The Hand of Fatima

by Falcones, Ildefonso

  His howls made everyone present shudder.

  Hernando heard all the details later that night, when his mother came back down to the village and made him supper.

  ‘At the end the muleteer kept saying that you were the one who had stolen the cross. He kept shouting and calling you the Nazarene. Why did the scoundrel say that?’ asked Aisha.

  ‘Because he’s a vile liar!’ Hernando replied, still chewing on his food. He quickly pushed another piece of meat into his mouth.

  That night he did not dare go to Hamid’s house, and he could not sleep. What could the old man have thought of Ubaid’s accusations? He had ordered them to chop off his right hand! The mule-driver would not let things lie there. He knew it had been Hernando. Of course he did. But now . . . now Ubaid had no right hand, and that was the one he had used to raise the dagger against him. Still, he had to be careful. Hernando tossed and turned on the straw. What about Brahim? His stepfather had been surprised when Hernando insisted he check the mules. And the others who had been there? That accursed nickname of his! Before he had only been the Nazarene to the people of Juviles, but now that was how he would be known throughout the Alpujarra.

  The next morning he could not bring himself to visit Hamid either, but at mid-day the old man sent for him. Hernando found him sitting in the winter sun beside the church. He was perched on the largest fragment of the bell that had been smashed in the revolt, with the Prophet’s sword at his feet. Seated in rows in front of him was a large group of children, from Juviles or the castle. A few women and old men stood nearby. Hamid gestured to Hernando to approach. ‘Peace be with you, Hernando,’ he greeted him.

  ‘Ibn Hamid,’ the lad corrected him. ‘That’s the name I’ve adopted . . . if you have no objection,’ he stammered.

  The holy man stared into Hernando’s blue eyes. He only needed a moment: he could read the truth there. Hernando hung his head in shame; Hamid sighed deeply and looked up at the sky.

  Making sure that one of the children looked after the precious sword, Hamid drew Hernando a few steps away from the group.

  For a while, he said nothing.

  ‘Are you sorry for what you did, or simply afraid?’ Hamid eventually asked.

  Hernando had expected a much harsher tone. He thought about the question, then he replied: ‘He tried to persuade me to steal some of the spoils. He tried to kill me once, and threatened to do so again.’

  ‘He might try it,’ Hamid admitted. ‘You will have to live with that. Are you going to face up to him, or run away?’

  Hernando glanced at him: it was as though the old man could read his innermost thoughts.

  ‘He’s stronger than me . . . even without one of his hands.’

  ‘But you’re more intelligent. Use your intelligence.’

  They stared at each other for a long while. Hernando wanted to speak, to ask Hamid why he had protected him. He hesitated. Hamid did not move.

  ‘According to our customs, a judge cannot commit an injustice,’ the old scholar said at length. ‘If he alters the truth, it is in order to do something useful. And I am sure I did something useful for our people. Think of that. I trust you, Ibn Hamid,’ he whispered. ‘I know you had your reasons.’

  The lad tried to say something, but the old man stopped him.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I have a lot to do, and those children need to learn the Koran. We have to make up for all the lost years.’

  He turned back to the group of children, who were already shifting restlessly, and asked: ‘Who among you know the first sura, al-Fatiha?’ he asked as he hobbled back over to them.

  Quite a few of them raised their hands. Hamid pointed towards one of the older ones and told him to recite the prayer. The boy stood up:

  ‘Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim . . . In the name of God, the Compassionate and Merciful—’

  ‘No, no,’ Hamid interrupted him. ‘Slowly . . .’

  Nervous, the boy began again. ‘Bismillah—’

  ‘No, no, no,’ the old man interrupted him again. ‘Listen. Ibn Hamid, recite the first sura for us.’

  Hernando obeyed, and started the prayer, rocking gently back and forth as he did so: ‘Bismillah . . .’

  He finished the sura, and Hamid let a few moments go by. He rotated his hands, fingers bent, in a slow rhythmic movement at both sides of his head, as if the prayer had been music. None of the children could take their eyes off those skinny hands caressing the air.

  ‘You should know that the Arabic language is the language of the entire Muslim world,’ he explained. ‘It is what unites us wherever we come from or are living. Through the Koran, Arabic has become a divine language, holy and sublime. You need to learn to recite the suras rhythmically so that they resonate in your own ears and in those of anyone hearing them. I want the Christians in there’ – he pointed towards the church – ‘to hear this celestial music from your mouths and become convinced that there is no god but God, and no other Prophet but Muhammad. Show them, Hernando . . .’

  For two days after that, Hernando had no chance to talk to Hamid. While waiting for instructions from his stepfather, he looked after the mules, did what little work there was to do in the fields at that time of year, and spent the rest of the time teaching the Morisco children.

  On 30 December, Farax came through Juviles at the head of a band of armed Moriscos. Before leaving, he ordered the immediate execution of all the Christians held in the church.

  Farax the dyer not only followed King Aben Humeya’s instructions to bring him all the booty taken from the Christians, but took it upon himself to decree death to all Christian males aged over ten who had not already been killed. He further ordered that their bodies were not to be buried, but left out in the open to be eaten by wild animals. He also declared that any Moriscos who hid or protected a Christian would themselves be put to death.

  Hernando and the members of his improvised school watched as the Christian men were led out of Juviles church. Many of them looked ill, and shuffled along naked, hands tied behind their backs. They were taken to an open field nearby; as he stumbled along with the priest and the deacon, Andrés the sacristan turned towards Hernando, who was seated on a piece of the smashed bell. Hernando stared back at him until a Morisco jabbed his gun butt into the sacristan’s chest and forced him on. Hernando could almost feel the blow in his own body. He’s not a bad man, he told himself. Andrés had always been kind to him . . . The villagers joined the procession. They shrieked and danced around the Christian men. The children watched silently, until one of them shouted out and they all ran off to the field to join in the celebration.

  ‘You must not stay here,’ Hernando heard a voice behind him say.

  He turned, to find that Hamid had come up to him.

  ‘I don’t want to see them die,’ the lad confessed. ‘Why do we have to kill them? We’ve lived together . . .’

  ‘I don’t like it either, but we have to go and witness it. They forced us to become Christians under threat of expulsion, and that is another form of dying, to be sent far from your homeland and family. They have refused to recognize the one true God; they have not taken advantage of the opportunity they were given. They have chosen to die. Come on.’ Hamid was insistent, but Hernando still hesitated. ‘Don’t risk your own skin, Ibn Hamid. You could be next.’

  The first to be stabbed to death were the deacon and the priest. As he watched from a small terrace some distance away, Hernando was horrified to see his mother go up to Don Martín as he lay in his death agony on the ground. What was she doing? He felt Hamid put his arm round his shoulder. The Morisco women pushed and shoved until their menfolk moved away from the bodies. Silently, almost solemnly, one of them handed Aisha a knife. Hernando watched as she knelt beside the priest, raised the weapon high above her head, and then plunged it into his heart. The ululations rang out again. Hamid squeezed the boy’s shoulder tightly as his mother slashed at the priest’s lifeless form. Before long, his body was nothing more than a
bloody mass, but his mother, still on her knees, kept stabbing at it, as though with each blow she were avenging part of the fate that the other priest had condemned her to many years before. Eventually some of the other women came up and lifted her by the arms to drag her away. Hernando caught a glimpse of her contorted face covered in blood and tears. Aisha pushed the women off, dropped the knife, lifted her arms high in the air, and shouted as loudly as she could: ‘Allah is great!’

  The Moriscos killed two more men, the most prominent Christians in the village, but before they could despatch the rest, including Andrés the sacristan, El Zaguer from Cádiar appeared with his men. He told them to stop the killing.

  Hernando could only guess at the arguments going on between Zaguer’s soldiers and the Moriscos who wanted blood. His attention was divided between his mother, who by now was sitting on the ground with her head between her knees, and Andrés, who was next in line to be slain.

  ‘Go to her,’ Hamid said, pushing him forward. ‘She did it for you,’ he added, seeing the boy resist. ‘Your mother took her revenge on a man of Christ, and part of that revenge is yours too.’

  Hernando walked towards his mother, but came to a halt some way off. The other Moriscos were slowly drifting from the field, and some animals began to investigate the four bodies on the ground. Hernando watched as two dogs started to sniff at the deacon’s bloody form. He was wondering whether he should drive them off, when Aisha stood up.

  ‘Let’s go, my son,’ was all she said.

  From that moment Aisha behaved as if nothing had happened; that day she did not even change her clothes, as if the bloodstains on them were perfectly natural. It was Hernando who was much more affected: Ubaid was waiting for him up at the castle. The muleteer might even decide to come down to the village to look for him. When he was in the stable with his mules, Hernando kept a constant lookout. He had to be on his guard. Hamid knew he had set a trap for the muleteer. I trust you, the old man had said, but what did he really think of him? A judge cannot commit an injustice. If he alters the truth, it is in order to do something useful. The scholar had assured him this was what he really felt. Still, Hernando looked carefully all round the stable, his ears pricked for the slightest noise.

  He slept badly, and the next day as he recited the Koran even the children could tell he was distracted. This was the first day of the year according to the Christian calendar, and as was the custom, the women had gone to spin silk under the mulberry trees. They had painted their hands with henna, which they had also daubed on the doors of their houses. They had prepared dry bread and garlic and set off for the fields where they had built some clay ovens. Here they drowned the silkworm cocoons in a copper cauldron, and then cooked them with soap to get rid of the grease. While they stirred the cocoons with a small broom made of thyme, they spun the silk on crude wheels set up under the mulberry trees. The Morisco women were very skilful, and had all the patience needed to spin the slender threads. They sorted the cocoons into three categories: the almond ones, which gave the most valuable silk; the twin cocoons, which provided round silk, which was stronger and rougher; and the damaged ones, which gave thread used for lace and poorer quality weaves.

  Hernando wondered what they would do with the silk that year. How could they transport it and sell it in the silk market at Granada? According to Morisco spies in the city, the Marquis of Mondéjar was still gathering an army to set off into the Alpujarra.

  ‘And the Marquis of los Vélez has told King Philip he will put down the revolt in the Almería region,’ some old men were saying in the square by the church, where Hernando was teaching the children. He gestured to the boy reciting the suras to go on, and went over to the group.

  ‘The Devil Iron Head,’ he heard one old man say fearfully. That was the Moriscos’ name for the cruel and bloodthirsty marquis. ‘They say his horses urinate in panic the moment he climbs on their back.’

  ‘We will be crushed between the two marquises,’ another man said.

  ‘Things would have been different if the people of the Albaicín and the plains had joined us,’ a third man declared. ‘If that had happened, the Marquis of Mondéjar would have had problems in his own city, and would not have been able to come out to the Alpujarra.’

  Hernando saw several of the others nod in agreement.

  ‘The Moriscos in the Albaicín are already paying for their betrayal,’ the first man said, spitting on the ground. ‘Some of them have realized their mistake and are heading for the mountains. Granada is full of Spanish nobles and soldiers of fortune, and although the hospitals have offered to pay for their food and lodging, the Marquis of Mondéjar has ordered that they stay in houses belonging to Morisco families. They steal, and rape the wives and children. Every night.’

  ‘They say that more than a hundred of the most prominent and richest Moriscos have been locked up in the chancery,’ another man said.

  The first old man nodded.

  The group fell silent.

  ‘We will be victorious!’ one of them shouted. At his sudden roar, the boy reciting the suras fell silent. ‘God will be with us! We will triumph!’ the man insisted, with such conviction that the other men and the children all began to cheer with him.

  On 3 January 1569, Hernando was told by Brahim to report to Juviles castle. The Moriscos were heading out to meet the Marquis of Mondéjar’s army as it entered the Alpujarra.

  His hands were trembling so much he could not even tighten the girth on the first mule. The harness slipped to one side and fell to the ground. Hernando looked anxiously down at his hands. What was Ubaid going to do? He would kill him. He would be waiting for him . . . No. What could a one-armed muleteer do in the castle? How could he work with mules? A cold sweat broke out on Hernando’s back: Ubaid would lay a trap for him. He would not try anything in the castle. That was not the place . . .

  Hernando harnessed the mule team as best he could, said goodbye to his mother and set off. What if he ran away? He could . . . he could join the Christians, but . . . he would never succeed in crossing the Alpujarra! He would be stopped. If he did not turn up at the castle, Brahim would send people looking for him, and he would know that Ubaid had been telling the truth. He remembered Hamid’s advice, and the trust the wise old man had placed in him. He could not fail him.

  Hernando made his way up to the castle, staying in the middle of the mules for protection, and keeping a good lookout. Despite his fears, Ubaid was not lying in wait for him. The castle was a hive of activity, as the Moriscos prepared for their march to Pampaneira, where Aben Humeya was waiting for them with his army. Hernando looked for Brahim. He found him next to the citadel, talking to some of the leaders of the Morisco bandits.

  ‘We are leaving unloaded,’ his stepfather announced. ‘Get my horse ready . . . and the Narila mules too,’ he added, nodding towards Ubaid.

  The Narila muleteer’s stump was swathed in filthy bandages. His clothes were in tatters, and his face seemed gaunt and pale as he tried without success to harness his mules.

  ‘But—’ Hernando started to complain.

  ‘As you will have heard, he has paid for his crime,’ Brahim said, cutting him short, and stressing the last two words. He leant towards Hernando, eyes narrowed, as if challenging him to complain again.

  He knew! His stepfather knew as well! And yet he was the one who had wielded the sword to cut off Ubaid’s hand.

  Brahim watched his stepson walk towards the mules. A satisfied grin appeared on his face. He was glad Hernando and Ubaid were enemies: he hated them both.

  ‘I’ll harness your animals,’ Hernando told the muleteer, unable to take his eyes off the bloody bandage wrapped round the stump of his arm.

  Ubaid spat at the lad, who turned to his stepfather in protest.

  ‘Get them ready!’ Brahim shouted. He was no longer smiling.

  ‘Move away from the mules,’ Hernando told the mule-driver. ‘I’m going to harness your animals whether you like it or not, but I wa
nt you well away from me.’ Seeing a big stick on the ground, he picked it up in both hands and threatened Ubaid with it. ‘Get away from me!’ he repeated. ‘If you come near me, I’ll kill you.’

  ‘I’ll kill you first,’ growled Ubaid.

  Hernando thrust the stick at him, but Ubaid grabbed it with his left hand and parried the blow. Hernando could not believe how strong the muleteer was after all he had suffered. Brahim seemed to be enjoying their tussle, which lasted several moments. What can I do? Hernando wondered. Use your intelligence, he remembered. He took his right hand off the stick and raised it high in the air. Reacting instinctively to the threat, Ubaid tried to ward off the blow – with his stump! The sight of his bloody, mutilated arm confused the muleteer, and Hernando took advantage to thrust the stick hard into his stomach with his left hand. Ubaid staggered back and fell to the ground.

  ‘Don’t come near me! I want you far away from me at all times!’ Hernando shouted, threatening him again with the stick.

  Unable to conceal how much his arm hurt, the muleteer crawled away.

  Aben Humeya had set up headquarters in the fortress of Poqueira, perched on the top of a rocky outcrop that controlled the gorges of the Sangre, Poqueira and the river Guadalfeo. Hernando made his way there from Juviles together with almost a thousand other Moriscos. Some of them were armed, but most were simply carrying their agricultural tools; all of them were desperate to join the fight against the marquis. Ubaid stayed at the head of the mule team. He managed to make the journey leaning on them for support, although he did not have the strength to mount one. The men from Juviles were not alone: a throng of Moriscos had answered the King of Granada and Córdoba’s call. There was no more room in the fortress for them, so they spilled down into the small town of Pampaneira, where all the houses were soon filled as well. The late arrivals considered themselves lucky to be able to shelter from the cold under the broad balconies lining the narrow, crooked streets.