Read By Fire, By Water for Free Online Page B

do.”
    “All the more reason you should pass it on.”
    Baba Shlomo turned his head slightly, as if to hear the sound of Judith breathing, of her heart beating. Judith knew that beyond his crippling grief, he understood how delicate and fragile their precious little world was.

     
    The flowers, creeping vines, and fruit trees of Granada bloomed, a riot of yellows, whites, greens, and reds. In the workshop attached to Judith Migdal’s home, Baba Shlomo taught her to transform black stones of raw metal into finished, gleaming objects of beauty and value. He guided Judith as she fashioned a beaker, beginning with the melting of ore and the separation of molten silver, through hammering, cutting and shaping disks and wires, filing, buffing and polishing.
    To purify the lumps of raw silver, Judith placed them, together with a few grains of lead, over a layer of ash in a white crucible. Baba Shlomo pumped the oven coals with bellows until they glowed brightly. Holding the crucible with tongs, Judith set it inside. The impurities and lead floated to the top of the molten silver. Judith skimmed them off with a stick. When the silver was pure, she removed the crucible, sprinkled a pinch of salt into it, and poured its contents into a hot, circular mold.
    When this circle of silver cooled, she removed it from the mold, centered it on the end of an anvil, and folded it away from herself, over the anvil. She beat the metal with a round-headed hammer, striking it in soft concentric circles to an even thinness, until it took the form of a cup, then filed it inside and out and around the lip to smooth it.
    “All the beauty,” Baba Shlomo told her, “will be in the details. But you can’t master the art of filigree until you learn to write.”
    The waves and curls of silver that had adorned Yossi’s pieces were characters of the alphabet, spelling words like jewelry spilling over the edges of a bowl or serving dish. When the filigree did not represent letters, it resembled the distilled essence of Arabic writing. Judith longed to receive that essence, like a potion of knowledge, but it eluded her.
    Although Baba Shlomo was unable to see her creations, he measured her progress by running his fingers over her work, or feeling it with his cheek.
    “It’s lopsided.”
    “How can I fix it?”
    “If you hammer it, you’ll destroy the filigree. You’ll have to re-melt it and start all over.”
    Judith took the beaker from Baba Shlomo and turned it lovingly in her hands. She dutifully picked up the mallet and began crushing the beaker, folding its sides over each other so it would fit into the crucible.
    Again, Baba Shlomo stoked the flames while she held the crucible in place with long iron tongs. Because the oven was low, she had to stoop, causing her back to ache. The heat brought beads of sweat to her face. Removing the tongs from the fire, she burned her arm.
    Again, she poured the liquefied silver into molds, hammered them to an even thinness, cut and twisted wires, poured molten silver into seams.
    Four days later, the second beaker was finished. Baba Shlomo held it to his cheek.
    “The filigree doesn’t seem right.” He felt it with his fingers. “The slope of these wires. Too wide. It’s not symmetrical.” He handed it back to her.
    Judith pushed the beaker to the side, lowered her head onto her arms, and wept silently.

     
    Dina Benatar, the mother of Levi’s friend Sara, was the only woman of Judith’s acquaintance who knew how to read and write. She had grown up in Fez, where her father exported cinnamon, ginger, pepper, “dragon’s blood,” and other spices. Like Dina, her father spoke Arabic, but when he wrote to Jewish vendors in other lands, he used a stylized Hebrew alphabet. After his brother, who was his business partner, died, he taught his daughter to write in Arabic using either Arabic or cursive Hebrew letters.
    Judith offered to pay for lessons, but Dina refused compensation, saying she would relish