Blood Secret by Kathryn Lasky

Author:Kathryn Lasky
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2004-06-10T22:00:00+00:00

My part is coming up. In another minute Papa will ask me to say the four questions—that is my job as the youngest at the Seder table. But the problem is, no one can remember what the fourth question is. No one at this table has ever been to a Passover dinner before. I see these grown men with gray in their hair fumbling for words. It is not just the four questions that they are unsure about. There are many other things as well. But the men try to piece together what they have heard and what they think they might have heard. But still the dinner is nice.

“Ready, Luis?” Uncle Tomás asks.

“Yes, Tío.” I clear my throat and begin. “Why is this night different from all the other nights? Because on all other nights we eat leavened bread and on this night we eat only unleavened bread, matzo.” And I hold up a piece of the unleavened bread that Mama baked two days before, at night when the maid was gone and would not notice. Next question. I take a big breath and hold up a horseradish root: “Why on this night are we supposed to eat especially bitter herbs?”

And now the third question. I pick up a piece of parsley and hold it by the stem: “Why on this night do we eat parsley?”

José Catalan breaks in. “I think the proper question—although, Luis, you are doing excellently—is ‘Why on this night do we dip twice the parsley in the salt water?’” I nod and begin the question again.

But still no one can remember the fourth question. Tomás said that the questions would be answered as the story of the Jews’ flight from Egypt was retold, and this is the part of the Seder, the story of the Exodus, that most interests me. Their flight from slavery. But it gives me a shudder to think about those men Papa spoke of, the men of the Inquisition. They might be able to have the power to make slaves out of the very people who sit at this table, make them slaves or perhaps kill them. And then we too, like those in ancient Egypt, would have to flee.

As I eat the food, I begin to see that this is the strangest meal that I have ever eaten. It is not just that the food is different but that each dish is a symbol for something else. The parsley dipped in salt water is supposed to remind people of the sweat and tears of the enslaved Jews of Egypt. The green parsley itself is a symbol of hope and the coming of spring. There are certain times when we are to drink wine from our cups, but no one is quite sure when. But, still, I think, even though we are in the cellar, I have never seen such a beautiful table. Mama laid the table with the best linens, and over this is a cloth of the most beautiful lace that had been made by a cousin’s great-grandmother.

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