Torquemada

by Howard Fast

  Dressed, armed and spurred, he strode into the gallery where his wife sat. She looked up at him as he entered but on her face there was no greeting, not even recognition. Dully and flatly she asked him,

  “Why are you here?”

  Alvero had expected the unexpected but not this, and almost pleadingly he demanded whether she had known where he was.

  “I knew,” Maria said.

  “Look!” Alvero cried holding out his left hand with its broken nails and its smashed half-healed thumb.

  Maria looked at it and said, “God’s judgment.”

  “What the devil are you talking about!” Alvero exclaimed striding across the gallery and back. She turned her head away from him and he grasped her by the shoulder and swung her to him.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  “Is this my welcome?” Alvero shouted. “Is this how a man returns from the dead to his wife?”

  “I am not your wife.”

  Alvero stared at her, shook his head and said hopelessly, “Maria – what devil has taken hold of you?”

  She answered woodenly, “I have not sinned, I have not transgressed. I will not be burned. I will not be tortured.”

  “Maria, Maria – it’s all right. No one will harm you now. I’ll tell you what I have decided. I have decided that we must all go away – all of us and together. We must never be separated.” He waited for an answer and she stared at him without comprehension and still without recognition.

  “Where is Catherine?” he said suddenly.

  “Catherine—”

  “Is she in her room?”

  “She is dead. That was God’s judgment too.”

  Alvero stood there. He heard the words and they echoed in his mind without meaning. He smiled – and then he realized that he was smiling foolishly. He almost began to laugh but then he went to Maria and grasped her arm so that she winced and whimpered with pain.

  “Where is Catherine?” he shouted at the top of his voice.

  “Jew! Let go of me!”

  Maria stood up and managed to pull free of Alvero. She went around behind the chair, rubbing her bruised wrist and said slowly, emphasizing each word separately.

  “I-cannot-stand-to-be-touched-by-a-Jew.”

  Alvero stared at her in horror and disbelief and at that moment Julio came into the room. When he saw Alvero he stopped and stared at Alvero as a man stares at a ghost. Alvero ran towards him. Julio’s first response was to turn in flight, but Alvero caught him and swung him around and demanded harshly, wildly.

  “Julio, where is Catherine?”

  Julio did not answer this and Alvero shook him angrily and cried out, “Damn your soul – damn you to hell, answer me! Where is she?”

  Then Julio looked at Alvero so woefully that Alvero let go of him. Julio’s jaw dropped. He spoke with effort, gasping for each word.

  “She is dead, master.”

  “Dead? No, no you are lying!” Alvero nodded at Julio. “Yes, you are lying, aren’t you, Julio? Games, or you are punishing me. I blasphemed, you are punishing me. No, don’t torture me. Just tell me, Julio, it’s a lie, isn’t it?”

  “Master, would to God that I was lying to you. But I am telling you the truth. She went into the synagogue—”

  “The synagogue?” Alvero interrupted. “No, no, that must have been someone else, Julio. Why should she go into the synagogue? There would be no reason, no reason for her to go into the synagogue.”

  “Yes, yes, master,” Julio moaned. “The synagogue, that’s where she went, and then they burned it down. I ran there. The whole town ran there but it was too late. They burned it down.”

  “You saw her?” Alvero whispered.

  “I brought her body back with me,” Julio said. He was weeping now.

  “Where is her body?” Alvero asked. “Where did you put her?”

  “In her room, master,” Julio replied, “but don’t go there. Don’t go to her room. Don’t look at her. I tell you, master, she was burned in a fire. Don’t look at her. I covered over her body—”

  Julio tried to stop Alvero, but Alvero flung him aside and walked through the door and up the stairs to his daughter’s room. He went in there and something lay covered on the bed and Alvero uncovered it. After a while Alvero covered the body again and went down and back to the gallery.

  Just outside of the door of the gallery he heard Juan Pomas’ voice and then he heard Julio say.

  “Señor Pomas – go away. Go away quickly.”

  “Doña Maria,” Juan said to Alvero’s wife, “tell me, is it true that Catherine is dead?”

  No reply from Maria, but Julio’s voice was high-pitched, shrill with fear as he pleaded with Juan, “Yes, Señor Pomas – she is dead – just as this house is dead. Now go away quickly—”

  Alvero went to the door of the gallery then, and he saw Juan thrust Julio from him and demand to know how Julio dared to lay hands upon him.

  “Not now,” Julio pleaded. “This is not a time for pride, believe me, Señor Pomas. Don Alvero is here in this house with his daughter’s body.”

  In sudden fear mixed with disbelief Juan shook his head and insisted that Alvero was with the Inquisition or dead.

  “You cursed young fool!” Julio cried. “I tell you he is inside. If he finds you here—”

  “And if he does?” Juan Pomas blustered.

  “Don’t you think he knows who betrayed him? Don’t you think everyone knows?”

  “How does he know?”

  Alvero was in the room now. He walked towards Juan and Julio saw him, but Juan’s back was to him. Maria saw him and screamed. In a voice as cold as ice Alvero said to Juan.

  “Because a dog’s bark sounds far!”

  Now Juan turned to face him and Julio came between them, but Alvero pushed past him. Juan Pomas tore his dagger from his scabbard but Alvero seized the dagger wrist and twisted it so brutally that the dagger clattered to the floor. Pomas screamed with pain, and then both of Alvero’s hands closed around his neck and he screamed no more.

  “For my life nothing!” Alvero shouted. “No meaning or value! My life and your life, they are dirt! But for my daughter’s life—” There was no passion now. Coldly and deliberately Alvero began to choke Juan to death. Juan struggled, tore at Alvero’s hands, struck his face and then his struggles weakened and his arms dropped.

  Maria stood up and walked towards them. Loudly and shrilly she cried out to her husband, “Jew, is this how you become a Jew – to murder a Spanish gentleman? Jew, let go of him! Jew! Filthy Jew!”

  Alvero let go of Juan. The anger was gone. The hate was gone. He simply let go of Juan and Juan Pomas sank to the floor, choking, gasping, rubbing his throat and fighting for his breath. Then Alvero turned and stared at his wife. She met his gaze. They looked at each other and then she turned and walked from the room. Alvero went to the table, pulled out his chair, sat down and leaned over the table panting. Juan Pomas watched him. Then Juan Pomas got up carefully and then he ran. As from a great distance Alvero listened to his running steps and then heard him mount his horse and then heard the wild headlong gallop of the horse as Juan Pomas fled.

  Julio stood waiting and finally Alvero said to him.

  “Come, old friend. We have much to do.” He climbed wearily upstairs to Catherine’s room while Julio went for a shovel and pick. Alvero wrapped Catherine’s body in a silken coverlet, lifted it in his arms and took it down to the garden. He and Julio took turns digging the grave. It was slow work. The little strength that remained to Alvero was draining from him, and Julio was an old man, but at last the grave was deep enough and Alvero and Julio eased the body into it and then filled the grave with dirt.

  Alvero was trembling with the effort. “I need a drink,” he said to Julio, “and a piece of bread. Can you saddle my horse?” Julio nodded and Alvero went into the house and poured himself a glass of wine and took some bread from the cupboard. The bread was tasteless in his mouth but he forced himself to eat it and to wash it down
with the wine. What was left of the bread he put in one pocket of his riding jacket and he filled the other pocket with cold meat and cheese. Then he walked through the gallery. It was empty and the candles had burned out, but the light of dawn was in the sky already and he was able to see his way. When he came to the stables in back of the house Julio had the horse saddled. He held the horse for Alvero to mount and then hanging onto Alvero’s stirrup he said to him brokenly.

  “Master, take me with you.”

  “No, old friend. I ride faster than my memories and I ride alone. You have shared enough with me. The particular hell that waits for me is singular, only singular—”

  “I will help you,” Julio begged him. “I will look after you – take care of you—”

  “Nothing can help me, Julio, and even God will not look after me. We do what we can, each of us. I bid you farewell.” He spurred the horse then through the gate and out onto the road that ran north from Segovia.

  Julio remained in front of the stable until the sound of hoofbeats had ceased. Then because even an old man must live Julio went into the house to satisfy his hunger.

  A Biography of Howard Fast

  Howard Fast (1914–2003), one of the most prolific American writers of the twentieth century, was a bestselling author of more than eighty works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and screenplays. Fast’s commitment to championing social justice in his writing was rivaled only by his deftness as a storyteller and his lively cinematic style.

  Born on November 11, 1914, in New York City, Fast was the son of two immigrants. His mother, Ida, came from a Jewish family in Britain, while his father, Barney, emigrated from the Ukraine, changing his last name to Fast on arrival at Ellis Island. Fast’s mother passed away when he was only eight, and when his father lost steady work in the garment industry, Fast began to take odd jobs to help support the family. One such job was at the New York Public Library, where Fast, surrounded by books, was able to read widely. Among the books that made a mark on him was Jack London’s The Iron Heel, containing prescient warnings against fascism that set his course both as a writer and as an advocate for human rights.

  Fast began his writing career early, leaving high school to finish his first novel, Two Valleys (1933). His next novels, including Conceived in Liberty (1939) and Citizen Tom Paine (1943), explored the American Revolution and the progressive values that Fast saw as essential to the American experiment. In 1943 Fast joined the American Communist Party, an alliance that came to define—and often encumber—much of his career. His novels during this period advocated freedom against tyranny, bigotry, and oppression by exploring essential moments in American history, as in The American (1946). During this time Fast also started a family of his own. He married Bette Cohen in 1937 and the couple had two children.

  Congressional action against the Communist Party began in 1948, and in 1950, Fast, an outspoken opponent of McCarthyism, was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Because he refused to provide the names of other members of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee, Fast was issued a three-month prison sentence for contempt of Congress. While in prison, he was inspired to write Spartacus (1951), his iconic retelling of a slave revolt during the Roman Empire, and did much of his research for the book during his incarceration. Fast’s appearance before Congress also earned him a blacklisting by all major publishers, so he started his own press, Blue Heron, in order to release Spartacus. Other novels published by Blue Heron, including Silas Timberman (1954), directly addressed the persecution of Communists and others during the ongoing Red Scare. Fast continued to associate with the Communist Party until the horrors of Stalin’s purges of dissidents and political enemies came to light in the mid-1950s. He left the Party in 1956.

  Fast’s career changed course in 1960, when he began publishing suspense-mysteries under the pseudonym E. V. Cunningham. He published nineteen books as Cunningham, including the seven-book Masao Masuto mystery series. Also, Spartacus was made into a major film in 1960, breaking the Hollywood blacklist once and for all. The success of Spartacus inspired large publishers to pay renewed attention to Fast’s books, and in 1961 he published April Morning, a novel about the battle of Lexington and Concord during the American Revolution. The book became a national bestseller and remains a staple of many literature classes. From 1960 onward Fast produced books at an astonishing pace—almost one book per year—while also contributing to screen adaptations of many of his books. His later works included the autobiography Being Red (1990) and the New York Times bestseller The Immigrants (1977).

  Fast died in 2003 at his home in Greenwich, Connecticut.

  Fast on a farm in upstate New York during the summer of 1917. Growing up, Fast often spent the summers in the Catskill Mountains with his aunt and uncle from Hunter, New York. These vacations provided a much-needed escape from the poverty and squalor of the Lower East Side’s Jewish ghetto, as well as the bigotry his family encountered after they eventually relocated to an Irish and Italian neighborhood in upper Manhattan. However, the beauty and tranquility Fast encountered upstate were often marred by the hostility shown toward him by his aunt and uncle. “They treated us the way Oliver Twist was treated in the orphanage,” Fast later recalled. Nevertheless, he “fell in love with the area” and continued to go there until he was in his twenties.

  Fast (left) with his older brother, Jerome, in 1935. In his memoir Being Red, Fast wrote that he and his brother “had no childhood.” As a result of their mother’s death in 1923 and their father’s absenteeism, both boys had to fend for themselves early on. At age eleven, alongside his thirteen-year-old brother, Fast began selling copies of a local newspaper called the Bronx Home News. Other odd jobs would follow to make ends meet in violent, Depression-era New York City. Although he resented the hardscrabble nature of his upbringing, Fast acknowledged that the experience helped form a lifelong attachment to his brother. “My brother was like a rock,” he wrote, “and without him I surely would have perished.”

  A copy of Fast’s military identification from World War II. During the war Fast worked as a war correspondent in the China-Burma-India theater, writing articles for publications such as PM, Esquire, and Coronet. He also contributed scripts to Voice of America, a radio program developed by Elmer Davis that the United States broadcast throughout occupied Europe.

  Here Fast poses for a picture with a fellow inmate at Mill Point prison, where he was sent in 1950 for his refusal to disclose information about other members of the Communist Party. Mill Point was a progressive federal institution made up of a series of army bunkhouses. “Everyone worked at the prison,” said Fast during a 1998 interview, “and while I hate prison, I hate the whole concept of prison, I must say this was the most intelligent and humane prison, probably that existed in America.” Indeed, Fast felt that his three-month stint there served him well as a writer: “I think a writer should see a little bit of prison and a little bit of war. Neither of these things can be properly invented. So that was my prison.”

  Fast with his wife Bette and their two children, Jonathan and Rachel, in 1952. The family has a long history of literary achievement. Bette’s father founded the Hudson County News Company. Jonathan Fast would go on to become a successful popular novelist, as would his daughter, Molly, whose mother, Erica Jong, is the author of the groundbreaking feminist novel Fear of Flying. (Photo courtesy of Lotte Jacobi.)

  Fast at a bookstand during his campaign for Congress in 1952. He ran on the American Labor Party ticket for the twenty-third congressional district in the Bronx. Although Fast remained a committed leftist his entire life, he looked back on his foray into national politics with a bit of amusement. “I got a disease, which is called ‘candidateitis,’” he told Donald Swaim in a 1990 radio interview. “And this disease takes hold of your mind, and it convinces you that your winning an election is important, very often the most important thing on earth. And it grips you to a point that you’re ready to kill to win that election.” He concluded
: “I was soundly defeated, but it was a fascinating experience.”

  In 1953, the Soviet Union awarded Fast the International Peace Prize. This photo from the ceremony shows the performer, publisher, and civil rights activist Paul Robeson delivering a speech before presenting Fast (seated, second from left) with the prestigious award. Robeson and Fast came to know each other through their participation in leftist political causes during the 1940s and were friends for many years. Like Fast, Robeson was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee during the McCarthy era and invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to answer questions. This led to Robeson’s work being banned in the United States, a situation that Robeson, unlike Fast, never completely overcame. In a late interview Fast cited Robeson as one of the forgotten heroes of the twentieth century. “Paul,” he said, “was an extraordinary man.” Also shown (from left to right): Essie Robeson, Mrs. Mellisk, Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, Rachel Fast, and Bette Fast. (Photo courtesy of Julius Lazarus and the author.)

  Howard and Bette Fast in California in 1976. The couple relocated to the West Coast after Fast grew disgruntled over the poor reception of his novel The Hessian. While in California, Fast temporarily gave up writing novels to work as a screenwriter, but, like many novelists before him, found the business disheartening. “In L.A. you work like hell because there is nothing else to do, unless you are cheating on your wife,” he told People after he had moved back East in the 1980s. Of course, Fast, an ardent nature-lover, did enjoy California’s scenic beauty and eventually set many of his novels—including The Immigrant’s Daughter and the bestselling Masao Masuto detective series—in the state.