jagged. The sky was brightening. Boston closed his eyes.

* * *

Manuel Corazón shook the rain off the plastic sheets, which he then rolled up with practiced efficiency. It would have been better if he’d left them out there to dry for a little longer, now that the sun was shining again from high up in an azure sky, but the first tourists were already coming into the alley, their wet umbrellas in their hands and—now that the weather was more like what the guidebooks had promised—looked quite cheerful and content.

From experience, he knew that among the first purchases would be Spanish espadrilles—alpargatas—or just occasionally Arabian shoes of artistically punched leather, which the visitors would put on instead of the soaked shoes they’d been wearing as they’d walked in the rain along Granada’s bumpy streets. There were two women already standing outside his shop, fingering some plastic flip-flops.

Manuel smiled and pushed the rolled-up sheets deep into the shop between his stool and some cushion covers. In the evening, when the last tourists had gone, he would bring them out again and spread them on the ground to dry. The first coins were now being held out, and the first sandals being pulled onto the rain-soaked feet of a child. He gave the woman a bag to put the wet shoes in.

Two families with children were looking at his display and laughing, holding up some pointed shoes, and drawing one another’s attention to baubles and bangles. Perhaps they’d traveled together from the North, or perhaps they’d gotten to know one another on the beach or in the hotel restaurant. He knew that they would need some time to decide what to buy for their friends back home or for themselves. He took a step back into his shop. Like the other vendors in the bazaar, he also knew that they would find it easier to decide if he didn’t stand over them trying to influence them. Tourists were like that, though you needed to pick the right moment and smilingly help them to turn a half decision into a whole one. And you shouldn’t watch them or supervise them. They rarely stole anything—and never anything valuable. Not that he had anything valuable to steal.

Manuel turned around and gazed at the open cardboard box. He would put the tile with all the others. They had Moorish decorations, were made somewhere in East Asia, and had bits of felt stuck on the bottom so the customers could use them as coasters. If anyone asked him why this particular one looked so worn and shabby, he could say that was precisely what made it valuable. It was the only one that was genuine—really old, though no one could tell exactly how old it was.

His heart beat faster. It would not be a lie, thought Manuel. And why should I have to explain it to them? They’d think it was an old wives’ tale anyway, and maybe that’s what it is. I’d be rid of it, and the buyer would have gotten a bargain. When I think about it, that’s the only genuine thing I’ve got—and of course it would be illegal to take it out of the country.

He picked up the cardboard box and carried it to the front. A little boy held out a furry toy bird with wire neck and legs, and in his other hand a pile of coins. Manuel smiled, picked out the change, and stroked the boy’s hair. He knew that the tourists appreciated the fact that the shopkeepers were nice to children, and why shouldn’t he give them what they expected? They’d be all the more inclined to buy something next time.

“¡Hola, chico!” said Manuel. The boy jerked his head away, ran to his mother and pressed up against her legs. Before they got back to the hotel, the bird’s head and feet would have worked loose. The less you pay, the less you play.

“I’ll have this, please!” said a man, holding out a carafe. “How much?”

Manuel put the box down between the other tiles and worked out the bill. Why was he always so afraid to touch that tile? Did anyone really believe that what his father had told him, and his grandfather had told his father, and so on back through the generations, was really true? People didn’t just disappear, no matter what the oldest of the vendors might say. He believed it when he was a child, and as he’d told himself a thousand times since, it’s not easy to get rid of your childish beliefs, no matter what your adult brain might tell you. In any case, it hadn’t happened for a very long time—if it had ever happened at all.

But you never know, Manuel thought, and quickly crossed himself. After all, anything was possible, since the tale had persisted for generations in the Alcaicería. And no one had proved that it wasn’t true. Sooner or later, a customer would get a bargain. And no one could guess what sort of bargain it was.

2

Breakfast, of course, was pathetic.

“I don’t believe it!” said Sergei, staring at his mug of thin, milky coffee. “And my old man has forked out a fortune for this! You’d think they’d have a breakfast buffet, eh? This is a hotel, isn’t it?”

“This is a hostel, chico,” said Mrs. Hilbert. “And you couldn’t get anywhere more central, as you might have noticed yesterday, when we went exploring. Would you prefer to have a dream breakfast and then have to travel for an hour by bus or train to get into town?”

“Sergei wants a central location and a dream breakfast!” said Kadir. He and Tukan were sitting opposite Sergei and Boston at one of the Formica-topped breakfast tables. No one had complained yesterday when, without asking, Boston had quietly put his case down on the last vacant bed in the four-bedded room. Of course no one had exactly cheered, either. “I think it’s cool that we’ve got all the shops just around the corner.”

“Typical,” said Mrs. Hilbert. “You wouldn’t like to say something nice about the Cathedral being there as well?”

“Ugh!” groaned Kadir, shaking his head. But all the same, he looked very pleased.

They all look very pleased, thought Boston—even Sergei. As if anyone really cared about breakfast. The sun was shining, the hostel was right in the center of the city on the Gran Vía, and nobody was bothered by the fact that it was shabby and not particularly clean. Of course, they’d all had a good moan, but on a school trip you just had to do what you had to do. The shops were a stone’s throw away, and so too were the cathedral, the Albaicín, and the Alcaicería. Two stones’ throws away, high above them, though you couldn’t see it from the hostel, was the Alhambra. Not that anybody was interested once they’d been told where the shops were.

Mrs. Hilbert and three of the “veterans” from the upper school, feigning acute boredom as if they’d been born in Granada, had shown them around yesterday.

“So none of you get lost when you’re out in your free time,” Mrs. Hilbert had said. “I presume you’d like some free time.”

“Yeah!” Sergei had yelled.

“Nothing but!” said Boston, though perhaps not quite so loud. It was enough, though, for Tukan to give him a friendly poke in the ribs.

But of course a school trip to Spain could hardly start off with a stretch of free time. “And so this morning, we’re going straight to the Alhambra,” announced Mrs. Hilbert.

“Oh no,” groaned one of the seniors. “Not on the first day! I thought we might go to the sea as well.”

“As well means as well,” said Mrs. Hilbert, “and as well doesn’t mean on the first day. Today we’ve got tickets for the Alhambra, which I booked online three months ago. You didn’t seriously think we could just walk in there, did you?”

“Would anyone care?” whispered Tukan, and Boston laughed louder than he need have done.

“Exactly!” he said, even though Mrs. Hilbert was now peering in their direction. He was almost certain that she knew he was looking forward to the visit—maybe the only one who was, apart from some of the seniors.

“Boston?” said Mrs. Hilbert. “Is something wrong?”

“Nothing—everything’s fine,” said Boston, forcing himself to give her a grin. Mrs. Hilbert sighed and shook her head. Nobody gave him a pat on the back, but all the same he knew that he’d taken another little step toward earning his place at the table and in the four-bedded room.

“We’ll meet at the front door in twenty minutes,” said Mrs. Hilbert. “There’s quite a climb ahead.”

The groan was as loud as necessary for such an announcement. But Boston could see from the faces that everyone was happy to be here.

* * *

al-Andalus, April 1492

The Queen looked across the sun-drenched Court of the Lions, where the water softly splashed and bubbled high in the center of the white fountain, spraying out in graceful curves from the jaws of the twelve lions whose backs bore the weight of the great basin. She still found it hard to believe that all this beauty belonged to her, and every day she gave thanks to the Lord.

“But if you leave them unpunished . . .” said Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor. His long, thin shadow fell across the heavy stones of the court. “Then they will mock you. In secret, before their loathsome altars of faithlessness. Have we not proved in the other cities of your empire, in Burgos, Toledo, Córdoba, and Cádiz, that only through death . . .”

Death, always death. The stake, people dressed in the sanbenito—the penitent’s robes painted with signs of the Devil—screaming, contorting, then silence except for the crackling of the fire.

She was strong. She had borne six children and, with her husband Ferdinand, had united two kingdoms. When a battle had seemed like a lost cause, she had mounted her steed, galloped to the battlefield, and inspired her soldiers. Granada, too, would still be in the hands of the unbelievers had she not ridden to the military camp and had she not built Santa Fé, the town in the form of the holy cross, on the Vega in sight of the Alhambra. She made decisions when they needed to be made, and she was resolute.

Only in matters of religion did she become small and humble and hesitant. There was nothing so difficult as getting to know the will of the Lord, because He had never deigned to speak to her directly. Only through the lips of His dedicated priests did He inform her of His wishes, and who could say to her that His servants always understood His wishes correctly? Where was the proof that all these deaths throughout her kingdom, these terrible burnings, killing for expiation, truly were the will of the Lord?

“We have fulfilled your requirements and signed the edict against the Jews,” said Isabella. “Should that not suffice? Can we not wait now until the period has expired that we have granted to them?”

“Of all rulers, the Lord has chosen you to raise the banner of the one true faith over His lands of Castile and Aragón,” said Torquemada. “Would He otherwise have blessed you with victory after victory over the unbelievers? With success upon success, if it were not His will that you should establish His kingdom upon earth in this land, my daughter? And is it not of prime importance that the heretics be punished for their sins?”

“Our Lord preached forgiveness,” murmured Isabella. Everything would have been so much simpler if the Lord had made His will clearer to everyone, including herself. But it had pleased Him to leave things unclear. “Love thy neighbor!” He had had His son preach. And even “Love thine enemies!” But His priests spoke a different language, and had they not studied the Holy Scriptures, and were there not many such priests?

“The Lord is forgiveness!” cried Torquemada passionately. “He forgives even the unbelievers when they turn their backs on sin and repent. But those of whom I speak now deceive not only us, my daughter, for if they did, then indeed we should forgive them as our Lord Jesus Christ has preached to us that we forgive those that trespass against us. But they deceive the Lord Himself, for their goal is no less than the destruction of Holy Mother Church! What use then, my daughter, would be all your victories over the infidels if now you look kindly upon the enemies of the faith and permit them to reconquer the land on behalf of their false gods?”

“But does not the fifth commandment say: Thou shalt not kill?” asked Isabella. Yet again she was confronted by things that confused her—it was all so contradictory. It was so easy to misunderstand, so easy to commit a sin without even wanting to. “And does not this commandment stand above all others?”

The bishop smiled. “Above all others, my daughter, stands the first commandment,” he said. “I am the Lord thy God, and it goes on to say: Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Has it not been your experience that the blessing of the Lord alights upon our shoulders when we strike for His glory? When killing is necessary in order to bring the unbelievers to our holy faith, and to punish the unrepentant, does He not then demand of His children that to this end they regretfully put aside the fifth commandment?”

Isabella did not answer. Capturing Granada from the unbelievers had been as essential as the crusades to the Holy Land in former times—of that she had no doubt. But all this, all the things the Grand Inquisitor was now asking of her . . .

“And does not the commandment to honor the Lord come above all others because it is the highest duty of every Christian to obey it, so that the rest of the commandments, no matter how sacred they may be, must therefore be secondary to that one?”

Isabella nodded wearily. “Let me think about it,” she said. Torquemada knew that this was the end of the conversation, and he bowed.

At the door, he turned once more. “Do not delay for too long, Your Majesty,” he said, and there was a new sharpness in his tone. “If you delay too long, it may be too late. Today is Thursday. By tomorrow evening you may have the evidence you require. Praise the Name of the Lord.”

“Praise the Name of the Lord,” said Isabella.

He’s pushing so hard because he’s so old, she thought. Perhaps he’s afraid that the Lord will not grant him many more years on this earth, and he’s anxious to complete his task.

Seventy-two—she knew scarcely anyone who was as old as the Grand Inquisitor. The mere fact that the Lord had given him the gift of all these years was proof that He saw him as His instrument, no matter how cruel his demands might seem to be.

She closed her eyes.

* * *

Granada, April, the present

It was a nice feeling, walking straight past the endless lines and attendants at the Alhambra ticket offices up on the hill.

Tukan took off an imaginary hat and waved it toward them. “Have a nice day, folks!” he said. “Have fun standing there for hours just to look at a few old stones!”

It was difficult to tell if the tourists understood what he was saying. Boston was able to make out various languages—English, French, German—as well as some that he’d never heard before and certainly couldn’t understand. Danish perhaps, Dutch, Swedish, and Japanese.

And these people were quite prepared to wait there for hours. They all wanted to see the Alhambra, the Moorish palace high above the city. Strange that there should even be a Moorish palace here, in the middle of Europe. He had listened attentively when one of the seniors had given a presentation during one of their classes—with PowerPoint and pointer—in preparation for the trip. All the same, no one could really imagine that once upon a time, the Muslims had ruled this country for seven hundred years—and that they had built a city full of mosques. You could be sure that not even half the tourists staying on the coast, just an hour’s drive away, would have a clue.

“Stick together!” cried Mrs. Hilbert.

The Spanish student teacher waggled his arms somewhat pathetically, as if trying to prove that there was some point in his being there. “You won’t be able to get in without me!” he cried.

But the attendant at the entrance was already waving them through.

“I could do with a drink!” said Sergei.

“Me too!” said Tukan. “I’m beginning to feel like an old stone myself.”

“Anyone got anything to drink?” asked Kadir.

But Boston had stopped listening to them. There were cypresses on either side of the narrow path, so tall that the sun never reached the ground, which was covered with mosaics crafted in black and white stones that seemed to have only just been laid there.

Boston wondered whether they really were old. Were they original? Could they possibly have been able to do such things over five hundred years ago? And how had they managed to find so many stones of exactly the same size? Had they filed them down, or what?

“Hey, did you hear?” said Tukan. “Kadir wants to know if you’ve got something to drink.”

Boston reached into his backpack, where his cell phone was nestling next to his wallet. Last night he’d recharged it—amazingly, there’d been a socket in the hostel bedroom.

“No, ’fraid not,” he said.

“Hell, I’m dying of thirst!” said Kadir. “Shit!”

“Stick together!” cried Mrs. Hilbert. “Robert, count them, please! So, we’ve now reached our first port of call. The Generalife was the summer residence of the Moorish rulers . . .”

What did they need a summer residence for? thought Boston. Below, on the side of the hill, hidden among trees, lay the buildings of the Alhambra—towers with embrasures, towers with decorative roofs, palace walls. Wasn’t all that enough for the Moorish rulers?

“. . . the most beautiful gardens in the world,” said Mrs. Hilbert. “And look at the water everywhere. They had to bring it here all the way from the Sierra Nevada through a large aqueduct. Sylvia? What’s an aqueduct?”

“Eh?” said Sylvia, looking up from her cell phone with a startled expression. She ran her chewing gum around in her mouth. “Um . . . sorry, I didn’t quite hear you.”

“You’d better hear me from now on,” said Mrs. Hilbert. “I’ll ask you the same question again this evening, and if need be, you’ll have to sit in your room with my guidebook and do a bit of reading so the trip isn’t entirely wasted. What is an aqueduct?”

Boston kept his arms tightly by his sides. This was not the time to ruin everything with his roommates. One of the seniors explained how the Moors transported water, speaking in the superior tone befitting a senior explaining things to juniors, and he went on to give details about the whole system of subterranean pipes and basins on the Alhambra hill.

“And that’s why the Patio de la Acequía . . .” said Mrs. Hilbert. She’d been here so many times, she probably knew it all by heart. Red tiles beside a long and narrow, rectangular basin sunk into the ground. An endless series of fountains down both the long sides, shooting out uniform arches of water—each one seeming to consist of thousands of individual drops—that almost touched at their highest point over the center of the basin before they tumbled down to the surface below. Against the wall, deep purple bougainvillea—Boston knew the name only because every summer his mother would try to keep the same sickly-looking plant alive on their balcony.

“. . . and one more look!” said Mrs. Hilbert. “We won’t be coming back here, and I don’t suppose you’ll be spending your spare time up here either. After this, it’s the Alhambra.”

Boston tried to commit the scene to memory. He would tell his mother about the bougainvillea, as that might well be the thing she’d be most interested in. She’d told him to pay close attention so that he could give her a precise account when he got home. These bougithingummies certainly don’t curl up and die, he would tell her. You can’t imagine how massive they are. And all the flowers!

He had to run to catch the others. They were already disappearing down the steps, almost out of sight. There were just three seniors who had stayed behind like him, only he suspected they really wanted to have a smoke. “What do you want?” one of them asked quite rudely as he passed them by.

Boston gave him a quick nod and hurried past. If he wasn’t running so late, he could have photographed the whole scene and shown it to his mother. But maybe he wouldn’t have done that anyway—not with the others standing around watching him.

* * *

al-Andalus, April 1492

When Torquemada had gone, Isabella went out into the courtyard. The rays of the evening sun were shining only on the eastern facade, giving a pink glow to the arcades of double columns and the arabesques above the arches. A last glimmer of light in the expectation of darkness. Kala al-Hamra, the Red Castle. She spoke very little Arabic—there had long been no need to do so.

Behind her, the Hall of the Two Sisters lay in shadow. The star-shaped ceiling was decorated with thousands of stalactites in gold and lapis lazuli. Why had the Lord created such beauty through the hands of these unbelievers? She had asked herself the same question over and over again as she admired the elegance of the mosques. The lightness and lacelike delicacy of the stonework, and the palaces which later even the Christian rulers had had built by Moorish craftsmen in Castile and Aragón, along exactly the same lines as those of the Moorish rulers.

Why had the Lord allowed the infidels to fashion such wonders if at the same time He was demanding that they should be destroyed?

Or converted, thought Isabella. That was more likely, and that, after all, was what Torquemada was demanding as well. Conversion. But they are so determined not to repent, the Moors and the Jews, or when we insist, they pretend to have accepted our true faith, go to Mass, go to Holy Communion, kneel before the Cross, pray to the Virgin Mary—and behind closed doors they mock Holy Mother Church, pour scorn on the Lord, and go on performing their heathen rites. They’re doing it everywhere in Spain, the Jewish conversos and the Muslim moriscos, so why should it be any different here in Granada? And I know that they’re doing it, and I cannot allow it, because otherwise I shall be as guilty as they are—even more so, because unlike them I have known since childhood which is the only true faith.

Torquemada is right. The Lord has chosen me to bring our true Catholic faith to the godless ones. There have to be sacrifices.

She knelt down. Her stiff silk taffeta dress with silver embroidery from Almería rustled as she knelt. “Holy Virgin Mary, Mother of God,” she prayed.

She was Queen of Castile. Together with her husband Ferdinand, King of Aragón, she had conquered the last stronghold of the unbelievers. The beautiful city of Granada, flower of the Sierra, had at last, after so many centuries, returned to the hands of the faithful. But her husband merely scoffed when she tried to talk to him about her doubts, about the expulsion, torture, and execution of the unrepentant, about her fears that she may be misinterpreting the will of the Lord.

“We have conquered Málaga and Almería and now Granada belongs to us, and are we not richer than we have ever been?” he asked. From the very beginning, that alone had been his goal, and nothing but that. Sometimes she feared for his immortal soul. “Isn’t that proof enough even for you, my pious dove, that it is the Lord’s will?”

He did not, of course, say such things in public. In public he would fall on his knees, just as she did.

To be free of her doubts, to gain insight into what the Lord did truly want of her, she had no one to turn to except her priests.

“Holy Virgin Mary, Mother of God,” whispered Isabella. “Have mercy upon me.” Tomorrow, from the hill of the Alhambra, they would be able to see where smoke was rising above the roofs in the judería and where the sky was clear.

“Pray for me.”

For years she had fought to become Queen. But she had never dreamed what burdens the office would lay on her shoulders.

“Have mercy upon me.”

3

Granada, April, the present

It was not until they were in the Sala de los Embajadores, and she wanted to tell the group all about the frieze, that Mrs. Hilbert realized she had lost her guidebook.

“It was still in my bag when we were up at the palace!” she said, bending over the bag, which she had been carrying over her shoulder the whole time. Open. In Spain. Maybe she thought that all the tales about pickpockets were untrue.

There was the rattle of a bunch of keys, and then one after another, she took out her glasses case, a wallet, and a packet of breath mints. She almost buried her head in the depths of the bag. “It’s not possible! Where could I have left it?”

Boston saw Tukan give Sergei a nudge and then raise both thumbs. But since Mrs. Hilbert had already been here a hundred times and knew virtually everything by heart, the celebration was certainly premature.

“Robert, haven’t you got one, too?”

The student teacher shook his head in despair. He was no use even now.

Mrs. Hilbert sighed. “Okay, then, we’ll have to do without. I want you to look at the wall anyway. What do you see?”

Sylvia sighed, too, and with some spit on the end of her index finger tried to rub an ice cream stain off her short dress. Yesim was using her right thumb to type a message at breakneck speed on her cell phone, as if there was no such thing as international data rates. A girl from tenth grade was whispering to a boy from twelfth grade and tossed her blond hair back over her shoulder.

“Well?” asked Mrs. Hilbert. “Nothing? You can’t see anything?”

“It’s like something carved in the stones,” said the girl helpfully. There were no ironic cheers or cries of bravo. They’d all gathered from Mrs. Hilbert’s tone of voice that her mood had gone down below zero.

“Wonderful!” she said. “Thank you, Elvira. Now can you be a little more precise? None of you were listening, then, when Erkhan gave you his lecture a little while back?”

Erkhan poked his finger in the air, but Mrs. Hilbert was not having that now. “Tukan?” she asked. “Kadir?”

“Why us, huh?” asked Tukan. “Why are you always picking on us?”

“Don’t you take Koran classes on the weekend—isn’t that what I heard?” said Mrs. Hilbert. “So maybe you can read out what it says in Arabic on the wall. Isn’t that from the Koran? Or can’t you translate it?”

“Crap!” said Tukan.

“There is no Conqueror but God,” said Erkhan, pointing to the frieze. “Over and over again, all around. There is no Conqueror but God.”

“Right,” said Mrs. Hilbert. “If you can’t remember something like that, Tukan, you might as well go and play football instead of studying the Koran.” She went out into the courtyard without waiting to see if anyone followed her.

“Crap!” said Tukan again. He looked thoroughly fed up.

“Has she got something against us?” asked Kadir. “Yeah, she’s got something against us!”

“She’s only against the fact that nobody listens!” said Sergei. “And she’s in a lousy mood ’cause someone’s stolen her guidebook. That’s why she’s so grumpy.”

“Nobody would steal a guidebook and leave her wallet in the bag,” said Tukan. “Nobody’s that foolish. She’s just dropped it somewhere. Maybe just absentminded.”

The three ninth-grade girls were standing in front of a wall, taking photographs. Maybe it wasn’t so bad if you did it in groups.

Pity I didn’t think of that before, thought Boston, with the flowers in the background. They’ll be awful pictures, but better than nothing.

“Just stand there by the door,” he said. Sergei waggled two fingers behind Kadir’s head, like rabbit ears. Tukan stuck his thumbs in each corner of his mouth and pulled his lips from ear to ear. He crossed his eyes for good measure.

Then he took his thumbs out again. “Get a move on!” he said. “I can’t keep that up for long!”

Boston laughed.

“Absurd photo,” he said. These were his people.

al-Andalus, April 1492

“My little dove!” said Ferdinand. He came up to the Queen from behind and put two fingers on the back of her neck. Then his thumb stroked her gently until the fine down on her neck stood on end. When he breathed a kiss onto her hair, she didn’t feel it.

He’d just been with another woman—she always knew when he strayed, but it didn’t bother her. So long as he pretended it hadn’t happened, and so long as she pretended, she didn’t know it had happened; there wasn’t a problem. He could have his little pleasures on the side whenever he wanted to. Only he had to be discreet and not make a laughingstock of her.

She knew and he knew that their love was as constant as ever. The bond between them was so strong, so indestructible, because they shared a dream: Spain. A unified Catholic Empire, embracing all the regions—a kingdom dedicated to the glory of the Lord.

“I hear you still haven’t told that charlatan to go to the Devil,” he said.

“You mean the Genoese?” said Isabella. She removed his hand from her neck and rolled her head. “Didn’t we agree that we would give him a chance?”

Ferdinand sat down on a chair facing her—they’d gotten rid of the Moorish floor cushions immediately after the conquest. She still loved his smile, even if it was mocking, as it was now.

“You know I was never happy about it, right from the beginning,” he said. Suddenly his voice sounded serious. Then she loved him even more than when he was smiling.

“When we raised the hopes of this Columbus in January, was it not perhaps, dear Isabella, the joy of victory, our happiness at conquering the last bastion of the Moors, that made us drunk and had us believe in his wild plans? Even though the commission had already warned us twice that those plans were doomed to failure? The commission, my dove, which you yourself—is it not so?—set up in the first place, and in whose judgment you placed your faith?”

Isabella nodded. Sometimes she really wondered why she could not stop herself from talking to this Columbus fellow. He was a braggart, and it had long been proved the stories he told about his voyages were simply a pack of lies. And yet there was something about him, something . . .

“Don’t forget that he’s promised us all the wealth of Cathai and of the legendary Cipangu!” she said. For fourteen years she had known exactly how her husband thought. Now she wasn’t so sure. “Aren’t you the one who is always complaining that we don’t have enough gold to implement our plans? Once he’s found the route to India . . .”

“We don’t need to find the route to India,” said Ferdinand irritably. “We already know it, and our merchants have followed it for centuries. The route to India lies across the Mediterranean.”

“You’re forgetting the Sultan of the Ottomans,” said Isabella. “You’re forgetting that times have changed. That it is becoming more and more difficult to travel across the empire of the Turks. And that their empire is growing ever larger.”

Ferdinand jumped up. “In that case, we’ll have to go there and . . .” He paced back and forth. “Listen, Isabella. I don’t trust this Columbus. The cleverest mathematicians in our kingdom have proved that it would take him three years by sea—three years at least!—to reach India along the route he’s suggesting. His calculations are all wrong! No one would reach India alive if they traveled west! Between here and India, if you take that route, there is nothing but the ocean; the crews would starve to death on the way, or die of scurvy or of thirst. Surely you can see that!”

Isabella nodded. “Only it seems to me,” she said, “that the cost is not too high. Just two million maravedis, just five thousand pieces of gold to equip his ships! If we lose our gold, then it’s lost. And we’ve lost a great deal more on other enterprises. But if he should be right, Ferdinand, think of all the gold, and think of the souls of all the unbelievers in the countries beyond the ocean that we could save! That we must save, Ferdinand. Is it not our sacred duty to convert them all to the true faith?”

“But we can do that if we follow the eastern route to India, if their souls are so precious to you,” said Ferdinand impatiently. “Conversion going east, conversion going west, what difference is there? The only thing that might convince me is the treasures of these lands—only the treasures which, if he’s right, we could acquire without having to fight the Muslims in the east. But does it all have to be now, my dove? Shall we not be acquiring gold in abundance in the very near future?”

Isabella looked at him. Perhaps she didn’t want to understand his meaning.

“When the period of notice expires,” said Ferdinand. “When at last all the unrepentant Jews of Granada depart from this land and are forced to leave behind all their possessions, then we shall fill this room from floor to ceiling with pieces of gold. And my conscience tells me that after that, perhaps we should act no differently toward the Moors. The treasures of Cathai and Cipangu, my turtle dove, will no longer even be needed!”

“I have not yet agreed to take this cruel course,” whispered Isabella. “I do not want their gold! I want their souls.”

Ferdinand smiled. “Those,” he said, “are in most cases more difficult to acquire. I fear you will have to make do with their gold.”

Granada, April, the present

Even without a guidebook, they’d stayed for almost two hours on the hill, and then Mrs. Hilbert said they could do what they liked until dinnertime.

“You can go and get something to eat if you want to!” she’d shouted after them, but no one was listening.

“Would you like a burger?” Sergei asked. In the meantime, two ninth-grade girls had latched on to them—which seemed a bit odd. “A Big Mac? It’s not far from the hotel.”

“Come to Spain to eat burgers?” mumbled Kadir, but of course he went along with them. Boston was somewhere in the middle of the group. He felt great.

There was a long line, and so as soon as a table was empty, the two girls sat down in order to save the seats. “Just salad for me!” Sylvia called across the room. “Did you hear? With some of that pink dressing!”

Boston did all the ordering. The others automatically let him do the talking, and he did it automatically, anyway. Three chairs were obviously not enough for six people, but Sylvia and Yesim squeezed up together, and Sergei and Tukan did the same. Boston didn’t mind standing while he ate—that was one advantage with burgers.

“Tastes just like it does at home,” said Sylvia, licking her fingers after delicately lifting the last lettuce leaf to her mouth. She rummaged through her sequin-covered bag. “Ah!”

She hadn’t been looking for tissues, or makeup, or a mirror, or even a breath mint. What she slapped down on the table in front of her was . . . the guidebook.

“Wow!” said Tukan, looking at her, wide-eyed. “Where did you get it?”

Sylvia smiled and pulled a folding mirror out of her bag. Then she started putting fresh makeup around her eyes.

“You don’t really think I’d want to spend the evening sitting there reading guidebooks!” she said. “While the rest of you are out enjoying yourselves! I’m not that foolish!”

“That’s stealing!” said Kadir. Boston couldn’t tell if he said it in shock or admiration. “You took it from her!”

Sylvia leaned her head a little to one side and ran her finger around her eye. “So you take it and give it back to her when we get home!” she said. “Okay? If you have to be such a wimp. There it is, go on.”

“You think I’m foolish?” snapped Kadir. A few tourists turned their heads.

“If one of us gives it back, she’s bound to ask where we got it from!” said Tukan. “You’re being ridiculous!”

“Yesim?” said Sergei. “Are you going to give it back to her? Mrs. Hilbert would never believe in a million years that you’d take it from her. Tell her you found it up there at the castle, lying on the ground. It fell out of her bag. Only at first you didn’t realize that it was hers. Not until now.”

Yesim shook her head. “No way,” she said.

Tukan sighed. “Anyone want to come to the bazaar with me?” he asked.

Only when the others were already heading for the exit did Boston slip the guidebook into his backpack. Actually, he’d just wanted to take a packet of ketchup—it would be a shame to waste it. He hadn’t a clue how he’d manage to give the guidebook back to Mrs. Hilbert. Maybe he could just sneak it into her room when she wasn’t there. Or put it on her seat in the breakfast room. Or just leave it lying on a table.

al-Andalus, April 1492

“And do you not think it’s a scandal?” mumbled the soldier. A scar ran right across his face, still red; it would take a long time to fade enough not to be obtrusive—years, perhaps. Even then, he would still be disfigured.

His voice sounded slurred with liquor. They were sitting in the darkness of the courtyard outside the Sala de los Embajadores, as if there were really something for them to guard. Things had been quiet in Granada for a long time now. Nevertheless, there were guards in front of every door, and even if they were not wearing full armor, they still had their halberds, swords, and lances. The Alhambra had been taken, and the last emir had moved out with all his troops; Their Catholic Majesties had even granted him a princedom somewhere in the wilds of the Alpujarra Mountains. It was all absurd. Boabdil, the last of the Moorish rulers, would never again pose a threat to anyone.

“If that’s what our Majesties want,” said another. He had unwound the cloths around his feet, which he was now cooling in the fountain that stood in the middle of the patio. “After all, no one is going to say the Queen is not firm in her faith! So if she’s prepared to allow it, even in her own palace . . .”

Their Majesties had already retired to the harem for the night.

“It’s a scandal!” grumbled the soldier with the scar. “Wa-la ghaliba illa’llah! A line from the Koran scrawled a thousand times on the walls of our palace! Was it for this that we drove out the unbelievers?”

“As if you knew how to count up to a thousand!” said a third guard, reaching for the jug. “Here’s to our Queen! And to a united Spain, free of Jews and Muslims!”

The second soldier hesitated.

“What’s the matter, Pablo?” asked the third. “Not for you?”

Pablo took hold of the jug. “To a united Spain!” he said, and took a swig. Then he put his feet back in the fountain.

The man with the scar now stood up, somewhat unsteadily. “Wa-la ghaliba illa’llah!” he mumbled, and swung his halberd. Then he reeled into the Hall of the Ambassadors. “And what should I tell the priest at my next confession, eh? I kept watch over heathen verses! I kept watch over verses from the Koran! I—”

“No, don’t!” cried Pablo. But the scarred soldier’s halberd had already landed right in the middle of the band of Kufic script. “Stop!” cried Pablo.

A tile fell to the floor.

The third soldier jumped to his feet. He seized the raving guard from behind.

“Have you taken leave of your senses?” he hissed. “Look what you’ve done! What will Their Majesties say tomorrow when they see the damage?”