PRAISE FOR AGAINST THE INQUISITION
“[A] stirring song of freedom.”
—Nobel Prize laureate Mario Vargas Llosa
“Against the Inquisition delivers a message of solidarity and respect among human beings. This monumental masterpiece is worth a million speeches and op-ed pieces. We celebrate its publication in English: may its message of love and freedom reach the world at large.”
—International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation
“Against the Inquisition is one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. It combines suspenseful storytelling, poetic beauty, and admirable wisdom. Without straying from the plot, Marcos Aguinis creates an impressive portrait of the Spanish Inquisition and the colonial society of South America.”
—Lecturalia (Spain)
“Against the Inquisition can be read as an exciting historical adventure with a dramatic ending, as the tale of a marked man who flees from his executioners while staying true to his beliefs risking torture and death, and also as a bitter testimony of our history that invites us to reflect. Only through understanding the abominations contained in our past can we have a future without errors.”
—El Mundo (Spain)
“This book is a masterpiece that tells the true story of a South American doctor who struggles to recover his Jewish roots. . . . As the main character struggles to recover his own identity—and to defend it, even in the face of great personal danger—the reader is reminded of the importance of fighting for one’s own beliefs, as the only way to have a truly honorable life. I strongly believe that this book will be a great contribution against the current rise of anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry and intolerance throughout the world.”
—Adriana Camisar, special advisor on Latin American affairs, B’nai B’rith International
This book is a work of fiction. While based on historical events relating to the Spanish Inquisition, it is not a history.
Text copyright © 1991 by Marcos Aguinis
Translation copyright © 2018 by Carolina De Robertis
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Previously published as La Gesta del Marrano by Plaza & Janes Editores, S.A. in Argentina in 1991. Translated from the Spanish by Carolina De Robertis. First published in English by AmazonCrossing in 2018.
Published by AmazonCrossing, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and AmazonCrossing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503949263
ISBN-10: 1503949265
Cover design by David Drummond
To Francisco Maldonado da Silva, who heroically defended the arduous right to liberty of conscience.
To my father, who enriched my childhood
with lively stories and would have
enjoyed this one.
Contents
Map
BOOK ONE GENESIS EMBERS OF CHILDHOOD
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
BOOK TWO EXODUS THE JOURNEY OF BEWILDERMENT
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
BOOK THREE LEVITICUS THE CITY OF KINGS
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
BOOK FOUR NUMBERS CHILE, BRIEF ARCADIA
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
BOOK FIVE DEUTERONOMY DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
About the Translator
BOOK ONE
GENESIS
EMBERS OF CHILDHOOD
Prologue
Francisco—grimy, skin and bones, his wrists and ankles rubbed raw by the shackles—is an ember burning under rubble. The judges stare at him, vexed: a monstrosity, an utterly intolerable nuisance.
It’s been twelve years since they locked him in secret prisons. They subjected him to interrogations and privations. They brought in scholars to accost him with loud arguments. They humiliated and threatened him. But Francisco Maldonado da Silva did not yield: not to physical pain or to spiritual pressures. Now, the tenacious inquisitors rage and sweat, not wanting to burn him at the stake until he’s shown remorse or fear.
When, six years ago, the prisoner fasted in a rebellious act that almost dissolved him into a corpse, the inquisitors force-fed him, gave him wine and pastries, as they couldn’t stand for this worm of a man to steal from them the power to control his death. Francisco Maldonado da Silva took a long time to recover, but he succeeded in showing his tormentors that he could suffer no less than a saint.
In his stinking dungeon, the ravaged prisoner often looked back on his odyssey. He was born in 1592, precisely one century after Jews were expelled from Spain and Columbus discovered the West Indies. He could still recall the light in the remote oasis of Ibatín, where he spent his early childhood in a house full of pastel colors and spots of blue. Later, his family hastily moved to Córdoba, fleeing persecution that would soon catch up with them. They navigated perilous circumstances: India
ns, pumas, thieves, astounding salt flats.
When he was nine years old, his father was arrested one wrenching afternoon. A year later his older brother was torn from their home. When Francisco turned eleven, his home no longer held any possessions, as they all had been confiscated and sold at a loss by the relentless authorities. His mother, defeated, half crazy, surrendered to death.
The scarred teenager completed his education in a monastery; he read the Bible and dreamed of reparations that were as yet unspeakable. He saved an apoplectic, rode through Córdoba’s magnificent mountains, and came to know the most absurd flagellations.
Before turning eighteen, he decided to head to Lima to study medicine at the University of San Marcos. There he longed to reconnect with his father, who was still alive but shattered by the tortures of the Inquisition. He journeyed by wagon and mule across thousands of kilometers, from the infinite pampas of the south to the frozen altitudes of the Andes. Along the way he spent time with unexpected travel companions and made discoveries that changed his own sense of identity. He descended into dazzling Lima, called the City of Kings, to receive his final revelation. There, in addition to a dramatic reunion with his father, he met and helped Saint Martín de Porres, the first black saint of the Americas; took part in the defense of Callao against the Dutch pirate Spilbergen; and graduated in a radiant ceremony.
The persecution that had started in Ibatín and spread to Córdoba took hold again in Lima. He decided to embark for Chile, an eternal fugitive. There he won a place as senior surgeon at the Santiago hospital, as he was the first professional with legitimate credentials to arrive in the land. His personal library surpassed all the existing collections in monasteries or public spaces in Lima. He visited salons and palaces, rubbed elbows with civil and religious leaders, and received praise for his cultural refinement. And he married a beautiful woman. He became successful and esteemed; his well-being repaired the chain of past suffering.
A common man wouldn’t have changed such circumstances. But in his spirit there shone a stubborn flame, a rebellion that rose from the depths. He knew that other people like him also roamed the world, keeping their secret beliefs inside. It was difficult, unsettling, shameful. Against the logic of convenience, he chose to remove his mask and defend his rights head on.
1
Half a century before that crucial moment, the Portuguese doctor Diego Núñez da Silva arrived in the southern oasis of Ibatín. He was born in Lisbon in 1548. As a boy, he had moments of happiness, but after earning his medical degree, he decided that he was tired of persecution and obsequiousness. So he fled to Brazil. He wanted to get away from the endless fires, the vertigo of horrible accusations, the basins of forced baptisms, the torture chambers, and the Acts of Faith—or sentencing hearings—that were devastating Portugal. On the way, he delighted in the ocean, enjoying its tempests, which seemed to erase the absurd storms of humanity. But when he disembarked in Brazil, he learned that it was best to steer clear of the territory dominated by the Portuguese crown: the local Inquisition was even more brutal than the one across the sea. So he continued his exhausting, dangerous journey toward the Viceroyalty of Peru. He arrived in legendary Potosí, where the silver mines were exploited until their veins showed unmistakable signs of depletion. He found other Portuguese people who, like him, had fled, and he struck up friendships that would later have terrible consequences.
Eager to practice medicine, he proposed the construction of a hospital for the native peoples, submitting paperwork at the town council of Cuzco. He did not succeed, as the Indians’ health was not a matter of official interest. On learning that doctors were needed in the south, he took to the road again. He journeyed across plateaus, ravines, and spectral deserts until he reached Ibatín, where he met Aldonza Maldonado, a young woman with sweet eyes but no fortune. She was beautiful, and a clean-blooded Christian, meaning that she lacked any Moorish or Jewish roots, but, due to her meager dowry, she couldn’t hope for a favorable match. She accepted the marriage offer of this mature Portuguese physician, who was poor and a New Christian (as these converts or children of converts were called), because of his trustworthy appearance and friendly manner; his boyish bearing and beautiful, carefully trimmed bronze-colored beard did not escape her feminine eye. The wedding proceedings were austere, as demanded by the financial circumstances of both bride and groom.
Don Diego felt blessed. He’d offered his services to all of Ibatín and to the scarce populations scattered through the territory of Tucumán, and had received a good response. He saved enough to build a home and, as he gazed at the courtyard of his new house made of stone, adobe, and cane roofing shaped by the Indians’ hands, he felt the urgent need to fulfill a delayed obligation. It was a hot rectangular courtyard, full of untamed brush, onto which rooms let out on all sides. He had to change it to reflect what was in his heart.
He found out that there was an orange grove at the Monastery of La Merced. He spoke to the gaunt superior, Brother Antonio Luque. One chat sufficed to get him the help of a handful of kids, two Indians, and two black men, plus a collection of saplings. Under his supervision, hoes uprooted the brush, stalks and roots moaned, vermin fled. Next, picks and shovels removed the dens of viscachas and the eggs of reptiles. They scraped the damp earth, making grooves through which rainwater could run. Then they tamped down the dirt until the rectangle was as smooth as the skin of a drum.
He marked twelve points with the tip of his boot and ordered holes dug at each one. He kneeled and, refusing help, placed each orange tree in its respective place. He pressed the earth around the slender base of each trunk, emptied buckets as if pouring water for pilgrims, and, on finishing the task, called out to his wife.
Aldonza emerged with curiosity, her hands wrapped in rosary beads. Her beautiful dark hair reached her shoulders. Her olive skin contrasted with her blue eyes. She had a round face, like that of a doll, heart-shaped lips, and a small nose.
“What do you think?” he said with pride, gesturing with his chin toward the young trees. He explained that soon they would offer orange blossoms, fruit, and pleasant shade.
He did not tell her, however, that this splendid courtyard of orange trees was the embodiment of a dream. It brought to life his nostalgia for remote and idealized Spain, a place his grandparents had belonged to and that he’d never known.
2
The sumptuous fronds of the orange orchard were already housing the raucousness of birds when the couple’s fourth child, Francisco, was born. His first cry was so intense that there was no need to leave the room to announce his vigor.
Francisco’s three siblings were Diego (who, as the first-born son, bore his father’s name, which was the custom in Spain and Portugal), Isabel, and Felipa. Diego was ten years older than the mischievous Francisquito.
This family had in their service a couple of black slaves: Luis and Catalina. Comparatively, owning two slaves was a decisive sign of poverty. Don Diego had bought them in a sale of faulty merchandise: the man limped, due to a wound inflicted on his thigh during an escape attempt; the woman was blind in one eye. Both had been captured in Angola as children. They’d learned basic Spanish, which they mixed with rough expressions in their native tongue. They also resigned themselves to baptism and the imposition of Christian names, although secretly they kept on invoking their beloved gods. The lame Luis fashioned a musical instrument out of a donkey’s jawbone and a small sheep’s bone; he scraped the jawbone’s teeth with a hypnotic rhythm, as his voice unfurled a melodious drone. The half-blind Catalina accompanied him by humming, clapping, and sensually moving her whole body.
Luis told Don Diego that he came from a line of witch doctors. The physician recognized his intelligence, so he taught him how to assist in surgical tasks. This was seen as scandalous in the prejudiced town of Ibatín. Although some black and mulatto people already worked as barbers, and therefore performed the common procedure of bloodletting, they were not trusted to ease a fracture, drain an abscess, or
cauterize wounds. Don Diego also placed Luis in charge of his medical instruments. Luis’s limp did not keep him from following Don Diego through the streets of Ibatín or across its rocky outskirts, carrying a suitcase over his shoulder filled with surgical tools, powders, bandages, and salves.
Don Diego had acquired the habit of sitting below his orange trees in a cane chair to enjoy the cool evening air. Francisco himself often recalled him during his own fierce later years: When his father sat in the evenings, a small audience surrounded him, drawn by his enthralling stories. If he started telling a story, it was hard to get up; it was said that even the birds stopped moving. Don Diego’s repertoire was inexhaustible, willing as he was to offer new tales of heroes and knights, or episodes of sacred histories.
One day the orange orchard was dubbed “the academy.” The doctor didn’t mind the irony. In fact, not wanting to appear daunted, he decided that in that very place he’d offer his family a systematic education. He deemed their scattered lessons insufficient. He persuaded the frail and friendly Brother Isidro Miranda—with whom he’d exchanged intimate family histories—to give lessons to all. He knew this would be frowned upon, because to learn something outside of catechism, in those times, meant the invasion of dangerous realms.
He put out a table made of carob wood and surrounded it with benches. The sweet-tempered friar suggested that he teach the four basics: grammar, geography, history, and arithmetic. His voice was warm and persuasive, his best attribute. His bony face, on the other hand, held eyes that had something excessive about them, as if caught in a constant astonishment or fear.
The students in the school included Aldonza, who’d already learned her letters from her husband; their four children; Lucas Graneros, a friend of the now-teenaged Diego; and three kindly neighbors. Aldonza, though descended from good ancestry, had not received instruction beyond the skills of knitting, spinning, sewing, and embroidery.
“Knowledge is power,” Don Diego repeated to the motley group of students. “It is a strange power that can’t be compared to the sword, or gunpowder, or muscle. He who knows is powerful.”
Brother Antonio Luque, the severe superior who had provided the saplings from his orange grove, did not share this opinion. Luque was a coarse priest who’d been invested by the Holy Office of the Inquisition with the status of a familiar. As a functionary of the Inquisition, his task was to denounce people who threatened the faith, and to take the accused into custody on the tribunal’s behalf.
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