Inspired by The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

*This is the first story in my honors thesis, a collection of short stories called Freckled Whelp.*

Her mother hung the sheets out to dry. White like ghosts, they flickered in the wind. Jessica looked up as her mother reached out a hand towards her. Jessica took it. But then her mother quickly pulled away, as she violently coughed.

Jessica had grown accustomed to that sound, which she heard more often than her mother’s laughter. She thought nothing of it. Her mother told her never to fret about it, and Jessica believed her. “There are more important things to worry about,” her mother would say. “The state of Venice—the taxes, the way our people are locked away in the Ghetto at night, the yellow badges we are forced to wear.” Jessica’s father always nodded when she spoke, but added nothing of his own. He would only say, “There is nothing to be done about it.”

Jessica and her mother walked through their worn, old, wooden front door, the empty laundry basket held between them. It was a cumbersome way to travel, but it was how they had always done it, since Jessica could walk. They shared the weight of the basket, which Jessica, small as she was, was happy to do.

Jessica’s father sat at the table, papers from his work spread out before him. Jessica didn’t know what these papers were for, but did know that they were very important to her father. They contained black squiggles which she couldn’t begin to understand.

Jessica’s mother went to Jessica’s father, peering over his shoulder, examining the papers. She smiled, and kissed his cheek. He squeezed her hand, which rested on his shoulder, in return. Jessica saw his brow crease as her mother began to cough again. Her mother waved away his attempts to help her.

Jessica’s father stood helplessly then, twisting the turquoise ring on his finger. Jessica often asked to try it on, and he always said no. It wasn’t meant for little girls. Jessica watched the tableau of her mother and father, as her mother held onto a chair for support, as her father rested a tentative hand on her back.

…

It rained at the funeral, as the rabbi spoke before her mother’s grave. Jessica held in her hand the stone which she would put on her mother’s tombstone, and waited. Her father held her other hand. It did not feel the same as when her mother held her hand. Her father’s grip was too tight, as if he was afraid she might run away. Her mother had trusted her enough to know she wouldn’t ever.

Jessica looked up to tell her father that he was hurting her, and she saw that tears were streaming down his face. Or perhaps it was only the rain. She couldn’t be sure.

…

Night dribbled down the walls of Jessica’s bedroom, like thick globs of paint inching to the edge of a canvas. A single lamp sat on her bedside table, illuminating her father’s face. Jessica could see the wrinkles under his eyes, the lines made deeper by shadows. Her father had always seemed older than her friends’ fathers, even though he wasn’t.

“You don’t want to hear that story,” her father said. “Not tonight.”

“But I do,” Jessica insisted. “You promised that you would tell me whichever story I liked. And I want to hear about the magic ring.”

It was a story that Jessica normally shied away from. It was an old Yiddish tale, that her father usually said Jessica wasn’t old enough for, one that her mother always told her anyway, if Jessica felt brave enough to ask for it.

“That story isn’t appropriate, Jessica,” her father said. “Please, not tonight. Not so soon.”

“But it’s such a happy story,” Jessica said. “It ends so happily, with the shoemaker’s son and the princess married and happy.”

Her father bowed down his head. He was still wearing the yarmulke he had worn to the funeral. He was supposed to wear it at all times, but Jessica knew that he only wore it when he went out, not at home. It was strange to see him wearing it still.

Jessica’s father ran a hand down his face, then held it at his mouth. “Once upon a time,” he said, in a muffled voice, “there was a princess and a shoemaker’s son. They loved each other very much, and wished to be married. But the king would not allow his daughter to marry a commoner.”

Jessica leaned back against her pillow, pleased with her little victory.

“So the lovers devised a plan,” her father continued. “The princess gave the shoemaker’s son a bag of coins, and said, ‘Take this to the old witch who lives in the forest. She will know a way to outwit my father.’ The boy gave the witch the sack of coins, and in return, she gave him a magic ring, that would make anyone who wore it look as though they were dead.”

Jessica had always known that this magic ring looked like the turquoise one that her father wore. She looked at his hand, and saw that it was gone.

“Where is your ring?” Jessica asked, interrupting her father as he opened his mouth to continue. He looked down at her, almost angrily.

“I chose not to wear it,” he said.

“Why?” Jessica asked.

He sighed. “You needn’t worry about that.”

Jessica frowned. “That’s what Mama would say.”

Her father turned pale; his breathing seemed to pause.

“’You needn’t worry about that,’” Jessica continued. “Whenever Mama coughed, or spit up blood, she would tell me that I needn’t worry about it.”

Her father was quiet. Then he said, “Your mother gave me the ring when I was a bachelor. It reminds me too much of her. It is too painful to wear it.” He shook his head. “And so the shoemaker’s son gave the princess the ring—”

“Why is it too painful?” Jessica asked. “Why can’t you wear it? Don’t you want to remember Mama?”

Her father closed his eyes. “And the princess put the ring on her finger—”

“I don’t understand, Papa, why can’t you—”

“And it appeared to all the world that she was dead,” her father said with finality.

Jessica felt a soreness in the back of her throat, suddenly, and her eyes began to sting. She couldn’t bear to hear another word. But she had begged to hear this story, and she couldn’t tell her father now to stop.

“The princess was buried, and the entire kingdom wept, but no one more than her poor father, who had lost his only daughter.”

Jessica pulled up her blanket, so that her father could not see her surely splotchy red face, the tears pooling in her eyes. But her father must have been watching her closely, because he ceased to tell the story, and gently pulled the blanket down instead.

“Jessica? My girl?” He spoke with hesitation, as if he could do nothing but address her, could not even ask what was wrong. Her mother would have asked. Jessica couldn’t tell her father what it was she needed him to do. He was supposed to know.

Her father spread his arms as if to hug her, and looked, briefly, like an old crow, tremblingly lifting his wings. Jessica shook her head. She wiped her eyes and nose on the knit blanket, the one her mama had made for her.

“Please finish the story, Papa,” she said, in a tight voice. Her father lowered his arms, and he did.

…

Jessica could trace her growing up to that night. Soon after her mother died, she lost interest in playing games with the other children in the Ghetto. Instead, she took to wandering the Venetian marketplace, outside of the Ghetto’s gates. She told her father she was with a friend, and he was very busy, and did not bother to ensure that this was true. It did not take Jessica long to learn that, if she hid her yellow badge in her pocket, no one would stare at her or even know that she was Jewish.

She loved the bright fruit stands, the glass beads hung like waterfalls. Sometimes, she would talk to the Christian children. Jessica was careful; she never mentioned her Hebrew lessons or the stories her father told her, which the Christian children would never have heard. They talked of Little Red Riding Hood and big, bad wolves—not of golems or dybbuks. Jessica did the same.

Her father didn’t know where she wandered to when she was a child, but as she grew older, he seemed to worry. Some things were fine for a young child, which were not for a young lady. Jessica lost the privilege of childhood the day her father began to prepare what would be her dowry. Ducats and jewels, tucked safely away, just like her. Jessica’s father worried, and she believed it was this that turned him bitter and cold.

Now, whenever she went to the marketplace, her father went with her, complaining about the color and noise. “Ostentatious,” he mumbled, as they passed a cart of masks. “Foolishness.” Jessica knew better than to disagree.

Her father stopped at the butcher’s shop, grimacing at the chicken carcasses hung in the window. “Horrible,” he said. “They worship violence, don’t you see, Jessica? Never buy food from a Gentile. It’s soaked in blood.”

“That’s not true, Papa,” said Jessica softly. “They only show it so the customers know it’s there to buy.”

“Can they not read? The sign plainly states this is a butcher’s shop. Surely they know what’s inside? No, my girl, you must trust me in this regard. It’s the spectacle they love. Be sure of that. I can’t understand why you would want to travel through such a place…”

Jessica just nodded, and continued holding on to her father’s arm. But she was distracted, momentarily, by the sound of laughter. She so rarely heard laughter in her home, and it never failed to possess her fully. Jessica turned around, and saw a man with yellow hair, his mouth open in a wide smile, surrounded by friends. His tunic was green as grass, and his teeth were brilliantly white. As Jessica watched him, she began to smile herself. He saw her staring, and when their eyes met, his face was even brighter than before.

Jessica was pulled away by her father, who, Jessica briefly noticed, remained unaware of the object of her attention. Jessica kept the man in her sight for as long as she possibly could, until he became a memory, a dream, a wish.

…

It began that way, simple enough. Soon servants were passing their letters back and forth, as Jessica continued to steal glances from the Christian man. His name was Lorenzo, and it was easy to love everything about him. And everything that came with him. She would convert, of course. She would leave the Ghetto, never to return. She would be freed, and loved, when she became a Christian wife.

It was all planned. It would all be well.

Jessica could not understand, then, why she hesitated, as she stood before her bedroom window, staring down at the street below. Lorenzo and his friends would be there soon, to carry her far away. And it had to be tonight. Her father was out, dining with some client, a meeting he had groaned about earlier. Jessica had listened, and tried to hide her growing guilt.

“Shut the doors after you,” her father said. It was an order. But he smiled at her, almost gently. “Fast bind, fast find—a proverb never stale in a thrifty mind.”

Jessica tried to tell herself that it was nothing. A few ducats, some jewels. Her father would not miss them, and she and Lorenzo would need them. It was only right that she have her dowry; it was hers, after all. Lorenzo asked hardly anything of her, save this single task.

Jessica paced her room, as the floorboards creaked beneath her. What would her mother have said? To steal was wrong. Jessica knew that, but she also knew that exceptions were made for all sorts of things, everyday. She fiddled with the hem of her shirt. Her mother would have laughed, that wonderful breathy sound, if she could have seen Jessica dressed as a boy. The disguise had been Jessica’s idea, but she was growing ashamed of it now.

Jessica found herself walking, then, into her father’s bedroom. It was a bare and spartan, a room that she rarely entered. Jessica went to her father’s desk, and opened it.

Inside were papers, some flat, some crumpled. A quill, a few dots of ink splattered in the drawer. And a ring, a beautiful turquoise ring, a ring of stories, of magic, a ring Jessica had not seen since her childhood, which her father had never worn again.

The ring was in Jessica’s hand, and then it was on her finger. She was going far away, Jessica reasoned. She would need to take one small piece of the past with her.

And it was a magic ring. Wasn’t it? It would make her appear to her father as if she was dead, and that was all she really wanted.

…

Belmont was not home—far from it—but it was beautiful, and it and its inhabitants glittered. Most of all, the lady of the house, Portia. She was married to one of Lorenzo’s dearest friends, and happily opened her home to them. Or at least, she opened it to Lorenzo. She hadn’t said a word to Jessica, merely glittered in her direction.

“We can stay here,” Lorenzo said, “in the time to come. Isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t that generous?”

Lorenzo’s friends were very generous. Jessica had always heard that Christians were, and she had always believed it.

Lorenzo’s friends were generous, and kind. She had wanted them at her baptism, but it wasn’t possible. The baptism had to be done quickly, Lorenzo said. Jessica had shivered when the water was poured on her head, as she knelt down. She had not realized it would be so cold, and wondered how infants didn’t cry. Perhaps they did.

She was married on that same day, by that same priest. And after all of that eventfulness, her life became a long, sun-dappled expanse of nothing. They lay about, the Christians, and her husband, and her, talking about nothing. Yes, Lorenzo talked about music, and Solanio about art. Gratiano mentioned what bawdy poems he had read, laughing at them far too much. Jessica’s father would have called it wasted breath, and perhaps this was why Jessica rarely said a word. That, and the odd feeling that she wasn’t meant to say a word. They were all so clever, far cleverer than she was.

But Jessica listened as they spoke, and as the Christians told stories. Their favorite topic was her father. They laughed at how he had run through the streets that night, shouting, “Oh my daughter! Oh my ducats!” They said that he bitterly swore Jessica was his daughter no more.

“You must be glad of that, my love,” Lorenzo said.

Jessica did not know if what they said was true. It was only a story. But this particular story plagued her at night, next to Lorenzo in their downy bed, the turquoise ring twisted on her finger.

She had to sell it. The ring reminded her too much of her father, a man she did not recognize, weeping in the streets.

So Jessica traded the ring for a pet monkey, a companion for the lonely hours she spent thinking of the past, grasping for the present. But the monkey ignored her, was far more interested in picking at and eating its fleas.

Lorenzo’s friends told Jessica that, just as she had heard stories of her father, her father had heard stories of her.

“He says that he would not have parted from the ring, for a wilderness of monkeys,” said Gratiano with a bright laugh. “And,” in a lower voice, as if he were telling a ghost story, “if you can believe it—that he wishes you were dead at his feet!” And there were delighted gasps, and nervous giggles, and Jessica smiled, tight-lipped, and was silent.

…

Jessica knelt to pray. She had always stood before, when she had prayed in the synagogue, or said the Shema when she woke, before she fell asleep. It felt strange, still. It felt more respectful, somehow, to stand. No practiced shows of deference, simply speaking to God with nothing in between.

But she knelt now. She had to remember that.

Jessica thanked God silently for all of the blessings in her life. It was the same God—she knew that. But she felt as if she were speaking to a stranger. Perhaps she was the stranger—the glittering Christian woman with a glittering husband, lacking both parents and a past.

As she ended her prayer, her thoughts turned back to the Shema. She did not recite it, but Jessica wondered why she shouldn’t. It merely affirmed the singularity of God. And wasn’t that a Christian thing to affirm?

Jessica’s knees grew sore, under the soft cotton of her nightgown. This, she decided, was why the Christians knelt. They gave themselves little pains, because they knew nothing of real pain. Immediately, Jessica pushed that thought away.

I have done away with pain, she thought instead. And she proved this to herself by standing, and walking to her window. Lorenzo was out there, somewhere, in the lovely streets surrounding Belmont. Marriage had not forced him to abandon his bachelor way of life, and he wouldn’t dream of abandoning his friends.

This didn’t bother Jessica. She found that she liked being alone. She preferred it. It gave her time to think, and the secret quiet of her mind was the place she liked best in all the world.

Jessica went to her bed and wrapped a yellow silk blanket around her shoulders, before walking back to the window, her bare feet feeling every swirl of the wooden floor. She thought of home. Venice, she decided, was a city of glass and gold. It was an unstable creation, built upon snaking canals, wet-dark wood planks, churches in city centers and synagogues in squares. An impossibility, it rose to existence through the sharp clatter of coin. Ducats. They were what one had to show for oneself. They were the world. Jessica had stolen from her father all that he had, when she had stolen away with herself, with his jewels, with his ducats.

Jessica wept into her hands, for a long while, and could not say why she pretended to be asleep, hours later, when Lorenzo stumbled into their room. Jessica kept her eyes closed, as she listened to him remove his boots, and she desperately wished that when she opened her eyes again, she would find that she had been living some strange, glittering nightmare.

But when she awoke later in the night, to the same darkened room, she realized that she was in Belmont still. Jessica had a horrible feeling that she was in the skin of someone she did not recognize, as she lay silent and unmoving. She had the feeling of being buried alive.

She pulled her blanket over her face, one made of silk, not linen or wool. “And it appeared to all the world that she was dead,” Jessica whispered, before she fell asleep again.