Catalina

by Markus Orths

  It was already dark when they reached the convent. Francisco handed Maria in at the gate like a parcel. He gave the nun on gate-duty precise instructions: no one must be let into the convent. The girl must be safely locked away. Preferably with her mother. Her husband was after her. And when Francisco had said all this he suddenly had a feeling of revulsion for the woman he was setting down here. For what she had done. And what he himself had done on the way. He felt he had been seen through. Something disgusted him. Francisco beckoned Maria to him again and bent close to her. The nun was all ears. Francisco motioned to her to go away. “Listen,” he said to Maria, when the thwarted eavesdropper had moved away into the shadow. Francisco lifted Maria’s chin and made her look into his eyes. “Not a word to anyone about what happened on the way, do you hear? That’s the only price I ask for helping you.” Maria nodded, then turned and disappeared into the convent.

  Francisco rode pensively into the town, where he stopped at an inn, took something approximating to a room, changed into some dry clothes, settled down in the tap-room and let time go by. He was drinking something or other out of a cup. He had no idea what time it was when the cup suddenly fell to pieces in his hand. Or why it had done so. It took him a while to realize that it had not shattered of its own accord, but had been smashed by a pistol bullet. So someone had fired a pistol. He raised his eyes towards the source of the shot and saw Pedro de Chavarria standing in the doorway. The smoke still hung in the air.

  Francisco had not the least desire to fight Pedro, he would much rather have discussed matters, to clear up what was evidently an unfortunate misunderstanding. But Pedro rushed at him and Francisco had no choice but to take to his heels. They ran through the streets of Huamanga. Pedro had his sword in his hand and had thrown away the pistol. Francisco took refuge in a church. This, he thought, might be the right place to make a maddened pursuer see reason. Certainly the place for a conciliatory talk. By this time darkness had fallen. In the church a number of lamps and candles were burning. Moments later Pedro’s shadow appeared at the main door. Francisco had miscalculated: being in a hallowed place had no restraining effect on Pedro at all. Like an animal unleashed he charged at Francisco, storming down the central nave in mighty bounds, and looking into his eyes Francisco could see that this was not the Pedro de Chavarria that he knew but someone quite different, who no longer knew what he was doing, who would dispatch him into the next world without a moment’s hesitation.

  Francisco was only carrying a dagger. He managed to parry his adversary’s first blow using that small blade, but the dagger was sent skidding several yards along the floor. Francisco took a few steps sideways, a few back again, and went on dodging about nimbly, constantly watching out for the other’s blows, which whistled past his head. And that head had better come up with an idea in double-quick time if he did not want to be with Him in paradise that very day. Then he saw the crucifix. It was a cross carried in processions and was propped against one of the columns. Diving beneath his adversary’s weapon, Francisco ran over to it. The cross was not too heavy, and was about the height of a man, with a Christ figure made of clay. Francisco lifted it off the floor and held it up towards Pedro like a protective shield, as if he were a devil or some sinister apparition that could be put to flight by its symbolic power. Now, surely, Francisco thought, here, with the cross right in front of him, he must stop, he can’t possibly strike out at the cross. But nothing and nobody seemed capable of bringing Pedro de Chavarria to his senses. He was obsessed with a single goal: the annihilation of his enemy.

  By now a number of people had entered the church, drawn by the noise of shouting and running. A blow by Pedro struck the cross. The people gasped, drawing in their breath in unison. Now Francisco had no choice. He had to fight, and so he turned the cross round in his hands so that the Lord’s head pointed downwards and the feet heavenwards. As he took a firm grip on the shorter end of the cross Francisco saw that it made a perfect sword, and that the head-stand that the Lord had performed had given him an ideal weapon for keeping his assailant at bay. True, he could hardly make any sort of meaningful attack with it, but at least he had an adequate defensive weapon with which to parry Pedro’s blows. He only needed to hold out until someone finally came to his aid and took Chavarria’s sword away from him. There were so many people in the church! What were they waiting for? Could they not see what was going on? Would no one protect the crumbling body of the Lord? His hands and feet were already falling off, and now his legs; with each blow of metal on clay another limb clattered to the floor. Soon only the chest and head remained, modelled in an austere style, grey and gaunt, and wreathed with thorns. Pedro made another lunge with his sword, but this time he only hit the gap between Jesus’ back and the wood it was stuck to. Leaping backwards, Francisco suddenly performed a ninety-degree turn; Pedro’s blade, jammed between the clay and the wood, was jerked out of his hand, while the naked torso of the Lord broke off at the neck and crashed to the floor. Then Francisco raised the cross and slammed it down on Pedro’s head, so that, with a bemused expression on his face, Pedro fell flat on his back, unconscious. Francisco turned the cross the right way up again and held it to his adversary’s throat. Gasping for breath, he could not form the words he wanted to say. He could only stand and stare at the head of the Lord which hovered, disembodied, directly in front of his own. It seemed to Francisco that the crown of thorns was slightly askew and that, like him, the crucified Christ was panting with the effort of the fight. Then he looked past the Lord’s head at the bystanders who were at last showing signs of movement, making way for someone who wore bishop’s robes and who was beginning to speak in a loud voice. But the meaning of what he said did not penetrate Francisco’s brain, for behind and slightly to one side of the bishop he saw a man who was of far more interest to him than any episcopal words.

  Chapter twenty-six

  Death by the rope

  I recognized you at once,“ said Francisco, when he could bear the silence no longer.

  Juan Bautista de Arteaga looked at him.

  “Why shouldn’t you have recognized me?” he asked.

  They were sitting in the bishop’s house, that same night. Pedro de Chavarria had been arrested.

  “You’re right,” said Francisco. “Why shouldn’t I have recognized you?”

  “Were you looking for me?” asked Juan.

  “No.”

  “But you knew I was living in Huamanga?”

  “I knew that you went to Huamanga. I didn’t know if you were still living here. It’s been a long time since then.”

  “The old bishop died. I stayed on with his successor.”

  “As his doctor?”

  “He’s never ill, this new bishop. I go about with him, I write down everything that happens, I collect events. We travel a lot. I suppose you could say I’m a kind of secretary‘

  There was a pause. Every question that Francisco tried out in his mind sounded somehow ridiculous.

  “And then there are my own memories,” said Juan.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m making a collection of my own memories too. Everything that has happened in my life.”

  “Including me?”

  “Including you.”

  And Vitoria?“

  “Home?”

  “Call it what you like.”

  “Of course.”

  Francisco said nothing.

  “You must tell me everything,” said Juan.

  “It’s late,” said Francisco.

  “Tomorrow, then.”

  “Yes, tomorrow.”

  But the next morning, the door of Francisco’s room was flung open by two men who stood there, their faces grave and impassive, and one of them said, “You’re under arrest!” Francisco thought this must relate to last night, to the destruction of the cross and the fight in the church; he had nothing to reproach himself with and readily followed the two men. But the questions he was required to answer were nooses being k
notted for him. Yes, before the quarrel with Pedro he had gone into that inn, next to the gaming house. Yes, this was his dagger, he had lost it, who had found it?

  “With this dagger,” his interrogator told him, “a man was murdered last night. Near the inn. Before your fight with Chavarria. And there are two men who saw you commit the murder.”

  Everything happened at such breathtaking speed that Francisco felt giddy. During his brief hearing he recognized one of the two supposed witnesses who were testifying against him. The man had no right hand, only a black cloth covering a stump: it was the Cid. Now Francisco understood the plot that had been hatched against him, but could do nothing about it. Obviously the Cid must have been somewhere in the crowd watching the fight in the church. He must have fallen to his knees, not out of piety but so that he could surreptitiously pick up Francisco’s dagger from the floor. And he must have used the dagger to commit the murder.

  Francisco Loyola’s case was quickly dispatched. The concrete evidence would have been insufficient in itself, but the witness statements carried considerable weight. Juan Bautista de Arteaga’s hands were tied. He was not even allowed to visit the condemned man in prison. The sentence was death by hanging. “Now I was a bit worried,” reads Francisco’s text. But the position was truly serious: Francisco’s appeal for mercy was rejected. The sentence was ordered to be carried out in three days’ time.

  *

  The preparations for a death were in full swing; an execution was a major social event. Two days were devoted to the work of construction. With the aid of a tree-trunk the hangman tested the strength of the rope and of his structure. Among the citizens of Huamanga the atmosphere was electric, as if a thunderstorm were approaching. People were looking forward to watching someone die. The short struggle with Death after he had laid his stringy hands around the victim’s neck, the faint death rattle just before the end, the water running out of the legs of the breeches following the moment of death when all control is lost—for the spectators all this had the character of a play, and because it was genuine, it was more convincing than any other show that was on offer. But what gave them more comfort and pleasure than anything was that they were not hanging there. The death of the man who was hanging there confirmed the plain fact that they were still alive. His life was being snuffed out, while they were still breathing. As long as it was someone else dying, their own lives were inviolable.

  On the eve of the day appointed for his death Francisco was sitting in his cell, thinking. So the following morning was to be his last? It was strangely unimaginable. But what if it were so? What if he really had reached the end of the road this time? Just then a priest entered the cell and said he had come to hear his confession.

  “Confession?” asked Francisco.

  The priest nodded.

  “Confession!” repeated Francisco, laughing now.

  The priest began to mutter some words in Latin.

  “Stop!” shouted Francisco.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I refuse.”

  “That’s not possible. If you don’t confess you can’t be executed.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I mean, if you don’t confess, you can’t be admitted to the communion of saints.”

  “You said it.”

  “Well then. Shall we begin—‘

  “Go away and leave me alone.”

  Francisco stood up and advanced upon the priest, who leaped up in alarm and left the cell. Shortly afterwards the judge appeared, a man called Vega.

  “No confession?” he asked.

  “No confession,” said Francisco.

  “What’s the idea of that?”

  “Putting me to death when I have not made my confession—I doubt if you can square that with your conscience.”

  Vega rubbed his chin.

  “You may find you’re wrong about that, Loyola.”

  And then, we are told, it ‘rained priests’—clerics who hammered away at Francisco Loyola from all sides, imploring him to change his mind. They painted in lurid colours the everlasting torments of hell which awaited ‘that poor wretch, Loyola’ if he refused to be confessed. But Francisco would not be moved. By morning the priests had become even more agitated and would not leave the cell at all, even when Francisco demanded to be left in peace. They began to raise their voices, but their pleading and scolding achieved nothing.

  The light of day tolled the knell for a human life, and the priests had to put the habit of taffeta on the condemned man and sit him on a horse. They accompanied him on his way to the gallows. They begged Vega to delay the execution: it was far too soon. This man, they said, needed to be prepared for his last journey, he must not be left without spiritual succour. But Vega replied, with perfect composure, “He is to hang, right now. The decision has been taken. Death is already at his side. If he insists on going to hell that is his affair. I have not forbidden him to confess.”

  Francisco had not reckoned with this. He had hoped to obtain a postponement, a breathing-space—a couple more days of thinking time. But now here he was, perched on the horse, wearing the black taffeta habit, a caricature of himself, with these tiresome priests, like a swarm of mosquitoes, alongside him. He saw the gallows looming ever closer, and beside it the man who was going to operate it. The whole town was gathered there. Francisco was pushed up the four roughly carpentered steps. Now at last the priests stood back. Only one of them accompanied him all the way to the noose that trembled in the morning breeze. He was still insistently whispering to Francisco that he must change his mind, there was still time, a single word would do, just ‘I repent’, he was ready to grant him absolution, he just required that one word, no more and no less, or even, when he was beyond speaking, a nod or a sign using his eyes.

  Francisco was not listening. He refused to believe that the event that was already casting its oval shadow right before his feet was actually going to happen. He gazed into the assembled throng of people and at once picked out the Cid, who was standing in the front row, grinding his teeth in anticipation, hatred bringing beads of sweat to his forehead. He was gesturing triumphantly with the stump of his arm. Juan Bautista de Arteaga was standing behind the bishop, who was sitting on a raised platform. As for the other people: unknown faces, a chaotic mass of strangers who were there to claim Francisco’s death as their due. They had come to see a man die, and they would be satisfied with nothing less.

  Then Francisco suddenly recognized Maria de Chavarria. He realized that she must have been looking at him all this time, for when she saw that she had at last caught his eye, she acted instantly. She made a sign to him by squeezing her breasts together and pushing them up, ignoring the men standing near her, who nudged each other, jerking their chins in her direction and making lewd remarks. Francisco considered for a moment. That was certainly a thought. He stood there, soberly reflecting, on the platform which was all that stood between him and the abyss, death and damnation. Then he heard a question being addressed to him.

  He knew they were asking the usual last question. Francisco nodded and said yes; of course he had a wish. His features became more animated. A last wish that could be granted very easily, he said, but one that mattered to him more than anything else at all. For a moment he closed his eyes as he put together the right words. He wanted to have them all ready on his tongue before he opened his mouth. And then he said, “I would like to die just as I was born.”

  Those around him said nothing. They looked at each other. Vega suspected another ruse, but Francisco’s expression convinced him that he was serious. Nobody would be joking, with death so close at hand. Even so, Vega was mystified.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “I would like to die just as I was born,” Francisco repeated.

  “He wants you to take his clothes off!” shouted Maria de Chavarria.

  “Do it!” cried the priests. “It’s his last wish, you can’t refuse him!”

  “Yes, why not?” the s
pectators shouted.

  “Naked!” shouted some others. “Let him die naked, if that’s what he wants!”

  Vega looked around: on all sides people were nodding. Last of all he looked at the bishop, who was still undecided. Then Juan Bautista de Arteaga bent down and whispered briefly into his ear. The bishop nodded. Two of the hangman’s assistants approached and pulled the taffeta habit over Francisco’s head. Underneath it he was wearing his normal clothes. When they were about to undress him further, he said, “No, please. I would like to do it myself.” They cut through his bonds. He rubbed his wrists to restore his circulation. Then he looked into the crowd.

  What he now did, he did slowly. He turned his hand against himself, beginning by removing his shirt. Garment by garment he stripped his body, yet he felt as though he were doing the opposite, as though with every piece of clothing he took off he were putting a new one on—as though for him nakedness was a disguise. Then he spread his arms wide.