Hunger's Brides

by W. Paul Anderson

  Vexed by all the superstitious chatter, Carlos had only thought to turn to account a parlour game played by the foolish and anxious and bored—I did not judge, I had been one—and I knew beyond a doubt that at some point the game had entirely ceased being an entertainment. In the art of Aeschylus there are stories in which what happens to the individuals tells the fate of a people. But though the fate of the Archbishop-Viceroy in 1611 involved many others, and though many died and suffered throughout the valley, our Viceroy took all this to be about one person, himself. It was not hard to picture him, his darkling thoughts returning to the year of ostentation in honour of the king’s wedding, the exaltation of his offices as the King’s representative, the balls and debauches, the Church’s dire warnings.

  And if Carlos had told his tale to such stunning effect at the palace, I thought it only a matter of time till the recital reached the Archbishop. Twenty or thirty courtiers, as many servants—in a week the news would be spreading from every church and brothel in the capital. Like the Viceroy, His Grace would find lessons to draw from it.

  They came a few days later. Two lackeys in the Archbishop’s livery. Safety in numbers, it would seem. By the Archbishop’s dispensation they entered into the cloister, entered this cell without knocking. But so swiftly does word fly through the alleys and corridors that we were already waiting for them. This is a women’s place—no man enters here without this warning.

  Wordlessly one of the lackeys handed me the order, under the Archbishop’s seal. Silently, mercifully, they turned and left. After a moment to compose myself I followed them to the door to make sure they’d gone. My sisters in the cells across the way stood gaping in their doorways.

  … the petition dated January 4th, 1679, received by the Secretary of the Archdiocese on November 20th, 1681, for the purchase of one cell. Pursuant, a complete inventory of its contents is required, for the purposes of determining if said cell in its dimensions and appointments is adequate and appropriate to the purchaser’s requirements.

  By order and disposition of His Illustrious Grace,

  Lord Archbishop don Francisco Aguiar y Seijas,

  signed this, the sixth day of July, 1691

  The game was obvious enough, if subtle for a man of the Archbishop’s temperament. The inventory would reveal the cell to be too full and therefore inadequate to its purpose … until an as yet undetermined number of items had been auctioned to raise funds for the Archbishop’s ferocious campaigns of charity. The people’s need was insatiable in these trying times. Who would deny it, who would refuse? Even if she could.

  I wondered if he would next send Carlos, his Chief Almoner, who knew the contents of these rooms as well as any man. Almost thirteen years I had been waiting to buy this cell. All these years without a response, and yet the request had been neither forgotten nor lost. Was the Archbishop’s secretary so very competent, or were they aided by a memory in which nothing is forgotten or lost?

  I had begun to wonder if there had ever been a rift between Núñez and His Grace.

  But the cell, Your Grace, is it too full or instead too small …? For I have so far found no room for a botanical garden, or pleasaunces such as those of Versailles. A full astronomical observatory would be a splendid addition, and a bestiary, too. If not so large as that kept by the great Khans, then something more modest, such as Moctezuma’s own….

  The soul of Teresa of Avila is a palace, one of the most beautiful that has ever been. That we may understand a little, she presents it as a palace of passageways reaching inward, an enchaining of seven chambers or abodes. In the innermost, on a priceless rock-crystal throne, waits her Beloved.

  My soul waits at the top often steps, behind a lacquered folding screen in the Japanese style, in a long narrow room that houses my studiolo and library. Here is where the Inspector will wish to begin his list; it is this room that contains the most priceless of marvels; in this chamber my Beloved rests.

  But before entering, the gentlemen may wish to get their bearings, to fix this particular arrangement in their minds. At the top of the stairs, there, to the left, is one of three doors connecting this room to the other two. Just inside the doorway is a second folding screen, also in the Japanese style but decorated with scenes from Mexico’s past and streets.

  Nine varas in width by ten in length, the upper storey is six varas high. Three rooms: on the east side, a sitting room with dining table, a bedroom with a desk; the third room runs the full length of the west side and occupies a third of the total width. The geometry will not be difficult, though the accounting may so prove. While there are writing desks in every room, here by the window is the largest. The window has been altered, is large and low; as the Inspector sees for himself, the view across the rooftops is to the south. Note the step-ladders, the shelves built to line the walls from floor to ceiling—the workmanship is excellent. Note carefully the openings cut to the exact contour of the window, the fireplace and doorways; see the hooks set in the dim top shelves from which to hang a lantern while one searches. The four transverse display cases stand at two-vara intervals, each successive case from the south window a little wider than the last to catch the light. Take note that all must be dismantled if they are to leave this room. Yes the cot and the reading chair by the fireplace, these come out easily.

  That space beside the stairs, there behind the low shelf? No, not a hidden stairwell, I assure you, just a chimney shaft.

  If we think of the library as a window looking out from an enchanted palace, then the prince’s studiolo is the world brought in to stock the cave of the magician, the workshop of the alchemist.

  Its elements are to be deployed with care, in sections and harmonious intervals. The studiolo is a theatre of the soul, the mind is its orchestra; its sweetest solos are played on its finest instrument, admiratio. We may imagine this instrument of wonder as a slender violinist seated, a little nervously, among the reeds and flutes and clarions. In the ideal arrangement featured here, in which the library and studiolo flow one into the other, the two chief sections—perhaps think of these as the strings and the winds—consist of instruments of spirit and sense, the upper and lower choirs. And yet this business of upper and lower is really a convenience, for the instruments are free to move about, and really owe it to themselves to do this. So it happens that we so often find logica down in the kitchens, where the knives come out.

  But you will want to get under way. First, the musical and audible instruments, since this is a sort of auditorium. No, I do not play them all unfortunately, but quite a few. Clay flute, clavichord, vihuela, violin … There you see an echo chest, here two automatons that dance and sing. Try them if you like, they are very lifelike. One pendulum, which, courtesy of Signor Galilei, we can use to regulate the tempo by lengthening and shortening the string. One musarithmetic box such as in the famed studiolo of the Reverend Kircher at the Jesuit College in Rome. Oh yes, the Jesuits have these too. Bigger. One music box, one speaking trumpet, one conch shell trumpet, yes, a caracol. I was just coming to that.

  If you don’t mind, I really must sit down, I really must stop a moment. You would not consider coming back another day? Surely the Inspector must see this will take a little while. What you are asking is the inventory of my soul.

  Friday afternoon, a cold grey rain. It was the turn of those of us who confess with Father Arellano. The Mother Prioress preferred that the most senior of the black-veiled nuns not go to our own chaplain, who had influence enough here among us. I had been called and could not delay long—our patio being the closest to the chapel. Reluctantly I made my way along the arcades to stay out of the weather, down the short passageway, past the chapel entrance and out into the rain. The orchards were ahead, a drab of yellowing leaves, the gardens to my left, mostly mud and a sprig or two of green. Sister María Bernardina was kneeling on a stone slab, soaked to the skin, confessing through a small slot in the thick chapel wall. She finished as I drew near, blinked water out of her eyes. More drops tum
bled from her brows. She almost smiled. The cratícula is the width of the mouth, such that on neither side of the wall may we see each other with both eyes, leaving one feeling not unlike the Cyclops confiding in Odysseus. I was not even sure I knew any longer what Father Arellano looked like, to those with sight in both eyes. For ten years he had been my nominal director, entitled to meet with me more comfortably in the locutory whenever he wished. He never wished. I am too beautiful, he had once explained. Nice that he still thought so, for a Cyclopean attaining a certain age—though were it intended as a gallantry, and it was not, it would have meant somewhat more were he indeed able to see me.

  It was cold, it was raining, there was pain in my knees, I was prepared to be brief and Arellano rarely spoke beyond prescribing a light penance. But today he did speak; through the patter of the rain and a channel in the masonry the depth of a forearm, I only heard him with difficulty.

  … failing you … I cannot much longer … protect you. When had I ever asked such a thing of him? He meant to protect himself … The rain, the stone was cold now. A time to study the writings of John of the Cross … But I knew his work—he was the poet I most revered. Another spiritual director. Father Núñez … Father Núñez what?—he could not mean … protect me? This could have been amusing, from someone else, in another circumstance, in sunlight. But from Arellano it was not. For Arellano found nothing amusing in the monstrous face of sin—at least since he had looked down fifteen years ago to find his dagger separating a fellow gambler’s ribs.

  I had wanted to listen to the pain in my knees, but changed my mind when Father Arellano admitted he’d approached Núñez without my leave….

  Father Arellano, you must not worry yourself overly about failing me. My previous spiritual director did so utterly, was quite unable to answer questions such as these, or not satisfactorily—can you hear me all right, can you hear me clearly? It is awkward to speak to one’s spiritual director in this way rather than in the comfort of the locutory, but at least His Paternity don Arellano is dry? For while I treasure John’s poetry, in his commentaries there are concerns….

  John writes of even the adepts in spiritual matters as being like children in their knowledge and feelings, in their speech and dealings with Him. In the first night of the soul, ours is the love of a child, for this is the easiest love, our love of the infant Christ and our sadness for his destiny. In answer to that love, He sends the sweetest milk flowing through our prayers and meditations. But through this night He will wean us toward a more adult love, so that in the last watch of the first night, the soul is more like a young lover slipping out of a darkened house, the house of the senses, to be with her Beloved. Beloved of my life, I run to you. Delectable moments, stolen, brief, promises of a still greater richness and fullness to come.

  As in the Canticles.

  Yet as the first night draws to a close the love has become difficult and painful: we are to be deprived again, but of joys now of the spirit, weaned again. And the first trial of the second night is this frustration, for one is a lover and not a child anymore. But why must it always be thus? If in His house there are many rooms, why must love abide in each indifferently? And the love He returns, is it the same for everyone, or is it a love of each of us? Surely he would not love as if we were other than we are, surely he loves us knowing who we are. Does this love take no colouring from its vessel—is it ever and forever the same?—while the face of the ocean, the wide eyes of a lake change with every tick of the sun, every shred of mist, every lake-bottom and sea-floor lift, every alteration of the deep—silt, sand, rock, mud—every angle of its run and pitch?

  What is more constant and yet more various? What is more constant in its variations than water? If not love?

  Silence from beyond the wall.

  I should have known by now. I was not, in fact, a child. I did not need his advice, I did not need direction. And so I started out, as so often happens with me, clever … as a child hoping if she were only clever enough she might keep him…. And then I end up kneeling in the rain, pouring out my heart to a slot in the wall—scent of stone and must, rain in my mouth, taste of salt—to a man who once found me beautiful and cannot bear to see me now, who probably cannot hear me, who has perhaps already gone.

  The books, I could see, were different. The books might be dangerous. But these other things of mine, would they take all this from me? What harm have they done anyone when only I may see them?

  Please do not take these away. These are only instruments of beauty and wonder, these are only innocent things.

  1 astrolabe, 1 helioscope, 1 telescope, 1 set of compasses

  1 microscope built to designs by Reverend Athanasius Kircher; an assortment of fine steel scalpels, 1 of obsidian, suitable for the most delicate dissections and slide preparation

  1 magic lantern, 1 camera lucida built to designs by Leonardo

  1 magic square (& alchemical equipment & materials)

  1 collection of glass paperweights, 1 of seashells collected from the seven seas

  7 magnifying glasses of different strengths and sizes

  1 toadstone; 1 fish skeleton embedded in limestone; 8 gallstones of divers and disputed origin; 4 perlas barruecas; 1 horn of an Atlantic unicorn …

  1 chronoscope …

  No more brooding on how little I had accomplished these past ten years, or the past twenty-two—a few verses to take pride in, the glimmerings of an idea or two. I would not ask how much time I had. I would not lament that it was not enough. I lamented now only wasted time. Work harder, work faster now.

  I finished the last remaining lyrics on Saint Catherine in a day and sent them to Puebla, city of Angels, to Santa Cruz. If he had any intention yet to play my Redeemer … Let that be up to him. It could not hurt now.

  One morning a little before noon a young nun came to say a man had come for me. The way she had said this put a small spur to my fears. Her expression was kindly and solemn, almost pained.

  “From the Inquisition?”

  “No, no, Sor Juana, a composer.”

  One composer. Which one was it now? One or the other, they could wait if they would not come together for me just once. I finished the page I was reading at the window, and an extra three, slowly, for good measure, then went down. Sálazar. Looking angry and wounded in his pride. My gaze went out to the little courtyard, past the rose bushes to the long yellow grass, less like lawn than sedge. The rain was making the ground frail, everywhere returning the island to the marshland it was. Gardening had branched into masonry: the gardener’s every step these past months laying tiles of sky in the earth.

  Sálazar stood waiting some way from the clavichord and well back from the grille, hands down at his sides. He was tall, a man fully grown, but it was the expression of the six-year-old he wore—a proud artist kept waiting like a page. As I studied his face what softened my anger was that his own seemed quite dwarfed by his hurt. I almost apologized, for I was just then remembering him as he was the second time we spoke together. A tall boy of seven, Antonio de Sálazar was by then known by all to be a prodigy. He had come to the Palace again, to play the clavichord this time, not the violin—and to play no one’s music but his own. He had not been made to wait. He recognized me among the many who came afterwards to congratulate him. Later we had a moment to talk. He led me to the same vestibule and thanked me for my kindness on his previous visit. I had been like a princess to him—he flushed then.“But how stupid, perhaps you are one.”

  “No Antonio, I am from here, just like you. And do you remember the advice I gave you?”

  “I do, and won’t forget it.”

  “And will you tell me?”

  “Take time from my music, to make friends and keep them. Save a little of myself, for myself.”

  “Anything else?”

  “A genius can be hurt like anyone else.”

  Now I was forty-three, he was still ten years younger, and the one who had given him the advice was now the one who had
wounded his pride. He had forgotten the princess in the palace, or did not see her in a middle-aged nun. Or rather a middle-aged nun in her. That was understandable. But I wanted to ask if he remembered what she had said, so many years ago. Her advice. And if it had been of any use to him.

  Instead I thanked him for coming, made no excuses for the delay, and was the cantor perhaps coming later?

  Fury stood in his eyes then—no, Sor Juana, he was not coming later, and he, Sálazar, did not like to be kept waiting. He had a lot of work to do—many new commissions—now more than ever. This Caracol had never been his idea but the Cantor de Ribera’s, and another thing he did not appreciate was being asked by the Vice-Queen to look through my poetry to her for musical insults. At last night’s ball the Countess had drawn him aside to tell him at length of her conviction that she had been slighted during her last visit to this locutory. She’d had the distinct impression that in my verses on that day I had called her handmaidens whores. Which made a musical composition I had penned on the occasion of her birthday at the very least suspicious, and who better than Antonio de Sálazar to ferret out the insults most certainly buried there. And precisely what, he wondered, was he to do?—pretend he could find none the least bit suspicious, only to have someone else do it for him and make him look either a fool, or very much like the man who has played the Countess for one? Half his commissions came from her, and if I was determined to throw away what was left of my career—which I seemed to be, however little that might be—he had no such intentions for his. He would not lie to her, for Ribera maybe, but not for me. And so as he was saying, he had more work than he had ever wanted and a burden of responsibility he wasn’t even sure he could cope with, so this was not at all the right time for a collaboration.