As Mercedes took several steps in my direction, the lights of the tapers caught the tears that streamed down her cheeks. She stood so close to me that I could smell her hair, her skin, her breath.
“For some time Father Dioniso and I have been discussing an important matter. Today I made a final decision. I had hoped to prepare little Diego first, but you leave me no choice. Your hurtful words force me to defend my honor. I’ve been inspired by the example of the Reverend Mother Teresa of Ávila to renounce the world and live the rest of my life as a discalced woman. I will beg for alms for the poor, and devote myself to helping them. Mother Teresa believed that true equality exists only in the vow of poverty. By following her example I’ll discover the road that will lead me to my true self. From now on, my actions will speak louder than your hateful words; and I will wear my heart, for all to see, on the fabrics that cover my chest.”
Mercedes paused again, as if to give me time to respond. No married woman in Spain left her husband and home without incurring the punishment of society and the church. Adulterous women were often brought before the Inquisition. Besides, among the noble families of Castile there was no precedent for what she proposed to do.
“I realize that to move to Ávila to be near the community the Reverend Mother founded would be too much of a scandal. And I don’t wish to bring more shame to you, our son, or the name of our family. So I will move to Toledo, live in our grandparents’ home, and accompany Mamá Azucena during her final days on earth. Father Dionisio has given his blessing to my plans. I hope that by living in our ancestral home my conduct will be above reproach and I will placate the vicious wagging tongues of those who have nothing better to do than to point a finger at other Christians. Nothing society says will harm my heart and my soul, as I am guilty of nothing more than dedicating my life to help others, as Jesus Christ bids us to do.”
“Who do you think you are, a saint? That takes more than praying, all dressed in black in a morbid room. I don’t care about the damage your selfish action will do to my name,” I remonstrated, “but what kind of mother abandons her son? Only animals that are an aberration of nature do that. No true Christian woman behaves in this manner.”
“Heaven will be my judge, Luis. I don’t believe God will condemn me for leaving little Diego with you. Our Lord Jesus Himself left the side of His parents when the time came to do the work He had been called to do. As for me, only service to God and doing good works will bring me the peace I seek. I will leave the matter of the salvation of my soul entirely in God’s hands. In my prayers I feel God has revealed Himself to me and asked me to be one of His soldiers for Our Redeemer Jesus Christ, in the battle against the deeds of the devil. I believe the Almighty has ordered me to bear my cross. I must accept with gratitude all the blows I receive. Since Our Lord has drawn me to His service, I have faith He will pardon me for my sins.”
“How do you know it is God you are listening to—and not the devil?”
“Your anger has afflicted your thinking, Luis. Your heart is so full of jealousy that you are in grave danger of letting your rage blind you. I cannot go on living in the same house with you; your unjustified and irrational jealousy has deprived me of all my joys, large and small.”
Nothing she said would convince me that she had not seen Miguel de Cervantes since his return; or that she was, as she claimed, beyond reproach. Listening to her was the same as listening to the Angel of Darkness.
“Good night,” I said and left her chamber. Back in mine, I sat on the open windowsill and wept until the dawn sky absorbed the stars in the heavens.
* * *
Mercedes’s move to our ancestral home in Toledo was all the proof I needed that she was still in love with Miguel. She had chosen a life devoted to good works and penitence merely to avoid temptation. In the months after she left, my fantasies of revenge were like rapacious maggots eating me from the inside out. The disturbing thoughts I had by day continued to haunt my dreams by night. I considered denouncing Miguel to the Inquisition regarding the accusations that the Dominican Juan Blanco de Paz had made about his immoral conduct in Algiers. It would not have surprised me if he had indulged in the depraved pleasures of the flesh for which the Turks were infamous.
Even more damaging were the insinuations that, during his captivity, Miguel had become a renegade. An investigation was started, but the charges were dismissed when supposedly respected Christians attested to Miguel’s irreproachable conduct. Then Father Juan left for New Spain. Without his presence in Madrid, it would fall upon me to start on my own inquiry; it would cost a fortune and consume me for years to come. On what grounds could I justify my interest in having Miguel de Cervantes investigated by the Holy Office? People in the church might question my motives.
In my heart, I knew I would not be free of Miguel and Mercedes until I forgave them. I would have to pray, pray, and pray until God took pity on me and released me from my misery.
* * *
Although Mercedes and I had led separate lives for a long time, it was only after she left that I realized how quiet and sepulchral our home had become over the years. Now Leonela became mistress of the house, and her hand left an impression everywhere: lovely flower arrangements brightened the rooms, their delicate aromas dispelling the musty odor that had settled like a moth-eaten shroud over everything. I had forgotten what the sound of laughter in a house was like. Now I could hear the servant girls’ giggles, and the saucy airs they hummed distractedly as they went about the house doing their chores.
I didn’t trust Leonela, whose allegiances, I knew, would always be to Mercedes. But she was like a godmother to Diego and, in the absence of his mother, she provided the maternal care the boy needed. I was sure my son missed his mother a great deal. She had doted on him, and they had spent a good deal of time together when he was not occupied by his studies. It was impossible to explain to him why his mother had left us without revealing many sordid details. I didn’t want Diego to grow up hating his mother. I would keep Leonela in my service until he went away to university.
The first indication of Diego’s upset frame of mind came from a conversation I had with his tutor. Father Jerónimo and I were in the habit of meeting for a libation at least once a month to discuss the progress of my son’s education.
“Up until now, Don Luis,” he said, “Diego has been a model pupil. He has always been studious, wise beyond his years, the model of obedience. The fact that there’s never been any reason to complain about his conduct makes his recent behavior all the more troubling.”
“Has he been disrespectful to you, Father? If that’s the case, I will not tolerate it. I will make sure he apologizes to you and he never disrespects you again.”
Father Jerónimo sipped from his foaming cup of chocolate, his favorite libation. With the tip of his handkerchief he dabbed at his lips. “Don Luis, I’m afraid what has been happening lately is worse than that. Diego has disobeyed my instructions not to read the Holy Scripture by himself. Despite his great intelligence—and he is the brightest pupil I’ve ever had—he is obsessed with theological discussions about God’s intentions, which no boy of his age should be having.” The look of curiosity on my face must have been great. “I’ll give you an example, Your Grace. Lately, he is obsessed—yes, obsessed—with Original Sin.” Father Jerónimo rested his cup of chocolate on the table. Then he clasped his hands on his lap, as if in prayer. “One day, not too long ago, Diego asked me: Father, isn’t it true that if Adam and Eve had not eaten the forbidden fruit, then there would be no human race? I explained to him, Don Luis, that we have to assume that God’s plan was to allow Adam and Eve to become man and wife when they were mature enough. Their sin had been one of disobedience, I added. I thought that was a satisfying enough answer.”
“An excellent answer,” I said.
“I wish that had settled the matter, Your Grace. But Diego had other questions. Then why did God expel Adam and Eve from Paradise, if Satan had been allowed to tempt them
and seduce them before they had full understanding? Wasn’t Satan then the guilty one? As a way to put an end to a futile discussion that could have gone on for a long time, to the detriment of his studies, I told him that many wise men have pondered these questions for centuries; that when he was mature enough, if he was still interested, he could read the theological arguments made by the Fathers of the Church. He seemed satisfied with that suggestion.”
I let out a breath of relief. “Then it’s all resolved, Father.”
“On the contrary, Don Luis. Lately Diego has been troubled with the story of Judas Iscariot.”
“Does this mean that my son will be a philosopher of the church? That like you, Father, he will grow up to become a priest?”
“I don’t know. When I was his age, Your Grace, despite my great love for Our Redeemer Jesus Christ, I did not trouble myself with questions of this nature.”
Despite his calm manner, I could detect a current of disapproval in Father Jerónimo’s words. This was more serious than I thought.
“I do not wish to abuse your gracious hospitality, but I will give you one last example, Your Grace. The other day he asked me: If it was written in the Scriptures that Christ would be betrayed, wasn’t Judas Iscariot then predestined to betray Him? Isn’t it actually unfair to Judas that he was chosen to betray Our Lord? If it was written that one of Christ’s apostles would betray Him, why punish Judas then? I wonder,” Father Jerónimo continued, “if so much questioning, at such an early age, will disorder his brain, and lead to arrogance and lack of humility. Worse, it might end up distancing him from the blind faith we must have. Faith, as you know, Don Luis, needs no proof. Otherwise, it would not be faith.”
The matter was cause for concern. I worried that Dieguito, so precociously wise, would end up becoming a hermit living in a cave and praying all the time. Might his conduct be a natural reaction to Mercedes’s devoutness? My hope was that like his nighttime sobbing, which ended suddenly, he would outgrow this phase of his life too.
“I agree that Diego should not be troubled with these morbid questions. Please tell me what to do, Father.”
“I suggest you don’t do anything for the time being, Don Luis,” he said, “unless the situation worsens. He’s at that age when some inquisitive children, blessed with intelligence and wisdom beyond their years, wrestle with these questions. Let’s wait and see. He may just outgrow this phase without harming himself. In the meantime, though, it’s better to be aware that his mind could become the devil’s playground. We both must watch him vigilantly.”
Shortly after I had this conversation with his tutor, Diego asked me for a lens to study the night sky. Maybe this was the distraction he needed from his melancholic theological questioning. Before long, I was delighted to see him on clear nights studying the constellations from his bedroom window. There could be no harm in that.
* * *
The muse of poetry seemed to have turned against me. My duties as a servant of the crown prevented me from dedicating my life to poetry, and the occasional poem I composed was stillborn, as if the muse had taken delight in stripping me of my gift. I continued to show my undying love to her by reading avidly the new volumes of poems that were sold in Madrid’s shops.
Diego was like all our Lara ancestors: he loved poetry. After Mercedes left, we fell into the habit of reading to each other after supper. The time we spent together was an oasis from the affairs of daily life. Those hours were an offering to the Goddess, to placate her anger. I had given up all hope of being a poet, but perhaps my son would grow up to be one of Spain’s great bards.
Though Diego appreciated Garcilaso, the beloved poet of my youth did not speak to him the way he had to poetry lovers of my generation. Since my son preferred poets who were still breathing, we read some of them in manuscript form. San Juan de la Cruz was our favorite. Diego memorized many verses from his scant—but sublime—body of work, reciting them with such feeling that he often moved me to tears. We also delighted in the poems of Hernando de Acuña, who had distinguished himself as a soldier in Africa and in European battles. Our favorite poem of his was “Sonnet in Response to the Past.” We read and reread the two tercets of this sonnet without ever tiring of them:
And if there are humans blessed by excessive fortune
let no one despair with envy of them
since everything human undergoes alteration;
better to be wary of any medicine for it;
we suffer, My Lord, what is meted out to us,
trusting blindly Your strength and discretion.
We were admirers, too, of the Sevillian poet Baltasar del Alcázar—whose verses were heavily influenced by Petrarch. And we rejoiced in the poems of Lope Félix de Vega Carpio, which circulated in Madrid in manuscript. Fray Luis de León’s poems were also only known in manuscript form. Diego and I reread Fray Luis the way in my youth I had never tired of rereading Garcilaso. We loved his subversive use of Horatian versification, and delighted in his disdain for court life and city pleasures. Not since the days when Miguel and I had shared our great passion for the immortal bard of Toledo had I found another person with whom I could share the love of poetry. That I shared this bond with my son, a mere boy, made it all the sweeter.
Diego and I indulged ourselves in musing about the not-too-distant future, when one day we would live a pure and simple life in a pastoral setting. One night, I read to Diego some of my favorite verses by Fray Luis:
I want to be awakened
by the birds’ natural
untutored singing;
not by the din made by the grave
concerns which always
shadow one who marches to the tune
of the affairs of men.
What a peaceful life
is lived by one who has
fled the world’s clamor
to trek on the hidden
path traveled by the few
wise men who have
graced the Earth.
I felt a sudden tightening in my throat and placed the manuscript on the table at which we sat.
“Why have you stopped, Papá?”
“I’m sorry, Diego, but these verses by Fray Luis bring to mind the happy days of my early youth, when I spent the summer with my grandparents in Toledo and accompanied Papá Carlos on visits to his farms.”
Dieguito’s eyes clouded.
“What is it, my son?”
He shook his head, wiping off his tears with his wrist, then said, “Please go on reading, Papá.”
It had been years since, to my great relief, Diego stopped sobbing in his sleep. As if to compensate for that behavior, he seemed never to have shed a tear since.
His sudden weeping alarmed me. “If something troubles you, remember there are no secrets between us.”
“I don’t wish to upset you, Papá. But Fray Luis’s verses remind me of Mother. She, too, fled the din of the world, like the poet says. Didn’t she?”
This was the first time he had mentioned his mother to me since she’d left us.
“Yes, she did,” I said.
* * *
I always kept a book of poems at one corner of my desk, and I would read from it daily, as a respite from spending so much of my time on the dry affairs of the council. One afternoon, when I was engrossed in The Works of Garcilaso de la Vega with Annotations by Fernando de Herrera, there was a knock on my door. I looked up from my book and said, “Come in.” My assistant, Pascual Paredes, entered. This time of the day was sacred to me. He knew that.
“I would not trouble you, Your Grace, but some documents have arrived that require your immediate attention.”
“You may leave them on the desk.” I wanted to go back to reading de Herrera’s book.
Pascual did not move. I was about to scold him when he pointed at the book with longing and observed, “What a beautiful jacket.”
He was referring to the fawn-colored soft cover of the book, which depicted two muses standing on pedestals
on the sides of a marble doorway above which a view of the city of Sevilla was framed by two cherubs. It was a bit too Andalusian for my taste.
“I see Don Luis is reading the controversial new book by Fernando de Herrera. Poetry lovers talk about nothing else.”
This was interesting. I closed the book. “I just started reading it. I was not aware there was a controversy surrounding the work. Are you a poet, Pascual? Do you frequent the poetry tertulias in Madrid?”
“I don’t aspire to Parnassus, Your Grace. But I admit I’ve scribbled verses since I was a boy.”
For an instant I was afraid Pascual would ask me to read his poems.
“I’m not myself a learned person, Don Luis. I haven’t gone to university, though not for lack of desire, but because of the penurious circumstances which have in recent years affected the finances of my family.” He sighed. “But that’s neither here nor there . . . Anyway, I’ve heard that some Castilian poets believe that the book aims to tarnish the glory of our Garcilaso de la Vega. As I said, I haven’t read it; my budget won’t permit me to purchase such an item, much as I would love to own it. I do attend the poetry tertulias, and I pay attention to what others more learned than I have to say on subjects which I don’t have the necessary preparation to fully understand.”
I moved de Herrera’s Annotations to one side of my desk. For the first time since he had been working for me, I took a good look at Pascual: he was just past youth’s first bloom. He wore a black cap, a short pointy beard, and a waxed mustache that curved at the tips into a semicircle. His velvet vest at some point had been lilac but was now an indiscriminate color. His white shirt was spotless, the collar starched and neatly pressed, and the cuffs slightly frayed. His black leather boots gleamed, but it was apparent they had made many trips to the shoemaker for repairs. He looked like a young man who wore stylish hand-me-downs from rich relatives.
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