The Apprentice's Masterpiece by Melanie Little

strengthen the feather.
After one week of patience,
the quill is more pliant.
Less likely to break.
    I’m sorry, Papa, but some waiting
just leads to despair.
    What’s more, it costs money!
It’s hardly fair.
Why, when there’s nothing to do,
do we still need to eat?
    I go looking for work.
The doors in the quarter
are lids on sealed coffins.
In other words,
shut.
    I’m not choosy.
Amir’s washing clothes
for Señora Ducal.
I must find something too!
I can’t let the pennies
earned by our slave be what feed us.
    At last, near the end
of a dark crooked street,
a door is swung open.
There stands a grizzled old man
as spindly as a broom.
    He looks me over
through a fearsome squint.
Then he spits.
The hands that killed Christ
will never be clean.
He sticks out his chin as he says it.
Spittle lands
in my wide-open eye.
    Get out of here, Jew .

Tail
    It’s as if
I’m walk-
ing around
with horns—
devil’s horns—
in place of
my ears.
Or a tail
instead of
no tail.
It’s invisible,
but might
spring out
hey-ho!
at any
bad moment.
Of which
there is
hardly a shortage,
these days.
    I’m more angry
than scared. I’ve
done nothing
wrong.
    But in this time
and this place
that particular
armor is thinner
than paper.

Stain
    I must do something.
    If we seem like Jews
to some half-blind old man,
how long will the Office
leave us alone? They say
they deal only with Christians.
But then they say Christians
are more prone to err
if their blood is unclean.
    We don’t boast about
our Jewish ancestors.
We bury our pride
deep down in our hearts.
    There must be something.
Some mark or some stain
that singles us out.
    They will come looking.
Every last thing that they see will be judged.
    Even if that book Papa hides
is no more than a clandestine copy
of Plants of Castile , they’re bound
to find something else.
    In Seville, a man burned for saying
that God and Allah are the same.
I’ve heard Papa say things more shocking
than that! Mama, as well.
    And what about me? I don’t study
the Edicts of Faith like I should,
so I don’t know what not to do.
I could be arrested for anything—
for picking my nose
with the incorrect finger!

Guides
    I have an idea.
A way to save, all at once,
Papa, our home,
and even Amir.
    But it scares me.
    I remember one thing
from the Edict of Faith.
No Christians may use Jewish doctors.
Even a potion that’s sold by a Jew
might as well be a poison—so sure a ticket
is it to a very good seat at the auto-da-fé .
    What if Señor Ortiz
were arrested?
    I scare me.
There are two angels appointed
to each man on Earth.
A good one,
to protect him.
And a not-so-good one,
to sometimes put him
to the test.
    Which of my angels
is singing
right now?

The Alcazar
    Come back in a fortnight?
They must be mad!
    It’s not just that I’ve wasted
all day in that line.
    It took all the courage I had
to lift up my fist
to their door.

On Second Thought
    Here comes that broom-man.
Shrink, Ramon, into this wall.
    He doesn’t see me,
or, if he does, looks
right through.
As if I am a window
in a fancy new home,
covered, but only with glass.
    Instead, he starts shouting
at Señora Monzon. She’s as pure
an Old Christian as there is
in Castile.
    The man shows his fist.
“Get lost, you Jewess!”
The señora ignores him.
A man passing by on his horse only laughs.
    â€œYou crazy old bugger,” says this hidalgo.
“You see Jews in the very
blades of the grass!”

So…
    So,
it seems I overreacted.
    True,
Señor Ortiz will probably die—
few survive the Smallpox.
I would never have come up with that plan
if that weren’t the case.
    Still,
death doesn’t stop
the Inquisition.
At every auto-da-fé
I’ve seen people long dead
burned at the stake.
They dig up their bones
for the purpose.
    I suppose it is better
than burning alive.
But death is sacred, I think.
No one deserves
that kind of last