Across so Many Seas

Set across more than five hundred years, the novel follows four twelve-year-old girls from successive generations of a Sephardic Jewish family (Jews descended from medieval Spanish and Portuguese Jewish communities) as they face exile and fight to preserve their cultural identity. Connected by a recurring song and heirlooms passed between generations, the story moves from fifteenth-century Spain to twentieth-century Turkey and Cuba, and finally to twenty-first-century Miami and back to Spain.

In 1492 Toledo, Spain, Benvenida, the youngest child and only daughter of a Jewish family, witnesses the reading of the Edict of Expulsion: All Jews must leave the Spanish kingdoms by the end of July or face death. Her father, Samuel, a hazan (cantor) at the synagogue, refuses to convert to Catholicism. Benvenida writes poetry, a skill nurtured by her mother, who comes from a family of book printers and has taught her to read and write in Hebrew and Spanish, though such education for girls is unusual. Her mother writes to relatives in Naples who emigrated years earlier to escape the Inquisition, which persecuted Jewish converts suspected of secretly practicing Judaism.

The family sells their possessions for almost nothing. When a mob tears the velvet covering from the synagogue's Torah scroll, Samuel resolves to carry it himself on the journey. Benvenida writes a farewell poem to Toledo and hides the parchment in a crevice in the stone wall of her house. At dawn, she sews her poems into the hem of her dress, wraps her birthday shawl around the exposed Torah, and joins a procession of Jewish exiles departing through the town gates. The journey to the port of Valencia is brutal, marked by heat, thirst, and exhaustion. Samuel's health deteriorates under the Torah's weight. A fellow traveler, Naomi, gives birth by the roadside after refusing villagers' demands that her baby be baptized. Benvenida sings an old song, "En la mar hay una torre" (In the sea there is a tower), about a girl trapped in a tower who calls to passing sailors. The music lifts the group's spirits. At the port, a converso (Jewish convert to Christianity) innkeeper helps the family secure passage to Naples. During the voyage, Samuel says his goodbyes, telling Benvenida to always live the truth of who she is, and dies. His body is released into the sea.

In Naples, the family is taken in by Mother's relatives. Benvenida's Tía Mazal, a widowed aunt, initially discourages her poetry but then provides parchment and sews a dress with hidden pockets so Benvenida can carry her poems wherever she goes. When conditions for Jews worsen across Europe, the family relocates to Constantinople, where the Turkish sultan has promised safe haven. There, Benvenida hears an oud, a pear-shaped stringed instrument, and resolves to learn it and pass the old songs to the next generation.

Part Two shifts to 1923 Silivri, a small town near Istanbul, where Reina, a descendant of Benvenida, lives with her parents and two younger sisters. Reina plays her mother Mima's oud and loves melancholy songs. Her father, Papa, an aging goldsmith, increasingly forbids his daughters from spending time with the Muslim boys next door, particularly Sadik, Reina's lifelong playmate. When Turkey celebrates its new independence as a republic, Reina sneaks out with the oud to meet Sadik at the fireworks. She performs "En la mar hay una torre," and when another boy grabs at the oud, Sadik defends her. Papa discovers the outing and declares Reina dead to him, stripping her of all privileges. He arranges to send her to Cuba with Tía Zimbul, an aunt grieving the death of her only son in the Turkish War of Independence, and to marry a distant older cousin named Moshico when she turns fifteen. Mima teaches Reina more old songs and gives her the oud and a house key, telling her to touch it whenever she feels lost. Sadik slips her a farewell letter. En route to Cuba, Tía Zimbul urges Reina to throw the oud into the sea, but Reina refuses, insisting the songs are in her blood. In Havana, Moshico inspects his young bride and accepts her, remarking that after the wedding the oud can hang on a wall as a memory. Reina plays the song about the girl in the tower on the balcony, feeling equally trapped.

Part Three opens in 1961 Havana. Alegra, Reina's youngest child, hears her mother wailing after learning that Mima died in Turkey without ever seeing Reina again. Reina takes the oud down from the wall for the first time in years and reveals to Alegra the full story of her banishment and arranged marriage. Alegra asks to volunteer as a brigadista, a volunteer teacher in Fidel Castro's literacy campaign to teach rural communities to read and write. Reina, remembering her own longing for freedom, signs the permission form and gives Alegra her gold Star of David necklace to keep hidden. At a training camp, Alegra and Teresita, an Afro-Cuban neighbor and friend, are photographed presenting orchids to Fidel Castro. Assigned to the countryside, Alegra teaches an elderly couple to read and write by lantern light. An alarming letter arrives: Alegra's father, Moshico, saw the photograph and is furious, and Alegra's three older siblings have fled Cuba for Israel. Moshico arrives the next day, tearful and aged, and asks Alegra to come home. Seeing his tears for the first time, she cannot refuse. Back in Havana, Reina explains that Moshico was arrested and jailed for peddling goods illegally. He announces Alegra must leave immediately; children can exit without papers, and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) will receive her in Miami. Reina sews the necklace into Alegra's dress hem. Before departure, Moshico takes the oud from the wall and tells Reina to keep it on a chair and sing whenever she wants. Alegra boards a plane with dozens of unaccompanied children, part of what becomes known as Operation Pedro Pan, an exodus of Cuban children sent to the United States by parents who feared the communist government.

Part Four opens in 2003 Miami, where Paloma, Alegra's daughter, attends the public viewing of Cuban salsa legend Celia Cruz with her father, Rolando, who was sent to a work camp in Cuba for playing Afro-Cuban music and later escaped during the Mariel boatlift. Paloma is Afro-Cuban on her father's side and Sephardic-Cuban on her mother's. She wears the gold Star of David necklace and learns from Alegra that Reina's oud was left behind in Cuba because officials would not allow it out of the country. She visits her ninety-one-year-old grandmother, Reina, who teaches her "En la mar hay una torre" in Ladino, the Judeo-Spanish language of the Sephardic Jews, insisting she memorize it so no one can ever take it away.

The family travels to Spain. In Toledo, they tour the Museo Sefardí, a restored fourteenth-century synagogue, where their guide, Mari Luz, shows them a parchment recently found hidden in a stone wall by her daughter Palomita. Written in Spanish using Hebrew letters, it reads: "Goodbye, my Toledo, my beloved home, once I was welcome, now I am not." The word "benvenida" appears in larger letters, suggesting it is the author's name. Alegra exclaims that they should claim this poet as their ancestor. Reina then spots an oud in an exhibition case. Mari Luz reveals it was donated by her father-in-law, Sadik Topal, from Silivri. After Reina was sent away, Sadik studied the oud, learned Sephardic songs, and married a woman from Toledo before moving to Spain. He always told his family that if they heard from Reina Cohen Toledano, to say he never forgot her. Reina plays the oud despite her arthritic fingers, and Paloma sings the old song. Mari Luz invites the family to a Shabbat (Jewish Sabbath) dinner, revealing she believes she descends from conversos. That night, Paloma slips into the hotel's moonlit courtyard, touches the stone wall where the parchment was hidden, and says, "I'm here," affirming her place in the unbroken chain of her ancestors.