“How can you see that, having only just met me?”
“Perhaps I’m a keen observer.”
“You’re much more than that, Isabel Perez,” he said, holding her gaze.
Her heart quickened. She was a New Christian girl with an Old Christian man of noble birth, unaccompanied, in the middle of a forest. No one knew she was there. She was breaking every rule.
“You are correct,” said Diego, finally breaking his stare to tie the horse to a tree, now that the animal was finished drinking. “I am preoccupied about something.” He hesitated.
“What is it?”
“A discovery. Something I learned recently …”
“Yes?”
His eyebrows moved together. If she wasn’t mistaken, he looked in pain.
“I discovered that … I am …”
“Are you ill?”
“No, no,” he assured her. “Nothing of the sort. I discovered …” He took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. “A new artist, right here in Trujillo! He would like me to apprentice with him.”
“How wonderful!”
Visibly relieved, Diego stood up straighter. “His name is Pedro Berruguete. It’s an opportunity I’ve been waiting for all my life, but I’m afraid to ask my father. He will say—”
“That you’re a nobleman with familial obligations,” she said, finishing his thought. “I know all about being dutiful.” She gave a wan smile. “You should try and figure out a way to do both. You’ll regret it if you don’t. An experience like that may not come along again.”
He nodded. “I’ve been thinking … with Berruguete’s studio right here in Trujillo, I can still do the tax collections during the day and paint at night. When Father sees Berruguete’s portraits of important scientists, the saints hanging on walls of cathedrals, perhaps he’ll realize how prestigious the apprenticeship could be.” He paused. “Though I don’t have much hope. Sometimes I loathe my birthright.”
“There was a painter at the auto de fe yesterday.”
“Oh?”
“Surely you saw him.”
“I only arrived at the quemadero. I had been collecting taxes outside town in Cáceres the greater part of the day.”
“Then you are lucky, I suppose, to have missed most of it.”
His eyes narrowed. “That is true. The entire affair was a horror.”
She was glad that he felt the same way about the vile tribunal as she did.
“Let’s not talk of such things. Why don’t you recite me one of your poems?” suggested Diego.
She was too shy to quote the one she had just written about him. She may as well have the town crier declare her feelings in the public square. But on the other hand, why shouldn’t she be honest? Life was becoming more tenuous every day. Wasn’t this moment, right now, all that mattered? “Very well.” She curtsied like Atika did, hoping that would give her the confidence to say the words in front of him.
“O brother of the full moon in resplendence and glory
May God preserve the time which caused you to rise!
If my nights have grown long after your departure, I remain complaining of the shortness of the evening with you.”
“When did you compose that?” Diego’s voice was low.
Isabel swallowed. “After our walk in the Moorish quarter.”
He took a step closer. His head tilted forward, his eyes on her lips.
She held her breath, suspended.
Then he stepped back.
God’s fingernails! Why must he behave with such honor?
He extended his crooked arm. “Let’s walk. I want to show you the wonders of this place.”
She threaded her hand through the opening, the insides of their bent arms resting against each other. That spot beneath her elbow was aflame.
Above them, the blue sky was a vast canvas, with the occasional brushstroke of a cloud. Two eagles painted circles, searching for prey.
They left the meadow and the terrain changed to woodland. Oaks grew closer together—Isabel recognized at least four different types of trees—preventing the sunlight from streaming in. A small spotted creature darted in front of them, pausing to stare at the human intruders. Its ears were upright and alert, its eyes large and shining. Then it disappeared into the thicket.
“What was that?” exclaimed Isabel.
“A genet, I believe,” said Diego. “They’re harmless.” Still, his arm muscle tensed, and he tightened his grip on her.
“Are there snakes here?” asked Isabel.
“Quite possibly. Wildcats, lynx for certain. Once I saw a lion.”
“You did not!”
He laughed heartily.
She playfully hit his arm with her free hand. They walked in silence, the only sound a caw, caw of storks somewhere nearby.
“Careful,” said Diego, gesturing to a muddy patch.
She lifted her hem to clear it, and he withdrew his arm from her elbow so he could better support her. She felt the heat from his hand on the small of her back, all the way through the three layers she wore. He let his hand remain there until they were out of the tree cover.
When they emerged, they found themselves facing a reservoir of sparkling blue water. A quartz outcropping shot straight over them. Isabel shaded her eyes to look up. At the top of the rocks stood some ruins—a few wall fragments along with a circular tower and a cistern.
“Those ruins are what’s left of the old Moorish castle,” explained Diego. “The legend tells that the castle was the home of Princess Noeima, who fell in love with a Christian. She showed the boy the secret entrance to the castle and he was discovered by her father, the sultan, who killed him upon sight. Now her ghost wanders the mountains in eternal punishment.”
“What a terribly sad story,” she remarked.
Would her ghost be made to wander these forests if she fell in love with Diego? At this moment, she didn’t care. She just wanted to feel his lips on hers.
Yet he did not kiss her but continued to point out different sights. “Beyond those mountains is Portugal. And inside those jagged crevasses are caves with paintings by people who lived over three thousand years before Cristo.”
That was older than the Jewish people. Abuela had told her that the history of the Jews began in the year 1300 before Cristo. An image, just a heartbeat’s flash, made her shiver. She saw a line drawn between then and now. From cave painters to early Jews who descended from Abraham, to her and Diego in the year 1481. “Who will be the people of the future, the ones walking in this park one thousand years from now?” she murmured aloud.
“Our descendants,” said Diego.
Was he referring to a child made from their union? The possibility thrilled her, then she quickly chided herself for getting too far ahead.
“It’s interesting to think about what was here before the cave people,” said Diego.
Clearly, he was not thinking about creating a child with her at all. Oh, he was maddening! Yet his mind was like nobody’s she had ever met. Nor had she read any texts by a writer who thought like he did.
She swept her arm to encompass the whole forest. “I assume what was here before were the same animals and plants that are here now.”
“Do you think God made the animals and plants?” he asked.
“Of course. He created them when he made Adam and Eve.”
“What if the world, the animals, the plants, the ground we’re walking on was always right here?” said Diego. “All the scientific matter that makes up this sphere we call Earth … what if it were eternal. Unchanging.”
“And God had nothing to do with it?”
“The Bible says that God created the world out of the void. But what if that nothingness was actually ancient material, God’s paints and brushes if you will?”
“I sense a philosophy lesson coming.”
He grinned. “Who made the heavenly bodies?”
“God.”
“Why does our sphere spin the way it does? Why do some stars
emit more light than other stars? Why are certain areas of the night sky more crowded than others?”
“I’ve never thought of these ideas before.”
“I ask you now, are all those details in the heavens necessary for the universe to function? Perhaps. Or perhaps not, and it is simply random. We do not know. Scientists are just beginning to study size, speed, and distance of the nine spheres of our universe. So until we know for certain that everything was placed randomly, we must posit that God created the world from nothing and fashioned it in a particular way. Thus making the arrangement of the heavenly bodies necessary.”
“But didn’t you just say that there was some sort of eternal world that existed before God?”
“I did indeed. I’m saying that there is room for both theories.”
“Yet it is written in the Bible that God created the world out of the void,” she said. “So that negates the idea of ancient matter.”
“The Bible is not meant to be taken literally.”
Reflexively, Isabel looked around. They were still alone, gracias a Dios, because if anyone heard them, they’d both be arrested for heresy. “You’ve not met my sister, obviously.”
“I should like to debate her. For when it is written ‘Their poison is like the poison of a serpent’ or ‘And I will be to them as a lioness,’ the passages do not refer to actual poison or the figure and shape of a lioness, but to some abstract idea.”
“A simile, as in poetry.”
“Yes!” He was so excited, he nearly grabbed her arms. She would not have minded.
“What about when the Bible refers to the wrath of God, or the hand of God?” asked Isabel.
“This, too, is impossible. We cannot think of God as having a human body.”
“You jest! Jesús was human.”
Diego turned away from her.
Curses. Had she offended him? They were having such a stimulating conversation.
He remained quiet.
She wanted to bring him back. Though to his ideals or to her, she wasn’t certain.
“How should we describe God, then?”
He turned to look at her, and his face showed such tranquility that great relief flooded over her. “He is an essence,” answered Diego. “He is unknowable to us. For only God is the Knower, the Knowledge, and the Act of Knowing.”
She was so happy to have his full attention, she did not bother to try to comprehend this strange way of thinking.
They stood gazing at each other. She was overcome with desire for him. Surely, he felt the same way. She had caught him staring at her lips more than once today. Did he fear the wrath of Don Sancho? If so, she wanted to shout to the heavens that she hated that odious man and would fight the betrothal tooth and nail. Or was it her converso blood? Was he simply like everyone else in Trujillo, destined to follow the rules and not the heart?
“Isabel, I was not entirely truthful before,” said Diego.
“Oh?” she replied calmly, while inside she was anything but. What if he was not who she thought, after all? Was he going to denounce her to the Inquisition?
“I did discover an artist, but that wasn’t what has been occupying my mind.”
She watched him, waiting.
“Do you ever wonder about your ancestors, those family members from before you converted?” he asked.
Her heart sped as if she had run a kilometer. Could he know about their cellar? Could he see something in her face, a telltale sign that she was a Crypto-Jew? Was she actually in trouble here, or could she finally reveal the truth after all these years of keeping her family’s secret?
She hesitated, then whispered, “Yes.”
“Yes?” he repeated.
“I do think of my Jewish relatives.”
His eyes shone. “I am one of them. I am a Jew.”
“You are a converso?”
“On my mother’s side. I only just discovered the truth yesterday,” he said.
“My family …” she began. “We are Crypto-Jews. We have not lost our tradition.”
“You practice in secret?”
She nodded.
“Then that means we are the same,” he said in astonishment. “That means I can …” His voice, gravelly now, suddenly went quiet.
She swallowed, not daring to look away.
He brushed a lock that had come loose from her braid. She shivered under his fingers. Then under hooded eyes, he leaned down and kissed her. When his lips touched hers, her body arched to him. Her mouth opened and a small sigh escaped. He quieted her with his tongue and pulled her to him, pressing himself against her. She touched his cheek, marveling at the way the skin changed, coarser near his throat. His hands disappeared in her hair.
“Isabel,” he whispered.
At last. She finally understood what the poets were talking about. She was hopelessly in love.
With a Jew.
They rode home by way of the river. As Pepe loped, his hooves lifted off the ground, so at times she felt as if they were floating.
Behind her, Diego brought his head forward so that their faces were touching. His breath caressed Isabel’s cheek. Then he removed one hand from the reins and turned her chin toward him, resting his lips on hers. A few moments later, he did it again. And then again. He could not go one hundred meters without kissing her.
To her right, the river churned, fueling her with blue-gray energy that moved through her veins like blood. To her left, the marshy grass was wet and green, filling her lungs with verdant air.
Her hair, so carefully braided, was completely undone.
She was completely undone.
Reluctantly, they said their goodbyes at the same spot where they had begun. Yet nothing was the same for her. It never would be. Where the south gate archway appeared dull and dirty earlier, it now looked shiny and clean. Even the pigs nosing around in the slop that collected alongside the road endeared themselves to her.
“Buenas tardes,” she called happily to an old basket weaver. The woman gave Isabel a toothless grin.
But as she walked home, her felicitous thoughts began to darken. She had always lived a double existence: a Crypto-Jew by birth, a Christian on the outside. Today she faced another duality: betrothed to Don Sancho, her heart with Diego. How could she marry that putrid creature after seeing what life could be like with Diego? Their days would not cease to be stimulating. And their nights … She trembled, imagining his body lying next to hers. It would be a world of ideas and beauty, rather than a world of punishment and fear. For Don Sancho was the Inquisition in human form. Tears welled in her eyes. The abject frustration! She finally felt pure joy and she did not know how to keep it.
Once when she was small, she held her breath to see how long she could go without air. Her cheeks turned purple and her eyes burned before she exhaled in a forceful motion, her lungs gasping for life. Her body acted on its own accord. In a way, she had been doing that same thing her entire life. Acting on instinct. For surviving in a Christian country meant perpetrating a lie. Being a good New Christian and never questioning anything.
Until now.
She no longer wanted to merely survive. She wanted to live! She wanted to act of her own volition to secure happiness. To have free will. All free people deserved a choice, in both religion and marriage.
But this was impossible because she needed to survive.
It was a circular argument.
There had to be a way out of the maze.
When Isabel arrived home, Mamá and Papá had not yet returned from visiting Hannah Cohen. Beatriz, laundering clothes in the wooden tub out back, told her Abuela had just retired for a siesta.
“You exhausted her,” said Isabel. “You need to find another duenna.”
Beatriz wrung out one of their father’s shirts. “I guess you’ll just have to accompany me next time, then.”
“Or perhaps you should not promenade at all,” answered Isabel.
Beatriz squinted at her. “Something’s different about you t
his afternoon.”
“Por favor,” scoffed Isabel. “I’m still the same older sister you’ve always had.”
“Your cheeks are flushed, and your neck is pink.”
“You always say that. Must be the rigor of my walk. I took the long way home.” Isabel turned toward the kitchen door. “I’ll be in the house if you need something.”
Once inside, she leaned against the chopping block and exhaled. Nothing got past Beatriz. Isabel would have to start acting less in love and more somber. Given the reality of Don Sancho, that shouldn’t be difficult. Isabel quietly opened Abuela’s bedroom door to see if her grandmother was asleep.
“Is that you, mi nieta?”
“I’m sorry,” whispered Isabel. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I only just lay down. Come in.”
Isabel hesitated, knowing Abuela should rest. But she was desperate to speak to the only person who might comprehend the ideas Diego spoke about. She could not reveal his identity or the secret about his past. Not until he told her it was safe. And she did not know when that day would come. They had not discussed future plans when they kissed goodbye. They simply relished the newness of each other. But at least she could feel closer to him by understanding the way his mind worked. “Maybe I’ll come inside just for a short while.”
The sun was low, but it passed through her grandmother’s small window opening. Dust mites swirled around in the light beams.
“How goes the poetry writing?” asked Abuela.
“Hmmm?” Then Isabel remembered she had told her grandmother and sister that she would be walking by the river gathering thoughts for a poem. “Fine, gracias.” She sat down on the pallet. “Are you terribly tired from the walk?”
“Your sister can socialize, I’ll give her that. Some boy named Juan Carlos was there. A rogue, no doubt. We saw him from afar. A convent might be good for her, temporarily.”
Isabel recoiled. “You can’t mean that.”
“Let’s be honest. She’ll never be a Jew. And she enjoys the company of women. She stopped to talk to all of her friends and their mothers and aunts. I think she’d thrive in a nunnery. It’s quite normal, you know, for girls with no dowries to stay for a time. Men even court women behind those walls.”
The Poetry of Secrets Page 16