![]() ![]() ![]() Over centuries, as the trunk journeys from Europe to the Yucatan to New Mexico, we witness Spanish Jews’ struggle to keep their religion secret until their conscious memories of it have finally been erased. Miriam is renamed Maria, and her family relocates to the more tolerant city of Toledo, yet the Inquisition follows them even there. It culminates in a horrible massacre in which the Jewish Quarter is destroyed, most of its residents killed, and the rest forced to convert to Catholicism. Ten-year-old Miriam lives with her sister and mother, a lacemaker, in the Jewish Quarter just as anti-Jewish sentiment is rising. The scene shifts to Seville, Spain, in 1391. In Constanza’s cellar, Jerry discovers a trunk containing old family relics, including a piece of bloodstained old lace, and begins reliving her ancestors’ memories. After years in Catholic charity homes, Jerry’s Aunt Constanza, her great-grandmother’s sister, brings her home to New Mexico. Fourteen-year-old Jerry Luna has been selectively mute ever since her mother abandoned her. ![]()
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