Iron Key to a Lost World April 7, 2018
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary, Medieval , trackback
Leaving Spain
In 1492 Spain’s Jews were given an awful choice. They were, by royal fiat, to convert to Christianity or they would be kicked out of the country. The majority half-halfheartedly took on the new religion. However, a minority of as many as 100,000, loyal to the God of their fathers, took, instead, to exile and crossed the Straits of Gibraltar and passed into Arab northern Africa where they settled. Fast forward now to 1920 when Arturo Barea, a young Spanish soldier (and later a novelist, pictured below) found himself in a brothel in Morocco. He is talking to the brothel madam Miriam, a descendant of the Sephardi, the expelled Spanish Jews of 1492. Her ancestors had been for generations gold smiths.
Miriam Speaks
At home father keeps his gold coins, some very old coins, wrapped up in silk, together with a great rusty key. Grandfather was thrown out of Spain, thrown out of what you know as Imperial Toledo and came here with his coins and his key. When the key returns to its old lock, then the old coins will be changed for a new currency. Father dreams of going to Toledo. They tell us it is a city with a very narrow streets and we have a house there built of stone. I was once told all the houses of the Jews still stand in Toledo. Have you seen Toledo?
En casa el padre conserva sus monedas de oro, unas monedas muy viejas, envueltas en un viejo paño de seda juntas con una gran llave roñosa. Al abuelo le echaron de España, le echaron de lo que vosotros llamáis la Imperial Toledo y se vino aquí con sus monedas y su llave. Cuando la llave vuelva a su antigua cerradura, las viejas monedas se cambiarán por moneda nueva. Padre sueña con ir a Toledo. Dicen que es una ciudad de calles muy estrechas y allí tenemos nosotros una casa construida en piedra. Porque me han contado que todas las casas que una vez fueron de los judíos existen aún en Toledo. ¿Has visto tú Toledo? La forja de un rebelde: La Ruta (second in the triology)
The Key to Toledo
Miriam, with her rather vague chronology, has in her family Spanish gold coins and the key of a house from the Jewish quarter of late fifteenth-century Toledo (pictured). On special occasions, in the years between the world wars, her family take these objects out and handle them knowingly. One days las viejas monedas se cambiarán por moneda nueva the coins will be changed for a new currency… and the key will perfectly fit the lock. Shivers of history.
Other wrong time souvenirs: drbeachcombing AT gmail DOT com
