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Afterward, this same king lost a large amount of money because the new pirates didn’t know how to capture people that were important enough to demand large ransoms. So thus I tell my son Moshé died in this sea in which you have swam so many times, in which you have played and where you have begun to fool with girls. The same sea that saved me and killed my family. The same water the same waves. A thousand years from Lucena to Jerusalem, I thought I would never return to Spain but when I saw your photograph I knew it was you that I had always been searching for to tell you the story. To you and no one else. I saw in your face the look of my father after the death of my birthing mother. I saw the smile of my first son. I saw all the looks in my story from Lucena to Jerusalem; even your silence is enchanting.
    Now my son you may go. Come back tomorrow at nine. Today I have already told you a lot. Go ask your grandfather about Abraham Benzimra but without asking too many questions. They must not know anything about me. I will be in your life for these seven days but afterward you will also not know anything about me. My joints are hurting again and time is running out.
    Have to be on the road again. Moving on is calling us, now, after the king of Portugal gave us refuge after one hundred years we have to move on again. They don’t care if we are former Jews “Marranos,” that we have changed so very much that we don’t even know who we are, that we aren’t even really sure that we are Jews. It is necessary to set sail in the direction of Tangier and the new city of Tetuán. What a shame to see that my relatives did not become Christians, would not have gone through the humiliation of leaving two hundred years before when the rabbis said it was necessary to emigrate to Morocco instead of converting! Thus we lost our sons beneath the waves of the sea, the wind and darkness; they were snatched from us and Christianized. These boats frighten me even though they say the trip is short and we don’t have to pay anything, that this Ruti does it out of duty. Maybe, as in other boats someone steals our belongings and our life in exchange for a few coins.
    I still carry with me the stories my grandmother told me about those who paid the Spaniards to take them to Maghreb and paid with their lives. My grandfather still weeps over his uncles and brothers, for those who we have not heard from again since they went to Málaga. But I also hear the tears of those who converted to Christianity, and the worst of all, the story of an uncle of mine, an unnamed uncle, my father’s brother, who became a priest. And what happened to those who did really convert to Christianity, whose children died at the hands of the Inquisition? Didn’t they do enough by being Christians? This is our destiny, to convert or emigrate but I know that one day we will return to our city, to Lucena, maybe even Jerusalem, but I dream of Lucena, the city where my surname was born:
    Benzimra.
    Now here, they call us Suárez but we all know perfectly well that when we arrive in Morocco We will again be Benzimra, our name will be returned to us. It will again be our name, yes, it will be ours again.
    â€“–––––––
    W HAT IS YOUR NAME?
    -José.
    -What do you do?
    -I build bridges.
    -What kind of bridges?
    -Bridges between people.
    -You make a living from that?
    -Whenever I build a bridge, someone destroys two.
    -So how do you make a living?
    -I have a fruit tree that bears me fruit when I am hungry.
    -What kind of fruit?
    -Fruit with the flavor of my hunger.
    -What flavor does your fruit have?
    -If I hunger for meat, they taste like meat, If I hunger for mango, like mango, and if lemon, like lemon.
    -How much is your tree worth?
    -Nothing.
    -I want to buy it from you.
    -You can’t. It’s not for sale. You think everything has a price. If you could, you would try to buy God.
    -Why