The Hand of Fatima

by Falcones, Ildefonso

  He pulled at the three leading horses. Roped together, the seven others spread out in a line.

  ‘Go on! Get on with you, my beauties!’

  At first it was hard to make them move: they were not used to being tied together in this way. The ones at the back kicked, reared and bit each other, refusing to budge. And he himself? he wondered. Would he be able to do it at his age? He kicked a horse as hard as he could in the belly.

  ‘Get a move on!’

  ‘Go on!’ he heard someone shout behind him.

  Through the milling animals he saw that Amin had picked up a piece of rope and was using it to hit the hindquarters of the rear horses. Almost immediately he heard Laila’s voice as well, hesitant at first, but soon as strong as her brother’s.

  They would do it! Hernando smiled, his children’s shouts ringing in his ears.

  Once all the horses had begun to move, they were like an unstoppable army. Hernando was afraid he would not be able to control them, but his children ran here and there behind and alongside them, urging them on and keeping them in line.

  ‘Be careful! Stay well away!’ he warned them constantly.

  The children were shouting as well. The Moriscos they knocked out of the way complained and insulted them. Ignoring them, the horses trampled on possessions, and clattered over tents. When they leapt over a small bonfire, Hernando realized just how blindly the animals were plunging on. They would never have done anything like that in normal circumstances.

  ‘Careful!’

  He had to pull fiercely on the lead horses to give an old woman the chance to escape without being trampled, but several Moriscos were sent flying through the air by the horses on the flanks.

  Even though the Arenal stretched a long way, they crossed it in no time. Hernando saw the guard post, with the soldiers trying to work out what all the fuss was about.

  ‘Now, children! Off you go, as fast as you can!’

  He no longer had any need to urge the horses on. As soon as they saw open ground between the last Moriscos and the guards, they broke into a furious gallop. Hernando ran a couple of paces alongside the steed he had kept free from the others. He grasped it by the mane to mount it. It was hard going: his muscles creaked from the effort. He failed in his first attempt, getting his leg stuck halfway up the animal’s rump, but he rebounded from the ground, pulled hard, and this time succeeded in swinging his leg over. Now that Amin and Laila were no longer driving the other horses on, they fanned out. Horrified, the soldiers watched as eleven crazy, unbridled horses came hurtling towards them.

  ‘Allahu Akbar!’

  No sooner had he called on his God than Hernando pulled on the two ropes he had tied to the front legs of the other two lead horses. They both stumbled, crashed to the ground, then turned a cartwheel in the sand. In the torchlight Hernando caught a glimpse of the soldiers’ terrified faces as the horses collided with each other and fell on top of them and their shacks. He himself, on his free horse, was able to gallop out of the Arenal, leaving the guard post in ruins.

  He jumped off the horse as quickly as he had mounted, and ran to the riverside bushes. The night was filled with the neighing of horses and the soldiers’ anguished cries.

  ‘Rafaela? Amin?’

  It was a few endless moments before he heard a reply.

  ‘Over here.’

  Even in the pitch dark he recognized his eldest’s voice.

  ‘And your mother?’

  ‘Here,’ Rafaela answered from a little further on.

  When he heard her voice, Hernando’s heart leapt. They had done it!

  69

  THEY ESCAPED to Granada, knowing full well that if they were stopped they faced death or slavery. The captains of the Córdoban militias must have known it was he who had escaped: Hernando was the owner of the horses and his name and his children’s would be on the list of deportees embarking on the ships. He decided to head for the Alpujarra. There were many abandoned villages up in the mountains. Miguel had no problem getting out of the Arenal on his mule. He met up with the others beyond the city walls. His only regret was leaving behind those sixteen magnificent horses. But what did that matter?

  After a long journey from Seville to the Alpujarra, avoiding roads, hiding from people, stealing whatever food they could from the winter fields or lurking outside villages while Miguel tried to beg some alms, they found refuge in Viñas, near Juviles. Viñas had been deserted ever since its inhabitants had been expelled following the earlier revolt.

  It was still bitterly cold and the peaks of the Sierra Nevada were covered in snow. Hernando surveyed them, then looked back at his children. This was where he had spent his childhood. He forbade them to light fires except at night. They took over a tumbledown house that Rafaela and the children tried hard to clean, without much success. Hernando and Miguel watched them: they looked like beggars.

  The two men left the house, and found themselves in a narrow lane flanked by ruined dwellings. When Rafaela saw them leave, she told the children to carry on, and followed them.

  What now? her enquiring gaze seemed to say as she caught up with them. Are we going to live in hiding here for the rest of our lives?

  ‘I have another favour to ask of you, Miguel,’ Hernando said hastily, not turning towards the cripple but meeting his wife’s gaze and stretching out a hand towards her.

  ‘What is it you need?’

  Hernando went as close as he dared to Granada with Miguel, then returned to the Alpujarra with the mule: a beggar should not possess such an animal. Miguel managed to get through the Rastro gate after the guards yielded to his incessant stream of incomprehensible talk. From there he headed straight for the Casa de los Tiros.

  During the days Miguel was absent, Hernando entertained his children and tried to teach them to catch little birds. He found a piece of dried-out rope, unpicked the strands, and with his children watching him closely, made several traps they hung in tree branches. They did not catch any birds, but the children had a good time. They also had enough to eat. Hernando knew this region well, and apart from meat, he was able to find all they needed to keep them going. After a week in Viñas, when not another soul had appeared, he told Rafaela he was going away for a few days with Amin and Muqla.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I have to show them something.’ A worried shadow flitted across his wife’s face. ‘Don’t worry,’ he reassured her. ‘Keep your eyes open, and if you see anything strange, go and hide with the children in the caves close to where we tried to catch birds. Laila knows where they are.’

  Just as Hernando remembered it, the castle of Lanjarón stood proudly on top of its hill. They waited at the bottom for night to fall before they began the climb. Hernando had timed their journey to coincide with the full moon, which shone like a huge disc in a cloudless, starry sky. With his children scampering behind him, he headed for the fortress’s southern tower.

  ‘There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God,’ he whispered into the night.

  With that he knelt down and started to dig. He soon came upon Muhammad’s sword. He lifted it carefully out of the ground and showed it to his two boys, reverentially undoing the cloths he had used to wrap it in.

  ‘This’, he told them, ‘is one of the swords that belonged to the Prophet.’

  How he wished that the gold scabbard and the metal strips would shine in the moonlight just as they had done all those years ago when he had first set eyes on the sword in Hamid’s humble shack. Instead, he saw a similar gleam in his children’s eyes. He drew the scimitar. As it emerged, the blade made a grating sound, and Hernando was startled to see that the edge of the rusty blade still bore traces of dried blood: it must have come from Barrax the corsair leader’s neck! For a few moments he was lost in memories and, despite himself, Fátima’s black eyes appeared to him yet again, like stars in the night sky.

  A few timid coughs brought him back to reality. He glanced at Amin, then found himself star
ing at Muqla: even by moonlight he could see how his eyes shone.

  ‘For years,’ he said vehemently, ‘Muslims cherished this sword. At first, when we ruled these lands, it was exhibited proudly and wielded with great courage. Then, when our people were subjugated, it was hidden to await a new victory that must come one day. You can be sure of that. Today we are more defeated than ever; our brothers have been driven out of Spain. If my plans succeed, we will have to go on behaving like Christians, even more convincingly because there will be few Muslims left. We will have to talk like them, eat like them, and pray like them. But don’t despair, children. I will probably not live to see it, and perhaps you won’t either, but one day a true believer will appear, take this sword, and . . .’ He hesitated for a moment, recalling the words Hamid had spoken all those years ago. What was he going to say? That the sword would be raised to wreak revenge for injustice? In spite of the anger he felt, he did not want his children to grow up with an image of hatred in their minds. ‘. . . and will brandish it in the light as a symbol that our people have regained their freedom.

  ‘Always remember where that freedom will come from and, if it does not happen in your lifetimes, transmit the message to your children so that they can do the same. Never give up in the fight for the one God! Swear it by Allah!’

  ‘I swear,’ said Amin, looking solemn.

  ‘I swear,’ Muqla copied him.

  As the three of them headed back to Viñas, Hernando reflected on what he had just made his sons swear. He had worked all his life for the Christians to accept the Moriscos, to allow them to talk in Arabic, and yet now he had stirred his boys up against them – to what end? He felt confused. Alongside the images of thousands of defeated Moriscos herded together on the sands of the Arenal at Seville, he remembered the day when Hamid had presented him with the sword. Back then it had been a fight for survival, and they were ready to die to preserve their laws and customs. How different this humiliating expulsion from Spain was! They and a few more Moriscos hidden in the countryside and the cities were probably the only ones left. What had happened to the mutual understanding he had fought so hard for? He put his arms on his boys’ shoulders and drew them closer in the night. They would keep the flame of hope alive for their ill-used people. It might be only a feeble glow, but didn’t huge fires start from the tiniest spark?

  It was almost three weeks before they saw Miguel again in the Alpujarra. When he reappeared he was riding a new mule, and did not come alone. Accompanying him was Don Pedro de Granada Venegas, who rode on his own, without any servants. The nobleman said they could take shelter in lands he was lord of in Campotéjar, on the borders of the provinces of Granada and Jaén, but they must pretend they were Christians who had come there from the city of Granada. Don Pedro had seen to it that they had fake documents stating they were inhabitants of the city, and old Christians. Hernando’s new name was Santiago Pastor; Rafaela was Consolación Almenar. No one would be surprised at their move. The expulsion of the Moriscos had left the fields empty, with no one to work them. This was especially true in the kingdom of Valencia, but it also affected many other regions, including the lands where the Granada Venegas family were lords. Don Pedro also gave them two letters: one was addressed to the steward who looked after his estates. The other was a letter of introduction to the parish priest at Campotéjar. In it he praised the religious spirit of a family who he said were his devoted servants, and whom he guaranteed as people fearful of God. Miguel had papers showing that he was a close relative. Don Pedro assured them that if they made no mistakes, nobody would bother them.

  ‘What has become of the lead plaques?’ Hernando asked him in private before the nobleman mounted his horse once more and headed back to the city.

  ‘The archbishop is still keeping hold of the books and personally supervising their translation. He will not tolerate the slightest reference to any Muslim teachings. A collegiate church is being built on the Sacromonte, as well as a school for religious and legal studies. We have failed.’

  ‘Perhaps one day . . .’ Hernando said, a note of hope in his voice.

  Don Pedro looked him up and down and shook his head. ‘Even if we were successful, even if the Sultan or any other Arab ruler made the gospel of Barnabas public, there are no Muslims in Spain any more. It would be of no use.’

  Hernando wanted to argue, but thought better of it. Didn’t Don Pedro see how important it was that the truth saw the light of day, whatever had become of the Moriscos in Spain? The converted nobles had managed to escape being expelled. Don Pedro had discovered his Christian roots thanks to an apparition of Jesus Christ, which had been told of in a book in a way that had only increased his standing. He might be offering them help, but did he still believe in the one true God?

  ‘I wish you long lives,’ the nobleman added as he lifted a foot into the stirrup. ‘If you have any problems, make sure I hear about it.’

  With that, he galloped off.

  Many of them remain, especially where there are communities and they are protected . . .

  Letter from Count Salazar to the Duke of Lerma, September 1612

  Campotéjar, 1612

  ALMOST TWO years had gone by since that conversation and, as predicted, Hernando and his family had encountered no problems in installing themselves in an out-of-the-way farmhouse in the lands of the Granada Venegas family. Because they had once been in his employ, they were still protected by Don Pedro. Their way of life had changed. Hernando no longer had any books to take refuge in, nor any paper or ink to write with. Nor did he have any horses. The scarce funds the family possessed could not be wasted on such things; even if he had had the money, Hernando could not have spent any time on calligraphy – they were in such close contact with the other families living in this backwater that their neighbours would soon have realized what was going on and become suspicious. The house doors were always open, and the low murmur of the women endlessly reciting rosaries became a characteristic of the hamlet. Sometimes, however, when they were alone in the fields, Hernando would almost unconsciously trace Arabic letters in the earth, which Rafaela and his children quickly rubbed out with their feet. It was only the seven-year-old Muqla (who increasingly had to become used to being called Lázaro) who fixed his blue eyes on the written shapes, as though trying to memorize them. He was the only one of his children to whom Hernando continued to teach the Muslim doctrine, remembering the copy of the Koran he had hidden in the mihrab of the Córdoba mosque, which he hoped to recover some day.

  Apart from this exception with Muqla, Hernando avoided talking about religion. He did not give any classes to the other children for fear they might be found out. There was a great deal of unrest in the region, and there were constant denunciations of Moriscos who had managed to avoid being expelled. Any Morisco arrested was destined for death, slavery, the galleys, or work in the mines at Almadén. Hernando could not put his children’s lives at risk! But Muqla was different. He had exactly the same colour eyes as him: the legacy of the Christian priest who had violated his mother, and the symbol of the injustice that had led the people of the Alpujarra to rise up in revolt.

  Hernando puffed out his cheeks, rested the long pole on the ground, and paused in his work. He was about to put a hand to his aching back when he saw Rafaela looking his way and desisted.

  ‘Have a rest,’ his wife told him for the umpteenth time, although she herself was still bent over picking olives from the ground and dropping them into a big basket.

  Hernando clenched his teeth and shook his head, but he did give himself a few moments to survey his children. Amin (who in the village was known as Juan) was jumping from branch to branch of the olive tree. Just as he himself had done with an old tree that survived the frosts on the terraces up above Juviles, his son scampered up the gnarled branches to reach the olives that the pole could not dislodge. The other four were helping their mother pick up the ripe windfalls and the ones Hernando had knocked to the ground. His eldest son was fifteen,
and could wield the pole with great skill, but if Amin was the one who banged the trees to dislodge the late olives, what was left for him to do? There was no way he could climb trees at close to sixty.

  He lifted the pole again to strike the branches of the tree. Rafaela saw him and shook her head.

  ‘Stubborn mule!’ she shouted.

  Hernando smiled to himself as he hit the branch. She was right, but they had to pick the olives. Like many other families in the region, they were faced with dozens of trees in lines that seemed to stretch for ever. The sooner they got the olives to the oil-mill, the better quality oil they would produce, and the more they would earn for their work.

  At dusk they returned home exhausted. They lived in a tiny, tumbledown two-storey house, which together with five other equally ramshackle dwellings made up the farming hamlet some distance from the village of Campotéjar.

  This was where they had been for the past two years. They worked in the fields for wretched daily wages that were scarcely enough for them to feed their five children. Like all those who worked the land, they often went hungry, but at least they were together, and took strength from that.

  On Sundays and days of obligation they attended mass in Campotéjar, where they gave the appearance of being more religious than anyone. Since 1610, Archbishop de Castro, a passionate defender of the lead plates, had left Granada and installed himself in Seville. From there, thanks to his immense private fortune, he continued his labour of translating the plaques and lead plates and with the construction of the collegiate church above the caves. At the same time, he became the chief proponent of conceptionism, making the purity of the Virgin Mary the banner of his archbishopric. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception spread throughout Spain, reaching even the smallest, most remote parishes such as Campotéjar. Hernando and Rafaela listened to the fervent homilies about Mary, that same Maryam the Prophet had decreed to be the most important woman in heaven, in whom the Koran and the Sunna saw identical virtues to the ones now being praised in Christian churches. From the perspective of their own faiths, Hernando and Rafaela were united through her figure: he with respect, she with devotion.