The Fan-Maker's Inquisition

by Rikki Ducornet

  “But…” Melchor whined, “Kukum’s widow is nothing like what you describe. She is simple—”

  “Nothing, Melchor, is simple! Except, perhaps, you yourself.” Landa pulled Melchor back by a sleeve into the worsening air of the room and sat him down. “Why do you think this woman’s skin is so smooth as to evoke a longing to bite into it as into a piece of fruit? Because she scrubs her face with a paste made of the dung of bats. And while we are on the subject, why does her hair shine so blackly? It is because of her diet of grasshoppers and their frass.”

  “I have seen her at market,” Melchor attempted, “selling tamales. Tamales with peppers are what she eats, and she washes her face with water.”

  “Do you know the story of the good soldier Pámfilo, who traveled in the company of Cervantes de Salazar?”

  “No,” said Melchor, grumpily.

  “And who fell in love with a beautiful tamale vendor? Would you like another biscuit?”

  Melchor nodded and, ebbing with sleep and irritation, stuck the corroded object into his mouth.

  “The tamales she sold were shaped very like the male member, and this fact, and one glance at the woman’s face, were enough to corrupt this brave and innocent soldier. He bought a tamale and ate it, licking his fingers after. He bought another; it was sweeter than the first. These tamales were so good, they melted in the soldier’s mouth. The tamale vendor had a little dish of hot pepper sauce, and this she held out to him so that he could dip the tamale into the sauce at his convenience.

  “‘What meat is this?’ Pámfilo asked, sighing. ‘So sweet!’

  “And she replied: ‘Milk-fed deer.’

  “Now, the tamales, the sauce, the woman’s dark eyes, her smile—all were glamours, and poor Pámfilo was bewitched. He hung around the market all day eating tamales and dipping them in sauce. When evening came, he followed the woman home through the woods. Walking behind her, he could see her body move beneath the thin cotton of her dress. In her hair, she wore a tixzula blossom, and this, too, enchanted him. But suddenly she vanished; it was as if the forest had swallowed her whole. All that remained was the scent of tixzula. And then he heard a cry, a number of shrill cries, and before Pámfilo could cross himself, he was surrounded by Amazons—”

  “Amazons!” Melchor was at once attentive.

  “Amazons, varoniles y belicosas! Each one carried an ax of solid gold, and each one wore a little piece of moss over her secret parts. The poor soldier begged for mercy, but he was hacked to pieces anyway, his meat cooked up in a pot with peppers and, when it was tender, wrapped in masa and folded in husks. Then the tamales were stacked together in a large basket, which the beautiful Indian, dressed in white cotton, put on her head. Off she went to market to fool another soldier.”

  To make the lesson stick, and although Landa could see that Melchor was exhausted—and the heat of late afternoon, the stench of the dead fish, were dizzying—Landa forced Melchor to recall why they were there: not, like the addled Las Casas, to speak of love, nor, like the maniac Cabeza de Vaca, to eat ants and trade shells, but to pacify the Indians and bring them to the Light of Christ. Not much later, the things Landa said to Melchor would serve him in court, when he would be called back to Spain to face the Council on the Indies. Asked to justify his outrages in the Yucatán, Landa would say:

  • Their gods are arbitrary and fanciful, subtle beings living in the air, filthy beings living in mud and cinder whose nourishment is the blood of sacrificed victims and the salt tears of infants.

  • They worship vegetables and wear the heads of hares, which abound to an astonishing degree in this licentious country, as amulets; they have no laws against masturbation.

  • They venerate the serpent of the Manichaeans and, like the Jews, circumcise their sons; they salt human meat like pork.

  • Their lands are overrun with snakes because they do not hunt them but rather breed them in their mosques.

  • They are addicted to their dreams, which, they insist, reveal the truth of their destinies and enable them to converse with their gods.

  • Their perversity is insurmountable; they know nothing of logic; they are like vicious children; they despise the truth and embrace falsity; they are not susceptible to punishment or threats.

  • Their women urinate standing.

  “Furthermore, Melchor,” Landa continued, holding Melchor up by the neck of his robe, for he was close to collapse, “the Catholic Church forbids fornication with Indians. Cortés, it is true, fucked the one they called La Malinche, who proved useful. However, she was given catechism first.

  “And it must be added that Cortés seeded the land with statues of the Blessed Virgin—for he had the foresight to bring along hundreds of these. This in itself was enough to undo the sin. We say that this and that is so,” Landa droned on and on, “that Hell contains a lake of fire, that Jesus caused Lazarus to rise from the dead, that Jonah was commanded by Yahweh to go to Nineveh but instead went to Joppa and booked himself on a ship from which he was thrust into the sea and swallowed by a great fish appointed to this purpose. Such statements are Dogma.

  “Dogma is sustained by the true experience of Christ. The Christian, in partaking of Christ’s blood and flesh, embodies Dogma: His experience of God is visceral.

  “Whereas the pagan relies upon figments to rule him and so is easily deceived. Figments replace facts for the Indian, and that is why they belong not in the mind, Melchor, but in the fire.

  “Finally: If Christian Faith were not superior to pagan figment, the Indians would not dry up before the Glory of the Church like toads in the sun. For do they not die in droves? Are not their numbers dwindling as we speak? Are not their mosques in ruin?”

  As if in agreement, the many birds at the window all cried out together before clattering off. Surely the stench of the fish, now unbearable, had convinced them it was no longer worth hoping for.

  Eight

  —Citizen, the Comité wishes to inform you that this is your final day of trial, perhaps your last hour.

  —My last hour? Or the last hour of my trial? [She clenches her fists, perhaps to keep from trembling.]

  —Most often the two coincide, although not always. [He sighs, as beneath a great burden, and, leaning forward, speaks. His voice is thick and strange, as though his tongue is swollen.] In gardening, as with digestion, rot is a necessary and natural process. It results in a fertile rose bed, a healthy constitution. The text under scrutiny—your text—is rotten and unhealthy. There is nothing natural or good about it; it is not representative of a natural process—

  —[From the public, a stamping of feet. Someone shouts:]

  Get on with it!

  —It is representative not of the human spirit’s vast capacities but, rather, of spiritual vice—

  —Spiritual vice?

  —Vice! Of the spirit or, as in this case, spirits—as there are two authors responsible, not one. The language is excessive, obscene, peculiar.…The representation of the Creator—

  —[From the public:]

  The whore’s an atheist! Get on with it!

  —The idea of the Creator has, since the Revolution, undergone a certain beneficial evolution.…But our understanding of Him, intact, is treated here with what can only be called perversity, a…perverse impiety. The book is an example of—

  —Spiritual vice. [This said with irony. Yet she is pale, exhausted, out of patience.]

  —[He rises, threateningly, waving papers in the air above his head.] Certain documents have come to our attention! More documents! [He continues to rattle these about so that they are visible to the crowd. The public is curious and the room surges with a dull roar.]

  Truth is never found in Consequences! [He is shouting above the noise in the room; this bit of nonsense is lost in the hubbub.] One more head severed from its body will not further Truth! It is Causes, citizens, Causes alone…and the Causes of the Consequences are about to be revealed in these documents! [The public, perplexed and e
xpectant, quiets down. As he reads, the fan-maker visibly reddens, especially her ears, which turn crimson as though they’d been boxed. As her discomfort grows, so does the noise in the room, rising again like a swell of dirty water, punctuated by insults.]

  What are the attributes of the ideal woman, the true patriot?

  —[From the public:]

  Qu’elle ferme sa gueule!

  —[He raises his hand to silence the room and reads:]

  Citizens, as you know well, I spend my days and nights wandering the streets of my beloved Paris, peeking in here, listening there; why, I am the eyes and ears of Paris! And my Paris is the people’s Paris; I move among those inspired and generous souls, those fearless souls who have seized the day and made it theirs. I am proud—you know me well—to consider myself one of you and your equal.

  You recognize the author, citizens, a man beyond reproach.

  —[From the public:]

  Restif!

  —Restif de la Bretonne, yes. To continue:

  But what of the women of Paris? But what of those women who belong not in our dreams, our hearts, but who instead haunt our worst nightmares? What of them? This, citizens, is what I have, in my most recent peregrinations, seen:

  A woman who continued to make a very good living indeed, sewing pearls to velvet slippers and gold lace to silk sleeves—in the old manner (for yes! there are still clients for such fripperies as these!)—and who spent her nights in the arms of a foreign merchant. In cruder terms: A bit of pork disguised, was, just the other day, routed from her atelier by a band of patriotes who had had enough of the creature’s haughty ways, routed from her atelier, I say, like a weasel from its hole, and given a public thrashing to put the fear into a bison! To my mind they were generous: The trollop deserved more.

  —[From the public:]

  She deserved to lose her head!

  —[He resumes:]

  What is worse, all the time she continued her miserable and useless trade, carousing with strangers, eating chicken in delicate sauces while the rest of Paris starves, she openly mocked the people, mocked their callused hands and rough ways. “Let them wield their washtubs and pitchforks!” said she. “I shall continue to thread my needle!” Well! She will have to thread it standing up for a good time to come!

  —[Stomping in the room and much laughter.]

  —[He goes on:]

  Another example: A loudmouth, a so-called woman of sense and lover of liberty, was daily infecting the galleries and podium of the National Assembly with her strident cries for “feminine freedoms,” while her husband, a combatant who had lost a leg, was left alone at home in a filthy bed without a kind word or a spoonful of soup. Passing by his house, I heard his call for aid, and entering a squalid place that surely had never been swept, I made the poor soul a tisane. (I always carry a little pouch of herbs on my person for such occasions.) Hearing weeping from a dark and dismal corner of the hovel, I found two little ones, one in fever crying piteously for her mother, and both half dead with hunger. I quieted them as best I could, and cooled the elder’s fever—she was no more than five—with a compress of cold water I fetched from the public fountain a good way down the street. (There was no water in the house, nor was there anything to eat!) Then, fetching fresh eggs and butter from a grocer, I fed the little family. I did not leave them until I was satisfied as to their comfort, and had promised to find the wayward trollop who—all the while she was spouting the word “Liberty”—kept her family in misery.

  I took myself to the Assembly—she was not there—but found her, at long last, at one of the hermaphrodite clubs that have sprung up all over Paris like lethal mushrooms.

  “I’m looking for Madame L-,” I said to the creature who opened the door, and in a moment found myself confronted with a very ugly woman in trousers, her mouth deformed by a pipe.

  “Madame,” I said with feigned civility, “I have only just left your husband and children. Your house is in ruins, your elder child is in fever, your husband is in pain—his leg is gangrenous—the baby is in tears.” I saw that our monster looked at me with surprise; she was, despite her inebriation, attentive to my words.

  “You have seen them?” she asked, astonished.

  “Not only have I seen them,” I replied, “but I have fed them, dressed your husband’s leg, and soothed the child’s fever.” These words touched the witch’s heart, and she fell to her knees, sobbing.

  “Ah! Thank you, monsieur!” she said when she could. “But why have you been so generous? Are you a friend of my husband’s?”

  “I never saw him before in my life,” I said. “But yes, I am his friend; I am friend to all men who have been left to rot by their wives—wives who have no place in the violent discussions of the Convention nor in illicit cafés! Wives who belong at home, looking after the men who defend our Nation; looking after the future citizens of France!”

  “What you say is true!” she exclaimed, wetting my sleeves with her tears. “And wise! I will go to them at once!” As she hurried off, I saw her toss her pipe to the street, where it shattered.

  Citizens, my tale has surely dismayed you, but it has warmed you, too. However, my tales do not always comfort the soul. Here is my third example:

  A certain fan-maker—

  —[At these words, the room seems to explode. The fan-maker puts her hands to her ears and for the first time appears to lose courage entirely. She also closes her eyes.]

  A certain fan-maker, who continues to find clients who can afford taffeta and ivory, was seen with the notorious Olympe de Gouges in the botanical gardens, kissing in full view of everyone—including some very small boys who, in their dismay, thrust their little faces into their hands and sobbed, and a little girl whose virginal nurse, equally upset, picked her up to make a hasty retreat. Now, it may well be—surely it is so—that women belong to the human community, as Olympe de Gouges insists, that they are capable of reason and deserve to be included in the Declaration of Rights. It is, however, one thing to be capable of reason, another to be reasonable. Is it reasonable, I asked myself, to flaunt perversity in public?

  Finding a large bucket of rainwater, I used this to cool the lesbiennes’ ardor.

  “How dare you!” they cried, leaping to their feet, as sopping wet as at the instant of their birth.

  “How dare you, mesdames,” I replied, “deprive the New Nation of citizens?”

  —[The room resounds with cheers. With effort, the fan-maker opens her eyes. When the room falls silent, she speaks.] You are toying with me. I will answer no more questions.

  —You will tell us about your “friendship” with the woman who has been named, an agitator who has—

  —I will not.

  —Olympe de Gouges.

  —I refuse.

  —[Lifting the document up in the air and stabbing it with a grubby finger:] This document is several years old. It is our understanding that you have not seen Olympe de Gouges for some time. By speaking, you—[She has turned away, her eyes to the floor.] Look at me! [She closes her eyes.]

  —[To the guards:] Open her eyes! [One guard holds her, the other pries her eyes open with his fingers, tearing flesh. She cries out.] There is no longer a reason to protect her. Your lover, Olympe de Gouges, was beheaded this morning.

  Part II

  LES DRÔLESSES

  Against the disease of writing one must take special precautions, since it is a dangerous and contagious disease.

  —Abelard

  One

  3 Brumaire—the Season of Mists! 1793

  Sade, mon ami,

  There are not many ways for a woman to respond to inhumanity. One may, as Théroigne de Méricourt, he driven mad by a public spanking and finish one’s days shitting and sleeping on a pallet of rotten straw. Or, like the inimitable Charlotte Corday, coiffed and dressed in Indian muslin, choose to plunge a new knife into the heart of a butcher. One may also, as so many have these past months, take one’s life. Incapable of murder, refusing
suicide and insanity—as tempting as they are—I shall do as you have done. I shall write a letter.

  I believe this is to be my last night. To exorcise my anguish, I shall write to you. To exorcise my anguish and to conjure Olympe de Gouges, who—it occurs to me—is just moments away. If those moments were ahead rather than behind me, I could dream of seeing her again. And you, in your tower, tearing the world to shreds and putting it back together in radical conformations unlike any imagined before: You, too, are moments away. If I cannot dream of seeing you either, at least I can offer you this night. It is a moonless night. It is also very, very cold; my cell is not provided with a stove.

  It is hard, mon ami, so hard not to tremble!

  The lens of memory is often cloudy; it may be stained with tears or blood, grow dull with neglect; it may shatter. But these things I choose to describe to you—for it is not impossible that you shall be the one to survive all this—could not be more tangible. That first night opens out before my mind’s eye like a fan of silver painted with one of those marvelous Italian landscapes that are not rough approximations of the truth, but instead evoke the softness of the air and the scent of roses. With eagerness one is made to gaze upon a fictive horizon and dream. (What I would not give to hold such a fan tonight! To paint one!)

  But for now, just imagine:

  A Portrait of Olympe de Gouges

  (painted on a fan of silver, its panaches of fine ivory)

  A black felt hat perched with provocation on her mane of black curls, a bewitching cast over one eye, her breasts balanced beneath her collarbones like bubbles of glass—she sweeps into the atelier on a winter’s afternoon. The year is 1789, and the Revolution holds such promise! In the background, La Fentine is speaking to a customer, and I am painting a border of grapes and vines.