"Across So Many Seas" by Ruth Baher, Chapter 55-61

When we’re ready to rest, we have tapas at one of the cafés on the Plaza de Santa Ana, next to a statue of the poet and playwright Federico García Lorca.

Our waiter overhears my mom’s impromptu poetry recital and tells us that the statue was built years ago and kept in storage for over a decade because Spaniards are divided in their feelings for Lorca.

Some think he was a hero, executed during the Spanish Civil War because he was gay and a socialist, while others think he was a traitor who deserved his cruel death.

The balcony in my parents’ room is open, letting in the glimmer of a Madrid sunset.

And my dad adds, “Yes. You and your generation give us hope for a better future, Paloma.”

My dad has rented a car, and we drive across the dry terrain of red earth and hardy olive trees.

We believe the Jews of Toledo prayed here until their religion was outlawed in 1492.

Then it became a church, then a military barrack, and now the Sephardic Museum.

I look up at the walls and ceiling, covered with elaborate designs and colorful etchings.

“Have a look at this marble basin. See the menorah in the center? And there’s a tree of life, a shofar, peacocks on either side, and an inscription in Hebrew asking for peace. It’s from the time of the Romans. That means Jews were on this soil already long, long ago.”

“And that Torah there, it’s hundreds of years old and still intact. Just some of the writing has smudged. We think it’s of Spanish origin. An antiques dealer discovered it in Istanbul and brought it to us.”

As we follow along, she points to a large facsimile of the Edict of Expulsion hanging on the wall.

“You can see the signatures of King Fernando and Queen Isabel, and the date, March 31, 1492. It’s here so we won’t forget the horror they unleashed with their words of intolerance and hate.”

I translate it to myself as I hear it: Goodbye, my Toledo, my beloved home, once I was welcome, now I am not, where I am going tomorrow is a mystery of our God.

Mari Luz leads us to an empty seminar room and passes out drinks of water.

“Sing, Paloma, sing,” Abuela requests, and I sing the words about the girl in the tower.

“Shabbat dinner?” my mom asks, flabbergasted.

My mom and dad happily accept the invitation, and Abuela looks mesmerized upon hearing all this.

All around are stores selling gold filigree jewelry and embroidered cloths in buildings where Jewish artisans must have labored centuries ago.

“You are, you are,” Abuela says, and her face looks radiant.

I clearly descend from the ones who fled, but I’m starting to think I may have had family who stayed.

After Mari Luz lights the candles and we say the Shabbat prayer together, we sit, and Juan Carlos tears us each a piece of braided challah bread.

When we’ve all finished, I break into a song by Flory Jagoda—a woman who was a champion of Sephardic music and sang in Ladino.

My mom nods. “I feel that too. Even though our ancestors were expelled hundreds of years ago, the houses and streets still seem filled with the memory of their presence.”

As I gaze at the enormous sky laced with jagged clouds and so many shining stars, I think of the ancestors who came before me.