by Mary Morris
She holds his hands in hers as he moves them toward her breasts. “I couldn’t get away.” She falls against him as if he is a wall she can lean on. He envelops her in his cape and leads her into the shadows.
“The important thing,” he says, his breath hot against her throat, “is that you are here.” He takes her into one of the narrowest alleyways where his hands reach between her thighs. “I want you,” he says, leading her farther into the darkness. They have a place they go to. There is a stone seat by a narrow wall where gently he lies her down and hoists up her skirts. She never refuses him.
His touch ripples through her flesh. His slightest caress sends a quiver. He knows how to touch her and where. Tonight he lets his fingers linger inside of her, then his tongue. He is never rushed, never in a hurry. As he licks her, Inez stares at the sky, and her body seems to blend into the stone seat she lies on and out into the whole world. And then he is inside of her, moving slowly at first as she opens to him. He takes his time. It is a feeling that never ceases to amaze her. It is a pleasure she has never imagined. And now they are one. They are in unison. This, Inez Cordero decides, though she is barely fifteen years old, must be love. What else could it be?
Afterward she lies in his arms, his moisture between her legs, the stickiness of him upon her. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, “that we didn’t have more time. My father had one of his meetings, and I had to greet the guests.”
“His meetings?” Javier’s breath is warm on her throat. “What kind of meetings?”
“I never know. They come and they talk for hours.” Inez doesn’t know exactly why the men meet or what for. What she does know makes little sense to her. All she knows is that the men are disgruntled. “I think it is about taxes.”
“Taxes?” Javier says with a laugh. “Why would they meet about taxes?”
Inez shrugs. She doesn’t know and she doesn’t care. Even when she can overhear their muffled voices rising in anger and when she hears the name of the mayor of Seville uttered, it doesn’t matter to her. Her only thought when she is not with Javier is how soon she can be with him. “I don’t know. Would you like me to ask?”
“No, I would like you to listen. You are New Christians and we are Old Christians. My father will want to be sure that you keep the rules of Christ.”
“Of course we do.” Inez pulls away. “Those are the only rules we have ever kept.”
Javier sighs. “I know that, but to the rest of the world you are still Jews.” Above them the church bell rings. It is almost ten o’clock. A shiver runs through Inez. Soon Javier will slip away. “I want to know everything about you and your family. We can have no secrets between us.”
She kisses him on the forehead and on the lips. “And I want to know everything about you.” She coils her fingers around his.
“I will ask your father for your hand before the week’s end.” He takes his hand, placing it on her pounding heart. “I’ll be here tomorrow night as always.”
As Inez hurries home along the Street of the Dead, she is surprised at the chill that has come into the air. Perhaps it is later than she thinks. She wraps her mantilla around herself and dashes up the street. But as she slips into the courtyard she hears the men still talking in her father’s library. One of them is raising his voice, and it occurs to her that they are arguing. She sighs, her body shaking. She had expected her father to be in bed by now. What if he had caught her out at this hour? What lie could she tell him? Putting her fears aside, she leans against the door. They never stay this late. They will meet and talk and sometimes argue, but never like this for hours. Now their voices are louder than ever. This cannot be only about taxes.
And then she overhears what Pedro Fernández says. Someone has informed on him. He does not know whom as informants are never identified. Anyone can inform on a converso. Anyone who wants your land or envies you your business or your home or your wife can say that you are practicing the dead Law of Moses. They can claim that you keep Jewish rituals, that you do not light fires on the Sabbath, that you will not accept money on the Sabbath. You refuse to ride in a carriage. You will not eat pork. You wrap your dead in white linen and bury them before sunset. Anyone can say this, and you will never know who it is.
Pedro Fernández has been called before the Inquisition. He has been ordered to confess his sins. Already they have confiscated all his property, and he has not yet been accused of a crime. Any day now he will be arrested. Now Inez hears her father’s voice. “They cannot keep doing this to us. They don’t care about our beliefs. They only want our wealth. They are envious of our gold and our success. They are murderers and thieves.”
Inez trembles outside the door of her father’s study. She has never heard him speak in this way. She is frightened. Frightened for her father and frightened for herself. If he does anything, Javier will not marry her. His family would never allow it. She wants to plead with her father not to do whatever it is that he has planned.
The next day at noon she brings her father his tray. The cook has made the soup with vegetables and guinea fowl that he likes. She brings a bowl for herself as she sits in his study. “Your meeting went late, Father,” she says.
He nods. “There is much to discuss.”
“Yes, I overheard some of it. Señor Fernández was very upset.”
Her father’s face reddens, not because his daughter has listened to what was said but because he cannot contain his anger. “They continue to persecute us. We worship in their churches. We loan them money. We do their bidding. And still they tax us, but much worse they inform on us. They make up stories, anything they want. It has happened to Pedro and it can happen to us. This must be stopped.”
Inez has never seen her father so enraged. “Stopped how, Father?”
Before he finishes his soup, he pushes it away. “We will make a new government. One with new laws. The Inquisition cannot rule us in Seville.”
Inez listens, not entirely understanding what he means. Will there be an election, a battle? How will the new government come to be? How can they get rid of the Inquisition in Seville? The inquisitor has free rein here. That night she is able to get away early. She runs to their secret place where Javier waits for her. Before she can speak, his hands are on her back, her breasts, her buttocks, under her skirt. She has never felt his passion this strong, this intense.
As he opens her, she can hardly breathe. Slowly he brings his pleasure to her. Inez will never question it. Never wonder how he learned to do such things. She is merely grateful that he has and that it is all for her. Though once he is inside of her, he is less gentle. He is like an animal, a beast that has awakened, but this arouses her all the more. He pushes into her more sharply than he ever has and puts his hand over her mouth to stifle her cry that comes not only from her pleasure but from the force of his strong, sharp thrusts. Afterward she lies in his arms.
“We have no secrets, do we, my love?”
“None,” she says drowsily. Between her legs she is throbbing. How she wants to fall asleep, drift off. How she wants to be able to doze night after night in these arms. There are so many nights when she finds that she cannot sleep but she knows that in Javier’s embrace she will sleep as if he has given her a soothing drug.
“Did you learn what the men are meeting about?”
“Yes, they are upset over the treatment of the conversos. It seems that one of my father’s friends has been informed upon though he has no idea why or by whom. All of his wealth has been taken. And he has been told that if he does not repent and confess, he will be relaxed to the flames.”
Javier nods, holding her all the more tightly. “That is a terrible thing. I am very sorry. I am so glad it has not happened to your father.”
Inez gasps. “Oh no, it cannot happen to him.” Tears come to her eyes. She cannot bear the thought. What if someone does inform on him? “He and his friends are planning to do something to gain control of the government.” Even as she tells him, Inez isn’t sure what all
of this means.
“What are they planning?”
Inez shakes her head. “I don’t know, but he says it will protect us when it does.”
Javier kisses her as he always does when it is time for her to leave. “I will wait for you tomorrow.”
All through the next day Inez dreams of when she will meet her lover, but once again the men come to her father’s house and she has to wait until they have their sherry and sweets. It is after eight thirty when she dashes out to meet Javier, but when she gets to their place, he is not there. Perhaps he grew impatient and left. But he has never done so before. He has always been here when she arrives. Perhaps he was detained. But who or what could have kept him away when nothing and no one has before.
She waits. Each time she hears a footstep, the clomp of a horse’s hooves, she leaps up, hoping it is he, but each time she is disappointed. The air grows chilly and she tightens her shawl around her. Soon in the corner by the ghetto wall she starts to shiver. By ten the gates of the ghetto are locked, and still he has not come.
She returns the next night and the next, but he is not there. She worries that he is ill. That something terrible has befallen him. At night she weeps. During the day she refuses to leave her room. She writes letters, imploring him. She gives these to her servant who delivers them each day and returns empty-handed. Inez ignores her parents’ pleas that she join them to eat. She will not budge until her lover appears.
On the third day at dusk there is a knock on the door and Inez knows. Javier has arrived at last to ask for her hand in marriage. Perhaps he has brought his father with him in order to make it official. She breathes a sigh of relief as she runs to the door and unlatches it. Instead she finds four men: a bailiff, two soldiers, and man in a leather mask. Inez shouts as they push her aside.
“Where is your father?”
“My father, what do you want with my father?” One of the men slaps her across the face and she screams again. “My father is not—”
“Inez,” her father calls, “what is it?” He stands in the doorway, a book in his hands. But when he sees the men, he knows. “How dare you come into my house?” he says as the man in the leather mask smashes a fist into his jaw. There is the crunch of cartilage and bone. Blood splatters everywhere. His glasses fly. Even as he falls, the man continues to strike him and then, as he lies writhing on the ground, kicks him in the ribs. Inez hears the bones break. Then they chain his hands behind his back. Her father shouts something to her, but she cannot understand if what he says is a blessing or a curse. All she sees is blood and broken teeth as they drag him away.
“It’s my fault,” Inez cries, “take me instead,” but the soldiers shove her away.
Dona Olivia grabs her by the shoulders. “Whom did you talk to? Who did you tell?” She shakes her daughter until Dona Olivia crumbles, writhing, to the ground.
Inez races after the carriage that takes her father away. She dashes out of the ghetto and when she can no longer run after it, she pauses. She can barely breathe, and she presses her hand to her chest as she sobs. She will go to Javier. She has never gone to his house, but she knows where he lives. She will go and plead with her lover and his father to intercede. Surely there is a mistake. At the house of Javier’s family she bangs on the door. Upstairs a curtain is drawn back, and then closes. No one comes to the door.
That night she leaves her mother, whose sobs wrack the house, and goes to where she meets her lover every night. She will tell him what has happened. She is certain that he can use his influence to get her father out of jail. Certainly he or his father can attest to the fact that her father is a righteous man who practices the teachings of the Holy Church and not the dead Law of Moses. It is not possible that Javier has informed on her father. Perhaps he has spoken to the wrong person or he hasn’t been prudent with his words.
She waits for him as she always does. And when he does not appear, she goes the next night and the next. She will keep coming here every night because of course he will come. Or he will find a way to contact her. Perhaps he is in trouble. She learns the fine art of waiting. She stares at stones in the moonlight. She watches shadows passing by. She tells herself that if his is not the fourth shadow she will leave. Then the fifth. The sixth. Until one day she goes to the market, for they must go on living, and she sees Javier parading around on his gray horse, riding down the main street of Seville. He is laughing with a friend. He stops to touch a young woman on the cheek. He has caressed Inez this way dozens of times.
Still every night she returns to their meeting place. She knows he will not come, but she waits. She looks up at each footstep. She leaps at any voice. Some nights she is certain she hears his voice, calling her name. It is that same sultry voice he used when he first saw her in the shadows, when she ran to him. She hears her name whispered in the wind as it blows past her into the trees. She goes every night, listening for him, until the verdict comes down upon her father. He and his co-conspirators are consigned to the flames. Inez goes to the gates of the prison and stands there until she is turned away. She goes to her lover’s villa where the doors do not open. Her mother will not speak to her. Inez lives in her own home as if she lives alone.
The day of the auto-da-fé is festive. The whole town comes out, wearing their finest dresses and cloaks, their jewels and mantillas. Musicians play and people dance. When the penitents are brought in, dressed in their yellow sanbenitos and dunce caps, Inez’s mother faints. When her father is given one more chance to repent and kiss the cross, he recites the Sh’ma. As the flames are lit, his screams rise. As his ashes are carried by the wind across Seville and along the flat, dry plains of Andalusia, Inez Cordero breathes her father in.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SOLSTICE—1992
The car is packed and ready to go. In her mind Rachel rattles off her checklist. Drinking water, bug spray, fried chicken, salad, wine, corkscrew, watermelon slices. It seems as if this has been weeks in the planning, though they only decided a few days ago. At Rachel’s urging they are going to get away for the weekend. Overnight at least. She’s hired a friend’s nanny who can spend the night. She would have asked Miguel but she doubts that Nathan would have accepted that. But now Rachel can breathe a sigh of relief. They are about to leave.
Nathan is going over his own list. Sleeping bags, tent, flashlight, batteries, blow-up mattress, air pump, small stove. He’s in charge of equipment. Rachel’s responsible for food. Nathan borrowed some camping gear from one of his colleagues at work. “Hey, if we have fun,” he tells Rachel, “we’ll get some gear of our own.”
It’s all set. “Okay,” Nathan says, “let’s roll.”
They kiss the boys goodbye and give the babysitter last-minute instructions. “Davie, no dairy” and they are off. Nathan’s driving and Rachel puts some Native American wolf spirit music into the tape deck. She leans her head back. The gentle sound of the flute lulls her almost to sleep while the rhythmic beat of the drum reverberates through the car. Outside, the mesas, the red clay mountains, sage, and juniper all rush by. They are heading west. Just the two of them. Farther than they’ve been since they moved here. She can’t really remember the last time.
And it’s been so long since they’ve been close. Since they’ve even touched. Rachel envisions them at their campsite, resting in each other’s arms under the stars. Their steady breathing. Nathan’s gentle doctor’s touch. They’ll make love. She laughs to herself at the notion of making love in a tent on the hard ground, but a part of her is stirred. She is ready for him.
Rachel reaches across, touching Nathan’s arm. “I’ve always wanted to see Chaco Canyon,” Rachel says. He is still the handsome man she married. He has his head of dark curls that she loved to run her fingers through when they were first together. And those pale blue eyes that Davie inherited. It’s true that he’s heavier than when they first met whereas she hasn’t gained a pound. But he’s still strong. He still does his sixty sit-ups every night before bed. Not much has c
hanged beyond two children, the move to New Mexico, and all the years. But the core of it, what started it all, that remains.
“I can’t remember when we last went camping.” Nathan clasps her fingers, then makes his turn onto the highway heading west. Piñons line the dry, desert road. Rachel rolls down her window and smells the pine.
Rachel laughs. “I’m not sure we ever have.”
“Oh, we must have. But maybe that was some other girl.” A large truck passes and she rolls her window up. Nathan gives her a playful wink.
“Maybe,” she says, running her fingers through his thick, dark curls. As they drive along Rachel starts talking about the boys. At school they are studying Columbus. It is the anniversary of his discovery. Five hundred years, the quincentennial, and their curriculum is all about Columbus—discovery, navigation, and geography. In art class they are making cardboard boats. They are designing Columbus coins. She turns to Nathan. “Why are they making a big deal out of that? He committed genocide. Why don’t they learn about that?”
Nathan shrugs. “He discovered America.”
“No, there were native people here before Columbus. But he killed them. Millions of them.”
“I think it was smallpox that killed them.”
Rachel nodded. “But we gave them smallpox.”
“And they gave us syphilis.”
Rachel stares at Nathan, about to laugh. “Seriously? I didn’t know that.”
“Yes. The sailors brought it back to Spain with them.”
They stop at a roadside diner for lunch. The graffiti on the side of the building catches Rachel’s eye. ALLWAYS BE YOURSHELF. Inside the diner she spots an old poster. “Tommy Macaione for governor. Vote for the Mutual Happiness Party.” His platform promoted art, agriculture, disarmament, and free school lunches. “I’d vote for him,” Rachel muses. “I Shot the Sheriff” is playing on the radio. They order eggs with green tomato salad, tortillas, and beans. It is a delicious meal, and as they gobble it down, Nathan reaches across the table and holds her hand. “I’m glad we’re getting away.”