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shame,” he said sadly.
    He placed the feather back in his hat and smoothed his hair off his brow. His hand was long and thin. It had never known labor.
    “Let me explain, little one. There occasionally appears a face in the crowd that represents all those souls one would like to reach – a beautiful face that is symbolic of all in God’s creation. Do you understand what I am saying?”
    I started to hiccup, which caused him to laugh.
    “You are the son of James Stewart and Maria Pereira Zarco, if I’m not in error.”
    “How … how is it that you know my parents?” I asked.
    “I know who all the Jews are. That is one of my duties.”
    “He’s not a Jew!” Daniel snarled. “Now leave us be.”
    As though confiding a secret, he whispered, “It is your devilish soul I desire, little one. Nothing less.”
    Daniel had had enough. He took a knife from his pocket and brandished it like a sword.
    The preacher placed his hat on his head and made a deep purring noise, then meowed.
    “I shall just say one more thing,” he said with a smile, “and then I shall leave you. Have you never thought of returning with your father to Scotland, dear John? No? Well then, be so kind as to tell your parents from me that that must be your destiny. Let them make plans now, before we meet again. As the Apostle Matthew has told us, The gate that leads to life is small and the road is narrow .”
    “But I’ve always lived here. I’m Portuguese. I was born in Porto.”
    He said nothing, merely crossed himself, then turned around in a slow circle and tapped the ground twice with his cane. His backwas to us for a few seconds at least. Turning to face us, he opened his mouth. A bewildered yellow finch peeked into the world, struggling to emerge. The villain held the bird’s neck between his teeth, as though in a vise, about to bite down.
    “Please don’t,” I pleaded tearfully. “Please …”In that very instant, I began to think of him as a necromancer, Papa’s word for an evil sorcerer.
    I was sure he was about to commit an unspeakable act. But he wished to make a different point. Opening his mouth fully, he permitted the bird to fly away.
    Daniel took a step back.
    “You see what your friend Lourenço can do, little one? It would be unwise to doubt me. Though the holy delight of burning you in the squares of Portugal is no longer an option, I shall not accept the stain of your presence among us any longer.” He breathed in deeply to quell his rage. “Never forget, the smoke rising off your body is incense to all those of righteous belief.”
    He produced a lighted candle from out of his hand. Twisting it in the air, it became a silver tostão coin. He held it up before us, then threw it at my feet. I let it clang on the steps, then picked it up. I was going to give it back to him, for I believed I might gain his favor by doing so, but he told me to keep it.
    “You see,” he said, pointing first at me, then Daniel, “the Jew among us can always be found if we but leave a single coin in view!”
    The crowd that had gathered around us howled with delight. An elderly woman stepped forward and threw an apple core at me, and several men began to shout at us.
    I cannot say how long they had seen fit to witness this cruel encounter in rapt silence, but when I turned back, the necromancer was striding away from us.
    Daniel took the coin from me and whispered, “Never mind, John, we’ll see that bastard swinging from a gallows someday.”

V
    A s a child, I knew nothing of Christian religious practice, having been strictly forbidden by my atheist father from attending weekly Mass with my mother and grandmother and only having witnessed a formal service on one occasion. Of that single visit to the Church of Mercy in the year of 1791, I confess that I own not a single recollection. This profound ignorance is due to no deliberate act of forgetfulness on my part, but rather to my extreme youth. For the momentous occasion in question