The Hand of Fatima

by Ildefonso Falcones

  ‘A girl like your sisters! Do you remember them? The Christians slaughtered them in the square at Juviles together with more than a thousand women. More than a thousand, Hernando! And those that weren’t murdered ended up sold at auction in the Plaza de Bibarrambla in Granada. Thousands and thousands of our brothers were executed or enslaved. Hamid himself! Do you remember?’

  ‘How could I not remember—?’

  ‘And Aquil and Musa,’ his mother interrupted him, gesticulating wildly, ‘what about them? They were stolen from us as soon as we arrived in this accursed city. They were sold as slaves, despite being only children. No Christian came to their defence! They were children just as much as that . . . that Isabel of whom you speak.’ They walked on a fair way in silence.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ moaned Aisha wearily. By now they were close to the windmill that jutted out into the river where it could use the current to grind the grain. ‘Your story with the nobleman was hard enough for me to take, but now . . . you betrayed your people!’ Aisha turned towards her son; her face showed a determination he had seldom seen in her before. ‘Maybe you are the head of the family – of a family that now does not exist – and maybe you are all I have left in this world, but even so, I don’t want to see you again. I want nothing to do with you.’

  ‘Mother . . .’ stammered Hernando.

  Aisha turned her back and set off towards the Santiago neighbourhood.

  46

  HERNANDO RECALLED each and every one of those hours and minutes fourteen years ago when, wretched and beaten, he had covered that same road heading towards Córdoba, together with thousands of other Moriscos. Once again he felt the weight of the old ones he had helped carry, and heard the echoing lament of mothers, children and the sick.

  Abruptly he gave the order to halt for the night in the abbey of Alcalá la Real, still under construction.

  ‘We could continue a little further,’ complained Don Sancho. ‘In spring the days are longer.’

  ‘I know,’ answered Hernando, sitting very straight astride Volador. ‘But we will stop here.’

  Don Sancho, the hidalgo appointed by the duke to accompany Hernando on the journey, pulled a face at the commanding tone of the instructions. Not so long ago this had been his pupil. The four armed servants who accompanied them, and guarded the line of mules loaded with their belongings, exchanged knowing looks. This was simply a further demonstration of the authority the Morisco had displayed many times over the previous days. Yet Hernando would have preferred to travel alone.

  The group settled into the abbey. The sun began to set and the Morisco asked for Volador to be saddled up again. At a steady walk, watched by the people of the town, he descended the hill alone. Fortress and abbey were above him, the extensive cultivated lands at his feet and the Sierra Nevada in the distance. He soon left the town behind and found himself in open countryside. He spurred Volador on. The horse bucked with delight, as if in thanks to his rider for demanding a gallop after the long, slow and tedious days of being restricted by the mules’ slow pace.

  It was not hard for Hernando to identify the patch of flat ground where they had spent the night during their exodus to Córdoba, but finding the irrigation channel where Aisha had washed Humam after wrenching his body from Fatimá’s arms was a different matter. It could not be far from the camp. He rode around the fields paying careful attention to the channels watering them. They had not marked the little one’s grave; they had buried him in virgin soil, wrapped only in Fátima’s melancholy silence and Aisha’s monotone chanting.

  He thought he recognized the place, close to a rivulet of water that still flowed as it had then. It was a debt he owed, he thought to himself. He owed it to Fátima and her children, whom he had not even been able to bury; he owed it to himself. The grave of that dead child was all that remained of his wife, and of his children who, like Humam, had been born of Fátima. Hernando dismounted in front of a small burial mound of stones that the passage of time had not managed to conceal. He was certain the body of Fátima’s son lay beneath this earth. He looked quickly all round him. There was no one in sight; the only sound was the horse’s breathing at his back. Tethering Volador to some bushes he headed for the irrigation channel, where he washed slowly and carefully. He contemplated the glittering reds of the setting sun, took off his cloak and knelt on it. But when he began the prayers a lump formed in his throat and he broke down in tears. Sobbing, he tried to chant the suras until the ashen colour of the sky indicated it was time for the night prayer to draw to an end.

  Then he got to his feet, searched in his clothes and took out a letter written with saffron ink: the ‘letter of the dead’, which pleads for the deceased at the hour when their actions are weighed in the divine scales.

  He dug down with his hands where he imagined the child’s head must be and buried the letter.

  ‘We couldn’t give you this letter when you died,’ he whispered as he covered it with earth. ‘God will understand. Permit me to include within it prayers for your mother and the brother and sister you never had the chance to meet.’

  Like all the villages they had passed through on the road from Lanjarón (before whose ruined fortress Hernando could not help but think of the sword of Muhammad buried at the foot of its tower), Ugíjar, the capital of the Alpujarra, appeared almost deserted. The Galicians and Castilians brought down to replace the expelled Moriscos were not numerous enough to fully repopulate the area, and almost a quarter of the villages were abandoned. The feeling of freedom he experienced as he went through the valley, with the peaks of the Sierra Nevada to his left and the Contraviesa to his right, was marred by the sight of the houses boarded up and in ruins.

  But despite the all-pervading air of neglect in the village, Hernando was filled with nostalgic joy at the sight of every tree, every animal, every stream and every rock along the way. His eyes roamed constantly over the landscape, and memories crowded into his mind. Don Sancho and the servants did not stop grumbling, making no attempt to conceal their revulsion at the poverty of the lands and houses.

  Almost two months had passed by after the duke had spoken to Hernando about his mission before the moment of departure arrived. During this time, Hernando spoke with Juan Marco, the master weaver in whose workshop Aisha was employed. They knew each other. On occasion he had gone to the workshop and talked with him; he was an arrogant weaver of velvets, satins and damasks who considered himself above those in his own guild who dealt in other types of cloth: silk workers, veil-makers, spinners, and even those ‘lesser’ weavers, the taffeta workers. The master weaver made no secret of his desire to sell his wares at the Duke of Monterreal’s house.

  ‘Increase her daily rate,’ Hernando urged him one evening. He had waited, hidden on a corner close to the workshop, until his mother’s figure disappeared down the street. Ever since their argument Aisha had refused to accept any help from her son.

  ‘Why should I?’ the weaver retorted. ‘Like many other women from Granada, your mother knows the product, but she has never done any weaving. The regulations stop me from giving her any work beyond that of assisting—’

  ‘Increase it anyway. It won’t cost you anything,’ said Hernando, slipping three gold sovereigns into the man’s hand.

  ‘That’s easy for you to say! You don’t know what these women are like; if I increase the wage of one of them, the others will be on me like a pack of wolves.’

  Hernando sighed. The weaver was playing hard to get.

  ‘Nobody needs to know; just her. If you do this, I’ll suggest to the duke he take an interest in what you produce,’ said Hernando, looking the man straight in the eye.

  Hernando’s promise, together with the gold sovereigns, convinced the weaver, who nevertheless still had a final question on his lips:

  ‘All right, but . . . why?’

  ‘That’s no concern of yours,’ Hernando snapped. ‘Just keep your side of the bargain.’

  Once this problem was resolved, t
here remained one more. How few preparations he had to make before a journey! Hernando thought, after knocking one night at the door of Arbasia’s house. Yes, both were important, but there were still only two things he had to do. The servant who opened the door made him wait in the semi-darkness of the entrance hallway. The last time he had needed to travel he had just left the house in Fátima’s hands and asked Abbas to look after his family . . .

  ‘To what do I owe your visit, Hernando? It’s late,’ a tired-looking Arbasia interrupted his thoughts.

  ‘Forgive me, master, but I must leave on a journey and in all of Córdoba I think there is only one person I can trust.’

  He held out a roll of leather. Hidden inside was the copy of the gospel of Barnabas. Arbasia guessed as much and made no move to take it.

  ‘You’re putting me in a difficult position,’ he explained. ‘What would happen if the Inquisition found this document in my keeping?’

  Hernando kept his arm outstretched. ‘You enjoy the favour of the bishop and the council. Nobody will trouble you.’

  ‘Why don’t you hide it where you found it? It lay undiscovered there for years.’

  ‘That’s not the point. Certainly, there are plenty of places where I could hide it. The only thing I want is for this valuable document not to be lost again if anything should happen to me. I’m sure you’ll know what to do with it should that situation arise.’

  ‘And your community?’

  ‘I don’t trust them,’ admitted Hernando.

  ‘Nor they you, apparently. I’ve heard rumours . . .’

  ‘I don’t know what to do, César. I risked my life fighting for our laws and our religion. A man told me I should appear more Christian than the Christians, and now this same man rejects me as a Muslim. The entire community looks down on me. They think I’m a traitor; even my own mother!’ Hernando took a deep breath before continuing. ‘And that isn’t all: from what I’ve heard, my brothers see violence as the only way to break free of oppression.’

  Arbasia took the gospel. ‘Don’t seek your brothers’ approval,’ the painter advised him. ‘That is no more than pride. Seek only that of your God. Continue fighting for what you believe in, but always remember that the only way is that of the Word, of mutual understanding, never that of the sword.’ Arbasia remained silent for a few moments before bidding him farewell: ‘Peace, Hernando.’

  ‘Thank you, master. Peace be with you also.’

  In Ugíjar the chief sheriff of all the Alpujarra had been advised of his arrival. Just as Hernando had taken certain measures before leaving, so the duke too had ordered his secretary to send word ahead to the highest-ranking official of the Alpujarra capital. He also asked him, using information the Los Vélez family had provided him with, to look for that girl, now a woman, by the name of Isabel.

  Hernando and his companions arrived at the main square. The church had been restored. Mounted on Volador, Hernando gazed around the place. How much had happened to him in and around that square! He remembered it packed to bursting with the men of Aben Humeya’s army. The market, the janissaries and the Turks whom he had met for the first time here. Fátima, Isabel, Ubaid, Salah the merchant, the arrival of Barrax and his ‘sons’ . . .

  ‘Welcome!’

  Hernando was so absorbed in his memories he had not even noticed the arrival of a small group led by the sheriff, a short, rough-looking man, with hair as black as his suit, who was accompanied by two bailiffs. Following Don Sancho’s lead, Hernando dismounted. The sheriff headed purposefully towards the hidalgo, who gestured curtly that he should approach the other rider.

  ‘In the name of the governor of Granada,’ he added, now standing in front of the Morisco, ‘I welcome you all.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Hernando, and shook the sheriff’s solemnly offered hand.

  ‘The Duke of Monterreal alerted us to your arrival. We have prepared lodgings for you all.’

  Several onlookers came closer to the group. Hernando fidgeted, uncomfortable with the reception. Believing he should follow the sheriff to the house made ready for them he took a step forwards, but the man continued speaking.

  ‘Sir, I must also welcome you in the name of His Excellency Don Ponce de Hervás, judge of the royal chancery of Granada.’ Hernando spread his palms to show this meant nothing to him. ‘He is the husband of Doña Isabel,’ explained the sheriff, ‘the girl you valiantly saved from slavery at the hands of the heretics. The judge, his wife and all his family wish to thank you personally, and through my humble person they beg you, once you have completed the mission that brings you to the Alpujarra, to go to Granada, where you will be honoured in the house of his excellency.’

  Hernando let slip a smile. The girl was alive. Right here in this square, he had tugged the rope binding her, trying to avoid the merchants and reject the offers he received. ‘You’ll get more than three hundred ducats for her!’ he remembered one of the janissaries at the doors of Aben Humeya’s house yelling at him.

  ‘What shall I tell him?’ asked the sheriff.

  ‘Tell who?’ asked Hernando, coming back to the present.

  ‘The judge. He is awaiting a reply to his invitation. What answer do I give him?’

  ‘Tell him yes . . . I’ll go to his house.’

  The duke had been right: the mares born in the Alpujarra were not of good quality. They were small, clumsy and stiff-necked. Their large heads appeared excessively heavy. Hernando travelled on his own through towns and villages asking about horses; Don Sancho and the servants were quite happy to let him do so. He rode Volador, who in himself aroused the admiration of the poor people who came up trying to sell him one of their horses. Nobody recognized him as one of the Moriscos who had rebelled fourteen years before. Dressed in Spanish-style clothes that were so rich they made him feel awkward, his blue eyes and his complexion, paler even than that of many of the inhabitants of the Alpujarra, prevented them having the slightest suspicion about him. Feeling himself to be a traitor to his people, he remembered Don Sancho’s lessons and tried to speak as he had been taught, without using the characteristic Morisco accent. All of this allowed him to move around freely. He visited Juviles. Several villages in the district were abandoned, and no more than forty people now lived in the village where he had spent his early years.

  Conflicting emotions filled Hernando at the sight of the houses, the church and its adjoining square as he followed the village mayor to the place where he kept four horses that might possibly be of interest to him. As they were crossing the square, Hernando closed his eyes and immediately heard the noise of the harquebuses and the cries of the women; he breathed in the smell of gunpowder, blood and fear. A thousand women had died in that square! He breathed deeply, trying to recover his composure . . . That night he had seen Fátima for the first time; that night his half-sisters had died. That night he had become a hero to his mother, the same woman who now shunned him . . .

  The man continued walking towards the edge of the village, in the direction of what had been his old home, and Hernando immediately realized the horses were kept where he once had stabled his mules. He walked beside the mayor, leading Volador, and as they drew near the sound of his hooves mingled in Hernando’s mind with the slow plodding of La Vieja as she returned on her own to the village to announce the imminent arrival of the mule train. He could not help recalling the absolute terror he used to feel, knowing he would have to go and meet his stepfather. Brahim . . .what could have become of him? How he hoped he was dead!

  He examined the mayor’s four horses, pretending more interest than he felt, and took the chance to look around. Thrown into a corner he discovered the anvil where he had mended his mules’ shoes, and several other objects that also took him back to his childhood. The house was uninhabited, serving only as a storeroom and, according to the mayor, used by himself and his wife to breed silk worms.

  ‘The rooms on the top floor were already prepared for the breeding of cocoons, with rows of canes fixed to the w
alls,’ he explained as if this had saved him a lot of work. ‘All I had to do was to make use of the heretics’ labour!’ He laughed.

  The mayor was upset, however, by Hernando’s refusal to buy the only mare he possessed.

  ‘You will find none better in all the mountains,’ he blurted out, spitting on the ground.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ replied Hernando. ‘I don’t think it’s what the duke wants for his stables.’

  At the mere mention of the duke, the man shifted about nervously, as if he had insulted the noble by spitting.

  Lazy, careless and good-for-nothing: that was the impression Hernando formed of the new settlers in the lands that had once belonged to his people. He left the mayor with his nags and his cocoons, and climbed the mountain slopes. All the small terraces hard won from the mountain over the years were left uncultivated now and overrun with weeds: the terrace he had worked, Hamid’s, and those of many other hard-working Moriscos who had made the stony ground fertile by toiling with pick and hoe. The low stone walls supporting the terraces on the mountain slopes had collapsed in many places, so that earth fell freely down on to the ones below. The canals that irrigated fields and vegetable plots were neglected and broken, allowing the water, source of all life, to escape.

  Incompetent at cultivation and incapable of farming livestock, concluded Hernando. Each one of the new settlers had three times as much land as the Moriscos and yet they were dying of hunger. The villagers tried to excuse their idleness.

  ‘All these lands belong to the King,’ a thickset man from Galicia surrounded by other villagers explained to Hernando, when he stopped at an inn. ‘Therefore they are directly controlled by the governor of Granada, including the high pastures, where during the summer the vegetation, scrub and coarse grass provide grazing for the livestock. Since the pastures are communal, many important people from the city, friends of the governor, send their flocks to graze in the Alpujarra. They allow their animals to ruin crops and mulberry trees. And when they move them from one pasture to another they use armed men who choose the best ones and just take them, even if they aren’t theirs.’