Against the Inquisition

by Aguinis, Marcos

  His words set off a new wave of coughs from Aldonza. She choked on phlegm and tears; it was the most comforting thing she had heard in her life. Isabel and Felipa went to her side, embraced her, and dried her cheeks. Francisco felt miserable. His beautiful father was so far away, perhaps mutilated by torture or perhaps hung from a Spanish cherry tree in Lima.

  Francisco Solano raised his large hand and placed it on the woman’s head. He murmured a prayer and said that she should continue to nurture hope. And that she shouldn’t feel disqualified from her faith for having married a New Christian. “All of us, the new and the old, are children of the Lord. This difference is unfortunate. Listen, the apostles themselves were New Christians. The receivers of the sacred Epistles were all New Christians. And who is more of a New Christian than Saint Paul himself?” The clergyman settled back into his chair and, fingering the long cord of his habit, spoke of the recent and dangerous division. “Before, people spoke of Christians, Moors, and Jews. But since the mass conversions, only the Christians remain. These Christians may be saints or sinners, but they are not good for being old or bad for being new. It is a serious way of impeding those who’ve joined the Christian faith from enjoying the same dignity as those who were already part of it. The Indians who were baptized—what are they if not New Christians? That the blessed acceptance of our faith should imply a new kind of sentence—this is absurd.”

  “The Indians are New Christians like our father?” Isabel asked, stunned.

  “What else could they be?”

  He gestured with his hands, sleeves waving along with them. Francisco had the fleeting impression that fish from the river might swim out right then and there. The monk spoke of New Christians who should be humbly imitated by many Old Christians, such as Juan de Ávila, Luis de León, Juan de La Cruz, and Pablo de Santa María. They all came from Jewish families full of rabbis. “In La Rioja, my vicar was a New Christian. He helped me a great deal, even though he was a persistent sinner. Every day he committed a minor sin. Every day! What a man! I pleaded with him, reprimanded him, and even threatened him. Useless. I came to think, and I believe I was correct, that the Lord was using this man to show that I was not as persuasive as they say I am.”

  “Brother Bartolomé Delgado will arrest you,” Francisco blurted.

  “Why?” The monk looked astonished.

  “Because you criticize those who persecute New Christians. You defend the New Christians themselves.”

  “But not heretics,” he said loudly, his face filling with a military glow.

  An uncomfortable silence followed.

  “Not heretics,” the monk repeated, returning to his normal tone.

  “My father is a heretic?” Felipa stammered.

  “I don’t know. That will be determined by the High Tribunal of the Holy Office.”

  “You said he had a noble heart.”

  “I did say that. But heresy is another matter. Heresy is an attack on God, and an alliance with the devil. It is extremely serious.”

  “You told us not to be ashamed,” Isabel ventured timidly.

  “I said it, and I will say it again. Do not be ashamed, and be strong so as to resist temptation. If Doctor Diego Núñez da Silva has sinned, we shall know it. He can repent. If he has not committed any heinous crimes they will offer him reconciliation.”

  “What does that mean?” Francisco asked.

  “Forgiveness, after an adequate penance.”

  “Then our mother and my sisters and I will be able to safely walk the streets again.”

  “You can do so now.”

  “No,” Francisco replied, “we cannot. People say ugly things to us.”

  “Child, be quiet,” Aldonza protested, fist to her mouth to suppress another cough.

  “My mother and sisters do not dare go out anymore,” added Francisco. “It’s humiliating to walk to church, to Mass.”

  “Ridiculous!” exclaimed the monk.

  “It’s true,” Francisco insisted, turning to Felipa. “What happened the last time?”

  “People threw fruit rinds and eggshells at us,” she said.

  A cool, damp stillness kisses his face. Several mules and soldiers wait at the monastery door. The arms that grip Francisco help him mount. He hears the words “Sergeant,” “equipment for prison,” “Santiago.”

  Is he being taken to Santiago de Chile? An official says the name “Maldonado da Silva.” The word “Silva” echoes.

  “Silva,” Francisco recalls, “from the lineage of Hasdai and Samuel Hanaguid.”

  27

  An uproar greeted the dawn. Francisco Solano had not exaggerated when he said he’d share his breakfast with the morning birds. He broke his pastry into small pieces and attracted a hungry flock. Catalina, by now an expert at trapping small birds to enrich her stews, pounced on this fantastic crowd with her hemp net, which horrified the monk. She thought he had been using those crumbs as bait, and meant to help him catch them. Francisco Solano pushed her; Catalina imagined that he was angry because she had only captured a few so she leapt with renewed energy at another cluster of frenetically pecking birds. The monk shouted at her to move away, and she replied at the top of her voice that she was doing her best.

  There was no more pastry for breakfast so Isabel served the monk some fruit. He ate a few white figs and left for the monastery. He wanted to arrive in time for Mass. Before he left, he mentioned that in a few days he would continue on toward Paraguay. He then offered to return the following morning to walk with them to Mass. This way he would teach the bad Christians how people who’ve been through difficult situations should be treated.

  That afternoon, Brother Isidro appeared. He had heard about the Franciscan’s visit. The whole city had found out, he said hyperbolically.

  “He explained why he doesn’t like for us to be called New Christians,” Francisco said, unable to contain himself.

  “Your mother isn’t one.”

  “My father is, and so am I, and my sisters and brother, too,” Francisco went on emphatically. “He taught us that it’s a name used against Jews.”

  “That could be.” His protruding eyes searched for someone else to speak with, to escape the siege.

  “Who are the Jews?” Francisco asked.

  Brother Isidro stepped back in surprise with a hint of fear. He ran his hand through his sparse white hair and then traced his hairline with his middle finger.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Because I’ve been called a Jew—a Marrano Jew.”

  “Who has called you that?”

  “I’m asking you what it means, and you ask me who said it.”

  “I cannot answer you. You’ll know in due time.”

  “I need to know now! Please—”

  “Impatience is not a—”

  “What impatience, Father!”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Is it true that they worship a pig’s head?”

  “What? That’s ridiculous! Tell me, who has told you such nonsense?”

  “Lorenzo.”

  “The captain’s son?”

  “Yes.”

  “They don’t worship a pig’s head. They don’t worship any animals, or any images.”

  “Lorenzo says they do. In that case, why don’t Jews eat pork?”

  “Because their laws forbid it. Those two things are completely unrelated.”

  “Then why are Jews pigs—marranos?”

  “These things are unrelated. I just told you that.”

  “Why did people shout at me, call me a marrano?”

  Brother Isidro pressed the boy’s shoulders with both hands and shook him. “Because that is the way ignorant, irresponsible Christians talk.”

  “You’re not telling me the truth.”

  “The truth! It’s so complicated—how to explain it to you? Look, your father is a New Christian and the Old Christians don’t like that.”

  “Does that mean he’s Jewish?”

 
“They want to keep labeling him as Jewish. Didn’t Francisco Solano tell you?”

  “He was a Jew, then. Or is a Jew?”

  “His ancestors were Jewish.”

  “They didn’t eat pork.”

  “No. But they didn’t worship—what you’ve been told they did. They worshipped no image.”

  “What do they believe in, then?”

  “Only in God.”

  “What makes them different from us?”

  Felipa’s arrival allowed the monk to free himself from this dialogue. The girl said that her mother felt unwell and begged him to see her. The clergyman, before departing for Aldonza’s room, ordered Francisco to say ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys. “They will comfort you.”

  Francisco Solano kept his promise. He came the following day with his hunchbacked assistant to accompany them to Mass.

  Aldonza seemed smaller and more stooped than before, a black shawl hiding her hair, her forehead, and part of her cheeks; only her blue eyes could be seen clearly. The monk asked her to walk to his right. That distinction caused, in her, a new shortness of breath. Isabel would walk to his left. Young Francisco would be in front, Felipa behind. Following Felipa, to close their entourage, Andrés the helper. They formed a cross. A human cross going to church with an exhibitionist spirit. The monk’s bony head towered in the center, causing rumors to ripple out. This lesson about solidarity was only understood by some.

  Martín de Salvatierra spies the small group of men from a barely open window in the thick wall of the Dominican monastery. At the group’s center, dutifully tied up with rope, is the prisoner. His beard and hair are disheveled. His arrest, interrogation, testimonies, and transfer have all been carried out with effective discipline.

  “May the Lord help him to rediscover the truth,” he prays. “May the long journey to Santiago de Chile work on his soul as the path of Damascus did on the soul of the apostle.”

  28

  The fates of Isabel and Felipa were resolved by Brother Bartolomé. He considered it necessary for them to join the novices who would form the core of a new convent for nuns. The bishop Trejo y Sanabria was determined to open it soon. It was advantageous to help the bishop, and, as a commissioner, it was a triumph to have the descendants of a heretic commit to the true faith. Custom demanded that the future wives of Christ approach the divine nuptials with a dowry. Where to get that sum, when their assets had been confiscated and sent to Lima? Divine providence came to their aid. In effect, Juan José Brizuela, owner of the house where Aldonza and her children lived, had just been arrested in Santiago de Chile. The property would have been paid for by Don Diego with what he earned from selling his house in Ibatín. But this residence had already changed hands at a good price, thanks to the intervention of the implacable Antonio Luque; the monies arrived by well-guarded mule to the treasury of the Inquisition. Núñez da Silva was in no condition, then, to fulfill his duties. The arrest of Brizuela in Chile made it necessary to sell the Córdoba property to a third party, as money was required for the cost of the trial. And here Brother Bartolomé displayed his skill: he turned to the Indian overseer Hernando Toro y Navarra, whose recent riches were out of tune with his shabby home, and proposed an advantageous procedure in the name of the Holy Office. Brother Bartolomé could sell him Brizuela’s house at a low price if he donated dowries for Isabel and Felipa to the future convent. It was not difficult to reach an agreement, and, with his cat and a smile, he went to deliver the news to the sorrowful women.

  Upon learning of the arrangements, Aldonza clasped her hands anxiously and wondered where she and Francisco would live. “At least your sisters will be safe,” she consoled her son, coughing as she spoke. “They will have food, shelter, and dignity.”

  A date was set for Felipa and Isabel to go to the home of Leonor Tejeda, the widow who had donated her assets and her home to build the first convent for nuns, dedicated to Santa Catalina. The sisters were instructed to take all their possessions with them. In their new home, they would be told what to do with each item: the clothes would be mended, reshaped, and either kept for daily use or donated to the needy.

  Isabel and Felipa went through the few trunks they had left and prepared their limited trousseau. Catalina helped them sew and mend where it was called for. The enslaved woman didn’t know where she would end up, either. She and Luis prepared a farewell luncheon. She went through the neighborhood and filled her basket with whatever fruit, vegetables, or grains she could find on her path. Luis arranged to fill a pitcher with red wine at the Mercedarian monastery, with the essential complicity of Brother Isidro. Aldonza, struggling against the weakness that tugged her toward bed, took out the only embroidered tablecloth she had left, which, thanks to a stain, had not been sold. Felipa and Isabel set out what remained of the dinnerware: one ceramic plate and three tin ones, four jugs with crooked lips, three nicked knives, the saltshaker, and a clay serving bowl. Aldonza gathered flowers from the potato plants in their garden and placed them at the center of the table.

  During the sad meal Felipa joked about the flowers her mother had set out, comparing them to hyacinths. Isabel laughed at the clay serving bowl, which traveled frequently back to the stove to bring new servings. Francisco pretended to cut his own throat with the knife; its dents did nothing but tickle. Aldonza ate slowly, interrupted by her cough, smiling at her children’s silly antics. That afternoon they were to appear at the home of Leonor Tejeda.

  Isabel and Felipa arranged the bundles on their heads, like slaves. They set out toward their new home, accompanied by their mother and Francisco. In the street, adobe walls extended their shadows like long puddles of ink. A few passersby turned to watch the woman, who seemed like a widow, and her children of wretched blood. They murmured but no longer hurled insults. It was known that the girls were headed for the novitiate; they were purifying themselves of the heresy their father had committed. Francisco glanced at the onlookers from the corners of his eyes and saw expressions of hatred, approval, pity, and disdain. Every neighbor felt entitled—and obliged—to have an opinion regarding the relatives of a Marrano.

  A nun with a wrinkled face welcomed them. She had come from Castile, Spain, by mistake, and she’d been sent to this mansion to help Leonor Tejeda found the convent. She had the virtue of going unnoticed, and this modest way of hers served as an example of how a bride of Christ should behave. She looked at the group with mousy eyes and invited them in. She ordered Francisco to stay outside.

  “No men allowed.”

  She wore a large black habit with V-shaped sleeves. Her snow-white scapular conveyed her obsessive cleanliness. A jet-black belt slung around her waist and a rosary with pale wooden beads hung around her neck. Her starched wimple trembled on her head. She was withered, hunched, and half blind, and yet she exuded a strange vigor. She walked ahead of them down the short hall and turned left at the colonnades of the first courtyard. A couple of novices asked if she needed anything.

  “Light,” she answered coldly, gesturing at her visitors to sit on a carob wood bench. A candelabra was brought in.

  “For them,” she said. “I see better in the dark.”

  Isabel and Felipa placed their bundles at their feet and folded their hands on their laps. Aldonza coughed and apologized.

  “These girls,” the nun said, “have been honored by the church. I do not like to flatter in vain, but I do want them to feel grateful.”

  “We are,” Aldonza assured her. “We are.”

  “Brother Bartolomé told me of these girls’ virtues.”

  “That man is a saint,” Aldonza said.

  “And he told me that their dowry has already been paid.”

  “Thanks be to Our Lord and the Sacred Virgin.”

  “Now these girls must learn how to live in the sacred retreat of a cloister.”

  Night was falling sweetly. A few candles lit up in the austere rooms of the convent. A warm scent of resin and honeysuckle spread through the air.

  “You
may bid your daughters farewell.”

  Isabel and Felipa waited stiffly between their mother and the nun, between their known world and the world they were to discover. They would be releasing their pasts, which, despite the bitterness, had given them love and their shares of happiness; they now entered an exalted yet highly regulated future. Behind them lay their childhood and their dreams, which included the arrival of some handsome, magnificent gentlemen. Before them lay their new role of disciplined service to God. They stared in anguish at the plants in the courtyard, the flowerpots shrouded in darkness; for many years to come they would see this same courtyard, these same flowers. They would sit on this carob wood bench again and again, and remember this moment. They also stared at the few novices who glided noiselessly through the halls, like ghosts. They would do the same.

  Aldonza reached for her daughters’ hands. She caressed them. Then she began to cough up phlegm, and cough tears, and, without waiting for her cough to subside, she embraced them fiercely, touched their backs, necks, and arms, saying over and over between ragged breaths and eruptions, “May God bless you.” Felipa’s cheeks were drenched. She asked the nun for permission to say goodbye to her brother. The nun assented and guided them back to the front door. She slid back a creaky bolt and opened the door. A shaft of outside light invaded the floor. Francisco had been crouching against the coarse wall; he sprang up and embraced his sisters. Never had he so powerfully felt that they belonged to each other. He hadn’t imagined that the separation would hurt so sharply. Were all his relatives going to fall away, like a leper’s fingers? He had to imprint them into his body. But Isabel and Felipa pulled away, shaking and afraid.