The rabbis of Toledo hated my uncle almost as much as I do. He was a rich man, a merchant of silver and gold, but that was not why they hated him. He was also a scholar, versed in the poems of ibn Gabirol, Halevi, ibn Ezra. The poems he favored and wrote himself were all to beautiful young men, but that isn’t why they hated my uncle. Many gentlemen loved beautiful youths, privately, even rabbis, I am told. What angered the rabbis was that Uncle liked to be seen with his lovers in public, his arms around them, caressing.

*

One day Mother took my sisters and me with her to the market. She was bent over spice baskets when Beatriz nudged Graça. “Look at his lashes,” she whispered. Curious, I turned to see a youth a few years older than me, at the next stall. He was beautiful like a girl, yet manly, with his new beard growing down from flared cheekbones. He felt our eyes upon him and turned toward us. Terrified, my sisters darted behind Mother, and he and I found ourselves gazing at each other. I felt as if ropes had been tossed between our eyes. Frightened myself, I turned to look at spices, my heart beating furiously beneath my cloak. For days I was haunted by those dark eyes and returned to the market whenever I had the chance, but he was never there.

Several months later Uncle invited me to his house to hear his new poems. Father didn’t want me to go but Mother was afraid to offend him. When I entered the room where he received his guests I saw the young man with the beautiful eyes, sprawled on cushions. A garnet ring caught the light as he reached a slim hand toward a plate of biscochos on a small brass table. Tossing back his dark hair, Joseph looked up at me. I knew from his smile that he did not remember me.

*

My grandsons are Joseph’s age now, the age I was when we were forced to leave Spain. We fled east to Salonika. My uncle and Joseph fled south to Tangiers. Both of them are dead. Around my neck is the key to our house in Toledo. My father wore it until he died and one day it will pass to my eldest son. But beneath that key lie the ropes that still bind me to Joseph’s eyes, and to the memory of my uncle’s hairy fat hand, reaching out to stroke Joseph’s soft dark cheek. And this is why I hate my uncle, from half a world away and all these years later.