SInagoga Bet Eliahu (49)

“I guess we should knock,” Vera suggests.

It feels ridiculous to knock on this giant red door—you could bruise your knuckles. And nothing suggests anyone inside would even hear it. These doors look enormous, but none of this deters Rita. She bangs on the door with her fist, and we wait. And wait. Another knock, and we wait again. We can hear some distant noises from the other side, but it's unclear what they are. So, she bangs on the door once more. After what feels like several minutes, the door opens partially. Behind it stands a tall, skinny teenager, maybe fifteen, dressed in a white shirt and dark blue pants. He is wearing a kippah, so he’s definitely one of the tribe. Perhaps he even speaks some Hebrew.

“Shabbat Shalom,” Rita starts in her cheeriest sing-songy voice.

The boy nods solemnly from behind the door but says nothing.

“Can we come in?” Rita asks cheerfully, in English. “We want to see the synagogue.

The boy examines us, his expression somewhere between confusion and alarm; I can’t tell which. I can only say he is not opening the door to let us enter.

“Can we come in?” Rita repeats the question more slowly this time.

The boy turns back to glance inside, still blocking the entrance. He then gestures for us to wait and walks inside, closing the giant door behind him. Rita shrugs her shoulders and giggles. “What was that?” she asks the two of us, knitting her eyebrows together and shaking her head.

I hope it’s not her outfit that scared him. Her frizzy, bleached hair, which has seen better days, the leggings, and the piles of jewelry dangling from her ears, neck, and wrists might not exactly align with local customs. On the other hand, Vera and I, although strangers, look more like mainstream adult women. In short, we’re harmless.

“Don’t ask me,” I say. I’d rather be somewhere else now, where people aren’t closing a door in my face.

The door opens again to reveal two men in white shirts and dark slacks.

“Can we help you?” one of the men asks.

“We want to come inside and see the synagogue,” Rita says.

“Why?” he asks again.

“Because it’s Shabbat,” Rita says, unable to hide her bewilderment.

“Who are you?” the other man asks.

“I’m Rita. This is my mom,” Rita says, pointing at Vera. “And this is my friend."

“What are you doing here?” he continues.

“We are visiting Belmonte. We arrived two hours ago,” Rita says.

“Why do you want to come in?” the man asks again. He doesn’t sound hostile, but it is clear that he does not want to let us in. I wonder if I should enter the conversation to help Rita, because this situation is strange. Why are they so suspicious?

“We want to see the synagogue. We like to see Kabalat Shabbat,” she mixes a little Hebrew for effect, although I am not sure this is why we want to visit the synagogue. We just wanted to check it out and see it from the inside.

“We don’t let people enter the synagogue like this. It’s a private place, and the service is almost over,” he explains.

“We are from Israel,” Rita tries again. “We are Jewish and we speak Hebrew."

I have to admit that she is very convincing. We are not just anyone and are kind of from Israel, even though we don’t all live there now.

“We speak Hebrew,” Vera contributes her share, in Hebrew, to drive the point home.

“E Português também,” I say in my Brazilian Portuguese. Maybe that will convince them we are not here to harm them. I can live without seeing the inside of the synagogue, but since we are already here, why not?

“From Israel,” the main interrogator says, nodding his head.

“Yes,” Rita and Vera answer together. “We want to see the synagogue,” they add again, for effect. I think the begging is working. The suspicion on the men’s faces softens, and their bodies seem to relax.

“Okay,” the man says after whispering something to the other man, who whispers something back to him. “We will let you in, but we are closing soon. The service is almost over."

He opens the door wide, and they let us in. I feel awkward, forcing my way into this secretive synagogue. I’ve never experienced anything like this in my travels. When I backpacked around Peru and Bolivia in my twenties, I visited several Jewish community centers where people were happy to meet me. They offered to let me stay with them for free instead of paying for a hotel. In La Paz, they asked if I would agree to work in the local Jewish school and teach their children to read Hebrew. But here, they seem reluctant to let us in, bordering on the unfriendly. Maybe they suspect we are spying on them for the Inquisition. I have no idea what’s going on.

They send us to the women's balcony to observe the end of the service. We tiptoe up the stairs, Rita in front of me, trying to swallow some giggles. Vera slaps her hand, whispering “Shshshsh,” which makes her giggle even more.

There is only one woman on the balcony. She acknowledges our presence with a nod and invites us to sit next to her. Her friendly gesture makes me pause for a moment. After the uncomfortable encounter at the door, I didn’t expect it. I thought people would frown or ignore us. But she seems curious and welcoming. Maybe she’s also a foreigner—she certainly doesn’t look like a local, although I’m not sure what the local Jewish women look like. It might be her clothes or the colorful scarf covering part of her long, curly hair. In any case, she looks and acts like the total opposite of the men we met downstairs.

We join her in the front row and look down at the main hall, where a few men stand before the bima (stage), reading and praying quietly. A large Torah scroll is opened in front of them. Contrary to my expectations, the synagogue’s interior is beautiful. This is not the modest house of worship typical of small towns. It is grand and spacious—the ceiling soars high above the balcony. On the far wall, the Ten Commandments are embossed in gold beneath a chunky golden menorah, and the empty pews and the dark, polished wood railing surrounding the bima gleam under the light. The ark is covered in red brocade embroidered with two slender gold menorahs and Hebrew script. In short, the synagogue radiates affluence and prosperity—a stark contrast to the modest neighborhood in which it stands.

To Heat or Not to Heat (48)

 

A knock on the door brings me back to the present and to Rita, who surely isn’t bothered by the spirits of our beleaguered ancestors. I grab my jacket and scarf, then open the door. Rita and Vera are standing outside, bundled in their jackets. The sun had descended behind the mountain range, leaving the narrow alley darker and colder than when I entered my room.    

“Are you ready?” Rita asks.

I gather my key, phone, and some euros before stepping outside. I’m not optimistic about finding an open café or restaurant since I haven’t seen any on the drive from the hotel or during my short walk through this quaint neighborhood. But you never know—there might be something hidden away somewhere.

“Do you like your place upstairs?” I ask Vera, who is standing in front of the door. I’m sure she’ll say it’s okay since she isn’t one to complain, but I want to show her that I care. After all, I suggested staying at this place.

“It’s clean,” Vera shrugs, as if admitting something she finds hard to believe. It makes me wonder if she expected it not to be clean because the room is inside a centuries-old stone house or if this is how she expresses approval. I don’t know, and I can’t guess how she thinks.

“I turned the heater on, so when we get back, the room will be warm," she adds, zipping up her jacket to make a point about the temperature.

“Good thinking,” I compliment her. My room, too, was quite cold, but I was too preoccupied with its eerie atmosphere to consider turning the heater on.

“Go in, turn it on. We’ll wait for you,” she suggests, letting her maternal side emerge again, which I find so endearing—just like when she paid for my tram ticket in Lisbon and refused to let me repay her.

“Come on, let’s go,” Rita intervenes, impatient. Of course, Rita has to stop Vera’s maternal eruption. The quintessential jealous child is offended. Mommy is supposed to worry only about me, and these niceties are out of place.

“Let her go and turn on the heater,” Vera insists. “It will be freezing when she returns.”

I’m impressed she is arguing on my behalf and unsure where this goodwill came from. Less than an hour ago, she accused me of forgetting her in the car, and now she worries about my well-being. How sweet of her. Vera never ceases to surprise me.

“Fine,” Rita sighs, conspicuously pulling at her pockets in search of her phone. “Just do it quickly. It’s going to be dark soon.”

I don’t want to come between Rita and Vera. The last thing I need to do is take sides. Although I know Rita isn’t one to hold a grudge with her “be happy don’t worry” disposition, the situation is delicate, and there’s no need to escalate. I gather that the best thing to do is obey both of them and go turn that heater on.

Fortunately, we are still outside my door. I turn around with the key in hand, unlock the door, and enter, leaving the door wide open to let the light in. I set the heater to low. In my heart, I know I don’t need to turn it on; Vera wouldn’t know either way. But the room is cold, and it will get colder after nightfall, so why not? I guess it’s because I feel guilty about leaving Umberto with a high heating bill and acting like a spoiled and inconsiderate tourist. I never leave the heater on when I’m not at home just to keep it warm for when I come back. I can only hope electricity is cheap here and that maybe the heater is energy-efficient—get me off the hook.

I rejoin Rita and Vera, who have already started walking down the alley in the opposite direction from which we entered the neighborhood. Across the valley, I can see the sun setting, almost touching the tops of the mountains. The last light paints the stone walls in soft orange hues, casting a peaceful glow over the narrow alley. The houses on both sides are attached, but now and then, there is a gap between them, allowing us to see the houses on the street below. Through one of these spaces, between ivy-covered stone houses, 19th-century-style streetlights, and wooden shutters, we glimpse the top of a tall building with white walls. Under the slanted red roof, inside a circle of words too small to read from a distance, some Hebrew words are large enough to be seen: Bet Eliahu.

“This must be the synagogue,” Rita notes.

We head towards the building, winding through narrow alleyways and descending old stone stairs until we reach it. Now I can see the Portuguese beneath the Hebrew words: Sinagoga Bet Eliahu. Two enormous red doors, adorned with a dark Jewish menorah, take up nearly the entire front of the building. No one is around, and we can’t hear any sounds from inside. No cars are parked outside, even though the street overlooking the valley is wider than the alleys we passed on our way down here.

We stand in front of the giant doors, trying to decide what to do.