Now it’s here, the historical novel that Vladimir Vertlib wanted to write when he was young. Its action takes place in Vienna in the late 1660s and early 1670s, when there was a Jewish town in the Lower Werd and Leopold I was emperor. Pedro, the hero of the novel, is the personal physician of Margarita Teresa, the Infanta of Spain from the Spanish line of the Habsburgs, who later became the wife of Leopold I. Pedro is a converso, a Jew whose family converted almost 200 years ago, but secretly remained in the Jewish faith. Margarita Teresa should, must, give birth to an heir to the throne. After the short life of her first child, several miscarriages and the birth of a girl, the pressure is enormous. Margarita Teresa is convinced that the Jews are to blame for not giving birth to an heir to the throne and demands that they be expelled from the Jewish city.
